Everyone was on diets in Palm Springs, and from the day I’d enrolled at the modeling school in Long Beach I’d wanted to lose two pounds. I drove my friends crazy. Eventually, a girlfriend named Louise Steinberg told me, “I wish you’d lose those fucking two pounds—I’m fed up with hearing about it!” There were all sorts of fad diets around then, just as there are now. I lived on nothing but shrimp cocktail for a while, and that seemed to work. When Tony Curtis told me he was on a new regime, I was curious. A few days later I saw him in the clubhouse eating a huge banana split with ice cream and nuts piled on top.
“Tony!” I cried. “What happened to your diet?”
He looked down at his bowl and said, “This is it.” Needless to say, it didn’t work.
Marilyn Monroe, Tony’s lover when they’d starred together in Some Like It Hot, came to the Racquet Club a couple of times when Frank Sinatra was in town. When my son, Bobby, heard that the woman of his boyhood dreams was Frank’s guest somewhere just beyond the hedge, his eyes virtually came out on stalks. Tired of his talking about her, I finally said, “Well, walk on over there and say hello.” To his credit, he did, and Frank introduced him to Marilyn, although I think Bobby was so tongue-tied he could hardly say a word. I heard later that the blond bombshell liked to walk around in the nude, but I never asked my son if that was the reason he came home so red-faced.
I saw Marilyn at the club a couple of times, and she was certainly very beautiful with a voluptuous figure. I could see why she’d attract the likes of Mr. Sinatra, among others. She was married to the playwright Arthur Miller at the time, but her dependence on drugs and alcohol left her vulnerable. We had a casual conversation and she seemed sweet, but we were never going to be close. A few years later she was dead. Someone told me she was playing Frank’s music the night she died.
Ava Gardner, another woman who’d featured so prominently in Frank’s life, came to the Springs as well. Knowing Ava was an avid tennis player, Frank built a court for her at the Compound, even though she was staying only a few days. I hardly knew him then. We’d nod a hello each time our carts passed on the golf course, but I don’t think he registered who I was unless he saw me with Zeppo. Then one day, shortly before Ava was due to arrive in town, Frank called me out of the blue.
“Barbara, it’s Frank Sinatra,” he said. I sat up and took notice. This wasn’t someone who called every day. “A friend of mine’s coming into town. I’d like to set up a tennis match for her. You know everybody at the Racquet Club. Can you please organize a doubles match for her, and get someone good in?”
“I’d be happy to,” I told him. I asked the club tennis pro Bill Davis and another friend, Chuck Jandreau, to make up a doubles game. We three walked across the fairway at the appropriate time to find Ava’s maid mixing Moscow mules at the side of the court. I think Ava was half-looped before we started. I declined a cocktail until the end of the game, and we started playing. All of a sudden Frank appeared, and I felt nervous in his company, not least because he tried to make Ava jealous by flirting with me. At one point he even cornered me up against the chain-link fence, but by then I’d figured out his game. “You know, Frank,” I told him, “I’ve had a wonderful day and I enjoyed my drink, but I really have to go home to Zeppo now.”
Chuck, who realized what was going on, said, “I must go too,” and started to head back with me. Frank walked us to the gate and told us to feel free to use his court anytime. Bill, the idiot, stayed to drink with Ava—who, I’m sure, encouraged him. My parting sight of Frank that day was his watching his ex-wife openly flirting with her handsome tennis partner. Frank had the strangest expression in those eyes of his, which swirled with every emotion. I think he held a torch for Ava his whole life.
Bill was a terrible flirt too, but he had a good heart. I was at the Racquet Club dancing with him one night when, to my surprise, Joe Graydon walked in on the arm of my old girlfriend Bobby Lasley. I hadn’t seen Joe since we’d split up in Vegas, but I knew his television career had gone down the tubes and his agent had ended up giving him a job. Joe sat at the bar of the Racquet Club that night and watched me dancing with Bill. I nodded a hello, and it all seemed very civil at first. But then he made some snide remark about aging, so I answered with an equally acid comment about his losing his hair. A few minutes later, he finished his drink and left. That was the last I ever saw of him, although I understand he went on to have a successful career as a big band producer. Whatever happened between us toward the end, we’d had some good years together, for which I will always be grateful.
