One day my mother got a phone call from a man who said he was a photographer. He told her that he would like to do a photo shoot with me for a magazine cover. He explained how he would pick me up, drive me to the location, then return me home. She agreed to let him do it.
On a Saturday afternoon, the man pulled up to our house on Evergreen Avenue in Burbank in a station wagon. He had with him a beautiful collie dog. We drove to a remote farm deep in the valley.
It was a pretty uneventful afternoon. The photographer had an outfit for me to wear: a pair of light blue dungarees, a matching blue plaid shirt, a bright red neckerchief, and a white cowgirl hat. I had washed and set my own hair. I wasn’t wearing any makeup. (My mother and father didn’t approve of makeup for young girls. The only makeup Mother ever wore was a light lipstick called Tangee. There wasn’t much color in it; it was orange in the tube but went on almost clear.)
This was the first time I’d ever posed for a picture. All the photos taken of me after I won the beauty contest had been candid shots.
The final picture is of me leaning against a wooden fence next to the collie. It was eventually sold to Collier’s, a famous weekly magazine that no longer exists, and appeared on the cover of their November 13, 1948, issue with a box announcing the start of “The Amazing Story of Jimmy Doolitle” (see color photos insert). By then, I was signed to Warner Brothers. An inside page identified the picture:
Lassie with a Lassie. Carlyle Blackwell, Jr., son of the famous actor, photographed Debbie Reynolds of Burbank, Cal., after she had won a talent contest.
I think they probably meant to suggest that the collie in the picture was the same dog that had starred in several hit movies in the 1940s, including two with Elizabeth Taylor, and went on to have a hit television series. But the real Lassie never went anywhere without her trainers.
Looking back, I’m amazed that my mother allowed her sixteen- year- old daughter to go off in a car alone with someone she didn’t know. She could have asked my brother to go along, but she didn’t. She trusted me to be able to take care of myself, and apparently Mr. Blackwell was a very well- known photographer.
I was raised on baseball. My father’s whole life was about the game. We were not allowed to speak when the radio was on— you did not talk, you did not sing, you did not do anything. You listened to the game. My brother trained to play professionally, but was sidetracked by a shoulder injury. So it was a real event when I was introduced to one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
A HANDSOME, QUIET ADONIS
In the summer of 1952 I was filming I Love Melvin in New York City, and one of my publicity trips was to Yankee Stadium to see a game Joe DiMaggio was playing. What a thrill it was to meet him in the Yankee dugout. I believe this picture has never been seen before.
A few years later I was fortunate to meet him socially, when my friend Jeanette Johnson and I were in Paris. Jeanette was a physical education teacher. Sports were her
With the great baseball star Joe DiMaggio. I visited him in the Yankees dugout while I was on location in New York making I Love Melvin with Donald O’Connor.
passion. On this special evening in Paris, we went out to dinner at Maxim’s with the designer Joseph Picone, head of the Evan Picone fashion house, and his wife. They said that a good friend of theirs would be joining us. What a surprise when that friend turned out to be Joe DiMaggio.
I didn’t drink at that time, and I’d never known Jeanette to, so when the waiter came over to ask us if we’d like a cocktail, I turned to tell him that she didn’t drink. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, Jeanette said, “I’ll have a Scotch on the rocks.” It was like a vaudeville bit. I was taken aback. Then I realized that she was just getting into the swing of things.
Joe DiMaggio was a quiet, shy man, and so handsome. Jeanette knew his record and all the stats for the Yankees, and that night Joltin’ Joe only had eyes for her. Every other beautiful woman at the restaurant must have wondered what her secret was. They talked about baseball the entire night.
So if you want to dazzle a great athlete, learn your stats!
When I was under contract to MGM, I was paid every week no matter what I was doing. If I wasn’t working on a film, I might be studying dance, singing, or drama. Sometimes the studios sent stars on publicity tours. Once we went to Washington, DC, where we met President Truman; another time Pier Angeli and I toured South America. This is about another trip south of the border.
