Living With Miss G (19 page)

From the first day Miss G met George Cukor, she was as excited as if she
had discovered Clark Gable number two. “I’ve never met such a man,” she
cried. “He can do anything. He watches every detail from start to finish, and he
never sits down. I’ve never been so happy with a director in my life.” The only
other director she loved more was John Huston.

A problem arose for Miss G. She wasn’t going to waste all those
hardworking weeks just eating, boozing, and polishing her part as Victoria
Jones. Not with all those good-looking young English guys in the cast. She
needed attention, affection, and a love affair or two. She called it quits at two.

She had focused her eyes first of all on Stewart Granger. They had met in
Copenhagen with an entire evening and night to spend together before boarding
the plane bound for Karachi the next day. They ended up spending the entire
evening and night on one long boozing session, managing to squeeze a little
dinner in between endless rounds of aquavit followed by beer chasers. It was a
memorable evening. Eventually Miss G got around to the subject of going to bed
together. That caused Jimmy to observe sorrowfully that he had just married his
beautiful young wife, Jean Simmons, and was madly in love with her and could
not possibly commit adultery.

Miss G cackled with laughter. At that moment, Jean was making
Guys and
Dolls
in Hollywood with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, so I guess Miss G
had doubts about Jean’s chances of staying sacrosanct. That might have been a
reasonable assumption, but Jimmy was determined to keep his marriage vows.

The truth of the matter was that neither Jimmy nor Miss G remembered
getting out of the taxi which took them back to their hotel. They woke up in
their separate beds with hangovers as big as storm clouds over Mt. Everest. Miss
G knew that romance had not flourished. She and Jimmy remained great friends
forever after.

Miss G soon collected compensation in the shape of two young, healthy,
attractive English guys, who today probably have happy homes and kids, so I
will disguise them as Harry and Edgar. Both at the time were unaware that their
experiences in sharing Miss G’s affections ran parallel. Neither of them was the
jealous type and just accepted such bits of luck as part of life’s little bonuses.

The only really arresting and original event occurred when Miss G
announced one morning that we were taking a week off. I sensed a dereliction of
duty, desertion from one’s post.
Bhowani Junction
was that sort of film. “What’s
Mr. Cukor going to say?”

“George has given us permission. He’s busy shooting at other locations.
Besides, he knows we have a trusted friend taking us into the wilderness of the
northwest frontier; the hanging-gardens-of-something-or-other and the death
defying slopes of Mt. Everest and Christ knows what else.”

Miss G’s knowledge of Pakistan’s geography was minimal.
“Which friend is taking us?”
I got a reproving glance from Miss G. “What do you mean, which friend?”
“Edgar or Harry?”
“Edgar. He’s borrowed a Jeep and is filling it full of booze. He was in the

army in these parts in the last war, so he knows what he’s doing.”
“I’ll fix a few sandwiches.” I said, “And take a few cans of beans.”
We bumped and rolled away from Lahore on a track through wild and

deserted country. We passed an occasional camel train or a smoky old truck.
The old vulture wheeled high in the sky always ready for lunch. We sipped our
bottles of anti-malarial gin and sang tribal melodies. The journey took several
hours.

It was not as Miss G had thought. The hanging-gardens-of-somewhere-orother and the slopes of Mt. Everest were not a romantic Shangri-La. It was a
stone fort sitting on a high rocky outcrop in the middle of nowhere. To me, it
brought back memories of that wonderful Gary Cooper film
Beau Geste
about
the French Foreign Legion, with all the poor, dead soldiers hanging over the
battlements having been slaughtered by those nasty guys in Arab headgear.

“Here we are,” said Edgar. “A peaceful oasis, a whole week for relaxation.
Better than active service…uh?” A whole week, I thought. We’ll all go mad.
We’ll get the “cafard,” that terrible depression those poor legionnaires used to
catch after months in the desert. And that bit about “better than active service”?
Well, Edgar seemed to be on active service twenty-four hours a day. On
reflection, I can’t remember many minutes when Miss G and Edgar were not
snug in the connubial bed.

But the damn place grew on you. There was the fort. Below it were a sort
of village, palm trees, a water well, a huddle of flat-roofed little houses hemmed
in by servant quarters, which were three sticks and a canvas. Even people of
modest income, those with one camel and a cooking pot, supported servants. In
Pakistan if you were born poor there wasn’t much in the way of social services
to help you out.

