Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art (22 page)

Sidney Poitier and I wanted to work together again. When
Stir Crazy
was finished, we would often meet in the afternoons at the home of my dear friend, Julann Griffin, to play tennis and talk about movies. Julann and I had worked together in summer stock in the north woods of Wisconsin years before, when I was seventeen.

I would play two sets with Sidney (we were very evenly matched) and then talk about what we’d like to do next. I had one script that had been sent to me that I liked very much. It was a comedy/mystery called
Traces
. (The title was later changed to
Hanky Panky
.) I gave the script to Sidney, and he said, “Let’s do it.” After the success of
Stir Crazy
, I think Columbia would have done almost anything that Sidney and I wanted to do.

Now came the search for the Girl. Lots of female stars said they would do the movie if they could play my part. I know the feeling. One day Sidney called and asked if I would like to go to New York with him to see Gilda Radner in a play called
Lunch Hour
that she was doing on Broadway, directed by Mike Nichols and also starring Sam Waterston. I said, “I don’t have to go to New York—I’ve seen her on
Saturday Night Live
and think she’s wonderful.” So Sidney flew to New York, saw the play, and took her to dinner. He called me that night.

“She said yes.”

“You mean that was it? . . . She didn’t want anything rewritten, or to meet me?”

“No. I just told her that she would love you.”

When Sidney got back to Los Angeles, I told him that I thought the woman’s part had to be rewritten specifically for Gilda, because as it existed it was white bread—more of a straight part. “That’s why the other actresses wanted to play
my
part.” He agreed.

The day Gilda and I met—or rather the evening we met, because we were going to film at night—was August 13, 1981. The sun had started sinking below the Hudson River when Gilda was dropped off at our location, where the ocean liners docked on the East River. I had already done two close-ups so I was in my makeup and dressed in a tuxedo when I walked up to her to say hello. She was sitting on one of those tall director’s chairs, talking with Sidney. Remembering our first meeting was something like a he said/she said situation:
Gilda said
that I rubbed my crotch against her knee when I asked her if I could bring her some tea or coffee. When she told me this crazy story,
I said
, “You’re nuts!” And
she said
, “No, they were
your
nuts.” Well . . . it was a beginning.

The moment of sexual decision came after two weeks of filming in New York. I was staying at the Carlyle Hotel, in a room on the nineteenth floor that I always requested. One evening—just so I could get to know Gilda a little better before we started filming our major scenes—I invited her to have dinner with Corinne and my brother-in-law, Gil, at their favorite Italian restaurant on East Sixty-fourth Street.

Gilda looked exceptionally pretty in the light summer dress she wore that evening, which barely covered her skinny knees, and while we all ate dinner, “Gilda Live” entertained us with her slightly raunchy humor, à la Roseanne Roseannadanna. We all laughed, but the people sitting at the table next to us laughed the loudest. The husband of one of the couples was getting tipsy and started sending after-dinner drinks to our table, followed by a stream of suggestive notes—not to Gilda, which we assumed at first—but to my sister, which made our table laugh so loud that the whole restaurant turned to see what was happening.

After dinner Gilda and I said good night to Corinne and Gil and then walked the few blocks to the Carlyle Hotel, where I knew Gilda could get a taxi. It was a beautiful summer evening, and we walked slowly. Horace, the doorman at the Carlyle, told me that a messenger had come from Columbia Pictures with an envelope for me and that it was in my room. I knew it was the script changes for the next day’s filming. Gilda said she’d like to see them, just to know if there was anything for her in them. So Gilda came up to my room and looked at the blue pages with me. There were only the silliest little changes—about where the trailers would be parked and where lunch would be served—hardly worth sending a messenger to deliver. Just as I was about to escort
Gilda back to the lobby, she threw me onto the kingsize bed and jumped on top of me.

“I have a plan for fun!” she said.

I bounced back up.

“And I have a plan for an adorable little girl who’s going home.”

She threw me back down and jumped on top of me again.

“Come on, come on—you’ll like it!”

