The Valentino Affair (17 page)

The weekly paycheck of seventy-five dollars might have represented a fraction of what he had once earned with Joan Sawyer, but it was a fortune compared to the pittance he had been scraping by on for the past six months. On April 28, the show finished its run at the Duquesne Theater in Pittsburgh, and then, boasting “The Snappiest Chorus in Many Moons,”
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it headed west with stopovers at Iowa City, Omaha, and Denver en route to San Francisco. After a three-night run in Salt Lake City, which ended on May 18, for some reason Rodolfo disappeared from the cast.

Accounts vary as to why this happened. Some claim that the show folded—unlikely since the musical opened at the Mason Opera House in Los Angeles on June 18. Others suggest that Rodolfo was fired in a dispute over pay. Whatever the reason, the spring of 1917 found the young Italian in California. By June 1 he was living at 7364 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, the address shown on the American draft exemption card that excused him from war service on grounds of being an alien. An alien, maybe, but he couldn’t have felt more at home. He was enjoying a Mediterranean climate—the air was filled with the scent of orange blossoms and olive groves stretched for miles—and at long last he was ready to apply himself to his greatest ambition: breaking into motion pictures.

Two and a half thousand miles away, on Long Island, Blanca’s resentment was turning septic. She felt she had been hoodwinked in the divorce negotiations that had been so heavily skewed in favor of her unfaithful ex-husband. In particular, she detested the onerous travel restrictions that the courts had imposed on Jack Jr., and she filed an application with the County Clerk’s Office to have these restrictions rescinded. Her affidavit stated that she was “possessed of great wealth,” and she offered to charter a steamship, if necessary, to provide the boy with safe conduct. “It is an extremely painful situation in which to be placed,” she said. “I must either give up my child and let him remain here, or give up my mother and friends in Chile. I have but few friends here, and my mother is aged and anxious to see my son. If my application is denied I am certain it will impair my health.”
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It was a well-reasoned argument, and yet, in a mysterious turn of events, the application was withdrawn the same day it was submitted.

Press reports hinted that the change of heart had resulted from rumors that the couple was discussing a reconciliation, with friends close to both parties saying that only pride was keeping them apart and that “if anyone ever brings them together it will be Baby De Saulles.”
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Nothing could have been further from the truth. Blanca’s bitterness over the custody issue was playing havoc with her mental state. An air of unreality now took hold of her, driven by a fear that Jack, having won in court already, now was winning the battle for the heart of their son. Conveniently shoved into some dark recess at the back of her mind was the fact that twice she had chosen to abandon Jack Jr. for extended periods of time while she traveled overseas. The wrench hadn’t troubled her then. But the divorce changed all that. In the parlance of her homeland, gaining permanent custody of her son now became a
punto de honor
(point of honor).

But there were diversions. On June 30, Jack wrote a letter to Blanca in which he complained about Nurse Mallock’s influence on their son. He accused her of being anti-American and of having frequently criticized Chile in the presence of other servants. She was, he said, “solely in favor of England and its flag.”
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Six days later Blanca heeded Jack’s advice and fired the nurse. Judging from Miss Mallock’s furious reaction—and sharp-tongued antipathy toward both Jack and Blanca—there was more to her dismissal than meets the eye.

In her stead, Blanca hired a young woman from France named Suzanne Monteau to look after Jack Jr. It proved to be an inspired choice. In the tumultuous times that lay ahead, Suzanne would prove to be a loyal servant to Blanca, which was just as well because she and Jack were wrangling harder than ever over custody. In June, while Blanca perspired in Manhattan waiting for Crossways to be made ready for her occupation, she received another letter from Jack. As The Box was well provided with pets and pleasures for the boy, he wrote, it would be a shame to keep him in town during the steamy month of July, and he offered Blanca the use of The Box for that month while she had the child. Blanca turned him down flat. Jack made a counteroffer: How about if he kept the boy until she was settled in at Crossways? That was more agreeable to Blanca, and Jack Jr. went to stay with his father. He remained there through all of June. On July 3, Blanca moved back into Crossways, and that same day Jack Jr. was returned to her custody.

By the opulent standards of its neighbors, Crossways was a low-key, English-style bungalow painted white, set on three acres, and surrounded by a profusion of trees, dwarf evergreens, and flowering plants and fountains. A high redbrick wall with two sturdy oak gates encircled the whole estate. Owned by Walter Watson, the property had an ill-starred history. Locals called it “The House of Trouble”
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because of its checkered past. It had once been home to society belle Mary Jane Tatum, the wife of a wealthy cotton broker, and a lady whose boudoir indiscretions in 1915 entertained millions of newspaper readers. Before that at Crossways, on January 13, 1914, a Japanese butler, Sukezi Namina, had shot and killed a married woman named Tessa Simmons, who spurned his attentions, before turning the gun on himself.

Shortly after moving back into Crossways, Blanca received a letter from Jack in which he said that since Jack Jr. had been so happy at The Box, with his favorite pony, pet dog, and, of course, the playground, it seemed churlish to remove him from this environment. If Blanca wished their son to avail himself of these facilities, he [Jack Sr.] would vacate The Box so that Blanca and their son might enjoy it without him being there. Blanca gave this proposal some consideration. While she had no objection to her son enjoying the superior amenities on offer at The Box, she resisted breaking the terms of the original court agreement, fearful of a possible disadvantageous outcome. Accordingly, she declined. Jack countered with a compromise. What if Jack Jr. came over each day for a couple hours and returned that same evening? Blanca began to bend. But before giving her final consent, she wanted clarification. Under the court stipulation, she was scheduled to have custody for all of July, and she felt that Jack owed her three days’ custody to make up for the time she had lost at the beginning of the month. Jack protested that those three days had been for the boy’s benefit, to get him out of sweltering Manhattan for a few days at the height of summer, but Blanca refused to see it that way. She had lost three precious days with her son, and she wanted them back.

