The Black Calhouns

by Gail Lumet Buckley

  Brewer did not reply to the letter, but with a phone call passed her on to a New York blacklist “clearinghouse” in the person of George Sokolsky, a right-wing political columnist, whose first remark to Lena was “I understand your difficulties completely—I once had a Chinese wife.” It was a pro forma visit; Brewer had effectively cleared her. Taking a paternalistic tone, in effect Sokolsky absolved Lena of the political sins of her wayward youth.

  In October 1953, after the Eisenhower administration made concentrated efforts to dismiss him, Frank Horne was named assistant to the administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA). Frank considered the reassignment a “demotion”—being “kicked upstairs.” His new position had only vague powers. In 1954 he was investigated once again for “leftist” activities; this time for participating and aiding in the defense of racial relations adviser Edward Rutledge, a colleague accused of being a Communist sympathizer. Eventually, with the help of Frank and others, Rutledge was cleared. In 1955, because of the hostility of the Republican National Committee toward his New Deal policies and achievements, Frank was finally terminated from HHFA. The following year he and Mercedes moved to New York City, where everything was fine as long as Mercedes was sober—although she denied having a problem. Frank, as usual, threw himself into work. In 1956 Mayor Robert Wagner appointed him executive director of the New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations under Chairman Herbert Bayard Swope. In 1957 Frank developed the nation’s first laws against discrimination in public housing and introduced the Open City Housing Project to promote racially integrated neighborhoods. Frank never stopped being heroic; he had rescued little Lena when her mother abandoned her in Georgia, and he probably thought he could rescue poor Mercedes, with her white streak and her white skin and her inability to face life sober.

  I was sixteen in 1954. I think Brown v. Board of Education was the first time I actually read the front page of the New York Times. The following year I went to Radcliffe—chosen because the only college girls I knew, Susan Morford and Judith Grummon (from Oakwood), were both Cliffies. There were no more than a handful of Negro “girls,” as we were called. But Harvard as an entity was far more openly sexist than racist or anti-Semitic. There were classrooms, whole buildings, and physical areas where “girls” were forbidden entry. Harvard discriminated against women and probably would have boasted about it if there was anyone who cared enough to complain. My favorite story comes from one of my early dorm mates, a member of the Radcliffe basketball team (as were her mother and grandmother). They were in the middle of a varsity championship game with Tufts when the Harvard basketball team suddenly appeared on the court, yelling, “Get off!” It was Harvard’s practice hour.

  I was lucky enough to attach myself to the relatively nonsexist, sophisticated camaraderie of the Harvard Dramatic Club. The members were wonderful, quirky, talented people. I was a terrible actress with a small gift for comedy, but I won a prize at the 1959 Yale Drama Festival for playing the lead in Molière’s School for Wives. I have no idea what I did, but I convulsed the audience and even broke up my partner in the scene. As a student, I was not what was known as a “grind.” I worked only in small spurts—and I now regret this very much. I did manage to write a thesis on Colette (the French department disapproved because she had only just died) and graduate cum laude. I was determined to have a busy, fun college social life, and I did; but my student life reflected my dreadful progressive education. I had no idea how to study. If I was interested, if I cared, I got high marks—such as my A in Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s “American Intellectual History” course. On the other hand, I am ashamed to say that I got my natural science grade changed from F to D by crying to the section man (the person who actually dealt with the students of august professors). In my senior year, two events had repercussions: my roommate’s fiancé (white) was picketing Woolworth’s in Cambridge because of its Southern racial policies, and I worked for Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy’s reelection campaign—mostly stuffing envelopes.

  I was also part of the Eloise gang. Kay Thompson’s greatest revenge on Hollywood was to write the brilliant children’s book Eloise with the magical and essential illustrations by Hilary Knight, another friend. Lena and Lennie, in fact, appear in Eloise in Paris, seated outdoors at Fouquet’s café with their small dogs, Jadie the pug and Lila the alpha dog Pekingese.

