by Savage Grace- The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich
Eventually I called Paul Greenwood, a policeman who used to moonlight by driving me into New York occasionally and who’d been in the station the day Barbara came in. I said, “I just want to show you where Barbara Baekeland’s house is, in case I ever have to call you to get over there quickly.”
Paul Greenwood
I was the sergeant on duty when she came in about her car. She was very, very, very emotional, very upset, and, you know, she proceeded to look down upon everyone there and give us the devil. She really was raising hell. She had on a long, funny-looking gown. We didn’t have a chance to do any talking, she did all the talking—she insulted everybody. We just listened and let her get it off of her chest—we let them ventilate when they get that excited, then they’ll cool off and you can reason with them.
I think she had her son with her, but I’m not sure about that. She was a Baekeland by marriage, right? And Baekeland was the name of the man that invented Bakelite originally, right? Well, she certainly acted like she was from the hufty-tufty there, you know—very haughty individual, I thought.
Gloria Jones
I saw Barbara for the last time that winter, I guess. In Long Island. And she looked ratty—for Barbara, who always wore these marvelous furs and beautiful robes and the Chanels, you know.
Sylvie Baekeland Skira
You have to understand that Barbara had been a great beauty. She was losing her looks, and her husband had left her for someone much younger. She would write to Brooks saying, “I’ve been to the doctor, he finds me amazing. He thinks I have the body of a thirty-year-old,” or, “My looks still stop traffic”—I remember that expression. She was terribly accrochée to this—holding on, holding on to this fiercely.
Frederick Combs
I kept hearing from everyone how beautiful she’d been, and then Tom Dillow asked me over to her place in East Hampton for drinks—I remember it was the dead of winter. The son was there, too, and he was just sitting by the fire and we were having a perfectly, you know, average conversation when all of a sudden he leaps out of his chair toward his mother. He got within a few feet of her, and, I mean, his grimace and everything was incredible—a look of just total hatred. Then he just stopped in his tracks and went back to his chair by the fire, a rocking chair as I recall. It was a terrifying moment, but she reacted as though nothing had happened and was seemingly more involved in how to calm us down, you know, and just get the conversation going again. I remember later she told us he had been burning the furniture in the fireplace that afternoon. Imagine being a stranger and sitting with someone and having them talk about the burning of furniture as though they were just simply saying would you like another cube of ice in your drink, you know. It was real casual.
Dominick Dunne
I met Barbara Baekeland when she came to the screening of a film that I produced. It must have been 1971 or ’72. She stayed on afterward to discuss the picture. I saw her a few times after that and once fetched something for her from her London apartment that she wanted in New York, a mink hat I think it was. I didn’t know her very well, but I had several friends who were very close to her, and I had heard stories about Tony attacking her, particularly a tale of an attack he made on his mother at their house in East Hampton when friends of mine were present. The story was more or less dismissed at the time—“He didn’t really mean it,” that sort of thing—but became horrifying in retrospect after he actually did kill her.
In 1982, my own daughter, Dominique, was attacked and murdered by a former boyfriend. She had become frightened of him and broken off the relationship. It was not the first time that he had attacked her—there had been two previous instances. The thing that haunts us all, my wife and sons and me, and that we have to live with, is that none of us thought in terms of murder. It simply never occurred to us that the man was a killer. Afterward, when it was too late, all the warning signs became clear.
Richard Hare
My wife and I used to drive Barbara and Tony out to East Hampton on weekends. They didn’t have a car or anything, and I remember one day as we were leaving—we left Fridays around one o’clock—Barbara took me aside and said, “Richard, Tony isn’t quite himself, he’s stopped taking his pills, but don’t worry about it because I’m going to get him on the pills again.”
