By Myself and Then Some (62 page)

We took off for Europe, knowing the divorce in Mexico was practically a
fait accompli
. The papers had been signed in May. The British press took their pictures, wrote their stories: ‘How does it feel to follow Bogart?’ Wouldn’t it ever end? I should have known better. As long as it’s news, takes up space in a paper, of course not.

Just before leaving for Europe and
Tender Is the Night
I had discovered I was pregnant. We’d planned to spend a few weeks relaxing – I was anxious for my English and French friends to meet Jason. They were all happy I had found someone – someone wonderful who would be wonderful to me.

I told Jason about the baby and he was overjoyed. I said nothing to anyone else, least of all my children or my mother. Pregnant and not yet married – nice Jewish girls didn’t do that. This one did. Jason was in good form most of the time in London and Paris. A couple of drinking nights with Jack and Doreen Hawkins and Kenny and Billie More. Both Jack and Kenny enjoyed drinking, got carried away sometimes, but in a good way – not the same way Jason did. My friends didn’t pay much attention to Jason’s way with booze, though they sensed – Doreen in particular – a difference. We saw Anne and Art Buchwald and Jim and Gloria Jones in Paris – had a great time.

We were in Nice waiting for the film to begin when Mother and Lee passed through. The night before had been a bit booze-ridden, so Jason was not in top form. But we spent the day together, and took Mother and Lee to a crazy Mediterranean restaurant where again the wine flowed – unfortunately – like wine.

The next morning Jason was feeling rotten, and with the sun shining happily above, he told me he didn’t want to get married again. I was stunned and scared. The idea of an abortion briefly flashed through my mind, but it was too terrible to contemplate – and I wanted that
baby. I told him I understood how he felt, with two broken marriages, children, too much responsibility, not a moment of relief, of freedom. I sat at the window looking out at the sea, the sun shining on it, trying to figure out what to do. Should I pack up and leave him now? What about the baby? What a mess I was in, and no one to talk it over with. Extraordinary for a woman who seemed totally in control of her destiny, sure of what and who she was, the personification of strength. Here I was at thirty-six, emotionally shaky, with no defined future and no purpose except to prevail somehow.

Jason was to go to Switzerland for the first location shots on the film, and I went to Paris to think some more. At least I had a few friends there. I saw a lot of Annie and Art Buchwald, who were warm and welcoming as ever but who had their own lives, plus three children. Everyone had his own life. My dear – time
you
had one. I felt very odd-woman-out – no connection with anything but my expanding waistline, so there would be a connection soon. Jason called me, asked me to join him in Zürich, we’d work it out. So I went. We talked and talked and talked. He wanted our child too, didn’t really want to let go, loved Steve and Leslie, decided he wouldn’t know what to do on the loose. He got no argument from me. Our agent, Peter Witt, arrived. He said we could marry in Vienna – he’d be advance man as well as best, he’d set it up. I’d never been to Vienna, but Jason had and couldn’t wait to show it to me – one place he knew that I didn’t. We planned to go after Jason’s last location shot in Switzerland. Jennifer gave us a wedding dinner on the eve of our departure – she was a wonderful, caring friend. She never asked questions; in true friendship, she accepted what was. If I wanted to marry Jason, she was all for it. She admired him tremendously as an actor and liked him personally – any reservations she kept to herself.

We were met in Vienna by Peter, who told us all the details on our way to the hotel. We had to meet the lawyer the following day, and the day after that I would be Mrs Robards. The meeting with the lawyer was in a large, dark room in a large, dark building. We sat nervously opposite him. He was not warm and friendly. The questions he asked were curious, to say the least. Religion? When I said Jewish, he looked at the other man in the room and then back at me. It might have been Nazi Germany. ‘And your husband is dead?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you have the death certificate?’ ‘No – but surely you know he is dead. Every
newspaper in the world headlined his death.’ I felt sick – I hated that man. ‘But we cannot take your word for it. We must have proof.’ I couldn’t believe it. Don’t tell me he didn’t know Bogie was dead! ‘And you, Mr Robards. Do you have a copy of your divorce papers?’ ‘No – I have a letter.’ It was a disaster. Peter talked to the lawyer in German, ushered us out, said he still thought it would be all right. The next day was supposed to be our wedding day. Jason called America to find out about the divorce papers, whether they’d been sent, or would a cable do? We had our rings. I had my dress. But Jason had to return to America to go on with the picture, and between the divorce papers and the death certificate it didn’t work. The officials would not be satisfied. I hated Vienna – I actually felt in danger there. The press were in the hotel lobby, and with Peter as interpreter we told them about our difficulties, tried to laugh them off. We’d marry in Las Vegas, the hell with them. A dismal trip – we were both drained.

