Tony Epper saw a similar aspect as the relationship deteriorated, adding, “He lived in a very ‘alky’ world in those days… He was more afraid of her than cared for her. How can you fight with somebody like that? It’s like throwing a bag of wildcats on you every time you opened your mouth to her. He’d have to kill her. Kind of psychotic? She was a nut and I witnessed it personally.” Director John Boorman wrote in his autobiography of witnessing one of Triola’s suicide attempts in which an emotionally non-responsive Marvin did nothing, a scene that would be eerily reenacted in Point Blank. Ralph O’Hara also witnessed her unstable behavior, adding, “He didn’t want to have a confrontation. I’ve seen her pick up an entire plate of food and shove it in his face in a restaurant. That was just the nature of the beast. That’s what we’re talking about.”
The problem in dealing with Triola financially was left to Ed Silver. “I didn’t think it was going to be that long-term of a relationship, he stated candidly. “I used to talk to her every day. When Michele called, it was a half-hour to an hour, practically every day. She’d call me about something. The point is she had nothing to do with his business affairs. She didn’t sign one check. I used to give her an allowance. I set up a special account for her and I used to deposit money in that account every month… I didn’t give her any household money. That was the money she used to maintain herself in the household. I’ll tell you something, that was so important in the Marvin vs. Marvin suit. If I would’ve co-mingled that money, if she would’ve had anything to do with the household or anything, that would have been a major, major blow in her favor.”
By the time Marvin had made Paint Your Wagon, the relationship with Triola had become almost too much for the actor to bear. Tony Epper also took note of how badly Marvin’s relationship with her had deteriorated during the difficult film. The many fights and blowups had reached critical mass as symbolized by one particular incident in which Epper was a more than willing participant: “He had rented a house and we had two or three days off. Now whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but one of his pals called and said she was servicing Glenn Ford. She wasn’t going to be back until Sunday afternoon and this was a Friday. Lee kept going on about the vibrators: ‘I told that bitch to throw those vibrators away!’ I said, ‘Why don’t we do something better than that?’ We went to town and bought every extension cord and vibrator we could get… This is what gin does to you.
“We had a master plug and plugged it in. When she came in, that’s all she got were vibrators going off everywhere! We dived under the bed and must have looked like an elephant hiding under a rock. She had a filthy mouth and was kicking us, throwing vibrators at us, shouting, ‘You motherfuckers!’ I remember Lee and I just took off across this big old lawn, vibrators whizzing by us and the neighbors were standing out there as if it was the damnedest thing they ever saw!”
Possibly as an act of contrition, Marvin continued to do things to help Triola realize her dream of show business success. “You know when Lee made Paint Your Wagon, he had that hit record, ‘Wanderin’ Star,’” stated Ed Silver. At Marvin’s request, “I established a company called Santana Records, funded from royalties by that record. It was around fifty thousand dollars that he got for that record. What we did with that money was cut four sides for Michele. She cut four sides. She was a good singer. She was a professional singer. She played at clubs on Sunset, or whatever. Nothing ever came of it [the record] as far as breaking out.”
Such noble gestures on Lee’s part were typical for the actor— which also included expensive gifts as well—but did little or no good to improve their time together. “He tried to leave several times,” said Epper. “He didn’t want to have anything to do with her. He’d say, ‘She threatened to kill me. What’ll I do?’ He actually told me that… Paint Your Wagon is where it really got into it. That’s where I became cognizant of all this crap. I didn’t ever enter into their private life at home, or anything. She never invited me over. I was the last person she wanted around Lee. She was afraid somebody was going to get the money and not her.”
After filming Paint Your Wagon, Marvin was at his wit’s end with Triola. Dan Moultharp, who worked for Meyer Mishkin, recalled: “I remember this one time he was passed out. He always had his money spread out all over the bar and he was out. He was out on the bar. There was some other people sitting there. Then, all of a sudden, he woke up.” Miming Marvin, Moultharp shook his fist in the air and shouted, ‘Damn you, Michele!’ I saw that happen. It was during Monte Walsh.”
