Tales of a Hollywood Housewife

by Betty Marvin

  “Betty, Dick’s dead.”

  I sat up in a state of shock and dismay. I dressed quickly, packed a few essentials and drove to Cottage Grove, Oregon, to pick up my mother, then on to Portland for the memorial service. I tried to feel sad, but my brother and I had not been close. Having been shuffled around so much as children, we never were together long enough to build a relationship. He was my big brother and two years ahead of me in school, but he ignored me and I was too shy to approach him. My mother told me his heart had exploded while collecting a big win at the racetrack. He loved women, wine and gambling – like father, like son. I felt very composed until the service began with songs of Elvis Presley. Then I burst into sobs and cried the rest of the day, crying for the loss of a brother I never knew.

  My life with Lee seemed very far away. Now twelve years since our divorce, Lee had moved to Tucson, Arizona, with his wife and her children, leaving Claudia behind to be on her own in Laguna Beach, California.

  Lee was enmeshed in an ugly lawsuit brought on by Mishell.

  One afternoon, I received a phone call from Lee’s attorney, Lou Goldman.

  “Hi, Betty. How are things going?” he said warmly. This couldn’t be the same man who had changed from being a family friend and counselor into a vicious snake during my divorce. Dr. Jekyll, meet Mr. Hyde.

  “Hi, Lou, what can I do for you?”

  “You know Lee is in a terrible mess. That bitch Mishell is really out to get him.”

  Despite the fact that that bitch did get him when I lost him and had made my life hell in the process, the hurt and anger I had felt at the time were gone. I felt compassion for Lee and wasn’t happy to see him suffering. I’d been following the highly publicized case on TV. Mishell was suing Lee for half the money he had earned while they were together, claiming she had been like a wife during that time. When I saw Lee being interviewed, I felt sad. He had turned into a bitter, cynical man who appeared beaten down by life. Gone was the crazy, fun-loving, passionate guy I had adored.

  “How can I help?” I said.

  “If we need you to testify, would you be willing to take the stand?”

  It took me a moment before I could reply. The idea of being in a courtroom again with Lee made me flinch. But I knew the kids supported him and sensed they’d want me to do whatever I could.

  “Yes, Lou. You can count on me.”

  I never heard from him again and assumed I was not needed for Lee to win the lawsuit.

  The case dragged on in the courts for years, and I stopped following it as Lee’s name and the newly coined word palimony became permanently linked.

  Years had passed since we were in touch. I wondered sometimes if our paths were to cross, would he even recognize the woman I’d become? The kids always said that he asked about me, how I was and what I was doing. When they’d report my latest accomplishments, they told me he would turn to anyone in hearing distance and say, “Isn’t she amazing?” I could understand how Pam, who had inherited my job of caretaker, had grown to resent me.

  Christopher remained protective of his father. At one point he said, “You know, Mom, you never should have divorced Dad. He’s been depressed ever since you left him.”

  “Christopher, honey, please believe me. Your father was depressed long before we separated.” As I said those words, the full truth of them hit me. I felt happy I had moved on. Now I could fly a plane. I could own an art gallery. I could paint. I could build homes of my own design. I could do anything.

  ***

  When Kanemitsu was dying from lung cancer, I went to be with him. I visited him regularly and sadly watched him waste away. He didn’t give up smoking until the oxygen mask got in the way. He lay on the sofa, barely able to speak, helping his staff curate years of work for posterity. Those visits were difficult for me, but he always insisted that I bring new work to discuss. As he slowly disappeared, I felt like the student being abandoned by the teacher. Sensing my pain, he took my hand and said, “Don’t worry, dear Betty, you know how to paint.”

  Since then his spirit has always been with me in my studio, his art fills my home, and his love fills my heart. Ours was a bittersweet journey.

