The Legs Are the Last to Go (14 page)

But I have asked myself if it was work that destroyed my marriage to Vic Damone twenty years later—or the fact that for most women, the combination of financial success and the glamour of Hollywood are too combustible a cocktail for most any marriage.

 

Vic did not want me to go away to Toronto for a year to be in
Sunset Boulevard
. When it became clear that I might actually get the part, we were visiting friends of his in Florida. This packet of music arrived, and I was playing a recording and singing to it one day, and Vic said, “These are very challenging songs vocally, and you're going to be away for a long time. I don't think you should do this.” It stopped me cold. I put the music away. But I didn't respond. I certainly wasn't ready to tell him that it looked like I would be offered the part. I knew he didn't want me away from our marriage. And I'm still not positive in my heart that I didn't feel like a criminal for wanting the role. He never quite said, “Do you want this marriage or do you want your career?” But we were certainly in the realm of that kind of question. So it was there in the living room of his friends in a pleasant golf community in Florida that this deep emotional crevice had become even bigger between us.

Things had not been so peachy in our marriage, anyway. I knew that. We were comfortable on some levels, yes, and looked
like quite a happy and successful couple. But if things were so great, why did I always seem to need a drink around him? For years, I had stayed away from the drinking that was almost mandatory (Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra were my big show-business brothers, for goodness' sake!) in my field. And I was never fond of how my mother behaved after a couple of drinks. But with each man and each marriage, it is true that I found myself needing a glass of wine or a cocktail to accompany every bumpy conversation. With Vic, the drinking had gotten as close to dangerous as it ever had. I still remember the night we were out to dinner with some friends of his who didn't thrill me. But he wouldn't take my cue at the end of the night that I wanted to go home and do my exercises and go to bed. I should have just called a cab. But I was tipsy enough to get down on the floor and to start doing my exercises right there at the restaurant table. It may seem funny now, but at the time it was a sign that something was going very wrong between us.

Dad, me, Mom, Sylvie, and the O'Gilvie family in 1945, at Lake Drew resort in upstate New York.

Definitely counting on the legs, as I did not yet have access to couture. London, 1957.
HULTON/DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS

With friends at a fund-raiser at the Audubon Ballroom in New York—looking rather at ease even though I was half undressed. My father did not care for the costume.

With my parents and my first husband at an anniversary party at my parents' home.

Absolutely nothing exceeded the experience of working with the “Chairman of the Board,” Frank Sinatra. Through his caring interaction with my four-year-old daughter, I was privileged to see the private side of him.
BETTMAN/CORBIS

My daughter, Suzanne, trying to protect our privacy on Fire Island in a 1967 photo shoot for a magazine. The fur was just a bit over the top.
© ADGER COWAN

Husband number four, Vic Damone, and I enjoyed attending red carpet events together—both of us peacocks.
TIME/LIFE PICTURES/GETTY
.

Husband number two, Freddie Glusman, at our Hotel Bel-Air wedding in 1974. We basically walked down the aisle and in opposite directions.

My friend Bob Goulet and me at the 22nd Tony Awards afterparty at Sardi's.
© RON GALELLA/WIRE IMAGE
.

The genius behind Motown, Berry Gordy, at a Shirley Chisholm presidential fund-raiser at my Beverly Hills home.

With Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong in Paris during the shooting of the film
Paris Blues
. Duke treated me beautifully and decided to educate me in the finesse of dining on caviar.
© HERMAN LEONARD PHOTOGRAPHY LLC/CTSIMAGES.COM

Paul Newman, me, Adele Ritt, and Kirk Douglas on the set of
Paris Blues
© DELTA/PIX INC./TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES