I’ve always considered myself lucky, and it may be part of my longevity, that I grew up with my own sense of self and my own identity, rather than relying on other people’s opinions of me to form the foundation on which I’ve built my life. I’ve had my share of awards and great reviews. I’ve also had my share of comments similar to producer Hal Wallis’s assessment of me: “Jeanne Cooper just doesn’t do anything for me.” At the end of the day, no one is more of an authority on my strengths and my weaknesses than I am, or more responsible for the choices I’ve made, both good and bad.
My first guest-starring role on a television series, The Adventures of Kit Carson in 1953, changed my life in so many ways. Not only did I instantly realize that television was where I belonged, but I also met a woman who was to become a lifelong friend. Barbara Hale was an actress whose star was on the rise, and she also happened to be the wife of “Kit Carson” himself, the handsome and very talented Bill Williams. Barbara and Bill met while they were both under contract at RKO Radio Pictures in the 1940s, and when they married in 1946 they became the darlings of the RKO studio, both of them wonderful, great-looking people with whom audiences were beginning to fall in love.
Barbara and I clicked immediately. We liked each other, we had our careers in common, and we both loved a good game of poker and nothing more than a long, loud, convulsive laugh at any given opportunity. And one of those opportunities came along one night when Barbara was visiting the set.
We worked six days a week back then, and each of those days lasted as long as it took to complete that day’s schedule. So there we all were one dark midnight shooting a “night for day” outdoor scene—i.e., with the help of a whole lot of very bright lights, scenes shot during the night look as if they were taking place during the day. There was nothing unusual about shooting night for day. We’d all done it a million times.
But what set this particular night apart was that, just as the director yelled, “Action!” a hard, steady rain began to fall. Without backlighting, the rain was invisible. So was the black tarp that was quickly secured above our heads to keep us dry, high enough that it was off-camera . . . and, unfortunately, high enough that it couldn’t possibly accomplish its purpose. We gamely launched into a lengthy, rather emotional scene, professional enough that we acted as if there were no rain falling at all. My hair, though, didn’t care about professionalism and behaved exactly as hair behaves in the rain, getting wetter and flatter with every line of dialogue. We all did our best to ignore it, but the more I watched my scene mates trying desperately to keep a straight face as they looked at me, the more impossible it was for me not to fall apart, so that take after take after take was destroyed as we actors were reduced to a group of giggling, howling kindergartners. And no one laughed harder than I did, with the possible exception of our star’s wife, Barbara Hale.
Parenthetically, it’s worth mentioning that I rank the ability to laugh, and a sense of humor in general, as one of life’s greatest survival skills. If I couldn’t sit down from time to time and laugh myself senseless at things that could just as easily enrage me or destroy me, I’m sure I would have gone stark raving mad by the age of two. (Okay, occasionally laughter isn’t my first reaction to a situation, but I do get there sooner or later.)
Another great source of hilarity on The Adventures of Kit Carson was my trial-by-fire introduction to the brand-new world of series television. I didn’t think a thing about it because I simply assumed this was the way it was done. Looking back, I have no idea how we survived it.
My three episodes of Kit Carson were shot simultaneously, and I played three different characters. We were all slaves to maximum location efficiency, particularly when it came to outdoor scenes on the main street—we shot every one of them for all three episodes before moving on to another location. This left me galloping out of town on a pinto as, let’s say, Sally, the kindhearted saloon girl, and, with a change of wardrobe and hairstyle, riding back into town on a stagecoach as Janet, the hardware store owner’s wife. At some point Janet would take the stagecoach out of town again, only to return on a palomino with yet another wardrobe and hairstyle change appropriate to Amanda, the shy librarian. It was exactly as frenetic, confusing, and hilarious as it sounds, but it certainly made the rest of my television work seem like a walk in the park. One episode at a time? Seriously? After The Adventures of Kit Carson, I could handle that with my eyes closed.
In addition to living just blocks away from each other, and sharing the challenges of balancing our personal lives and our careers, my dear new friend Barbara Hale and I had the luxury of working together many times, starting with a film called The Houston Story, which was almost more dramatic behind the scenes than it was on-screen. It originally starred the magnificent Lee J. Cobb, fresh from his unforgettable performance in On the Waterfront, but unfortunately, much of it was shot on location in the oil fields of Texas. In August. Enough said? One day during the rehearsal of an especially physical scene, the director, William Castle, noticed that Lee was looking like a man in serious physical trouble—gray skin, shortness of breath, dizziness, barely able to stand. A few hours later, Lee was in the hospital, suffering from a near-fatal heart attack. He was replaced by the suave, dark-haired Gene Barry, who looked about as much like Lee J. Cobb as I did, and somehow the film was completed without any actual casualties.
And then, of course, Barbara and I worked together for five episodes on a project in which she costarred as the inimitable Della Street with my beloved friend Raymond Burr in the title role of a series called Perry Mason.
Raymond Burr and I had stayed very much a part of each other’s lives ever since he was kind enough to do the screen test with me that inspired Universal to offer me a contract. You wouldn’t guess it from looking at him, but he was a fun, funny, playful man who loved to laugh and loved a good practical joke even more.
