It amazes me but thirty years later people still remember my daily show. The viewers felt like we were friends (except for the occasional crazy lady). I shared my problems and tried to solve theirs with the best problem solvers available. This was the first time in my life that I felt women really liked me, because, for the first time, they really knew me. Before, I think women only saw the “social butterfly” side of me. Until the television show, they didn’t know about the part that cared deeply for them and tried to produce shows that would make their lives easier and more interesting.
Recently a beautiful woman came up to me and said, “My mother was sick with mono and was unable to have visitors due to contagion. She said, ‘Don’t worry about me. I won’t be lonely. I have my best friend, Joanne King, with me every day.’ ”
I was touched beyond words.
Meanwhile, at home the real problem for me was that when we were low financially, I sacrificed everything to help Bob retrench. I closed the door on the world to do it, and I did it happily. Every thought and action was for him and the boys. When he began to revive financially, I wanted something for me. I wanted for him to see I needed a more open life. When he failed to see or care, the door began to close and love to disappear in a cloud of incompatibility and lack of similar life goals.
Did I love Bob when we married? Or did I love the life he offered and the fact that he loved me so much? I know that I grew to love him and still do in my heart for the fine human being he was. He was honorable, generous, and as handsome as a movie star. But did we have enough in common for a lifetime together? He liked working and exercise, period. I liked the high life, and I decided to find some. TV offered many opportunities. There was a world beyond Houston. I wanted to see it, and it wanted to see me. But this was not Bob’s scene.
CHAPTER 11
Chased, Chaste, and Conquering Spain
I worked to save my marriage the best way I knew how. I thought by throwing myself into my TV career, it would fulfill the needs not met by my marriage. I tried always to remember what my mother had taught me—fairy tales don’t come true if you step over the line—and I lived by that code when it came to men. But there were temptations. I was not always chaste by choice.
Yes, I was still married—technically, as they say. I was always careful about what transpired between my temptations and me. I offered nothing sexually. But I enjoyed the attentions of other men at this time, and they seemed to enjoy the chase as well.
Playboys never really interested me. It always surprised me that they were attracted to me at all. I enjoyed playing as much as they did, but for me, men of action and purpose were the aphrodisiacs.
Yet, we all like a little champagne occasionally, and that is just what playboys were to me… and I to them. Let’s face it—it’s fun to be chaste and chased. If you can pull it off… you have won the game. Everybody goes away laughing and free to play again another day.
I met one of my biggest temptations in Spain. When the Spanish government wanted to promote tourism, they hired me to make a film documentary. I was thrilled at the opportunity, and I needed the money. Although I was always sad to leave them, my boys stayed with my father and mother when I traveled, and they seemed fine. Bob was too busy with work to keep up with the children. Mother soon joined me in Spain to chaperone, but I knew the children were in loving hands with my father, and it was only for two weeks.
It was a great time to be in Spain. I loved meeting Manuel Benítez Pérez, known as El Cordobés. A Steve McQueen look-alike, this blond matador had the worldwide status of a movie star for his bravery, and his magnetism was beyond description. Even my mother chose going to his finca (country house) over having lunch with the Duchess of Alba. (We did have lunch with the duchess later in her palace and got to see her famous Goya paintings.)
El Cordobés was featured at the Feria of Seville (Seville Fair) in Spain with Jackie Kennedy and Princess Grace of Monaco. Time magazine described the fair as the essence of Spain, a six-day post-Lenten fiesta with bullfighting, flamenco dancing, and a marvelous ball. Wow, was it ever fun to be there. It was a big-time jet-set, and I got to play with them.
Both men and women ride beautiful horses in the traditional traje corto, stunning black suits with bolero jackets and tight, flaring pants that fit over boots. The hat is distinctive, with a low crown, a flat broad brim, and a chin strap. This is what Jackie, an excellent rider, chose to wear with such distinction. Princess Grace was not an equestrian. Too clever to challenge Jackie on a horse, Grace chose a carriage. She was strikingly lovely in her long, wide-skirted dress, big hat, and parasol.
