Soon after Shirley was canceled, Marty and I were having dinner at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel when, all of a sudden, I noticed that Fred Silverman was having dinner in one of the booths along with three women.
I turned round to Marty and said, “That asshole! I’m going to go over to him and tell him exactly what I think of him!”
Marty went chalk white. “Please, Shirley, please don’t do that.”
I calmed down, we finished our dinner, but as we were leaving, I strode straight over to Silverman’s table and gave him a piece of my mind. “You acted like you were my best friend, but you never said a word to me when the show was canceled!”
Silverman was speechless while I raged on. “And why was the show canceled, anyway?” I stormed.
“I . . . I tried to get in touch with you,” Silverman spluttered.
“Sure.” I stalked away.
Leaving Silverman in shocked silence.
Marty, who had never before seen me in one of my more forthright moments, said, “Are you crazy, Shirley?”
For once, it was my turn to be the crazy one in our marriage and take Marty utterly by surprise! And I was glad.
In the eighties, like many mothers, I was compelled to grapple with the tragedy of drug abuse. Ryan, always a frail and asthmatic child, had become addicted to marijuana and to cocaine. In retrospect, the signs were writ large: he started sleeping for most of the day, then staying out for most of the night. His school marks plummeted; so did his attendance. And Marty discovered that more than $2,000 was missing from his cash box. Only months later (when we had established that Ryan was taking drugs), after much probing on my part, did Ryan finally admit that he had stolen the money to fuel his drug habit.
Long before Ryan made his confession to me, Marty and I suspected that he might be taking drugs. But whatever our suspicions, Ryan wasn’t admitting anything, and we did not have conclusive proof. Only when Patrick came by one night and, with our consent, searched Ryan’s room, did we find evidence that he was doing cocaine. The Jack Cassidy habit of substance abuse had been handed down to his son Ryan, and I was devastated.
Marty did extensive research—one of the many things at which he is excellent—and, in November 1985, unearthed an innovative rehab center in another state far from California. The program offered there was for a year, and during that time Ryan would be banned from communicating with the outside world. Which, of course, included me. As the ultimate non-Jewish Jewish mother, the prospect of having all communication between me and my beloved youngest son severed was unbearable. But I knew that if Ryan was to beat his drug habit, I had to cut him loose from my apron strings and give him the chance to save himself.
Four days after Thanksgiving, an emotional time of the year under the best of circumstances, Ryan and I flew across the country together to the rehab center. When I met the director of the rehab center and he gave me further information about the program and what lay in store for Ryan, I almost grabbed Ryan and took him straight back to the airport. But I knew I had to keep strong for his sake. So I gritted my teeth and said good-bye to him. Soon after, his suitcase was shipped home to our house, full of Ryan’s belongings, even his toothbrush, as the rehab center dictated that he could bring nothing with him from his own home.
Once inside the facility, Ryan’s head was shaved and he was consigned to sleeping on the floor in a dormitory. Later, he would graduate to sleeping in a bunk. All in all, the psychology behind this rehab center mirrored that of the military: tear a new recruit down, then build him up.
Ryan was allowed no contact with his family, and when I committed the grave offense of writing to him myself, my letters were sent home to me, unopened. According to the rehab center’s strict rules, I wasn’t even permitted to speak to my son on the telephone.
However, the rehab center’s director did take my calls, and we talked continually, updating me on Ryan’s progress. After five months, the management made an exception, and I was allowed to see Ryan at last.
The moment I set eyes on him, I was unnerved. He was rake thin, his head was shaved, and he was smoking heavily. He reminded me of a prison inmate. He never stopped talking and almost seemed high. I was terrified, but reluctant as I was to leave him, I returned to Los Angeles with a heavy heart.
Ryan remained at the rehab center for another thirteen months, then Patrick, who was deeply concerned about him, flew out to see him. When Patrick arrived, he didn’t like the condition in which he found Ryan and swore on the spot to take him home right away.