  At the Matsumi Kanemitsu Retrospective in Kyoto, Japan, 1998

  29

  Family Wedding Brings Back Memories of Divorce

  FOR ALMOST A month I’d been on the phone daily with Cynthia. She was living in San Francisco with her boyfriend, Edward, and she was pregnant. No matter how many times we went through it, she couldn’t seem to land on the right decision: she could have the baby and marry Edward; have the baby and not marry him; or not have the baby and not marry, even though she loved Edward. She swung back and forth between panic and reason. I listened, amazed at the choices available to my twenty-five-year-old daughter in 1981. Almost thirty years before I had been in her exact shoes, single, pregnant, and in love. I knew only one option: to marry the father and have the baby.

  When Cynthia called, three months into her pregnancy, to tell me she had finally decided to have the baby and marry Edward, I shelved whatever mixed feelings I had. And when I heard, “I need you, Mom,” I was on my way.

  This wasn’t what I had dreamed of for my daughter. Edward was bright, handsome, and charming; but he was a drummer in a rock-and-roll band, just getting by. He wasn’t in any position to take on a wife and child. But Cynthia had made her decision, and in the next few days I stored my few possessions in a friend’s garage, packed a few necessities, including a ten-year-old sea-green silk dress suitable for mother of the bride, and drove to San Francisco. It was time to plan a wedding.

  Cynthia was an old-fashioned girl at heart. She sewed an ivory silk-satin renaissance gown of her own design, covered with imported lace and hand-sewn seed pearls, to wear for the occasion. The empire waist was perfect for a pregnant bride.

  She called Lee to tell him the news. I didn’t push for many details of the call, but gathered that her father, while taken aback to learn he was about to become a grandfather, agreed to pick up the tab. I wondered if Cynthia could see my relief. Times had become increasingly rough in Los Angeles. Happy not to have to stress over the wedding budget, I leased the elegant, old Victorian Casa Madrona overlooking the bay in Sausalito. We planned a midday wedding, including a sit-down luncheon followed by dancing to a live band, and I sent out a hundred shell-pink invitations with embossed flowers on the border.

  I was so involved with the guest list, menu, flowers, and music that I pushed away the thought of spending the afternoon with Lee. We had rarely spoken in ten years. He was remarried to a woman with four children of her own who was very resentful of his first family.

  In planning the seating, I arranged a special table for the families of the bride and groom. Edward’s parents were our family’s mirror opposite, having been married forever, surrounded by devoted sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters, all arriving en masse to celebrate the wedding. How would my daughter feel facing her new picture-perfect in-laws surrounded by her alcoholic movie-star father, hostile stepmother, free-spirited older brother, militant lesbian older sister, and high school dropout younger sister, not to mention a mother, who, in spite of years of therapy, was still a bit of a mess?

  I shuddered and decided to give my place at the wedding table to Lee’s wife. It will be easier for Cynthia, I thought, but deep down I was sparing myself the disapproving glances of the in-laws and the embarrassing remarks of my ex-husband, particularly if he drank too many toasts to the bride and groom.

  But none of that happened. In fact, it was a perfect wedding. The sight of Cynthia, in her beautiful gown, on Lee’s arm, descending the carved mahogany stairs to the familiar Mendelssohn performed by my aunt Rella, filled my heart. The simple service, followed by loving champagne toasts and a delicious lunch while overlooking the sunlit bay, was flawless. The dancing was fun, even with the father of the bride, who behaved himself in every way. After having endless family photos taken posed to look as though Lee and I would be
together till death did us part, he and his wife made a hasty departure. The bride and groom went off happily on their honeymoon, and family and friends drifted away. Fait accompli.

  Cynthia’s wedding day, with Christopher, Courtenay, Lee, myself, and Claudia, 1982

  Alone that evening, I fought spiraling downward. Nothing like a wonderful wedding to emphasize the heartbreak of divorce. It had been years since I had been with Lee, and I fought any feelings of sadness, betrayal, or anger.

  After the wedding I moved to San Francisco and promised Cynthia I would be on hand for the birth of her baby. I picked up catering jobs to pay the rent, determined to save my only asset, the Venice building. My daughter was doing just fine, working in the costume department of the San Francisco Opera Company up until her due date, and it felt good to be nearby, helping her get ready for the birth of her first child.

