West of Eden

by Jean Stein

  Our nanny moved with us to Tower Grove. Before us, she had worked for Leland Hayward and Margaret Sullavan. She had been Brooke, Bridget, and Bill Hayward’s nanny. She was the biggest influence in my life. Her name was Emily Buck and she was from Nova Scotia. She first came to us in 1948 in a lumberjack shirt and Levi’s like she had a gun on each hip. I thought she was great-looking. She was kinda rugged, not pretty in the ordinary sense. We were young monsters a lot of the time, my brother and I, but she could handle us, I’m telling you. She would put us both on the floor and sit on us: “You gonna behave?” She was blunt, frank, although she also had some diplomacy. She was just a straight shooter, straight, honest as the day is long. And kind, kind, kind. She was a happy woman. She loved to settle down with a cup of coffee in one hand and a Chesterfield in the other.

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  DANIEL SELZNICK: Emily Buck wasn’t afraid to tell David Selznick or anybody else about what she thought was suitable for the children. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and had a lot of wrinkles in her face, and kind of short bobbed hair. Bobby and Michael adored her, my father adored her. She was completely dependable, and she was a voice of common sense in my stepmother’s life. Whenever Jennifer had some kind of crazy idea of what to do with her children, Emily would say, “Mrs. Selznick, that’s not appropriate. That wouldn’t be suitable. I can’t let you do that.” She just put her foot down. She was this voice of clarity.

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  BOB WALKER: But while Mother was enjoying her garden parties and burgeoning career, thanks to her new husband, Dad was an alcoholic and he was getting into trouble. In 1948 MGM sent him to the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. He met Milton Wexler there. Milton was a young up-and-coming analyst at the time. Later on, when he moved to Hollywood, he became Mother’s analyst for thirty-five years. Anyway, Dad was reluctant to cooperate with anybody at the clinic, but Milton kept at it, and finally Dad started opening up to him. Unfortunately, the studio decided after only four and a half months of treatment, “Nope, we’ve got to have him back to do this movie.” Of course it was premature. When he returned from the clinic, I remember his hands on the steering wheel were all scarred. “What’s all that, Dad?” and he said, “Oh, I was just hustling with some of the other inmates at Menninger, and my hands went through the window.” Well, years later I saw pictures of him in a police station, with his hair all messed up and his tie askew and he’d been restrained. Apparently he’d knocked out all the windows at the police station, but he came back stronger than ever. Hollywood’s always admired its outlaws.

  MGM still wanted him to be the fair-haired boy so they could continue casting him in lover boy parts as the romantic lead. They put him in Song of Love and One Touch of Venus, which Gregory La Cava directed. It wasn’t until he played Burt Lancaster’s evil brother in 1950, in Vengeance Valley, that he played a villain. And then he played Bruno in Strangers on a Train. After that, he played Helen Hayes’s son in My Son John in 1951. At that point, the studio felt that Dad’s reputation was on the line, and it didn’t want the public to react negatively to him. In the movie, the son had obviously become a communist, and that was the worst thing you could be in those days, next to being a homosexual. Leo McCarey, the director, wanted the son to recant at the end. Dad didn’t feel it was in character or true to the original story. I remember Dad being disturbed by it, coming home and having a drink—a highball. He always came home and had a highball. He took it all so seriously. It worried me a great deal. I used to play with this game made from a box with handles on each side, and you would use the handles to manipulate a steel ball through a labyrinth that had numbered holes along the path. The point was to keep the ball from falling in the hole. Less than a year before Dad died, I started playing the game as if it would determine how long he would live. If the ball fell in the hole marked thirty, then Dad had thirty days left to live. And I would dream at night that he was lying in a white coffin, all dressed in white. I would wake up and go check to see if he was okay, squeeze his feet.

  Apparently Dad was in bed one afternoon and wasn’t feeling all that great. Dad’s shrink, Benjamin Hacker, came to see if he could help him calm down. The shrink gave him an injection of something like sodium amytal. It was an accident. In those days, I don’t think they were trained enough to know that you don’t give a serious depressant to someone dead drunk. He died in 1951. He was thirty-two.

