With “Uncle Barry” Fitzgerald during The Catered Affair.
Dressed as Barry Fitzgerald for a CBS comedy special with Frank Gorshin. Barry taught me how to impersonate him.
Bundle of Joy
(RKO, 1956)
Let’s just say this sweet movie about a shopgirl mistaken for the mother of an abandoned baby was another difficult shoot, without the benefit of great talents like Bette Davis and Ernie Borgnine to help me. I was pregnant with my daughter, Carrie, which made it necessary for me to be shot behind counters, holding the baby in front of me, or in a big fur coat. I managed to do the dance numbers, although in most of the scenes I’m shot over someone’s shoulder or from behind.
My husband was cast as the son of the owner of the department store where my character works. Eddie was very ambitious. He expected to follow in Frank Sinatra’s footsteps as a crooner who made a name for himself as an actor. Eddie had everything but Frank’s talent and experience.
Eddie needed a strong director, but unfortunately Norman Taurog was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. No one knew anything about the disease in those days, so we just coped with his unexplained memory losses and constant repeated instructions. Eddie wasn’t a trained actor and didn’t want to admit that he was a beginner. And he hated being wrong. So he blamed me whenever he made mistakes. I coached Eddie, but sometimes his arrogance got in the way of his art. We fought a lot.
One day while driving to the studio we were having a particularly heated argument about the little gold cross I wore on a necklace. We’d had this fight on other occasions. Eddie’s manager, Milton Blackstone, once said he thought my wearing this symbol of my Christianity conveyed that I hated Jews. Come again? I explained to Milton—and to Eddie, who was present—that I didn’t hate people of the Jewish faith or any other faith. And besides, Jesus was a Jew. Now Eddie had brought it up again on our ride to work. I got so mad, I told him to pull over and let me out of the car. It was early in the morning in Hollywood. I watched Eddie drive away, then walked the remaining two or three blocks to the studio gate.
If you adore this movie, I’m happy that you can’t see the chaos that was on the other side of the camera. The best things about making it were the baby and singing “Lullaby in Blue” with Eddie.
Tammy and the Bachelor
(UNIVERSAL, 1957)
Jacques Mapes was a set designer at MGM when I started there. He worked on Singin’ in the Rain, although I believe we became friends before that. Jacques’s partner was Ross Hunter, the producer on Tammy and the Bachelor. Jacques and Ross used to come to dinner at my family’s place on Evergreen Avenue in Burbank. Mother would make enchiladas and tacos that she served on paper plates. We all shared many happy moments in the little house that Daddy built for us with a loan from the FHA. When Ross began work on Tammy, Jacques told him that I would be perfect for the title role. I believe he was right. Tammy was a perfect part for me. As a Texas girl who’d relocated to Burbank, I felt that I was very much like this girl from the bayou transplanted to a different way of life.
Tammy and the Bachelor was released after Bundle of Joy, but production was completed before I began work on my film with Mr. Fisher. During the filming, I was already pregnant with Carrie, but I wasn’t showing yet, so no special setups were required.
I didn’t need any coaching for this part. Tammy and I were kindred spirits. Much as I loved my character, though, I had a lot of trouble with the Bachelor, who is played by Leslie Nielsen. Leslie was very gifted, but fancied himself a method actor. His heroes were James Dean, Marlon Brando, and other members of the Actors Studio, like Paul Newman. Newman had come to Hollywood, become a big star, then returned to the East Coast to do serious theater work. Leslie wanted to do the same.
The fact is, most of the time Leslie was a pill to work with. I always thought he would be great at comedy if he would just relax and play for laughs. How ironic that, decades later, he became one of our most beloved comedic actors with his hit Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies. Serious Leslie would never have expected to be famous for a silly line like “Don’t call me Shirley.”
Working with Leslie wasn’t the only challenge on Tammy. I also had to deal with a goat and Walter Brennan.
The goat and I worked very closely. She was certainly more fun than Leslie. I had to learn to milk her for our scenes together. I cut my nails so I wouldn’t hurt her udders. Once I got the hang of it, we got along pretty well. The goat just stood there chewing her cud. Her expression reminded me of Walter Brennan.