The landscape, once you got used to not being frightened by it, was
breathtaking. There were huge vistas, immense skies, far-off mountains marking
the untamed borders of Afghanistan. Dawn sun crept over the rim of the world
to burn off the mist and fry you alive if you lit it. The air cooled in the evenings.
The smoke from the cooking fires drifted above the houses, and there were
canvas shelters. There were the sounds of voices, camels braying, and children
playing. There was such silence. You pulled the blanket up over your nose and
listened to the silence.

As Edgar had packed enough booze to keep his entire ex-regiment drunk
through a five-year campaign and there were only the three of us trying to do the
same thing, we lived on a wobbly edge of euphoria. As I have already noted, the
lovers seemed permanently encamped under the covers. Cuisine didn’t seem of
much importance. We had beans and more beans.

I shall never forget waking on that first morning, opening a cautious eye
and circling the room and encountering two other sets of eyes at floor level, both
coal black, watchful and curious. The eyes slid away, and the owners stood up.
Swathed in yards of calico, they belonged to two little girls about eight years
old. And then, psst! They were gone. I sat up thinking, what the hell are they up
too? Then I heard the dragging noise and two small girls arrived tugging a large
bath of water into my room. They exuded laughter and chatter. Their hands
fluttered to illustrate washing down, that is under the armpits, down the back
and over the rear end. The two giggling little handmaidens were anxious to give
me a bath. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Clean and refreshed, I went to look for Miss G. I approached her door
cautiously in case Edgar was still on active duty. No, the splashes and giggles
coming from Miss G’s room told me that a second team of handmaidens was
giving her the same treatment. It was a great week’s holiday. We returned
completely worn out from our experiences.

We flew back to London to finish the final shots and filmed a lot of
railway scenes on a disused track in Haslemere, Surrey. Miss G volunteered to
do one scene in which a stunt girl would normally have been used. She had to
chase a moving train and, as it picked up speed, leap aboard.

When we saw the rushes she almost dropped dead. She would have been
dead if she’d missed her footing. “Why the hell didn’t George tell me how
dangerous it was?” she gasped. She still thought George Cukor ranked close to a
heavenly angel.

I said, “Mr. Cukor believes in realism.”
It was a second piece of movie realism that shattered her far more than the
train. She was trapped in a dark alleyway by a soldier, played by Lionel Jeffries,
and raped. Miss G grasped a metal bar and killed him. It was a brutal and
terrifying scene. George directed with all dramatic stops out.
It wasn’t Lionel’s fault, but Miss G was almost sick. You can’t play a rape
scene as if it’s tea with the vicar. It’s horrible! Miss G suffered from nightmares
for a long time afterwards, but we all parted the greatest of friends.
George Cukor said, “Ava was a gem. She was marvelously punctual and
never complained even when it was clear the poor darling was exhausted. She
was wonderful in the part.”
I could have told him that “the poor darling” was often more than
exhausted. She got amoebic dysentery which is a rotten disease and can last a
lifetime. You have terrible headaches and suffer from vomiting and diarrhea at
the same time. Our medico gave her some tablets which helped, and Miss G was
such a good trooper and only missed two days of filming.
Later Miss G said, “Thank God some Swiss pharmaceutical firm
discovered a pill that could get rid of the after-effects.”
Jimmy Granger said approvingly of Miss G afterwards, “There was no
movie star thing with Ava. She never kept you waiting while she played with
her makeup like so many others. She was always on time and completely
professional and never complained about the heat and the flies. In fact, she was
one hell of a woman!”

“Rene,” said Miss G thoughtfully, “Why don’t we go and live in Madrid?
Really live there, permanently.” I knew she had been playing with the idea for a
long time now. She’d been indoctrinated during her first trip to Spain with
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
, heavily influenced by her love affair with
Luis Miguel Dominguin and by all the holidays she had spent there during her
months filming
The Barefoot Contessa
.