There was fierce competition between Grace and Jackie. The American ambassador to Spain, Angier Biddle Duke, chose to inject me into the competition, on a small scale, of course. He said the other two women gave him a headache. El Cordobés dedicated one bull to Jackie and another to Grace, then found time to dedicate one to me.
Ambassador Duke was not a classically handsome man—but he had something. Whatever was interesting and different attracted him. Duke died at age seventy-nine, hit by a car while in-line skating, seeking excitement to the end.
Both Jackie and Grace were Americans and equally elegant and beautiful in my eyes, but according to the columnists, Jackie’s Life cover won the contest. Some said she was more exciting than Grace, but both had no problem generating waves of interest. They played their parts well: Grace as the perfect princess; Jackie, the perfect wife of the president, whose family was American political royalty. It was exhilarating to be a part of it as the “queen of Texas”—a “title” the Spaniards often awarded me.
It didn’t hurt that my name was King. Everyone wanted to associate me with the famous King Ranch. When asked, I made it clear that I was not a member of the King Ranch family. My answer was always, “I was born a Johnson, and I’m not related to Lyndon. I married a King, and he doesn’t own an inch of the ranch.”
El Cordobés was fascinating, but there was another that drove even the bullfighter from the ring of my attention: Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, tenth Marquis of Villaverde. At the feria, the royals and aristocrats had their tents set up, each decorated like a luxurious room. His was the grandest. When I arrived, the women ignored me. I could almost hear them thinking, “Who is this television person from Texas?” But the marquis came to me immediately. Sparks flew.
Cristóbal was one of the most fascinating men I ever met. A heart surgeon, he was the top playboy of Europe. His position in Spain was unequaled since he was married to Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s beautiful daughter, Carmen. Yes, he was married. I was married. It was an impossibility. But, oh, my, the temptation.
Cristóbal loved Carmen, and he was a good father to their seven children—but he had another life, which she chose to ignore. Every woman he met seemed captivated. The first day I met him, I was transfixed… and, wonder of wonders, he was attracted to me. Cristóbal was to change my life in so many beautiful ways.
A few months later, I was surprised to learn that he and his wife, Carmen, were making a goodwill visit to Houston. I decided to give a ball. Even though we were having money problems, caterers, florists, and other party providers volunteered their services for a chance to showcase their talents. Participating in headline-grabbing events is a selling point for their businesses—and a great advantage to a hostess who is broke!
I asked the sheriff to send his mounted posse—dressed as Texas Rangers—to meet the guests of honor at the gate to Rivercrest, where we lived. One of my neighbors, Stewart Morris, had a collection of antique carriages. I requested that he drive the Villaverdes in his most beautiful open coach, surrounded by the Rangers on horseback. It was very colorful, very Texas, and very cold.
The guests of honor arrived, frozen but gorgeous in cowboy clothes. (The theme was Old West. Foreign guests always expected cowboys and Indians at parties in Texas.) A leading restaurateur had roasted an entire cow on a spit in our garden.
The evening was straight out
of an MGM extravaganza. It played as well in Madrid as it did in Houston. When films of the party were shown to Franco and King Juan Carlos of Spain, they decided that Juan Carlos must come to Houston for his own visit, and that Cristóbal and Carmen should come too.
Cristóbal made two remarkable interviews possible for me. I eventually did King Juan Carlos’s first interview. “Oh, I didn’t know I sounded like that,” he said. It was the first time he had ever heard a recording of himself. As for Franco, in his entire career, only two Americans were ever allowed to interview him—Walter Cronkite and me. I was also the only woman ever to interview Franco. For this interview, I won Spain’s equivalent of a Grammy award, the Ondas.
