Living With Miss G (31 page)

At least a month before we had finished
The Night of the Iguana
and were
still enjoying Puerto Vallarta, John Huston was outlining his plans for his next
epic production,
The Bible.

As usual, we were sitting at the bar on top of the hill at Mismaloya. The
sun was making up its mind about its dive into the sea, and a pale moon high
above the palm trees was trying to get off to an early start. Ice clinked in our
glasses. A happy day’s shooting lay behind us.

Huston explained, “It’s the biggest film deal I’ve ever undertaken. Dino de
Laurentiis wants me to do
The Bible
, a twenty million dollar production. It’s to
be shot in Egypt and Italy.”

Miss G looked at him over the rim of her glass and said, “You gonna do
it?”
Huston dodged the question. “I told Dino it would take a lifetime. Dino
laughed and said, ‘God only took six days to make the world. John, you’ve got a
little more time.’”
Miss G took the glass away from her lips and asked in disbelief, “You are
playing God?”
Huston’s voice was playful. “Can you think of anyone better? It’s only a
voice-over.” He paused and went on, “Ava, I’ve already done a lot of work. I
had trouble casting Noah. First, I tried Charlie Chaplin. He couldn’t appear in
any film but his own. Next, I tried Alec Guinness. He had engagements years
ahead. So, as I loved animals and Noah had to handle them, I decided I’d better
do it.”
“God and Noah and animals?” said Miss G, her suspicions rising.
“Animals?”
“You know, Ava, the animals went into the Ark two by two: lions, tigers,
giraffes, antelopes.…”
“Won’t they eat each other?” I asked.
“Not if we’re careful,” Huston said. “The casting is a bit difficult. I’ve got
Peter O’Toole to play the Lord’s messenger, the angel specially sent down from
heaven. There will be three angels, and O’Toole’s playing all three.”
“Jesus! All three?” said Miss G.
“That’s what O’Toole said. So I asked him if he’d ever seen an angel.”
“I would have thought he’d seen dozens,” said Miss G.
“Ava, O’Toole said his upbringing had prevented that. So I said, Peter, all
angels must look alike. He asked if he’d get three salaries, and I said no, but he
said he’d take the job anyway.”
“This is not a comedy is it?” asked Miss G, swallowing what was left of
her margarita.
“Quite the opposite. Dead serious.”
Huston’s serpent eyes retreated to slits as the long smile spread across his
face. “Got a great part for you, Ava darling. Sarah, wife of Abraham and Mother
of Nations.”
Miss G’s voice rose an octave. “Mother of Nations! John, be sensible. How
old was Sarah?”
“Ninety when she bore her first child by Abraham,” Huston replied.
“Ninety!” screeched Miss G. “And all that Biblical language? No way,
honey!”
Huston smiled in my direction. “Rene will love to feed you your voice cues
when you’re talking to Abraham.”
“Abraham who?” demanded Miss G.
“Abraham, George C. Scott.”
“Never met him,” said Miss G.
I knew she would take the part.
After
The Night of the Iguana
was finished, Miss G attended the premier in
New York City, which got very good notices. For the next few months we spent
time surveying civilization with the help of our four favorite hotels: The Savoy
in London, the L’Hotel in Paris, the Hilton in Madrid and the Grand in Rome.
We also spent time out in our Madrid apartment plaguing Ex-Dictator Peron.
We suffered no hardship.
Miss G’s attendance at health spas was frequent, and not a drop of alcohol
passed our lips in all that time. As a result, we tripped through the doors of the
Grand Hotel in Rome with Miss G looking exquisite—absolutely beautiful. The
cast of
The Bible
was assembled there: George C. Scott, Peter O’Toole, Richard
Harris, Stephen Boyd, Franco Nero, and many others, and naturally the director,
John Huston.
Huston had already completed the opening sequences of the movie
faithfully following the direction laid down in that magical opening sentence of
the Bible:
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
For this
awesome task he had entrusted photographer Ernest Hass, who specialized in
photographing the outdoors. Huston had sent him to tour the world and to film
active volcanoes, roaring waterfalls, towering mountains, immense ocean waves
and other awe-inspiring natural phenomenon. Blended together, they formed a
fantastic opening, lasting three minutes. Considering the overall cost per minute,
they certainly should have been fantastic.
Then came the creation of man and woman in the Garden of Eden.