I’m not sure this is common knowledge about Ray, but it should be: he served in the navy in World War II, was honorably discharged when a piece of shrapnel lodged itself in his stomach during the Battle of Okinawa, and was awarded the Purple Heart. He expressed his lifelong loyalty to our armed forces by traveling anywhere in the world he was needed and whenever he could to entertain the troops.
One night after filming on a Perry Mason episode, and shortly before he left to visit the troops at an army base in Japan, Ray was surprised with a beautiful trophy, a thank-you from one of the many charities he generously supported. He was very proud of that trophy, as he deserved to be. He was also very aware of the fact that I was on the set. He’d played more practical jokes on me than I could count, and he knew it was a guarantee that sooner or later, I would retaliate. So when I walked over to give him a congratulatory hug, he immediately hid the trophy behind his back and refused to show it to me.
“Why won’t you let me see it?” I asked with all the innocence in the world.
“You don’t want to see it, you want to steal it,” he answered.
To be honest, I’m not sure that thought had occurred to me until he suggested it. But once he planted the idea in my head, it became an obsession as the celebration on the set progressed. Ray kept an eye on me, I kept an eye on that trophy, and finally, just for an instant, the opportunity presented itself. I grabbed the trophy, slipped it to one of the stagehands, and told him to hang on to it for me and keep it hidden from Ray. Getting a huge kick out of being part of whatever the joke was, the stagehand promptly disappeared with the trophy until I retrieved it from him at the end of the evening. In the meantime, of course, Ray was beside himself when he discovered that his brand-new trophy was missing, and he marched straight over to me and demanded that I give it back. I was able to tell him in all honesty that I didn’t have it, opening my purse and turning my jacket pockets inside out to prove it. He didn’t believe for an instant that I didn’t have something to do with the disappearance of his award, and he watched me like a hawk until he finally gave up and headed home. A few minutes later I head
ed home too, trophy safely in hand, plotting the most effective way to return it to him. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I knew exactly what to do.
Everett, my brother-in-law, was in the army. Since Ray was visiting an army base in Japan in three days, it was too perfect a situation to pass up. I called Everett and told him what I was up to, and he was delighted to help. After a half hour on the phone discussing the details, we hung up and Everett began making all the arrangements.
First thing the next morning, a courier picked up the trophy and delivered it to the nearest army base, where it was put on a transport plane that left a few hours later for Japan.
Once it arrived in Japan, the trophy was taken straight to the base commander, who sent it out to be engraved with an inscription I’d personally requested, a sentiment I knew Ray would have chosen if the situation had been reversed: the Japanese translation of the simple words “Fuck you.”
Ray’s plane landed the next day. He was driven straight to the base, where the commander and a huge, enthusiastic audience of soldiers were waiting to greet him, all of them in on the joke. Ray came striding onstage to be presented to the troops, and after shaking his hand, the commander gave a brief, stirring speech about how deeply the soldiers appreciated his traveling such a long distance to entertain them and assure them that they were loved and appreciated back home.
“And as our way of saying thank you,” he concluded, “it’s my honor to give you this heartfelt token of our esteem.”
With which he withdrew the trophy from behind his back and extended it to Ray, who gaped at it in stunned silence while the troops gave him a standing ovation.
When he was finally able to form words again, he turned to the commander and asked, “Where the hell did you get this?!”
The commander had memorized his lines perfectly. “It was flown in especially for you by someone you know, who also composed the inscription.” He ceremoniously read the engraved inscription, first in Japanese as printed, and then in English, while the troops cheered and applauded again and Ray began laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.
He remembered and treasured that practical joke until the day he died. I still cherish it too, not just because of the thought and effort that went into it but also because of the great love and friendship that inspired it in the first place.
At the risk of transforming this book into The Raymond Burr Story, I do want to add a tale that illustrates what a loyal, generous man he was for those of us he thought of as family.
There was a time during the Perry Mason years when Bill Williams and Barbara Hale’s marriage hit a rough patch, as all marriages do. (Look up “rough patch” in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of me and my ex-husband. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) Barbara’s career was thriving, while Bill’s career seemed to be on the decline through no fault of his own—executives in this town don’t always have the most vivid imaginations, and too many of them couldn’t get past Bill’s Kit Carson persona and rediscover what a wonderful actor he was. It’s not only among actors that an imbalance of success can cause stress in a marriage, particularly when both people are in the same business. So it’s understandable, maybe even inevitable, that Bill was resenting Barbara for many things, including not being home enough, and Barbara was resenting Bill for many things, including his resentment of her commitment to a job that brought her so much joy and a steady paycheck.
Barbara wasn’t in the habit of bringing her problems to work. She was never anything less than a true professional. But the cast and crew started noticing that she wasn’t her usual outgoing, funny, bawdy self on the set and instead was spending most of her time alone in her dressing room. She told everyone, including me, that she was “fine,” but none of us were buying it and all of us were concerned.
