What falls away : a memoir

by Farrow, Mia, 1945-

  In the beginning they tried to persuade me to cut my waist-length hair into one of the styles of the day. I argued that the character I was playing wouldn't be bothered with hair. Which was true, but a strong sense of self-preservation also came into play; I didn't look good with fancy hair, and

  more important, those hairdos would take time every morning, with curlers and hair dryers, and I wanted to ride my horse. Makeup was another issue. In those days they heaped it on, with eye shadow, wmged eyeliner, mmnow brows, gobs of lipstick, and heavy dark base. They told me I had to match the men, who wore an even darker base, but when a ten-year-old girl joined the cast and she didn't wear makeup, I never wore it again.

  Our shooting schedule was so intense that none of us had a chance to look up. We shot two shows simultaneously, and I roller-skated from stage to stage, from shot to shot. The fact that the series was watched by millions of people was not at all real to me, and except for the bags of mail that arrived several times a week, it didn't enter my consciousness until I came back to visit my family in New York for the Christmas break.

  Once again I was in the bedroom I shared with Prudy and Steffi at the apartment on Central Park West, where my family had lived since 1964. It was good to feel the bite of real winter and to be with them all again. We stayed up late every night talking, drinking wine, laughing, and catching up with one another's lives. I forgot all about Peyton Place.

  One day my brother Johnny, my sisters, and I went ice-skating in Central Park. I have wobbly ankles so I was hanging on to my brother, struggling gamely along, when I heard my name called out. I turned to see a few people skating toward me, waving white paper plates, and then I noticed more people looking at me, pointing, calling my name, coming at me, and suddenly plates were fluttering everywhere like white doves, and people were pushing, pulling, and shouting. I got separated from Johnny, I could barely stand, and I didn't know which way to go when three or four attendants got me to the rail and pulled me out. That was the day it dawned on me that I was famous.

  A second occurrence that same week seemed equally strange. I had gone to Bloomingdale's to buy a pair of shoes. The salesman was as nasty as could be, so we hurried through the process and I gave him my credit card. He disappeared with it, and returned a few minutes later a transformed person, the very soul of mceness, asking for my autograph.

  Peyton Place was so successful thev moved me downstairs mto a big dressmg room that had an outer office for a secretary. The phone rang constantly and the mail was so overwhelming that finally I needed an assistant, and wonderful Barbara Daitch stepped in to take care of everything.

  1 rented a three-room apartment, the top half of a Httle house on shady La Peer Drive, for $150 a month. I bought tweedy brown furniture at Sears and put in wall-to-wall red carpeting everywhere except the bedroom, which had white furniture and a blue carpet. I got a fake rock pond with a little waterfall and fake moss all around it for my cat, Malcolm. I was thrilled with my life, and my horse, and when I was lonely, I looked up my old school friends.

  Michael Boyer took me to dinner; he ate steak and, as always, barely looked at me. And not long after, Michael Boyer, whom I had loved all my life, blew his brains out playing Russian roulette.

  Late on the afternoon of the funeral I stood at the back door of the Boyers' house. "Mrs. Boyer asked for you," my mother had said. "She's expecting you, no staff will be there all week, so just go on in." Even so I waited more than the appropriate interval before ringing a second time, and doubled it before I knocked. Eventually I stepped inside cautiously, calling, "Mrs. Boyer?"

  Dusk had already begun to settle into the house. No one would bother to turn the lights on, not this night. Of course I already knew that Mrs. Boyer would be upstairs

  lying on her bed, just as I knew that Mr. Boyer would be alone in one of the darkening rooms, sitting in an armchair, a glass in his hand. So I threaded my way through the hushed house and up the curved staircase, careful to look neither right nor left.

  "Mrs. Boyer, it's me, Mia." And more softly, "Mr. Boyer?"