All the way down in the car he was making these funny little nursery rhymes and, you know, singing to himself. So when we got to their house I took Barbara aside and said, “Barbara, I think it would be wise for you both to spend the night at our house. I don’t like the idea of you being alone in the house here, with Tony not being quite right.” She said, “Don’t worry a thing about it. He’s going to be fine.” And I said, “Will you call me the first thing in the morning?” and she said, “Richard, I’ve been through this a hundred times before.” The next morning she did call: “Oh, we had a lovely dinner”—you know.
That night, they came for drinks. We sat by the fire and he was pretty well-behaved. He rather liked it in our house because it was a big old East Hampton house, 1796 it was born, and he rather liked that whole idea, and he had a lot of feeling about the house and it was quite calming for him, I think. He seemed perfectly under control until Barbara said, “I’ve brought some lovely sketches that Tony’s done.” He became quite antagonistic toward her then but she was able to placate him very nicely.
Early that Monday morning Barbara Hale called me and told me what had happened over at her place the night before. I was relieved it hadn’t happened in my house, because I would have called the police, you see, and Barbara Baekeland would never have spoken to me again.
David Mead
I was strictly a nonhistorical facet in all of this. I was married at the time to Deirdre Cohane, the daughter of the Baekelands’ old friends Jack and Mimi Cohane. I can’t remember how we got out to East Hampton, to tell you the truth. I guess we drove out—or did we take the train? No, we must have driven out in a rented car. That’s vague to me, how we got there. I certainly know how we got back—in pieces.
This was January 1972. It was a really nasty day. It was snowing and blowing, and Barbara’s house was right on the beach, and the sea was threatening to wash it right over the dunes. We were going over to Barbara Hale’s for dinner.
Now this is the first time I ever met Barbara Hale. It was about seven, I guess, when we got there, and dinner wasn’t quite ready, and Barbara Baekeland and I were sitting at the kitchen table drinking and talking. We were on our first drink, then our second drink, and it was very pleasant—no problems at all. We were talking about all kinds of things in general but I remember specifically what we were talking about when it began to happen—we were talking about European architecture, something which I know nothing about but which I thought I knew something about. In other words, I was pontificating or something. And all of a sudden, out of the blue Barbara Baekeland said, “Good God, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Now this is the first time I’ve ever seen her angry or even upset about anything. And she really lashed into me, she attacked me with a real force. I remember the conversation so well only because I was trying to figure out what it was that I had said that might have made her so angry, and as I was trying to figure this out—trying to play it back, so to speak—she was still going on at me. I think maybe the third drink or so had just done it, you know.
Tony was in the living room but when he heard his mother’s voice raised in anger, he came rushing in and said to her, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” He sort of took over for me, and met her on her level, which was pretty high and angry. And I was just of no consequence at that point. He accused her of being a whore, and she accused him of being a homosexual, you know—“homo” I think was the word she used. “What could you ever do with a woman?” she said. Something to that effect. At that point he took an egg off the counter and smashed it on her face. Then she threw something at him. She became defiant—“Aren’t you a crass slob for doing that to me!”
; Then he took a knife. He just taunted her with it. And she thrust out her chest and said, “I dare you!” Like that. And that’s when I stepped in. I concentrated on the knife. He wasn’t really paying attention to me, his eyes were completely focused on her, and they were livid. The whole thing was like some sort of cheap Hollywood movie. I mean, they were eyeball-to-eyeball and the hatred was electric, it was absolutely electric.
He held the knife up, and I simply went for his wrist, twisted it, and just took it away from him. And he didn’t even know I did that. He wasn’t even aware of me! She was still saying, “I dare you! I dare you!” And they were still glaring at each other. And then he went for her throat. He started choking her. He was wrestling her to the floor, and I stepped in between them and we all went crashing down—the three of us—and we actually rolled out the kitchen door into the snow.
Well, I finally fought him off her. He went inside, and she got up, and I went over to her and I said, “Are you okay?” and she was trembling and hysterical and she slapped me across my face as hard as she could and said, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” and got in the car and drove away.
