“Who's the lucky guy?”
“I have five candidates in mind,” she said. “I know I can take Bob Taylor from Barbara Stanwyck. She's a dyke anyway. I'm sure I can lure Clark away from that Ashley creature. But I've got other candidates in mind.”
“C'mon,” he said. “Tell me.”
“You'll read about it in the papers,” she said. “Now I've got to get my beauty sleep. Night, love, and thanks for a darling evening. You're sweet.”
* * *
Without any particular malice toward Elizabeth, and with no harm intended to her, Merv became the source of the rumors going around Los Angeles and New York that he was having an affair with the young star. Throughout his life, he went to great trouble, including outright lies, to establish heterosexual credentials. Since he was seen dating Elizabeth at both the Stork Club and Twenty One, he felt here was a golden opportunity for him to get some straight publicity, even if nothing appeared in the papers, although Walter Winchell ran an item.
“In those days,” Merv later said, “there wasn't a cockroach that walked across the floor of the Stork Room without getting Winchell's permission.
As was inevitable, those faux romance rumors eventually reached Nicky Hilton, son of Texas hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, whom the newspapers had dubbed “the man with 100,000 beds.”
Widely known as a playboy and womanizer, Nicky had replaced Glenn Davis, the centerpiece of Elizabeth's summer of 1948 romance. Glenn, a West Point football star and Heisman Trophy winner, had been shipped off to the Korean front, and Nicky—after being introduced to her by Peter Lawford, had moved in to replace him.
Merv wanted all the gossipy news he could get about Nicky, and naturally he turned to his friends, Peter Lawford and Roddy McDowall. “From what I've seen of Nicky's pictures, he has a real animal magnetism about him,” Merv told Roddy. “He's more than six feet tall and good looking, not to mention rich. I saw a picture of him in a bathing suit. Broad shoulders. Swimmer's waist. I couldn't believe the bulge. Too bad he's straight.”
“Yeah,” Roddy said sarcastically. “So straight he lets boys suck on that beer can dick of his. I hear it's not just thick but nearly a foot long.”
“Is that just a rumor?” Merv said. “You know how the boys exaggerate.”
“Why don't you call Peter Lawford and check it out for yourself?” Roddy advised. “He knows a lot more about Nicky Hilton than I do.”
Merv did just that, learning that Peter regularly supplied Nicky with a steady stream of beautiful starlets, hoping to make it big in the movies. “He returns the favor by letting me go down on that tree trunk of his,” Peter said. “He goes deep down the throat. I kid him and call him ‘Deep Throat.’” Without knowing it, Peter had hit upon the name of what would eventually be the world's most famous porno flick, which would be filmed years later.
Both Peter and Roddy believed that Elizabeth should not marry Nicky. They knew too much about him. They didn't want to say anything bad about Nicky, at least for the moment, based on their fear of offending her.
Hotel heir Nicky Hilton with his
wife, Elizabeth Taylor
Known for his volatile temper, a jealous Nicky had decided to confront Merv upon his return to Los Angeles. Earlier at his hotel Merv had called down for room service. When he heard a knock on his door, thinking that it was a waiter carrying his dinner, he opened the door only to discover Nicky standing there, with bitterness and anger on his face. His clothes were rumpled from a night of heavy drinking.
Not knowing what to do, Merv invited him inside, guiding him to the sofa. “I'm sure he came to clobber me, but in that condition, he couldn't harm a fly,” Merv told Roddy the next day. “He passed out right on my sofa. When dinner came, I enjoyed it while taking in the beauty of this man.”
Merv later confided to Roddy that to make Nicky more comfortable, he had pulled off all his clothes—“yes, even his underwear. Peter had not exaggerated. It was the most impressive I've ever seen. I spent the night working it over while he slept it off. But it wasn't until ten o'clock the next morning that he woke up with a hard-on and gave me what I'd worked for for so long.”
Around noon, when he was leaving, Nicky turned and smiled at Merv. “I'd heard that you were a fairy. Elizabeth always seems to gravitate toward fairies—take that Monty Clift, for instance.”
