Watch Me: A Memoir (20 page)

“But that’s not my fault,” I said. “I was just sitting for the thing. I didn’t paint it.”

“It is your fault,” he replied. “I taught you what was good art. This is your responsibility, how you are portrayed. The smart ones look after themselves.”

I realized after I thought it over that he was right. My participation had made me responsible.

I don’t know whose idea it was for Dad to start giving dinner parties in Rhode Island, because he was seriously ill. About ten of us, including Danny; his mother, Zoë; Allegra, who had flown in from London; and Tony, Roberto Silvi, Steven Haft, Lauren Bacall, Harry Dean Stanton, and several other cast and crew members were seated at the dinner table when Dad started to talk about old times, about
The African Queen
and Bogart and Katie Hepburn. He went on and on about Katie Hepburn, how wonderful she was! A man’s woman, a woman’s woman, a superb actress, an inimitable character. She was the best female friend he ever had! Betty Bacall was listening to this shower of praise for Hepburn. Dad had all but ignored her—she who had cooked for the crew of
The African Queen
and kept spirits aloft during their dangerous sojourn in the Congo.

The night before, I had witnessed Betty correct a fan who made the mistake of complimenting her on
Casablanca
, a movie in which Bogart starred with Ingrid Bergman, so I was amazed when a small voice from Betty asked sweetly, “But John, what about me? Wasn’t I your friend, too?”

The question hung in the air for a moment. Dad replied in a consoling tone, looking at her fondly down the length of the dinner table. “Oh, honey, you didn’t count,” he said. “You were married to Bogie.”

Betty Bacall told me later that when Bogie became terribly sick with cancer, she called Dad in Paris to tell him the news. Dad said, “I’ll be right there, but don’t tell him I’m coming.” When Dad arrived in Los Angeles, he went straight to the hospital. The doctors had taken Bogie from his room to perform some tests. As Dad waited for him to return, he climbed into Bogie’s bed, and when his dearest friend was brought back to the room, Dad cheerfully flung open the covers and invited him in.

*  *  *

Dad was at Charlton Hospital in Fall River, Massachusetts, near the end of his life. During our second week in Newport, it had become apparent that he needed to go into intensive care. Before we left L.A., Dad had asked if Bob Mitchum would replace him in the film should anything go wrong. After hearing the news of Dad’s failing health, Mitchum came in overnight, worked the next day, and drove up to Fall River that evening. He took one look at Dad, who was very thin and very weak, and knew the situation was grave. He summoned a young, pretty nurse. She came into the room, and he said, “Miss, would you please stand over there? In front of Mr. Huston’s bed.”

“Okay,” said the nurse.

“And if you don’t mind,” said Mitchum, “would you hitch your skirt up just a little bit?”

The nurse was in this hospital room with these two old geezers and she was game; she rolled up her skirt just a little bit.

Mitchum said, “Maybe a little more, honey,” and the nurse rolled it up one more turn.

Dad broke out laughing. “You’re right, Bob,” he said. “I haven’t been eating enough.”

The great beauty and socialite Marietta Tree came from New York to visit Dad in Fall River. The first day, she came into the hospital wearing a black and white polka-dot dress, with a big white picture hat and elbow-length white gloves. Whenever she came into his hospital room, his heart monitor would peak. They would read poetry to each other. It was a big love affair with Marietta. Zoë, always devoted to Dad, nursed him through several nights at the hospital. If they visited, Maricela would disappear. She told me that there were a few women with whom Dad remained very much involved. On his last visit to London, he had said to Maricela, “I need eight hours of oxygen for tomorrow and a limousine,” and she asked, “Why? Where are you going?” And he said, “Don’t ask.” She ordered the oxygen and showed him how to change the canisters and spin the valves, and off he went. Later she found out from the limousine driver that Dad took the car to Heathrow Airport, where the actress Suzanne Flon got off an Air France plane. He took her to Prunier’s, and they had a lovely dinner: champagne and caviar. Afterward, they got back into the car, and Mr. Huston took Mademoiselle Flon to the airport and put her back on the plane to Paris. That was the last time he ever saw Suzanne.

