Stars in His Eyes

by Martí Gironell

  “We were almost to the place where we would gather the flowers when I slipped over the mossy rocks on a stretch of damp, swampy earth, lost my balance, and fell into a deep black pool of water, reaching for my brother’s arm as I did. José knew how treacherous that area was—the falling water formed a whirlpool that could easily pull you down into the depths and kill you. But there was no time to be afraid. He would do anything possible to dig me out of that watery grave.

  “‘Cefe!’ José shouted. ‘Cefe!’”

  Realizing he’d revealed his old name, Leon corrected himself quickly: “That was what they used to call me back then.”

  “Following an instinct that was little more than a reflex,” Leon continued, “he threw me a rope to grab on to. But it was too late. He couldn’t see anything, not a single movement. The water was dark and worrisomely calm, no bubbles rising to the surface, as if it had just swallowed me up. The entire group panicked. José prayed I would pop up somewhere else downstream. After a brief silence that José told me seemed like an eternity, they saw a few first bubbles rise up and José could feel a slight pulling on the rope. Then he saw my hand coming up out of the water, grasping the rope.

  “My brother shouted, ‘Help me, come on, help! We’ve got to get him out of there!’ They all obeyed and got behind José to pull with all their strength on that rope, which was wet now, and heavier than before. My body emerged from the water of the tide pool. First one arm, then my torso, and finally my legs. ‘You were deadweight,’ my brother told me a little later. I had been completely unconscious, but—and I still don’t know how—I grabbed that rope in a final reflex before passing out.

  “They managed to pull me up. They had a hell of a time getting me to start breathing and come to again. All I remember was the way I shook from the cold. I don’t know how long it took me to recover. We decided we wouldn’t say anything back home, and we returned at midday, later than we had planned, with our baskets full of flowers.

  “I get goose bumps whenever I remember it. If my brother had given up on me, I wouldn’t be here now. I think that’s why I don’t like to give up or let myself be beaten.”

  “You’ll see,” Jimmy said. “Someday you’ll be able to visit your family again.”

  A jab of longing pierced Jean when he talked about them, and Jimmy could sense it. He knew Jean was on the run from the Spanish military, that he couldn’t even contact them for fear of reprisal. Maybe someday, Jean agreed silently, shaking off his sorrow. He still had a lot of reasons to be happy.

  Dean’s presence helped Jean get over his mixed feelings about his past and grasp the possibilities the future offered him.

  James Dean’s vitality was contagious. By his side, Jean Leon felt anything could happen. Anything.

  Even a restaurant of his own.

  The idea had begun with an innocuous conversation one evening. Dean told him that when he had arrived in Santa Monica, years earlier, he had felt instantly at ease, even though it was a random event that had brought him there from Indiana. The Los Angeles VA hospital had offered Jimmy’s father a job as a dental technician and had set him up with a house in the area. A bungalow next to the beach, in Pacific Palisades. After his mother died, Jimmy had to go back to Indiana, but he’d returned to California as soon as he could. He felt at home there, and he was thinking of setting down roots. Jean Leon’s mind raced ahead of him. He, too, wanted permanence, a place he could call his own. But not a home. Something more, something his hopes could latch onto.

  “If what you’ve got in mind is a restaurant, you can count me in,” Jean told Jimmy.

  The comment, uttered off the cuff, left a mark on both of them. The idea stuck in their minds, and they started thinking and planning in earnest. The money question was ironed out first. Dean had made $20,000 for East of Eden. His performance won him accolades, and the actor had now begun his transformation into an authentic phenomenon. They soon paid him $50,000 for Rebel Without a Cause. And before he knew it, he was signing a contract for Giant, his next film, worth $100,000. Only twenty-four years old, and people were calling him the new Marlon Brando. Just like Marlon, he shuffled his feet, turned round suddenly, gesticulated wildly, mumbled, swallowed his words, leaned against the wall.

