Master of Ceremonies: A Memoir (16 page)

Silence.

“But I’m here, and I’m ready!”

Silence.

Ready? I was ready, too. Ready to hang up, which I did. To think that I would just turn around and come get her! My overreaction was a sign that I was really attracted to her. But it also stemmed from my larger frustration in constantly looking for a woman with whom I could share my life. Even though I had had relationships with men, I never fully committed to any of them—let alone the idea of being with a man long term. I always dated women in the hope of finding the one who could be a wife and mother. That was never out of mind. Even to the point of spoiling some of my pursuits with guys.

So maybe some of my anger was misplaced. In fact, when Jo called a couple of days later, I was still pissed. That’s how interested I was. On the phone, she never stopped talking: Portia pleading her case, begging for that “quality of mercy.” She needn’t have; since she stood me up I hadn’t been able to think about much else other than her. I agreed to take her to dinner.

I took her to a little southern-Italian restaurant, cuisine that was just becoming a trend in the Valley. Having never seen anything like the red-and-white-checkered tablecloths and dripping candles in Chianti bottles, we were charmed. Over dinner we discovered we knew a lot of the same people in New York, and had a great deal in common. For sure we were both besotted with the theater and passionate about music and liberal politics (some of her relatives, she told me, were communists). We had both been ballet students; we both wanted to sing. (She was a gifted singer, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I was working on it—hence my voice lessons three times a week.) We had both changed our names and our noses. And, oh, yes, we were both Jewish.

Jo had been born Joan Carrie Brower to Clara and Izzy Brower of Brownsville, Brooklyn. In the infamous, rough neighborhood where they lived, an enclave of Central European Jews, Izzy was a pharmacist. Clara also got a degree in pharmaceutical science, impressive and unusual for a woman at the time, though she never ended up practicing. She found she could not cope and spent pretty much the rest of her life in bed with a mysterious back ailment.

The Browers—including her grandmother, who lived upstairs with her second husband, a rabbi—were always extremely critical of Jo’s desire to be an actress, and they did everything they could to stand in her way. Her older brother Mitchel, who was also interested in the theater, was sympathetic and her ally. She was forever upset that her family didn’t understand or truly see her for who she was, which I could relate to. So she distanced herself from them by moving to Manhattan to make a whole new life. One of her big breaks was replacing Jo Sullivan, the original Polly Peachum, early in the run of the historic production of Brecht-Weill’s
Threepenny Opera
at the Theater de Lys. I was impressed that something so edgy and arty was part of her résumé.

The conversation didn’t falter for a second. I made her laugh so much that she had to beg me to stop—otherwise, she said, she would wet her pants. I already felt the desire to make up for her unhappy family life.

After dinner, we went back to my apartment in West Hollywood. From the small terrace above the strip that I filled with plants, the lights of LA were far-reaching and magical. I was attracted to her, and we felt so connected in that moment, I thought,
She could be the one
. Although there was a high level of sexual excitement between us, the idea that this, that
we
, could work was not simply sexual. It was about compatibility. In this beautiful and generous woman lying next to me, I foresaw a stable and loving future for us both. We would make up for all that we lacked in our respective pasts because of our complicated families. We would hear and take care of each other. We would create a family of our own.

Suddenly I felt differently about my sexuality. The am-I-this-or-am-I-that question no longer seemed germane. I had loved a number of people up till now, but after a life full of fraught relationships with both men and women, often with impossible and even dangerous complications, I was falling in love with this woman, this Jo Wilder, and this feeling seemed to put an end to all the questions, replacing them with an answer.
Jo and Joel
. I even liked the way our names looked together.

We ended up spending most every night together thereafter, each day falling more in love. It was thrilling and settling to know that there was a real human being with whom I wanted to spend my life and make a family, and after only three weeks of knowing each other, I asked her to marry me. No fanfare. I simply got down on one knee and asked her. And despite the fact that I didn’t even have a ring, Jo said yes.

It was an impulsive move. But when I get an idea in my head, nobody can talk me out of it. It’s how I’ve always been. I could have known Jo for days, weeks, or months; it didn’t matter. It was about the two of us being right for each other, and of that I had no doubt.

