I cleared my throat and continued. “I applaud your attraction to men, being one of them myself, but that doesn’t mean you have to get married in each case.”

  “No, but I was married for the first time in 1950. In those days, if you dated a man for any length of time, you were more than likely to end up married. I was eighteen, but that wasn’t unusual then, except for the fact that I was a movie star. Movie stars were expected to make a little whoopee before they tied the knot. You’re married, aren’t you?”

  “Yes ma’am, second time around.”

  Liz held her hand up to her mouth in shock. “Oh, you’ve been divorced?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid I have,” I said, enjoying her antics.

  “And how long did you know her before you got married?”

  “Whose interview is this, Liz?” I asked.

  “Shush, answer the question.”

  “A year — she was married when we met.”

  Liz held up her hand again in horror. “Oh, the scandal!”

  “Wait, it wasn’t like that,” I explained. “For the first six months I just worked with her.”

  “Okay, so you broke up a marriage and got hitched six months later. I don’t feel so bad now.”

  I opened my mouth to explain the situation, but Jules arrived with her Sweet ’n Low.

  “Here you are, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, darling.”

  “Hold that goddamned cue card closer, moron!”

  Jules walked away and Liz watched him go, a faint smile across her classic lips.

  “Liz, I ran the numbers the other day. You’ve been married seven times, encompassing about thirty-three or so years. That’s an average of almost five years per marriage.”

  “Yes, but my goodness, if I wasn’t an actress, I wouldn’t have been married nearly as many times. Every party I went to — and in those days you couldn’t say no because it was all arranged by the studios — I’d meet rich men, and famous men, and powerful men. It was all too irresistible. Hollywood, in its day, was just one big playground.”

  “Yes, you have had your share of each of those types. First time around, it seems like you went for the money.”

  “You’re referring to Nicky Hilton — Conrad, Jr.”

  “Son of the hotel magnate, yeah.”

  “Nicky was a combination of things,” Liz said. “He was very cool, a classic playboy. He would do crazy things like get his father’s jet and take us to Miami for the weekend. As an eighteen-year-old, what did I know? It was all marvelous. The studio fought it at first, but they relented and, of course, I got married in a studio wedding dress.”

  “Membership has its privileges.”

  Liz smiled, but it was slightly sad. “And then, of course, it all turned to custard.”

  “Out of eight months with Nicky, how many were good?”

  “Was that all it was? You’ve done your research?”

  “I have, and yeah, it was. If it’s any consolation, my wife has a friend who stayed married only four months.”

  “Some marriages just burn hot, then burn out.”

  “Then you married an actor, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, Michael Wilding. I thought he was gorgeous.”

  “There must have been more than that — you had several children with him.”

  “Well, because we were in the same profession, we just had so much in common. And he was so charming with his British accent. Jules reminds me a bit of Michael.”

  “That marriage was about four and a half years,” I elaborated. “Just about the average. I love the fact that Michael was, at one time, a stand-in for Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.”

  “Well, you have to start somewhere, Mr. Evil Death.”

  “Evil Dead. You’ve heard of those films?”

  “I’ve heard about them but I haven’t seen them. It’s a chainsaw film, isn’t it, lots of gore?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” I said, sipping some tea to wet my dry throat. “But next time out of the gate, you went higher up the food chain. You went for a producer.”

  “Yes, and that was the beginning of what I call the scandal years. All the hoopla hid the fact that I was still marrying these people, it wasn’t like I was just shacking up. Have you ever lived with a woman, Bruce?”

  “Uh, well, yes, I have.”

  This time, when Liz put her hand up to her mouth in shock, I joined in and we performed it in sync.

  “Now, Mike Todd was a big thinker, a pioneer of sorts. His company, Todd-AO, developed the 65-millimeter film frame thingamajig. It was the best big-screen system in its day.”