  The actor agreed to put up money for the restaurant, which they would design together, little by little. The dream was slowly becoming a reality. Dean and Leon met whenever they could at a corner table in the back of Villa Capri. They worked out numbers on napkins and sketched rough designs of the space that would become their restaurant. A prominent bar, with lush booths reserved for the stars and large tables with ample space between them—protecting their guests from curious gawkers. They would serve practical, simple dishes, familiar but elegant and sophisticated: We need to offer a quality service suited to our clientele, they both agreed. They were anxious, at times overwhelmed, but most of all excited.

  One morning in April, Leon made an agreeable discovery. He was on his way to work when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a “For Rent” sign in the window of La Scala in Beverly Hills. Despite the Italian name, the guy in charge of the restaurant was a Galician from La Coruña in Spain named José Amor—Americanized as Joe Amor. His place had never lost its Galician feel, even if the menu offered hamburgers and spaghetti alongside empanadas and caldeiradas. Jean Leon went there with Donna once or twice a month, because the seafood in garlic sauce was like a little vacation in Galicia. When they ate there, he felt close to the city of Santander, where he was born, and these little culinary journeys filled Jean with a joyful energy rather than bittersweet nostalgia.

  Jean Leon went in and found Joe Amor at one of the tables, going over a pile of invoices. With one hand, he was adding up columns of numbers, and with the other, he held a pair of reading glasses in front of his eyes.

  “Hey, Jean,” Joe said, warm as ever, smiling and offering him a seat.

  “What’s going on with the sign? You leaving the business?”

  “I’m giving it up, son, retiring. I’ll hang up my apron this summer. I can’t do it anymore! You know how it is.” Jean nodded knowingly. “This line of work demands patience and energy, and I’m starting to run out of both.”

  “I’ll never find another place with cooking like yours,” Jean complained.

  “You’re wrong there. Emilio’s sticking around.”

  Joe’s nephew, Emilio Nuñez, was the chef there, and an immensely talented one, from Jean’s point of view. He was the one who had authored the menu, the unique fusion of several different traditions that was the restaurant’s hallmark. At just twenty-four years old, Emilio had chalked up more hours behind the oven than many veterans, and his dishes showed it. Joe Amor respected the kid’s talent enough to make keeping him on a requirement for whoever bought the business. The idea struck Jean Leon—who was in his twenties himself—and he couldn’t help but ask.

  “How much are you asking for?”

  “You really interested?” Amor asked, raising his eyebrows over his glasses.

  “Well . . . It’s something I’ve been thinking about a long time. Why not? I’ve even got a partner who’s looking to get in the game. An actor, someone who’s coming up in the world.”

  As Leon talked, he looked over the place with fresh eyes, remodeling it in his imagination. “It’s a great spot, it’s got a good chef. I’ll be the maître d’. I know what I’m getting into. I don’t want to just take care of the tables. I want it to be a restaurant where people will feel at home. Or better than at home. A place where, once they come, they’ll want to keep coming back.”

  “Sounds like we can work something out.”

  The conversation stretched on, and more meetings followed, until the three men—Joe, Jean, and Emilio—finally reached an agreement. The restaurant would be Jean’s in September. He had the cash, the cook, and the place. He was getting close.

  Jimmy and Jean couldn’t stop talking about it. Every time they saw each other, they would talk over their
ideas, and when they got the chance, they would sit down to discuss the project with people they trusted, who could serve as a sounding board.

  One Sunday evening, Jimmy had convinced an actor friend to accompany him to Villa Capri for a drink. Ronald Reagan was the host of General Electric Theater, the CBS network’s star program, which brought millions of Americans together in front of the TV every week. The CBS building on Sunset Boulevard, where General Electric Theater was taped, was only a few blocks away from McCadden Place.

  Reagan and Dean had met three times on the program already that year. The two men walked together over to Villa Capri, and Jean Leon greeted them at the front door.

  Jimmy tapped the bottom of his pack of Lucky Strikes with his finger, and, as if by magic, three cigarettes emerged from the hole he had torn in the top. He offered one to Reagan, slipped another one between his lips, and pushed the third one back inside.