The point of no return for Marvin was upon discovering that Triola had legally changed her name. He then sheepishly looked to O’Hara for advice. “It must have been early 1970,” recalled the former bartender. “ He came over to me and he had discovered that Michele had her name changed to Marvin. He said to me in these words, ‘What the fuck do you do with a broad like this? How do you get rid of a broad like this? Ralph, you got broads coming out of here all the time. You get rid of them and you don’t seem to have any trouble. What do you do?’ I said to him, ‘Lee, you got enough money to go anywhere you want and do anything you want. Why don’t you just go back in the house? Don’t even get dressed. Just pick up the keys to the car, your wallet, and go out. Turn it over to your lawyers. Let your lawyers handle it and just disappear until she’s gone. Come back when she’s gone.”
Marvin decided to take his friend’s advice, much to Michele Triola’s immediate displeasure. She began calling every hotel in the area as well as everyone they knew in an attempt to find Marvin. While she was on the phone, Marvin had pulled into the driveway, having gone to the movies for the evening. When he saw her silhouette in the window, he slowly pulled back out, turned the car around, and drove down to Del Mar, letting his lawyers and Meyer Mishkin deal with the task of getting Triola out of the house.
The law firm of Goldman & Kagon had represented Marvin for quite some time and were very familiar with both the relationship and their client’s occasional legal run-ins. When Marvin had drunkenly grabbed a banjo player’s instrument in a bar and broken it over his head, Goldman & Kagon’s legal assistance was elicited to make the expensive out of court settlement. Lou Goldman handled most of Marvin’s previous legal responsibilities, but when it came to dealing with Michele Triola, Goldman’s decades-long partner A. David Kagon stepped up to the plate.
It certainly helped that Kagon genuinely liked his client, stating, “My wife, who is an artist and professionally trained interior designer, who didn’t know Lee very well other than the casual meetings we’d have at the house for dinner, would tell me, ‘This man has abundant knowledge about silver, sterling silver, china, fabrics, historical knowledge!… I’m amazed!’ The depth of the man never really came out, except when you saw him on the screen. You knew there had to be something inside him that could create images that he wanted to convey to you.”
According to Betty Marvin, it was while her ex-husband was hiding out from Michele Triola that he had attempted yet another reconciliation. Her reaction was to tell him, “Why would I want to break back into prison?” It was tearful, according to Betty, who went on to Rome and came back to discover her ex-husband had married Pam Feeley. “He got very, very drunk and then he forgot, which he did a lot. He’d literally black out. Then the next thing, there he was with Pam in Las Vegas, married.” Betty’s own opinion of the union was to state, “Pam had four children from four different husbands. Like another Michele in a different way.”
Much was made in the media at the time of the surprise wedding. A typical example was, “Lee had said at a press conference here in Hollywood that he didn’t think he would ever marry again. Then the very next afternoon he was saying ‘I do’ with his press agent Jim Mahoney as his best man.” When Triola was asked to comment, she cheerfully said, “Lee and I live at Malibu just four doors down from each other and he frequently drops in for breakfast and we take walks on the beach. He is very thoughtful of me. Just recently he gave me a new car, a Mercedes.”
She also added that, at that time, she was dating Adam West, TV’s “Batman,” but there was no romance.
Other media reports of the October 10, 1970 marriage included Newsweek’s misstatement that it was the second marriage for both Lee and Pam. The Los Angeles Times columnist Joyce Haber profiled the newlyweds’ history, interviewing both Lee and Pam in early 1972 without either one ever mentioning his previous relationship. “I had six years on my own and I find it very lacking,” claimed the actor. “As you get older, you get more serious about things… I think the bachelor dream is someone who subscribes to Playboy. Which isn’t quite for me.”