I went back in the house and I’m beginning to tremble now so I have a couple of brandies. And Tony announces he’s going to bed at Barbara Hale’s. He was completely calm again.
So Deirdre and I spent the night at Barbara Hale’s, too. My only plan for the rest of the evening was to get as drunk as I could as quickly as I could, and I succeeded. The next morning when I came down, Tony was already at the table, Barbara Hale was making breakfast, and it was a nice day, a beautiful day, so I said to him, “After breakfast I’d like to have a talk with you. Why don’t we go for a long walk.” And we did—we walked all over the place. I told him that I really thought he ought to get away from his mother, that they were both tearing each other up, and he was saying how he agreed, it wasn’t good. I thought I had made some good points and, you know, reached him a little bit, and we got back to the house, and just as we walked in the door the phone was ringing and Deirdre picked it up and it was Barbara Baekeland. Deirdre said, “Hi, Barbara, how are you? Yes, Tony’s here,” and she gave the phone to him, and he went, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay,” and hung the phone up, and of course both Deirdre and I leaped on him, we said, “What’d she say, what’d she say?” And he just very calmly said, “She’ll be by to pick me up in half an hour.” And he walked away. And half an hour later she picked him up and drove off with him, acting of course as if nothing had happened.
Barbara Hale
The whole place was just a shambles. When I think I let Tony spend the night here! I don’t know how I dared. I don’t know, I just did.
Elizabeth Blow
I was working in the Wakefield Bookstore on Madison Avenue and Sixty-fourth Street, right near the Children’s Zoo, and all my friends would stop in to see me. One day Barbara Hale tottered in and described a terrible scene in East Hampton with Barbara and Tony. She said, “I can’t have anything more to do with them, ever—it’s just too much.” She had barely left the store when Barbara Baekeland herself came in and said, “I’ve just had the most delightful dinner at Barbara Hale’s and I want to buy a book for her as a present. What would you suggest?”
I didn’t hear from her for several months after that, but then sometime that summer I got a postcard from Mallorca saying, “Betty darling, I miss you so this summer. Tony and I think of you all the time and wish you were here. He is much better.”
Later I heard from Nini, who’d gone over for a while to stay with them, that the scene there was very bad. One night she and Barbara evidently had to flee the house. They sat in the car, frightened to death.
12
STRIKING OUT
LATE IN 1979, Broadmoor officials contacted the International Social Service of Great Britain about Tony Baekeland’s case. A “senior intra-country caseworker” recalls that “some alternatives were explored, because there was very definite pressure from somewhere that Baekeland leave Broadmoor.”
The pressure was coming, of course, from the unofficial committee of friends. “It was taking far too long to get Tony organized somewhere,” says Michael Alexander, “and I think I rather annoyed Dr. Maguire by putting the heat on.”
Soon an officer from the American Embassy in London was able to report: “Broadmoor appears close to a decision to release Tony Baekeland. He could be back in the U.S.A. in about six weeks.” Indeed, a passport application had been made in his name.
Dr. Maguire remained concerned that Tony’s long hospitalization would make it impossible for him to readjust successfully in America on his own, and informed the embassy that Broadmoor could not in good conscience recommend to the Home Secretary that Tony be released without a guarantee that “a period of social rehabilitation” would follow.
The next piece of news the committee received was therefore not the yes they had been expecting but, rather, the nebulous statement that “Baekeland’s release is not imminent.”
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Sam Green, July 18, 1972
Miramar
Valldemosa
Mallorca
Sam—
For heaven’s sake pick up a pen and scribble me a few words. I am wrestling with such monumental problems I need cheering up. You can do this for me better than anyone—so…
I have the beautiful beige silk curtains you gave me which I have never used. They are too dressy for here and hide the beautiful cut of the window frames. Would you like me to send them back? You might use them in your bedroom. Please let me know.
Brooks is trying to force me into a murderously ungenerous agreement by cutting off my support. Except for this & Tony’s problems I am in bliss here.
