Living With Miss G (9 page)

In every respect, 1951 was a year of change. After Miss G returned from
Spain, we were still enjoying our house in Nichols Canyon. Lena Horne and her
husband, Lennie Hayton, who was conductor of one of MGM’s resident
orchestras, lived down the road, and the three of them became good friends,
especially when Miss G started her singing career in
Show Boat
. It was also
during this year that Miss G decided we should move closer to the sea, and she
rented a lovely house in Pacific Palisades. We kept the house at Nichols Canyon
for Bappie to live in.

Mainly I remember Miss G’s excitement when she came back to our
dressing room in the MGM studios and said, “Rene, honey, I’ve made it at last.
I’ve got two great songs to sing in
Show Boat
.”

I gave her a questioning look. “Miss G,” I said, “in all the movies you have
made, except when you sang that pretty little song in
Pandora and the Flying
Dutchman
, you’ve been standing there opening your mouth and somebody
else’s voice has been coming out.”

“This time it’s different,” said Miss G.
“How different?”
“George Sidney, the producer, is the difference. He’s listened to my voice

and said I can sing both of Julie’s songs, ‘Bill’ and ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat
Man.’ As he says, it’s a different sort of singing, half spoken and half sung. Both
are soliloquies with Julie dreaming of her no-good, gambling husband. The
sounds must match my acting voice. Makes sense, uh?”

George was a reasonable, friendly guy who headed MGM’s speech-drama
section. He was married to Lillian Burns, and together they had certain clout at
MGM. It was also George who had vetted the very first film test of Miss G
when it was sent across from New York to L.A. George had recommended that
Miss G should be offered a contract.

