Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet

by Darwin Porter

  “Stranger things happen during the Hollywood mating season,” he said, moving toward Merv. “Now gimme a kiss and be quick about it.”

  Jumping up from the sofa, Merv attempted to kiss Rock on the lips. “Not there, dumbdumb,” Rock said. He took his big hand and clasped it around the back of Merv's neck, lowering him to the floor. His erection was now at full mast.

  Rock had been shacked up with Tallulah only for the weekend and had to return to Hollywood that Monday afternoon. After kissing both Merv and Tallulah goodbye, he wished them the best of good luck during their return to New York, where they'd each pursue their separate goals. Tallulah would have to face a fading career, and Merv would have to confront no career at all.

  Tallulah immediately spat on the carpet, then explained her bizarre action. “Any time someone wishes me good luck, I spit. Wishing someone good luck is a bad omen.”

  “The next time you're in Los Angeles, I'll be your escort,” Rock told her before turning to Merv. “I'll call you in New York. Sing to make Frank Sinatra lose his hardon.”

  After stepping into the hall, he stuck his head back in the door. Addressing Merv, he said, “Speaking of the devil, I ran into Sinatra last night in the casino. He wants to hook up with you. Give him a call.”

  “What about your mama here?” Tallulah asked. “Doesn't Frank want to fuck me? I'm not Ava Gardner, but hardly buttermilk either.”

  “Next time I see Frankie, I'll run that offer by him,” Rock said with a departing smile.

  After Rock's departure, Tallulah evaluated him to Merv: “I'm sure you've had him too. You boys in Hollywood always pass around the big meat. Rock is a walking streak of sexpure testosterone. He's more masculine than any of those fag-gots—Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum. They exude masculinity on the screen, but I know their past histories. All of them have taken it up the ass, at least when they were breaking into the business. Rock may be a big homo, but he's more man than any of those limp-wristed fag-gots.”

  “I wouldn't exactly call Gable, Mitchum, and Lancaster limp-wristed fag-gots,” Merv said.

  “So I exaggerated to make a point,” she said. “It's the first time in my life I've ever stretched the truth. I'm from Alabama. One mark of a Southerner is that he always tells the truth—no tall tales.” She cackled and reached for her drink.

  Rock's friendship with Tallulah didn't end at The Sands. He would remain a fixture in her life and would continue to see both Merv and her. When Tallulah flew into Los Angeles, Rock was often her escort as he'd promised. She was one of the first visitors to arrive at his new home, which he'd christened “The Castle.”

  When her driver pulled up at his mammoth gate, she was surprised that it was left open. Ushered into his living room, she asked, “Why the open gate, dah-ling? I mean I know you're glad to see me. But aren't you afraid your fans will camp out on the grounds?”

  “The reason is simple,” he said. “If some goodlooking stud wants to break in and fuck me, I don't want him to get all exhausted climbing some high fence.”

  At a premiere, a reporter asked Tallulah why she was seen so frequently with Rock. “I have learned that he carries a magic weapon,” she shot back, parodying a line from his Arabian nights fantasy, The Golden Blade, a picture released in 1953 and now a gay camp classic.

  In the years to come, Tallulah did more to establish the heterosexual credentials of Rock Hudson than any other actress in Hollywood. As quoted in David Brett's biography of the tumultuous star, she told all who'd give her an ear: “This divine young man is hung even better than Gary Cooper—and, believe me, dah-lings, Rock sure knows how to handle that twohander of his.”

  ***

  When they weren't performing or drinking in lounges, the fiftytwoyearold Tallulah and the twentynineyearold Merv were seen together on the town. Most observers thought Merv was Tallulah's latest trick, and, wanting to maintain his straight image, he didn't deny it to anyone who asked.

  On some occasions she invited the most handsome and masculine of bartenders to feel her new breasts, following her mammoplasty. “Unlike some of those Vegas showgals with their plastic bobs, dah-ling, these jugs are real. All me! And a good place to lay that beautiful head of yours tonight.”

  Many of these bartenders accepted her offer. If she later discovered that they were gay, and had only come to her suite to “hang out with the legendary Tallulah Bankhead,” she generously handed them over to Merv so he could service them. On one such occasion, she held up her fingers. “Thank God for masturbation,” she said. “The practice has saved my life on many a dark night.”