Problem was, Ryan wanted to be true to his pledge to stay the course at the rehab center and didn’t want to let down his friends there by cutting, running, and abandoning them. But Patrick’s mind was made up. This particular rehab program wasn’t good for his brother, and Patrick was taking him home with him, no matter what.
Ryan resisted Patrick’s pleas to leave the center until, in the eleventh hour, shortly before his plane was due to take off, Patrick told Ryan that his car was waiting outside, and that Ryan ought to leave with him. Ryan plucked up his courage and informed the man in charge that he was leaving. He was going home. As he did, every single resident in the place turned his back on Ryan in disdain.
As Patrick told us later, Ryan then trudged upstairs to his room, but once he got there had to crawl on his hands and knees to get his belongings, as residents were forbidden to walk upright around their own bunks. Then he threw everything into a trash bag, picked it up, and followed Patrick into the car.
When Ryan’s plane landed at Los Angeles airport, we were all there, waiting for him. As he deplaned, I saw immediately that he had undergone an immense change. His hair was in a crew cut, his clothes were torn, and he looked for all the world as if he had been in a combat zone.
Once Ryan arrived home, he went from room to room, touching everything, the tears running down his cheeks as he did. When I think of that day, I can’t help crying myself.
Since then, I am so happy to say, Ryan has been clean.
In 1988, I sang “God Bless America” for President Reagan at the last night of the Republican National Convention. The occasion was moving, and I was honored to be singing for the president. At the same time, I couldn’t help remembering one night at Chasen’s with Jack, many, many years before.
Ronald Reagan was then president of the Screen Actors Guild, he was having dinner that night at Chasen’s, as well. Later on that evening, he and Jack ended up in the men’s room at the same time.
Jack, who’d known Reagan for years, said, “How are you doing, Ronnie?”
“I’m doing dreadfully, Jack. I’ve got no work, and I don’t think I’m ever going to work again. It’s terrible.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that, Ronnie” was Jack’s heartfelt reaction.
Jack came back to the table, told me the story, and, although he liked Ronnie, noted, “He probably isn’t the best actor in the world.”
Jack was probably right, but now Ronald Reagan was president, and here I was, singing for him. Afterward, I slept in the White House, in a bedroom adjoining Reagan’s playroom, which housed his pinball machine, and which was decorated with pictures of the movie stars with whom he’d worked.
That same night in the White House, Nancy Reagan came up to me and said, “You and I started in Hollywood at the same time. Look what’s happened to you!”
I glanced around the White House. “Look what happened to you, Nancy!”
In all, I sang for President Reagan three times. Although my family were Democrats, I’ve always been a Republican. But I also sang for President Johnson, when I performed Oklahoma! in a shortened version, which we enacted on the front lawn of the White House. President Johnson had his dogs with him, and we chatted about our mutual love for man’s best friend.
The first American president for whom I ever sang was President Eisenhower. Jack and I sang duets for him and Mamie Eisenhower at the White House, and afterward we joined the president and the first lady fo
r dinner, along with twenty other people. Mamie was funny and bossy. In a way, she made fun of the president, saying, “Stop eating with that fork!” and “Why don’t you talk to so-and-so.”
After Gerald Ford was no longer president, I attended a reception for him at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he was staying on his own. Afterward, to my surprise, he came over to me and asked me to dance.
After we danced, to my amazement he said, “Oh, that was lovely! Can you come to my room for tea tomorrow?”
I was nonplussed, but I accepted.
At four the next afternoon, sharp, I went up to the former president’s room, nervous about what was about to unfold between us.
But Ford was ahead of me. As he opened the door to the suite and motioned me to sit down at the already-laid tea table, he said, “I just want to talk to you about your career and your business.”
We were alone together, and I was still nervous that he was about to make a pass at me. But, true to his word, he just asked me questions about the business. When it was time for me to leave, he simply shook my hand and said, “I enjoyed meeting you. I enjoyed dancing with you. Thank you.”
