by The Killing of the Unicorn- Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980 (epub)
When she wasn’t in a shot, Dorothy spent most of the time either watching quietly or reading a book. I could sense some of the crew’s silent contempt for a blond Playmate showing off her supposed studiousness. If D.R. felt anything, she ignored it and went through several novels and books of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction during her four months in New York. She particularly liked Great Expectations, Crime and Punishment, and A Farewell to Arms. By the middle of August, she was halfway through The Idiot and said it was her favorite.
Life was busy for D.R. Besides the shooting, there were business meetings, phone calls, and then, when a serious illness appeared, a long series of doctors’ appointments. Dorothy met with the editors of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and both magazines wanted fashion layouts of her to be timed with the release of the picture. There was even talk of putting her on a cover. Neither magazine had ever been willing to feature a model who had worked for Playboy, but they were going to break a precedent for Dorothy Stratten. She had overcome all the obstacles.
As shooting continued, several picture and TV roles were promoted by various agents, each of whom was interested in representing her. She wanted to sign with William Morris, but to be politic, she called Hefner for his opinion. He solemnly recommended that she not rush into anything, that he would look into matters himself upon her return to Los Angeles. It was apparent to us that Hefner wanted to keep control or Dorothy. What ultimately concerned him, we agreed, was that the William Morris Agency had too much clout, that Hefner could not easily move it into deals favorable to Playboy. To appease him momentarily, Dorothy decided to wait until she returned to L.A. before signing, but she told the agents she would before the end of August.
Her Playboy Models deal was almost finished, and it didn’t take long for word to get around that D.R. was making a big splash in New York. Johnny Casablancas’s agency, Elite, had just signed Patti Hansen, who was the top model in the country at the time. And Casablancas wanted Dorothy as well. The one time we met, Johnny told me how impressed he was with her. She could work all over Europe, he said, just as soon as she was free. D.R. told Casablancas that her term with Playboy was nearly over and that as soon as it was, she would sign with Elite. They shook hands on it. Because I didn’t know these agents except by reputation, her choices helped avoid any accusations of my manipulating her.
***
Patti Hansen didn’t like D.R. very much. Already involved at the time with Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones (they would marry late in 1983), Patti nevertheless seemed to resent Dorothy on sight. I asked her once why she didn’t give D.R. a chance. 'I don’t like blondes,' she said. On Patti’s last day of shooting, she turned to Dorothy in front of a group of the cast and crew and said: 'Jesus, you got big tits.' D.R. blushed and looked down; she didn’t say anything. There was a hushed, awkward laugh, and Patti looked embarrassed. She left a few moments later. It was the last thing Patti ever said to Dorothy.
Colleen Camp was also dubious at first, and distrustful, but as she came to know Dorothy, she became a close friend. They made lunch dates and went shopping on Madison Avenue or down in Greenwich Village. When filming went on late into the night, they curled up together on a single cot in an improvised dressing room. Dorothy constantly encouraged Colleen, told her how good her acting was, and how much she liked her singing. She thought Colleen deserved an Oscar for her performance. For Colleen’s birthday in June, Dorothy bought her a silk blouse and insisted we throw a party at Nicola’s. Colleen loved the blouse: 'You don’t understand, D.R., this is silk! Do you know what this costs?' Dorothy laughed and snapped her Kodak. They were delightful together. The most fun we had shooting was during their scenes together: along Fifth, in Soho, in the Village, on Wall Street. Dorothy with John Ritter, Colleen with Sean Ferrer, or the other way around. They were well matched, and all four shared friendship and high spirits.
During my favorite sequence, with the four of them at a Fifth Avenue shoe store, Colleen sat on the sidelines with Rosarine Katon, the black actress I had last seen on the buffet line at the mansion with Dorothy. D.R. and I were at the far end of the store while the lights were being prepared. I was lounging on a couch and she was sitting on the floor. Rosanne looked over at us and asked Colleen if she had ever met Dorothy’s husband. No, Colleen hadn’t. Why? Rosanne saw him all the time around the mansion, coming on to everybody, talking big. He was a real creep, Rosanne said. She wouldn’t put anything past him. Colleen turned to her: What did she mean by that? He was dangerous, Rosanne said. He was the kind of guy that might kill Dorothy and Peter and himself. Colleen was outraged: What was Rosanne talking about!? Rosanne shook her head. Colleen had never met him, she couldn’t understand. Colleen thought Rosanne was exaggerating, but asked D.R. if she thought Snider would ever harm her. No, Dorothy said, that was not a danger. Colleen did not mention the incident to me. But Dorothy did say later: 'Paul doesn’t think much of people.' She had worried that Paul might kill himself. She thought he was capable of that, she said. 'He doesn’t have a very high opinion of life.'
Outside the Roxy skating rink, we were setting up a shot that involved several of the principals, but as I look through the camera’s eye in preparation, there was a blond double for D.R. Dorothy would not be able to participate in that night’s shooting: She had to be up at 6:00 a.m. to check into a hospital for a biopsy that would determine the nature of two growths that had appeared on either side of her face. Each was on the jawline just below her ear, but the one on her left had become particularly noticeable. Progressively, more care had had to be taken to hide the swelling from the camera. When she first returned to New York toward the end of May, I immediately noticed the problem. Although seven different doctors had examined her, not one was able to make a diagnosis.
