And a spotlight turned to the audience and this woman stood up who was huge. Absolutely huge. I think the image Vic had in his mind all those years was that this devoted fan was still the cute, svelte young thing he’d met twenty-five years earlier. I know I had had the impression she would look like Jane Powell. Anyway, I didn’t miss a beat. When Gloria stood up in all her glory, I walked off the stage to shake her hand and thank her.
But I do think I had burst a little bubble that night. Cavalier as show-business men of his generation could be, they really did have thin skin and big egos, and to find out that his biggest fan was literally his biggest fan must have been a little hard for Vic to take. I can still remember being on Dean Martin’s show in 1965 with a group of Vic’s peers. I was in a ball gown with hair reaching toward heaven, and they were all in tuxedos, holding cocktails and cigarettes, right on the air, mind you. Old times! Who was on? Dean, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, Danny Thomas, yours truly, and about six cocktail waitresses being ogled and teased. Clearly, these men felt it was their obligation to joke about women as second-class citizens. But as I grew to know them, I figured out how smart they were, and how decent they were. They were just putting on an act. So when they’d pat my rear, I’d just pat theirs right back. They really were a bunch of adorable boys, who only pretended to be relaxed, when they were actually very focused and hardworking. We were like pals as we went around from one television variety show to the next.
The only time there was any tension with them was when we were all taping a Frank Sinatra special. Frank had just received word that Mia Farrow would not be returning home to him because she had been offered a role in the film Rosemary’s Baby. We stopped shooting the show then and there, and a bunch of limos quickly appeared in front of the studio and took us all to dinner in a restaurant that had been closed for us in Century City. Frank looked ready to kill. His wife was choosing a job over him?
I suppose some of that same thing was happening between Vic and me in the 1980s. And now that I think of it, it’s also likely that this friend who suggested I have my billboards removed from all over Toronto had been privy to Vic’s reaction from a previous visit.
“I really don’t think I can get them to take any billboards down,” I told his friend.
I mean, can you imagine my telling the producer to do less advertising? I can’t say that being alone in Toronto for that year made me realize how unsupportive Vic was. All I know is that I wish we had both been able to speak our minds. He could have told me directly to come home and I could have told him that I could not leave the most important job of my senior years. Then we could have had it out in a way that at least would allow some real communication between us. Granted, I was not happy at home—however, without realizing it, I re-created the exact pattern of departure from my marriage that my mother had created in her life.
Hard as it was to believe, Vic even started calling my drama coach after seeing my performance. He asked her, “Aren’t you afraid of Diahann doing that role?” My drama coach, a very feisty lady, asked him, “What are you talking about?”
He told her he thought it would give me thoughts of committing suicide.
She told him, “Hell no! Diahann would never do that!”
I thought it was interesting of him to think that. My character doesn’t kill herself, she kills a man who disappoints her, and at that time, I was more disappointed with Vic than with myself. When I’d come to New York from Toronto on the nights when the show was dark, I’d go to hear him singing at a midtown club where he was working. And I could not help but notice a little lady, who looked to be older than Vic, who had invited twenty guests to his show every night before taking them all to dinner in expensive restaurants. At first I did not take her seriously. But I could see she knew what he lived for—to be treated royally. It was enough that I helped him buy his Palm Springs house. Beyond that, I just wasn’t comfortable supporting a man who was able to work and support himself. I wanted to keep things evenly split financially. But, as I’d learned, Vic was more ambitious about golf than about his career. And this little lady was, and still is, very rich, with several homes and her own plane. She knew what she wanted. Early on, she said to me, “I’ve been in love with him since I was fourteen years old, and I don’t know how you could stand to be away from him for so long.”
I told her, “Well, at this point, it ain’t difficult.”
One night she gave a small dinner party at her apartment. I was just back in New York after closing Sunset. When she was seating her guests, she said, “I want Vic to be at the head of my table!” I was shocked. We were still married. But I thought to myself that if she can be that rude, then she is probably very strong, and smart enough to know exactly how to make my husband very happy, and he’s going to fall for it completely because she is very rich.
At the end of dinner, I told him I was going home alone.
I walked into the same apartment on Riverside Drive that I had decorated so zealously for Sidney, the husband who never materialized to live there with me so many years before. I could not keep from looking back and feeling like an absolute failure. Sure, I had just triumphed in Toronto. But my marriages had been nothing but disastrous, and a successful marriage was still stuck in my head, my old-fashioned, proper-girl head, as the ultimate goal.
Separation had become the only option. And I had some thinking to do. It took a long time, but little by little, over the course of months, I started to feel a change. I asked myself, “What are you going to do with yourself when you get up in the morning, Diahann? Is it possible to be comfortable putting your two feet soundly on the floor and saying, ‘I’m single and I’m happy’? Because, my dear, there won’t be any shoes under the bed other than your own! So why don’t you try something new, and try living in a different way and keep the damn shoes away from the bed and see how it feels?”
And that’s exactly what I did. It was not easy at first. But then it got easier and more pleasant. I found the majority of my time was spent with more interesting people who stimulated me and made me laugh. And we would do the kinds of things I liked doing, cultural things rather than singularly sports-related things, traveling to stimulating places rather than purely relaxing ones. And when I was at a party or dinner, I could look across a room and recognize the kind of person I’d want to talk to, and I would be able to talk to him or her without the burden of having to answer to someone on my arm.
There was no golf, and better yet, there was no jealousy or guilt or mind games.
And I thought to myself, “How wonderful that I can finally enjoy being alone!”
You know, ten years ago, I did not understand women who chose to be alone. But now, when I walk through my condo door after a lovely evening, it just feels marvelous. The other night I was coming back from an evening out, and as I was walking through my lobby—dressed to kill, I might add—a neighbor saw me and said, “Oh, don’t you look wonderful, Diahann! We should have taken you with us!”
I didn’t know what to say. Was she suggesting that I would have been happier going out with her and her husband than alone at dinner with my friends? There’s an assumption in our society that a woman alone in a restaurant is lonely and that she needs a dinner partner, even if she has to rent one. I know women who do that.
It is a wonderful feeling to know your life is full just as it is.
That is not to say that I’m not open to relationships. I still have my beauty regimen before bed each night. I moisturize and brush my hair and enjoy my lovely lingerie.
It has taken some time to get to this present state of mind.
Some months after I left Vic with his lady in New York, I was back in Los Angeles, and I was still smarting from the loss of my marriage when I was sitting on the floor in the dark. I don’t know why I had even bothered calling to tell Vic at that moment that I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I had already stressed him out with complaints about my injured leg from a fall I’d taken in Sunset Bouleva
rd. I was, I guess, just a pain in the ass to him by that time. It just seemed that it was important health news to share with him, and I told him I didn’t want him reading about it in the papers first. I wanted him to know that this was happening to me and that it was not necessarily serious.
His reply was shocking. “Oh, shit! What next, Diahann?” he said. Then he slammed down the phone. Wouldn’t that make your knees crumble and put you on the floor? I was alone. I had cancer and I was out of work.
I think I knew that I’d eventually land on my feet.
But that night I was flat out on my ass.
Photographic Insert
Dad, me, Mom, Sylvie, and the O’Gilvie family in 1945, at Lake Drew resort in upstate New York.
Definitely counting on the legs, as I did not yet have access to couture. London, 1957. HULTON/DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
With friends at a fund-raiser at the Audubon Ballroom in New York—looking rather at ease even though I was half undressed. My father did not care for the costume.
With my parents and my first husband at an anniversary party at my parents’ home.
Absolutely nothing exceeded the experience of working with the “Chairman of the Board,” Frank Sinatra. Through his caring interaction with my four-year-old daughter, I was privileged to see the private side of him. BETTMAN/CORBIS
My daughter, Suzanne, trying to protect our privacy on Fire Island in a 1967 photo shoot for a magazine. The fur was just a bit over the top. © ADGER COWAN
Husband number four, Vic Damone, and I enjoyed attending red carpet events together—both of us peacocks. TIME/LIFE PICTURES/GETTY.
Husband number two, Freddie Glusman, at our Hotel Bel-Air wedding in 1974. We basically walked down the aisle and in opposite directions.
My friend Bob Goulet and me at the 22nd Tony Awards afterparty at Sardi’s. © RON GALELLA/WIRE IMAGE.
The genius behind Motown, Berry Gordy, at a Shirley Chisholm presidential fund-raiser at my Beverly Hills home.
With Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong in Paris during the shooting of the film Paris Blues. Duke treated me beautifully and decided to educate me in the finesse of dining on caviar. © HERMAN LEONARD PHOTOGRAPHY LLC/CTSIMAGES.COM
Paul Newman, me, Adele Ritt, and Kirk Douglas on the set of Paris Blues © DELTA/PIX INC./TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES
The cast of Hurry Sundown. Faye Dunaway, John Phillip Law, me, Robert Hooks, Jane Fonda, and Michael Caine. We were all thrilled to be on holiday in New Orleans.
Being made up on the set of The Split, in 1968. Gene Hackman, Donald Sutherland, and Jim Brown were costars. The plot left no public impression. I hope the legs did.
Circa 1960s—my favorite backstage postshow attire in the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel. Harper’s Bazaar chose to use this look in a fashion spread.
Sugar Ray Robinson and Diana Sands guest star on Julia. © BETTMAN/CORBIS
Me and my television son, Marc Copage, from the groundbreaking show Julia. Tumultuous times for both of us, and he was only five years old. © JOHN ENGSTEAD
With the charming Maurice Chevalier in the 1967 French-American television collaboration “C’est la Vie.” © AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC.
Bob Hope visits the set of Julia. I was always receptive to his counsel.
Presenting Zero Mostel with the Cue Magazine Entertainer of the Year Award in 1963 for his performance in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I won the very first award the previous year for No Strings. © BETTMAN/CORBIS.