  At times, the star, being Tallulah, made a drunken nuisance of herself. She asked Merv to accompany her to the hotel lounge across the street to hear Bobby Short perform. Once seated, she talked loudly through his entire performance. When Merv gently chided her to keep quiet, she answered in a loud voice, “I've always respected darkies, even as a young gal growing up in niggerhating Alabama. I even went down on both Hattie McDaniel and Billie Holiday so that proves there's not one bone of prejudice in my body.”

  When she wasn't watching other performers, Tallulah was fascinated with Las Vegas gangsters, with names like Slasher, Lefty, Louis, Wingy, and Cincinnati. “Oh, dah-ling, I just love men who wear their hats indoors. Bugsy Siegel told me that all gangsters in Vegas are built like brick shithouses and hung like tyrannosaurs.”

  During her final week in town, Tallulah ordered Merv to invite five of the sexiest gangsters she'd met to her suite for a private party. On the afternoon before the party, she'd been drinking heavily. True to form, the five gangsters arrived and after checking out the rooms for a hidden assassin, they filed in.

  Tallulah divided her time among the gangsters, sitting on each of their laps as she tongue kissed them, followed by a clinical grope. And in spite of her age and booze consumption, she even performed cartwheels for them. During the cartwheels, she revealed to the men that she wore no panties.

  Before midnight, she whispered to Merv that she wanted him to usher each gangster—there were five in all—one by one into her suite at fortyfive minute intervals. “That's half an hour for them to do their business, with fifteen minutes left for me to freshen up between bouts. After all, a lady wants to look presentable for her next suitor.”

  In later years, Merv swore that this gangbang actually happened and wasn't just another one of those apocryphal Tallulah stories.

  In her suite that night, Cincinnati was mobster number two to enter Tallulah's bedroom. She later invited him to spend the night for an encore.

  When Merv arrived for coffee the following morning, Tallulah called for him to come into her bedroom. He discovered her lying nude in her bed with Cincinnati, who was just waking up. Seeing Merv, she pulled back the sheets to reveal the gangster in all his glory. “Take a sneak preview of that threehander. Not since my honeymoon with John Emery have I encountered a billy club like this.”

  ***

  Dining at The Sands at the best table, near the end of their threeweek gig, Tallulah and Merv were having a gay old time. She'd told the handsome waiter to take back her chicken and tell the chef to cook it more. “dah-ling, we Southern belles like our fried chicken well done—not a rosy pink like the head of Sir Winston Churchill's big prick.”

  After the waiter left, a tall, slim, wellbuilt young man approached their table and introduced himself as Truman Herron. “Actually, my professional name is Mark Herron.”

  “And what profession is that, dah-ling?” Tallulah asked. “Other than an answer to a maiden's prayer. Smart thinking to change that name. Truman's already taken, both by our beloved president and that squeaky voiced Capote.”

  She introduced him to Merv and invited him to sit down between Merv and her. “That way I can grope you, dah-ling. I always like to check out a man before going to bed with him. I don't want any unpleasant surprises later. By the way, I have to warn you. Merv, that dear, dah-ling boy, gets my sloppy seconds. So it may be a long night for
you. I just hope you know how to perform at both ends of the stage.”

  “I always rise to any occasion,” Mark assured her. He launched into a rave review of their show, although he paid far more attention to Tallulah than Merv. Even so, he managed a flirtatious glance or two at Merv. He called Tallulah “the Queen of the American theater.”

  “Don't tell that to Katherine Cornell or Helen Hayes,” she warned.

  As the dinner progressed, Merv found himself increasingly attracted to Mark, although Tallulah seemed to have booked him for the night. He was goodlooking but not extraordinarily handsome. Later when Tallulah discussed Mark in private with Merv, she claimed “he looks like a model for an Arrow shirt commercial. It's what Ronald Reagan should have looked like but didn't.”

  Under a head of deep brown russet hair, Mark had the most inquisitive brown eyes Merv had ever seen. He listened to what each of them had to say as if one of them were delivering the Ten Commandments, which he was hearing for the first time and would obey religiously. Not only that, but he had a quick wit and a bright mind. Merv thought that as a pet to have around, he'd beat any dog.