After a few days in New York with the children, getting them off to camp, I followed Jason to California. We planned to spend the weekend in Las Vegas, in the bridal suite of The Sands. It would be queer to be married there. Because my first wedding had been so special, so personal, I never thought of the wedding ceremony in any other terms. I’d been a snob about Las Vegas weddings. Now I thought, ‘What does it matter? It might even be fun.’ We took Dad with us as best man – Jennifer Jones would be my matron of honor. We went for our license after leaving our things at The Sands and they said no. I couldn’t believe it! Christ,
anyone
could get married in Las Vegas. But a law had just been passed about Mexican divorces, and the time between divorce and remarriage. So back we went to The Sands, where Jack Entratter had prepared the bridal suite, judge, wedding cake. What a saga! Was someone trying to tell us something? I felt as though the whole world were against me. I hated Vegas – my good times there were long since over. It was ridiculous to sit in that bridal suite, trying to pretend I wasn’t destroyed, trying to salvage the evening with a joke, a drink. Even Jason didn’t feel like drinking. There was nothing to celebrate.

Two defeated people returned to their flat in Westwood. We decided to go to Mexico the following week, but not until every law old and new had been checked backward and forward. The press in California were having fun with our bad luck, and I was beginning to feel jinxed.
However, July 4 was the following week, and Jason and I found something marvelous in that for a wedding day, something to do with self-assertion, independence, with the entire country celebrating our wedding day.

On the day itself, we were in Mexico and the lawyer took us to the judge’s chamber, if you could call it that. We signed what we had to sign and the ceremony began – in Spanish. Being a sentimental idiot, I was sure I’d be teary-eyed, but in Spanish I couldn’t swing it. I just didn’t understand what the judge was saying. But we said ‘I do’ and it was real – we were man and wife, and happy to be. We had a wedding lunch of tacos – one of my favorite foods – and tequila, with Mexican guitarists under a hot Mexican sun, and cabled our children, who were thrilled. David and Jennifer Selznick gave a large party, which ended slightly disastrously with Jason drunk and all of us up until seven in the morning. Slim called on our first married Sunday morning – she was so happy for me, and full of sentiment as I described my cooking breakfast.

Our time in California had been bumpy. I was pregnant and was delighted to get home to New York. My stomach was growing, it was odd being pregnant after nine years. Stephen and Leslie seemed to be looking forward to it – Leslie particularly. Steve adored Jason, adored having a man in the house, someone to call Dad. Jason was marvelous with children, and he loved to cook. I’d never done much of that, but I began to enjoy our doing it together – the family sport. We thrived, for the most part, only falling by the wayside on the nights when Jason didn’t show up. He’d done that for years, and it was very hard to break the habit. It happened in spurts. When he was good he was very very good, and when he was bad he was a disaster. I became tense and somewhat drawn, trying to keep it from the children and Mother. There were too many late nights – too much unpredictability. Poor Jason wasn’t used to coming home after the theatre, and I was in no mood (or shape) to go bar-hopping every night. Sometimes he’d show up and I’d have supper waiting. Other times I’d be on the phone trying to find him. I put it all down to bad old habits, but it was taking a toll on me. I kept hoping it would get better. It
had
to.

Jason had not promised to change into another person. Yet somewhere in me – not somewhere, everywhere – I’d expected him to. It was all well and good and fun and exciting at the start of a
relationship not to know when your lover would be turning up. It was quite a different thing not to know when your husband would be turning up.

My only experience had been with a man who knew exactly what he wanted. And I had known what Bogie had wanted – how far I could go, what he would put up with, what he wouldn’t. Positions were now reversed. Jason was still finding out what he wanted, and there was no pattern to that. He wanted mostly to stay alive. Keep working. He had no preconceived notions on behavior. It did not interest me to make all the rules, yet I found myself doing just that – expecting too much, always being disappointed. I guess I didn’t truly look at the man – I only saw what I wanted to see. Impossible. I thought I tried to adjust, and I did to a degree, but not enough. I wanted my husband with me, not in bars, not coming home all hours of the night, sometimes with strangers, to play records at seven in the morning. I didn’t want the children to see it – I didn’t want to see it myself. So I became more tense, held too much back, not wanting to face things as they were. I wanted to stay with my fantasy. Alas, I would not be allowed that luxury.