Palm Springs was probably at its peak during the 1960s. The place was so full of movie stars that I almost began to take them for granted. People like Gregory Peck and his wife, Veronique, became firm friends, as did Kirk and Anne Douglas.
Kirk was a great orator and told the best stories in the most eloquent way, but he was an early man. Like Zeppo, he wanted to get into a party or dinner early and then get out early. If you went to his house, he’d look at his watch after dinner, go to his bedroom, put on his pajamas, then come out and sit on the floor for a while to talk. Then he’d say, “I’m off to the disco now,” and vanish. “Disco” was his euphemism for the bedroom. He didn’t care how long people stayed, he just wanted to go to sleep. Anne would stay up to bid farewell to their guests. The two of them met when she was working as his PR person in Paris. They started dating, but Kirk was seeing several girls at once. No one was safe, especially when he and Burt Lancaster were together. Undaunted, Anne planned a birthday party for him and then took off to the South of France. Kirk walked into his party to come face-to-face with all the women he’d been seeing, none of whom knew about the others. At that moment he thought, I’d better marry the one who pulled this off; she’s smarter than I am!
Greg Peck was another character. I just adored him. He was a really sweet, kind guy and funny too. Not the best drinker in the world, he married the best wife in Veronique, who is still one of my closest friends. They also met in Paris, when she interviewed him for her newspaper. He asked her to lunch six months later, and they were rarely apart for the next fifty years. They had two children, and Greg had three sons from his first marriage.
With people like that as friends, nothing much fazed me, or so I thought. One day I was sunbathing in a bikini when I heard a golf cart roll up and park on the other side of the hedge. Someone stood up and peered over, but the sun was behind him so I couldn’t see who it was. I thought, Go away, whoever you are. Can’t you see I’m sunbathing?
A voice said, “Hi, Barbara. Zeppo told me to drop by and say hello.”
There stood Clark Gable, star of Gone With the Wind, a movie my mother had taken me to see in Wichita when I was twelve years old. “Oh—hello,” I replied, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “Would you like a drink?” Clark, who was dubbed “the King of Hollywood” in his heyday, stayed on the other side of the hedge and introduced his new wife, Kay, a former model. I had someone fetch them iced tea, and we three chatted while I stood there with virtually nothing on. Poor Clark died of a heart attack the following year, aged fifty-nine. He never saw the son Kay went on to bear him.
Whenever the weather got too hot for comfort, Zeppo and I would relocate to his penthouse in Beverly Hills. In Los Angeles he was a member of Hillcrest, the country club that had made Frank Sinatra one of its first Gentile members. A lot of Zep’s friends went to Hillcrest too, including Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, Milton Berle, and George Burns. They’d all sit together at what became known as the Californian Round Table, laughing and telling jokes. Other members would sit nearby, trying to listen in. Eventually, the club managers asked the Round Table gang if they’d mind spreading themselves around the club a bit so that everyone could enjoy their humor, but of course that never worked.
George Burns was adorable, so funny and sweet. He was crazy about his wife, Gracie Allen, and would sit smoking cigars and drinking martinis and talking about her all the time. Poor Gracie was dying of heart disease by
then, but even after she’d gone he never stopped speaking of her. Jack Benny was one of life’s nice guys and such wonderful company. I became very close with his wife, Mary, whom Zep had introduced Jack to when she was fourteen years old. Mary had been a successful radio comedienne until stage fright put an end to her career. Remembering my disastrous screen test for Fox, I could definitely relate to that. I played golf with Jack and Mary quite often. Whenever Jack hit a ball right and she heard that telltale ping, she’d call out, “Doll, that sounded great!” (They always called each other “doll.”) Quick as a flash, Jack would quip, “Doll, this isn’t a concert!”