“She’s black.”
“She’s no more black than you are. She’s a golden honey brown like you
are. All this black stuff is bullshit. People are all sorts of colors and come from
all sorts of nationalities. Lena told me once how many she came from—French,
Italian, South Sea Islands, African and God knows what else. She’s one of the
most beautiful women in the world, inside and out.”
Show Boat
was about the good old paddle-steamers sliding up and down
the Mississippi in the days when gentlemen wore top hats, frock coats and
striped cravats, and ladies wore crinolines, carried parasols and talked just like
Vivian Leigh in
Gone With the Wind
. At least in MGM films they did.
Black laborers, just freed from slavery, pulled ropes and loaded the cotton
bales and sang songs like “Ole Man River”—“body all achin’ and racked with
pain,”—which was probably closer to the truth than any other aspect of the
movie. For
Show Boat
was a romantic fairy story hoping to send people home
happy with just a little tear in their eye for poor, haunted Julie.
Julie was a half-caste—beautiful, desirable, but an outcast in those
southern states because there was black blood in her veins. Julie pretended she
was white. She married a handsome gambling man who made a living at cards
on the paddle boat,
Cotton Blossom
, and that was her big mistake. Someone told
the sheriff about her, and he threw them both off the steamer. Disgraced, her
husband abandoned her, and she sank down into alcoholism and poverty.
Even before the film started, Miss G started working to really be able to
sing. Through Lena, she found a fine teacher who had worked with both Lena
and Dorothy Dandridge. Eventually Miss G produced a tape in which she sang
both songs. I heard it, and it was very good. Lennie Hayton thought so too. So it
was with a fair amount of pride Miss G arranged an interview with Arthur
Freed, the MGM executive who was the God Almighty in terms of production
and whose verdict was absolute.
“Mr. Freed,” she said nervously, “George Sidney thinks I should be
allowed to sing Julie’s two songs in the film, so I’ve brought this recording
along for your approval.” Arthur took the tape and looked down his nose at her.
“Ava,” he said, ‘in this movie we shall be using the best singing
professionals in the world—Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and that wonderful
black opera singer William Warfield, plus others. You are up against superb
professionals. MGM would never take the risk of using an amateur.”
Miss G should have been put in her place, but she wasn’t. She was not only
disappointed, she was furious, especially when Lennie Hayton, who was
conducting the seventy-five piece orchestra and recording the Oscar
Hammerstein and Jerome Kern melodies, had told her the singer MGM had
chosen to dub over Miss G’s own voice did not match at all. Producer George
Sidney also informed Arthur Freed of this impasse. It was Lennie who suggested
a solution.
He knew Lena had coached Miss G for weeks to teach her the correct
tempo and phrasing for the two songs. Then Miss G had made her recording and
given it to Arthur Freed. If Lennie could get that tape back, he could steer the
new girl singer through the part, and they’d probably get away with it. They did.
It worked more or less, although Miss G thought the whole thing was a botchup. In an interview she gave, she made her anger quite clear.
“I wanted to sing those songs. Hell, I’ve still got a southern accent, and I
really thought that Julie should sound a little like a Negro since she’s supposed
to have Negro blood. Those songs like “Bill” shouldn’t sound like an opera. I
made a damn good job of the track, and they said, ‘Ava, are you out of your
head?’ Then they substituted her voice for mine, and now in the movie my
southern twang stops talking and her soprano starts singing. Hell, what a mess.
They ended up with crap.”
Miss G had the final and last laugh. MGM, after the film’s release, decided
that the entire music score and songs would go on sale as a record. How an
enormous factory like MGM did not know that if you sell a record like this, you
cannot use the picture and the name of the artist concerned unless it is her actual
voice. Unless they used Miss G’s own tape they couldn’t use Miss G as part of
the publicity. Miss G was called back to record again with the voice of the first
singer now wiped from the tape.
The
Show Boat
record was released with Miss G’s voice singing her two
songs. Then the real foolishness of MGM’s actions was shown. Miss G’s songs
were the only melodies “lifted” from the main record and issued as singles. Even
today, you can occasionally hear them on the radio. Miss G received small
royalties for the rest of her life.
The premier of
Show Boat
was held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.
Bales of cotton were stacked all over the foyer, and little black children danced
on them wearing straw hats and gingham dresses. One of the staterooms of the
Cotton Blossom
had been reproduced so we could feel as if we were on a voyage
down the Mississippi River. I can tell you, Hollywood in those early fifties was
pure bunkum. Miss G arrived looking like the Queen of California instead of
looking like Julie, the poor little half-caste heroine. She wore a dress designed
by Irene, a black and green satin creation, an emerald necklace given to her by
Frank to match her eyes, and the Sidney Guilaroff hairstyle set her off to
perfection.
With the completion of
Show Boat
, Miss G’s seven-year contract came to
an end. A new contract had to be negotiated, and Miss G was in two minds
about what she should do. Much later, she understood that this was a period
when the other stars were beginning to negotiate individual packages in which
they could dictate their own terms. At that time she had tunnel vision. Somehow
she had to help Frank to start climbing again. After all, he had sacrificed a lot for
her. She had not broken up his marriage—that had fallen apart years before—
but now she was the one who did all the supporting.
For a considerable time, she had been seeking a film in which she and
Frank could star together. She believed she had found the property,
Meet Me in
St. Louis
. With this in mind, she approached MGM. If they would agree to make
this picture in the near future, she would sign on for another seven years. They
agreed.
I don’t think Frank was fully aware of what was going on. He was very
proud, even if very broke. I felt he went along with Miss G’s idea without
realizing how much she was trying to help him. The outcome was sad. The
picture was never made, but Miss G was hooked into her contract with MGM.
When MGM finally decided to keep their end of the bargain, Frank had already
won his Oscar for his performance in
From Here to Eternity