On one occasion when Dad was in the hospital, one of us tried to broach the subject of where he might like to be buried. He was outraged and disgusted that such a subject would even come up. There were people who plan their funerals and think about these things, but not Dad.

His stay at the hospital in Fall River had lasted more than three weeks. He had spent his eighty-first birthday, August 5, anxiously awaiting our arrival from the set in Newport, a couple of hours away. When eventually we arrived, he had been
upset, and scolded me for being late. Now he had returned to the house in Newport. He was as weak and transparent as lace. Zoë had come to the house with Danny for dinner; Allegra had gone back to work in London; Tony had been staying in a room downstairs. Dad had not slept in a couple of days.

It was after ten o’clock. I was ready to drive back to my apartment on the harbor.

“Must you go?” Dad asked. “Can’t you stay a little longer, honey?”

“It’s late, Dad,” I said. “I’m working in the morning. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.” I kissed him good night on the crown of his head.

The call came at dawn. It was Maricela. “Your father has passed away,” she said.

I was shocked that I did not have a premonition, some foreknowledge of what might happen in the night.

I got into the rental car and drove to the house. When I walked into his room, he was lying on his side, facing the bedside table, and under his outstretched arm was a dictionary. I sat down on the bed in the curve of his body. His hand was soft but growing cold. I stroked his back. Maricela stood by.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It was after you left. He became very restless. I asked him if he wanted the doctor, and he said no. I told him I was calling the ambulance, but he said no. Not to do it. He said he was tired. He lay back down, and then he said, ‘Have you got the express rifles?’ And I said, ‘Yes, John, we have lots of guns.’ And then he said, ‘Do we have ammunition?’ And I said, ‘Yes, John, we have tons of ammunition.’ Then he said, ‘Let’s give ’em hell.’ Those were his last words.” It was August 28, 1987. He was hunting big game or out there on the fields of battle.

When Dad died, everything went silent. There was an empty chasm where he had been, the sound of his voice stilled. Like a whale that breaches and dives into the deep. All that character, emptied of expression. I longed for him—his burst of laughter, his head thrown back, his monkey grin—and I cursed his disease, and time, for taking him. Zoë told me she had known, and had told Danny, that Dad would die that night.

We called Allegra to tell her the news. Then Tony and Maricela left to take Dad’s body back to California.

That evening I sat in my little rented bungalow on the harbor, and Harry Dean came over from his place a few doors down on the wharf in Jockey shorts and cowboy boots and sang Mexican love songs with a sob in his voice.

The following morning I got a call from Tony, who was making arrangements for the funeral. “I know that we had decided to keep it limited to family,” he said, “but Dad’s lawyers are coming out from New York.”

I had come to resent my father’s lawyers and business managers throughout the years. Dad was never much interested in how his lawyers dealt with his dependents. “No,” I said. “No way do I want to see them at Dad’s funeral.” Tony didn’t reply.

Then all at once, I heard Dad’s voice everywhere, in every corner of the room. It was in direct contradiction to what I was feeling—as ghostly an experience as I’ve ever had. “Don’t be ridiculous, honey,” he said. “Of course they should be there.”

Dad was buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, beside his mother and his grandmother, Rhea and Adelia Gore. Jack brought me to the funeral. It was in the chapel on the grounds.
I don’t know who decided that Dad should be embalmed, but they gave him a rather florid paint job. He looked benign, if a little pink and waxy. Billy Pearson, his old friend, stood up in the church and said, “I’m not gonna speak for long, John, because I know you want to get the hell out of here and get that makeup off your face.” Later, at the grave site, the funeral director handed me a lead box. And I said, “Oh, it’s heavy!” And he said, “Your father was a very big man.” You want to weep, but you also want to cry with laughter. Sometimes that’s all you can do.

A small monetary inheritance was eventually distributed among Zoë and the four siblings. Two houses and the greater part of Dad’s estate went to Maricela, who came up to my farm a few months after the funeral, bringing me a set of exquisite Mexican serving dishes and a painting by Dad entitled
Spirit of St. Clerans
, a portrait of a pale-faced Gothic knight vanquishing a red dragon. It was the last time I ever saw Maricela.

