We had several scenes together, one of which was at a restaurant where my character Barbara shocked Natalie’s character Mari by admitting that, besides my face-lift, I’d had my vagina tightened. Natalie decided she wanted to do a spit take with her water. We had to repeat it several times so our director, the prolific and terrific Gil Cates, could get the shot. “This is so much fun,” Natalie said as she spit out her water again and again. “This is what the vaudevillians have been getting to do for years.”
During that scene, a question about the dialogue came up. My character was supposed to use the word screwing in one of her lines. This sounded a little harsh to both of us. Someone suggested laying, which seemed dated. Suddenly, Natalie had an idea. “You know, what about bangin’? Some of R.J.’s card-playing buddies use that expression.” (Everyone called Natalie’s husband Robert Wagner “R.J.”) Bangin’ was perfect. Natalie had nailed it.
After The Last Married Couple in America wrapped, I was offered a role in a great Neil Simon comedy called Chapter Two. I had played Alan Arkin’s wife on Neil’s hilarious TV special, The Trouble with People, and I was looking forward to working with this superb writer again. Chapter Two was directed by marvelous Robert Moore, who had directed the majority of the early Rhoda episodes, and it starred Marsha Mason, James Caan, and Joe Bologna. It was fun being reunited with James after Freebie and the Bean, as well as finally getting the opportunity to work with Joe, who had been up for the part of Joe Gerard on Rhoda.
In Chapter Two, I played a soap opera actress who tries to have an affair with Joe Bologna’s character. As Rhoda Morgenstern, I had been unlucky in love for so long that this was a nice change. I could swap my eccentric clothes for something more sophisticated and sexy (in one scene all I “wore” was a bed sheet). As excited as I was to do the film, there was a catch—a bathing suit scene. Much worse than a sheet. With my butt? It would be Cellulite on Parade in movie theaters nationwide. I had to get into shape.
Several of my pals from the Reseda roller rink, including Kathy Smith, who later became a nationwide workout aficionado, knew a personal trainer who specialized in working with movie stars. Personal training was new, and I liked the idea of hiring someone to whip me into shape for the role. Tony Cacciotti, the recommended trainer, had worked with John Ritter, Richard Gere, and John Travolta, three of the hottest actors in the business at the time.
When I called Tony to ask if he trained women as well, he told me he did but that he was unfamiliar with The Mary Tyler Moore Show or Rhoda and was therefore unaware of my size and shape. It turned out that the following day we would be in Beverly Hills at the same time. I was getting my hair colored at Jon Peters Salon, and Tony had a lunch appointment nearby, so he agreed to drop by the beauty shop. Well, he’d get to see the real me—my hair a mess, wearing a homely salon smock.
When Tony walked in to Jon Peters, I was struck by how attractive he was. He was a great-looking Italian-American guy with thick dark hair and beautiful, soulful hazel eyes. He was wearing a yellow-and-blue-striped rugby shirt with a white collar, which couldn’t hide his impressive physique.
I did my best to ignore his looks and focused on the problem at hand. I got down to business. “Okay, I have this movie coming up, and I need to get my body into shape for a bathing suit scene.” Then I lowered my voice. “Especially my thighs and butt,” I added.
I started to stand up from the hairdresser’s chair so Tony could see the problem for himself. He waved me back down. “Sit. I can see from here.” That bad, huh? I thought. He certainly had his work cut out for him.
I had no idea what to expect from working with a trainer. “Let’s try one session,” Tony suggested. “If you like it, we’ll continue.”
A few days later, he came out to my beach house. He brought weights with him and set up a little workout bench, and we got going. Tony was impressed by how strong I was.
“I used to be a dancer,” I explained.
“Well,” Tony said, “those muscles are still under there somewhere.”
To find them, we were going to have do some deep excavating through layers of fat. Rhoda would have hated it! Just imagine the wisecracks she’d make as she kvetched her way through the whole session. But from the very first day, I loved working out with Tony. He was so knowledgeable and encouraging. Every day we did a basic workout of weights, stretching, and a run on the beach, and then each session we would do a different activity. We’d work on parallel bars and rings at Muscle Beach in Venice. We did gymnastics, calisthenics, or yoga. Tony was a dedicated devotee of yoga. We worked out six days a week, and on Sundays I took a long walk on the beach to recover.
