by Joel Grey
That year, it also seemed like a good idea to move from the second-floor rear apartment on 87th Street and Central Park West to a spacious eleventh-floor apartment at 1120 Fifth Avenue that overlooked Central Park’s reservoir. Although we now lived in an old-money Upper East Side building, we simplified substantially. We focused less on furnishings, which made for a great, neutral background for our small but growing art collection filled with works by friends such as Jim Dine and R. B. Kitaj. Hiring John Saladino was the last right touch. The interior designer built platforms on which were placed mattresses slip-covered in duck all along the front windows that looked out onto the reservoir.
The whole place was not unlike our Malibu beach house. We loved living on the ocean, thriving in the sensibility of light and sky and water. The New York apartment had a clean look, like our tiny cottage in LA with its bleached floors and sun-drenched patio. Frank Israel—the LA–based architect revered for his innovations to the contemporary Southern California style made famous by Frank Gehry—had recently redesigned the house after an awful fire during which no one was home or hurt. It seemed that on both coasts, simple was good.
Jimmy and Jen were loving being back in New York. They went to great schools, and on the weekends we took family trips out to Westhampton or Nantucket with a close group of pals. James was always marching to the beat of his own drum, doing boy things such as building model cars and dropping water balloons from our apartment window on people walking along Fifth. Jennifer’s idea of fun was more sophisticated. She was an independent teenager who sometimes did things I thought were inappropriate. Teenagers hate that word, which Jennifer let me know in no uncertain terms. (Hmm … kindred spirits!)
I never stopped worrying about both of my children. From the moment Jennifer and James were born, we were very present in both of their lives. I would go to PTA meetings, pick the kids up from school, and take them to their lessons, which my flexible schedule often allowed. I loved doing all of it, because it made me feel complete and like a good father. So I was always close to both my kids.
Winning the Academy Award meant that many more varied projects came my way that allowed me to work steadily. One job offer I didn’t think I wanted to do, however, was tour the US with Liza. Capitalizing on our success in Cabaret with a nightclub act was something of a no-brainer. But I hadn’t forgotten how I’d loathed working in nightclubs, the people eating, drinking, and smoking during the show. “You’ll see. This time will be different,” Liza said, “and we’ll be together.”
It was always hard to say no to Liza; her enthusiasm was infectious. Of course, she turned out to be absolutely right. From our very first show at the Riviera in Las Vegas, we were the talk of the town. Fred Ebb, who had already been writing Liza’s act, wrote one for me. Ron Lewis staged it with a large steamer trunk. The beautiful prop, covered in stickers from all the places I had ever played (and some I hadn’t), magically opened up, and I climbed on top to sing a big George M! medley. I even tap-danced on top of it. I opened the show, then Liza did her dynamite act, and then I joined her to do a couple of encores such as “The Money Song.” There was never an empty table or seat, even in the vast arenas we sometimes played. Liza, loose, savvy, generous, and often hilarious, was a great onstage partner.
One night on the tour, the stage manager in the theater gave her the cue to introduce me before I was ready. The show had been arranged so that I went on first, with the orchestra playing my overture, followed by a drum roll, then Liza’s announcing from a backstage mic, “Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Joel Grey.” That night, however, when she said my name, I still wasn’t dressed. More specifically, I didn’t have any pants on. I came out onstage anyway—in pleated shirt, bow tie, black kneesocks, and shoes. The audience, which loves it when something goes awry, screamed.
I went back offstage, and my overture started over. Again Liza announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Joel Grey.” This time, however, I came out fully dressed to start the show. Never one to be outdone, when it was time for Liza to make her entrance and I announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Liza Minnelli,” she came out in curlers and a robe. The audience was screaming again when she added, “I’ll be right back.”
The Oscar led to more interesting screen roles. The director Robert Altman offered me a part in his revisionist Western Buffalo Bill and the Indians. As Nate Salisbury, Buffalo Bill’s press agent, I got to act with Burt Lancaster, Harvey Keitel, Shelley Duvall, Geraldine Chaplin, and Paul Newman, a fellow Clevelander, who starred as Buffalo Bill. Bob Altman’s sets were very informal, creative, and family-oriented, so Jo and the kids visited me in Calgary where we spent three months shooting a complete re-creation of “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show.
That same year, I was cast as a creepy denizen and mysterious presence of the Viennese demimonde in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, directed by Herbert Ross, a friend with whom I’d worked on an ABC TV pilot in the sixties. In the film, I played Lowenstein, a suspicious character who pops up all over Vienna. Again I found myself in another great group of actors, including Alan Arkin, Robert Duvall, Lawrence Olivier, and Vanessa Redgrave.
Despite these amazing experiences, the thought of abandoning Broadway for Hollywood never crossed my mind. The theater always suited my soul. I went back to Broadway in 1975 (once again at the Palace Theatre) in Goodtime Charley, an unlikely musical about Joan of Arc and the Dauphin Charles VII of France, aka Charley. The score, by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady, was unequivocally good and made all the better by the stunning orchestrations of Jonathan Tunick, the Broadway orchestrator of his generation. I loved the piece—and in particular my character. His evolution over the course of the musical from a dolt to a great king was due to the belief that Joan of Arc (played by Ann Reinking) had in him.
