A Little Thing Called Life

by Linda Thompson

  We watched as Bruce ran the victory lap around the track with his Olympic-size arms stretched gloriously above his handsome head.

  “Damn, if that guy is not handsome!” Elvis remarked. “I’m not gay, but damn, he’s good looking!”

  I quite agreed.

  “Wow … he is gorgeous!” I teasingly said. “I’m going to marry that guy someday!”

  “Yeah, honey … over my dead body,” Elvis replied.

  File that conversation under the category of “truth is stranger than fiction,” and “words have power.”

  I first met Bruce Jenner at a celebrity tennis tournament in the spring of 1979. In the years since Elvis’s passing, I had split my time between Los Angeles, Memphis, where I maintained my residence, and Nashville, where I’d fly in to tape Hee Haw for a month, twice a year. While in Nashville, I’d spent some time with David Briggs, but our bond never deepened beyond a casual relationship that was based more on friendship than romantic passion. I had earnestly begun the process of rebuilding myself on the inside after emerging from my Elvis cocoon, and I was more interested in enjoying my newfound independence than instantly getting into another serious relationship.

  Although I inconsequentially dated a few nice men when I was in Los Angeles, simply going out on dinner dates, I spent a great deal of time with my girlfriends, going to the gym, writing, and traveling. I went to Europe for the first time, hitting the highlights of eleven countries while I was there. Traveling was an eye-opening experience for me, since I had never ventured far beyond the United States. I even climbed to the top of the ancient Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, outside Mexico City. I was finally free to pursue some of my own dreams and aspirations, and to allow myself the luxury of time and self-carved experience to let my priorities and goals evolve. My mind and heart were not on a quest to find romance. It was a time for my broken heart to heal enough to even be receptive to another love.

  It was gratifying to find myself thriving as an independent working actress and model, almost as if I were working from the post-college itinerary I’d had planned for myself before I met Elvis. My acting career was as consuming as I wanted it to be at the time, since I was never what could be described as overly ambitious. I wanted enough time to “stop and smell the roses” all along my life’s path. I still make that a priority. But the connection Elvis had forged for me with Aaron Spelling helped immensely and sometimes made me feel like Elvis was still looking out for me from beyond. Having been true to his promise to assist me, Aaron had seen to it that my next role was on his show, Starsky & Hutch, on an episode that aired in September 1977. I would go on to appear several times on his series Vegas over the next few years, as well as on his many other productions. I also continued exploring the possibilities of my blossoming songwriting career, finding other composers along the way with whom to collaborate.

  But while I loved my life, by the spring of 1979 I was ready for the next chapter to unfold. I’d healed the double heartbreak of losing Elvis to our breakup, and then to his death. I’d learned to stand on my own. I had replenished, restored, and reestablished who I was at my core, and how I wanted to continue to grow as a person in this world. And now I was poised to find a partner with whom to forge a future.

  It was in that moment that I met Bruce Jenner. A charity tennis tournament was being held at the Playboy Mansion. I had never been to the mansion before, but as a regular cast member on Hee Haw and a fledgling actress of some note, I’d grown comfortable in the L.A. scene. On the day I met Bruce, I’d been invited to the mansion to hand out the trophies to the participants playing tennis. No surprise, Bruce won the tournament, and I presented him with his trophy. That’s how we first met—on a tennis court.

  Bruce was clad in shorts and a sweaty T-shirt, his well-toned, muscular body still in Olympic form. He was sweet, shy, and very gentlemanly. In fact, I was a little surprised to find him so humble and down-to-earth. The main image of him in my mind up to that point was his triumphant victory lap at the 1976 Summer Olympics—that iconic image indelibly etched in the minds of all those who saw his remarkable triumph. We sometimes have a tendency to attribute qualities to celebrated individuals in a way that is akin to putting them on a pedestal, while not allowing them to exhibit human qualities. I’d never seen Bruce interviewed on TV, and I didn’t know much about what he’d been up to since the Olympics, except for having come face-to-face with him on the cover of my Wheaties box. And so, having no knowledge of his vibrant career as a motivational speaker, I had no reason to expect he’d be so articulate, even funny, in an understated, boyish way. Having grown up around Southern gentlemen, with their proper manners and easy charm, I found myself responding to these same qualities in Bruce, even if he wasn’t a Southerner himself.

  “Do you come to the Playboy Mansion often?” he asked.

  “Oh gosh, no!” I said. “I’ve never even been here before!”

  I don’t want to give him the wrong impression, I thought. I don’t want him to think I’m an aspiring Playmate!

  His friendliness became a little flirty, until I finally grew uncomfortable.

  “Hey, aren’t you married?!” I said. “I watched you win the Olympics, and I recall your wife was very present!”

  Bruce’s whole demeanor changed.

  “No, I’m separated, and it’s really not a lot of fun,” he responded sadly. “I’ve actually been living part-time here at the mansion.”

  He seemed so childlike and lost in that moment—my heart went out to him.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your separation,” I said.

  We continued to chat for a while, still on the court.