  That was it. Michael and I were instantly thrown into a black hole, into negative gravity, and we were just gone. Nothing worse could have happened. Michael was devastated by Dad’s death. He didn’t weather things well. He had a lot of Dad’s troubled side, overthinking everything, carrying it around with him. He was afraid of his own shadow, and yet he had a temper, too. Dad was very lovable, but he was all twisted up, just like Michael. Whatever problems Dad and Michael developed in their youths tormented them their entire lives. They couldn’t overcome whatever it was. They just got trapped in the vortex.

  It’s so bizarre that my father is buried in Utah between his parents, because he wouldn’t have wanted that. I vaguely remember him saying he wanted to be cremated, but there wasn’t anybody to stand up for him at the end. I was eleven years old and Michael and I weren’t allowed to attend the funeral, if there was one. We were in a really vulnerable place, just an open wound really. After Dad died, Michael and I were whisked away to Europe. Mom and David were doing the very best they could think to do with us, these two little hellions. My mother called me an angel with little red horns. I never felt abandoned, but I think my brother, Michael, had a more difficult time with it.

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  DANIEL SELZNICK: When Robert Walker died, the pressure grew because David suddenly had responsibility for the children of this woman that he’d fallen in love with. He did his best to keep the publicity down. He dealt with Dore Schary at MGM, who had once worked for him. Schary had just been appointed head of the studio after my grandfather Louis B. Mayer’s reign. But to say that my father asserted himself to manage the public perception for the boys’ sake is a cover to make him look good. I have no question about it. I’m not looking forward to seeing this in print, but it’s the truth. Let’s be honest with each other, it’s horribly damning. He was so selfish, so needful to protect his own reputation.

  LETTER FROM DAVID O. SELZNICK TO DORE SCHARY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1951:

  Dear Dore:

  I am rushing this confidential letter to you by hand because it is urgent, because I hope (the MGM publicity department permitting!) we can get speedily and quietly out of town with the two Walker boys….In every decision that has been made during these agonizing days, the welfare of the two boys has, of course, been the uppermost and dominating factor in the minds of everyone, including their mother, their grandparents on both sides, their nurse, the doctors, and the psychiatrists. There has been meeting after meeting as to how to protect the children. I think the net result has been an extraordinarily good start toward their readjustment. But I am sorry to have to say that the biggest single factor that we have had to overcome has been the activity of the MGM Publicity Department, which I am sure has been well-meaning, but which certainly has portrayed a startling and depressing and even frightening ignorance of the most elementary knowledge of child psychology, and the most thoughtless attitude toward the welfare of these children….We have had a terrible time for days now hiding every newspaper, both in my house and everywhere else the children went. Does this have to go on indefinitely while the MGM Publicity Department continues to feed out stories? Can’t they, for heaven’s sake, keep these children’s names out of print? Can’t they get busy on Esther Williams’s cheesecake and leave this tragedy alone? I am sorry if I sound bitter, but I am bitter. I am after nothing for myself, and I’m trying to protect the two children.

  We had decided to go very quietly to Europe. As I had obligations that made countless appointments in Venice, we were going to make this our first stop, especially since the children had been so eager to go to Venice for a lon
g time, and it seemed an ideal way of distracting them, with gondolas and canals….But there is no chance of our getting away on the plane without photographers, nor a chance of our landing in New York without them, nor of a chance of our landing in Rome, or any place else we go, without them—unless we completely change our itinerary and try desperately to keep our new plans a secret from MGM’s Press Department….Please, please Dore, give me your help on this, and immediately—certainly not for my sake, since what I am doing is not for myself, but for the children and for Jennifer.