“That wasn’t too hard,” Huston said. “The female and male models haven’t
changed all that much. The serpent that tempted Eve was difficult, really
difficult. Unlike Noah’s Ark, where with a lot of training and a little film
trickery we were able to show the animals trooping into Noah’s Ark two by two,
snakes didn’t seem to care much for acting. We solved the problem by getting a
sinuous male dancer dressed in a skin-tight snake-like costume and a snake head
with glittering eyes. He came slithering through the branches to tempt Eve with
the forbidden fruit.”
With his huge physique, tough, hardened, craggy face and deep-set eyes,
George C. Scott was made for the part of Abraham. I mean, how can you
visualize what those immense, tyrannical, patriarchal, founding fathers of
Genesis looked like? Read Genesis and you’ll get some idea:
“The Lord said, I
am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land
whereon thou liest, to thee will I give thee, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall
spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and the south, and in
thy seed shall all the families of the families of the earth be blessed….”
Yes, Huston certainly knew what he was doing when he cast Scott. The
fact that George C. Scott was a formidable actor, a towering personality whose
magnetic performances in many films will be admired for years to come is
indisputable. The fact that he scared the holy hoots out of Miss G and me is also
indisputable.
What was disputable? Was it all or partly Miss G’s fault? John Huston
thought that it was Miss G’s fault.
“George fell in love with Ava,” Huston said. “He was insanely jealous,
extremely demanding of Ava’s time and attention. And he became violent when
they were not forthcoming.”
But that wasn’t until later. That first night in the Grand Hotel Miss G was
invited up to Huston’s suite to meet George C. Scott, and they got on very well.
They went out to dinner that night and almost every night after that. And during
the first week in Rome, Miss G was certainly intrigued and attracted by Scott’s
masculinity and his intelligence, charm and wit. They had lots to talk about,
especially about their dual roles in the film. By the time the first week was over
and we had started filming and Miss G had become a very good friend of
Scott’s, my first suspicions were aroused.
The first words ever spoken to me on the set by the great actor were,
“Rene, have you got an aspirin?” I got him one from the props man and he said,
“Thank you.”
I began to notice that Scott drank a lot of vodka. I knew Miss G always had
a bottle stored somewhere, and it seemed to me that Scott did the same thing.
Then came the evening in the Grand Hotel when Miss G said, “I’m just
going up to George’s room for a drink. I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so.”
I knew she wasn’t going out to dinner with him. She wasn’t dressed for
that sort of occasion. If they had decided to go to dinner, she would have rung
me. I waited and waited for her to return. Two hours passed. Then three, then
four, and I thought, “Where the hell is she?”
Then I consoled myself with the thought that she must be chatting about
the movie with John Huston and George in Huston’s suite. There was no harm
in ringing and finding out. Huston answered and sounded a bit strange and
asked, “Did Ava tell you where she was going?”
“Yes, to see George C. Scott,” I answered.
There was a long pause. “Rene,” Huston said, “I’d go up there and give a
little knock.”
So I did. I tapped on the door and found it was open. I peered inside. There
was Miss G sagged across the cushions on the settee as if she were asleep. There
was no sign of Scott. I went across and shook her and said, “Honey, wake up.
Are you all right?”
She opened her eyes and straightened up. “I guess so,” she said in a
puzzled voice. “George and I had a few vodkas. I must have fallen asleep.”
There was an empty bottle and glasses on the table. We talked about what
might have happened when we got back to our suite, but she couldn’t remember
anything so we let it slide.
A week later the same thing happened. This time Mr. Scott came down to
our apartment, and I left them alone drinking while I went out shopping. I got
back three hours later. This time Miss G was lying on the floor. There was no
sign of Scott.
I got her to her feet, and she said, “Rene, how the hell did I end up on the
floor? Something very strange is going on.”
I said, “Miss G, it sure is.”
I had heard about the brutality drunken men could inflict on women. I
knew that a man could use the hand to chop an opponent into insensibility. I was
pretty sure that this was happening to Miss G.
I also guessed that Miss G was probably trying to match Scott drink for
drink. She was confident in her ability to survive. Miss G used drink to make her
feel good and stay happy. Scott’s reaction to an overload of vodka was totally
different. I could already see that Miss G was trying to cover up for him.
When I was helping her dress, I would notice bruises and say, “Listen girl,
where did you get this mark?” She had alabaster white skin that bruised easily.
She’d brush my question aside with a slightly apologetic smile and go on the
defensive.