“Old?” I protested. “We’re both thirty-three next birthday. That is the
prime of life.”
“Let’s enjoy the prime of life then unencumbered by any male. We can
pick and choose as we want.” I knew she was remembering
Bhowani Junction
.
“What about Walter Chiari?” I said.
“What about him?” said Miss G bellicosely, “He’s just a friend.”
I didn’t know an awful lot about Walter Chiari at this time except that he
was a friend of Luis Miguel. I knew he was young and good-looking and Italian.
Miss G was into the dark Latin types at this time. He was also a very well
known Italian film star and musical hall performer, hardly spoke a word of
English, but then neither had Luis Miguel.
“What about MGM?” I said.
Miss G said forcefully, “MGM made enough out of me with
Bhowani
Junction
. All the big companies are making money overseas now. It’s cheaper.
It’s not like the old contract days when you had to get a permit from old Father
Mayer to even leave Los Angeles. We can live where we like.”
MGM was already setting up a future picture,
The Little Hut
, which would
be shot in the Cinecitta studios in Rome, and the only reason Miss G thought she
could bear it was because of Rome and the fact that Stewart Granger and David
Niven were in the cast. We could commute between Rome and Madrid with no
trouble.
We flew into Madrid, and Miss G began her hopeful metamorphosis from
healthy, radio-blasting, martini-fortified, Hollywood girl into her idea of a
Spanish mantilla-hung, Mona Lisa-smile, Castilian lady. I’ve got to admit she
was worth looking at.
She booked a suite at the Hilton Hotel, and Miss G was on her way. She
looked around the huge suite saying, “Well, first of all, we’ve got to learn the
language.” I did not feel it my place to suggest that no Spanish senorita of any
quality would make a statement like that. Instead I said, “That shouldn’t take us
more than ten minutes if we work hard.”
Miss G gave me one of her quick “now don’t be cute, Rene” looks and
went on. “And you got to tell room service that we don’t want three cubes of
melting ice once a week. We need fresh ice three times a day.”
“Miss G,” I said, “the gin and vermouth can’t wait to freshen up.”
Miss G eyed herself in the mirror and then spun around. “Don’t you think I
look Spanish, Rene?”
“Sure,” I said.
Miss G walked across to the window, pulled aside the heavy drapes, and
stared down to check out how the passing ladies of Spain were looking. “After
all,” she said, seeking conviction, “I’m white-skinned and dark-haired. That is a
good start. Yes? I’m a real Celt—both sides of the family. Mama was Scottish
Celt; Papa was Irish Celt.”
“Miss G,” I said, “all you need is a guitar.”
Miss G gave her usual happy scream of laughter and then adopted a more
serious tone. “Now Rene, we’ve got to study the ladies. That’s the secret. See
how they dress and what’s chic, what is fashionable. Gee, ain’t this going to be
fun?”
The Hilton foyer with its reception desks and adjoining offices was her
first operational area. An enormous turnover of visitors and citizens passed
through. Not many ladies passed through, though. In those early fifties
respectable and high-born Spanish ladies did not frequent such places. Those
who did were wearing black dresses with short sleeves or sleeves to the elbow,
their hair pulled straight back. Miss G was fascinated by the way they wore their
hair. Her first transformation into a Spanish lady, she decided, was the hair. She
had naturally curly hair, and that had to be altered. With the help of my combs
and brushes, a little grease and water, and a bit of tugging, we got her hair pulled
straight back Spanish style.
Seeing Miss G making her practice circuits around the Hilton in a little
black number, gliding along as if she was on wheels, with the final gesture of a
flower behind her ear, certainly created large gaps in conversation. Passing
gentlemen missed steps, walked into pillars, and occasionally choked on cigars.
Madrid was glorious. We did the shops, the cafes, and the taverns, leaving
our marks on each. We tramped along the boulevards, visited the galleries, and
knew every masterpiece in the Prado Museum. That’s overdoing it, but let’s say
we loved every brushstroke. Miss G hired a Spanish teacher and took lessons
every day. She introduced him to dry martinis, and why he wasn’t killed by a
passing taxi leaving the hotel, I’ll never know. We gave the concierge and his
flunkies a terrible time demanding seats at the opera, the theatre, and the
bullfights, and we demanded tables at all the best restaurants. Naturally, we had
to experience flamenco. So every night until the dawn broke, we were
engulfed—the heels stamping, the skirts swirling, and the howling of maniacal