Walter plays my grandfather on the bayou. In one scene, I noticed that he wasn’t looking at me while we talked. After we finished the take, I asked him where he’d been looking.
“Your ear,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked in surprise.
“Because that way more of my face is on camera. Don’t look at the other actors. Look in three-quarters, so your face is more prominent. Stick with me. I’ll teach you some tricks.”
And Walter did teach me. He shared his bag of tricks for how to make the most of a scene.
Walter was one of the greatest scene-stealers I’ve ever known—in the major leagues along with Thelma Ritter and Walter Matthau. You couldn’t turn your back on any one of them. It’s hard to rank them; they were all superb at their craft. I’d say it was a three-way tie for who could get the most out of their camera time.
In one of the most touching scenes in the movie, I recite the family history to a group of party guests, a very long speech. I tell the story of how I became the mistress of the house after showing up at the door selling fresh eggs. When the young gentleman who owned the plantation answered, I won his heart. We lived there happily ever after.
My single of Ray Evans and Jay Livingston’s song “Tammy” became a big hit and earned me a gold record. The song was in the Top 40 for twenty-three weeks, five of them at number one. It was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Song, but lost to “All the Way” from The Joker Is Wild. Everyone was thrilled for me except my husband, who felt threatened by my having a hit record. Since I’m an actress, not a recording artist, I couldn’t understand his jealousy.
The success of the single also saved the movie. My recording wasn’t released until after the film had failed at the box office. When the song was a hit, Universal rereleased the movie and it made millions.
In early 1958, I was asked to sing “Tammy” at the Academy Awards. I agreed to do this even though my son, Todd, was only a month old. As I mentioned earlier, Mike Todd, Eddie’s best friend, was killed in a plane crash just a few days before the ceremony. I was also very close to Mike, and this tragedy almost kept me from performing. But somehow I got through it. I went to the show, sang, and went home, too upset for the festive mood at the Oscars.
People often ask me why I didn’t play Tammy in the two sequels. Ross Hunter did ask me to reprise my role, but by then I was pregnant with Todd and the studio couldn’t wait for his arrival. So they cast Sandra Dee for Tammy Tell Me True. Sandra was fine, but I felt that this decision wasn’t the best, that the audience deserved to continue their relationship with Tammy having the same actor in the role. As it turned out, if Universal had waited, I would have been filming during the biggest scandal of the 1950s, when Eddie left me for Elizabeth Taylor, which would have been great for the Universal publicity department, if not for me. But it wasn’t meant to be.
This film is very dear to me. I’ve identified with Tammy ever since I first met her. Girls copied the ponytail hairstyle designed for me in the movie, and many parents named their baby daughters Tammy or Debbie. I’ve met thousands of them over the years, which always makes me happy. For the past four decades, I’ve closed my nightclub act with “Tammy.” So far, the audiences and I still love to hear it.
Leslie Nielsen, the goat, and me. I got along all right with the goat. Leslie had a problem. Photofest
This Happy Feeling
(UNIVERSAL, 1958)
After the great success of Tammy
and the Bachelor, Ross Hunter borrowed me again from MGM for this comedy about the romantic confusions surrounding a retired actor who may be returning to the stage. Unfortunately, it isn’t one of my more memorable works. The script is funny because Blake Edwards was so funny and creative. I admire everything he’s written. He was so talented, one of a kind. It was so much fun doing his scenes.
European Curt Jurgens was cast as the actor and my older love interest. Chemistry is everything, and Curt and I together simply don’t have any onscreen. Offscreen he was lovely to me. Once Curt invited me to his home in Holmby Hills for dinner. It was like going to Versailles. Curt was a kind, gifted man, and I was privileged to know him.