I bounced back up again, took hold of her shoulders, and looked into her magnificent brown eyes.

“Maybe I would—it’s actually very possible—but I don’t wish to be an adulterer.
Vous comprenez?
”

She mumbled about what a spoilsport I was as I escorted her to the lobby, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and helped her into a taxi.

Early the next morning I went to the abandoned warehouse that Columbia Pictures had rented where Hair and Makeup and all the actors’ trailers were parked. I knocked on Gilda’s trailer door to say good morning and see how she was. When I walked in, Gilda introduced me to her assistant, Mary, and then asked her to leave the trailer until she called. Then Gilda started talking nonstop.

“I’ve only been married a little over a year, and he’s a dear, sweet man, and I care about him—I really do care about him—but he’s very troubled right now, and I’m starting to go crazy. When he drove me to the movie location the night that you and I met, I cried the whole way in, all the way from Connecticut, because I knew I was going to fall in love with you and leave my husband.”

“Wait! Now wait a minute Gilda, please!”

“It’s true—I swear to God.” And she took a big sip out of a flask she always carried with her.

“Gilda, you’re talking like this is a fairy tale, and you’re going to
meet Prince Charming, and everything’s going to be all right, and we’ll both live happily ever after.”

“So what’s wrong with that?”

Her honesty was startling. I tried not to laugh.

“What’s wrong is that you don’t know me. And I certainly don’t know you—although I feel like I’m taking a crash course right now. Everybody loves you as soon as you say hello—don’t you know that? Don’t you ever meet any nice men who make you happy?”

“I meet so many dumb jerks you wouldn’t believe it, and they ask me to come to England with them or come on their yacht or come to Brazil, and then all they really wanna do is drink champagne, snort coke, introduce me to their girlfriends, and tell their other friends that the famous Gilda Radner is here—‘You wanna meet her?’ ”

She took another swig from her flask.

“What’s in that?”

“Taste it.”

I took the smallest sip. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t very strong.

“What’s in it?”

“Tab and vodka. I just take it to calm down a little.”

“But it’s eight-thirty in the morning.”

“It’s okay, I’m not addicted. I never get tipsy or drunk or anything. I know my lines, I’ll be good. It’s just to calm me down a little.”

“Gilda, if your marriage is so bad why don’t you get out of it?”

“I’m afraid to be alone.”

When we were on location in Tucson, Arizona, again, Sidney and his family and Gilda and I stayed at the Arizona Inn. My room was
next to Sidney’s; Gilda’s room was across the courtyard, on the second floor. I still had my feelings about not wanting to be an adulterer, but Gilda’s sad marital circumstances and the desperation I saw in her every time we met made me stop focusing on me and adultery. With a proper invitation I would occasionally visit her room at night.

After the last shot of the day—from whichever outdoor location we were filming—I would call ahead to the Arizona Inn and make a reservation in the dining room for Gilda and me. By the time we arrived, most of the other guests had gone, so Gilda and I had the dining room almost to ourselves.

A strange pattern developed, which at first I just thought was cute. Gilda was always tempted by two things for appetizer and two things for her main course and could never seem to make up her mind which ones to order. When the pattern repeated itself each day, I suggested that we simply tell the waitress that our friend Albert was going to be joining us and could we please also order for him, since the kitchen would be closing soon. So Gilda and Albert and I had dinner together for two weeks—even though Albert never showed up. On days when we finished filming early, we’d get to the dining room, and our usual waitress would just say, “And what will Albert be having tonight?”

During one of our dinners together, Gilda told me about another problem that was torturing her, but she didn’t want to tell me what that problem was
yet
. I immediately thought it must be about food, but it seemed unlikely that something as trivial as food could be “torturing” her. I tried to persuade her to tell me, but she always said, “I will, I will—just not yet.” Then I started to think it was drugs.

It was wonderful to be with Gilda—most of the time—but her excessive need for attention and admiration was overwhelming. I would ask her, “Why on earth are you spending all of your energy
trying to make people like you when anyone you meet loves you immediately?” She would just say, “Really? Honest?” Or, “I know, I know—I just don’t want to disappoint them.”