Me and JFK. If I only knew then what I know about him now.
David Frost and me watching ourselves on different talk shows, a precursor to the new millennium of “TMI”—information overload. BILL RAY/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES
My second starring role on Broadway, created by Richard Rodgers, with my costar Richard Kiley. © RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN ORGANIZATION.
Working with the brilliant Geraldine Page in the Broadway production of Agnes of God, the first time a black actress had ever replaced a white actress.
Starring as Norma Desmond in the Toronto production of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard. © CATHERINE ASHMORE.
Ingrid Bergman, Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, me, and Rosalind Russell rehearsing for the 1969 Academy Awards—the director has our complete attention. © RON GALELLA FOR WIRE IMAGES.
Work hard, play hard—on my rental yacht: my musical director and great pal Lee Norris; the one and only Louise Adamo, who literally ran my life for over thirty years; and my personal manager and spark plug Roy Gerber, such a joy to be with—our working relationship lasted more than twenty-five years.
Deep sea fishing, which I adore—this time off the coast of Hawaii.
As one of the Delany sisters at around a hundred years old. Not my best look. To get it, I spent three hours in makeup every day. A long time, even for me.
On the set of Dynasty. Big shoulders, hair, and boobs were on parade while gracious John Forsythe proposed a toast, reminding everyone that I had once been nominated for an Academy Award as best actress. © CBS STUDIOS
Introducing my jewelry line, before the days of eBay.
The American Syndication TV Press Tour in 1994; finally learning the versatility of denim jeans. TAMMIE ARROYO/GETTY IMAGES
Brian, Jeffrey, and me celebrating my new eyewear line for B. Robinson.
Television’s first black bitch, Dominique Deveraux, on the TV series Dynasty. I loved every minute of it!
In the 1970s in my beaded Norman Norrell sweater dress. Zip it up and no jewelry was necessary. It now resides at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. © MILTON H. GREENE, © RENEWED 2008 JOSHUA GREENE.
Joan Collins gave me a bridal shower in 1986. When I walked in we both laughed at the similarity of our dresses. On Dynasty, this never would have happened.
My favorite of the four or five of my TV Guide covers. © MARIO CASILLI.
After the death of his second wife, I encouraged Dad to come visit Mom in Los Angeles after many years of estrangement. Her health was failing. But not her love for him.
My mother’s funeral in 2000 with Dad and my sister, Lydia.
With my friends Selbra Hayes and Roscoe Lee Browne just before Roscoe left to visit Laurence Fishburne during The Matrix in 2003. Roscoe had a commanding delivery that captivated everyone, including my little grandson.
The 30th annual Vision Awards to Fight Blindness gala in 2003. FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES.
With Harry Belafonte at my opening at Feinstein’s at the Regency. It was my first intimate venue since my early years in the business. It was wonderful to be supported by my old friend.
Award presenters Carlos Santana and me at the 34th NAACP Image Awards in 2003. KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGE.
With Dionne Warwick at Feinstein’s. Clearly this was not the moment I wake up before I put on my makeup. I was in high cover-up mode because my face was bloated from a cortisone shot I took for laryngitis. You do what you have to do in my business.
With Angela Bassett. When she first moved to Hollywood we shared the same beauty salon. I watched her develop herself into a beautiful and sensual star.
With Vernon Jordan, who is one of the most naturally elegant, charismatic men I’ve ever met.
Backstage at the Regency with Tony Bennett, who I think is the greatest popular singer we have. He understands the discipline and the passion that is necessary to perform. We look pretty good at our age.
Holding my grandson! Overwhelmed by the feeling of holding my child’s child.
Well, the year before that little incident, something happened that I could never forget or forgive. It made drinking more appealing to me. And it definitely made me re-evaluate our marriage.
Before leaving town one day, Vic told me to give his financial adviser a call. He thought I should have dinner with him and his wife while he was away. So the adviser called and suggested a very good restaurant, and I said I’d be delighted. I liked his wife v
ery much and was looking forward to seeing them. When I arrived at the restaurant, my heart went into my throat because I saw this man was sitting alone, waiting for me. I felt strange immediately. My impulse was to flee, but I didn’t. I said hello and sat down at the table as if everything were fine.
“And where is your wife?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s not feeling well,” he said.
“That’s a shame,” I said. “I wish you had told me that so we could reschedule.”
“No, no, this is fine,” he said.
There was something about his manner that got my antenna up very quickly. He was overly solicitous and made me so uncomfortable that when he went to pour some wine, I turned over my glass.
“I don’t care for any,” I said.
“Oh, come on, don’t be silly,” he replied. “We’re going to have a wonderful evening and it’s a wonderful wine. Try some.”
I said, “You know, I really don’t want any wine. No, thank you.”
He continued to be obnoxious in ways that made me even more uncomfortable. Finally I got up and said I was leaving and told him good night. I was shocked to find he was following me to the parking lot. And when I opened the door to my car, he forced his way in beside me.
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