Finally, in exasperation, Jack agreed in writing that Blanca could retain custody for three extra days at the beginning of August to make up for any perceived shortfall in July. Blanca phoned Jack to give her agreement to this understanding.

Following this, each afternoon throughout July, at three o’clock, an automobile would arrive to pick up Jack Jr. and take him to The Box. There, the youngster twirled on the merry-go-round or played on the swing, surrounded by his favorite pets, before returning to his mother that same day at 6:00 p.m. It seemed a generous enough arrangement, one that had the boy’s best interests at heart, but as the days passed Blanca’s paranoia grabbed hold. She feared that the delights on offer at The Box were seducing Jack Jr. away from her. Worse still, she feared that Jack was using this opportunity to poison her son’s mind against her. Stoking her foul mood was a merciless heat wave that pushed the mercury into the nineties. She had always hated hot weather, and as the thermometer soared so did her temper.

On August 3 it finally boiled over.

EIGHT

“It Had to Be Done”

August 3, 1917

T
HE DAY STARTED MUCH LIKE ANY OTHER.
A
T EIGHT O’CLOCK ONE OF THE
three maids woke Jack Jr., dressed him, and took him downstairs, where another servant had prepared his breakfast. After this the youngster went outside to play in the blazing sunshine. Slightly less than an hour later, Blanca rose and took a cold shower to combat the heat. After breakfast, she went into the garden to check on her son. A short while later a maid ran out to say that Mr. de Saulles was on the phone. Blanca took the call. Jack asked for a favor: His father and sister were coming over that evening and would love to see Jack Jr.; could he send a car over that afternoon to pick him up? According to Blanca, he gave his solemn promise that, after the brief visit, Jack Jr. would return that same evening. After some hesitation, Blanca agreed to the arrangement.

But over the course of the day, she had second thoughts. Under the terms of the court settlement, Jack was entitled to custody from August 1, but, because Blanca hadn’t taken custody of their son until July 6, by her reckoning she had the right to keep him three more days, until August 6. Blanca thought she had been robbed, and the more she brooded on this perceived theft, the more peevish she became.

Later that morning she used the phone again, this time to call the local police station. Constable Leonard Thorne dealt with Blanca’s agitated claim that someone had attempted to break into her garage the previous day. She demanded that he come to investigate right away. Deciding that the day-old incident didn’t sound that urgent—nothing had been taken—Thorne excused himself on the grounds that he was tied up for the rest of the day, but he did promise to call on Blanca the following morning. This setback, coupled with the enervating heat, did nothing to lighten Blanca’s darkening mood.

Jack de Saulles had no such worries, either about his domestic situation or the weather. Late morning found him on Sixth Avenue in broiling Midtown Manhattan for a lunch date at Sherry’s restaurant, one of the Four Hundred’s favorite watering holes. This was where, in 1905, insurance-magnate James Hazen Hyde had outraged New Yorkers by splurging a reported two hundred thousand dollars on turning the restaurant’s ballroom into a rose petal–strewn facsimile of the court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Even the waiters wore powdered wigs. Public indignation was mitigated somewhat when Hyde protested that his little shindig had cost a mere one hundred thousand dollars.

Overwhelmingly opulent, with its vast chandeliers and dining tables practically the size of football fields, Sherry’s might have been custom-built for an unabashed social climber like de Saulles. He was a regular patron, and joining him today were his father, Major de Saulles, newly arrived that morning from South Bethlehem for a two-week visit, business associate and drinking pal Marshall Ward, and longtime friend Dudley Field Malone. The men had no shortage of lunchtime banter. Much of it centered on Malone’s knack for ruffling political feathers. Just recently the Collector of the Port of New York had hit the headlines by threatening to resign his post in protest after sixteen female suffragists, arrested for demonstrating outside the White House, were sentenced to sixty days in the workhouse. Thanks largely to Malone’s noisy protests, the women were pardoned and freed after two days.

Following a long, good-humored lunch, Jack bade farewell to Malone and then, with his father and Ward, motored back across the Queensboro Bridge and onto the newly constructed Long Island Motor Parkway. Thirty minutes’ easy driving brought them to The Box. Jack’s first point of business was to dispatch a maid by automobile to pick up his son, as per the telephone arrangements made earlier that day.

Over at Crossways, Blanca had asked Suzanne to ready Jack Jr. for the trip. At three o’clock on the dot, the roadster pulled into the driveway. Without thinking, a maid sprang from the car and rang the bell. Seconds later the door flew open. Blanca stood in the doorway, her face like thunder. “What do you mean by coming to the front door?”
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she snapped. Before the poor woman could splutter an apology, she was sent packing, ears ringing with a demand that some other servant—one with better manners—should come to collect Jack Jr.

About half an hour later, a suitably contrite manservant arrived and presented himself at the rear entrance. Blanca, still glaring daggers at the newcomer, shepherded Jack Jr. personally out to the car, kissing him good-bye and saying that she would see him soon. Once back indoors, she ordered dinner for seven o’clock and told her butler, Noe Tagliabue, to lay a place at the table for Jack Jr.