When Goodtime Charley opened on Broadway, I received my usual break-a-leg telegrams from friends—this time including one from Bob Fosse, Ann’s boyfriend at the time, who wrote, “Even when you do the steps backwards you are terrific.” He wasn’t the only one from my Cabaret family who wired. Kander and Ebb sent one that read: “Dear Joel, Long live the King! Love, John and Fred.”
Unfortunately, the show got mixed reviews. The critics warmly embraced Ann’s and my work, and they loved Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s sets and Willa Kim’s costumes. But they were hard on the book and score. Fortunately Goodtime Charley had enough going for it that we didn’t end up on Joe Allen’s wall of shame (the wall of the restaurant displaying show cards of all the productions that are notorious flops). In fact the producers didn’t close Goodtime Charley until almost four months later when I had to leave the show to shoot Buffalo Bill with Bob Altman.
In the years right after Cabaret I felt much more secure not only in my career but also in my life with Jo. A sweet time continued for us; we enjoyed our good fortune, our kids, and each other more than ever. But just as my work began to have its ups and downs, so did my marriage. Although Jo and I had our volatile side, our fights were so frustrating because they were always the same. We would have a disagreement about an emotional issue, and when I would bring it up days or weeks later, Jo more often than not had no idea what I was talking about. “I just don’t remember what happened and you are so definite,” she would say to me. I accused her of forgetting as a way to close herself off and once again became a bully.
We needed someone with authority to help us move the communication forward, perhaps even teach us how to fight. So around 1980, we began seeing a couples therapist on West End Avenue. What I realized during those sessions was that we didn’t really know each other when we got married and had a lot of catching up to do. Jo felt pushed around and not heard, which were the last things I wanted her to feel. Through our work with the therapist, I felt that Jo and I had come to a new, better place in our relationship. More than the superficial pleasures we enjoyed from my success in the theater, we were getting to the deep issues that would form a solid bond. Together we were arriving at such a place of intimac
y that I couldn’t imagine being happier or more contented with my life. Truly, I was no longer alone.
Encouraged by our therapist, I thought it was time to tell Jo about my past. I had reached a place of such rightness and trust with my wife that I wanted to reveal all of myself to her. Authenticity became an imperative.
It was late in the afternoon—the light was beautiful coming into the bedroom from a window that faced east—and we were sitting on the bed when I said to her, “Honey, I need to talk to you about something.”
Of course I was nervous; this was a precarious declaration, one that I had worked hard to keep hidden from everyone, including myself. But I knew the time was right.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long, long time. But I never did because I wasn’t secure enough in myself, in us. Until now.
“There’s no easy way to say this so I am just going to come right out with it. When we first met I had struggled for years with feelings I had … for men.”
As soon as I made the declaration, a flood of words followed as if they had been dammed up by the idea that I had kept undisclosed for so long.
“It really tore me apart. But, Jo, when I met you everything changed. Everything. I was so taken and immediately crazy in love with you. Those other thoughts I once had were no longer important. And loving you all this time has made me know that this is where I always wanted to be. I love you so much, and I don’t want there ever to be any dishonesty between us.”
I had revealed my dark secret and was happy. Who knew how keeping all that inside had affected our marriage? Now we could move on with compassion, love, authenticity … But as I sat there waiting for a response, searching her face for a reaction, any reaction, my elation quickly turned to dread.
I had assumed she would understand my admission as the closing of the door on my past. In my scenario, she would throw her arms around me and say, “I’m so grateful you’ve shared this with me. I love you so much, too.” But she didn’t say that. When I reached out to embrace her, it was clear she had gone away.
As the days went by in slow motion, I hoped that she’d come to me after she had time to process what I had told her. But she never did. We never spoke about it again, and Jo became increasingly impatient, standoffish, and unreachable.
The change in our relationship made me realize that I had greatly misjudged who she was and where she was in her life. I started to wonder if our happiness, our closeness was something I had imagined. For so many years, I knew the revelation of my complex sexuality wasn’t easy to take in. Still, I couldn’t help thinking that she had been looking for some reason to distance herself, and that perhaps she was already on her way out.
I decided that talking about my past had been a mistake and didn’t bring it up again. If she brought it up, maybe then we could talk about it again. But for now, we spoke of other things. We also came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any reason to continue therapy together.
We had been through perhaps more than our fair share of upsets and challenges, but after a bit things always righted themselves—or so I thought. As our marriage hobbled along, I searched for a way to fix this latest upset. I understood from our therapy sessions that she had never forgiven me for not supporting her talent and career. After I made her give up her job in the Broadway musical She Loves Me to join me while I was touring with Stop the World, Jo hadn’t really worked again. So I proposed that she and I might work together to produce films. I wanted to make it up to her.
Jo had always been astute about the theater, art, and films—always an incisive reader of material. One night, out to dinner with the Mommie Dearest producer and Paramount president Frank Yablans, we casually mentioned a project that we had long been discussing, about father-and-son performers in the Catskills. Frank, who was at 20th Century Fox, loved the idea and wanted to set Jo up with an office at his studio where as a producer she could find the right writer for this project. In a matter of days, there was an office with her name on it at Fox, where, as a talented producer to be reckoned with, she felt validated.