  I know I can count upon you…

  Yours very sincerely,

  David

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  BOB WALKER: While we were in Europe, Emily Buck sent a letter to Grandma and Grandpa Isley dated October 15, 1951, from the Hotel Lancaster in Paris.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Isley,

  Well, our jaunt over Europe is coming to a close….It has been a wonderful trip, but going home is nice, too. We have really seen some wondrous sights, and it’s been grand for the boys. It has taken their minds off their sorrow, and I think it was a very nice thing their mother did, taking them away from California and the surroundings that would remind them of their dad all the time. We talk about their dad a great deal. At first it was very hard on them when I mentioned his name, but now we laugh and talk about the things that happened at his house….I’m sure when they get started in school and make new friends, their sorrow will lessen. Youth is so wonderful, they don’t grieve like us adults….Will tell you all about our trip when I see you in New York.

  Much love to you both,

  as ever,

  Em

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  BOB WALKER: When we came back from Italy, Mom ended up sending both Michael and me to Dad’s shrink, Dr. Hacker, the man who was responsible for Dad’s death. I imagine she thought that he was the best person to counsel us since he was so intimately involved in the situation.

  In the meantime, Mother and David were having weekend gatherings at the Chuck Walters house in Malibu, which they were renting at the time. Charlie Chaplin was a friend of theirs—this little guy that I didn’t know from Adam. I hadn’t been exposed to much in terms of film, and I wasn’t interested. But this very slight older fellow came over and started talking to me, and I don’t know if he saw a frown on my face or what, but he offered me this little bit of advice. He said, “You know, kid, whenever I need an adjustment, I just bend over like this.” And he turned his back to the ocean, bent over, and looked out between his knees. He was just telling me that when he looks at the world upside down for a moment, everything gets straightened out. It stayed with me. Just look at the world for a moment from a different perspective. I’m guessing, but I think that was the message that he was giving me in a very lighthearted, throwaway line. A beautiful gift.

  Mother’s parties were quite the scene. Everybody was so erudite, and so witty, and so funny, and they were all so quick with the bon mot, the good word, the witticism. They just all knew what to say at the appropriate moment, and they were all drinking like fishes, just entertaining themselves and each other in such extravagant fashion. And there’s no way I was going to live up to their expectations. I think Michael felt even less capable than I did. And at parties, we were brought in and expected somehow to perform in some way, to be these young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed guys who could dazzle the crowd. But I would just very politely say hello and leave it at that. Except when I met Louis Jourdan’s wife, Quique, at the house in Malibu. I had been out on the beach, where I had found a fish about seven inches long that I picked up to show my friends. I was hiding it behind my back when Mom stopped me in my tracks and said, “Say hello to Mrs. Jourdan.” I was extremely shy and nervous, and suddenly there was this vision before me, Quique Jourdan wearing a polka dot bikini. And I said, “I’m shy!” and I threw the fish at her.

  Once I drank a bottle of Gordon’s gin in about half an hour, just to see if I could walk a straight line. This was in Malibu, when I was about thirteen or fourteen years old. Mother and David were renting a little cottage for Grandma and Grandpa Isley next door to ours. I remember Mother was out having dinner with a shrink, discussing me while I was home drinking a bottle of gin. Grandma Selznick, Grandma Isley, and Grandpa Isley were all sitting at a card table playing canasta. I was in the kitchen drinking the gin and then went outside to walk the shuffleboard line, just to see if I could still do it. I seemed to be fine, so I walked straight to the living room, and said good night to everybody. “Good night, Grandma Selznick, good night, Grandma, good night, Grandpa,” and paid my respects. And then I marched off to the bedroom and laid down on the bed and passed out. Nobody knew the difference. My mother came in later on looking for me and couldn’t wake me. They were all terrified. They thought I had polio or something, and David Selznick’s older son, Jeffrey, lifted me in his arms and carried me straight as a surfboard into the car and drove me to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. They did spinals on me, everything. That’s how they found out I had more alcohol than water in my veins, I guess. When they let me go the next day, the nurses who were dressed in nuns’ habits came in and wagged their fingers at me. They said, “Don’t you ever do that again, young man. You came closer to dying of alcoholic poisoning than anybody we know.” I couldn’t walk for two days because of the spinal tap they’d given me. I was in terrible shape. This was the worst hangover of my life.