SWIMMING WITH SHARKS
In December 1952 MGM organized a lavish junket to Mexico City for a visit to their new production studio there, and to attend the inauguration of Mexico’s new president, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines. The group included me, Celeste Holm, and Rhonda Fleming and her new husband, Dr. Lewis Morrill. The studio also let me invite my father and my high school friend Jeanette. Celeste and I became good friends on that trip. She was a great gal who liked to have fun. We worked together later in The Tender Trap with Frank Sinatra. Celeste was one of our great actresses. She was talented and beautiful, similar in type to Loretta Young. They both had great careers and were nominated for many awards for their work. Celeste won the Oscar, Golden Globe, and New York Film Critics Circle awards in 1947 for her role in Gentleman’s Agreement, and received two more Oscar nominations after that.
Our first stop was Mexico City. I shivered in the night air. My only coat was at the dry cleaners in LA; I didn’t think I’d need it in Mexico. Instead of the usual limo, a bus was sent to pick us up at the airport and take us to the hotel. Some of the actors refused to get on it. I took charge.
“Get on the bus,” I ordered them. “You’re the luckiest group of people in the world. My father was a brakeman on the railroad. He still works on the road. I worked at the counter at JCPenney. The most fortunate hour of my life was when I got a job in pictures. On the tenth of this month, I’m going to entertain the troops in Korea. This is the first vacation I’ve had in two years and nobody is going to ruin it.”
Everyone applauded— and got on that bus.
Hedda Hopper, then one of the most powerful gossip columnists in the world, wrote about it. She was famous for her sharp tongue and fabulous hats. She often went along on studio trips. Everyone, including the studios, was afraid of her, although they pretended otherwise. Hedda liked it that way. The studio would never have refused her access, and she in turn provided them with publicity.
(I should say, everyone but me was afraid of her. I always told Hedda when I disagreed with or didn’t like something she had written, and she always took it from me.)
The inauguration took place on December 1 at the Palace of Fine Arts, a vast building in the northern part of the city. Masses of people crammed into the huge courtyard to view the proceedings. As we crowded into the room where the ceremony was held, my petticoat started to slip. The elastic in the waistband must have been loose. I tried pulling it up but finally I had to just step out of it. (Only Hedda Hopper seemed to notice. She wrote about it in her column.) Lex Barker (who played Tarzan) lifted me up on his shoulder so I could see what was going on.
We had a few days before the opening of the new studio, so we decided to visit Acapulco. One afternoon Celeste and I went out with surfboards. I wouldn’t exactly call it “surfing”; we paddled beyond the breaking waves and just floated. At one point I yelled to Celeste across the water.
“Look how big the waves are getting.”
“I see them,” she yelled back. “And they all have fins.”
Shark alert! A whole school of them, as it turned out.
Celeste and I were both very light and very fair. Those sharks must have seen us and thought, “Hey guys, look—lunch.”
That’s when Celeste and I learned to be speedboats, using our arms to paddle like hell toward the shore. The lifeguards were already on their way to save us. We didn’t realize how far out we’d gone. Talk about your dumb tourists.
Celeste and I escaped being lunch in Acapulco, and ever since then I’v
e avoided swimming in the ocean.
There were all kinds of fun things to do on this Mexico trip. I danced with Gary Cooper at a party. Gary was already in town to shoot Blowing Wild with Barbara Stanwyck. He’s one of the handsomest men I’ve ever met, and I’ve met quite a few lookers.
Miguel Alemán Valdés Jr., the son of the outgoing president of Mexico, took us all to a villa outside the city so Daddy and Jeanette could attend the bullifights. I wasn’t interested in watching bulls die, so Miguel’s associate Enrique Parra Hernández offered to show me around. Enrique had been President Valdés’s right- hand man on economic maters. He was just ending his job as the director of Mexico’s National Bank of Foreign Commerce.
“Let me show you the apartment I keep for my mistress,” he offered.
It sounded interesting.
Once we were there, he said, “Let me show you the bedroom.”
I didn’t think much about it. I knew Enrique was married and had a family. Besides, he had a mistress. He was busy enough.