I’ve also sung for both President Bushes. I sang at the Republican National Convention for the first President Bush, before he was elected president. He was lovely and Barbara Bush was funny, with a great sense of humor.
One time, after a concert, Marty and I went to a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Marty went up to Barbara and said, “Hello, my name is Marty Ingels. I’m Shirley Jones’s husband.”
And Barbara said, “My name is Barbara Bush. And I’m George Bush’s wife. Don’t you hate these parties? So boring.”
In the seventies and the eighties, Marty carved out two new and lucrative careers for himself. First, he became the world’s first celebrity broker, and it happened quite by chance.
It all began in 1972, when an old friend from the army, Larry Crane, called him, begging for advice. Crane desperately needed a big star with a great voice to be the spokesman for his record company.
Marty listened, waiting for the punch line. Soon enough, Larry told him that he was calling from a New York restaurant where, to his intense frustration, for the entire evening he had been sitting at a table opposite the one where the perfect spokesman for his record company was sitting: none other than my old friend Rossano Brazzi, Latin lover supreme, an actor and singer with a perfectly pitched baritone voice.
Marty listened, puzzled. Why didn’t Larry just stroll over to Rossano’s table, introduce himself, and make his pitch to him, himself? Larry demurred and said that he just wasn’t the kind of guy who could do something like that. Marty, however, was born for the job, Larry said.
Marty was hugely flattered, just as Larry had intended him to be, and after hanging up, Marty called the restaurant and demanded to be put straight through to Mr. Rosanno Brazzi, who was dining there. Within seconds Marty was on the line to Brazzi. Without introducing himself or evoking my name or Dark Purpose, the movie Rossano and I had made together, he informed Rossano, “I should be awarded a Nobel Prize for having tracked you down here!”
Rossano started laughing, Marty chimed in, and within moments Marty had made the pitch on Larry’s behalf, and Rossano had agreed to the deal. Only one problem, Rossano said, where was Marty right at that moment? And who would be giving him his contract?
“After you hang up, a gentleman will come to your table and hand you his card, and that will be the man who will give you your contract,” Marty said in an inspired moment of quick thinking.
Then he called Larry back, and at Marty’s behest, Larry walked a couple of feet across the restaurant to Rossano, handed him his card, and within a week, Larry had signed Rossano Brazzi to be the star spokesman for his record company. From then on, Larry Crane considered Marty to be the hero of the year.
Over the next few months, Marty repeated his miracle over and over and, at different times, convinced a dazzling assortment of stars, including Bing Crosby, Buddy Greco, Don Ho, Arthur Fiedler, Rudy Vallee, Jerry Lee Lewis, Trini Lopez, and Louis Prima to work with Larry Crane in New York. To Marty, the process was so simple that it resembled taking candy from a baby.
Along the way, he realized that he had unwittingly identified a big gap in the market: companies wanted to hire celebrities to promote them, but most celebrities were protected by talent agents who didn’t want to let them out of their sight, never mind make a deal for them to work with a commercial enterprise.
Marty vowed to change all that. With my encouragement, he cleared out one of our bedrooms and put a desk and two phone lines in it. After Advertising Age in New York ran a short feature about Marty and his new celebrity brokering business, his phones started ringing off the hook. Most of the requests were for Marty to link a caller who represented a charity with a celebrity spokesperson.
Although Marty wouldn’t be paid by the charities, he went ahead and started working for the charities anyway. He hired John Wayne to work for the Cancer Foundation, Robert Mitchum for the Boys Club, Burt Lancaster to work with UNESCO. On the commercial front, he arranged for commercials for Howard Cosell for Canada Dry, Robert Wagner for Timex, and Orson Welles to make a commercial for Lincoln.
Marty’s biggest challenge of all, we both thought, was to convince Cary Grant to narrate a documentary on the American presidency. Unfortunately, Marty never did seal the deal with Cary, but the journey was interesting, and our brief contact with Cary Grant, fascinating.