It was Ray who guessed what was wrong and did something about it. Without prying or insinuating himself into his dear friends’ marriage, he quietly pulled a considerable number of strings and used some of his considerable clout to see to it that Bill Williams began working both in front of and behind the camera and feeling like a success again.
Barbara and Bill’s marriage lasted and thrived for forty-six years, from 1946 until his death in 1992. Obviously most of the credit for that goes to them, but when trouble hit, Ray was right there quietly helping them through it.
So next time you happen across one of my five Perry Mason episodes, or, for that matter, one of my three episodes of Raymond Burr’s later hit series Ironside, I hope you’ll enjoy them even more knowing that you’re watching close friends who loved working together and loved playing together even more.
The 1950s were busy, exciting, stimulating years. I shot more than forty TV episodes, on such classic series as The Twilight Zone, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Maverick, and The Millionaire. I guest-starred in more than a dozen films. (One of them, Plunder Road, was recently featured in a film noir festival in Palm Springs, which I was honored to attend. As any actor will tell you, it’s always impossible, while you’re in the middle of making a movie, to predict whether you’re working on a hit or a complete flop. For Plunder Road to reemerge more than fifty years after it was shot and be considered a classic in its genre couldn’t have been a more pleasant surprise.)
Acting was my priority, my joy, and my nourishment. My personal life was a lovely bonus—I had more than my share of fun, and that was all I was looking for. Between being fiercely independent and not having the slightest interest in compromising a career I’d worked so hard to establish, I didn’t consider myself a viable candidate for the demands of a serious relationship. I still knew with “absolute certainty” that I would never get married and I would never have children (I know, I know, let’s not talk it to death). But I wasn’t about to let those self-imposed conditions stand in the way of a good time, and what luck, I happened to be surrounded by exciting, talented, available people who were as ready to have a good time as I was.
You might remember my nonnegotiable rule with Charles Clark that I was going to be a virgin when I got married. Well, at some point I realized what an impractical rule that was for a normal, healthy woman who had no intention of ever getting married. So what can I say, one night some combination of opportunity, curiosity, trust, and hormones inspired me to lose my virginity to Lyle Smith, director of the Stockton productions of Naughty Marietta and Song of Norway. It was sweet and natural and enjoyable but not earth-moving—I wasn’t disappointed, and I certainly didn’t regret it, but I did wonder afterward why I’d been so adamant about “saving myself” for something that turned out to be not that big a deal after all.
It seemed logical to leave myself open to sexual possibilities in Hollywood, which was, to understate it, rich with opportunities for a successful, confident, extroverted woman in her twenties. I wouldn’t say I had an active “love” life. It was more of a “genuine fondness” life, and sometimes something as simple as a “wow, do I find you attractive” life—exactly right for what I did and didn’t want.
I never considered these encounters as affairs, even when they happened with some regularity. “Affairs” implied “entanglements” and/or “expectations” as far as I was concerned, and most of the men involved were friends I had no intention of losing just because our emotional intimacy occasionally expressed itself physically. In fact, some of them, in that uncomplicated long-ago pre-AIDS era, were friends who happened to be gay. (And yes, they were gay before I slept with them—and to the best of my knowledge I never inspired anyone to switch sexual preferences.)
Some of them you’ve never heard of, which I know doesn’t make for interesting reading. Some of them you have heard of, and I feel a little sophomoric and name-droppy listing them like this. But you’d feel cheated if I held out on you, and I can’t say I’d blame you. So . . .
David Janssen. Dennis Weaver. Robert Taylor (didn’t see that one coming, did you?). Hugh O’Brian, almost (we’ll just leave it at that). And, maybe predictably, all things considered,
Raymond Burr.
One of the great luxuries when you live in Los Angeles is when you happen to have friends who live at the beach and love to throw dinner parties. The beach at night, with the moon reflecting off a calm ocean, is like a long, gorgeous exhale. Add good food and good company and it’s about as perfect as an evening can get.
I was lucky enough to have one of those friends. When he invited me to his beach house one night for a dinner party, I said yes in spite of the fact that he had an agenda—he wanted to fix me up with someone, and he was sure we’d like each other. I was never a fan of blind dates, but I would have said yes if he’d asked me to come clean up after his dogs if it meant dinner overlooking the ocean.
I arrived fashionably late and was happy to be greeted by a roomful of people I knew and liked. The only exception was a man so impossibly handsome he took my breath away. He was tastefully and impeccably dressed; he exuded confidence and charm. I closed my eyes for a quick, silent prayer: “Please, God, if he’s not my blind date, at least let him be here alone.”
My prayer was answered moments later when our host took the impossibly handsome man’s arm and led him straight to me. It was immediately apparent that the attraction was mutual.
“Jeanne Cooper,” our host said with an enthusiastic smile, “Harry Bernsen.”
Chapter Three
Just Wild about Harry
Here’s my theory about what happens when we women meet someone to whom we’re too attracted for our own good: I don’t think it’s a matter of not noticing the red flags that signify this relationship is not a good idea. I think we notice them and, because those red flags don’t mesh with what we think we want, we come up with euphemisms for them, to trick ourselves into believing they’re part of what makes him interesting.
Not Young, Still Restless Page 4