During this time Mother had taken to cutting out every article she could find pertaining to heart disease – any new discovery, any medical theory. She watched her diet carefully, she adhered to everything her doctor told her, but she’d had another setback. Not a bad attack, but edema, and she had to spend a couple of weeks in a hospital. Her doctor’s brilliant observation to Lee and me was that she was not a well woman. ‘Her heart has been badly damaged – it will only get weaker – she has a year or two at the most to live.’ I hated him – what he said, and the way he said it. Lee and I knew the damage her heart had sustained, but imminent death – no! Who was this doctor anyway? Mother had found him – she had faith in him, but we didn’t. After going through a few months of hell with our secret, we convinced her to change doctors. I remember sitting next to her in my apartment, at that time deep into my pregnancy, feeling her warm reassuring hand in mine and loving her so much. To be without her was unthinkable. The prognosis of the next doctor was serious, but set no time limit on her life!

About ten days before Christmas, at around four in the morning, I felt the first pain. It couldn’t be the baby – too soon – but I’d felt
differently this time from the very beginning. The pains started to come more regularly. Jason had gotten home late, quite sloshed. When I told him of the pains, he said, ‘Get into bed, darling, I’ll bring you something on a tray. Don’t move.’ While he was crashing around the kitchen I called the doctor. It sounded like labor to him. ‘Time the pains for half an hour and call again.’ They got stronger and closer together. Jason loaded – the children (four of them) asleep – what a mess! He came in with the most ridiculous tray of food – coffee, eggs, half an avocado – if I hadn’t been furious and scared, I would have laughed. He put the tray on the bed and it collapsed, with food and drink everywhere. God! I called the doctor again, who told me to take a cab and get to the hospital. While Jason was trying to put the tray back together and get me back to bed, I was trying to dress and tell him that we had to go to the hospital. We went to Leslie’s and Steve’s rooms and told them where I was going – not to worry; Steve smiled at me, much as he had at the age of three on Benedict Canyon when Leslie was born. I told the nurse to tell my mother where I was when she called in the morning. We got a taxi and started rumbling up the West Side Highway to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital way uptown. Jason was making not much sense, and I was frightened. My water broke about five minutes from the hospital. Wouldn’t we ever get there? I felt as though I’d never had a baby – nothing that happened to me this time had ever happened to me before. The doctor was nice but really unknown – I didn’t feel secure, I just wanted to have the baby. At the hospital I kept telling the anesthetist, ‘It hurts – give me a shot.’ He kept saying he didn’t want to give me too much too soon. It seemed forever that we argued. Then I don’t remember anything until I opened my eyes to see four other pairs of eyes staring down at me. I was in the recovery room, and my jaw was hurting. It seems my jaw had locked, and as they’d thought I was coming out of anesthesia they had removed the depressor from my mouth, only to have me go under again. Four doctors had been trying to pry my jaw open and were about to perform a tracheotomy when my jaw relaxed and they could open my mouth. I vaguely remember being wheeled into my room, seeing Mother and Lee in the corridor. Jason’s face looked tired but happy. And I was the mother of a seven-pound boy. It was December 16, 1961.

We had chosen the name beforehand: Sam. Not Samuel, not
Sammy, just plain Sam. Middle name Prideaux, Tom Prideaux being Jason’s cousin and Sam’s godfather-to-be. I wanted Kate Hepburn and Carolyn Morris to be the godmothers. Katie said, ‘Why do you want me? For heaven’s sake, I’m no good at paying attention to children.’ I insisted that five minutes of exposure to her was worth five hours of anyone else, so she agreed. During my time in the hospital I had a typical attack of the blues. Sam was a beautiful baby, of course, perfect in every way – but Jason showed up one night to visit and then not the next. The baby nurse I’d hired quit before she ever came, so I had to quickly interview another one in the hospital. That was my only truly lucky break. Hedy, the nurse who came, was quiet and sure – and understanding about people and life’s problems. She was to stay a year and a half, and continue to take up the slack with Sam for the next ten years and more – a blessing on us all.