The word cancer was so carefully avoided that naturally it became uppermost in our minds. Were the hard and growing tumors benign or malignant? Even if they were benign, their increasing size had to be checked or they would become impossible to conceal on the screen. If they were malignant, an operation would have to be performed instantly, and the scars from this would show. Plastic surgery would take months, and what would happen to Dorothy’s role in the picture? There would be no way to finish it. More important, what would happen to Dorothy? Disfigurement. Would it, honestly, or would it not, affect my love for her? Was love irretrievably bound to outward appearances? Or did it finally have to do with feelings and spirits, both invisible and indefinable? I never asked myself this question then but I think I knew that my passion for Dorothy and my empathy with her was far too strong to be lessened by a change in her physical appearance.
Yet these were questions we both tried to avoid, though we became increasingly anxious as one doctor after another concluded that only a biopsy could identify the disease. There were two biopsy choices: needle or surgical knife. Only the latter required anesthesia and, whatever the ultimate result, would leave at least a half-inch scar. Her hair could conceal this, however. The needle biopsy was preferable, but it carried a risk: If the tumor turned out to be malignant, the needle might spread the disease more quickly. It could also fail to pull out enough of the growth for analysis, and the knife biopsy would then be required anyway. D.R. and I nevertheless agreed the needle was worth chancing, and the office operation was performed one afternoon. But it proved insufficient, so the hospital was booked. Because of the filming schedule I was unable to accompany D.R. to her medical appointments, but my assistant Linda MacEwen proved to be a good friend by going with her.
Setting up the shots without D.R. (which required keeping her double a good distance from the camera) gave me a sense of what the film would be like if Dorothy could not rejoin us. There was a dark, foreboding cloud over the whole night that no amount of effort could shake. The sequence called for physical comedy and required a good mood from me to help the actors, so I tried not to allow my preoccupation to show, but I knew the work was suffering. I kept wishing I had insisted on canceling the call and
letting the film’s medical insurance cover the cost of the delay. Novak had argued that the picture was in enough hot water with Time-Life. We should press on, work around Dorothy. He had little patience on the subject of D.R.’s health and only seemed annoyed about whatever harm it might cause the movie. Sean, on the other hand, helped us find a doctor, his uncle Jose Ferrer, whom Dorothy trusted.
Because of the late-night shooting, I was still asleep when the phone rang the next morning. Dorothy sounded groggy but cheerful: It was OK, she said, it wasn’t malignant. I began to cry, not only because of the weight that had suddenly been lifted, but for the confirmation that no matter how much we were risking, everything would be all right. She had a sarcoidosis, or sarcoid granuloma, an extremely rare inflammation that could be cured with small amounts of cortisone steroid if the swellings didn’t subside on their own. Dr. Ferrer suggested she do nothing until her return to California in August. From the hospital, Dorothy called her mother in Vancouver and, for the first time, told Nelly of her condition. If anything had happened to her, Dorothy said: 'It should all be yours, Mum.' She had mentioned nothing to Snider of the problem, for fear he would use her illness as an excuse to come to New York, and she was, therefore, all the more surprised the next day when he wanted to know what she had been doing in a hospital. When she asked how he had found out, Snider chuckled smugly and said he had his ways.
Not long before D.R.’s hospitalization, Dr. Cushner had visited New York and spent an afternoon pleading Snider’s case; that she should return to him. He seemed totally disinterested, she told me, in her point of view. When Dorothy came down a short while after Cushner left, she noticed him sitting in a car with another man. She went over and chatted briefly and, feeling as she walked away that they were watching to see where she went, she took a circuitous route to the Plaza. Even then she realized that Cushner had joined forces with Snider against her. The Wyndham experience soured her on Cushner. She had bought him the gift of a record album but never presented it.
One morning, there was a knock on the door of the suite. D.R. went to answer, thinking it was room service. She didn’t check the peephole, so the door of 1001 opened onto a pair of photographers Snider had sent to find her. I heard Dorothy talk with them at the door; then, from the sound, I could tell that she moved them into the corridor, but I couldn’t hear what was said. I paced irritably, wondering who the hell would crash in here like that.
After a while, D.R. came back with proof sheets of the photos the couple had taken, and explained under her breath that they had flown in from L.A. to see her and get permission to use one shot for a poster. They were working with Paul. I was livid.
How had they known the suite number? How had they known she was here? Dorothy hadn’t asked. What did I think she should do about the photos? They were waiting for a decision^ She held out the proofs and I looked over her shoulder. They were nothing special: imitation Playboy Bunny outfit with roller skates and garish lighting. The shots made her look cheap and ordinary, with none of her innocence or wit, and I said as much. D.R. turned them down diplomatically.
Snider had undoubtedly used Dorothy’s money to pay for plane tickets for the photographer and his wife to come to New York and hustle her into the deal by making her feel sorry for them. Although they said the Wyndham staff had told them to try Bogdanovich’s suite at the Plaza, it was far more likely the information had come through detectives Snider had retained. I didn’t realize it, but this was the first conclusive evidence Snider had that Dorothy and I were living together.