  30

  Paris Revisited: My Second Home

  FOLLOWING THE ARRIVAL of my grandson, Matthew, I was summoned to Paris. A producer friend had moved there with his wife and three children for a change of scene, had become bored, and asked me to think of a business venture for him.

  “Why don’t you open an American bar and grill?” I suggested. “You know about good food, and Parisians love everything American. Open a restaurant that features American food—you know, an oyster bar, hamburgers, steaks, apple pie. Have good American art on the walls. Show living American artists like Diebenkorn and Rauschenberg. What about a Red Grooms installation? Have live jazz on Sunday afternoons. Got the picture?”

  “Brilliant,” he said. “I’m going to do it. I want you to come over and put it together.”

  “Whoa, I don’t want to be in the restaurant business.”

  “You don’t have to be in the restaurant business. I want you to design the restaurant. It’s your idea, and I want you to create everything you talked about. I’ll raise the money and run the business.”

  At my attorney’s insistence, we drew up a simple contract, giving me a small percentage of the gross profits after the restaurant opened. I packed and kissed my family good-bye.

  Living in Paris in the eighties was very different from what I had known in the sixties, when I used to hang out at the Hôtel de Crillon, mingling with the top designers of the fashion world and bringing back their latest collections to sell in my boutique on Rodeo Drive. Instead, I was residing in a modest, five-floor walk-up in a fourteenth-century building in Le Marais near the Seine, a struggling artist designing a restaurant. The flat consisted of two large rooms with French doors, high ceilings, and oversized French windows facing Rue de Pont Luis Phillip. The entry led to the salon, and off to the right was a small kitchen. I had converted the second room beyond the salon into my studio and bedroom, with an adjoining bathroom.

  “Hi, baby,” my producer friend greeted me as I arrived at the potential site for our project.

  “Perfect location for an American bar and grill, don’t you think?” I said. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boulevard?”

  “Heaven-sent,” he said. “What about the Wilsons? They interested in investing?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t pursue it. I’m not good at asking for money. That’s your department.”

  “Okay, but they’re your friends.”

  “That’s the point. I don’t like soliciting my friends.”

  He looked disappointed. “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t. You’re a producer.”

  After that he began to exclude me from the project.

  Before I knew it the Christmas season was upon me. I had mixed feelings about being away from home at this time of year despite the beauty of the city. During the holidays the twinkling trees running the length of the Champs-Élysées were magical. This year, to add to the elegance, the city had suspended life-size antique cars above Rue Royale. I was lonely and missed my family and friends more than usual, so I made it a habit to walk up and down the boulevards at dusk to watch the special lights come on and enjoy the windows.

  One afternoon, after the rain, I changed out of my jeans and sweatshirt, put on a heavy, gray tweed coat and black high boots, and set out for my stroll. I grabbed my favorite gray silk umbrella—a leftover gift from Lee—on my way out the door since the winter weather was at best unpredictable. The brisk, damp air of winter by the Seine felt wonderful on my skin as I walked along Rue de Rivoli. I liked the way I looked and felt when living in Paris. Walking miles each day in the city as well as working out at the gym kept me ten pounds lighter than my car-driving lifestyle in California.

  Before I realized it I had walked from Isle St. Louis, through the Tuilleries, past the Louvre, and all the way to the seventh arrondissement, a distance of about thirty blocks. I turned into Place de la Concorde and headed toward the Ritz. I didn’t want to miss the hotel’s beautiful windows full of animated, life-size figures acting out a Christmas scene.

  I stood there taking in the surreal beauty of the performance for some time. When I glanced in the window to the right, I saw the reflection of an older woman standing near me. I looked away, thinking to myself, She’s American, a safe guess since there were about fifty thousand Americans living in Paris, and the Ritz was one of their hangouts. A moment later I glanced over again and realized I had been looking at my own image. This couldn’t possibly be me, I thought. Yes, it is, my inner self countered. I had no idea I looked that old, however “that old” looks. Well, this is the way my age looks on me, I told myself. Funny, I never seem to look old to me when I deliberately look at myself in the mirror.

