Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet

by Darwin Porter

  “After I put down the phone, I don't remember what happened next,” Merv told Hadley later that night. “The TV cameras were on me. I remember that much. I must have said something, but I don't recall the show at all. I was in complete shock.”

  That very night, Merv flew to San Francisco with Hadley. To Hadley's disappointment, he was stashed in a room within the same hotel that Merv had occupied in the 1940s during some of his performances with Freddy Martin's band.

  When Merv told Hadley that he'd be renting a car and driving to San Mateo alone, Hadley exploded in anger. This led to a bitter fight between the two men. “I'm your lover,” Hadley said. “I have a right to be there. To meet your family. What are you trying to do to me? Lock me in a closet or something? Pretend I don't exist?”

  “You're everybody's lover,” Merv angrily charged before heading toward the door.

  “You're right about that,” Hadley said, his fury bubbling. “You might as well know. Robert Q. Lewis sucked me off in the men's room one afternoon. He liked it so much he's promised me he'll rent me an apartment in New York and take care of me.”

  Merv stopped at the door. “I'm not surprised. You are, after all, a known star fucker, although I wouldn't exactly call Robert Q. Lewis a star. Did you get cum on his hornrimmed spectacles when you shot off?”

  “I won't be here when you get back from the funeral,” Hadley warned.

  “Good riddance!”

  In San Mateo, Merv had a tearful reunion with his family, to whom he had not paid much attention in recent months. After his father was laid to rest, Merv held his mother in his arms. “I loved my father,” he told her. “But I never got to know the man.”

  “It was his loss,” his mother assured him.

  Back in San Francisco, Merv learned that Hadley had forged his name on three of his paychecks and had cashed them. He'd checked out of the hotel after running up a big bill, leaving no note, no forwarding address.

  In his moment of despair, and like a show business cliché, the phone rang, a call from Marty, his agent in New York. In a futile effort to restore the glory days of radio, ABC was going to invest six million dollars into a radio variety show.

  The executives wanted Merv to host the show, singing and talking. The TV broadcast was slated to be on the air for fortyfive minutes and might later expand to one hour and fortyfive minutes if Merv could find an audience.

  Bruised from both The Robert Q. Lewis fiasco and the dismal Going Places, but eager for another gig, Merv accepted. He was delighted at the pay, knowing that he would be solvent once again.

  After accepting, he put down the phone, then picked it up again to call Johnny Riley in Los Angeles. It took only a few minutes of talking before Johnny agreed to abandon his job as a waiter. He flew to San Francisco that night and joined Merv for a reunion.

  They slept in the same bed that night, but there was no sexual contact, even though Merv made it abundantly clear that he was still physically attracted to Johnny, just as he'd been in San Mateo years before.

  That following morning, Johnny sat beside Merv on a flight to New York. He assured Johnny that it was all over between Hadley and himself. En route across country, Merv and Johnny plotted their new lives and anticipated the arrival of Paul Schone and Bill Robbins in New York. “We can all live together, at least for a while” Johnny said. “The boys will find work and get their own places. It'll be like the old days in California all over again. New York here we come. Ours to conquer.”

  Before the plane landed in New York, Merv made a very determined decision. Whatever he did in his future, he planned to keep his world with “the San Mateo Gang” separate from his newly acquired straight friends. Only in rare exceptions, such as his friendships with Monty Clift or Liberace, would he allow his two separate worlds to come together.

  With his new salary, he was even contemplating renting a secret hideaway address, now that he was getting better known. Only the other day, a newspaper critic had claimed, “Merv Griffin, for my money, sings better than Perry Como and with a lot more feeling.”

  More than love, Merv craved success. He was still wounded by his failure to become a Hollywood star, and he wanted to show Jack Warner and the rest of Hollywood that he had the talent to make it big.

  When he discussed with Johnny his plans for maintaining a “compartmentalized” life, his friend said, “Sounds to me like you want to have your cake and eat it too.”

  “Exactly,” Merv said. “Who's to say a guy can't do that? It's never been tried. I'm going back to New York to make it—and make it big. Pretending you're straight is part of the game for making it big. It's in the rule book. Name one big star who's openly gay?”