Andalusian artists. We enjoyed every second.
Practically every day scripts were flown in from Hollywood agents, and
with equal alacrity Miss G threw them out. Those days were past. Hollywood?
Who had ever heard of Hollywood? Wasn’t it that quaint little place on the
California coast? Miss G had shaken the Hollywood gold dust off her feet and
was never going to wear those shoes again.
After a couple of weeks or so hurtling around the city in jaded taxis, Miss
G said, “Rene, we need our own transportation.”
I thought, “Oh God, Miss G in traffic.” Then I thought again, “Rene, don’t
be a coward, be a fatalist.”
So we flew to Paris for a few days. If you can’t enjoy Paris in any season,
in any year, at any hour of the day or night, you need measuring for an
undertaker’s tape because Paris is…Paris…and great!
Between martinis Miss G bought a high-powered white Mercedes coupe,
which the salesman assured us would be waiting for us on the Hilton doorstep
when we returned to Madrid. And it was. This altered Miss G’s perception of
our lifestyle completely.
“Rene,” she said, “We’re wasting too much time here in Madrid. There are
miles and miles of Spain to explore. Friends have been telling me of this chic
new place down on the Costa del Sol.”
I asked, “Where is that?”
Miss G answered, “I don’t know. We just drive south until we hit it. It’s
called Torremolinos and just beginning to be a famous resort. We’ll help it
along. Let’s go!”
We took the road south out of Madrid in our brand new Mercedes coupe,
its paint job shining in the sunlight, luggage and booze piled in the back, our
hair blowing in the wind. Questions to the concierge and half a dozen other
people about how many hours’ drive it was to Torremolinos produced a
consortium of opinions suggesting seven hours.
It took us thirty-seven. We left on Friday and arrived on Sunday at two in
the morning. But we had a lot of fun, and maybe there was something wrong
with our navigation. Soon we were clear of Madrid’s outskirts. Soon we were
clear of everything, zooming along an empty main road. “Main road” was a
relative term in Spain, where the traffic had not changed much since the Middle
Ages. We passed a few carts, many pulled by oxen, some by horses and a lot by
little donkeys. These poor little creatures were laden with heavy sacks, heaps of
straw, vegetable produce, or household furniture, and the driver with stick
inevitably was perched on top of the load.
We tooted, and they waved, as we swept up through lanes bordered by
pines or cork trees creating dark shadows, the cork carefully sliced from the
trunks to reveal a sheen like gleaming varnish. We passed fields thick with the
huge bobbing heads of Van Gogh sunflowers. We swept down from the high
ground surrounding the capital to the smooth, contoured brown plains. As we
were happy and as the scene suggested it, we sang, “The Rain in Spain Stays
Mainly on the Plain…terumpt-tum-rumpt…terumpt-tum-rumpt, and took
another swallow out of our bottle. After all, the London version of
My Fair Lady
had just hit its jackpot, and we were applauding not only the song but the sun,
the fresh air, our escape from bondage, and the whole wide, lonely, God-given,
unspoiled beauty of Spain.
Old and young ladies in black gowns, with straw sun hats fixed to their
braided hair by scarves, straightened up in the fields as we passed and waved to
us. We gave them our toots to tell them we loved them but that we didn’t want
to trade places.
The country altered again, we drove through sleepy villages and little
towns of narrow streets where smooth-skinned dogs lying in the shade of
doorsteps scarcely bothered to lift a nose to look at us. Now we were in flat,
well-watered farm lands. On one occasion, since the idea of public convenience
had not crossed the minds of the inhabitants, we stopped for a call of nature,
pulled off the road into the side of a field beside a clump of bushes. We had just
emerged and were adjusting our dresses–as one says–when Miss G looked up,
frowned and said abruptly, “What’s that?”
Her voice was urgent. I turned expecting to see at least a charging bull, but
instead saw a shambling figure stumbling across his wheat field towards us
apparently enraged–apparently shaking his fist or something at us. Behind him
we could see the tiled roof of a cottage we had not noticed before.
I said, “Think we are in trouble? Is that a gun he’s holding? Jesus, I
suppose we are trespassing. Let’s beat it.”
“Hang on,” said Miss G, a note entering her voice. “I think it’s a bottle.”
I had another look. “You’re right. It is a bottle, and he’s got two glasses.”
The old man struggled through the knee-high grass to reach us. He was
wearing a farmer’s worn clothes, stained, dark blue jacket and trousers. His hair
