How to Be a Movie Star (36 page)

The scandal had clearly touched a nerve. Letter writers described themselves as "heavy-hearted" and "broken," unable to stop thinking about Debbie's pain. Several prefaced their comments with the admission that they'd never before written to a newspaper about a celebrity. Many wrote long and personal accounts that reflected the relationship the public still had with movie stars in 1958. "I consider the show people to be my family," one housewife wrote. "I love them all and have made excuses for their marital troubles, flirtations, etc." But Elizabeth's behavior, she said, was "too much to take." Some writers were surprised by the depth of their emotion: "I am so disgusted with myself because I have let the Fisher-Taylor scandal upset me [but] one hears about it everywhere." Another stated: "There is
so
much feeling about this wherever we go."

Elizabeth's fans were turning on her. Hedda preserved in her files the torn-up glossy photos of Elizabeth that were sent to her, some with the word
hussy
scrawled over them. A young mother from Natchez, Mississippi, penned a four-page letter pouring out her feelings of betrayal: "As far back as I can possibly remember I've held a driving fascination for Elizabeth Taylor. The only movie magazines I ever read had to have a story or some write-up about her. I have defended her like a best friend." But no more. Now she asked, "Is Miss Taylor such a money item to the Hollywood industry that she can't be criticized truthfully—look at all the bull about her poor premature daughter—there's no such thing as a 6-month baby." Others homed in on the same point: "I had little respect for Liz after her mix-up with Todd while married to Mr. Wilding. Most of us can do a little adding in arithmetic!"

All of Elizabeth's carefully constructed press was unraveling. Her fans were now calling her a "detestable little tramp," "just garbage," "nasty little alley cat," and "the meanest snake on earth." One woman from Affton, Missouri, thought Elizabeth belonged "not to the acting profession but rather to the oldest profession in the world." Another letter writer included a piece of cheese wrapped in aluminum foil—a treat for "Maggie the Cat" to feed to the "rat she trapped." Hedda would keep the foil, cheese and all, in her files for years.

But the rat wasn't getting as much heat as the cat. Eddie was usually called "misguided," while Elizabeth was "piggish." Eddie might be a "heel," one woman from Omaha wrote, but "Liz" was more to blame: "I always feel it's up to the woman to keep a man in his place." A housewife from Glastonbury, Connecticut, observed that, in these situations, "the blame should be placed on the other woman." When comedian George Jessel, appearing on
The Steve Allen Show
on September 16, defended his old pal Eddie by saying it would be hard for any man "to resist Elizabeth Taylor," he was summing up the opinion of many. Elizabeth was the villain here, the black widow luring away a defenseless man. Columnist (and famed Illinois restaurateur) Fanny Lazzar went so far as to scold the star for usurping male prerogatives. "Imagine a woman who proposes to a man," Lazzar wrote, referencing the publicity around Elizabeth's pursuit of Michael Wilding. Hedda kept a copy of Lazzar's column, marked with arrows, in her files.

The prevailing sexism of the era meant that few observers would recognize, let alone criticize, this view. Instead, Hedda was applauded for standing up for what was "right." Among those writing in to congratulate the columnist were several prominent people, including Pat Scott, the wife of actor Randolph Scott. "Randy and I were very much elated over your article this morning," she wrote. "We have always admired you and now all the more so." An executive of
Town and Country
magazine complimented Hedda's "beau tiful job of reporting," and silent film star Corinne Griffith called it "one of the finest jobs done for American decency in a long, long time." Even rival columnist Florabel Muir hailed the "gutsy and slashing piece that ripped the phony pretense from one shriveled soul ... Hopper at her very tops." Film director (and former journalist) Samuel Fuller sent Hedda a wire, praising the interview as "one of the best pieces of first-person reporting since H.L. Mencken took over the Baltimore literary mantle." Hedda, quite understandably, was in the clouds.

