Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet

by Darwin Porter

  “My friend, Graham Payn, will be arriving soon to pick me up and drive me back to Blue Harbour,” Noel said. “He'll be sorry that he couldn't join us today. But I'm inviting both of you for a mid-afternoon swim and dinner tomorrow. The concierge will give you the directions to my little hideaway.”

  “We'd be honored, Mr. Coward,” Merv said.

  “Call me Noel,” he said. “I'm sure by tomorrow night we'll know each other intimately enough to be on a first name basis.” He turned to Johnny. “You, dear boy, deserve a long, lingering, and wet kiss on those succulent red lips of yours.” He proceeded to plant one before turning to Merv, who was puckering up. “You, Griffin, at least deserve a firm handshake for bringing this beam of sunshine into the dreary life of a songwriter and playwright on a rare gray day in Jamaica.”

  The next day at Noel's vacation home on a hilltop above Blue Harbour, which he said he reserved for “my bloody loved ones,” he introduced Merv and Johnny to his lover, Graham Payn, a British actor. Merv found Graham handsome to the point of being mesmerizing. Noel invited them to put on their swimming suits and join Graham and him in the pool. Johnny had forgotten to bring his. Noel agreed to take him back to the house to find one to fit him.

  As Graham and Merv frolicked in the pool, Merv noted that Johnny and Noel were gone for a long time. Johnny emerged in a tightfitting white bathing suit, almost a bikini, that made things rather obvious.

  After a swim and over drinks, Noel told them how he came to buy land in Jamaica. “I came here back in 1944 and fell in love with the place at once. Before I bought land, I rented Goldeneye from Ian Fleming. Can you believe that old sod charged me fifty pounds a week? Extortion. He left us with Violet, his housekeeper, who cooked for us.”

  “Salt fish and ackee every night except Sunday,” Graham said. “Then we were treated to curried goat. The pud was the same every night. Stewed guavas and coconut cream.”

  “Violet's cooking tasted like armpits, except for the succulent armpits of Graham, which always taste divine,” a slightly tipsy Noel revealed.

  As they lay on chaises longues in a fading afternoon, Graham laughingly recalled how he first had met Noel in London. “I was only fourteen at the time and with my mother, Sybil. I had no idea that Noel was a pedophile.”

  “I'm not, dear heart,” Noel interjected. “But I've always believed that nature intended young men to start having sex when they are able to ejaculate.”

  “Sybil took me to an casting call for a revue called Words and Music,” Graham said. “She insisted I sing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ to show off what she called the purity of my boyish treble. She also ordered me to tap dance like Ann Miller while I sang the song.”

  “I wasn't really impressed,” Noel said, “but rather astonished at the versatility. I cast Graham as an urchin street singer in Mad About the Boy.” He reached over to pat Graham's hand. “I've been ‘Mad About the Boy’ ever since.”

  “That might be so,” Graham said, “but he still called me his illiterate little sod. But I learned fast. Soon I was hanging out with Larry and Vivien, Katharine Hepburn, John Gielgud—who made a pass at me, Gertrude Lawrence, Tallulah, of course, Marlene, and inevitably, the Queen Mother.”

  “Graham is certainly good looking enough,” Noel said. “He has humor and a sense of fun. I've always found that a bubbly personality makes up for a barrage of other failures. And he's hung as well as any man should be without being a grotesque like Rubirosa. But do you know why I've stayed with him all these years?”

  “We're all ears,” Merv said.

  “The dear boy has never refused to perform any act in bed that my perverse mind can conjure up,” Noel said. “And I do have a very active mind.”

  As twilight fell, Noel seemed particularly intrigued by Merv's appearance with Tallulah Bankhead in Las Vegas. He speculated at length and wanted to hear Merv's opinion about Las Vegas being a proper venue—or not—for either his own oneman show or perhaps a stage for Marlene.

  Noel told about going to Chicago in the 1940s to introduce Graham to Tallulah when she was appearing there in his Private Lives. “We took Tallu to Chez Paree to hear Carmen Miranda in cabaret. Both of us loved the show. Later Carmen joined us at table. Tallulah got loud and drunk and propositioned her. Carmen eventually went back to the hotel with Tallulah. I knew all about Tallu's escapades but until that night I didn't know the Brazilian bombshell was part dyke.”

