Shirley Jones (10 page)

She didn’t have a maid on call that night but, instead, had made dinner herself. I was most impressed that she served three different kinds of food so we would have a choice between chicken, fish, or steak. Her cooking was good, and we ate quite a lot.

Afterward, the four of us moved into the beautiful living room and lounged on a big couch while we all had after-dinner drinks and chatted about show business.

All of a sudden, Tony Newley got up and announced, “Right, we’ve got some porno movies. Why don’t we all get naked and watch together?”

Although the rest of the invitation was unspoken, this was the era of
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
, and it was clear what Tony was leading up to—swinging.

Jack gave me a piercing look. “How do you feel about that, Shirley?”

I shook my head. “Not me.”

To his credit, Jack said straight out, “My wife is a very beautiful and sexy woman, but she really isn’t interested in anything like that. And, listen, guys, it’s late for us.”

And we left.

That was then. Now, though, although swinging has never appealed to me in the least, I have to admit that in recent years, my attitude toward watching porno movies has undergone a radical transformation.

To return to the Rat Pack once more: Everyone has always assumed that Frank Sinatra was the leader of the Rat Pack. But in reality, Dean Martin was the true leader. Dean dictated how a number should be done. Dean told me that now and again when Frank wanted to rehearse a number, Dean would say, “Nah, I want to go and play a round of golf,” and that’s what he’d do instead. Then he just turned up for the show and performed his part in the act his way, with no rehearsal. He did drink, of course, but not during a show. Drinking onstage was just part of his act.

When Frank said at the very end that he wanted to take the Rat Pack show on the road one more time, Dean said, “I don’t want to go on the road again. I’m outta here,” and the Rat Pack never appeared onstage again.

I adored Dean Martin, appeared on his show four times, and thought he was great. He was so spontaneous. He never rehearsed anything. If I had to do a song with him, he would go through it a couple of times, and that would be that.

Dean and I were fond of each other, and we were neighbors in Bel Air. I always took my kids to the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard, and when Dean was no longer performing, that became his hangout as well, and I always used to see him there.

One night, Marty and I had dinner in the back room of the Hamburger Hamlet. When we came out to get our car, Dean was sitting at the bar, alone, watching TV. His teeth were out, he was munching spaghetti, and he was drunk.

He saw us and said, “Hi, Shirl, howya doing, honey?” and we chatted for a minute or two. I glanced out the window and noticed that his white Rolls-Royce was parked outside, but that he didn’t have a driver waiting for him in it.

So I said, “Listen, Dean, why don’t you let me and Marty drive you home?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

“You’ve been drinking,” I said as gently as possible.

“Don’t be silly, Shirley. I know what I’m doing. I’m gonna drive myself home. I do it all the time.”

I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Marty and I left.

Soon after, Dean was dead.

Was Dean Martin an alcoholic? I don’t know. Whatever the truth, it isn’t my way to be judgmental. After all, I’m the daughter of a brewer, and I do like my martini every afternoon at five. But that’s it. In fact, Marty and I won a major lawsuit in the eighties after the
National Enquirer
claimed he had driven me to drink! Their story claimed that I was drunk by three every afternoon. The entire cast and crew of
The Partridge Family
confirmed that was not the truth, and Marty and I won the lawsuit.

We deserved our victory, but I do know all about drink and drinking. First, because of the family business, and all those hours I spent as a child playing pool and pinball in bars, then because I was married to Jack (who introduced me to drinking), and also because one of my favorite parts was playing an alcoholic Sunshine Girl in the
Playhouse 90
production “The Big Slide,” with former circus clown and vaudeville comic Red Skelton.

“The Big Slide” was set in the 1920s. Red played Buddy McCoy, a down-on-his-luck comedian, and I played May Marley, the alcoholic Sunshine Girl who sings and dances in musicals. As my character committed suicide at the end of the play, the role gave me the chance to flex my muscles as a dramatic actress.

I only got the part through a stroke of luck. During rehearsals for “You’re the Top: A Salute to Cole Porter,” which would air on October 6, 1956, I was singing the iconic song “I Hate Men,” from
Kiss Me, Kate
, and the director of “The Big Slide” happened to be in the studio and saw my performance, which was really down and dirty. Which is how I got cast against type in “The Big Slide.”

As “The Big Slide” was to go out on live TV, the entire company rehearsed beforehand for five weeks, just as if we were preparing to put on a play in the theater. During rehearsals, I got to know Red Skelton pretty well and made the surprising discovery that his sense of humor was bluer than blue!

By another stroke of luck, when the play aired on November 8, 1956, my idol Burt Lancaster saw my performance and, as a result, offered me the part of Lulu Bains in
Elmer Gantry
, the part that would change my career, if not my life.

FIVE

If He’s Good or If He’s Bad

Carousel
opened on February 16, 1956, to rave reviews, although it didn’t turn out to be as big a box-office success as
Oklahoma!
—probably due to the darker subject matter of the plot.

