Shirley Jones: A Memoir

by Jones, Shirley

  He promised, too, that he would clear the set, which he did when we eventually shot the scene. During my nude scene, Lloyd Bridges, my costar, was kind and understanding and helped me not to feel too self-conscious. Thanks to him, the scene went well, and when Silent Night, Lonely Night was released, I was thrilled to be nominated for my first Emmy.

  I did my second nude scene with Lloyd as well, when we made The Happy Ending together in 1969. I played Flo, a good-time girl who’s had a series of affairs with married men; our costar was Bobby Darin, who played the hustler Franco.

  Bobby always seemed to me to be an extremely tortured man, despite his charm and great talent. As we grew closer and closer as friends, he gave me the great compliment of confiding his biggest secret to me. I became the first person to whom he revealed his shattering discovery that the woman who he had thought was his sister was in reality his mother. “That has ruined my life,” he said. “All my life, everyone has lied to me. To grow up believing that the woman you thought was your mother was actually your grandmother, and your sister was really your mother, and then only finding out the news when you were an adult, is devastating.”

  Much later, he was diagnosed with a form of blood poisoning and was angry that he was going to die. “I hate everybody I am leaving behind,” he said to me.

  By the time I made The Happy Ending I wasn’t in the least bit inhibited anymore about doing a nude scene, nor was Jack in the least bit jealous that I did it. In fact, he was actually turned on by my appearing on-screen in the nude.

  Soon, though, I would give him something tangible about which to be jealous—my very first, and extremely adulterous, love affair with another man.

  EIGHT

  Out of My Dreams

  By 1965, Hollywood studios were no longer making many blockbuster musicals, and worse still, I wasn’t getting the kind of roles I’d hoped for after I won the Academy Award for Elmer Gantry.

  So I took a deep breath, braced myself, and signed to headline in my own all-singing, all-dancing cabaret show at the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas.

  The show was due to open in April 1965. In those days, Las Vegas shows ran for five or six weeks, so when I attended my first rehearsal, I knew I was there for the long haul, and I was on my own, as Jack was in Manhattan, starring on Broadway with Carol Burnett in Fade Out—Fade In.

  My show was a potpourri of my singing songs from all my movies and dancing in a copy of the sexy slip I wore in Elmer Gantry. I enjoyed rehearsing for my act and looked forward to opening night.

  My sons were with me in Las Vegas, along with the nanny, and apart from missing Jack, only one other factor disturbed me: as I danced and sang my way through rehearsals at the Flamingo Hotel every single day, a bald, not particularly attractive, older man sat in the front row and watched me like a hawk.

  On my last day of rehearsals, Hal Belfer, the entertainment manager of the Flamingo, sidled up to me and said, “Shirley, that gentleman who always sits in the front row watching your rehearsal is madly smitten with you. He is a very special guest of the Flamingo and owns five oil wells, so I’d appreciate it if after your opening night, you would go and have a drink with him, then go gambling with him.”

  I was shocked, but not surprised. Like everyone else who played Vegas during those years, I knew the score. The Mafia ruled Las Vegas with a rod of iron. (The Flamingo, of course, was once owned by Bugsy Siegel.) Socializing with wealthy gamblers after the show was expected of entertainers like me. Gordon MacRae’s wife, Sheila, was told exactly the same thing by the bosses when she played Las Vegas, to gamble with special high rollers after her show. That’s how things were in Las Vegas in those days. I knew better than not to cooperate with the all-powerful men who ran the town, so, much as I didn’t want to, I agreed to gamble with the bald gentleman after my show.

  Jack didn’t come to my opening night, as he was still working on Broadway. But true to my agreement with the management, after I’d finished my first show, I had a drink with the bald gentleman.

  He was pleasant enough and told me about his business, the oil wells he owned, and I told him about my two children, Shaun and Patrick, and about my husband, Jack Cassidy. Undeterred by my marital status, he asked me to gamble with him. Mindful of my agreement with Hal Belfer and the Flamingo Hotel, despite my better instincts, I accepted his invitation.