  Almost immediately Tallulah picked up on his slight Southern accent. He told her that he was from Tennessee.

  “I detected just a scent of the magnolia,” she said. “A true Southern gentleman like my Daddy. I should have known you were from the South. It's the only place in the country where a gentleman knows how to treat a lady.”

  “Are you an actor?” Merv asked, suspecting that gigolo was his actual profession.

  “How did you guess?” Mark asked. “I was voted Best Actor of the Year in 1952 at Los Angeles City College.”

  Judy Garland and Merv

  shared a common love interest:

  Her husband, Mark Herron.

  “And I was voted the worst actress of the year by the New York Film Critics when I barged down the Nile in Antony and Cleopatra back in 1937. That was centuries before you were born, dah-ling.”

  “Not quite,” Mark said. “I was about nine at the time.”

  “Oh, please, dah-ling, people are eating!” she said.

  “I'm sure you were magnificent as Cleopatra,” he said, “and I wish I had been there to see it.”

  “Tell that to my critics,” she said.

  After dinner and after drinks in Tallulah's suite, the star motioned for Merv to get lost. Fortunately, he'd already arranged a midnight rendezvous with the waiter.

  Merv showed up for coffee at his usual time the following morning and was greeted by the sight of Mark in his underwear. The young actor explained that Patsy Kelly was still “sleeping one off.” In the living room seated opposite Mark, Merv had a chance for a more detailed exploration of his body, which he found very sexy. As if realizing he was being appraised like a hunk of meat, Mark said, “I look even better without my drawers.”

  “I'm sure Tallu found that secret out last night,” Merv said, flirting with him. “She got the goodies while I was left out in the cold.”

  “Don't kid me,” Mark said. “I saw you slip that note to our waiter. Just because Tallulah has invited me to fly back with her and live with her doesn't mean I've entered a convent. She said you're going to New York too for a new start. There's no reason we can't get together. Why don't you call me at Tallulah's?”

  “That can be arranged,” he said. “But I must warn you, I already have somebody.”

  “Hell!” Mark said. “We're not getting married. Only shacking up on the side. Guys as good looking as we are have already been taken by somebody.”

  “Let's keep this a secret,” Merv said. “I don't want to make Tallu angry.”

  “She's hardly branded me,” he said. “Realistically, I'd give this thing with the temperamental bitch three weeks, a month at the most. But I'm sure I'll get at least a thousand dollars—maybe two thousand—out of the gig before she kicks me out on my arse.”

  “A gig?” he asked. “Strange way to refer to it.”

  “You see, babycakes,” he said, “I'm a star fucker. My goal is to marry one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. I mean, big.”

  “Who did you have in mind?” Merv asked.

  “It doesn't matter. Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, even Judy Garland, although I hear she's a mess. Even if one of those pussies already has a husband now, how long will it last? Divorce lawyers make more money than movie stars in Hollywood.”

  “I'm not a big star, but I'd love to get fucked by you,” Merv said.

  “You don't have to ask,” Mark said. “I do men for the fun of it.”

  “So I figured,” he said.

  “With women, I do the dirty deed for career advancement. Sometimes it turns my stomach and I have to go to the bathroom and throw up. I turn on the water in the faucet real loud and flush the toilet. That way the bitch in the bedroom can't hear me vomiting.”

  “How romantic!” Merv said.

  Suddenly the husky voice of Tallulah bellowed from her boudoir. “Would one of you queens bring this real queen some fucking black coffee?”

  ***

  Before he left Las Vegas, Merv got through to Frank Sinatra, who invited him for a night on the town. Frank promised him he'd fix him up with some of the “hottest pussies in Vegas.”

  “I'd rather not,” Merv said. “But I'd like to spend an evening with you.”

  “Okay, I get it, pal,” Frank said. “That's fine with me. We'll go on a binge like we did in Honolulu.”

  Merv later told Tallulah that Frank was still very grateful for Merv's having rescued him after he'd overdosed on sleeping pills. “He thinks he owes me something, but he doesn't owe me a damn thing. Frank doesn't like to be in debt to anyone.”