  Continuing to stare at myself with great curiosity, I laughed, remembering a woman friend telling me that one day we would become our mothers. I hoped not. My mother and I were nothing alike. Or were we? I looked nothing like her, at least. She was five foot six. I was almost five foot eleven. She was heavyset and had dark hair, and I had always been slender and fair. And when it came to behavior, we were exact opposites. She was quite helpless and had no ambition. I was probably too independent for my own good and had always set my sights high. My mother used to drive me crazy because she could never make a decision, right or wrong. How could she sit all morning in her housecoat drinking coffee? She never had a plan to do anything. I didn’t remember her ever taking me anywhere—to a movie, out to lunch, not even for a walk. Certainly not a ride, because she didn’t drive. She always depended on someone else, and for some reason there was always someone to take charge. No wonder I was so determined to make choices and welcome change.

  The shock of that reflection and the flood of feelings it brought put me in touch with my own mortality. I went back to my flat, called Air France, and made a reservation to fly home to spend the holidays with my children.

  I spent a happy Christmas with family and friends, getting acquainted with my grandson.

  “Has Lee seen Matthew?” I asked Cynthia after the first couple of days.

  “He stopped by once for a few minutes,” she said and turned her attention to the baby.

  I called Daddy. Faye answered the phone.

  “I’ll call your father. He’ll be so happy to hear from you. He’s not feeling so well.”

  “Is that my little girl?” Daddy’s voice was weak but still had the old charm.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “What’ve you been up to? Still traveling all over the world?”

  “I flew in from Paris to see my kids for Christmas.”

  “Well, when are you going to see your daddy?”

  “I thought I would take the train down and we could celebrate New Year’s Eve together.”

  I could hear my father’s spirits lifting.

  “That would be terrific, kiddo. Daddy will show you a good time.”

  It had been some years since I had seen Daddy, and I didn’t know quite what to expect. Faye met me at the station. She had put on a great deal of weight but still had the yellow, bleached hair and was as sweet as ever. I was shocked when I walked into the living roo
m of their modest ranch house sitting in the middle of a dying avocado grove. The paint-peeled walls of the shabby living room were covered with Lee Marvin posters, and terry towels partially hid the worn patches of an old, green upholstered sofa. A tired-looking, eighty-two-year-old man sat in a leather recliner, feet extended, legs wrapped in bandages. He was watching a John Wayne Western on the television. It was hard to believe this was the same person I had first seen wearing silk pajamas in the master suite of a Mediterranean mansion.

  He finally looked up and gave me a smile. “Hi, kiddo.”

  I went over and gave him a quick kiss. “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Well, I better get ready so we can celebrate the New Year.” He pulled himself up and shuffled out of the room.

  “Your father’s having trouble with his legs,” Faye said. “It was sweet of you to come.”

  My father came out of his bedroom wearing an Hawaiian shirt. He asked Faye to get out the Lincoln. She went to the garage, reappeared in a fancy, black-and-silver sedan, and drove us to his favorite watering hole for dinner. He introduced me to the locals.

  “I want you to meet my daughter, Lee’s wife.”

  I smiled at the introduction. At least I was no longer being passed off as his niece. Daddy ordered a glass of wine for me, a Coke for Faye, and a scotch and milk for himself.

  “Daddy, you know Lee and I have been divorced for years,” I murmured to him gently as we moved away from his crowd.

  “C’mon, kiddo, don’t be so serious. Let’s just have a good time.” He was ready for a second drink, and his eyes were getting that old, familiar glaze. The small amount of booze he had consumed was working much faster in old age. When he began to slur his words, I knew it was time to get out of there and announced I had to catch the train back to Los Angeles. He wished me a happy new year and stayed behind to have another drink with his cronies while Faye drove me to the station. I greeted the New Year with my fellow passengers on a sad train ride back to Los Angeles.