The next day Merv called Elizabeth but didn't mention that he'd met her future husband. She tried to explain her reasons for marrying Nicky. Merv noted that at no point did she mention love.
“I love jewelry,” she said. “Nicky's rich or at least his daddy is. His father gives him a new car whenever he wants one, even a private airplane. I bet Nicky can persuade his father to buy me all the jewelry I want.”
No longer viewing Merv as competition, Nicky called him two weeks later and invited himself over. It was the beginning of a friendship that brought nothing but trouble. As attracted as Merv was to Nicky, he also experienced his dark side.
He was an extravagant gambler, never minding losing a fortune at a table in Las Vegas. But that wasn't the worst of it. He was not only an alcoholic— everybody who knew him knew that—but he was a secret heroin addict, as Merv discovered one night to his horror when he went into his bathroom to discover Nicky shooting up.
For Merv, getting acquainted with Nicky's fabulous endowment came at a price. “When he's sober, which is rare, he's a warm and generous person,” Merv confided in Roddy. “But on liquor and drugs he turns violent. He's also quite a racist, ranting about ‘kikes’ and ‘niggers’ all the time. One night when he was sleeping over, he woke up and for no reason at all beat the shit out of me. I was black and blue for days. He didn't remember it the next morning.”
On another night when Merv was staying at Roddy's house when the actor was out of town, Nicky pulled up around midnight in his black Cadillac convertible. Merv had never seen him this wild. Nicky carried a loaded .38 revolver. For fun, he began shooting out Roddy's lights until Merv wrestled the gun from his drunken hand.
When Roddy returned to Los Angeles, a check was waiting from Conrad Hilton to pay for the damage, with a suggestion that “It might be best for all parties to keep this out of the papers.”
Seated in Roddy's living room that Merv had cleaned up, both men tried a little dime store psychology as it applied to Nicky. “He knows he'll never live up to his father's success, and his ego has been seriously battered,” Merv said. “He's got to prove his masculinity every day of his life, not just with women, but sometimes with men. I think it builds up his self-esteem to have the boys worship that fabulous cock of his.”
“Maybe it makes him a bigger man than he already is,” Roddy said, surveying his living room. “But, for God's sake, don't invite him back here. Poor Elizabeth. What hell is she in for?” Should we warn her about him?”
“You can't tell a girl like Elizabeth what to do,” Merv said. “She'll find out for herself. I have a feeling Nicky will be just the beginning of several husbands, all of them disasters.”
“That's the curse of all of us who like men,” Roddy said.
“Let's face it,” Merv said. “They put us through hell, but we can't keep our hands off them.”
“Proceed with caution,” Roddy warned Merv. “Nicky sure must be attracted to those blow-jobs of yours. You are good.”
“It's more than that,” Merv said. “Nicky says I fry the best hamburger with onions in Los Angeles.”
Even before his marriage to Elizabeth, Nicky on many a drunken night shared some dark secrets with Merv. He confessed one night of having had a long affair with his father's wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor. The duration of his affair with Zsa Zsa extended not only throughout the star's marriage to Conrad, but continued during her marriage to George Sanders and then into the period of Nicky's betrothal to Elizabeth Taylor.
Of course, at that time in his life, Merv's friendship with the Gabor sisters, both Zsa Zsa and especially Eva, lay far away in his own future.
* * *
For Merv, the 1950s looked like it was going to be his decade, as some of his friends had already predicted. Almost nightly someone he knew, including Ann Sothern, kept predicting he was going to make it big in show business.
Freddy Martin still wanted to retain Merv as his boy singer, and their appearances together at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles were usually sold out, in spite of the fact that each year the big bands of the 1940s waned in popularity.
With an RCAVictor recording contract in his pocket, Merv knew he needed another “Coconuts” song, a really big hit, but so far that had eluded him. One night he told Judy Garland, “I want to find my own version of ‘Over the Rainbow.’ Not some silly ditty like ‘Coconuts.’ A real romantic ballad that fans will request I sing every time I make an appearance.”