My life, in contrast, was full of light. Jack and I got married at the Protestant Church of New Jerusalem in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at two in the afternoon of August 6, 1956, then four hours later, we performed the evening show of John Gay’s
The Beggar’s Opera
at the Sanders Theatre on the Harvard campus. During which we got married for a second time that day, onstage, as our characters, highwayman MacHeath and his paramour, Polly Peachum!

My childhood friend from Smithton, Red, was at our wedding, and so was Barbara Ruick, my costar from
Carousel
, along with Jack’s parents and mine. Luckily, my father liked Jack a lot, but my mother did not and made no bones about how she thought he was the wrong man for me. She never minced her words and told Jack to his face how she felt about him. He just laughed. But she was convinced that he was an incorrigible ladies’ man, and anytime she saw him through the years, she would always confront him about his womanizing.

“So, Jack, how many other women are you seeing on the side?” she’d ask.

“None, but don’t worry, Marge, I’ll soon find a few,” Jack would retort, cool as a cucumber.

On our wedding day, after the show, in which Jack played the villainous MacHeath to perfection, we had a reception at the Ritz, where we were staying, then Jack and I retired to our suite.

We’d long been lovers, but I wanted my wedding night to be special. My trousseau, I decided, should not be white, given that I was no longer a virgin. Instead, I made up my mind that on this special night, I would transform myself into the ultimate vamp. I purchased a sheer, black lace baby-doll outfit, with black satin high heels. Funny wedding night.

After I laid it all out on our bed, I slipped into the bathroom to freshen up. When I came out, Jack was dressed in my outfit, complete with high heels. Then the doorbell rang, and there was my agent, Gus Schirmer, with a bottle of champagne in hand. When he saw Jack, the look on Gus’s face was priceless. We all fell about laughing, and Gus had champagne with us, then left so that Jack and I could finally celebrate our union and make love as husband and wife at last.

August 6, 1956, wasn’t just our wedding day. That day the
New York Times
announced that Gordon MacRae and I would star in “You’re the Top,” a ninety-minute CBS tribute to Cole Porter in October, which turned out to be the show that indirectly led to my fateful appearance in
Playhouse 90
’s “The Big Slide.”

Cole Porter gave Jack his first big break on Broadway. Soon after our wedding night, Jack told me exactly what motivated Cole to hire an inexperienced sixteen-year-old from Jamaica, Queens, to dance in the chorus of his sophisticated Broadway show.

Despite the years that have passed, I remember Jack’s story word for word. Most women who married a handsome man and assumed that they were going to live happily ever after with him, but then heard the story I heard from Jack, would probably remember it word for word as well.

Me: “So, Jack, did you ever meet Cole Porter?”

Jack: “Meet him! I had sex with him.”

Me (after I’d picked myself up off the floor): “You did?”

Jack: “He was about to cast a new show. I wanted a job in it, and that was the way to get it. Somehow, someone invited me up for drinks at Cole Porter’s apartment at the Waldorf, and then everybody left and I was alone with Cole.”

Me (holding my breath): . . .

Jack: “I told a few funny stories, probably flirted with him some. Then the conversation stopped, and I took my penis out and said, ‘Do you want some of this?’ ”

Jack’s endowment was so vast, so desirable, that I had no doubt whatsoever about Cole Porter’s answer.

I was shocked, but not dreadfully, when Jack said straight out, “I’m not gay, but if I need a job, I’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”

For whatever reason, partly because I loved him so much and for me he could do no wrong, and partly because my career had evolved so quickly, so easily, and so painlessly and it had not been that way for Jack, I understood.

In a way, I was happy that Jack had told me the truth. I didn’t want him to keep anything from me. Besides, I didn’t want to hear about Jack and Cole Porter from anyone else.

But when I read Gerald Clarke’s biography
Truman Capote
, based on his interviews with Truman, I got a much more negative slant on the Cole Porter story than the version Jack presented me with.

Clarke quotes Capote as revealing, “There was another story Cole told me that I didn’t use because it sounded rather unpleasant and I liked Cole. It was about his long affair with that actor, Jack Cassidy.”

Long affair? Jack didn’t give me the impression that he had more than a one-evening encounter with Cole.

According to Clarke, Jack was uncharacteristically cruel to Cole, and I still have difficulty in believing the following story Capote claimed Cole Porter had told him:

“Cassidy would say, ‘Do you want this cock? Then come and get it.’

“Then he would stand away so that Cole, whose legs had been paralyzed in that awful riding accident, would have to crawl toward him. Every time Cole got near, Cassidy would move further away. This went on for half an hour or forty-five minutes before Cassidy would finally stop and let Cole have it.”

Difficult as it is for me to accept the possibility of truth in Capote’s anecdote, I do know that Jack did have a dark side.