  “Chrystie packed up her things one day while I was away,” he said. “When I got home, I found her closet empty. She had taken our eight-month-old son, Burt, with her to San Jose. I was surprised and devastated by her decision to leave.”

  “I am very sorry to hear that,” I said.

  Everyone at the event was reconvening for dinner after tennis, and Bruce had planned to go home, shower, and change his clothes before returning. But instead, he just kept hanging around.

  “I really don’t want to leave you alone here even for a little while,” he finally explained. “I’ve seen how George Peppard and others are looking at you and just waiting for me to leave so they can hit on you.”

  I thought how charming and gallant that was. Bruce stayed in his shorts and T-shirt, while others were dressed for dinner, and he and I continued to get to know each other. After dinner, he didn’t seem quite ready for the night to be over.

  “Can I come back with you and just visit for a while?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He joined me at my apartment, sitting with me on the sofa to continue our conversation. My high school girlfriend, Eileena Stoval, had moved in with me by then. She walked into the room and stopped short, unable to mask her bewildered expression.

  “Can you come back here for a second?” she said.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Bruce, standing and smoothing my skirt as I followed her out of the room and down the hallway to her bedroom.

  “What’s Bruce Jenner doing in our living room?” she said.

  “I know, right?” I said. “He’s separated from his wife.”

  “Oh my God, he is so hot,” she said, as excited as a teenage girl.

  Still laughing, I went back into the living room, where Bruce and I visited for a bit longer. But that’s all we did. We just talked. There was no making out, nothing improper. He was very bashful, which again made me enjoy his company all the more, as he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy. Finally, after getting to know a little more about each other, we were both growing sleepy, and it was clearly the moment for him to leave.

  “I’d love to take you out properly,” he said.

  “That sounds great,” I said.

  “Maybe I could take you out to dinner tomorrow night then?” he suggested.

  And so, the next night, Bru
ce arrived precisely on time, walked me out to his white Porsche, opening doors along the way for me. As we arrived at the restaurant and settled into our table, I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that this was exactly the kind of normal dating experience I’d dreamed of when I’d left Elvis. Sure, Bruce was a famous public figure, but he was able to go out to dinner without attracting an impossible amount of attention. And here we were, enjoying the kind of quiet night out that young men and women everywhere shared. After everything I’d been through, this everyday experience felt more special to me than being whisked up to the Presidential Suite or onto a private jet. It was as normal as being out to dinner with the world’s greatest athlete can be.

  At dinner, after exchanging some pleasantries, I grew a bit serious.

  “What do you honestly think the chances are of your getting back together with your wife?” I asked.

  “I really don’t know … maybe fifty-fifty,” he said with what I believe was complete transparency. I genuinely respected his integrity in not leading me on with some dishonest answer that he might have assumed I wanted to hear. There was no game playing from the very beginning. At least none that I knew of then.

  “I appreciate your honesty,” I said, responding in kind. “And I must tell you that if there is a chance you might get back together with your wife, I will be your friend. We can go out to dinner, movies—whatever—but I don’t want to confuse the issue by getting involved with you romantically. Until you know for sure there is absolutely no chance of reconciliation, I won’t have sex with you.”

  Bruce was understanding, and he honored that restraint of mine as we began spending time together. During the several months of uncertainty that followed, I even gave him a couple of pro-marriage books. I really tried to help him make a well-thought-out decision as to the fate of his marriage.

  One day, Bruce called me.

  “Chrystie wants to come back home and try again.”

  “You should make that effort so you’ll never have any regrets,” I said.

  Bruce and Chrystie did indeed get back together, during which time I did not see or speak to Bruce. I did think of him occasionally and sometimes wistfully. He was such a great guy, a gentleman, a gorgeous man. More than all that, he was refreshingly down-to-earth, even with his elite accomplishments and worldwide fame. He was up front about what he wanted and how he felt, and he made it clear in his words and deeds that he respected where I was at in my own life. When he had something to say, he spoke plainly and from the heart, and when it was his turn to listen, he did so attentively. He seemed like the kind of man I could start a family with, the kind of man who had been quite elusive in my life until then. But I reconciled in my mind and heart that it was truly for the best that he and Chrystie were trying to salvage their marriage.

  Several months later, I was in Memphis, having just left Nashville, where I’d finished taping thirteen episodes of Hee Haw, when I got a phone call from Bruce.

  “Hey!” he whined in that distinct voice of his. “It’s Bruce Jenner. How the heck are you?”

  “Wow … great, Bruce. How have you been? Where are you?”

  “I’m in L.A., and I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you.”

  “Oh … okay,” I said. “Better give me the good news first then.”

  “Well, the good news, for us anyway, is that things didn’t work out with Chrystie, so I am separated and gonna get a divorce,” Bruce declared. “She left me again!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Bruce, but you should feel good about the effort you made, and now you know with more certainty.”

  I respected the fact that Bruce had apparently given his marriage every effort, and I was genuinely under the impression that he had. I have to admit that as sorry as I was to hear of another end to a perceived fairy-tale romance, I was a bit grateful that such a good man still existed in the world of dating. I was encouraged that he and I could now resume our friendship and see where it led. At least they tried, I thought, and according to him, it was she who had left him. Again. Twice now.