The Mating Game
(MGM, 1959)
A lot went on during the making of this movie, and some of it actually had to do with the movie. This was my first film after the Eddie-Debbie-Elizabeth incident. My life was a whirlwind. When I wasn’t fighting off the paparazzi in my front yard hoping to capture a picture of me with my two kids, one under three and the other just a few months old, I was enduring daily headlines begging me to “let Eddie and Elizabeth be happy.” In the midst of all that, I was doing a movie about a Maryland farm family under siege from the IRS for not paying their taxes. To say I was overloaded would be an understatement. I was a busy lady.
Despite that plot description, The Mating Game is a comedy. Paul Douglas plays my father and Una Merkel my mother, a part she played more than once with me. The adorable Tony Randall is the IRS auditor whose calculations almost cost us the farm.
There was a lot of strenuous activity in this shoot, including an opening scene I share with a seven-hundred-pound hog. I roughhoused with the other kids and practiced twirling a rope for a scene where I tie up Tony in our living room. At the end, Tony and I are so happy together that we jump from the second floor of the barn into a haystack. I kept flying out the barn window and waiting in the hay for Tony, who was clinging to the wooden window frame, terrified. I jumped at least three or four times, never to be followed. Finally the stage managers shoved Tony out of the loft window after me. New Yorkers!
Tony was a delight during the making of this film. Like Leslie Nielsen, he was a classically trained actor from the East and very interested in doing serious roles. And here he was, stuck in a barnyard with the world’s most famous jilted wife. Unlike Leslie at that time, Tony had a great sense of humor.
Tony loved singing opera. He would break into song as soon as the director yelled, “Cut!” favoring everyone with one of his beloved arias. The two of us had dressing room trailers that shared a common wall. Once, during a break, I was in my trailer going over my lines for our next scene, balancing one or both children on my lap and occasionally glancing at my picture on the front page of the newspaper. Suddenly, the trailer started moving up and down—thump, thump, thump—almost like a rhythmical earthquake. From the neighboring trailer I heard Tony’s baritone in full throttle. The thumping and the singing seemed to be connected.
Finally I couldn’t take any more. I decided to pay Tony a visit. As I approached Tony’s trailer, I could see it moving in time with the loud thumps. Throwing open his door, I was stunned to find Tony jumping up and down on the couch in his dressing room, singing at the top of his lungs, stark naked. I was momentarily taken aback by the size of Tony’s equipment. His voice wasn’t the only huge thing in the room.
Tony ignored me completely. He continued to sing, thump, and swing. I’m not surprised that he was able to sire children well into his old age. He must have packed quite a wallop with that thing. Smiling, I went back to my trailer, my lines, and my kids. You had to love a guy who got so thrilled by nude opera jumping. Tony and I remained friends until he died. His talent was only outdone by his sweetness.
Please don’t assume that all I thought about was the size of everyone’s manhood just because I’ve told you about Tony Randall and Bob Fosse. In Hollywood, it’s something of a preoccupation. In my day, Milton Berle was said to be the biggest. When challenged in a contest, Milton would supposedly take out just enough to win. Personally, I didn’t care how large it was—“Big Miltie” was still attached to Uncle Miltie.
I had my hands full when my sweet babies visited me on the set of The Mating Game. Photofest
It Started With a Kiss
(MGM, 1959)
I was glad to leave the country and go on location to shoot this comedy. I wouldn’t have to read Hedda Hopper telling her readers that I was still standing in the way of Eddie and Elizabeth’s happiness because I wouldn’t give him a quickie divorce.
My costar is Glenn Ford, who plays a newlywed air force sergeant whose wife, a fashion model, joins him in Spain and brings along the custom-made car he unknowingly won in a raffle.
Eva Gabor plays a Spanish royal. We became good friends while working together on this picture. Eva wanted me to meet her fiancé at the time, a gentleman named Mr. Brown. I went back to the hotel with Eva, where we found him soaking in the bathtub. I didn’t know we were walking into the bathroom. After my episode with Tony Randall, you’d think I would have learned to knock. “Don’t get up,” I said quickly, in case he was too polite to stay seated when meeting a lady.
One day Glenn Ford and I were rehearsing our lines, and he decided that I was kissable and came at me. I ran—round and round the room several times, until I got tired. Finally I stopped. And he crashed into me, knocking me down.