  As we sat down at the tables, he handed me a wad of cash and insisted that I use it to gamble. I protested, but he wouldn’t listen, so I gave in reluctantly. We placed our bets, and to my surprise, I won. So did he. And at the end of the evening, he handed me $500 and said, “It’s yours.”

  The following night, the same bald man was in the front row of my show again. When it was over, as the audience applauded me, I was showered with green flowers. Then a messenger ran up to the stage with armfuls of gifts, all in various shades of green. All of this, I discovered later, was from the bald man, who had, in our conversation the previous night, discovered that green was my favorite color.

  By that time, I had learned that bald man was Mike Davis. A larger-than-life character, he was the owner of Tiger Oil and really did own oil wells. No wonder Hal Belfer had asked me to gamble with him after the show. He was a high roller, and that meant big bucks to the Flamingo Hotel. I knew better than to flout the management by refusing to sit at the tables with Mr. Davis after my show every night.

  So each night, when Mike and I had finished gambling, I went upstairs to my suite and there was another gift from him spread out on the bed: a mink coat, a diamond bracelet, emerald earrings. I returned every gift to him as politely as possible, but he refused to give up and the gifts from him kept on coming.

  My show ran over the Easter weekend, and Shaun and Patrick, their nanny, and I were sitting round the hotel pool, having fun, when Mike Davis suddenly materialized, carrying a vast basket of hand-blown Easter eggs. The boys were thrilled with his gift, even more so when they discovered that inside each egg was a $100 bill.

  I was touched and thanked Mike profusely, but as more gifts arrived for me, I carried on turning them down as graciously as possible. But he kept pressuring me to let him buy me something, anything, just so that I had something from him.

  In the end, I capitulated to the full force of his will and allowed him to buy me a hand-cut emerald ring and another ring with a precious green stone (but not an emerald). I accepted Mike’s gifts as politely as was possible.

  To my relief, he never once made a pass at me.

  Finally, at the very end of the run of my Las Vegas show, Jack flew into town and came to see the show at last. Afterward, he and I and a bunch of our friends had cocktails together in the hotel lounge. Meanwhile, Mike Davis was at his usual table across the room, gambling with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now and again, he caught my eye. I looked away, but I knew patently well that he wanted me to come over and gamble with him as I always did. But I was with Jack and our friends, so I studiously ignored Mike.

  Finally, Hal Belfer came over to our table and said, “Mr. Davis would like you to come over to his table and do a little gambling with him.”

  It was time for me to make a stand. I drew myself up to my full height and said, “Hal, this is my husband, Jack Cassidy. Please give Mr. Davis my apologies and tell him that I can’t gamble with him tonight as my husband is here with me.”

  Hal went over to Mike Davis and broke the news to him. Whereupon Mike stood up, ripped a $100 bill into pieces, and made for the exit. As he did, he kept ripping up $100 bills and throwing the pieces all over the casino floor. Security came over and warned him he was going to cause a riot, but Mike didn’t care.

  “I can do what I want,” he said, and threw another wad of ripped-up $100 bills onto the floor, while crowds of onlookers dived to pick up the pieces, pocket them, and stick them together again afterward.

  The very next day, I discovered that I was pregnant (with my son Ryan, after Jack and I had had a romantic night during my Vegas run), then I had to le
ave for Lake Tahoe where I was doing my last engagement of the tour. A few days later, Mike Davis called me up there, and I flatly informed him that our relationship—such as it was—was over.

  He was devastated and said, “Listen, if you agree to see me again, I’ll give you an oil well.”

  “No, Mike, I can’t see you again. I’m going to have a baby, Tahoe is my last gig, and I’m married to Jack.”

  After a moment’s silence, Mike finally said, “Don’t you know your husband is fucking every woman in Manhattan?” Mike couldn’t wait to tell me every detail of Jack’s manifold infidelities.

  “I don’t want to hear that,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know why you are being so true to him when he is fucking everyone in town.”

  “That’s my business, not yours.” I hung up on Mike.