Soon we would hear that Snider was going around the mansion telling everyone who would listen that Dorothy had run off with Bogdanovich, and they were shacked up together at the Plaza. 'I think that’s awful,' D.R. said, 'it’s none of people’s business.' And yet she denied it to Paul, said she and I were good friends, that she helped out with my children. And all of that was true.
While we naively thought we were being discreet and inconspicuous, the word was out around the Hollywood community. Patrick Curtis heard the rumor a number of times at the mansion. Dorothy had confirmed the truth to him, but everyone who mentioned it seemed to be quite certain as well. Mario Casilli had heard something back in May, though neither he nor Dorothy brought up the topic. Hugh Hefner, though he had heard the rumors early, probably preferred not to believe anything until it was substantiated by either of the two principals.
Since neither Dorothy nor I had said a word to him on the subject, perhaps he thought it was because the affair wasn’t happening. What might have worried him privately, however, was that perhaps it was, and that Dorothy had told me the truth about him and his company, that we were now united, in our contempt for him.
There were only two weeks of shooting left. July 4 fell on a Friday, giving everybody a long weekend, and no one could have appreciated it more than D.R. and me. There would be fireworks over the Hudson on Friday evening, and to watch them we rode across town to Riverside Drive. A lot of people were out that night, so I kept the limousine with us all the time, whether we walked along the river or into the park. Dorothy was amused at the way the car trailed along behind, and we wrote a scene like that into the movie for Colleen and Sean.
We tried to get a view of the river from Seventy-second Street, but it was much too crowded, so we bought a couple of Eskimo Pies and rode up to Ninetieth, the street my parents had moved to when I was thirteen. I had lived there with them and my sister (her arrival had prompted the move) for nearly a decade, right across the street from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. As we prowled around on that lovely hot evening while the country celebrated its freedom, we went openly together among the crowds. We held hands and didn’t care who noticed. We walked across the spray-painted monument, down several paths, into the grass and over rocks, looking for the best place to see the fireworks. Dorothy was like a child who had never seen fireworks. She made me feel the same way and we stayed there until the last starburst faded.
D.R. and I tried not to worry about anything those last weeks in New York. I eased up on the cutting and we spent more time together on weekends, in the park or at the movies. I had been through Central Park so many times as a child but not once in the past twenty years, except with Dorothy. And I felt like a boy again. It was as though D.R. had given me back the childhood I tried to forget. Even in choosing locations, I had unconsciously avoided the old neighborhoods. But Dorothy made me feel like remembering those days again—from one to thirteen, the innocent years. She was the perfect companion; it was like taking her home to my mother and father, who had died, and who I know would have loved her.
The early morning we finished shooting, there was a sad little wrap party at a luncheon cafe around the comer from the Tenth Street apartment where we’d filmed the last few shots of the picture. The second to last was Dorothy’s final close-up. She and I sat in one of the little booths at the back of the harshly lighted cafe while a lot of people came over to say good-bye. Dorothy was gracious to everyone. She was sorry to see them all go, she said. After the last person left, Dorothy began to cry quietly. But the picture wasn’t really over, I said. After we returned from our vacation, there would be more cutting, sound mixing and previews, publicity and openings. I wasn’t finished with the picture, and neither was she, because I wanted her with me all the way through. As it turned out, I was wrong. The picture was over for Dorothy the night we shot her last close-up. She would be alive for only four more weeks.
One of the last times Dorothy spoke on the phone to Snider, he had said he wanted to meet her at LAX, but she put him off by saying that she was going over to London with several girlfriends, Colleen among them, and wasn’t certain when she would return. In truth, Colleen was in London at the same time we were, but didn’t want to disturb us. The wrap party was the last time she would see Dorothy. All month long, Snider had been sending various messages: an album of all the greeting cards he had ever given to Dorothy, along with a poem (she hid these from me), and a paperback s
elf-help manual explaining What Men Need. D.R. had looked at the book, but left it behind when she packed. What about what women need? she had said. As usual, Paul was thinking only of himself—that wasn’t love. Why didn’t he ever understand what she needed?
Yet most of the questions that had troubled Dorothy so terribly in May seemed to have settled themselves by early July. A couple of weeks before we finished shooting, D.R. wrote the most contented poem of her life. It was her last:
The bright green blades of grass
Are glistening with dew as the morning sun
Rises up over the hills, and a breeze
Ever so gently flutters them about.
And she stoops to pluck a dandelion
And pauses, shuts her eyes tightly,
Blows hard, and the white fluff
Disperses all around as she makes a wish . . .
She’s thinking but not sure of what.
The day will be beautiful for a while . . .
Instinct has been allowed to take its course
And proves to be right somehow.
And then she sits:
Her dress encircles her, hides her feet
Save the tips of her white socks and sandals.
The stem of the dandelion has fallen,
Somewhere, it doesn’t matter.
No reason for coming really—
Feels much better though:
Hasn’t had much time to think.
She sighs and places her hand