  “Liberace.”

  “Are you crazy?” Merv said. “Liberace tells the world he's straight.”

  “Is there anybody in his right mind who believes that?” Johnny asked. “If Liberace can convince the world he's straight, then anybody can. As for your being straight, does that mean birthin’ babies and all that shit? If so, count me out. I don't know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ babies, Miss Scarlett.”

  “Yes, I'm going to enter the breeding grounds for procreation purposes,” Merv said. “People will think I'm as straight as Ronald Reagan. What I do behind closed doors, and in the privacy of the various hideaways I'll have over the years, is my own damn business.”

  “Have it your way,” Johnny said. “Just keep me informed, leaving out no sordid details.”

  “It's a deal,” Merv said. “You've been working as a hustler. Well, hustlers have to put out. If I'm going to be paying all your bills, keeping you in New York, I want some action.”

  “You got it, boy,” Johnny promised.

  ***

  Ultimately, Merv's radio show collapsed. At the peak of its limited success, it attracted ten thousand fan letters a week. “ABC failed to bring back the great days of radio,” Merv later said. “If Tallulah Bankhead and all those famous guests on The Big Show couldn't do it, what chance did I have?”

  After the failure of that show, my phone stopped ringing,” Merv said. “Marty Kummer couldn't even come up with a gig for me in some seedy lounge in South Trenton.”

  Before landing in New York, Merv had agreed to take care of Johnny Riley, but for several months Johnny took care of Merv.

  “Johnny always seemed to have money in his pockets” said Bill Robbins, who had found work as a waiter after moving to New York. Occasionally Bill got a booking as a female impersonator at some dive in Greenwich Village. “Paul Schone and I knew how Johnny was making his money,” Bill said. “I believe Merv knew too but nothing was ever said.”

  After Paul had also moved from Los Angeles to New York, he found no work as a dancer in Broadway shows and once again, like Bill, took a waiter's job.

  Through the darkest days of his career, Merv continued to hold onto his famous friends such as Rosemary Clooney, Roddy McDowall, and Liberace. “When it came to friends, Merv had the Midas Touch even before he became famous himself,” Bill said. “Not only that, but he often met and befriended people who were on the dawn of fame. It was a special gift he had, which became more evident when he was a talk show host. He discovered major talent before the world had a clue.”

  Such was the case with a young songwriter who lived across the street from Merv's apartment on 57th Street in New York. His name was Burt Bacharach, and he and Merv bonded from the first time they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Burt was just starting to date again after his failed marriage to the singer, Paula Stewart. As a pianist, he used to accompany her, as he had far better known entertainers such as Imogene Coca, Mel Tormé, Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers, Steve Lawrence, and Polly Bergen. When Merv met Burt, he was dating Rose Tobias, an assistant to producer David Susskind.

  Merv was seen frequently on the town with Burt when Johnny was otherwise engaged. One night in a club, Merv saw Robert Q. Lewis in an adjoining booth, sitting with Hadley Morrell. Hadley did not speak or acknowledge Merv. Nei
ther did Lewis. Although Merv had no proof, he always suspected that it was Lewis who spread the false rumor around town that Burt and Merv were lovers.

  Burt came up with the idea that if Merv, Rose, and Robert Barry, an agent, would pool their meager funds, they could rent a beach house on Ocean Beach (Fire Island) for the summer. The little resort had a reputation as an artists' colony, and there was a local bar where Burt could earn extra bucks playing the piano.

  Merv agreed, but was reluctant to invite Johnny, as he didn't want to appear as part of a male/male couple. As it turned out, Johnny didn't want to spend weekends on Ocean Beach, but preferred another part of Fire Island, Cherry Grove, which had become a notorious homosexual hangout. Somewhat reluctantly, Merv agreed to spend his weekends apart from Johnny, while Johnny pursued whatever he was after in the Grove.

  At Ocean Beach, this hastily assembled house party wasn't congenial. Burt's dog fought constantly with Poochie, Merv's dog. When the dogs weren't fighting, Rose Tobias was arguing with Burt.