After my party for Cristóbal and Carmen, the next night, Ricky di Portanova and his second wife (my friend Sandra was the third) hosted a party for the Spanish delegation. Ricky’s wife decided to show me her power. I had thought I would be at Cristóbal’s side, but I was wrong. Ricky’s wife ruthlessly put me at a secondary table with the entourage of Spanish dignitaries accompanying the celebrated pair. Cristóbal was furious and I knew my seating placement was almost an insult.
Some guests change place cards or even walk out if they are displeased with their seat. I was not brought up that way. If you are a guest and have accepted the hospitality of the host, a real lady sits where she’s asked to sit. So I sat.
Next to me was a wispy man. He was dressed well but was most unprepossessing in demeanor and appearance. “Oh, well,” I thought. “I am here now and I cannot be anywhere else. Therefore, I am going to make this man have an absolutely wonderful evening.”
At the end of the dinner he said, “My lady, you have given me the best evening of my life. Now I want to do something for you. I am the designer Rodriguez, who creates gowns for the crowned heads of Europe. I am going to make you the most beautiful dress in the world.”
With that he bowed, kissed my hand, and walked out of my life. I never saw him again.
Within a year, I was at the wedding of Cristóbal’s daughter, the granddaughter of Franco. She was marrying Prince Alfonso de Bourbon, first cousin of King Juan Carlos. I arrived at the ceremony in the most exquisite dress in the world—one that I could never afford but that had been delivered to me by a wispy man of his word.
During the wedding festivities, Cristóbal included me in the small parties reserved exclusively for visiting royalty. He would present me as “the queen of Texas.” Because of who he was, people laughed and accepted me as just that!
I was accompanied to the wedding by an Austrian archduke, heir to the Austrian throne, who was exiled in Spain at the moment. He decided that ours could be a great romance. So on the day of the wedding, I glided into the cathedral, the archduke by my side. It was a very long way for a little girl from Houston to come. When I was twelve, I had dreamed of meeting an Austrian archduke. Any royal family that could stay on the throne seven hundred years impressed me!
There were a few problems with the archduke’s fairy-tale romance, however. The duke was fat and asthmatic and had as many hands as an octopus has legs. No matter how thrilling his title, the rest was just too much.
It was heaven to be at the wedding with royals from all over the world, wearing the most beautiful dress in the world. But the next night, there was trouble in paradise. I learned, as it was March, that the ladies were going to wear floating, springtime floral dresses to the royal ball and dinner. The only really nice dress I had remaining was an elegant, fox-trimmed, high-necked, long-sleeved, very wintery dress. I would be totally out of season. In these lofty circles, what you wear is part of your credibility. I was already suspect as “the queen of Texas,” with no real royal lineage. I didn’t know what to do.
With a royal as an escort, you can wear an old blanket and be smiled upon. But by refusing to succumb to the archduke’s charms, I was stuck with the repercussions of my out-of-season dress. I saw my new found social status evaporating. I was convinced my dress would confirm the worst stereotypes of American women.
God has a wonderful sense of humor: That night it snowed.
People were astonished. It never snowed in March in Madrid. It was so cold, the wind was like a saber. The snow swirled and leaves blew off the trees. I was the only woman at that ball who was appropriately dressed. The other ladies were shivering in their spring finery, while I came in looking elegant, appropriate, and warm. It was a moment of triumph in the most superficial way, but I had been reminded that any success I enjoyed in life wasn’t because of me. God had given me a whimsical, loving gift. For some reason He wanted me in these royal settings, and in the process He had reminded me to honor everyone—including the wispy man, who in reality was one of the top designers in the world.
Dressed appropriately, I sallied forth with confidence as I strolled through palatial rooms filled with notable, interesting people. While the archduke frowned, royalty flocked to my side, even King Juan Carlos.
Mario D’Urso was lolling languidly on a chaise lounge beside Imelda Marcos, wife of the president of the Philippines. Mario was six foot four; thus, there was a lot of him to loll, all of it gorgeous. Some say men are not gorgeous, but he was and still is.