Tony was a big advocate of health food, and rather than dieting, he got me eating properly and drinking a lot of juice made from fresh tomatoes or carrots. I drank so much carrot juice that I acquired an orange glow, which unfortunately didn’t look so hot on camera. But this new strict regimen of healthy food and exercise definitely produced results: The visible changes in my body were impressive. Within three weeks I began to see serious changes in my muscle tone and waistline. I was so excited about my body and the effectiveness of my wonderful coach that I completely overlooked just how physically beautiful he was.
Even though he was my trainer, I felt that Tony and I were colleagues. He had been an actor, director, and stuntman, always maintaining a lifelong interest in physical fitness. He’d started out like me, in New York theater, both on Broadway and off. He’d appeared in several movies, including The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds and A Hero at Large with John Ritter, whom he’d gotten in shape for his part. He’d also appeared in numerous TV shows, including more than a hundred episodes of Chuck Barris’s The Gong Show, doing stunts and sometimes wearing the most ridiculous getups. Tony was familiar with the industry, and it was easy to talk to him about my work.
Shortly before Chapter Two started filming, I threw a little party at my house and invited Tony. When Arlene and Norma got a look at my new trainer, they dragged me off into a corner. “That trainer is incredible!” Norma exclaimed.
“I know,” I replied. “Look at me.” I showed off my new physique.
My friends weren’t interested in how I looked. “He’s so gorgeous,” said Arlene. “Are you guys going out?”
“No. He’s my trainer. We’re working out together.”
“You fool!” they said in unison.
Dating Tony didn’t occur to me. He was always dashing from our sessions to one date or another, while I was going home to soak in a hot tub to prepare for the next day of sweat and pain. But I was so thrilled with the results from my sessions with Tony that I asked if he could come to New York, where Chapter Two was filming. I wanted to keep up my fitness regimen, and I needed my fitness guru! Tony put his other clients on hold and accompanied me to Manhattan. It was strictly a business deal, with me paying for all of his expenses in addition to his salary.
The studio had booked a large suite for me in which Tony was able to set up a small gym. When we weren’t working out indoors, we ran in Central Park or on other trails Tony mapped out. He found all the best health food restaurants in the city and made sure that I ate properly. When I wasn’t working out or filming, I often visited my younger sister, Ginger, Dad, Angela, and her wildly funny mother, Vee, in New Jersey. In his spare time, Tony was very socially active—his dance card was always full.
Two weeks into the shoot, Tony asked if I wanted to accompany him to the Museum of Modern Art on my day off. I hadn’t been there in years, so I agreed. As we strolled through the galleries, I discovered that Tony had been an artist, a sculptor, in fact. “Now you’re sculpting real human beings,” I said, which made him laugh. We were both incredibly taken by a very famous Andrew Wyeth painting. The haunting Christina’s World is a melancholy rendering of a woman lying in a tawny field looking toward a farmhouse. We stood shoulder to shoulder, admiring it for quite some time in the hushed gallery.
After the museum, engrossed in conversation, we
walked all over the city and down into the Village. It was a lovely Manhattan summer night. Eventually, we stopped to get something to eat. While we were waiting for our veggie wraps, Tony looked at me and said, “Valerie, would you like to get close?”
I was startled. It was the most gentle and gentlemanly come-on I had ever heard.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Tony didn’t seem disappointed. “Just think about it,” he said.
On the way back to the Plaza, he kissed me. I kissed him back. I guess I didn’t have to think about it very long. He spent the night in my suite. The next morning he said, “There is no way you are paying for my hotel room or expenses anymore.” He even insisted on reimbursing me for the return flight to California.
“Well,” I said, “do you want to move in to my suite?” And he did for the remainder of the shoot.
The minute I opened myself up to Tony romantically, I fell hard. I was deeply, profoundly in love with him. I guess I had been all along without realizing it. We’ve been together ever since.