  One night Burt invited a troupe of Spanish dancers to their house for a party with wild music. Having had more than his share of drinks, Merv wanted to dance the fandango along the top of a stone wall. He was in no condition to do that. Losing his balance, he fell off the wall, his head almost colliding against a large rock. He landed in a bed of poison ivy and seriously injured his back. He had to be hauled away in an ambulance, and although he never returned to Fire Island, his back injury was to plague him for the rest of his life.

  Composer

  Burt Bacharach

  A few weeks later, Burt also left Fire Island, flying to Los Angeles for a gig. When he returned, he called Merv. “I got this cold out there,” Burt said. “Guess who cured me? Marlene Dietrich herself, the femme fatale of the 20th century. And doctors claim there is no cure for the common cold. Those doctors haven't met Miss Dietrich.”

  Suspecting something, Merv asked, “And what else did Marlene teach you?”

  “We made fantastic love together,” he said.

  “But you're twentyeight years her junior,” Merv said.

  “How lucky for me,” Burt said. “That means she's had all those years to perfect her technique. I'm the lucky beneficiary. Not only that, but she's asked me to be her accompanist during her world tour.”

  “Congratulations,” Merv said. “But don't get burned. Marlene is terribly fickle. The last I saw of her, she had the hots for Michael Wilding.”

  “She's forgotten all about him,” Burt said. “I've seen to that.”

  Merv watched in amazement and from afar as the affair between Marlene and Burt heated up. She was soon telling her friends that “Burt takes me to seventh heaven. I even wash his socks and underwear. He's my Lord and Master.”

  In the years to come, Merv saw little of Burt although he followed his career with a sense of pride but also with a touch of jealousy. “I shouldn't have lost him as a songwriter,” he said. “I mean, I could have recorded ‘What's New, Pussycat?,’ not Tom Jones. I could have recorded ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,’ not B.J. Thomas.”

  Merv was intrigued to learn of Burt's marriage to actress Angie Dickinson in 1965, following her celebrated affair in the early 60s with President John F. Kennedy.

  Merv one dull afternoon decided to take the rest of the money he had in the bank and fly on a vacation to Jamaica with Johnny. He'd already asked Burt if he could get Marlene to arrange a meeting with Noel Coward, who was in residence on the island.

  Paul warned Merv that if he spent all his money, he'd have nothing left for groceries and the rent. “Oh, I'll be like Scarlett O'Hara and think about that tomorrow. Besides, why should I worry? Johnny always manages to come up with grocery money.”

  Before flying to Jamaica, he called Rosemary Clooney. On the phone she'd never sounded so bubbly, even though her marriage to Jose Ferrer was still as troubling as ever. Alhough Jose's affair with June Allyson had ended, his womanizing had continued.

  “I've fallen in love,” Rosemary confided to him, “for the first time in my life. He's wonderful, the man I've always wanted. But there's one big problem. He's married.”

  “Jose is married to you, and that doesn't stop him,” he said. “What's good for the goose is good for the gander.”

  “I'm glad you see it that way,” she said. “I need a big favor. My new beau is very famous, and we have to slip around and see each other in secret. We need a place to hide away where no one would think of looking for us. How about your apartment?”

  He readily agreed, advising that he and Johnny were flying to Jamaica but that he could arrange for Bill Robbins to deliver her the key. “When I get back, can I meet this Mr. Wonderful?”

  “I'll introduce the two of you,” she said. “You'll adore him.”

  “Can't you tell me who he is?” he asked. “A famous actor, no doubt.”

  “Not at all,” she said. “But I'll give you a clue. He plans to run for President of the United States in 1968 after his older brother has served his two terms in the White House. It'll be the beginning of a dynasty.”

  ***

  Waiting in the lounge of New York's Idlewild Airport for the departure of their flight to Jamaica, all Merv and Johnny could hear was Elvis Presley music. Merv turned to Johnny. “Both of us will be in our mid30s sooner than later. Do you agree with those who say that's the beginning of middle age?”

  “We're certainly not schoolboys from San Mateo any more,” Johnny said.