Phyllis Harriman Mason, Averell’s niece, has been a paying guest for about 3 weeks and it’s been divine having her—also has enabled me to survive financially. She is very fond of Tony and completely understands the problem. Don’t know what I will do when she leaves. We are very remote here. I just pray.
He is somewhat better, though not taking his medication. Says it dulls him. But the beauty of the place and the peace seem to help him.
Love,
Barbara
Phyllis Harriman Mason
I had a good time with her alone and I had a good time with him alone, but when the two of them were together…Several times that summer I thought it was my last moment. One night we’d been to dinner at Robert Graves’s house. Barbara was dressed to the hilt, with ropes of pearls, and, coming home, it was full moonlight and she was speeding—she said Tony was bugging her and she wanted to get home. The police stopped us. She said, “You have to put him in jail!” and they looked inside the car and said, “Oh, Antonio, it’s you!” They obviously liked Tony.
All that summer he was on speed. Barbara would find pills in his drawers and she’d raise Cain—then he’d raise Cain.
Another time, I was in the back seat of the car and Tony moved the front seat back on my foot. And Barbara said, “You have to say you’re sorry to Phyllis.” She said it condescendingly, as if he were a two-year-old. It didn’t matter whether he said he was sorry or not—my foot hurt.
About halfway through my visit she had to buy some groceries, so I gave her three hundred dollars. She gave me an IOU, which I hadn’t expected at all. She owed money everywhere, I think.
She stole money from me, too—she or Tony. I think it was Barbara, really. I’d gone to Greece for a couple of days, and when I got back to Mallorca my wallet was missing. I hadn’t taken it with me because it had dollars in it which I couldn’t have used there—I always save some for when I get back to New York to take the taxi in from the airport. I didn’t even realize the wallet was gone till I was packing to go home. It had not only the dollars but a lot of my IDs in it. And the wallet was extremely nice, too. I’ve never been able to find another quite like it.
Barbara had tried on all my clothes, too, while I was in Greece.
That summer she was still e
ntertaining all the time. One night she was having a big dinner party, and there was a beautiful chandelier in the dining room that used oil in its cups, and she asked Tony to let it down—it was on a rope, you know—and he let it down all right, he let the rope go. It came down with a great crash, and she accused him of doing it on purpose. There was oil and glass all over everything. Barbara was down on her hands and knees cleaning up the oil in her finery. The other guests hadn’t arrived, they were still coming over the mountain.
Tony had a motorcycle that summer, and we could hear him coming from miles away. We’d hear this damn motorcycle coming over the hill, and Barbara would say, “Oh my God, here he comes!” and my heart would sink—our hearts would sink.
He had a tape recorder, and he played Vivaldi’s Four Seasons over and over and over on the terrace, and Barbara would tell him to turn it off, and that would start another row.
Alastair Reid, a poet, came for dinner one night, and he said to me, “Oooohhh, it’s not so good here, is it?” and I said, “No!” and I told him—I was so glad to be able to talk to someone. I’d kept it all to myself.
Alastair Reid
I stopped off to see Barbara on my way back from—well, let me tell you the most ironic story of that summer. Borges was in Spain, and he came to Mallorca for two or three days to rest and he sent me a telegram—I’d often translated his work and we were friends. So I went down to Palma to see him. He was with María Kodama, who travels with him and looks after him, and he told me about this pilgrimage that he had just made to see Graves. Graves’s wife, Beryl, leads Borges, who’s totally blind, into the room where her husband’s lying, totally gaga, not knowing what anything is, and she takes Borges’s blind hand and joins it to Graves’s senseless one, and they shake hands. And that’s the meeting between Borges and Graves: Nobody met anybody.
This took place up in Deyá, which Graves has always regarded as a sacred village and indeed chose because deia is the Latin word for “goddess”—hence his kind of, you know, enormously romantic summers. Summer was always the high drama in Mallorca. Summer was the high drama.