By Myself and Then Some (16 page)

After the test was over I was full of bravado, name-dropping like crazy and very blasé. Actually Howard’s decision to sign me was made very quickly when one thinks how slowly things were usually done out there.
And how quickly I accepted Charlie and Howard as my mentors – how quickly I shifted gears from East Coast to West.

I wrote endless instructions to my mother, and a letter asking for an honorable discharge from Equity as I would not be doing stage work for a while. I had sent Uncle Jack a copy of my contract with Howard – seven years starting at $100 a week, moving to $1,250 in the seventh year. I would have to send Mother money to buy me the things I asked for – and her ticket. I thought it was costing me a fortune to live – $17.50 a week just for rent and about $20 for food. So I’d have to get a salary advance. I was very happy, though. But I didn’t analyze it at all, it almost seemed the normal course of events. I had left New York one month before, filled with anticipation but uncertain of what the result would be – and here I was, after four weeks, accepting a life in California as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Four days later, on May 7, another letter to my mother.

At the end of the letter –

For a minute there our roles were reversed. I was going to take care of my mother for a change. I was taking over – giving the orders, making the decisions. I found an apartment in Beverly Hills – 275 South Reeves Drive, just two and a half blocks from Charlie’s office. Four rooms furnished with a private entrance, for $65 a month. That set-up would never have existed in New York for twice the price. Until I got a car, which I could not exist without, I could easily walk to the office and
around Beverly Hills. It was ideal. More space than Mother and I had ever had.

Howard had told me that he intended to wait for just the right part for my introduction to movies. He expected me to work on my voice. And he unfolded more stories about what his approach was with actresses – with Carole Lombard in
Twentieth Century
. She didn’t know how to react to John Barrymore in one scene: Howard asked her how she herself would behave, she told him very differently from the script – she’d kick him, scream at him. Howard said, ‘Okay, do that.’ She did and it worked. Howard always knew how to handle women in movies. That’s how he told it, and I suppose it was largely true – the results proved it. As time went on I realized he too had quite a fantasy life. Either consciously or unconsciously, he wanted to be a Svengali, and he was that to me at the beginning.

I hung on his every word. I was afraid of him – he seemed to have no highs or lows, but I would not have wanted to see him lose his temper. And he was so sure of himself. He had decided there would be no interviews. No press at all for a while, and I shouldn’t be seen too much by people in the business. He thought my first name should be changed and he’d work on that.

I ran to Charlie constantly, telling him things Howard had told me, and if I had any questions, I asked him. I thought he was the nicest, most generous man I had ever met. He arranged for me to have driving lessons, said he’d help get me a car when I was ready. He sent the railroad tickets to Mother. He would take no commission from me until I made a lot of money, so I never signed an agent’s contract with him. But he did own half my contract with Howard.

I moved into Reeves Drive a few days before Mother was to arrive. I wanted to have everything in perfect order for her – food in, clothes in closets and drawers. I was so excited with the apartment – it was so clean, everything was so clean – the food was so fresh and so beautiful to look at – oranges, lemons, and grapefruit hanging from trees. So that’s how they grew. Fantastic! The markets were so big and beautiful. Mother would never believe that people lived all year around in a place like this. It was like being on a lifetime holiday.

At the station when I saw her I screamed out, ‘Mommy!’ – rushed to her and hugged her, kissed her, squeezed her. How much I had missed her – life was so much better when she was with me. Droopy
remembered me – jumped up and licked me. I had so much to tell Mother. ‘Wait till you see what it’s like – it’s all so beautiful – and sunny and blue sky. You’ll love it.’ I rattled on and on. She was happy, of course, but much less hysterical than I, much less given to extremes. We headed for our new home, with me pointing out places of interest as we went, stopping at last on that lovely tree-lined street with the white stucco buildings and red tiled roofs. She breathed in – made a sound of ‘Oh, it’s lovely’ – and I led her up the stairs to our little nest. We had a lot to catch up on. Did life change so quickly and completely in five weeks? Yes, my dear – it changed so quickly and completely in five minutes.

M
other and Droopy and I
settled in very nicely, happy in our apartment. We became instant Californians, except for the waiting around – I never could get used to that. I finally completed my driving lessons, took a slightly nervous test, but passed and applied for a license. All I needed now was a car.

I had to go to court with Howard to have my contract approved because I was a minor. There were a couple of photographers around and my first almost professional publicity photograph was printed in the California newspapers. I was launched. But none of it seemed quite real. It was a fairyland for the living and with all new people and movie make-believe. I don’t suppose I ever sat down and applied it to life as I had known life. Limited though my experience was, and God knows it was, New York was real and California was not. ’Twas ever thus.

In a used-car lot near Charlie’s office I found a 1940 gray Plymouth coupé for $900. I thought it was heavenly. The price certainly was. I told Charlie about it – he immediately lent me the money to pay for it. The office made all the arrangements and I was a car owner. Not bad for eighteen and a new kid in town. I had my license – now Mother had to learn. The car was freedom. No more depending on anyone to get any place. A relief.

There were many lunches and much time spent with Howard. He wanted me to drive into the hills, find some quiet spot, and read aloud. He felt it most important to keep the voice in a low register. Mine started off low, but what Howard didn’t like and explained to me was,
‘If you notice, Betty, when a woman gets excited or emotional she tends to raise her voice. Now, there is nothing more unattractive than screeching. I want you to train your voice in such a way that even if you have a scene like that your voice will remain low.’ I found a spot on Mulholland Drive and proceeded to read
The Robe
aloud, keeping my voice lower and louder than normal. If anyone had ever passed by, they would have found me a candidate for an asylum. Who sat on mountaintops in cars reading books aloud to the canyons? Who did? I did!