  “I think I'm washed up,” Merv said, as another song came on from Elvis. “Rock ‘n’ roll is here to stay.”

  Showing an amazing gift of prophecy, Johnny said, “Don't worry about it. Next summer, or maybe a summer or two after that, you're gonna be the biggest talk show host on TV. The next Steve Allen. You're a born entertainer.“

  In Ocho Rios, a room had been reserved for them at the distinguished Jamaica Inn, where Sir Winston Churchill had stayed, capturing the local landscapes in watercolors during his retirement years. For reasons not fully known, Errol Flynn had been forcibly ejected from that hotel one early morning at three o'clock.

  Mad about the boy:

  Noel Coward

  at the posh and venerable

  Merv stayed in bed until noon of the following morning. When he finally woke up, he found Johnny still asleep. After a shower and after dressing, he wandered down to the main lobby, after checking out the beachfront.

  The weather that morning was uncharacteristic for Jamaica at that time of the year. The north shore was steamy, and there was a dull gray mist that hung in the air.

  Merv didn't know whether Marlene Dietrich had previously called or written Noel Coward, announcing his arrival in Ocho Rios. At the desk of the concierge, Merv asked if he could put through a call to Noel's residence. He'd read that whenever Noel was in Jamaica, he was a frequent luncheon guest at the Jamaica Inn.

  “You're in luck,” the courtly black concierge told him in accented English. “The great man is in the lobby today, sitting in his favorite peacock chair.”

  Merv walked into the lobby and spotted Noel at once, but was too shy to approach him. He sat near him. Noel seemed to be struggling through a crossword puzzle. Merv viewed himself as an expert on crossword puzzles.

  “Bloody difficult,” Noel said out loud. “Eight letters for the first word, five for the second.” When Merv heard that, he used that as an opening to introduce himself to Noel. Years later Merv could not remember the word he came up with, but it had fitted the puzzle perfectly. As Merv introduced himself to Noel, he seemed appreciative to have received help in solving the puzzle.

  “Come and join me for a drink, dear boy,” Noel said. “They make the best mint juleps in Jamaica here.”

  Over drinks, Noel told him that he was waiting for the arrival of Miss Claudette Colbert, who was to be his guest for lunch. “Forgive me for name dropping—of course, I know half the people in the world, and the other half isn't worth knowing.”

  Trying to soun
d important, Merv said that he too knew Claudette Colbert and had been her escort at a party thrown in Hollywood by Jack Warner.

  “By the way, who are you?” Noel asked. “You seem to be in show business—an actor, no doubt.”

  “A failed actor,” Merv said. “I'm really a singer—radio, TV. Nothing that has shaken the world. I love singing your songs.”

  “Good,” Noel said. “That shows you have taste. I hope you send me royalties.”

  At that point a sleepy Johnny in tight white pants emerged. Merv introduced him to Noel. “One of the world's great beauties,” Noel said, inspecting him head to toe. “Human perfection if I ever saw it.”

  “A great fan of yours,” Johnny said, extending his hand to Noel for a shake. He had a little difficulty getting his hand back.

  “As for you, Griffin,” Noel said in a slightly accusatory voice, “You have somehow managed to capture this prize specimen of manhood. Ivor Novello, at the height of his male beauty and charm, would pale in the luminosity cast by one of such pulchritude.”

  “I don't know what pulchritude means, but I'll take it as a compliment,” Johnny said.

  “A boy like you should lie on satin sheets and have mere mortals like me bring you gifts all day. The evening would be spent worshipping you.”

  At that point a whitejacketed attendant arrived to announce to Noel that “Miss Colbert's car has arrived.”

  “I hope you weren't exaggerating, and that Miss Colbert does indeed know you,” Noel said to Merv.

  “I'm sure she'll remember me,” Merv said. He paused. “At least I hope she will.”

  Indeed Claudette did remember Merv fondly, and the four of them had an enchanting luncheon that lasted for three hours. When Claudette had to excuse herself, Merv, Johnny, and Noel remained at the table, finding it almost impossible to move. All those mint juleps. The steamy afternoon had gotten even hotter, and their clothes, even though lightweight, seemed to cling to their bodies.