  From Kay Thompson’s biography:

  Subliminally or otherwise, Kay drew inspiration from the many precocious young girls she’d known over the years, including Liza Minnelli, … Gail Jones (daughter of Lena Horne), Lucie Arnaz (daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz), … Portland Mason (daughter of James), … Margaret O’Brien … and many others.

  By 1957 Lena considered herself removed from politics. Lena’s semi-pal Howard Fast dropped a political bombshell on February 1, 1957. According to the front page of the New York Times, “Howard Fast said yesterday that he had dissociated himself from the American Communist party and no longer considered himself a Communist.” By 1957 the Daily Worker had closed, and the Communist Party, which in 1947 had seventy-four thousand members, now counted three thousand. The downfall was not entirely because of the success of American red-baiting and blacklisting—the disaffection came from something the Russian Communist Party brought on itself. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev delivered a four-hour “secret speech” denouncing the crimes of Stalin. By the time the secret became known, the effect on American Communists was devastating. “This was not why I joined the Party,” said Steve Nelson, proletarian hero and former commissar of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. That particular “god” had failed, to the heartbreak and dismay of many true believers.

  With politics essentially behind them, and Lena’s 1957 album Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria the top-selling album by a female performer in the history of RCA Victor, Lena and Lennie returned to Europe and Arthur Laurents, the author of West Side Story, came back into Lena’s life in Paris:

  Paris adored Lena. In return, she sang “Que Restes-ils?” and the city was totally hers. One more reason to feel more at home in Paris than back home was the belief Paris was color-blind. She would never have walked down Fifth Avenue as easily as we walked down the Champs-Elysées one day, looking for a drugstore that sold makeup. The base she used was much darker than her own skin and covered her sprinkle of freckles. That day, her skin against her light lavender cashmere sweater and skirt made her more beautiful than any of her lighter sisters. The laconic Parisian saleswoman in the store gaped adoringly: “I know! You’re Doris Day!” “No, I’m Doris Night,” Lena answered. She would not have made that joke back home.

  The first time I met Arthur, I was a Radcliffe sophomore and he had written West Side Story. Suddenly, he was always there. He talked to me; he listened to what I had to say. He was funny. Meanwhile Lena was appearing in a show that she knew to be infinitely inferior to West Side Story.

  Jamaica, starring Lena Horne, was once a project called Pigeon Island, starring Harry Belafonte. When Lena announced her upcoming role in Jamaica during a guest appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, advance ticket sales soared to nearly a million dollars. But outside New York it had been a disaster. In Boston they said, “Thank God for Josephine Premice,” who was brilliant and got all her laughs. Lena was frozen in fear and on the verge of a breakdown. I witnessed it. The fights between the producer and the writers were nonstop. Script changes were constant. It was very close to the opening—possibly in Philadelphia or New Haven, in a hotel room. She simply broke down in sobs, saying, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” Despite her mini-breakdown, despite the vicious battles between the writers and the producer, there was a typically happy Broadway ending—as in a Busby Berkeley movie. It was all about star power.

  On October 31, 1957, a dressed-to-the-nines audience of celebrities attended Lena’s Broadway opening in Jamaica. “When you make your entrance tonight, make it like you belong there and stand still” were the last words that director B
obby Lewis said to Lena before he left her dressing room. Lena did as she was told. The standing ovation, before she said a word, was deafening. She gave an opening night party at the Waldorf for the cast and crew. David Merrick, the dreaded producer who never smiled, arrived with the first telephoned report of the rave reviews. “Well, I always said you were a money runner,” he said, kissing her cheek. Lena wished he had told her sooner.