Over the bed was a huge oil painting of a beautiful red-haired movie star I knew: Maureen O’Hara. Wow. I didn’t know Maureen had a lover in Mexico. Unlike Hedda, I didn’t keep track of everybody’s affairs. I was still the Virgin Mary Frances from Burbank, and I was shocked.
But that was just the first course. While I was staring at Maureen’s portrait, Enrique gently nudged me onto the bed. In one hand he offered me a ruby- and- diamond bracelet. The other hand was already up my full skirt and pawing at my panties.
Daddy and Jeanette had gone to the bullfights and I got left with the bull.
My years as a gymnast paid off— in one swift move I got away from him. Then I demanded we return to Miguel’s villa.
Luckily Enrique took no for an answer. Daddy was another story. When I told him what had happened, he hurried Jeanette and me onto a plane back to LA.
A few months later, Miguelito (our nickname for Miguel) came to visit me in Los Angeles. He was very handsome, tall and dark- haired with impeccable manners. Looking back at pictures of him now, I realize that Miguelito resembled Eddie Fisher. I guess dark, handsome men were becoming my “type.”
On our first date, he gave me a gold pin and a beautiful heart- shaped pearl- and- diamond ring. Daddy hit the roof when I showed them to him. He told me I couldn’t accept such personal and extravagant gifts. I was very upset.
With my friends Olympic champion Bob Mathias and actress Celeste Holm on the beach in Acapulco.
Miguelito was a gentleman. He hadn’t made any plays like his friend Enrique.
Miguelito came to the house to speak with Daddy. He explained that the jewelry was a gesture of friendship, nothing more. He must have charmed Daddy, too, because I got to keep the gifts.
Can you believe it? A few years later I lost the ring when I washed my hands in a ladies’ room at the Horn Comedy Club in Santa Monica while I was out dancing. But to this day, I still have the pin.
EDDIE CANTOR THROWS AN ENGAGEMENT PARTY
Eddie Cantor was a very popular entertainer from the early 1920s until his death in October 1964. He started in vaudeville and also made many radio and film appearances. He was known for his songs “Makin’ Whoopee” and “If You Knew Susie.” Like many comics of his day, he worked in the Catskills, which was known as the Borscht Belt.
That was where he discovered Eddie Fisher, at the popular resort Grossinger’s, in 1949. Cantor gave Eddie a lot of support and was his mentor when Eddie was starting his career. And he didn’t want Eddie to marry me. Cantor
felt that Eddie’s career would suffer if he did. He wanted Eddie to continue to be a young heartthrob. Eddie’s manager, Milton Blackstone, felt the same way. They also thought that Eddie wasn’t ready to settle down. I thought so, too. When we met, he was dating at least two other girls and made a date with Pier Angeli for the same night he invited me to see him perform at the Cocoanut Grove. But I accepted Eddie’s proposal. I was in love with him, and believed he was in love with me.
Cantor finally accepted that Eddie and I were getting married, and as a gesture of goodwill threw a big engagement party for us at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He invited four hundred people— the A- list of Hollywood at the time.
The party was held on Saturday, October 30, 1954, in the hotel’s Crystal Room. The Cantors did a beautiful job. There were huge bouquets of flowers on a raised platform behind a long table spread with a magnificent buffet. Eddie’s parents made a special trip from Philadelphia to attend. Edward G. Robinson brought his wife, as did Jack Benny and Fred Astaire. Other married couples who came were Gordon MacRae and the actress Sheila Stephens, Ann Blyth and Dr. James McNulty, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. Even the mayor of Los Angeles and his wife put in an appearance. Joan Crawford came stag. Photographers circulated through the crowded room, taking pictures.
Three of my good friends who’d also gotten engaged recently came with their fiancés: Vera Ellen with Vic Rothschild, Pier Angeli with Vic Damone, and Jane Powell with Pat Nerney. Designer Helen Rose had thrown a bridal shower for us a week or so earlier.
For my engagement party Helen made me a powder- blue gown to wear, because blue was Eddie’s favorite color. Eddie gave me a bracelet with two strands of pearls; the clasp was a round diamond. (Comedian Henny Youngman joked that I was breaking my engagement because I’d found out that the diamond was really a piece of broken Coca- Cola bottle. Coke was the sponsor of Eddie’s TV show, Coke Time.)