  “I'm proud of you, dah-ling,” Tallulah said. “You saved one of the great musical talents of the 20th century. But did he fuck you? That's what I want to know. And, if so, is it as big as Ava claims?”

  “No, regrettably,” Merv said. “But we did end up in bed together last night. Both of us completely wasted. I should have held back on the booze and let him get sloshed instead. At least I can say, like Monty Clift, that I slept with the great Frank Sinatra.”

  “Dah-ling,” she said, “Tallulah is never wrong about these things. If you play your cards right, Sinatra can be had. Go slow at first. Plot your moves carefully. I've developed a theory based on my wide knowledge of the subject. All the bigtime womanizers can be had by a man who's a skilled seducer. Your day—or night I should say—will come. When he's in a weak and vulnerable moment, make your move like a coiled snake ready to strike its victim.”

  “That sounds pretty gruesome,” Merv said, “but I'll take your advice.”

  “Now, let's get ready,” she said. “It's our last night in Vegas, and I think we should gamble away all our earnings.”

  Tallulah meant what she said. Entertainers at The Sands were forbidden to gamble, but since when did Tallulah ever play by the rules?

  Drinking heavily before hitting the tables, Tallulah told him that she'd heard about “a new tropical punch—it's called a Zombie, dah-ling.” When the waiter served it, she was disappointed. “What is this? Kool-Aid?” Nevertheless, she drank it, and Merv also downed his Zombie.

  Not realizing how lethal it was, she decided to order another round for them, and both of them drank their second Zombie. “I can't feel a thing. Let's switch to daiquiris.” And so they did, having two daiquiris on top of the Zombies.

  Not too steady on his feet, Merv practically had to hold Tallulah up as he escorted her to the blackjack table.

  At the table, she told him she had two thousand dollars in “my lady's handbag—it's black, dah-ling. A true lady never wears brown at night. Merv had just cashed his paycheck that afternoon and had one thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills.

  Amazingly, they won the first round and kept on winning. “I'm on a roll, dah-ling,” Tallulah shouted at the crowd that had formed a half moon around them to oversee their plays. The winning streak continued thro
ughout the night, as Tallulah ordered the waiter to keep those drinks coming.

  Before dawn, Merv later recalled, “both Tallu and I had a mountain of chips piled up in front of us.”

  A member of the staff alerted entertainment director Jack Entratter. Rising from his bed, he half dressed as he rushed downstairs to bodily remove Merv and Tallulah from the blackjack table, where some of the morning onlookers were standing around in their bathing suits. Jack cashed in the soggy pair's chips for them. Almost carrying them up the steps like they were ragdolls, he had Tallulah on his strong left arm, with Merv dangling from his right.

  As predicted, Tallulah just had to have an exit line. Turning to the audience, she yelled, “Which one of you lucky bastards gets to fuck me tonight?”

  Jack dumped Merv in the hallway while he put Tallulah to bed in her suite. Returning to the hallway, he retrieved Merv, then and hauled him away to Merv's suite.

  All Merv remembered was the feel of hundreds of dollars stuffed into his trouser pockets. In the center of the darkened hotel suite, Jack turned on a light. Sitting in an armchair in the corner was a tall, dark man smoking a cigarette.

  Leaving Merv on wobbly legs in the center of the room, Jack left but only after politely greeting the stranger. “Good evening, Mr. Hughes.”

  Merv passed out.

  Chapter Seven

  In his highly unreliable autobiographical writings, Merv claimed that he drove crosscountry to New York with a former girlfriend. Johnny Meyer, the “public relations man” (read that as “pimp”) for Howard Hughes had a completely different version. He claimed that Howard Hughes flew Merv from California to a small airport on Long Island.

  Meyer said that he and his boss had attended the last show at The Sands featuring Merv as the warmup and Tallulah Bankhead as the star. “Neither Bankhead nor Griffin knew Howard was in the audience that night,” Meyer said. “Howard learned that he was going to lose his favorite tennis partner, Griffin, who announced that he was going to New York for a new start. Since Howard was flying east the next morning, he decided to take Griffin along for the ride.”