Lee Marvin’s marriage to Pam Feeley ended the thousand-dollar-a-month payments he was voluntarily making to Michele Triola. According to David Kagon, the payments were made, “At a time when a thousand bucks a month was significant. This goes back to the late 1960’s… According to his own statement, he agreed to pay her for a period of about five years. This was an oral agreement— and she agreed to that—provided that she didn’t interfere with his life. Well, unfortunately, what happened was, he remarried. When he remarried, Ms. Triola saw fit, apparently, to speak to the new Mrs. Marvin. When the new Mrs. Marvin, Pamela, discovered that Lee was making these payments, you can imagine the reaction she had to that… I don’t believe she [Pam] was aware at the time she married Lee that he was making these payments.” Lee stopped making the payments in November, 1971. Less than four months later, just as he was about to step on stage in front of a live audience to tape an episode of “The Flip Wilson Show,” Lee Marvin was served with papers, stating that Michele Triola was suing him for half of his wealth from the time they were together.
Michele Triola’s lawyer from her short-lived first marriage was Marvin Mitchelson, a flamboyant headline-grabbing divorce attorney who came up with a plan to sue Lee Marvin. The plan included a carefully constructed strategy to win first in the court of public opinion. It began with a constant barrage of media-related interviews so the public would perceive Michele Triola not as the Glenn Close character from Fatal Attraction that Lee Marvin’s associates witnessed, but as Mildred Pierce, who sacrificed unflinchingly for the person she loved, only to be emotionally and financially spurned for her efforts. Magazines ran interviews with Triola sporting such titles as Coronet’s “My Six Lost Years with Lee Marvin,” and Ladies Home Journal’s “Divorce Without Marriage: The Curious Case of Lee Marvin’s Common Law Wife.”
Not surprisingly, the media loved the less than savory aspect of the public spectacle and did not attempt to check some of Triola’s statements, such as: “Of course I knew Pam. She was Lee’s best friend. They’d been to school together as kids. I used to speak to her on the phone often and Lee would write to her from time to time.” She then claimed she was a dancer in Jose Greco’s dance troupe in Ship Of Fools. In referring to her time with Marvin, she boldly stated, “There were many hard times during those early years. We were settled in as a couple a long time before he was a big name. He had his own TV show but he was not the superstar that they say he is now.” When she had legally changed her name, which had so upset Lee Marvin, she said, “It was with Lee’s approval. It was a joint idea. We had the name changed, not just I. We purposely kept it quiet.”
The media blizzard occurred over the several years in which Mitchelson attempted to sue Lee Marvin for the newly minted phrase Mitchelson coined and defined as, “Palimony, alimony for a pal.” Marvin was willing to make a large sum payment, but Mitchelson was seeking millions. Beginning in 1972, every attempt made by Mitchelson was thrown out of court. One effort found Kagon easily arguing on the grounds that his client was still married during the time the claim was being made. Superior Court Judge William Munnell dismissed the case in less than three minutes. Mitchelson plugged on, and in December 1976, the California State Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the lower court, giving the media-happy lawyer a glimmer of hope. In the interim, Mitchelson was caught off-guard by Kagon’s countersuit and stated, “This move is one we didn’t expect. It’s very clever.”
In early January of 1977, Newsweek reported that the number of unmarried couples in America had risen eight-fold according to census figures. It was their lead-in report to a new decision by the California State Supreme Court regarding Marvin vs. Marvin: “that the mere fact that a couple have not participated in a valid marriage ceremony cannot serve as a basis for a court’s inference that the couple intend to keep their earnings and property separate and independent.” Mitchelson was ecstatic and gleefully exclaimed, “This is going to open the floodgates to the courts. It’s a Christmas present to all the unmarrieds.” Lee Marvin was pragmatic by comparison, stating, “It could be several more years before we have a judgment of any kind.” The legal wrangling did indeed continue for some time, with Mitchelson consistently coming up short for his client. In the interim, he had managed to find Triola work as a receptionist at the William Morris Agency where she met and began dating Dick Van Dyke in 1976.
The case finally was set for trial in California Supreme Court, January 1979. Lee Marvin remained steadfastly pragmatic, stating, “It doesn’t disturb me. It’s just that I’m sure it will embarrass my family and my friends. That’s part of the position I’m in.” In preparing the case, Kagon humorously noted of his client, “This was a man that probably did not own more than one or two suits. Matter of fact, at the time of the initial trial, he had to go out and buy three suits because we didn’t know how long the trial would last. Obviously, he had to come into court wearing appropriate clothing.”
