Stars in His Eyes

by Martí Gironell

  He spent days practicing, trying to figure out how to approach Sinatra. But try as he might, he was incapable of finding the right words, and he knew his friend wouldn’t be happy about it.

  “I have to tell him myself. He can’t find out through someone else. He’d never forgive me, and we’ve got to have Frank on our side.”

  “Time’s running out,” Jimmy Dean said to him, aware that Jean was right. “You should tell him as soon as you can.”

  “It’s got to be tonight.”

  But that night, Sinatra showed up at Capri more irritable than usual. He sat at his table alone—Jean had never seen him do that before. Jean hesitated, but only briefly. If he kept waiting for the right time, it would never come.

  “Good evening, Frankie! Everything good?” Jean set down his usual, a glass of bourbon, a double. Frank didn’t even need to ask. Jean brought the bottle with him; Sinatra wasn’t a one-and-done type of guy.

  Jean could read the Voice’s mood from his stare, and that night it was glacial. It could be a new song he was recording that had set him off, a few extra scenes for his latest film, the headaches Ava Gardner gave him, or anything. Jean started to lose his nerve. But then he thought of what it would mean to stay on at that job, the same routine, day after day, always playing second fiddle . . . and that gave him the strength to speak up.

  “When you’ve got a moment, we should talk,” he said, determined to stop fretting.

  There it is. All I’ve got to do is remember the words I practiced before.

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Now, then? Well, what I want to tell you . . . It can wait till it’s good for you. Say, after closing time.”

  “Stop beating around the bush. Sit down and tell me what you’ve got to say.”

  “Yes, sir. You’re the boss.” Jean took a seat beside him, shaken. He was drawing a blank.

  Sinatra served himself another glass and downed it in one long sip. He did the same two more times, while Jean took deep breaths, trying to keep a grip on himself. He decided to just spit it out.

  “I’m going to open . . . I mean, we’re going to open a restaurant close to here. Right off of Santa Monica Boulevard.”

  “A restaurant? You and who else?”

  “Jimmy Dean and me.”

  Sinatra smiled sardonically.

  “You’re going to go down in flames!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “There’s no room for another restaurant around here. All the good customers are already divvied up between Villa Capri, Romanoff’s, and Chasen’s.”

  “Yeah, but what we’ve got in mind is something different. Another type of cuisine, in a cozy environment.”

  “That’s it?” Sinatra laughed contemptuously. “That’s your recipe for your little restaurant’s success?”

  Jean Leon was having a hard time making his point, and he was starting to get frazzled. His voice trembled and he felt a cold sweat break out over his entire body.

  “Oh, OK, now I get it!” shouted Sinatra. “You want my support. Probably you’ve already started trying to hoodwink our guests into going over to your place instead. I didn’t expect that from you, Jean. Not from you.”

  “That’s not it, Frank. If you’d let me explain . . .”

  But Sinatra didn’t want to hear another word.

  Jean needed him to understand that this was a personal quest, an almost vital need. I’ve got to fly on my own, Frankie, he wanted to tell him. I feel like my time has come, and I don’t want to miss the boat. Jean had gone to California looking for opportunities that had never come, but now, with the support of his friend James Dean, he was convinced he had his shot.

  It wasn’t the first time Jean had talked to Sinatra about the idea of having his own place. The singer had even offered to help him out. But Jean was never sure if he’d come through on the offer, and he couldn’t imagine starting off as equals, not with all the ideas he had bubbling up in his head. Being Frank’s associate for the rest of his life wasn’t viable, but still, he was thankful for all he had learned from him, and he knew Frank’s disapproval could sink him.

  When the silence had stretched on too long, Jean Leon said goodbye. Sinatra took a big sip, trying to digest what he’d just heard, dried his lips with the back of his hand, and watched Leon as he walked away.

  “Good luck to you.”

  From that night on, their relationship grew colder.

  It took six years before they could patch things up. But despite his sadness over Frank’s harsh words, Leon felt free. It wouldn’t be long now.