After we returned to Los Angeles, Tony stayed at my place in Malibu, where the crashing surf often startled him out of a deep sleep. He’d bolt out of bed, making me scream. Then we’d both howl with laughter at our mutual foolishness. Within a month, he’d gotten rid of his apartment in Venice, and we set up our life together.
Loving Tony was easy. He was so full of life. He was committed to health—spiritual, physical, and mental. Although he no longer acted, he was knowledgeable about the business and fully supportive of my career. He wanted me to be the best version of myself that I could be and was always available to help make that happen. Like me, he neither drank nor smoked. As his longtime friend Vidal Sassoon observed, “Tony is one of the most honorable men I’ve ever known.”
With Tony, I was unbelievably happy. I was completely in love, and I felt (and looked) terrific. It was as if everything fell into wonderful alignment. Ours was a dazzling relationship right from the start—romantic, sensual, exciting, and supportive.
I’m not entirely sure I believe in fate or karma, but over time, Tony and I began to discover that we were meant to be together. In fact, we had met two times before but didn’t know it. We figured out that back in 1958 Tony had lived around the corner from the apartment I shared with Iva on West Fifty-fifth Street in Manhattan. Tony didn’t remember me, but he remembered Iva and her long mane of red-gold hair. He’d even tried to pick her up once or twice. Back then Tony was going by his stage name, Tony Bogart. Years into our relationship, when he told me this, I screamed, “Tony Bogart! I remember a Tony Bogart.”
In 1958, when Iva and I were in Li’l Abner, we used to go out to support our team in the Broadway Show League baseball games in Central Park. The casts and crews of each show would form a team and play in the league. Very few women played. Most of us were just cheerleaders. (I didn’t think to let this bother me back then.) We’d wear outfits inspired by our shows: The Li’l Abner gals would shout from the sidelines, dressed in shorts with patches and midriff tops with our hair in hillbilly braids.
One afternoon Iva and I were walking across the field to watch the guys from Li’l Abner play, and we saw a beautiful man in the outfield make an amazing catch. With the ball in his glove, he looked over his shoulder and flashed us an enormous smile. I said, “Oh my God. What a hunk! He’s gorgeous! Who is he?”
“Val, he’s completely your type,” Iva said. Back then she was partial to blonds.
When we got to the dugout, we asked some of the players about the fantastic outfielder. “Oh, yeah. That’s Tony Bogart,” someone said. “He’s a part-time actor but a great baseball player; worked out with the Dodgers during spring training. He’s our ringer. We pull him in when we need to win.”
I remember thinking, What a name! Tony Bogart. It takes guts to name yourself after Humphrey.
Many years after Tony and I had first gotten together, I was cleaning out an old appointment book and came across a business card I didn’t immediately recognize. “ ‘Tony Gardner,’ ” I read aloud. “Who is Tony Gardner?”
Tony overheard me. “I used to go by that name while I was teaching yoga in Laurel Canyon.”
Suddenly, I remembered how I got the card. Shortly after Dick and I had moved to Los Angeles, a good-looking yoga instructor had tried to pick me up in a supermarket by giving me his card. I’d brushed him off but hung on to the card. “You hit on me when I was married!” I said, putting the pieces together.
“I had good taste,” Tony replied.
I had really hit the jackpot with Tony. Love and romance, all that really good earth-shaking stuff that you dream about, were only part of the package. He was completely committed to me on every level as I was to him. We became a team in every possible sense—our lives were fully entwined—and we knew we would be together for the long haul. He named our first production company TAL Productions, which stood for Together at Last. Tony brought his four beautiful sons into my life. Michael, Ron, John, and another, younger Michael all accepted me wholeheartedly. His eldest, Michael, a committed social justice advocate, went on to become mayor of South Pasadena.