Moving fast also meant I didn’t have time to dwell on the previous conflicts I’d had. I believed that whatever attracted me to men would no longer be an issue. That’s what I believed, and I was ready to move forward with life.

As soon as Jo said yes I started to plan the wedding. I couldn’t wait to be married. I was always
supposed
to be married. It had never been clearer to me, but Jo took a step back almost immediately.

“Why do we have to rush?” she said.

“You’re just afraid,” I said. “I love you so much. You must know that.”

“Why can’t we just be engaged?”

“Because I want to marry you and have children with you.”

“I can’t think about children now. I’ve got my career.”

I thought I had all the answers. The thing I had worked on all those years in therapy was coming true; my history with men had faded into a past narrative. I was finally ready, and the force of my conviction was so strong that no one, not even Jo Wilder, could talk me out of it.

She was scared by the example set by her parents and by her own past difficult relationships with men. But none of those applied to us. We fit like a jigsaw puzzle. Our ages, our interests, our attraction: We were perfect. As for her career, I told her I didn’t think that should stop us. No—we could work anything out.

But inside, while I knew Jo was talented, I dreamed about her becoming a wife and mother—not an actress. I convinced myself, from what she had shared with me about how upset the business had made her, that she was too fragile for the theater. I decided that what she needed was someone to take care of her, and if I was anything, I was a caretaker. After dating for less than a month, I couldn’t know all her hopes and fears, her inner depth, but I acted “as if.” I pushed hard for marriage and convinced her that she’d come to feel it was the right decision.

On the morning of June 29, 1958, Charles McArthur—whom we’d discovered was a mutual friend from class at the Neighborhood Playhouse—and I got up early to head down to Bill’s Flower Market, on Sixth Avenue at 28th Street, to pick up armfuls of white marguerite daisies for our wedding. Jo and I had moved back to New York, which we considered our primary home, since work wasn’t happening for either of us in LA.

Charles and his wife Julia, a blonde, were a striking couple from Kansas City. They had generously offered to have the wedding in the living room of their apartment in the fabled Dakota, where they lived with their five children. In my world, the Dakota was a place where anybody would dream of getting married. Steps from Central Park, the extraordinary West Side building was home to many celebrities and architecturally unique.

The McArthurs’ apartment was classic old New York. Book-lined and high-ceilinged, with huge windows that offered superb views of the park, the place was grand but not ostentatious. The Browers, however, were not sure about the whole thing. With the shtetl sensibility of those who have never stopped running, they were always beyond suspicious. Despite the rabbi we hired and the chuppah we had brought into the middle of the living room, the Browers weren’t at all sure that this marriage was kosher. Jo’s parents, Clara and Izzy, were particularly doubtful. Their expectation had always been for their daughter to marry a doctor. Although I was starting to make a name for myself, I was an actor—not at all what they had envisioned for their Joanie. My parents were as thrilled about the marriage as the Browers were upset. Mom and Dad had long ago moved on from the incident with the cantor and any issues it had raised about my sexuality. From there on in, they knew only about the women in my life. Still, they had been concerned in the way that many Jewish parents worry about a grown son who is still single. Now they could relax; both their sons would be married—and to nice, pretty, Jewish girls! Grace and Mickey, instantly embracing Jo, hosted a party in Los Angeles to celebrate our engagement.

Among the thirty-five guests gathered at the Dakota that day was Lotte Lenya, the star of the German stage and screen and Kurt Weill’s widow. After her husband’s death, in 1950, she had made it her mission to keep his music alive. But it wasn’t until Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation of
The Threepenny Opera,
four years later, that Lenya became a star in America as well. The show, in which Jo played and became friends with Lenya, ran for nearly seven years.

Amri Galli-Campi, an outrageous former opera singer with whom Jo and I had both taken voice lessons, sang Mozart’s “Hallelujah” before the ceremony. But it was Jo who stole the show. It was her moment.