We invited Cary to come over to our house in Beverly Hills so that we could discuss the potential deal with him in a relaxed, informal setting. But on the day of our meeting with Cary, Marty was so nervous that he didn’t think he would be able to say even one word to Cary when he arrived. So he asked me to step in and save the day. I agreed.
Cary appeared, looking as handsome and urbane as ever, and he and I sat on the living-room couch, and Marty sat opposite us. Then our “conversation” began.
“Shirley, would you ask Cary how he feels about narrating the documentary,” Marty said.
“Cary, did you hear what Marty asked? He wants to know how you feel about narrating the documentary,” I said.
And so it went, like something out of a bad Kafka book. However, for one moment Cary and I did communicate for real. Seeing how handsome he still was, I asked why he didn’t still appear in movies.
Cary sighed. “I just don’t look like Cary Grant anymore.”
There was no answer to that, so I remained silent.
Then we went back to talking about his narrating the documentary. At least, I did, prompted by Marty, with Cary responding. After about half an hour of excruciating dialogue between Cary and me, orchestrated by Marty every step of the way, Cary got up and went into our guest bathroom.
While we waited for him to come out, Marty and I exchanged gloomy glances. This was not going well.
Then Cary emerged from the bathroom, a big grin on his face. “Shirley, Marty, everybody should have what you have in your guest bathroom!”
Marty and I were dumbstuck.
“That hook on the back of the guest-bathroom door,” Cary went on. “Wonderful. That way you can take your coat off and hang it up while you are . . .”
After Cary left, Marty had a special sign made and put it under the hook, which read CARY GRANT’S FAVORITE HOOK.
But before Cary did leave, I remember his turning around and saying, “I hope you both know that, from now on, we are going to be living in a world of plastic.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, either.
Not booking Cary Grant was one of Marty’s few failures in the celebrity broking business. He connected such clients as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joan Collins, Muhammad Ali, Joe Montana, and Scott Carpenter to advertisement campaigns, and I was hugely proud of him.
One morning in 1982, Marty was casually fielding a call on behalf of his client Robert Culp. Then Marty was disconnected and called back, but by mistake reached the telephone num
ber of Gordon Hunt, an executive at Hanna-Barbera.
“We’ve got the rights to Pac-Man!” was the first thing Gordon Hunt said to Marty. Marty was intensely puzzled. What had a luggage company to do with Robert Culp’s next job? he asked himself.
So Marty launched into his pitch for Robert Culp, only to have Gordon Hunt stop him in his tracks and compliment him on his voice.
Marty does, indeed, have a remarkable voice, strong, rich, gravelly, and with a marked Brooklyn accent. All of which caused Gordon Hunt to offer him the chance to become the voice of Pac-Man in the cartoon series Pac-Man.
The company had already auditioned 173,000 voices for the part of Pac-Man, but none of them had been right, Gordon Hunt explained. But Marty, with his evocative Brooklyn accent, and his comedian’s perfect sense of timing, was Pac-Man incarnate, Gordon Hunt declared.
Marty got the job as Pac-Man, and for two wonderful years traveled once a week to the studio in his pajamas, then recorded three weeks of episodes of Pac-Man’s voice in an afternoon. He made more money from being the voice of a cartoon character than he had made in his entire career as a comedian. So he gave up his celebrity brokering business, and no longer dealt with a string of Hollywood legends.
Through the years, I’ve met other show-business legends and have drawn my own conclusions about them.
In 1969, I appeared on This Is Tom Jones with Tom Jones and absolutely loved him, but we didn’t have an affair. We sang together, both having the last name Jones, both coming from Wales, and when I confessed to him that I had never been to Wales, he charmingly said, “You have to come there. And I’ll show you around. . . .” The meaning was clear, but I wasn’t in the least bit tempted.
Shirley Jones: A Memoir Page 18