  A Fourth of July party at Joe Cotten’s house stands out to me. It was in Pacific Palisades. Everybody was in their finest clothes. There was a big swimming pool and I don’t know what happened, but Mother either jumped into the pool or she was pushed in. She loved it, she laughed and was swimming around there all by herself. And all of a sudden other people were jumping in or being pushed in. I remember somebody pushed in Joe Cotten, in all his finery, and apparently he was not happy at all, but Mom just loved it. She was wearing some flowing white thing, reminiscent of her costume in Portrait of Jennie. Jean Howard took a great photograph of her that day. But I usually just couldn’t wait to get the hell out of those parties and go up the hill, smoke Lucky Strikes, and play soldiers.

  Credit 4.1

  Jennifer Jones (center) on the Fourth of July at Joseph Cotten’s home, Pacific Palisades, 1955.

  Michael and I went back to Italy with Mother on a summer vacation, at the time of filming Beat the Devil back in 1953. The movie was based on the novel by Claud Cockburn. It was made in a spontaneous way, making it up as they went along. Truman Capote, who got the screenwriting credit, wrote the script night by night, sometimes turning pages in at three in the morning. My introduction to him was in the Grand Hotel, or the Excelsior, one of those hotels in Rome. It was in the morning and I was having some breakfast, bacon and eggs. I heard this uncanny sound waxing poetic to my mother coming from the other room through the walls. And hearing his voice, I had to see where it was coming from. I went in, and there was the voice and the person. I mean it all worked. I wasn’t disappointed. You can imagine what a young kid thought of this otherworldly creature, with an otherworldly voice and an otherworldly way of expressing himself. He just stopped my world in a sense. I didn’t have any reference. I was just stunned to see somebody so real and so different. It was like a beautiful sunset or a freak wave in the ocean.

  Initially, they were shooting in a little town called Ravello. John Huston was directing the movie, working with Oswald Morris, the great British cameraman. And there was Mom, Gina Lollobrigida, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Robert Morley. It was such a cast of characters, it was so much fun being part of it. Peter Lorre was my favorite. You’d just look at him sitting there and start laughing because he’d move his eyes, just do something with his eyes, and you’d be on the floor. He was this divine wit and poet, imprisoned in this awkward little vegetable-like body, a little gnomelike creature with the capacity to make funny faces and whatever, but his nature was such that you could see occasionally through all of that, because he put on this clown persona, this mask, and sh
ielded the real person. Robert Capa, who was one of the photographers on the set, and David Seymour, whom we all called Chim, took me under their wing because I was really interested in cinematography.

  Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman were also down there to do a movie, not that many miles away from us. At the time, I was madly in love with Ingrid Bergman. At some point during a break in the filming, we all went to Capri for a few days, and she was with us. I remember her lying above the blue grotto in this beautiful light blue bathing suit, and her blond Swedish hair blowing in the wind, looking absolutely gorgeous. I was probably all of thirteen then. I thought she was a vision of loveliness. Then we were all in Naples and heading to Rome, probably to do some more work for the film. I remember Mother got into a limo, but Michael and I ended up piling into Rossellini’s red Ferrari convertible. We all had little goggles on, and those little cloth helmets that they used to wear to keep their hair in place. The Ferrari looked very racy and sporty and had a number on the side, I think. Rossellini was driving. We took off and must have been going a hundred and twenty miles an hour to Rome. I must have been in some kind of hog heaven, little kid heaven. I don’t know why Mother let us get into the car with this maniac, but it was magical, the roof open so the Italian night was flying around our heads, all the little road markers and the trees. It was just heaven—faster, faster—I’m sure we were egging him on, and he’s gearing down beautifully, and then gearing up beautifully. He’s playing the thing like an instrument, and it’s a Ferrari for crying out loud. The engine was like God was speaking. I remember the road. I remember the night.