, and he was too
busy.
It was without any doubt one of the biggest disappointments of Miss G’s
life. In the same way that Frank never forgave her for sliding into bed with
Mario Cabre, Miss G always held it against Frank that he had been responsible
for letting her in for another seven years of MGM tyranny.
MGM had pulled off a great bargain, and they knew it. In the new contract
Miss G was going to make seven pictures, one a year for seven years, at a salary
of $50,000 a year. Before the contract had been signed, MGM had already
loaned her out to Universal for $100,000 for a few weeks’ work. With the new
contract signed and sealed, they announced the loan-out fee for Miss G would be
$120,000. Oh well, just call it smart business. When she finally realized what
was going on, Miss G was livid.
Looking at Frank Sinatra today, knowing he ranks as one of the greatest
artists of the 20
^th
Century, it is difficult to imagine that in the early fifties he
seemed to be on the verge of total eclipse. He lost his voice and his selfconfidence after suffering with a throat infection at the Copacabana in New
York. Then he was consigned to working in second-rate Reno and Lake Tahoe
clubs—a real comedown.
One of the first turn-ups in Frank’s fortunes began when he got the
nightclub spot at the brand new Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Ava was now
renting the house at Lake Tahoe, which was our base. On the morning we set
off to drive to Las Vegas in Frank’s black Cadillac convertible, the atmosphere
in the car was cool, if not icy. Frank was grim-faced. Miss G was withdrawn.
They had had one of their constant rows, and they were not speaking to each
other. Great! Rags and I sat in the back and tried to look as if we were enjoying
ourselves.
Things did not improve as we reached the outskirts of Las Vegas where the
roads were wide and straight. We met more traffic, including a few cars full of
teenage kids who were looking for fun. They spotted Miss G—not Frank—in
the open convertible. Oh boy, were they thrilled.
“Gee guys. See who that is–Ava Gardner! The real Ava Gardner! Hi, Ava!
What ya doing here? Where are you going?”
They ranged alongside, still shouting about their discovery. Ava laughed
and waved at them, but Frank was far from pleased. Eventually he braked and
yelled across at them. The kids laughed, and no one really minded. Only Frank
minded.
We reached the Sands Hotel. It was huge, new and unfinished. Open
spaces that would become areas of green lawn were now wide stretches of red
mud.
The nightclub spot Frank had been engaged to fill had previously been
occupied by Billy Eckstine, the talented pianist and singer. I was about to learn,
like he had, that when you were black, management of the Sands Hotel had very
little time or space for you.
Frank and Miss G were treated like royalty and shown to a huge suite. A
room for me somewhere near by? No way. They were building small duplex
apartments around the back. That’s where Mr. Eckstine had stayed. I had my
room there too. Mr. Eckstine had been allowed into the nightclub for his act. I
had no act, so I was not allowed even into the lobby of the hotel or the hotel
pool to hand Miss G her towel. No point in protesting. That was the life as it was
in Las Vegas in the early fifties. It got very uncomfortable there. I couldn’t even
go shopping. There were signs outside every shop prohibiting blacks from
access. Rags had more seniority than I did.
After a few days I said to Miss G, “Honey, I’m supposed to be here as your
maid, and I can’t even get into the hotel. I think it’s better if I take Rags back to
L.A. and keep the Pacific Palisades house going.” Miss G agreed, although she
had done her best to champion my cause, something hard to do because she had
to be on Frank’s side too.
She said, “I’ll ring Bappie and get her up here. She has nothing else to do
but look after that old drunk of hers, Charlie Guest.” Bappie raised hell. Didn’t
anyone know that the races were on? She wasn’t coming over to Las Vegas
when she could go racing every day. Bappie was a great drinker, and Miss G
always maintained that Bappie could drink her under the table. She was also a
great user of strong language and a compulsive gambler.
The only thing that broke her determination was when Miss G retaliated in
loving sisterly language, “For Christ sake, this is the gambling center of the
world. You can play cards and shoot dice for twenty-four hours a day. So get up
here, or I’ll throw you and Charlie out of Nichols Canyon.” Miss G won.
Bappie arrived. She looked around and said, “Rene, let’s take a walk and
see if we can find a drink. I might even find a craps table.” Bappie loved craps
tables. I had seen her perform at both Reno and Lake Tahoe. She could shoot
craps like a man with all the finger popping and jumping back as she threw the
dice. We didn’t find a craps table, but we did find a bar with a big sign outside
which read, “Everybody Welcome.”
“That’s us,” said Bappie, and we went in and sat down at a table. The
waiter came over, and Bappie ordered two dry martinis. A few minutes later he
brought one drink and set it before Bappie. She sipped it absent-mindedly, then
looked across and said in surprise, “Where’s yours?”
Before I could even answer, there was this big guy–plainly the owner–
glaring down at me and saying, “Doncha know your sort ain’t allowed in here.
Out of here–now–before you’re thrown out!”
I got up and left and went out into the sunlight and the pavement. I realized
I was crying. I didn’t want to cry. I began to walk back towards the Sands trying
to be realistic saying to myself that crying would do no good. It had happened
before. It would happen again. Stop crying and just go back to your room.
Bappie caught up with me and walked alongside and said, “Rene, I’m
sorry.” Then she said, “You’re crying?” and I said, “No, I’m not, I’ve just got
something in my eye.”
We just walked together in silence after that. Bappie knew what I was
crying about, but she knew she couldn’t do anything about it either. I went off to
my room, sat on the bed, and cried some more. Rags jumped up beside me and
licked me as if I was a real human being, so he got a few tears dropped on him
too.
The door opened, and Miss G came in and began, “Bappie told me…”
Then she stopped and sat on the bed with me and took me in her arms and held
me the same way I had done so many times for her.
She said, “Rene, you are not staying in this place. I’ve got to stay because
Frank’s performing, but you’re going back out of this junkyard. Rags is going
back with you because he can’t stand it either.”
We went back to Pacific Palisades where the sound of the sea drowned out
any crying I had left. It didn’t happen often. I don’t know why it got to me
there.