Not long after Tony and I started living together, I was cast in a really interesting movie directed by Paul Newman called The Shadow Box. The film was an adaptation of a Tony Award-winning Broadway play by Michael Cristofer. It followed three families dealing with hospice care of a loved one. The terrific and talented cast was comprised of Christopher Plummer, Joanne Woodward (Mrs. Paul Newman), Melinda Dillon, Sylvia Sydney, Ben Masterson, and James Broderick, father of Matthew. James played my husband, Joe (yes, another Joe!). Paul arranged for the shoot to take place at a summer camp in Malibu Canyon, a short drive from our apartment.
To see Paul up close was an experience. Those famous eyes were everything they’d been purported to be—glacial, sparkly blue, but so warm. Warm ice? Who’d ever heard of such a thing? But it was true. Of course, Paul had a beautiful face to match his eyes. I had to concentrate very hard on what he was saying so as not to get distracted.
Paul was an absolutely marvelous director and approached the film as if we were staging a play. He was passionate about this project, and the budget permitted him to do it the way he wanted. He provided us with at least two weeks of rehearsal time before filming commenced, a rare and thrilling luxury. I have never in my life had the experience of rehearsing at such length for something that was going to be filmed, not presented onstage. It was tremendously gratifying.
There was a big gymnasium in the camp where we filmed. Paul had the floor taped off in sections as is customary when rehearsing a play. We began to run through our scenes, slowly growing confident with the material until we were able to go off book. As time went on, we were doing actual run-throughs, performing the entire movie from beginning to end without stopping. When filming approached, I said to him, “Paul, this is amazing. I feel that we’ve all become our characters. It’s as if we’ve been running in Philadelphia for months and are now ready for Broadway.”
As a director, Paul was both generous and thoughtful. He set an amazing tone on-set. His attention to detail and his respect for the cast and crew were unparalleled. He’d spent so much time on the other side of the camera that he knew precisely how everyone wanted to be treated. Every day at four in the afternoon, he would have popcorn made for everyone on set to lift our flagging energy for the remainder of the day’s work.
I loved hearing him talk about Joanne in her role. “She always plays these brainy women—teachers or spinsters. But she’s a gorgeous dish. I wanted her to show that off in this part,” he said.
He and Joanne came to dinner at our apartment in Malibu. Paul was suffering from a chronically bad back. Tony instructed him to lie down on the floor and began to go through a series of relaxation exercises based on Kundalini yoga. When Tony was done, Paul exclaimed, “I feel sensational. I’m pain-free. My body was so relaxed, I felt like I was part of the floor.” Then he stood up and grabbed me
by my lapels. “Harper,” he said, “do you know how lucky you are to live with this terrific trainer? I wish I lived with a great trainer.” Paul Newman was complimenting my new boyfriend! I knew I had a keeper.
chapter
TEN
Tony and I stayed in the Malibu apartment only a year. The winter season was horrible. There were endless rainstorms and landslides that often made it impossible for us to get back to our home. The roads were blocked and closed for days at a time. Eventually, we had to take a suite in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in order to be certain we had somewhere to sleep at night.
As much as I loved living at the beach, getting back and forth was a real problem—a long commute through horrendous traffic. I’d bought a house in the celebrated Malibu Colony as an investment property. It was an older house that needed a great deal of work. But we knew that we needed a more reasonable place to call home. I sold the house in the Colony and moved from the Malibu apartment to Brentwood, where Tony had found us a rustic little house once owned by the Goldwyn family.
Kenter Canyon in Brentwood reminded me of Laurel Canyon without the beads-and-moccasins vibe. Our house was on Rochedale Lane, up on high ground, tucked into the hillside. It had lofty high-beamed ceilings, brick floors, and an expansive living room with a wall of sliding glass doors. Naturally, Gene flew out to help us decorate.
One major change in store for me in Brentwood was that Tony insisted we get a dog—the “best security system there is,” he assured me. Ever since I’d bitten the delicious-looking tail of that yellow Lab who’d promptly bitten me back, I’d been scared of big dogs. Jesse, the shepherd-Lab mix Tony brought back from the ASPCA, was no exception. I insisted he stay in the kitchen.
Slowly, Jesse started making inroads deeper into the house. First the living room, then the bedroom, and soon he was sleeping in our bed. Before I knew it, I was mad about this big, floppy-eared sweetie.
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