Danny Kaye was another good friend of Zeppo’s, not least because they shared the same sort of zany humor. Danny was very successful at that time, with his own TV show. He certainly made the most of his success, and every time he came to our house he had a different girl on his arm. All these comedians were at the peak of their popularity and welcome at just about every event in town. Frank Sinatra would sometimes ask us to parties with them, but Zeppo mostly turned down invitations to Frank’s Compound. Never much of a drinker and hating late nights, Zeppo didn’t relish the thought of an evening with someone who liked both. Undaunted by Zep’s repeated refusals, Frank would send over a case of champagne or some fine wine every now and again. “Because it’s a new moon,” his note might say, or “As it’s Tuesday.” He was known for being generous, and I liked that about him; his spontaneity and sense of fun weren’t what I’d expected from him after all I’d heard and read. I guess even back then there was a part of me that was curious about what really made Francis Albert tick.
Restless again after two years in Palm Springs, I began asking myself how much tennis, golf, or gin I could play. Figuring it was time I paid my dues, I decided to get involved with at least one charity a year and help it organize a fund-raising event, so I volunteered my services to the City of Hope cancer hospital for children near L.A. I knew enough people in Palm Springs who would attend a fund-raising event and give generously if asked; all I needed was an attraction—perhaps a fashion show or a dinner dance maybe; a movie screening or a golf tournament.
Kirk Douglas had recently had phenomenal success in a gladiator movie called Spartacus with Tony Curtis, so I asked him if we could possibly show his movie in the desert. To my delight, he agreed, so I set about selling tickets and organizing a post-screening ball. Two weeks before the event, his wife, Anne, called me up. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Barbara, but you can’t have Spartacus. Kirk didn’t realize that we’d already agreed to show it in L.A. at a benefit in aid of Cedars-Sinai hospital.”
I almost passed out. “But, Anne, this is so last-minute!” I told her. “We’ve sold tickets. I have the theater booked and everything!”
“I’m sorry, honey. This breaks my heart, but we can’t do anything about it.”
I had no idea how I was going to find an alternative movie or event as big as Spartacus on such short notice. Zeppo fled to the golf course rather than watch me fret, and I called everyone I knew. On the fairway, Zeppo ran into Frank Sinatra and told him what had happened. With hardly a moment’s hesitation Frank said, “Tell Barbara not to worry, I’m just finishing up a movie with Jill St. John. She can have an early cut of that instead.” When Zeppo came home and told me, I could hardly believe my ears. Not only did Frank keep his word but he flew everybody involved to Palm Springs, and we premiered the movie version of the Broadway hit musical Come Blow Your Horn at the theater I’d booked. It was a much lighter picture anyway, far less harrowing than Spartacus with all its blood and gore. There was a big party afterward, and we raised a huge amount of money. The event was more of a success than I could ever have hoped for. I was so grateful and wrote Frank a personal note of thanks.
The following day, Zeppo and I went to the Tamarisk Country Club for lunch. I spotted Frank sitting at a table and said, “I’d like to go over to thank him personally.”
“Stay there!” Zeppo barked. “I’ll go over and thank him.”
I stared at my husband for a moment. I remembered when Zeppo and I had watched Andy Williams perform in Vegas; it had somehow gotten into his head that Andy was singing directly to me. “Stop flirting with him!” Zeppo had snapped as I sat innocently in my seat. I was coming to realize that my relationships with men all revolved around possession and control, which was strange because my father had been the exact opposite.
At Tamarisk, I told Zeppo, “Then please thank Frank from me,” and watched as he went over to the Sinatra table. I saw Frank look up and nod politely in my direction. I smiled, and he smiled back at me. Ridiculously, I felt myself blushing. Zeppo returned to our table with an invitation for dinner that night, which he couldn’t possibly refuse after the favor Frank had done for me. When we arrived at the Compound, with its guesthouses set in several acres, we found a big crowd. There was the golf pro Kenny Venturi, an assortment of comedians, and the songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen, who wasn’t wearing any socks, I noticed. Other guests included the actors Robert “R. J.” Wagner and his wife, Natalie Wood, as well as the rising star Warren Beatty, who was making a picture with Natalie at the time entitled Splendor in the Grass.
I was fascinated to see inside Frank’s house for the first time. The walls of every room were covered in paintings, bold abstracts cleverly placed between softer pastels and American and old European masters, many of whose signatures I recognized. I was surprised to learn from Zeppo that Frank was a great admirer of art and that he even dabbled himself.