  “What are you two up to at this hour? There’s barely anyone still here!” Leon told them with a smile, spreading his arms out in the middle of the almost-empty restaurant. There was just one couple at a table—the actors Zsa Zsa Gabor and Tony Franciosa—and one guest at the bar, a screenwriter from MGM who was already waving for the check. “Come on in,” a smiling Jean Leon said.

  “I was just asking Ronnie what he thought about our idea,” Jimmy told Leon.

  “So?” Leon said, guiding them inside.

  “It sounds like a smart move to me,” Reagan said. “I’ve heard crazier things, that’s for sure. Anyway, you can count me in as a customer.”

  “Why don’t you sit down and chat with us for a while, Jean?” Dean proposed.

  “Yeah, Jean, why not?” Reagan asked.

  “Thanks, Jimmy, thanks, Ronnie,” he said. “Maybe in a bit, when everybody’s gone.”

  The actors walked off to an out-of-the-way table. In no time, Leon had the screenwriter out the door and got the check to Gabor and Franciosa, who paid quickly and left. It was a Sunday, after all, and even the stars have to go to work on Monday mornings. Leon walked them to the door and hung up the “Closed” sign.

  His work more or less done—though he still had to count the drawer and clean up, so Capri would be immaculate for the morning shift—Leon decided to accept his friends’ invitation for a drink. As he approached the table, he listened to the two men chatting.

  “You know, I feel like this presenter role fits me better than acting,” Ronnie said, sucking on a newly lit cigarette.

  “I thought you were just doing it to make some coin while you waited on your agent to call,” Dean said, surprised.

  “I fired my agent. I’m a free man, totally free,” Reagan said with a satisfied smile. “I like TV. I’d even say I love it. CBS gives me a window to peek out of every day and get inside the heads of everyone in America.”

  “Does this mean you’re serious about getting into politics?”

  Reagan’s name had been ringing out as a possible addition to the Republican Party ever since he had left his post as president of the Screen Actors Guild for ideological reasons.

  “Yeah, why not?” Reagan said. “I don’t know how I feel about the way things are going. This is a great country, but maybe it’s ready for a change. We need to get serious about the Soviets, about taxes, about everything!”

  “You’re looking riled up, there, Ronnie,” Jean laughed as he refilled their glasses.

  “Sit down, sit down, Jean,” Dean said, shaking his hand. “Apparently our boy’s not kidding when he says he might go into politics. I guess he didn’t get enough when he was with the union . . .”

  Reagan insisted the country’s establishment needed new blood: “I just can’t see Vice President Nixon taking over for Ike,” he said. “He doesn’t have the same determination or charisma. The Democrats are going to run someone young, this Kennedy guy, supposedly, this senator from Massachusetts. He’s bright-eyed, an idealist, he’s got a touch of Wilson to him, but I’m not sure if I like what he’s selling. ‘We respect the self-determination of peoples and free commerce,’” he declared sardonically. “With the way things are now, and the Soviets vying for world leadership!”

  “Truth is, Ronnie, you already sound like a politician,” Leon said.

  “Listen, we’re all doing politics! Even if we don’t realize it,” he said. “Our lives, our decisions, all that is politics—and if we don’t take the lead, someone else will, and that could make things get ugly.”

  “You’re telling me. Look at my country . . .”

  Leon realized he had let something slip out that he shouldn’t have. Few people knew he was Spanish; with his name, everyone assumed he was French, and he never bothered to correct the error. Jimmy was one of the few who was in on his secret. Now that the cat was halfway out of the bag, he told Reagan, too, and received a respectful nod in response.

  “Franco’s dictatorship has turned Spain upside down,” Leon said. “Lots of people had to leave, like I did, to make their dreams come true, because there’s no future there. You’re right, Ronnie, with what you said about politics: if you can’t choose for yourself, that means someone else is choosing for you.”

  “Enough about all that. I’d just as soon talk about our dreams for the future,” Jimmy said, raising his glass and clinking the ice cubes inside.