The stage was set, the players in place and the cameras whirred. Television and print editorials were everywhere as daily accounts of the trial made front-page news. Nevermind the oil crisis, the recession, or any other daily occurrences. The water cooler discussion of 1979 was Marvin vs. Marvin. Triola basked in the spotlight as Rock Hudson famously told her at a party one night, “What a can of worms you’ve opened.” The media circus surrounding the trial was aided by Triola’s legal team and avoided by Marvin’s. According to Marvin’s lawyer David Kagon, “We were not going to try the case in the press. This case was going to be tried in the courtroom. As a matter of fact, we learned more about their case by reading newspaper articles. It made it that much easier.”
Inside the courtroom, Mitchelson’s histrionics hammered Judge Arthur K. Marshall with the point that Michele Triola gave Lee Marvin the best years of her life. The actor was even asked this when he testified. “No,” he responded. “I gave her the best years of her life.” Mitchelson also made an attempt to bring the couples’ sex life into open court by having several letters admitted as evidence. All of Mitchelson’s strategies were easily deflected by Kagon without once ever bringing up Michele Triola’s past employment as a prostitute. When Triola testified on her own behalf, she broke down in tears as regularly as a “Perry Mason” defendant. The only words ever spoken by Lee Marvin to his ex-girlfriend in open court were during one of her crying jags, when he asked her to speak up.
The salacious aspect of the case involving the couple’s sex life naturally gained the most media attention. Although the details were avoided in court, it was nevertheless insinuated that Triola had had an abortion. “There was an effort to show, to demonstrate, how devoted she was to him,” recalled Kagon, “how he had treated her very badly in regards to her wanting to have children and he insisted on the abortion and gave her money to have an abortion. That raised a specter that really was very distasteful to Lee Marvin himself. Fact is, it wasn’t true. We were prepared to demonstrate that it was physically impossible, but eventually the judge called us into chambers and told us that he didn’t feel this line of testimony was really necessary and so we discontinued it.”
The case dragged on for months as Triola laid claim to not only Marvin’s successful film career, but that she had made Herculean efforts to salvage his reputation. She testified in court that she was the one responsible for saving the women dangling out of the window during the infamou
s “Robin Hood Party.” Kagon elicited the aid of Ralph O’Hara to track down and find Tony Epper who had to sheepishly recount the actual events of that night, disproving Triola’s account with simple physics. He also admitted to being the only culprit capable of shooting out the Vegas Vic sign and the inflatable King Kong. Business manager Ed Silver and publicist Paul Wasserman testified as well on Marvin’s behalf. David Kagon stated he also received regular phone calls from show business agents without any knowledge of the case asking if their clients could testify just for the publicity.
The trial itself was not entirely without other moments of levity. Kagon recalled a moment that was a result of Mitchelson’s flamboyant style: “He was a great showman. No question about that. Now one might debate what his legal skills were from the standpoint of his many times during the course of the trial… Here’s an anecdote. I wasn’t there, but it’s a great story. Two other attorneys, assistants, were standing on either side of him, one on his left and one on his right. He was trying to impress the court with his sincerity. ‘Judge, if I’m lying to this court may I be struck by a bolt of lightning right now!’ and both attorneys jumped to the side.” Lee Marvin’s dark humor was also on display during the trial. The actor made no secret of his dislike of Mitchelson especially when the attorney suffered a major asthma attack in court and was rushed to a hospital. As the gurney wheeled Mitchelson out of court, Lee Marvin leaned over and said dryly, “Gee, I hope it’s nothing trivial.”
One of Mitchelson’s attorneys, the one David Kagon claimed was the only one on their team with any brains, came to Kagon with an offer for a settlement. When Kagon asked him how much, the response was one hundred thousand dollars. He went to his client with the offer, who initially was willing to pay even more before the case had gone to trial. However, once the legal proceedings had begun, Kagon recalled his client’s reaction to the offer: “When I mentioned it to Lee, he said two words, and they aren’t the two words you think they are. He said ‘No thanks.’”
Lee Marvin: Point Blank Page 24