Of course, I was most pleased to meet the famous and beautiful Imelda of the five-hundred-pairs-of-shoes fame. Imelda never made a mistake as far as I know about anything pertaining to herself and her position. This was one smart cookie, with creamy white skin, big black eyes, and a lovely figure. She was very impressive, and she looked very much the queen with her courtier Mario. I was mesmerized by him, and when he said, “I am the prime minister of the Philippines,” he said it with such imperious confidence, I almost believed him.
“Really! I am the queen of Albania,” I replied with a smile.
“She is teasing you, Mario,” said the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld. “She is the queen of Texas.” “Oh, Lord,” I thought when she mentioned that description, “here we go again.” The TV show was trotted out into our conversation. I was praised as smart and talented. Beyond politeness, there was a reason for all this flattery. The duchess had to make me sound good. In environs like these, one must always have a very good reason to be standing next to the person one is with. On this night it was “Who are you?” and “Who do you know?” This was one-upmanship at its zenith, practiced to the point of art.
The air at the top was so rarified, I felt like I was standing on a steeple with little oxygen. Mario’s sheer gorgeousness did not help me breathe any better.
Actually, he was an Italian count, a brilliant businessman who became a senator and deputy minister of trade for Italy in the coming European Union. As far as I was concerned, he could call himself anything he wanted. But he had been so disdainful, I was sure he would never deign to converse with me again. So I tried to amuse Imelda, hoping she might invite me to one of her famous parties in the Philippines—and she did!
I was happy to be mingling with the royal houses of Europe and beyond. I drifted away from Imelda, and to my amazement, the paragon of all things masculine drifted with me. From that moment, Mario never left my side.
Cristóbal was livid at my new attentive suitor, but he was very busy being the father of the bride.
Why was this wedding and its related parties important to me? My five days in the company of the most influential people in Europe helped me form international ties around the world, which would later give me incredible access to almost anyone. I could pick up the phone and get through to world leaders and people of royal influence, as easily as to my next-door neighbor. Normally one must be born into this kind of entrée. For me, God arranged it, because later, I was to use these contacts to pursue my goal of helping to defeat the threat of communism.
CHAPTER 12
Real Royalty, the Ritz, and the French Connection
I’ve been given an opportunity to entertain Princess Grace and Prince Rainier of Monaco,” I told my television station manager in 1968. He knew that entertaining this storybook couple was a coup,
a high-ratings certainty, so I filmed everything, including the preparations for the ball I was giving them at my house.
Bob and I rallied as a couple, presenting a united front when the occasion warranted it. A party for royalty qualified.
I had met Their Highnesses through my friend Count Charles de Chambrun, the deputy minister of foreign affairs for France. Thus began my heady intoxication with all things French. It happened because of the world’s fair—the HemisFair 1968 in San Antonio. The French consul general knew about my connection to George Washington and that Charles was the nephew of the Marquis de Lafayette. We would make a good pair!
The day we met, Charles invited me to come to France. He wanted to lavish a great deal of money on the French Pavilion at the HemisFair by providing a superlative French restaurant. He thought my representing Texas among the French would help. Governor John Connally immediately made me the HemisFair ambassador to foreign countries.
I was ecstatic.
When Charles and I first discussed inviting Grace and Rainier to Houston, he said, “These people do not like to stay in hotels.” Their entourage included French ministers, nobility, and jet-setters whose names were often featured in the press.
“Well, where do they want to stay?” I asked.
“They want to stay in private houses,” he replied.
“Houses? Charles, there are forty people!”
He shrugged and said, “So get forty houses.”
So I did. Imagine asking forty of your friends to put up world-famous celebrities they hadn’t even met. I was young. I didn’t know that I couldn’t or shouldn’t, so I just asked my friends to accommodate them, and they did.
I also asked them to provide limousines to transport these guests. If the friends I asked didn’t own a limo, they rented one. Then I requested that they provide these awesome people with breakfast and that they press their clothes and, basically, give them royal accommodations and pampering. It’s a wonder my friends didn’t disown me.
Diplomacy and Diamonds Page 7