What was so remarkable about the piece—what Fuller and the others were reacting to—was its direct confrontation with, even repudiation of, Elizabeth's public image. That was hardly the traditional role of the Hollywood reporter. But with the times changing so quickly, traditional Hollywood was resorting to untraditional measures. Hedda knew that she could still rally a sizable and vocal minority to put pressure on the industry—the same bloc that had demanded the reforms (and threatened the boycotts) that led to the establishment of the Production Code almost thirty years earlier. This was the aggregate of the cultural transformation that the Liz-Eddie-Debbie scandal was measuring. With the Code collapsing under the weight of its own intransigence, with more and more pictures pushing the bounds of what was acceptable onscreen (and more and more stars acting with an impunity unimaginable under the ironclad rule of Louis B. Mayer and the other moguls), conservatives latched onto the scandal as a cause célèbre. And for many of them, Hedda was both crusading heroine and mother confessor.

"Please do something about this monstrous thing," one writer begged the columnist. For many, this was a sacred Christian mission: "Keep the Catholic teaching against adultery and fornication your real fight," one Chicago woman urged Hedda, "so that young folks won't become loose in the morals because of the applause and approval of the Fisher rottenness." Several letter writers insisted that if Elizabeth were to come to their neighborhoods, she would face the Biblical punishment of stoning. A correspondent from Hickory, North Carolina, compared the star's behav ior to Esau selling his birthright for a "mess of pottage." A doctor from Inglewood, California, lamented Hollywood's "multiple marriages that flaunt [
sic
] the sanctity and permanence of the marriage sacrament." To these people, Elizabeth was "the devil's daughter," and Hedda was their deliverer. "God bless you, Hedda!" one writer exulted. "These women who wantonly wreck marriages and deprive children of their fathers should be held up to public scorn, and nobody can do it as well as you can." Hedda took the remark as a point of pride.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of these writers also gave vent to a deeply ingrained anti-Semitism. "The die was cast," one man wrote, when Elizabeth married Mike Todd, because "a gentile woman becomes crude and common with close association with a Jew." From Coronado, California, came the opinion that Eddie was "just another beak-nosed Jew," and "dear little Debbie" should find a good Christian husband. It was all rather an uncanny echo of Elizabeth's part in the film
Ivanhoe,
six years earlier, where, as the Jewish girl Rebecca, she was tried publicly as a witch and a seductress.

"Gone are the days when Hollywood policed itself and transgressors were punished," one Alabama newspaper lamented, a clear reference to Ingrid Bergman's European exile. Now a riot of scandals had torn through screenland in the last few years and their perpetrators had largely escaped any repercussions: the discovery of nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe; the tempestuous marriage (and brazen extramarital affairs) of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner; the "grunt and groin" music of Elvis Presley; and, just five months before the Liz-Eddie-Debbie headlines, the stabbing death of Lana Turner's gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, by her fourteen-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane. Some believed that Turner herself was the real killer and had gotten off scot-free.

It was enough to turn a segment of the public off Hollywood forever. "I was so thoroughly disgusted when the Ingrid Bergman–Roberto Rossellini scandal came out that I have not attended one movie since," one Wisconsin woman wrote to Hedda. "And [I'm] disgusted over Frank Sinatra's flings. I point out to my niece ... to refrain from buying Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley records."

But Elizabeth's theft of Debbie Reynolds's husband was the last straw. "Taylor is even worse than Bergman," one writer opined to Hedda. The letters continued flowing to newspaper editorial boards across the country. "You play by the rules in life," one writer declared. "Does Elizabeth Taylor know there are rules?"

When Chesterfield cigarettes announced that it intended to continue its sponsorship of Eddie's television show, set for its season debut on September 30, there was a call for boycotts. "So the Eddie Fisher sponsor has taken the attitude of the 'public be damned,'" one furious letter writer from Chicago vented to Hedda. Chesterfield, the writer said, was spending its money on "heels" and "strumpets" and "in fact anything that violates decency." Where was the demand for "decency in performers and entertainers"? And why didn't Chesterfield "observe such a code"?

Because, in fact, the code was gone—and it wasn't just the Production Code that was breaking down. The codes—the very standards of living—that many had grown up with were being rewritten. For those appalled by such a turn of events, there was little to do but huff and puff—and write letters. MGM received its share of them, and given the imminent wide release of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,
no doubt there were some worries that the scandal might affect business. Various petitions were received from people who vowed "never to see Miss Taylor again in a picture or stage production."