Later that month Eddie took me to visit his parents in Philadelphia. One of the local papers ran a picture of us sampling his mother’s cooking. Dorothy Kilgallen wrote in her syndicated “Voice of Broadway” newspaper column about Eddie and me attending the Metropolitan Opera in New York, being photographed by reporters, and going to a club afterward. The only sour note was a three- part syndicated article running in many papers about how Eddie might not be ready for marriage (sometimes in the same issue with local ads for my movies Athena and Susan Slept Here, which was then a big hit).
We were married on September 17, 1955, at Jennie Grossinger’s home in Pennsylvania. Our friend Mike Todd gave us a reception after we got back from our wedding, at the Bel Air home of Nicholas Schenck (pronounced “Skenk”). Mr. Schenck was one of the big bosses at MGM. Louis B. Mayer hated him, and privately called him “Mr. Skunk.” Sonny and Cher later purchased his house.
That party was more sedate. Studio executives Jack Warner, Lew Wasserman, and Samuel Goldwyn were there, along with Gary Cooper, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and a lot of wealthy society folks.
That was a happy time in my life— fun and exciting. I remember it well to this day. Eddie Cantor and I became friends, and he introduced me to many comics who also became my friends.
With my fiancé, Eddie Fisher, at our engagement party at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Eddie Cantor threw this celebration and invited everyone in Hollywood, including the darling Jack Benny.
OVER THE RAINBOW TO LONG BEACH
After my dear friend Judy Garland was fired from MGM in 1950, she concentrated on doing concerts, including her historic four- week run at London’s Palladium and record-breaking nineteen weeks at the Palace Theatre in New York. She divorced Vincente Minnelli in 1951 and in June 1952 married her tour manager and arranger, Sid Luft. Five months later she gave birth to their first child, and Judy’s second daughter, Lorna.
In March 1954, Warner Brothers hired Judy to do a remake of A Star Is Born, directed by George Cukor. The film opened at the end of September to rave reviews and great box office, and Judy was later nominated for the Academy Award as Best Actress. She was in the hospital the night of the Oscars ceremony, having just given birth to her son, Joey, on March 29, 1955. A television crew had been sent to broadcast her anticipated acceptance speech.
Sadly, Judy didn’t win. Many were shocked when Grace Kelly won for her role in The Country Girl. As wonderful as Grace is in that film, I felt Judy should have won. The story goes that Groucho Marx sent Judy a telegram saying tha
t her loss of the award was “the greatest robbery since Brinks.”
In spite of its popularity with moviegoers and critics, A Star Is Born lost money due to problems Judy had experienced that resulted in production overruns. So once again, in 1955 she was unemployable as an actress and in the position of having to make a comeback.
Sid was Judy’s manager and business partner by then, and they decided that she would do another concert tour. It was a big production involving fifty-five people, with an all- male chorus of dancers; special material written by Roger Edens, Leonard Gershe, and Kay Thompson; and directed and choreographed by Charles Walters. Chuck had started out as a choreographer on films such as Meet Me in St. Louis, Best Foot Forward, and Judy’s Girl Crazy (in which he’d partnered with Judy on- screen). He’d gone on to direct many hit musicals, including Easter Parade starring Judy and Fred Astaire, and, much later, my own The Unsinkable Molly Brown. He also directed Frank Sinatra and me in The Tender Trap, a cute film that was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch. (I recently saw it on Turner Classic Movies.)
Judy’s tour was scheduled to begin in San Diego on July 8, 1955, and to move on from there to the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and (with the great trumpet player and bandleader Harry James joining) across the US. A dress rehearsal was held at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on July 6, to which several columnists were invited.
Judy didn’t want to appear anywhere near Los Angeles or Hollywood. But then a Long Beach theater- chain operator asked her to consider doing a benefit for their Exceptional Children’s Foundation, and Judy agreed. (Exceptional was the term used then for “special needs.”) They added a performance, to be held at Long Beach Municipal Auditorium on July 11. More than a hundred local organizations sponsored ticket sales, and notices appeared in the papers.
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