  The exterior filming of Dean’s new film Giant lasted a month and a half down in Texas, and then Jimmy returned home for a few more weeks in the studio. On September 29, 1955, James Dean came to Villa Capri with some of his costars to celebrate the end of shooting. Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson were there, along with Sal Mineo and Carroll Baker. Dean was exultant. He was wearing white pants, a short-sleeved black polo, and a dark jacket. He held his pack of Lucky Strikes up to his mouth and pulled out the last one with his lips.

  “I got good news, Jimmy,” Jean said when he saw the actor come through the door.

  “Me too. Sunday I’m racing in Salinas. I can’t wait to put my new Spyder to the test!”

  The actor’s eyes were gleaming. He had signed a contract with the producer stating that he would stay away from the races while he was filming, but now he was off the leash.

  “I’m happy for you,” his friend said. “But remember, we’ve got a meeting at the bank on Monday. We need to sign the papers for the space, we gave them our word.”

  “Don’t worry.” Jimmy winked. “Ten on the dot. I’ll be there. And relax, I won’t make you watch my cat while I’m gone, I know you’re allergic,” he said, smiling.

  “Damn right you won’t!” shouted Leon, waving his hands around in a gesture of refusal.

  “It’s taken care of! Liz is helping me out,” he said, amused, gesturing at the actress, who was chatting with Rock Hudson. “By the way, she told me to tell you she wants a chocolate martini.”

  Leon’s relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, who was like a sister to Dean, had started with that particular cocktail at a party just before the start of filming for Giant.

  “Give me a couple of chocolate martinis,” the actress had asked Jean that night.

  Leon was taken aback. He had never heard of such a thing. But he couldn’t confess to her that he didn’t know how to make one. She was Liz Taylor, for God’s sake.

  “Right away,” he responded officiously. As he was looking around to see what ingredients he had on hand, Rock Hudson came over to her at the bar.

  “Hey, Liz, what about my chocolate martini?” the actor asked.

  “I was just about to bring it to you, Rock,” she answered with a smile.

  Leon quickly improvised, mixing vanilla extract, vodka, irish cream, and chocolate syrup, then finished it off with a dash of cocoa powder. He served them in martini glasses, one for each star. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he had to risk it. The two stars toasted each other and took a sip. Taylor looked over at Jean. Nervous, he looked down, not wanting to meet her eyes and register her disappointment with him.

  “You all right?” she asked him politely.

  “Yeahhhh, why?” Leon asked.

  “You don’t look too hot,” the actress said, staring at the bartender more closely, a frown playing on her face.

  “It’s great,” Rock Hudson said, uninterested in Taylor’s fretting, gulping the drink down in three seconds flat. “I told you! Give me another, please!” Leon recovered once he saw the actor had liked it. He swallowed with relief, and Taylor gave him a sly, astute glance.

  “You never made a chocolate martini before, am I right?” she said in a soft voice, leaning in toward him.

  Bewitched by Liz Taylor’s famous eyes, Leon dropped his cover. He couldn’t deceive her. He nodded curtly, and the actress burst out laughing.

  “I’m no
t surprised. Rock and I just made it up!” she admitted. Leon turned bright red but chuckled gamely as he turned to prepare the second round.

  The two actors started talking about James Dean. Leon kept his eyes down as he portioned out the first of the cocktails, listening to them spar back and forth over the bet that Hudson proposed.

  “We’ll see which one of us gets Dean into the sack first!”

  “You don’t have a chance, Rock! Just the other day he went with Cary Grant’s ex,” Taylor upbraided him.

  “Who? Barbara Hutton?” Hudson asked, gesturing as if shooing flies away. “Whatever. If I win, will you give me what I ask for, Liz?”

  “Whatever you wish, Rock!” Taylor responded, leaving her empty glass on the bar, winking at Leon, and taking Hudson’s arm to return to the party.

  By now Leon had memorized the measures and ingredients for the chocolate martini, and as he fixed Rock and Liz Taylor their drinks, he chatted with Jimmy, who came over and leaned on the bar.