  “Tallulah can be so naughty, yet she is so generous,” Graham said. “When Noel and I went to check out of our hotel in Chicago, we found out that she'd paid the bill for us.”

  Merv, hoping to appear like a show business insider, brought Noel up to date on the latest gossip about Marlene, telling him that she'd hooked up with Burt Bacharach. “My dear Marlene,” Noel said. “God certainly had a talent for creating exceptional women.”

  Over a dinner of salt fish and ackee that night, Noel grew increasingly intoxicated and even more indiscreet. “I lost my virginity at the age of thirteen to Gertrude Lawrence. She was only two years older than me. The seduction took place on a moving train. All that open plumbing revolted me. Being in bed with a woman is like feeling the skin of a snake.”

  As the drinks kept coming, and the party grew more intoxicated, the revelations became more lurid. Merv, like the skilled interviewer that he was to become, goaded Noel into more indiscretions.

  “Roddy McDowall has presented me with a fairly detailed list of your seductions,” he said to Noel. “Impressive I might say. Richard Attenborough. Louis Hayward. Cary Grant. Laurence Olivier. Tyrone Power. Michael Wilding, whom I know. Peter Lawford who claimed to me personally that you seduced him. But tell us the most unlikely men you ever seduced?”

  “First, I'll confess to two that got away. Years ago I was a guest of John Gilbert in Hollywood while I was waiting for a boat to take me to the Orient. His affair with Greta Garbo was going nowhere. Sitting on a sofa in front of his fireplace, we enjoyed a nightcap together. I let my hand creep slowly upward until it landed on his crotch which felt promising. He jumped up, ran up the stairs, and locked himself into his bedroom, with me, obviously, on the other side.

  Once on an ocean liner sailing from Southampton to New York, I found myself in the nude in the steam room with that divine little piece of ass, Eddie Fisher. I ran my hands over his smooth buttocks. He too fled from me.”

  “Those are great stories, Noel, but we want to hear the two most unlikely conquests,” Merv said. “Those who didn't get away.”

  “Okay, but you are a dirty bitch for prying into my private affairs,” Noel said. “I will tell you if all of you promise not to tell the Queen Mother.”

  “It's a deal,” Johnny said.

  Finishing his drink, Noel settled back onto his chaise longue prolonging the suspense. “James Cagney and Leslie Howard. As God is my witness.”

  After that, there was silence. No one could top that.

  Before the dinner party broke up, Noel suggested that Merv and Johnny spend the night, as the winding, rutted, steeply inclined road back to Ocho Rios was dangerous in the pitch blackness.

  As Noel staggered to his feet, he placed a possessive hand on Johnny's shoulder before running his fingers through his hair.“I'll protect this dear boy from all harm tonight,” he said to Merv.“And you can sample Graham's undeniable charms.”

  “Sounds like a fair trade to me,” Merv said. “I would be honored to sup at the trough where the great Sir Noel Coward has fed.”

  “Inelegantly put but to the point,” Noel said. Taking Johnny's hand, Noel guided him to the house.

  There was a long moment before Graham put his hand on Merv's knee. “You're not going to be like John Gilbert and escape from my clutches tonight, are you?” Graham asked.

  “Breathe in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere,” Merv said.

  The two men rose from their chairs and headed toward the guest room. “Something tells me we're not going to arise for breakfast before noon,” Graham sai
d.

  In 1963 Merv called Noel again when Doctor No, with Sean Connery, was being filmed on location in Jamaica. Merv had seen pictures of Noel posing with his arms around the Scottish hunk, and he wanted Noel to use his influence to arrange an onisland television interview.

  On the phone, indiscreetly, Noel confided that “my lifelong ambition is to commit an immoral act of fellatio on this divine Scotsman and to discover what's hiding under his kilt. Tallulah is still raving about Gary Cooper from back in 1932, but for my quid, Sean is the sexiest man alive. I hear his endowment is twice or even three times that of an ordinary man. John Gielgud disputes the point with me. He claims that Louis Jourdan is the best hung man in Hollywood. His opinion is not based on any close personal encounter with the French God, but on what Louis Jourdan revealed on screen when he wore those tight trousers in Gigi.”