  “Damn right!” Leon raised his glass, too, then went even further. “First the restaurant, then who knows? Maybe even our own wine.”

  Leon’s dreams were growing bigger and bigger. Jimmy and Ronnie looked at him askance and laughed.

  “Hey, I picked grapes in France one time, and where I’m from, there’s plenty of fertile land. You could grow the best wines in the world there,” Leon explained with a grin. “Why not? Make a good wine we can serve in our own place. What do you say, Jimmy?”

  Leon knew this was pushing it. But since he had started at Villa Capri, wine had become one of his passions. It had started with grateful regulars who would ask him to join them for a glass of Brunello or, if it was a special occasion, Château Lafite. He’d started paying attention, asking people what they drank and why, grilling the maître d’s on what were the best bottles when he and Donna would go for a dinner out. He had seen the great names on the labels: Romanée-Conti, Pétrus, or, in California, Inglenook and Beaulieu. Why couldn’t Jean Leon shine alongside them? As he and Dean always told each other, dreaming is free. And Reagan, who was listening to them as he swirled his drink, raised his glass and toasted to their castle in the sky.

  “Sure thing, Jean! For you, a great wine; for Jimmy, a successful career. For both of you, a restaurant, and for me . . . heck, maybe I’ll be president of the United States of America,” he announced, sounding utterly convinced.

  What he’d just blurted out surprised neither Dean nor Leon, but the alcohol they’d imbibed made them want to laugh anyway. Reagan raised his glass again and said to Jean Leon solemnly, as if giving an oath:

  “And let me promise you something, Jean: when we make our dreams come true, we’ll toast our successes with your wine.”

  They nodded and downed their glasses, and as the liquor warmed their insides, they looked at each other and laughed uproariously.

  Of all the toasts that had been offered that night, it was those to James Dean’s success that came true quickest, and that was a good omen for their future restaurant. But Dean’s meteoric rise overwhelmed him, and he was often in a sour mood. He couldn’t make peace with fame: acting was one thing, he was a careful and conscientious worker, but he wasn’t ready to live under the microscope, let alone have to listen to constant praise—praise that, to his mind, anyway, always seemed slightly condescending. He couldn’t get comfortable under the halo of prestige and renown that the studios seemed bent on crowning him with. He first realized it one evening at Villa Capri. At the end of his meal, Dean reached back for his wallet, and Jean rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “Times have changed, Jimmy. You can put things on your tab now.”

&nb
sp; “What are you talking about, Jean?”

  “What I just said!” Dean looked surprised. “You can charge your meals here now, dummy.” Billy Kant, the gruff manager of Villa Capri, had seen East of Eden at the Egyptian, and from that moment, he had started to treat James Dean like a VIP. As soon as Kant began to respect the group of young actors he couldn’t stand just a few months before, James Dean decided he’d had enough.

  “Listen, Jean, tell the manager to stick that tab up his ass!” Dean shook his head, his eyebrows rising over the black frames of his glasses, clearly angry. “If I wasn’t good enough for a tab yesterday, I ain’t good enough today, either. So I’ll keep paying cash, and that’s that!”

  “Works just fine for me, Jimmy,” Leon said calmly, chuckling to himself.

  Dean took a long drag off the cigarette hanging from his lips and blew a few smoke rings.

  “I’m tired of all this fakery. You want to know something? When I come back from filming in Texas, we gotta get to work. We’re gonna make this restaurant happen. I’ll take care of the money, and you take care of the rest.”

  “Jimmy . . .” Leon cleared his throat, feeling a knot in it that would barely let him speak.

  They hugged, and before he said goodbye, Dean mumbled something Leon couldn’t quite catch. It sounded like Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

  If they were serious, truly serious about this—and they were—it was time for Jean Leon to do the one thing he dreaded most: tell Frank he was going to open his own restaurant. Sinatra notoriously prized loyalty above all else. How would he handle the news? Jean was petrified.