  "Mia, come in here." A voice, flat and hoarse, summoned me to the threshold of the bedroom, where, across its considerable length, within the cool beige tones, Michael's mother lay just as I had envisioned, on a too-large bed. Respect for her in this sorrow, awe of its dimensions, and fear of its strangeness forbid any further approach, so I settled at the door into awful silence. What could anyone do or give that would ease even a little Mrs. Boyer's suffering? ^

  "I'm just so sorry" was the best I could wrench out, and it hung inadequate and reproachful in the dense space between us. I tried with all my being to lift the leaden sphere where she lay and where I stood, or to interpose myself between her and the bottomless swallowing. Feeling all this and knowing the rest, I only pressed my forehead as hard as I could into the edge of the door.

  I don't know how long I stood there. Eternities. Finally I heard myself ask, "Do you want me to leave, Mrs. Boyer?" But she didn't say anything. "Or I can stay. I can stay here as long as you want." And she said, from a long way away, in a small voice, "Thank you for coming."

  "Is there anything I can do for you?" I blurted. "Do you want me to turn the light on? Do you want some tea or soup or anything?" I thought she said something, maybe a word. But I didn't catch it. Then, full of self-loathing for my inadequacies, I said good-bye and crept out of the house quickly—not knowing what room Mr. Boyer was sitting in.

  On Linden Drive in Beverly Hills, California, the air was

  sweet and the sun was already low behind the palms. Soon it would be dark. The stars would be out.

  Good night, Mrs. Boyer.

  Good night, Mr. Boyer.

  Fox was now booming. Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner were making a film there together, Julie Andrews and the kids from The Sound of Music were all over the place, and there were several other television series in production, including Batman. Now you had to reserve a table to eat in the commissary.

  Studios have a kind of campus feel. When actors are at work on neighboring soundstages, there is a camaraderie; adrenaline runs high, and when people get restless during lengthy breaks between filming, one option is to wander over to another set. So I was delighted when Johnny Leyton, from Guns at Batasi, arrived for his role in Von Ryan's Express, starring Frank Sinatra.

  I had met Frank Sinatra eight years earlier, when I was eleven, havmg dinner with my father at Romanoffs restaurant. "Pretty girl," he had joked, and my father returned, "You stay away from her." But I didn't suppose Mr. Sinatra would remember that. Now I stood in the dark soundstage, watching as he filmed a scene aboard a fake train with a gorgeous Italian actress, and I thought what a beautiful face he had, full of pain and somehow familiar. We didn't speak that day, but on another visit, as I was watching the filming, I became aware of Mr. Sinatra, seated off to the side, a good distance behind me, amid a boisterous cluster of men.

  Suddenly a large, pleasant-faced man approached me and said, "Hi, we were just wondermg how old you are?" I glanced at the group sitting in their canvas chairs watching me. My long hair was in braids and I guessed I didn't look my age, so I stood up tall to say, "Nineteen." Minutes later, I was invited to join them, and of course I did immediately,

  but I was so nervous that I spilled the contents of my straw bag all over the floor in front of Frank Sinatra and under his chair, and into one of my Wellington boots too. I scrambled to pick stuff up. My retainer first (the mortification), coins rolling every which way, pictures of my horse, parts of a green doughnut, jars of baby food for my cat, Chap Stick, my glasses, tampons, bubble gum, candy, keys, the full catastrophe. "Oh, excuse me," I kept saying, "I'm sorry," as he helped me.

  It might have been right then, as our eyes met, that I began to love him; I felt a column of light rising inside me, pulling particles from dark dead corners. I was a little dazed when I left to get back to work. He walked me to the stage door and asked whether I'd like to see a movie with him on Friday night—
a private screening of his first directorial attempt. None But the Brave.

  "Sure," I managed. "I'd love to." It was Wednesday, and I had two days to worry about what I'd wear, and what in the world we'd talk about. I could tell he was shy, and that made two of us.

  I didn't sleep very well on Thursday night. After work on Friday I met him at Warner Bros., in a screening room. I got dressed up; by that I mean I wore an olive green dress that I felt made me look older.