  “By the way, Jimmy, speaking of the race in Salinas . . . Isn’t that where you filmed . . . ?”

  “East of Eden. That’s right. It’s weird for me to be going back there. For me it wasn’t a city, just a movie set,” he said, looking up at the ceiling as he sipped his whiskey.

  The next day, the photograph of Dean’s demolished Porsche was on newspaper front pages all over the country, along with the tragic tale of what had happened.

  Rolf Wütherich, a German mechanic who looked after Dean’s cars, had been sitting in the passenger’s seat. Bill “Big Bastard” Hickman, an actor and an action-film stuntman, loved fast cars, just as Jimmy did. That day he had been following them in Dean’s Ford Country Squire station wagon. A black-and-white Ford Tudor turned left into his path; Jimmy didn’t see it in time, and in the wreckage, he died in Hickman’s arms. According to Hickman, the Ford had crossed the center line at the junction of Routes 466 and 41 near the town of Cholame.

  In Jean’s life, the silence that followed this news was violent and definitive. He was devastated. Once more, he had lost a friend, a brother who understood him. It was almost like losing a limb, and he was afraid of having to limp by on his own in a world where he had just barely learned to walk. Would he ever get over it?

  Jimmy was too young to die, he repeated to himself in desperation.

  His wife, Donna, embraced him; she had never seen him so shaken. You have to believe in yourself, she said to him. He told himself the same thing, but he felt like a stupid child, paralyzed by a fear that he had already known before, a feeling of powerlessness before a fate he could neither change nor understand.

  He knew he had to continue, but the strength to pick up the pieces would have to come from inside him. If he let the tragedy carry him away, he would never have the energy to get back on track, to keep pushing ahead.

  Growl you may, but go you must.

  You have to keep going. You have to.

  From his brother, he had learned to never give up. From his friend Jimmy, to always look forward, to shoot for the impossible. He couldn’t let Jimmy Dean’s sudden death put an end to his dreams for the restaurant. Jean Leon wouldn’t be daunted. He owed that much to his friend. He would never abandon their dream.

  CHAPTER 7

  The death of Jimmy Dean, on September 30, 1955, didn’t only leave Jean without his friend—a friend like none other—it also left him without a moneyman. A devastating yet familiar solitude fell over him. He knew he couldn’t give up. But he had no funds of his own to open the restaurant. In moments like this, Jean would shut himself away, head in his hands, ruminating, and then not even Donna could reach him. But she had an idea, a name, and she knew it was just the thing to get Jean out of his mood.

  “Karl,” she said to him as he looked up from his morning paper. “Karl Kaetel.”

  Karl was the husband of her sister, Vera. He was a lawyer, and Jean often asked him for advice on legal and personal matters. Karl was close, he was family—someone Jean could trust. Moreover, he had money to spare. He just might be the perfect partner.

  “You’re a genius,” he said to Donna, reaching across the table to grab her hand.

  Karl didn’t need too much information or time to let the idea marinate. He already knew his way around the business world. Jean asked him to be his partner and Karl accepted, putting up $3,500 to match the amount Jean had fronted. Donna contributed the last thousand so they could reach the $8,000 Joe Amor was asking for. Once that was done, they had a restaurant on their hands.

  The next goal was clear. “We need to distinguish ourselves from the competition,” Jean Leon told Emilio. Donna, who wanted to be a part of the restaurant’s opening, agreed.

  “It goes without saying,” Donna observed, “that the quality of the food and service will be what makes or breaks us—but we can’t forget the little details. And when I talk about the little details, I mean things like the furniture, the painting on the walls, the lighting, even the scent of the place, the music, the way the tables are laid out.”

  “But none of what you’re saying matters if there’s not a good menu. The food’s got to be excellent,” Emilio replied.

  “Sure. The kitchen is essential. But normally, the guest doesn’t enter the kitchen,” Donna reminded him, smiling.

  “I get what you’re trying to say,” Jean cut in. “The layout, the arrangement of the furniture, the people who are going to wait on you.”