  “You know, women are attracted to men for all kinds of reasons,” Liz explained. “But I always liked men who had a plan. Besides, that marriage doesn’t really count, because Mike was taken away from me,” she said, dabbing her brilliant blue eyes with a tissue.

  “You obviously loved the guy.”

  “I sure did. He was loud and bombastic, but he got things done. He was one guy who never crapped around.”

  “I guess things got sticky later with Eddie Fisher.”

  “Well, sure, because Eddie was Mike Todd’s best man, and he was married to Debbie Reynolds, a national treasure. You couldn’t have planned a more ludicrous scandal, but it all happened pretty organically.”

  “What was the appeal of Eddie Fisher at that time?”

  “You can’t be serious. Eddie was bigger than Elvis Presley in his day. He had one of the largest endorsement contracts ever. People always talk about me getting a million bucks for Cleopatra. Granted, that was a lot of money in the sixties, but it was a lot more when Eddie got that much from Coca-Cola in the fifties! I didn’t know the world drank that much Coke. I went for Eddie because the rest of America was after him too.”

  “But he had a lot to lose at that point. You at least were coming from a sympathetic situation.”

  “Sure. Eddie had a lot to lose, and he lost it all. Love is a gamble. Eddie knew that to divorce his terrific wife in the fifties, he would face repercussions, and he sure did, bless him.”

  “Of course, he wasn’t jumping ship for chopped liver exactly,” I corrected. “There are a lot of men who would take a leap for you, Liz.”

  “Oh, you delightful man, you,” she said, playfully pinching my cheek.

  “But by your own calculations, that marriage actually exceeded the average. You were married to Eddie for five years.”

  “I guess I was,” Liz said with a nod. “Not bad for a tabloid marriage. Eddie and I had been around the block even before this blew up. You learn to develop a stomach for the scrutiny, the pressure. I’d love to see what would happen to the average marriage if they were photographed and written about twenty-four hours a day.”

  “They have a TV show like that now.”

  “Oh that’s dreadful,” Liz said, truly horrified. “You know, Richard and I put up with a lot of scrutiny, both professionally and as a couple.”

  “I’m assuming you’re referring to Richard Burton.”

  “Of course, silly.”

  “He seemed like a pretty dynamic guy, enough so to marry him twice.”

  “Dynamic, that’s a fun choice of words. Yes, Richard was bigger than life. Our marriage was bigger than life. Our work during that time was bigger than life. I guess we were looking for a bigger than life experience and we found it. We fought loudly, we loved loudly, we laughed loudly, we cried loudest of all.”

  “It sounds very theatrical.”

  “Yes, it was as if we were both ‘on’ the whole time. It was very memorable, though. I don’t regret either marriage to Richard, because he was so extraordinary. And I didn’t worry about the scandal because by then everything was a scandal. I was even rebuked by the Vatican, you know.”

  “You got me beat there,” I said. “Of course, I’m guessing the Pope hasn’t seen Evil Dead yet.”

  “They published a statement denouncing my ‘erotic vagrancy,’” she said proudly.

  “Well, lewd behavior aside, I thought you and Richard worked really well together and that you did some great stuff during that time.”

  “In between the chaos, yes, I think so too,” she agreed.

  “Now, while I won’t use the term ‘love of your life,’ Richard was certainly the most long-term marriage. Counting both times, you were together eleven years.”

  “Yes, that’s the equivalent of sixty-seven years in Hollywood,” Liz giggled. “It lasted that long because we were working a lot and we were working together — it kept us out of trouble. We kept the trouble between us.”

  “Okay, I have to ask: John Warner, husband number six. What was the deal with that?”

  “What do you mean ‘what’s the deal?’ When I was with him, he was a statesman, a powerful man, a true gentleman.”

  “But he doesn’t seem very exciting.”

  “You’re not up on current events,” Liz countered. “John has done it all: Secretary of the Navy; work with the Defense Department; a five-term senator. You don’t have to be snapping your fingers all the time to be a type-A go-getter. He had a strong will and genuine drive. I couldn’t help but admire that.”