  When I told Jack what had happened, he just laughed. “Take the oil well, Mouse. And if he really wants to see you, I’ll come with you.”

  Jack’s pragmatic advice aside, I never saw Mike Davis again.

  However, after Jack died, Mike called me up and offered to fly anyone I wanted to Los Angeles for the funeral. He also offered to pay for all the funeral expenses. I thanked him, but turned him down as politely as I could and told him that the funeral was not going to be big. Soon after that, Phyllis McGuire, the youngest of the McGuire Sisters, who gained notoriety through her relationship with mobster Sam Giancana, became Mike Davis’s long-term companion.

  After I finished playing Tahoe, Ryan, our third son, was born. I was delighted, and so was Jack, although sometimes the stress of having three little boys under one roof became too much for him. Brought up by his strict mother to be fastidious in the extreme, Jack imposed his own rigid standards on the boys. They weren’t allowed to make a single noise all morning when he was sleeping the day away after a drunken binge.

  He wanted everything to be neat and always in its own place, but that was a tall order for three normal, rambunctious little boys. Jack’s high standards were impossible to maintain, and if he came home to find a toy or two scattered on the floor, he invariably erupted in anger. As he screamed at our hapless little boys, who were shaking from head to foot out of fear of their father, I couldn’t help wondering if he was screaming at them or at the universe for not granting him the movie career he craved.

  Meanwhile, I wasn’t having much of a movie career anymore myself. Instead, in the winter of 1966, I signed to do a tour of The Sound of Music and took my sons with me, along with their nanny. As always, Jack was appearing on Broadway, this time in It’s a Bird . . . It’s a Plane . . . It’s Superman, with Linda Lavin and Patricia Marand, and this time the rumors that he was having an affair with an actress in the show were deafening. I was led to understand by “well-wishers” that this was not Jack’s usual type of lighthearted sexual fling but a full-blown love affair, and that the woman was doing everything in her power to incite him to divorce me and marry her.

  Whatever the truth, I intended to remain married to Jack, no matter what or whom. There had always been other women in Jack’s life, I knew, but this time was different. He was pulling away from me emotionally, and I could sense it in the very fibers of my being. And to top that, I also had the feeling that he was disappointed that I hadn’t had an affair with Mike Davis. In a strange, perverse way, Jack actually wanted me to be unfaithful to him.

  The Sound of Music, which began in January 1967, took me to theaters all over the East Coast, and we usually traveled from venue to venue by car. Inevitably, my costar Stephen Elliott (who would go on to play Liza Minnelli’s father in Arthur) was by my side. At forty-seven, he was a complete gentleman, erudite, well read, charming, Captain Von Trapp to my Maria.

  I suppose what happened next was inevitable.

  It all began with a party in Stephen’s room after the show’s opening night. My own three kids, who were traveling with me, were fast asleep in my room, watched over by their nanny.

  Gradually, all the guests left, and suddenly Steve and I were alone together. Then he grabbed me and kissed me, really kissed me. Despite myself, despite my marriage, despite my love for my husband, I had to admit that Steve’s kisses felt more than good. When he led me to the bed, things went further; I acquiesced.

  For the first time in my marriage, I was unfaithful to Jack. And I didn’t feel guilty at all. At last, the goose was doing the same thing as the gander. . . .

  Against my better judgment and all my principles, I enjoyed my affair with Stephen Elliott. He was bright, intellectual, and had a great sense of humor. We talked a great deal, and I learned a lot from him. Unlike Jack—who was all about Jack—Stephen was riveted by me and wanted to know everything about me. He studied me intently, my character, my desires, my likes, and dislikes.

  Unlike Jack, Stephen was 100 percent interested in me. In how I looked, what I wore, what I said, where I went, how I handled my kids. Whereas Jack was only interested in Jack.

  Within a few days, Stephen knew me better than Jack ever had, even down to observing, “You are beautiful everywhere, except your feet.” I felt loved, wanted, and he made me laugh (my fatal weakness).