  “Exactly,” Donna said. “I’m talking about things you might not even notice, that make your first impression not just good, but great! That’s what we’ve got to focus on. We want love at first sight—right, Jean?”

  Donna winked at her husband, and Emilio laughed. It was nice to see them like that: two years into their relationship, going strong, with a passion in common. Often, when he stayed late in the kitchen, perfecting his recipes, or on the drive home in the early hours of the morning, Emilio’s thoughts would turn to them, and he would imagine a future when the restaurant was up and running, and he would have time to be a devoted husband and father himself.

  But for now, his every waking moment was devoted to La Scala—his uncle had chosen to name it after the greatest opera house in the world, and like musicians on the rehearsal stage, they had to get every detail down pat. For Emilio, that meant creating a top-notch menu, something that stood out, with exquisite, original, and unpredictable dishes, painstakingly prepared and plated, using only the very finest ingredients.

  The opening was grueling. They couldn’t just stick with their old purveyors: Jean had a vision, and Emilio did, too, and sometimes the products just weren’t good enough for the restaurant they had in mind. That meant bad blood when he had to break relationships Emilio’s uncle had spent decades cementing.

  Then there was the staff. People came in with bad habits from their previous jobs, so Jean and Emilio had their task cut out for them: there could be no lazing around, no chitchat, no half measures. They knew the clientele they were aiming for, and those people wouldn’t put up with mediocrity. Jean drilled the servers on the wine, how to stand, how to hold a serviette, while Emilio struggled to convince the cooks that his way was the right way, and that every single dish had to be timed, measured, and meticulously executed. All this amid the comings and goings of inspectors, builders, deliverymen, the press, and more than one curious onlooker.

  The group worked scrupulously on two fronts: while Emilio continued to develop his ideas in the kitchen with Donna and Jean’s blessing, the couple tried to give the place a special spirit. They worked hard, and there was a price to pay. La Scala took up so much energy and time that it clashed with their plans to start a family—and those plans were already well underway. Donna had gotten pregnant before construction had even begun. Now eight months along, she could no longer bear the strain, and while Jean spent more and more time at the restaurant, she found herself at home alone, hoping that soon she’d have back the husband she needed to be a father to their child.

/>   On April 1, 1956, at 9455 Santa Monica Boulevard, in the heart of Beverly Hills, on the ground floor of the former offices of First National Bank, in a place once owned by Joe Amor, La Scala restaurant opened its doors. It wasn’t too far from the beach—Jimmy would have liked that—and near luxurious Rodeo Drive. The design reflected nearly every idea the two friends had originally come up with: a prominent bar; private dining rooms for the stars; large, well-spaced tables, protected from the gazes of curious onlookers, with red leather upholstery on the chairs and booths. It had the feel of a private club, but with an almost-baroque exuberance conceived for comfort and elegance that would allow guests privacy while also leaving them free to mingle—to see and be seen.

  Donna’s attention to detail was reflected in the objects scattered around the dining room. From sculptures—like Houdon’s bust of George Washington—to the vases and china straight from the factories in Limoges. There was hardwood wherever you looked. But the crown jewel of the space was the wine—exquisite bottles crammed into every corner. The list would expand constantly, eventually reaching thirty thousand bottles.

  Jean looked around, glowing with satisfaction. He had done it. Jimmy would’ve been so proud, he was sure of it.

  The first customer of the night entered: a tall, blond, elegant man, well built, with a clueless and incredulous air. Jean Leon recognized him immediately and rushed out to meet him.

  “Arthur?”

  “Jean? Jean Leon?”

  Arthur Loew was the grandson of Marcus Loew, founder and proprietor of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

  “I didn’t know you had opened a restaurant here, on Little Santa Monica. Congrats!”

  Arthur Loew knew Jean Leon from his days at Villa Capri. They were the same age, they had gotten along right away, and both of them had been friends with Jimmy Dean.

  “It’s a hell of a good sign that you’re our very first customer,” Leon told him, waving toward the tables. “Pick the one you like best.”