  I'm nothing i£ not punctual, so right on time we said, "Hi," and not much else, and the lights went down. I don't remember much about the movie; there were the Japanese and our guys and everybody in uniform, and some skirmishes—I cant be sure, my mind wasn't absolutely with it. Somewhere in the middle, Frank Sinatra held my hand. That's what I remember.

  And when the lights came on he invited me to come to Palm Springs with him that very evening.

  "Palm Springs?" I repeated. He explained that he went there all the time, whenever he had time off; there would be

  other guests too, it was going to be fun, it was always fun in Palm Springs, so would I like to come with him now?

  "Now?" I said. This was not exactly crisp dialogue. Then I mumbled something about my cat, "I have a cat, he has to be fed, he'U only eat baby food, and my clothes, my pajamas, and toothbrush, it doesn't make any sense, but thank you, thank you for inviting me. I'm sorry."

  And I was thinking, please forgive me, Frank Sinatra, it's all my fault, I probably shouldn't have held hands with you, that was forward of me, I gave the wrong impression, I can't go to Palm Springs with you, or anywhere else either. I have no idea what I'm domg, I don't know anything at all, I'll only disappoint you, I have no pills or diaphragms and no clear idea of what people do smce I've never done any of it myself, so please let's just forget the whole thing. I'm sorry about the hand holding.

  And he said, "How 'bout tomorrow? I'll send my plane for you. You can bring your cat."

  What was that? Sending his plane for the cat and me? Reality tiptoed out of the room. It was my turn to talk but by this time I was just swamped; so disoriented and rattled I couldn't sort out which thing to say. Maybe he understood some portion of this, or perhaps it was the awkwardness that inspired, in the middle of the swarming silence, a smile of such loveliness that I smiled a little too, then had to look away because he was watching me so. And when I could look again, behind his eyes was no stranger. Again the feeling of recognition took me by surprise.

  Apprehension smoothed into curiosity. He was talking, I can't be sure of the words because something else was happening too—a gathering of thoughts appeared in his eyes and he pushed them into mine; but this time I held my place, I did not flinch or look away and though I sent no messages myself, the boldness and potency of all this eyeing surprised me into further silence, out of which leaped a thought, brand-new and with music and light—^that it

  could be wonderful to be in Palm Springs or anyplace else with this Frank Sinatra.

  So with fake confidence I dared to say, "Okay,"

  Again I didn't sleep so well, what with all the worrying and imagining, and in the morning I spent too long deciding how many jars of baby food to bring for the cat— which wasn't about the baby food, it was about whether I would be staying there overnight. I packed enough to cover Sunday, just in case, and tried not to think about the rest. Then I put a leash on my cat, and Barbara, my secretary, drove us to a special airport for private planes in Burbank.

  Maybe now is the moment to mention my sense of direction because it's bound to come up again: it's as bad as they come. It's a curse. I can't find my way anywhere or back again, which is worse, even when shown patiently and in great detail, I can't do it. People get exasperated with me and sometimes I'm late because of it, which is unforgivable, and it's scary when you don't know where you're going or how you'll ever get home. Some people will understand this and most won't. Anyway, that's why Barbara was doing the driving. So we were already there when I realized that this was the same airport my brother Mike took off from and never came back.

  We found the airplane—Barbara did—just where it was supposed to be, and I climbed aboard. The interior of the plane was spacious and orange wherever possible. Malcolm seemed unfazed.

  Thirty minutes later we were coasting along the desert runway to a remote corner of the Palm Springs Airport, where I spotted Frank Sinatra leaning against a black car, his arms folded across an orange short-sleeved shirt. He looked handsome. As I climbed down the plane's steps clutching my cat and straw hat, he walked up to us and laughed.

  During the short drive to his house he spoke about the

  desert and how much he loved it there and he was sure I would like it too.

  "I don't know Palm Springs at all," I said leadenly. Then it hit me that I'd made a terrible mistake coming to this place.

  His house was Palm Springs—casual, modern, with a lot of Chinese things, and plenty of light. With obvious pride he showed me a room where John Fitzgerald Kennedy had slept, and the brass plaque that said so.