Not long afterward, we also began developing a TV movie at CBS about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person voted into public office. Looking back, the subject matter was a sublimation of the conversation Jo and I couldn’t have. But we chalked it up to political beliefs; the issue of gay rights felt natural and important to both of us. Jo and I dove into researching the biopic, interviewing Milk’s associates and reading about his background. Our passion for the subject was apparent, and we made it to the final approval stage. That, however, was when it was dropped without explanation. Word was that someone high up at the network decided that TV wasn’t ready for the Harvey Milk story.
After the project was killed, I started to question our motives in wanting to make a movie about a gay man. Were we distancing ourselves from the information I had told her in our bedroom that afternoon, or trying to find a way to bring up the conversation? In fact I questioned my motives in having told her about my feelings for men in the first place. What had been in it for me? My life—work, our family—was everything I had hoped for. So why did I choose this moment to push the issue? And what happened afterward makes my motive for having told her—that I wanted to bring us closer—even more suspect.
The growing anger and distance between us created a void that eventually compelled me to turn to friends for comfort. I began spending time with two old friends, both gay men, married to women with kids, who through the years still had the occasional encounter with other men. Confused and lonely, I was searching for closeness and connection.
This wasn’t the first time. A handful of times over the course of our twenty-four years together, I lied to myself and her. Whenever I was exceptionally lonely at home, I sought out men, often in the same boat, most of them married. Years could go by in between these encounters.
I told myself this wasn’t being unfaithful. As I saw it, if I had slept with other women, which I knew was possible, that would have been cheating. My intimate male friendships were always with guys who had made the same choice as I in adapting their needs. None of us wanted to throw lives and families into chaos by leaving our wives. No, we would have our time together—and then go quickly home.
But if I had been honest, I would have asked myself what these times with men truly meant. The closest answer I could come up with was that it was about taking care of oneself, the self that existed before there was a wife, the self that I never stopped struggling with. I never looked for what was missing in another woman. I needed the safe haven of men.
Yet I couldn’t imagine my life without Jo and the kids. I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone else. She felt differently. Shortly after James went off to college in 1981, not long after our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary, Jo told me that she was leaving, and just like that she moved out of our home and never came back.
“These are not invisible men.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Right in the middle of my show’s second number, Randy Newman’s “Short People,” which I sang standing on stilts made of tin cans, the sound system went dead. In that moment, I was suddenly faced with an amphitheater of 7,500 staring ticketholders. That kind of silence on stage is unforgettable.
I was depressed before I even stepped onto the vast stage of the Garden State Arts Center, in New Jersey. But having made a commitment to play this date after thinking, back in LA, that it might take my mind off the pain of Jo’s leaving, I had to go through with it. However, the morning of the show, she called to tell me that Minnie, one of our two beloved Abyssinian cats, had got out of the house in Brentwood, where Jo now lived permanently. She had found the cat’s dead body on the patio, a victim of a coyote attack. I was furious at her for having allowed Minnie out of the house, for leaving, for the whole crappy thing.
And now the sound was out in the massive outdoor theater.
Having been taught as an actor that ad-libbing was unacceptable, I never got g
ood at it. I said something politely, and the sound came on, and the show continued. After a few more numbers, the sound failed again. Then it went back on, then failed again—and something in me exploded.
“If you can’t get this thing working,” I said holding my microphone out in front of me like an assault weapon and looking directly at the sound booth, “then you can stick it up your ass.”
Whoa! There was a collective gasp from 7,500 now-stunned people. As I realized what I had just said, I silently prayed for the stage to open up and swallow me. Mickey Katz’s pride and joy, his firstborn, and the Cleveland Play House’s favorite son had not been raised to lose it onstage. I couldn’t imagine ever being forgiven for such a lewd lapse and utter loss of control. After the show ended, I sped offstage toward my dressing room, not even considering taking a bow, when the stage manager came after me, yelling, “Get back out there!” When I did, I found 7,500 people standing and applauding wildly. I guess the audience understood that I was human even if I couldn’t understand that myself.
I desperately hoped that Jo would change her mind and come back to me, although everyone kept telling me to forget her. Not even the wise and forceful Grandma Fanny, who had spent a lifetime getting people to do what she wanted, could persuade her otherwise. After Jo had gone to visit my ninety-three-year-old grandmother to tell her side of the story, Fanny called me. “It’s no good, Mein Kind,” Fanny said. “She’s jealous of you.”
My grandma turned out to be right. Jo was jealous of my career and my certainty. But she was also angry that I had kept her from having a career of her own. However, it was my past with men that she could not forgive. Not only did she refuse to return to me but she also refused to come back to New York. Right after we sold our apartment at 1120 Fifth Avenue, she wanted nothing to do with sorting out the “stuff” of our twenty-four years together. “You do it,” she said. I went through hundreds of photos of all of us in happier times. Pictures of our wedding, the children as babies, trips—Jo didn’t want any of it. Adamantly focused on the future, she was not going to look back.