A quiet moment with Glenn Ford in It Started With a Kiss, when he wasn’t chasing me. The car went on to be used as the Batmobile in the 1960s TV series Batman. Licensed by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved
We both started laughing.
“Stop chasing me,” I said. “I’m not going to bed with you, so get over it. We’ll work on our lines, but nothing else.”
Glenn was always on the make for me. At the time, he was going through a rough divorce with Eleanor Powell. We had divorce in common, but I was not interested in him as a lover. We became friends, and I adored him.
I had to learn my way around a bullring for this movie. It was a fun shoot, mostly uneventful aside from dodging the bull—and Glenn Ford.
Say One for Me
(20TH CENTURY FOX, 1959)
My breakup with Eddie turned out to be a boon to MGM. Suddenly all the other studios wanted me, which meant MGM just had to decide who to lend me out to and how much to charge. Somehow my salary didn’t increase much. But I didn’t mind as long as I was working.
Before I met Eddie, I was deeply in love with Robert Wagner, and making this movie so soon after my marriage dissolved was a real heartache for me. RJ had moved on and so had I, but being around him reminded me of my fantasy life. Well, RJ wasn’t interested, so get over it, Debbie. RJ had to dance in the movie and worked hard to get his positions right. Mostly I kept to myself, though I still have a crush on RJ to this day. There is no one more terrific.
Bing Crosby was a very big star when we made this film, as well as one of the most successful recording artists of all time. His version of “White Christmas” was the biggest-selling single of that era. Bing liked to record at six in the morning when his voice was low. He wouldn’t even warm up.
Bing was then married to Kathy Crosby, his second wife, an actress and singer who performed under the name Kathryn Grant. They gave parties where I met people like the great baseball manager Leo Durocher, whom I wouldn’t otherwise have expected to meet.
Many years later, my charity, the Thalians, planned to honor Bing, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour, who had starred together in the seven popular “Road” comedies (Road to Singapore, Road to Zanzibar, Road to Morocco, Road to Utopia, Road to Rio, Road to Bali, and The Road to Hong Kong). Everyone told me that I’d have trouble getting Bing to come to accept his award. Bob Hope teased me that I would never get him to agree to it. So I decided to call Bing. In those days you could go directly to anyone, even the biggest stars. You didn’t have to go through their agent or manager or hairdresser l
ike you do now—if you can even get them on the line.
I was then appearing on Broadway in Irene, and Bing was on vacation in Scotland, playing golf. Just as I was going onstage, I got word that he was on the line. Long-distance phone calls weren’t as easy to place then as they are now, so of course I took the call. They held the curtain until I finished. When I asked Bing to be our honoree, he agreed, but only if he could accept the award before dinner. He didn’t want to wait around all night to receive it. I agreed to his simple request.
“I’ve got to go hit my balls,” he said and hung up.
I think he was talking about golf, although with a five-hour time difference in Scotland, it would have been the middle of the night.
I once overheard Bing on the phone, when we were making Say One for Me, telling the person at the other end to “go ahead and fire him, but don’t let him know it came from me.” I think he was talking about our director; I’m not sure to this day. Bing was tough, but he could also be generous. That same year I recorded my first album, Debbie, and Bing was kind enough to give me the following quote for the record sleeve:
Someone recently said, and with reasonable accuracy I would think, that good singers make good actors. Evidence in support of this belief is available in the recent performances of Sinatra and Martin, for instance, but I would like to put forth also the proposition that the reverse is quite true: good actors make good singers. Assuming they can carry a tune. We all know that Debbie is better than a good actress—she’s VERY good, and we all know she can sing with a lilt and a listenable quality that’s genuinely pleasant and agreeable. Witness “Tammy.” It was small surprise to me then that when I listened to this beautiful album she has etched for Dot, I found myself captivated and enchanted. Quite obviously Debbie had spent a great deal of time selecting the songs to be included, because she’s made them her own, and invested them with a sincerity that’s inescapable—of contrasting moods to be sure, but the moods are there, and to me, mighty effective. And that, mes amis, is artistry.
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