  One whole side of the living room and bar was glass, with sliding doors that opened onto a large patio, and beyond that was an oval swimming pool. He was explaining that recently he had moved the pool because it had been too near the house. I made what I hoped were understanding noises, but after seeing the two octagonal guest houses at either end of the pool, each with two bedrooms and four bathrooms, and the helicopter port, I was well along in being utterly overwhelmed.

  Yul Brynner was sitting out by the pool wearing a white towel robe, an attractive redheaded woman by his side. I couldn't help but notice she was weeping. We hurried past. Later I discovered she had originally been invited by Frank to be his date for the weekend, but as plans changed (me) he had simply passed her along to Yul, who was now doing his best to cheer her up.

  Continuing the tour we studied a very large cactus garden and I heard myself say "gosh" too many times. Along one side of the property ran a narrow, quiet road, and the other side was bordered by the golf course of the Tamarisk Country Club.

  Reentering the main house, I was taken to a small room that appeared to be an office, desk and all. Except the couch had been made into a bed.

  "And here you are!" he said cheerfully. "Right near my

  room," gesturing to the other end of the short hallway. We stared awkwardly into the office-bedroom. Finally I asked, "Could I please set up the cat box in here now?"

  But there in the doorway he took the cat out of my arms and put it on the floor, and he put his foot on the leash and held me close against himself and I don't even know what happened then; the lonelmess, fearfulness, doubt, desire, yearning for closeness and for approbation, for mean-mg and for miracles, and for truth too, all came together in silence beyond words.

  The cat slept alone that night in the little room of the long embrace.

  G h apt e V Five

  We spent our weekends together after that and as much time as possible in between. In L.A., Frank lived in a single-bedroom rented apartment on Doheny Drive. During those first months, until he finished Von Ryans Express, we were both working, most days at Fox. When he went out to dinner with his friends, he tried to get home early so that we could have some time. Although we didn't discuss it, I understood and accepted that it would be awkward fiDr him to include me in his social life.

  On Fridays, when we finished work, his helicopter would land on the back lot of the studio to bring us to Palm Springs; at other times we flew there in his plane, or he drove us in his black, custom-built Italian car. Once, when I tried to drive myself to Palm Springs, I became so hopelessly lost that I spent eight hours on the freeways—phoning him, near tears, from gas stations all over Southern California.

  After a while we moved my horse to Palm Springs and I rode in the desert. I discovered an

  oasis, a place that had been a water stop for covered wagons, where Salvador enjoyed splashing in the muddy pond and where I would visit an ancient Native Ameri
can man who lived in a log cabin, thickly shaded by palm trees. He would always give me a glass of bitter, warm beer and recite beautiful Indian prayers. I was never able to persuade Frank to get on a horse, but when I rode Salvador in the ring and took him over modest jumps, he liked to come, and leaning against the rail, he'd stay there and watch as long as I cared to ride.

  Elsie was a large, maternal woman who supervised the Palm Springs household. The professionally equipped kitchen was her territory, except when Frank made his spaghetti sauce. Then I would perch next to him on a stool, eating a bag of potato chips or cookies while he explained the process. Sometimes we saw Elsie in the corner crying because of her no-good husband.

  Every morning after breakfast we sat in the living room or out by the swimming pool, frowning into our crossword puzzles; because Frank enjoyed them, I tried to do them too. He introduced me to the symphonies of one of his favorite composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, which I loved too, and he did his best to interest me in golf—even buying me my own set of clubs in a white, leather bag with MIA embossed on it in pale blue letters. But I hated the game, and I was hopeless at it. Even more boring were the interminable golf games he would watch on television.

  In Los Angeles one night, while I was driving home from Frank's apartment, I realized I was being followed by a couple of men in a car. When I wasn't able to shake them, I pulled into a brightly lit gas station and telephoned Frank, who puUed up in minutes with a loaded gun. My pursuers took off, but Frank decided I ought to know how to protect myself. He bought a small pearl-handled gun, and in the desert across the road from his house, he set up tin cans and gave me shooting lessons. I was a reluctant pupil, and