Despite the fact that a hit song simply didn't materialize, more and more job offers were pouring in for Merv, and he accepted quite a few of them, even though he knew Freddy resented it when he did a freelance solo gig.
With all the excitement going on in his personal life and with his career, Merv almost forgot that there was a war raging in Korea. Many Americans blamed President Harry S. Truman for the conflict, and he was at the lowest popularity of his political career.
Simultaneous with the growth of Merv's popularity as an entertainer, his relationship with Tom Drake had graduated from the cuddly stage into something serious. Merv had flown with Tom to New York, and was sharing his hotel suite with him. While the handsome actor still slept, Merv got up before him and headed for the kitchen to make his morning cup of coffee. On the table lay the mail which the bellhop had already brought up.
One letter caught his eyes. Tearing open the envelope, he read greetings from Uncle Sam. He was being called up for the draft. He'd already transferred his records from San Mateo to New York. An awful sinking feeling overcame him. Even his beloved morning cup of coffee felt like lead on his stomach.
He'd had all those physical examinations in San Francisco during the war, and had been rejected as a candidate for active service every time. But now, weighing eighty-five pounds less, he was an entirely different, and healthier, physical specimen. Intuitively, he knew there was no chance for a deferment.
Without even waiting for the results of his latest physical examination, he marched down to Freddy's suite in the same hotel and told him that he was quitting his job with the orchestra and going into the Army for two years. Freddy was bitterly disappointed at the news. “We've been together for four years,” the orchestra leader said. “I was looking forward to at least another four.”
“There's no way,” Merv said. “I just know I'm going to ship out. I have gut feelings about such things.”
When his time came to report, he splurged on a taxi and rode down to 39 Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan with Tom, who had agreed to wait in a coffee shop nearby until the exam was over.
Once again, Merv had an Army doctor juggling his balls and examining him thoroughly. It was three o'clock that afternoon when he learned the news. “Your draft board in San Mateo fucked up,” the burly doctor told him. “You're not supposed to be here. You're over the hill. Too old.”
“I'm only twenty-seven,” Merv protested.
“The law changed six months ago,” the doctor said. “Twenty-six is our limit for inducting a guy. Now get out.”
Tom was waiting outside the induction center and did a hop, skip, and a jump of joy on hearing the news. Merv seemed more disturbed than happy. “Where do I go now?” he asked. “With my tail between my legs back to Freddy begging for my old job back.”
“Here's your chance to break out on your own,” Tom said, “To become a really big star. You don't need Freddy and his boys any more. Fly back to Hollywood with me tomorrow. I just know you can make it really big in the movies.”
Merv made up his mind not to go back to Freddy. When Freddy learned that his star wasn't going to be drafted after all, and wasn't coming back, he was furious. “God damn him!” he told the boys in his orchestra. “The fucker just used me. A step on the ladder. I even had plans to become his personal manager when his contract was up. By tomorrow I will have signed another singer. They're a dime a dozen.”
Despite the fact that he had staged this grand play in front of his orchestra, Freddy met the next day with his lawyer to see if he should sue Merv. After all, Merv had signed a five-year contract with a year remaining on the life of the contract. Freddy discussed the matter with his lawyer, who advised him not to press ahead with legal action.
Almost gleefully, Merv announced to his agent that he was free to accept singing engagements. The agent promised he'd work on it, but had no gigs for him at the moment.
Merv was sad to see Tom go when he had to fly back to the West Coast for an acting job. Merv had grown quite attached to him, although he knew he wasn't in love with him. Tom truly lived up to his movie billing as “the boy next door.” He was easy to be with, comfortable to talk to, and a nice companion at dinner. In bed, Tom lacked the fire and passion of Roddy McDowall or Rock Hudson, but who could compete with them?
Tom Drake
Every day Merv called his agent. Still no jobs. He grew lonelier than ever and con- sidered returning soon to Los Angeles before all his money ran out in New York. He missed Tom and his other friends.
One afternoon he bought a corned beef sandwich and ate it in Central Park. Cut off from steady work night after night, he didn't know how to fill his day, much less his nights.