Howard wanted to have some good, special pictures taken of me. He knew a super photographer named John Engstead and set a day for us to do it. They would be taken at Howard’s house, which I had never seen. I might even meet his wife, ‘Slim,’ whom he spoke of so often and who had been the one who showed him my pictures in
Harper’s Bazaar
in the first place. I was given directions on how to get there and finally found it. My sense of direction has always been wanting – that is, north, south, east, and west direction, not life direction.

He lived in Bel-Air on Moraga Drive in the most beautiful house I had ever seen. It was a ranch-type house, all on one floor, with beamed ceilings, beautiful wood floors, antique country furniture – rich and comfortable and tasteful. The grounds were large. There were stables – both he and Slim rode. There was a pool. And I met Slim – a tall, thin, incredibly beautiful and unusual woman only seven or eight years my senior. She had great personal style. I was led back to her bedroom, which was gigantic – like a bed-sitting room; her dressing room had more shoes than I had ever seen – handbags on hooks – open shelves filled with sweaters – a room-size closet filled with clothes of all descriptions – an enormous bath. Howard’s bedroom, dressing room, and bath adjoined it. Did kings live any better than this? He and Slim had decided what I should wear – some things of hers, one or two of mine. One dress was silver lamé. John Engstead arrived with cameras, and my first portrait sitting began. The backgrounds were an enormous fireplace, a chair – all very simple. He was marvelously easy to work with – not unlike Dahl-Wolfe. I didn’t spend much time with Slim that day, but I liked her immediately, though I did feel shy with her. I thought both people and the house they lived in overwhelming. The portraits were the best I’d ever had, and still are.

After a few months Mother got restless and found a job around the
corner from Reeves Drive that was pleasant and not too taxing. She was more efficient than anyone her bosses had ever known – they felt lucky, and they were. She learned to drive – badly. She got a license, but was what is known as a careful driver, hugging the curb at thirty miles per hour. She was always nervous behind the wheel, stemming from an accident she’d had when she was a girl when some chickens – some chickens? – somehow flew through a window of the car in which she was riding, causing glass to break and providing her with a lifelong scar on her arm. I wasn’t a hell of a lot better.

So the weeks went by – and the months – and I hounded Charlie every day – ‘What does Howard have in mind? When will I go to work? I’m going out of my mind not working.’ I was merciless. He tried to pacify me – ‘When Howard is ready, that’s when you’ll work.’ Charlie was going to co-produce a film with Howard made up of different stories concerning the war amalgamated into one. One episode concerned a young Russian girl who parachuted into a field and met a soldier – it was short, but they were thinking possibly I could play that. What a thought!

Meanwhile, Howard would have me come to Warner Bros., where I started to work with the music coach, Dudley Chambers. Howard thought I might sing. He took me onto a set where Lewis Milestone, the famous director, was making a film with Anne Baxter and Farley Granger. He introduced me to Milestone and we watched a scene being shot. And more stories were unfolding – what Howard had said to Katharine Hepburn on
Bringing Up Baby –
how he and Cary had thought of something marvelous to do in a scene – the dialogue between Howard and Rita Hayworth on
Only Angels Have Wings. How
he had given Hayworth her first break, but she hadn’t listened well enough, so he didn’t want to be bothered with her after that. She was damn good in it nonetheless.

Howard’s record spoke for itself. I learned much later that he had always wanted to find a girl from nowhere, mold her into his dream girl, and make her a star – his creation. He was about to begin. When I would ask Howard if he had anything specific in mind for me, he was noncommittal.

He said he thought he’d like to put me in a film with Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. I thought, ‘Cary Grant – terrific! Humphrey Bogart – yucch.’ Howard’s idea was always that a woman should play
a scene with a masculine approach – insolent. Give as good as she got, no capitulation, no helplessness. Oh, he had something in mind, definitely, but it would be a long time before I knew what it was. A perfect example of Howard’s thinking was
His Girl Friday
, which was a remake of
The Front Page
, but changing the star reporter to a woman – Rosalind Russell. And it couldn’t have worked better.

The next six months were spent in reading aloud, studying singing, listening to Howard, meeting some people whose names had been mythical to me – and mostly heckling Charlie about work.

Jean Feldman was an old and close friend of Cole Porter. She told me that on Sunday nights (or was it Thursdays?) he always had a few soldiers who had no place to go – no home nearby – to dinner and always invited young actresses to dine and dance with them. We went one summer eve in 1943. Cole Porter lived in Brentwood, in an unpretentious but beautiful house on Rockingham Avenue. He was a fairly small, very neat, very elegant, well- and soft-spoken man who made me feel completely at home. His taste was impeccable – the food at his house was incredibly good, immaculately served. It was incredibly good fun and the soldiers were thrilled to be there. Drinks were always served early, and in summer out-of-doors – then food – then dancing. I became a regular – it was the continuation of my Monday nights at the Stage Door Canteen, only slightly more luxurious. I started off calling him Mr Porter, but he insisted on Cole. He walked with a cane – Jean told me of his ghastly accident with a horse, how he was constantly in pain and never complained, never mentioned it. There are all kinds of courage. I had marvelous times in that house.