*  *  *

There was news from Jeremy that Tim was sick. His feet hurt. He was getting thin. Tim came down to L.A. and made the decision to take a blood test. I was with him when he went to the doctor’s office in Santa Monica. It was a harsh sunny day, and we came out of the elevator and past the tinted-glass windows of the medical building through the automatic doors and into the flat light outside. “This is what the end of the world looks like to Tim,” I thought. A week later, when the tests came back, they confirmed our worst fear.

In the late eighties, there was a growing awareness of AIDS, although facts were shrouded in mystery; there was much speculation and no clear plan of treatment. People were dying in their homes. Although a lot of money was being raised, and
there were important charities working to save people, it was a plague—stigmatized, mysterious, and terrifying.

So many friends from that time—as fate would have it, so many people in the arts—were struck down. It was devastating; the end of an era. I, and many others I knew, stopped wearing color in the eighties.

CHAPTER 20

U
nder the auspices of MGM, the producer Ileen Maisel offered me a development deal. On my first day, I was sitting in an empty office in a charming older building on the lot in Culver City, wondering what exactly to do with myself. Through the glass-topped door to the outer office, I could see the temporary assistant they had assigned to me as she played with paper clips at her desk. The phone rang, making both of us jump. The assistant spoke a few words and put the caller on hold.

“It’s Marlon Brando,” she said.

At first I thought it was a joke. Though it was true that I had recently won an Academy Award, this was a little much to hope for. But indeed it was Marlon. He told me he’d loved my performance in
Prizzi’s Honor.

“You are a queen,” he said. “Remember that.”

Whenever I feel down or underappreciated in my work, I try to remember his words. I felt that I had some good ideas for Ileen, but MGM did not respond to my suggestions. It became evident that what they really wanted was to have me play the part of “Miss Ernst” in Roald Dahl’s terrifying children’s story
The Witches
, about the leader of a coven who is determined to turn small boys into mice. Nicolas Roeg, the
director of the spellbinding
Don’t Look Now
, was set to direct the film—a prospect I found both daunting and thrilling.

Soon I found myself in London at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, getting fitted for my part. The prosthetics for Miss Ernst’s transformation to the Grand High Witch were extensive. The various features—contact lenses, full facial mask, hump, withered collarbone and hands—took over six hours to apply and almost as much time to remove at the end of the day. I had asked Laila to be my assistant on
The Witches
, and she assured me that she would meet me in London after a short trip to India. Weeks later, she was marooned in Bhutan. When at last she arrived, I had set myself up in Cadogan Square in Chelsea, in a generous apartment nicely furnished with antiques and within easy access to the Kings Road. In spite of the constant car alarms that rang out all day and all night on the square, it was a pleasant spot.

As shooting progressed, I became increasingly dependent on Laila’s help in all things—namely, feeding me, blowing my nose, and pulling up my tights. The brilliant minds at Henson’s lab in Hampstead had created a wonderfully intricate pair of mechanical hands for me, but it took a full hour to reattach them once they had been removed, so Laila assumed the responsibility of coping for me in various ways. This went on for a relentless three weeks. The contact lenses came in different sizes and in colors ranging from yellow and orange through varying degrees of mauve and purple. Some had tiny apertures that obscured my vision, and because special effects had a fondness for a particularly greasy and lurid acid-green smoke they had perfected, the lenses would get fogged up with oil-based junk that had to be flushed out of my eyes by an “eye expert.” I would venture to say there is
no such thing, having endured contact lenses for work on several occasions.

Early on, before we started filming, the costume designer Marit Allen came to my flat, and I tried on some clothes for her. We were looking for a good dress for the character of Miss Ernst that could plausibly become the costume for the Grand High Witch. We settled on a black crepe dress, high at the neck and cut below the shins on the bias. We thought Nic would love that idea. The following evening, he came by to look at our choice. I twirled around in the dress, but Nic’s face darkened and he said nothing. Finally, Marit broke the silence. “What is it, Nic?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

There was an exasperated sigh from Nic. “It’s just not sexy,” he said. That was the first time I’d imagined that this horrible creature in a children’s movie should have sex appeal. It simply had not occurred to me. But of course Nic was absolutely right. His vision was diabolical and dark and brilliantly funny. If a witch was to be at the center of this plot, she needed to be sexy to hold the eye.