All that would change when he got back to his hotel. The phone was ringing. Picking up the receiver, he was surprised to hear the familiar voice of Judy Balaban, his former girlfriend. She still seemed grateful to him for having introduced her to the “love of my life,” Jay Kanter. She was in New York by herself, and she wanted to meet Merv for dinner. He readily agreed, welcoming the company. As an afterthought, she added, “Oh, I'll be with a friend. You'll adore him.” She paused awkwardly. “Of course, sometimes he's a bit strange.”
* * *
The friend turned out to be the young actor, Nebraska-born Montgomery Clift, with whom Merv would launch one of the most mercurial love-hate relationships of his life. The actor was extraordinarily handsome and gifted, as he'd proved when he'd starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951). The media constantly compared him to Marlon Brando, often referring to both of them as “The Bad Boys of Hollywood.” But as Merv got to know Monty better, he came to realize just how very different the two men were.
Ever since Merv had seen Monty in the 1948 Red River, starring John Wayne, Merv felt that Monty was the most powerful, sensitive, and magnetic actor on the screen.
When Merv met Monty, the actor had already been nominated for an Oscar for his moving portrayal of a young G.I. in the 1948 movie, The Search. His second Oscar nomination had come for A Place in the Sun.
When Judy introduced Merv and Monty at Daly's Restaurant on Lexington Avenue, Monty's reaction to Merv did not suggest the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
“You're hot, kid,” Merv said, “Really hot.”
Monty was drunk and hostile. He'd obviously been drinking all afternoon. “Oh, Merv Griffin. The band singer!” He didn't bother to disguise the contempt in his voice.
Monty was obviously enjoying the attention he was getting from the other diners. His face, even during that early period of his career, was known around the world.
There was a claim made that Merv and Monty engaged in a food fight before the dinner was over and that both of them were ushered out of the restaurant by the manager. In his memoirs, Merv claimed that he shoved Monty's face into a lemon meringue pie after Monty started licking the meringue off it. But that is not how others in the restaurant remembered the evening.
In spite of (or perhaps because of) the hostility that was percolating between them, the two young men bonded on some level. After hailing a taxi for Judy and kissing her good night, Merv received an invitation from Monty to g
o for a night ride through Manhattan in Monty's car.
Alarmed at how drunk Monty was, Merv offered to drive. Monty wouldn't hear of that. “Get the hell in,” he ordered Merv.
Later Merv confided to Roddy McDowall, “He was just too appealing. I couldn't say no. In the first thirty seconds after Monty roared off, I knew I was in a death machine. I'd taken my life in my hands.”
Speeding away into the night, Monty appeared demonic behind the wheel as he raced through the nearly deserted streets of Lower Manhattan, running every red light he could. Amazingly, there was no squad car around to give chase.
Finally, Monty slammed on the brakes, coming to a screeching halt near a darkened pier where a lone sailor near a warehouse was obviously getting a blow-job from an older man in a trench coat.
As Merv gazed into Monty's eyes, lit by a street lamp, he appeared almost sober for one brief moment. The actor's eyes looked exactly as they did in the closing reel of A Place in the Sun when he confronts Elizabeth Taylor for one last time. Without warning, Monty lunged toward Merv, grabbing him into a death-like grip and kissing him so violently he caused Merv's upper lip to bleed.
“I need you,” Monty said, “Desperately. Don't ever leave me. I'll die if you leave me.”
The next morning, Merv told Roddy, “After that kiss, I fell in love with Monty. Who wouldn't? After all, he was the most beautiful man on the planet.”
* * *
Self-loathing and unstable:
Montgomery Clift
Much to the disappointment of Tom Drake, Merv did not immediately return to Hollywood, but stayed in New York. He felt he had a better opportunity to pick up solo gigs as a singer on the East Coast than in California, where there were fewer bookings. He still toyed with the idea of becoming a big musical singing star like Gordon MacRae or Dennis Morgan, but temporarily postponed that goal.
Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet Page 15