In one of the sad moods that came over her frequently, she would say. “Is that all there is?” She had heard Peggy Lee sing the song with that title, and it made a great impression on her.

“What more do you want, Gilda? You have so much.”

“I know, I know,” she said, and she looked at me like a child who had received only one small present for Christmas, and then she said, “But is that all there is?”

After awhile she became desperate to be with me
all of the time
. I was never bored during the next two months—exhausted several times, but never bored. As much as I loved being with her, I wanted to breathe again without having to worry about her. She was so strong willed, and yet so fragile. I started to look forward to the end of filming. When it finally came—at Burbank Airport—we kissed good-bye. She cried. Because she didn’t want to take a chance that her husband would answer the phone
if
I should ever want to call her about something personal, she handed me the telephone number of her manager, Bernie Brillstein, and said that if I ever
did
want to see her again, I should call Bernie and say something like, “The ducks are quacking in the pond.” I think she really did live in a fairy tale. I kissed her good-bye again. She cried again, and then flew to New York.

After our last good-bye I drove to my home in Los Angeles, feeling that a great weight had been lifted off of me. Gilda was certainly the most extraordinary woman I had ever met—not the prettiest, not the sexiest, not the most considerate, but the most generous and compassionate and original person I had ever known. She was a firefly who glowed in the dark
and
in the light.

I got to my place just after midnight and sat outside for a few minutes, just to breathe a little night air. It was such a relief not to
have that needy, clinging baby pulling at my shirt sleeve every minute

I woke up the next morning and went about my business, shopping for milk, toothpaste, socks, orange juice, English muffins, marmalade. Nothing exceptional happened during that day. I made a few calls and met one of my friends for dinner. When I got home, I turned off most of the lights in the house and started walking through the living room toward the bedroom. I stopped next to my piano for a moment, happy to see it again. I started taking off my sport jacket—and suddenly froze. I stood like a zombie, with my sport jacket half-off, staring into space. I didn’t know what was happening to me. After a few moments I dropped to my knees and started beating the floor with my fists. Tears flooded my heart. I hate even the thought of drugs, but Gilda had become like some kind of a drug to me, as surely as if I had been shooting up each day and now missed my daily fix. I had to be with her again. I had to.

The next day I called Bernie Brillstein and told him to tell Gilda, “The ducks are quacking in the pond.”

When Gilda arrived in Los Angeles with her suitcases, I met her at the airport and brought her home. I roasted a chicken for her that night, naturally. The next morning I made her some toast, which she always craved for breakfast, while I had a toasted raisin bran muffin. I made my usual Twinings Earl Grey Tea, and just as I started to read the front page of the
New York Times,
Gilda said, “Are you always going to eat that way?”

“. . . What do you mean? What way?”

“Make noises that way, when you’re chewing. Dibby says that you should keep your mouth closed when you’re chewing, so that you don’t make noises.”

“Who’s Dibby?”

“The lady who took care of me when I was growing up. Dibby always said it’s impolite to make noises when you eat.”

“But this is how I eat a bran muffin, Gilda. I mean—I don’t want to worry about how open or closed my lips are when I’m eating a bran muffin. I don’t think I was making much noise.”

“Well, Dibby wouldn’t like it.”

I started to flush red, inside, but then “Margie” took over. I looked at Gilda’s pretty face and realized that she was probably so afraid of my seeing
her
faults that she decided to strike first, choosing an area where
I
was at fault. I made some joke and said I would try to make Dibby happy. The next day—and all the days after—she never mentioned my chewing noises again.

One day, she decided to tell me what the horrible thing was that she couldn’t tell me before. She was bulimic. I didn’t know what the word meant. She explained it to me, in detail, and then said, “Don’t ever monitor me. I’m working on conquering it by myself. But if you hear things or smell things, don’t try to monitor me.” It reminded me of when Katie was stuffing candy wrappers in her desk drawer and Margie said, “Don’t talk to her about food.”