  “I understand he called you his ‘little heifer.’”

  Liz smiled. “John called me that because of how often I had a cow,” and then she lifted her head, roaring with laughter. “It suited me well, I guess. I think Richard Burton would agree.”

  “So, there’s only one husband left,” I said, glancing at my crumpled list with six names crossed off.

  “Now, be nice. I’ve heard a lot of jokes about Larry, who is a really sweet man.”

  “I have to say, with Larry, you really shook the pattern up. You’d been married to famous actors, singers, politicians, business moguls, but that was the first time you ever landed a teamster. You have to understand the public’s fascination with that one.”

  “Of course — the newspapers jumped all over it,” Liz said, still angry, framing the imaginary headlines with her delicate hand: Queen Elizabeth Marries a Pauper, Liz Finally Gets Her Dream Home — Built By Larry! My God, it was absurd. And then there was the ‘age’ issue.”

  “I didn’t want to bring it up.”

  “There’s no way to avoid the topic. That was the second part of the scandal. It wasn’t bad enough that he was ‘just’ a construction worker, he was also twenty years younger than me.”

  “Yeah, the year Larry was born, you married your second husband, Michael Wilding.”

  I raised my hand to my mouth, and Liz brought hers up as well — another shared, shocked moment.

  “But I’ll tell you what,” Liz explained, “by the time Larry came along, I was ready for a man like that. The downside of a whirlwind life is that it’s a whirlwind life — you can’t keep playing can-you-top-this forever. Very successful men can also be very unpleasant to be around, and Larry was just...Larry.”

  “Was it really that simple?”

  “Yes, it was. When we met in group therapy, I wasn’t there hoping to find a younger man, I was there to get sober.”

  “Well, something must have clicked, because you stayed married for five years.”

  “Aside from making his lunch every day, being married to Larry wasn’t bad at all. It was the closest I’ve ever had to a ‘normal’ life.”

  “Okay, so the obvious question after all this is: what makes a marriage go bad?”

  “I think people either oversimplify or overanalyze that concept. Divorce is different for each person. For me, marriages ended for a variety of reasons, usually a combination of growing apart, being apart too much, the occasional abusive situation, boredom — the same reasons anyone else gets divorced.”

  “What makes one work?”

  “Oh, honey, I don’t have any idea. I think the entire institution is something of a flawed notion.”

  “All right, so last question. You’ve had a lot of divorces. I only had one, and I barely walked away from it. How did you manage those dark days, after a divorce?”

  Liz was about to answer when an incredibly fit blond man arrived at our table. Liz looked at me knowingly. “Oh, you get by,” she said, gesturing to the beautiful man. “He’s my head of security, aren’t you, Lars?”

  “Ya,” he said simply.

  Liz held out her hand for Lars and he helped her up. “You know, I’ve had a lot of heartache in my life: failed marriages, movies that bombed, health problems, I’ve been in and out of rehab,” she said, snuggling up to Lars. “But the rest of the time, it’s great to be Elizabeth Taylor. I mean, what do you expect me to do, sleep alone?”

  They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

  This ageless beauty winked at me and escorted Lars back to her Waldorf penthouse. I glanced at the check ($147.40 for iced tea, a mint julep, and a fruit plate) and gasped. Thank God for the Screen Actors Guild. Being on location, I had a week’s worth of per diem burning a hole in my pocket, so I paid the bill in cash and walked out.

  On my way across the very familiar lobby, I noticed a lot of activity. Men in dark suits were prowling about the entrance, excusing their way though the usual Waldorf clientele, while keeping one finger on the communication device in their ear.

  Secret Service agents are trained to notice body language. They look at hands and eyes, and take note of erratic ticks. I made eye contact with a familiar, clean-cut Agent Grunow, looked away too quickly, knew I’d made a mistake, and bolted for the exit.

  “Halt!” Grunow shouted, and began running after me.