  In 1958 Lena was so happy to be back in New York and in a Broadway hit, despite the fact that she and Lennie bought a ten-room apartment in the same building where George Sokolsky, the blacklister, had “cleared” her name five years earlier. I loved our new home base, where, although I was away in college, I had my own room instead of using the library/guest room. Lena went on a decorating spree and Lennie installed a sound system. And they had parties. I was away for most of them, but my birthday and Christmas were special. They had wonderful Christmas parties at 300 West End Avenue. Parties meant Broadway friends like Gwen Verdon, Noël Coward, Richard Burton, and Laurence Olivier and family like Uncle Frank and Uncle Burke and wives, with lots of singing around the piano, tons of food and drink, and dancing in the foyer—Arthur Mitchell of the New York City Ballet taught us the boogaloo, a line dance of fleeting popularity. Or maybe it was the mashed potato. Lena’s theatrical friends were her peers in the Broadway “classes” of 1957 to 1959, which was how long Jamaica ran. Richard Burton’s wife, Sybil, was a special friend. While Richard and Lena were onstage in their respective shows, she would pop over to Lena’s dressing room to have a civilized drink with Lennie. This was the same dressing room where Lennie called me in one evening before the show for a serious talk, while Lena, listening to every word, furiously concentrated on doing her makeup. I sat, he stood. It was ominous. “I have something to tell you,” he said, looking at me with a grave face. Oh God, I thought, what could it be? Taking a very grim tone, he then said, “There is a rumor going around that your mother and I are gay.” Since I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard (and no one was ill or dying), I burst out laughing in amusement and relief—causing Lennie to bend over and kiss me on the forehead and Lena to pause, wide-eyed, in mid-powder puff.

  I had been brought up with gay people. Not that I really knew what “gay” was. I think I sort of discovered something like “gay” when I was eleven or twelve and there was one boy in my ballet class. He was a slight object of fun to us girls behind his back. The word “gay” was never used—it was the other F-word (“fairy”)—but the ballet teacher was great, treating him very seriously. I began taking gays seriously in college: Walt Whitman, Amy Lowell, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, and so forth. I loved the novels of Mary Renault. When I was young there seemed to be a natural affinity between gays and blacks. I came to perceive that so many of mother’s friends were gay—and those who were white were often Southern. I suppose they identified with each other as outcasts or victims of a region or both. I often got crushes on my mother’s handsome and charming male friends. Many of the gay men and women I knew in the 1950s were in long-standing, seemingly happy monogamous relationships and were always invited to parties as couples. It was these friends whom I thought of when Lennie said there were rumors about Mother and him—but the whole concept of Mother and Lennie being gay struck me as funny.

  Gay rumors aside, I know that this was a very happy period in my mother’s life. She had fulfilled a dream. She was in a hit show and had a wonderful caricature on Sardi’s wall, in which she looked gorgeous, not grotesque, wearing a white turban and a black Chanel suit. Kitty D’Alessio, a pioneer in fashion advertising, and a beloved family friend through the generations, was vice president of a Madison Avenue agency and account executive for Chanel—so Lena had a lovely collection of Chanel suits. She was finally at home, and working in her beloved New York; it was almost like being back in Café Society. The only missing element in that happy time for Lena was the fact that my brother, Teddy, was rarely permitted by our father to come and visit. When he did come, whether for Christmas or summer, Lennie was happy because he and Teddy listened to jazz and stared at the chessboard together for hours.

  When Jamaica closed after two years, Lena had a big letdown. The producers of the musical version of Destry Rides Again asked her to costar with Andy Griffith—but Griffith refused to appear opposite a Negro. So Lena and Lennie took a slow boat to Rio to forget their troubles. As musicians, they naturally adored Brazil. They brought back incredible bossa nova records that they played for friends. They also brought back a middle-aged white American priest who had befriended them on the boat coming home. I can’t remember his name, but he was a Jesuit missionary on home leave after many years. After the second or third week of his visit, despite the fact that he was charming and fun, we began to wonder when he would begin the next stage of his voyage. A week or two later he finally packed up, with feelings of goodwill on both sides. I remember having a distinctly positive attitude about priests, though this one seemed to spend much of his time lying on the couch in Lennie’s music room listening to bossa nova and drinking Heineken beer. He was on vacation, after all.