There were also other things which weren’t quite right. Miss G also said,
“For Christ sake Rene, never mention Frank Sinatra’s name—ever. George goes
crazy with jealousy.”
I could remember the time when Frank also lost his cool if Howard
Hughes’ name came up in conversation. It’s funny how situations repeat
themselves.
John Huston used to stroke his chin and look at me oddly during these first
weeks, but the only advice he gave me was, “Rene, I think you should keep a
closer eye on Ava when George is around.”
I knew that as far as Huston was concerned, there was a lot riding on this
enormously expensive movie. Vast amounts of money had already been spent,
and more was going to be spent in the future.
When the first shots of
The Bible
were completed, we moved about sixty
miles east of Rome into the Abruzzi Mountains and booked into a delightful
hotel in the town of Avezzano. George C. Scott and Miss G were now going out
to dinner practically every night. It was always Scott who insisted she join him.
“Rene, he is drinking a hell of a lot every night, and he gets angry, very
angry,” Miss G told me. “Now he’s jealous not only of Frank, but of all my
friends.”
Because of our close relationship, I didn’t tell her that Scott was even
angry with me. His voice when talking about me was always mocking and
unpleasant. “Oh, Rene, Rene…” It gave me the creeps.
In the peace and quiet of the Abruzzi Mountains, Miss G began to tell me
about her affair with Scott. Yes, she had been very attracted to him from the
very first. When he began to plague her with the idea of marriage, she even
began to think that it might be a possibility.
Miss G followed the dictum that if she felt strongly enough about a man
she would go to bed with him. She had done that, thus establishing a strong
human bondage, and I do mean “bondage.”
She was still deluding herself into thinking that somehow it might all work
out. When sober, Scott was a wonderful guy—thoughtful, caring, and totally
apologetic for his drinking bouts that led to violence. Perhaps she decided he
could change. Perhaps she thought she could influence him.
I thought this was a major mistake. Like so many other women who had
found themselves in a similar plight, she was enmeshed in a situation from
which she could not extricate herself. I began to worry about the days ahead. I
began to worry very much. We had work to do!
Work in this case was just that: work. Don’t think that film-making with
John Huston was always wine and roses. Huston was a realist. He liked to film
in realistic settings. I shall never forget the day we were filming on the top of
some mountain in the Abruzzis. The weather, like all mountain weather, had
been lousy: sun, wind, rain, clouds…the lot. For most of the time Miss G and I
had been seeking shelter from the elements. It was getting late. The weather did
not look like it was improving. John Huston and his film crew were camped out
about fifty yards higher than us on the mountainside. Doing their usual thing,
they were playing cards waiting for the weather to change.
Huston’s crew was a splendid collection of film technicians. The director
had collected them like glorious old and young treasures through the years. They
all adored him. He adored them. They made for a happy fast-moving film team.
Miss G was fed up. “Rene, it’s ridiculous,” she said. “There isn’t going to
be any more sun. We’re stuck up on this mountain top. I want to go back to the
hotel and have a drink. You go up there and ask that old bugger, John Huston, if
he’s going to film again today or not.”
Feeling the same way as Miss G, and doing my duty, I said, “Good idea.
I’ll go and check.”
I had gone half way up the mountain when the thought struck me like an
axe in the back of my neck. There I was, Miss G’s maid, a frail black girl. I was
about as important in film production circles as dust in the wind. I was going to
march up to one of the finest film makers in the business who, by the way, was
surrounded by his outlaw gang, and demand to know why we shouldn’t stop
work.
“Holy Jesus!” There they sat at their portable table on their portable chairs.
About eight of them. Their noses were glued to their cards held about four
inches from their eyeballs. This was serious stuff. These guys had been doing
this for twenty years. It was a man’s world. Dollars were at stake. Who the hell
cared about movie making? Huston looked like one of the rabble.
I stood there. Nobody cared. Then Huston caught sight of me out of the
corner of his eye. Without turning his head or removing the cigarette from his
mouth, he said, “Hi, Rene.” No point in beating about the bush. I took a deep
breath and said bravely, “Mister Huston? Miss G wants to know whether or not
we are going to work some more today.”
Nobody looked up at me. The cards still kept slapping down on the table.
They sounded like tombstones falling on my corpse. Then suddenly Huston,
with a broad smile on his face, turned and looked at me and said, “Now Rene,
that is a very interesting question. Tell you what we do. You decide whether we
shoot any more today or whether we go home.”