She was a beautiful bride in a white floor-length shirtwaist dress designed for her by Anne Klein, a friend of mine who had given Jo the gown as a wedding gift. I had taken her to the designer’s brightly lit showroom, where Anne and I decided what Jo should wear. Jo would have probably picked something much more glamorous than the simple organdy one we settled on, but I had left her no choice.

I began making over Jo’s look long before I picked out her wedding dress. It wasn’t intentional; I simply couldn’t help myself. Almost from the start of our relationship, I didn’t think anything of critiquing her clothing. Once when I picked her up for a dinner date, she appeared all done up in a dress, matching bolero jacket, and a matador hat! I thought to myself,
Oh, no, the costumes have got to go
.

“You really can’t go out like that,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“The
hat
.”

“I love this hat. Everyone always comments on it.”

“I’m sure they do. It’s a toreador’s hat. Are you going to fight a bull?”

“Well then, go without me.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to help. Wear whatever you want.”

I could see tears edging in from the corners of her eyes.

“Darling, all I mean is that this isn’t a fancy event. You know that blue dress you have? You always look stunning in that.”

Jo returned to her bedroom, probably relieved to get away from me, and reappeared in a few minutes wearing the blue dress.

“You are so beautiful. I am the luckiest man in the world.”

“Thank you,” she said in a tone that was, rightly, more confused than happy.

I didn’t think about her feelings or the fact that I had shamed her. I was just happy that she wasn’t wearing the hat.

Why was I such a bully? I was clearly very concerned that we convey the image of normalcy. That nothing be out of place. All I knew at the time was that when I looked at Jo, I saw only silly shapes and crazy colors marring her beauty. They were piles of unneeded items in an otherwise elegant room, and I set about tidying it up. I was pushy and insensitive as I got rid of her clothes and made her into a classier, simpler, more Mainbocher version of her original image, and I was pleased with myself. When I saw Jo in Anne’s dress on the day of our wedding, I cried. She looked so beautiful and, yes, so understated.

The rest of our wedding day and night was pure magic. That evening my dad was a hero, speaking to Jo’s grandfather in Yiddish, and giving a dinner for twelve at Danny’s Hideaway, the steakhouse of the moment. It was the kind of place where Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace could be spotted in one corner and Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle in another. The owner, Dante “Danny” Stradella, had become a friend of mine and sent out Italian specialties cooked by his mama in the kitchen.

After the wedding dinner, Jo and I headed to the Algonquin for our wedding night. The hotel, favored by literary and theatrical circles, was perfect for a pair of New York newlyweds like us. What could be more glamorous than the place where Dorothy Parker and the rest of the writers, actors, and critics who made up the Algonquin Round Table met daily for great conversation and unparalleled wit? Because I had often stayed at the hotel before I had my own apartment in New York, the owners, the Bodnes, gave us the bridal suite as a wedding present. Everything was in place: the City, the wedding, the suite, the wife.

The start of our marriage was as fun and unique as our wedding. Our first apartment was a studio on the second floor of a walkup at 8 Jones Street in Greenwich Village. Although small, it had a fireplace and just enough room for Jo, me, and her Yorkie, Pablo. We immediately drove out to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to look for a big antique brass bed. Successful in our mission, we found a beautiful bed that was so tarnished it was nearly black. (We applied Noxon Metal Polish to it once we got it home—then we spent a week trying to get the fumes out of the tiny apartment.) We felt slightly Bohemian in the Village, which was having its moment at the time.

The people on the streets didn’t look at all like the people uptown. Especially in the summer, it was like one large party with everyone out on their stoops, playing music, smoking, hanging out. Jo and I loved to walk around Washington Square Park on romantic, warm nights, soaking up the beautiful scene of young women in peasant tops, men in beards, and guitars playing folk music that floated through the evening.

Despite the social and political upheaval of the time and place, Jo and I lived a pretty domestic existence. We both loved to cook and had friends, usually couples, over often. I was certainly Grace’s son when it came to food. Shopping along West 4th Street and Bleecker, we found all the great bakeries, butchers, and vegetable and fruit markets, which were like the one Grandpa Epstein had run in Cleveland. Food was only one area of exploration in our pursuit of good things. We dove into art, ballet, opera, design—all those things that are so special, adventurous, and available in New York.