was white, he hadn’t shaved for a week, and his stubbly whiskers formed a sort
of frill around his leathery face. The two bright blue eyes and the wide smiling
mouth, showing a few crooked teeth, expressed a delight and welcome that
needed no speech.
He unhooked a thumb from the glasses, handed one to each of us, and then
proceeded to fill both to the brim with dark red wine.
We grinned and said, “Salute!” The wine was fresh and good.
He questioned, “Inglesi?”
“No…no…Americano.”
“Americano…buenos.” Then with a big thump on his own chest he
announced, “Espanol.”
We had not really thought he was Eskimo, but with introductions now
effected it was time for explanations. With his right hand now free for emphasis,
he swigged his share of wine from the neck of the bottle. He first dramatized our
approach–a hand to one ear as he heard the drone of our engine, a hand shielding
his eyes as he saw the car, and a long pointing finger as he indicated the line of
our approach along the road. A palm pointing upwards indicated our stop. Like
a true Spanish gentleman, he did not waste time on our move into the bushes to
spend a penny…but ole! We had arrived. We were his guests, and he was
honored.
The sun was high, the leaves green, the earth golden. This was his
welcome to his land, his house, and his heart. Why did we not come back to
meet his wife and drink more wine? Miss G, bless her, always reacted to that
sort of warmth with a similar affection. She laughed and threw up both arms as
if she was surrendering to the enemy and indicated, “Thank you, but we must
press on.” Normally, she would have embraced him, but this was our first
meeting, and he was a bit smelly. He refilled our glasses, and we made more
toasts. He was very impressed by our Mercedes. It might have been a space
vehicle from Mars. He circled it with murmurs of praise, touched it with one
finger, and wiped off the invisible fingerprint with the sleeve of his shirt.
Our visit lasted more than half an hour, and it was doubtful if our
command of the Spanish language improved at all. But it was such fun. We
finished the bottle, held up our palms in gentle rejection of yet more wine, and
with multiple “Adios” and “Buenos” and “Muchas Gracias” we restarted our
engine, blew kisses, and sailed away.
Miss G said, “You know, Rene, never in my whole life have I ever had an
elderly gentleman run across a whole field to serve me wine. He doesn’t even
know who I am.”
“Neither have I,” I said. Miss G was dead right. No meeting with anyone in
our first few months in Spain gave us more genuine pleasure than that
unexpected encounter. Miss G had actually found someone who didn’t know
her!
Next day on another lonely road we stopped at what we thought was a little
shop and asked for coffee. Again the owner was elderly and a bit decrepit, but
he produced hot strong coffee. So strong in fact that Miss G, airing her Spanish,
asked for “Latte, por favor.”
“Si, si.” With a broad smile and vigorous nods of his head, off he went.
I had noticed a small tethered goat in the side garden as we walked in.
Glancing through the window, I now saw the old gent milking his little goat, the
milk dripping into a small jug. He was back and pouring it into our coffee before
I had time to warn Miss G of the lack of hygiene. However, when he left us
alone, we had time to conceal it in the various pot plants. It might have been
delicious, but we were not prepared to experiment. Certainly we did not want to
hurt the old boy’s feelings.
Another ten or twelve hours later we came down out of the mountains
somewhere near Malaga and drove along the winding coastal road with the stars
bright above the sea. We had really only stopped for necessities–petrol, car
servicing, toilets, and occasionally at a small restaurant for some food. We did
more drinking than eating, but there were few patrolmen on the road.
It was about two a.m. when we tried a small hotel which seemed to be
close to Torremolinos. A bright young man gave us an outside cottage and led
us down to it. In the bedroom he pointed to a piece of string hanging from the
ceiling, saying, “Tomorrow, for breakfast, you pull, si.”
Miss G woke at 8:00 a.m. the next morning shouting, “Rene, pull that
string, and see if anything happens.”
We quite obviously were not in a five-star hotel. Telephones in the
bedrooms had not reached this end of the beach, and at which end of the beach
we were was anyone’s guess. I pulled the string. Maybe it jangled a spoon
against a frying pan somewhere in the kitchen, but it worked. Within seconds a
young man came running wearing a not too clean shirt, not too clean pants, and
bare foot. He did have a great smile. “Café, orange juice? Si, si senoras.” He
was gone.