  In the summer of 1959, the year I graduated from Radcliffe, Teddy finally rejoined the family and we were all in Europe together. Teddy and I bonded on that trip—where suddenly everything that was bothersome in younger brothers no longer mattered. He had grown from a hopelessly ill-groomed, annoying young boy to a Brooks Brothers—clad young man who towered over me and was found to be quite irresistible by females of all ages and nationalities. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, behind which he had his grandmother Edna’s beautiful green eyes. He was a debater and a Young Republican—that was our father Louis’ influence (the machine Democrat had become a machine California Republican and publisher of a civil service magazine). All past squabbles disappeared in the face of our new need to cover for each other. In the summer of 1959 he could safely go to hashish-smoking Parisian jazz joints with African poets and beautiful women—and I could continue my sub-rosa late-night friendship with Burt Bacharach, who, even though he was already a noted composer, was Marlene Dietrich’s accompanist in her one-woman show. Marlene and Lena were theoretically great friends, but somehow I thought it best that neither be too aware of my friendship with Burt (as nice as he was handsome). I would go to dinner with friends and then meet Burt after the show. I was “working” (interning really) at Marie Claire, a sister publication of Paris Match. I helped to arrange pillows for photographs. The moment the summer was over, I realized that I hated Paris. The autumn leaves only made me long for a bright October day in New York. I now passionately hated a city I once had loved, but had seen only in spring and summer. Naturally I felt too embarrassed and ashamed to tell anyone, having found an apartment to share and a fancy “job.” So I managed to hold out until the wettest, dreariest Christmas ever. There we were, Lennie, Mother, and I, all three of us really missing New York. Senator Kennedy had been right at Harvard’s commencement when he predicted that I would not stay in Paris, but would come home. Now I came home to try to help him win the White House.

  I flew to Paris after my 1959 Radcliffe graduation and thought I was never coming back to America.

  I did indeed campaign for Senator Kennedy, bouncing around in a small plane with some slightly older luminaries like Mrs. Willie Mays, in her thirties, and Mrs. Chester Bowles, a delightful white-haired woman in her sixties, who was my roommate on the road. Kennedy was considered a friend of the Negro as well as youth. Mrs. Mays and Mrs. Bowles represented their husbands. And I was “youth.” In my very short set speech, I said that a vote for Nixon was a vote for a man who had “never been young.” Senator Kennedy lost every state we visited—Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and New Jersey.

  When he got back from Europe, wanting, correctly, to get away from our father, who lived in Los Angeles, Teddy transferred from UCLA to Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, his life was turned upside down. He abandoned the Young Republicans. He had never been a red diaper baby. Now
he made up for lost time, but the diaper was metaphorically black, not red. The next time I saw him, when he came to visit me in New York, he had discarded his horn-rims for small round wires, his Brooks Brothers suit for a well-worn safari jacket with buttons about Angela Davis and Huey P. Newton. He was reading Hermann Hesse. And he had a marijuana habit. He was a true sixties person and I was a late fifties hopeless square. His new incarnation was actually the height of fashion. Because he was bearded and very thin, having developed a kidney ailment resulting from poor medical care in Paris, he looked like an ascetic revolutionary. It was the look that all the New York and Hollywood “with-it” people were trying to emulate. Teddy was funny and sad. He knew he was sick, but he hated the dialysis machine with every fiber of his being. Even though he returned to L.A., I was frankly pleased that his radical conversion seemed to repudiate our father’s conservative Republican politics.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  South/1950s

  POSTWAR

  COUSIN CATHERINE Nash was the first black Calhoun postwar bride. Unlike her cousin Kathryn, who married an army man—and unlike her sister Harriet, whose husband, Chiz, became a Tuskegee Airman—Catherine had been in no hurry to marry. So she did not rush into marriage with Morehouse graduate Joseph Page Frye. “The charming child … she sleeps by night and eats all day and never mentions ‘Joe’” was how Kathryn described the only cousin who did not marry her prewar love. Instead of being a war bride, Catherine got her master’s degree in library science, began her career, and waited until the war was over before marrying a veteran who never saw combat. John S. Harris was a former second lieutenant in the 617th Bomb Squadron of the 477th composite group of the Tuskegee Airmen. John’s date of entry for active duty was August 4, 1945—two days before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The Japanese surrendered ten days later.