“He paints?” I asked.
“Apparently,” Zeppo replied.
After a noisy dinner of meatballs and spaghetti (which reminded me of suppers with Bob Oliver’s family), Frank, Zeppo, R. J., and I played gin rummy with a couple of people I didn’t know. I had a good hand, and just as I cried, “Gin!” R. J. jumped up, threw down his cards, and stormed out. At first I thought I must have upset him, but instead he grabbed his wife, Natalie, from where she was sitting outside by the pool, pulled a chair up to our table, and made her sit with us. Everyone was stunned into silence. She stayed for a while, played a few hands, but then she was up and out again. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. The handsome Mr. Beatty was waiting by the pool.
Frank was witty and charming—the perfect host, especially when he insisted that nobody was allowed to leave early, which secretly delighted me. As I was soon to discover, he liked to drink long hours and never wanted people to go because he needed company. If they drank too, they were in. Friends like Bill Holden, Robert “Mother” Mitchum, John Wayne, Glenn Ford, and Orson Welles (whom Frank called “the Big Man”) were most definitely in. People like Tony Bennett, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, and Henry Fonda, who didn’t drink much and liked to turn in early, weren’t often included. Frank still adored them though and sometimes went over to their houses for breakfast as the sun was coming up and his drinking buddies finally abandoned him.
What I found interesting about Frank in those early days was that he was rarely drunk and never suffered from a hangover. I’d watch him order a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, take a sip or two, put it down, then call the waiter to “bring another round.” Each time he did, his glass went back on the tray almost full. He carried on like that all evening, staying completely in charge of his faculties while everyone around him got smashed. Meantime, he was flirting with every female at the party but always so discreetly that few but the women noticed. I watched how he worked the room and prayed it would never be my turn.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle Frank—I’d been a showgirl, after all—but I was worried about Zeppo’s increasing jealousy. The previous New Year’s Eve at the Racquet Club we were just leaving when I spotted some friends I wanted to say good night to. Zeppo hated that and stood by the door impatiently. As I turned to go, I was goosed from behind by Victor Rothschild, playboy and baron. Before I could say anything, Zeppo ran at Victor like a bull. He knocked two couples down before he grabbed Victor by the throat. One
thing’s for certain—my relationships were never dull.
I knew that Frank’s reputation as a hothead superseded Zeppo’s, so I didn’t relish the idea of a public showdown. Both had been raised by strong mothers, so they weren’t the types to compromise. In any event, I hadn’t been married that long and was determined my marriage to Zeppo would work. Bobby’s future was at stake as much as mine. Zeppo had even offered to adopt him so that he’d have the same surname as me—something Bobby also wanted. In the end Bob Oliver wouldn’t allow it, so later Bobby simply changed his name to Marx instead.
Flirting with The Voice was the last thing on my mind that night, even though there was definitely a frisson between us. I sensed there could be more if I ever wanted it. Fortunately, though, Frank’s attention was diverted elsewhere, and the full-on flirtation I feared from him didn’t come my way—at least not then.
FIVE
Danny Schwartz, Zeppo Marx, Marion Wagner, Truman Capote,
and me at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs (left to right).
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
Fly Me to the Moon
In the summer of 1961, Frank invited us to the grand reopening of the Cal Neva Lodge and casino in Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border. Having shared in the success of Vegas, he’d applied for a gambling license of his own, bought the lodge with a group of investors, and had it completely refurbished. As almost everyone we knew was going, I persuaded Zeppo that we should too.
A gang of us flew up from Palm Springs, and when we arrived, Frank explained the routine. Cocktails (or “tini-time,” as he called it) were at five o’clock, and then all the ladies would be handed three hundred dollars’ worth of chips to ensure we had a good time. Boy, did we have fun in the place billed as “Heaven in the High Sierra.” Even if people lost, they knew Frank would pick up their markers, just like he always did. Quite apart from the attraction of gambling, which was outlawed in California, the lodge was an elegant place to stay, with the nicest rooms in that beautiful lakeside setting. And, best of all, Frank donned his tux and stepped onto the stage later that night, giving us the kind of first-class performance only he could deliver time and again.
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