But of even greater concern were the letters being delivered to the NBC offices and the headquarters of Liggett & Myers, the parent company of Chesterfield cigarettes. Being a TV star and dependent on the vagaries of public taste from week to week, Eddie was far more vulnerable than Elizabeth. The letters pouring in to his sponsor raised real alarm. "I am more than a little shocked to find you would allow a man of such moral turpitude as Fisher to represent a supposedly reliable product as Chesterfield," one woman wrote. "Or are we to assume that the perfidious character of the entertainer who represents you is indicative of the basically insidious nature of your product, as claimed by the medical fraternity who point to cigarettes as a causative factor in lung cancer?"

Even if not every letter was so potently worded, such sentiment didn't go unheeded by the corporate giant. According to Fisher, he and his sponsor were at one point getting "7,000 nasty letters a week"—not to mention the occasional voodoo doll stuck with pins. Hedda, meanwhile, kept turning the screws, writing that if Eddie and his sponsor could read the letters she was getting, both would be "shaking in [their] boots."

But for all of that, the season debut of Eddie's show (now retitled
The Eddie Fisher Show)
won the highest ratings for its time period, vindicating, at least for the moment, Frings's tenet that any press was good press. Eddie beat out his competitors,
Sugarfoot
and
Wyatt Earp,
popular Westerns both, by several points; the Associated Press credited the show's success to the "value of front-page publicity." The appearance of guest stars Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Ernie Kovacs, and Bing Crosby certainly helped, but many viewers had clearly tuned in to see if Eddie might betray any hint of his romantic entanglements. He didn't. He sang "Moonlight Becomes You" and joined Kovacs in a rousing rendition of "That's Entertainment." It was all sweetness and light, jokes and happy smiles.

For Eddie's critics, this was only cause for further outrage. Letters continued flowing in to Hedda, to MGM, to NBC, to Chesterfield. Now it wasn't just the principals being targeted, but "those appearing with Fisher" as well, for their blatant disregard of "the public feeling." Jane Powell—an old comrade of both Elizabeth and Debbie's from MGM—had felt it prudent not to appear on Eddie's show and was applauded for her "loyalty and good sense." But anybody else was fair game. Letters to Hedda indicated that a boycott of Eddie's program might be expanded to include George Gobel, whose show had the unfortunate position of alternating with Fisher's. When Steve Allen announced at the end of one of his shows that Eddie would be his guest the following week, the audience booed. Shaken by this, everyone agreed that it would be better if Eddie didn't appear.

The concern was growing at the network. "Some cautious ad men," observed one trade paper, "fear any long, bitter divorce battle might react unfavorably for [Fisher's] sponsors." Movie stars, these ad men argued, had demonstrated that they could sustain careers in similar situations. But this was "the first serious test for a television star"—who depended on provincial, often conservative viewers to invite him into their living rooms every week.

It was a test Eddie ultimately failed. After that first show, his ratings began to slip and continued in freefall over the next several months.
Variety
called the response to the scandal the "war whoop of the bluenoses." Indeed, it was a textbook example of media spin whipping up base public sentiment to conceal more nuanced facts on the ground. And yet it also demonstrated a very real truth about Hollywood: In the end, the public decides. One Chicago man, seeming to feel personally betrayed by Eddie and Elizabeth, wrote quite astutely to Hedda: "In their profession they are public property—they belong to us. We the public made them what they are and they should not forget it."

They would not. The scandal was not going to blow over any time soon despite Kurt Frings's fervent hopes.

Elizabeth remained in hiding. Eddie moved in with her at Frings's house. "We spent most of our time in a small room up several flights of stairs," he recalled. They slept on a sofa bed, calling the place their "womb with a view." Eventually reporters figured out where Elizabeth was and lined the street outside Frings's house. On the rare occasions when they ventured out, Eddie and Elizabeth would lie on the floor of Roddy McDowall's car covered with blankets. It was the only way to sneak past the press.

Across town, however, Debbie Reynolds was still making sure that reporters got a good look at her. According to MGM publicist Rick Ingersoll, Debbie came to feel that Metro, possibly because of growing concern over
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,
was now "siding with Elizabeth." So she hired her own public relations firm. While it's clearly not true that the studio was favoring Elizabeth, there
was
a limit to how far they'd go in attacking the star of one of their biggest pictures of the year. But Debbie wanted a much more aggressive campaign on her behalf, and she got it. From the fall of 1958 through early 1960, it was virtually impossible to pick up a fan magazine or entertainment section of a local newspaper and not see the face of Debbie Reynolds.