  “Okay, so what’s the bad news?” I asked.

  “Chrystie apparently had a plan that I was unaware of. I think the reason she wanted to reconcile was to get pregnant,” he said. “She’s pregnant.”

  That’s how Bruce explained the situation. At this time, I had not yet met Chrystie, so I only had the very one-sided information Bruce relayed to me.

  My heart sank.

  I felt a jumble of emotions. The overriding one was a rather powerful sense of responsibility for encouraging Bruce to reconcile. And now this. Chrystie was pregnant. It was a seemingly huge complication for all of our lives. But Bruce appeared to be quite clear about Chrystie’s resolve, and about what he wanted.

  “Can I pick you up at the airport when you come back into L.A. from Memphis?” Bruce asked me.

  “No, that’s not a good idea,” I said. “Let me think about all this, and I’ll get in touch with you when I’m back in a couple of days.”

  I spent the next several days contemplating what to do. It was obviously a decision I couldn’t take lightly. I knew it would be controversial, even in my own mind. But I felt I had been through so many challenges in my life already, so many unusual circumstances and scenarios—this would be just one more. As far as I could tell, looking on from the outside, Bruce had fully committed himself to marriage and fatherhood, and he had been a faithful, supportive partner and a present father. I already knew I could never really understand the inner functioning of his relationship with Chrystie, but from my perspective, he seemed to have done everything in his power to make their union work. During the brief time we’d previously spent together, he’d shown himself to be attentive and reliable, and he didn’t seem to have any urge to play the field or avoid commitment now. Even with his complicated family situation, I viewed him as an exceptionally promising potential life partner, especially because our temperaments seemed to be so well matched and we shared the same basic principles. And although we’d never acted on our attraction for each other, it was strong and mutual.

  I also felt somewhat responsible for encouraging Bruce to go back to Chrystie—with that reconciliation resulting in the situation in which they now found themselves. It sounds like convoluted reasoning to me now, but with Southern Baptist guilt mixed into the equation, that’s how I felt at the time. Ultimately I decided that I would see Bruce again, resolving to be understanding about the strange situation we found ourselves in and to look for the silver lining that is almost always present.

  I felt tremendous compassion for Chrystie having to go through a pregnancy without the emotional and physical support of the baby’s father. Little did he know that baby would turn out to be a most phenomenal woman, without whom none of us could imagine our lives. But I’m getting ahead of my story.

  Bruce and I eventually went out to dinner and discussed the situation. I could see that he was upset by the whole predicament. He couldn’t help but wonder how his life and future would be affected by this turn of events. I couldn’t help but wonder how my life and future might be affected, too. It was certainly a complex situation, and one that would necessarily impact his next relationship. To his credit, at the time he seemed committed to remain in his children’s lives, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be with a man who would have chosen otherwise. There was a candor in the way Bruce assessed the situation and stated his emotions that made the complications seem less insurmountable.

  Here was a man who was sharing with me the truth of his messy life, and the truth that was in his heart. The easy frankness between us made me feel like we might eventually become real partners. Having left behind the heady romance of my fairy tale with Elvis, I had entered into a much more practical time in my life. Not that love and poetry weren’t important to me. I happen to be a natural romantic, and an inborn poet, and I sought out such elevated qualities now as well. But I also wanted to build something tangible, a happy marriage and family. I unde
rstood innately that to do so would require communication, mutual respect, and trust, all of which Bruce was in the process of building with me now.

  Rather than scaring me away with his openness and his raw emotions, he was demonstrating himself to be just the kind of partner that might be worth navigating the mess for—and with—and I left our conversation that night feeling hopeful. We were still in the early stages of getting to know each other, but we agreed that we both wanted to explore this new relationship, as well as the feelings that were blossoming on both sides.

  Against all odds, Bruce and I grew closer and established a committed and loving relationship. We dated, trying to stay respectfully “under the radar” and not be blatant about our romance. We traveled some together, weathering a storm of gossip and conjecture about how and when we met … and trying to counter some people’s perceived notion that “Bruce left his long-suffering wife for Elvis’s ex-love.” That’s not by any stretch of the imagination how it really unfolded. But there is no denying it was an uncomfortable situation. The only solace I felt was in knowing that Chrystie did in fact leave Bruce, not the other way around. And I hoped she was happy being blessed with another baby in her future. We were all presented with the challenge of getting past the very unorthodox beginnings of our romance and our growing extended family.

  The whole ordeal was painful to me because I’d always tried to remain above the fray of drama, but in the end, I just had to reconcile myself to the fact that life is messy. In fact, that could be another title for this memoir—Life Is Messy. Through this experience, I learned not to judge people, ever. As I well know from my own personal life, whatever someone may be going through can often be interpreted much differently by others. More important, I learned to simply trust life. Destiny finds its own path. Looking back, there isn’t anything I would change, because the difficult circumstances then brought about the joy we can share today, and the beautiful blended family with whom we are blessed.