  Toward the end of the tour, Jack came up to visit me and to see the show. Afterward, we had dinner with Stephen, and he and Jack appeared to get on really well, and I was relieved.

  However, back in our room, when I was already in bed and Jack was getting undressed, he suddenly turned round and said, “So how is your affair with Stephen going?”

  “What did you say?” I said, playing dumb.

  “You are having an affair with him, aren’t you?”

  I had no intention of confessing the truth. What had happened between Stephen and me belonged to us, not Jack. It was our private story and I wanted it to stay that way.

  So I looked Jack straight in the eyes and said, “No, Jack. Why, in heaven’s name, are you saying that?”

  “Come on, Shirl, it was really obvious to me tonight.”

  “Jack,” I said firmly, “Stephen and I are good friends, and that’s it.”

  Jack smiled. “Sure you are . . . but it’s okay.”

  He knew—he just knew!—and he was almost thrilled. Later on, he interrogated me about what happened between Stephen and me in bed and made it obvious that he wanted to know all the details of my sex life with Stephen. Moreover, the thought of my having an affair with another man had clearly made Jack even hotter for me.

  But I still kept denying that I had had an affair with Stephen Elliott. It belonged to me, not Jack, and that was how I intended it to stay. You could say that I conducted my extramarital affair with Stephen in exactly the same way as Jack had conducted his extramarital affairs with all of his women: no guilt, no confessions, and no repercussions. I guess I learned to do that just by watching Jack and following his example.

  In the end, Stephen ended it between us. “You are still very much in love with your husband, and that’s obvious,” he said.

  I admitted that he was right, and I was. I loved Jack as much as ever, but I had had fun with Stephen. Everyone in the show probably knew the truth. Stephen was single, and afterward he said that what happened between us had been wonderful. And in the true show-business tradition of “On location, nothing counts,” when the show ended, so did our affair.

  It was a charming interlude, but my heart was never in it.

  Despite Jack’s nonchalance regarding my affair with Stephen, he still wanted to remain married to me. To that end, he suggested that we work together again, which was financially beneficial to us, but also meant that I would be transported back to the early days of our love affair, when we worked together on the European tour of Oklahoma! and Jack was my costar and my mentor.

  So Jack came up with the idea of our doing a tour of Wait Until Dark, in which I would play the part of the blind girl, Susy Hendrix, and he would play the villain, Harry Roat Jr. Jack had had plenty of experience in playing villains during his career (from Macheath in The Threepenny Opera
to the murderer Leonard Vole in Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution), but I had never played a blind girl before.

  I spent three weeks at The Lighthouse, a New York center for the blind, where I studied blind people. I learned that no two blind people handle their disability in the same way, and that a blind woman is more likely to veer to the left, and a blind man is more likely to veer to the right. I also consulted with Lee Remick, who created the part of Susy Hendrix in the original Broadway production of Wait Until Dark.

  I prepared for the part of Susy by learning to keep my eyes out of focus, a difficult thing to do, but crucial when playing someone blind.

  Jack was brilliant as Roat, and during one particularly harrowing scene, he had to hit me hard, something neither of us relished. But the scene was crucial to the plot, so we both went along with it.

  Before the tour began, we held a full dress rehearsal for our family and friends. Ryan, who was then just two years old, was in the audience, in retrospect, an unwise decision on our part. When we got to the scene in which Jack went for it and started to hit me, Ryan began screaming pitifully, “Look, Daddy’s hitting Mommy! Daddy’s hitting Mommy!”

  The entire audience turned and stared at him in horror. Jack and I froze for a second, then fled from the stage into the auditorium, where Ryan was crying his heart out. We both held him, comforted him, and assured him, “Don’t be upset, baby, it’s only a play.”

  After that, we made sure that our sons never saw either of us in any of our performances that might upset them. And I banned them from seeing me in Elmer Gantry until they were way into their teens.

  During the run of Wait Until Dark I found that working with Jack was wonderful, as always. I learned so much from him when we were onstage together—how to move better, how to project more. His stage presence was magical, and some of it always rubbed off on me.