  I just wanted to get the hell out of there so I decided to ignore him, and by the time we converged at the revolving doors, we were both in a full-out sprint. Grunow dove at me from behind, and our combined inertia took us through the doors and out the other side — directly into Colin Powell, who had just reached the entrance himself.

  The three of us did a painful group hug down the broad steps of the Waldorf. Secret Service agents, doormen, taxi drivers, and guests all watched in horror as we rolled past the first landing and kept going down the second set of stairs.

  At this point, Secret Service agents began doing what I would describe as a World Series pile on, hurling themselves at our tumbling group until we became a human mass, undulating down the steps and finally crashing to a halt by the horse-drawn carriages waiting out front.

  At the bottom of the pile, I was pressed face-to-face with Colin Powell.

  “Mr. Secretary, it’s not what you think,” I explained through lips that were pressed against the bottom of someone’s dress shoe.

  Before he could respond, I was hoisted to my feet by a baker’s dozen Secret Service agents and shoved into a waiting town car. Colin Powell got the “human shield” treatment back inside the hotel, and aside from a few bumps and bruises, he was no worse off.

  I couldn’t talk my way out of this “incident,” and it necessitated a call to Dale, my dutiful lawyer. Unfortunately, because of my new status on the ISL (Internal Security List), no amount of legal wrangling or corroboration (and Liz Taylor wasn’t happy about being interrupted that night for questioning, let me tell you) could spring me before they ran a more detailed Security Threat Analysis, or STA. The fancy title meant that they were going to take a deeper look into the ways I had irritated the U.S. government in the past.

  As I lay in the holding cell, numerous past infractions flashed before my eyes, any one of which could land me on an ESTL (Elevated Security Threat List): parking violations, late library books, failing to renew my Jefferson County Sheriff’s Association membership.

  It was a long, cold, sleepless night.

  16

  Lights, Camera, Mayhem!

  I must have checked out clean enough to avoid “Enemy Combatant” status, because I was discharged from my “undisclosed holding cell” at 6:15 a.m. — forty-five minutes shy of call time for my first shooting day on Let’s Make Love!

  My cab screeched to a halt outside New York’s Astoria studios at 7:05, exactly five minutes late — a miracle, considering the fact that I had no idea where I was coming from. I paid the driver, but didn’t get very far before a harried woman with a walkie-talkie and a name badge swooped down on me.

  “Good morning, Bruce, I’m De-BOR-ah, the DGA trainee,” she said, already grabbing my arm.

  “You don’t have to grab me, Deborah, we’ll make it,” I assured her. “And please refer to me as Foyl from now on.”

  Deborah sighed and let go of me. “Sorry...Foyl. And, my name looks like Deborah, but it’s pronounced de-BOR-ah.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Base Camp is this way,” she said, leading us through the Astoria complex.

  Base camp: an actor’s home away from home.

  “So, how’s the shoot going?” I asked. “You’ve been at it for what, a week now?”

  “God, it seems so much longer than that,” Deborah exhaled.

  “That didn’t sound very optimistic — this is a Mike Nichols film!”

  No sooner had the words come out of my mouth than we had to pause to let a half-dozen grips move a twenty-foot-square portable green screen — an indispensable special-effects tool, used for compositing layers of motion-picture images.

  “Well, because of things like that,” Deborah said, “this film is two weeks behind after only one week of shooting.”

  “Wow,” I said, surprised. “Is that typical for Mike? I know he likes to improvise.”

  “Improvise? We should be so lucky. No, this is about rewriting, rethinking, reinventing.”

  Just as she said this, Deborah and I steered clear of a group of puppeteers, each dressed in ninjalike black clothing and wearing harnesses with rods attached to surreal human figures.

  “Is Cirque du Soleil shooting on the lot?” I asked, looking back after we had extricated ourselves from the puppeteers.

  “Script changes started coming so fast, the crew never had a chance to read them before a new batch would come in. Now, we’re all just winging it one shot at a time.”

 

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