  Bosom buddies:

  Sean Connery & Sir Noel

  in Jamaica

  Months later, when Merv reencountered Noel facetoface in New York, Noel sighed, “Alas, Sean Connery can be added to my list of the men who got away.”

  ***

  The following day when Merv and Johnny returned to the Jamaica Inn, a cable was waiting from Merv's agent, Marty Kummer. Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, the producers of such hit TV shows as What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, and To Tell the Truth, wanted Merv in New York for an audition. They were putting together a new show, I've Got a Hunch, which was heavily inspired by To Tell the Truth. Merv and Johnny flew back to New York the next day.

  Merv arrived at Idlewild in time to make it to the Goodson-Todman production offices for a seven o'clock appointment. A secretary told him he'd have to wait. From the next room, Merv heard the sound of hysterical laughter from an audience. He thought that Johnny Carson might be auditioning for the same show.

  Marty was supposed to have shown up to go into the audition with him, but he was nowhere to be seen. After waiting an hour, Merv said, “to hell with this.” He headed for the elevators just as Marty was getting off. He urged Merv to stay, claiming, “We're almost ready to close the deal if the audition goes well.”

  Ushered into a large room, Merv discovered himself in front of an audience of Goodson and Todman employees. “You're on,” Mark Goodson called out to him. Suddenly, Merv found himself as the emcee of a trial run of Play Your Hunch. Using all his skills, he sang, he danced, he performed skits, he interviewed guests hastily summoned to the stage.

  At the end of the show, Mark Goodson led the loud applause, as Bill Todman sat in a front row seat, seemingly unmoved. Mark asked Merv to come with Marty to his office. Bill Todman left the room.

  “Where's Todman?” Merv asked. “I don't think he liked me.”

  “I thought you were terrific,” Mark said. “Don't worry about Bill. What does he know about show business? When I met him, he was selling insurance door to door. We have a love/hate relationship. If I like a performer, he hates him—and vice versa. If we agree, we know that one of us isn't doing his job.”

  “So, did you call me in here to tell me I don't get the job?” Merv asked.

  “You're hired,” Mark said. “We've got to do a pilot and sell it to CBS.” He paused and looked sternly at Merv. “You're not a Communist, are you?”

  “I don't even wear the color red,” Merv claimed.

  Merv made the pilot, and even Bill Todman approved of it. The problem remained for the show to win over what Merv called “the suits at CBS.” It took six long months for CBS to make up its mind to go ahead with the show. In the meantime, Merv took any job Marty tossed his way.

  Taking over for Carl Reiner, an emcee on ABC's Keep Talking show, Merv proved that he was a skilled adlibber. “I was paid $1,500 per show, which allowed me to stay ten paces ahead of my creditors.”

  The show had two teams of celebrities competing in improvised comedy bits. For Reiner's last show, Merv was asked to sit in and watch to see how the series was filmed.

  Backstage he encountered Reiner, a selfstyled “Jewish atheist,” who gave him the same advice he shared with nearly all rising comedians. “You have to imagine yourself as not somebody very special but somebody very ordinary. If you imagine yourself as somebody really normal and it makes you laugh, it's going to make everybody laugh. If you think of yourself as something very special, you'll end up a pedant and a bore. If you start thinking about what's funny, you won't be funny, actually. It's like walking. How do you walk? If you start thinking about, you'll trip.”

  Merv later claimed he took that advice. “It was the secret of my success, and I owe it all to Carl Reiner.” It's not clear if Merv was serious, or merely joking.

  On Keep Talking, Merv found himself working with such familiar TV faces as Morey Amsterdam, Peggy Cass, Pat Carroll, Orson Bean, Ilka Chase, Audrey Meadows, Elaine May, and Joey Bishop, who would later become Merv's rival for TV ads and audiences.

  In a few weeks, Merv met with Bud Collyer, the host of To Tell the Truth, with the understanding that Merv would be taking over for him during a temporary leave of absence. Merv wore a bow tie in honor of the one Collyer often wore on TV. “I remember as a kid screaming at the radio, ‘this looks like a job for Superman!’” He was recalling Collyer's job in the early 1940s when he supplied the voices of both Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent. “I never missed a program,” Merv claimed.

  He might have taken Carl Reiner's advice, but Merv did not take Collyer's advice, which was to contribute ten percent of his winnings to the Christian church. After meeting Merv, Collyer shook his hand and proclaimed, “God and I will be watching you.” Collyer was extremely religious and often delivered pronouncements which he said had been revealed to him directly from God, having claimed to have talked personally with Him the night before.

  On To Tell the Truth, Merv got to deliver the show's most famous and most oftrepeated line: “Will the real [person's name ] please stand up?”

  On one episode of To Tell the Truth, Merv met a panelist, Johnny Carson, a comedian who at the time was hosting a rival show, Who Do You Trust? This was Merv's first meeting with the star who was destined to become the most successful entertainer in the history of television.

  Earlier, backstage, Merv had introduced himself to Johnny. The first question Merv presented to the TV host bombed. “Johnny, how does it feel to be a WASP in a field filled with Jewish comedians?”

  “I don't want to talk before going on the air,” Johnny told Merv. “It destroys my concentration.”

  “And that was that,” Merv said. “I found Carson cold and distant: I didn't like him at all, and I think he viewed me with as much excitement as stepping on a mule turd in Nebraska. Maybe we both sensed in that brief meeting that in a few short years we'd become bitter rivals.”

  CBS finally came through and at long last offered Merv the job of hosting Play Your Hunch. The show did more than any other at the time to make Merv Griffin a household word. But the survival of Play Your Hunch would soon devolve into something akin to a twisting, highanxiety ride on a rollercoaster. As it staggered through its many permutations, it became known as “The Game Show That Would Not Die.” After six months with Merv as the host, CBS killed it. ABC picked it up with options, but after six months, it too canceled the show.

  Finally, the game show found a relatively secure home at NBC, where it would last for four years—mostly as a daytime TV show but with occasional brief forays into prime time.

  Its formula was simple: Usually a husband and wife would face another team of contestants and be presented with a puzzle which involved associations with the lives of up to three celebrity guests, or with something associated with up to three veiled objects. The competing teams would be given three choices marked X, Y, and Z, and the winner would be whichever team opted for the correct choice.

  Between 1958 and 1962, Merv would be the show's longest running host, although the show sometimes brought on other announcers as well, including Johnny Gilbert, Don Pardo, and Johnny Olson. Olson would go on to
additional fame as the first announcer for the Bob Barker version of The Price Is Right and, eventually, the announcer and host of The Match Game.

  During Merv's tenure as host of Play Your Hunch, many celebrities appeared, the most famous of whom was Bob Hope. Merv wanted to ask Bob some really tough questions, including some about a rumored affair he'd had with Milton Berle when they were both young. Other, somewhat less controversial leads which Merv wanted to pursue involved Hope's seductions of such stars as Paulette Goddard, Betty Hutton, Marilyn Maxwell, Dorothy Lamour, and countless Las Vegas showgirls.

  Bob's whoring had remained a relative secret until Confidential magazine exposed his sexual liaison with blonde starlet, Barbara Payton, who later became a prostitute and drug addict after her star had fallen from the Hollywood sky.

  When Merv was talking on the phone with Marlon Brando, and informed him that Bob Hope was scheduled to appear on his show, Brando wasn't impressed. “Bob Hope will go to the opening of a phone booth in a gas station in Anaheim, provided they have a camera and three people there.”

  As always, Bob was a success on the show, using such familiar lines, as “The other day I was asked why I didn't run for President of the United States. I thought about it. But my wife said she wouldn't want to move into a smaller house.”

  A more unusual booking came in the form of an Englishman, Boris Karloff, Frankenstein himself. Merv told him, “I didn't recognize you without your neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots.

  Boris did not find that amusing, confessing to Merv that he suffered from chronic back trouble as a result of the heavy brace he had to wear as part of his Frankenstein costume.

  One of Merv's favorite guests was the comedian and improvisational genius, Jonathan Winters, who'd just been released from a mental institution where he'd been sent after suffering a nervous breakdown. Seemingly well again, and appearing frequently on the shows of Merv's rival talkshow hosts as well, Jonathan shone brilliantly.