Waiting on the Moon, page 18
Polanski was short, quite muscular, and fit, with brown hair that curled over his ears. He wore a tight gray T-shirt, beige pants, and sandals with white socks. The room was dimly lit except for a healthy fire ablaze in the stone fireplace at the far end of the room, creating long, dancing shadows on the walls. There were two leather couches and several Windsor chairs. He opened a bottle of fine French wine, explaining the vintage. Then he filled our glasses and toasted us, saying in his broken English, “To the film: may it be an artistic success, and thank you for coming tonight.” He finished his glass and poured another before picking up a book that was open on the table. He read aloud in French, closing his eyes after every few lines.
Verse-nous ton poison pour qu’il nous réconforte!
Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous brûle le cerveau…
He paused, attempting to translate. “How would you say? Ah… ‘Pour the poison’… ah, um… ‘once we burn our brains.’”
With his eyes closed, in deep concentration, he continued.
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe?
Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!
He translated again. “Um… ‘Heaven or hell, anything will do. Deep in the unknown of hell!’ Such beauty. I never tire of these lines. What genius.”
I fully expected Vincent Price to appear from the long shadows. Feeling the effect of the wine, I asked, “Whose lines?”
“Ah, of course. You don’t speak French. Baudelaire… Les Fleurs du mal—the flowers of evil.”
Faye spoke to him in French, and just as they began a lengthy dialogue, a beautiful young woman appeared from the other room. Barefoot, she had thick light brown hair down to her shoulders and was dressed in a diaphanous white nightgown that exposed her youthful, delicate body. She, too, spoke French. I assumed it was Roman’s daughter as she sat on the floor next to him. Roman got up to rearrange the logs in the fireplace, causing the shadows to be even more vivid and defined. I was thoroughly intrigued by him and the dramatic atmosphere he strove to create.
The young woman, transfixed, staring at Faye with doe-eyed admiration, got up, hugged Roman goodnight, and left. He then told us that the girl, Nastassja, was the daughter of actor Klaus Kinski and was in Los Angeles for tutoring as well as dancing and acting lessons while preparing for her first film role. He added, “Klaus has not been much of a father.”
As we drove back to Bel Air, I wasn’t sure what had been accomplished, but I do remember talk of Faye possibly tinting her hair to lighten its appearance for the camera.
In Hollywood, alongside grass and booze, cocaine had become available at every gathering, dinner party, and script conference. In bars, clubs, and restaurants, there were continual trips to the bathroom. Often it was openly laid out as a display of connections and wealth. It seemed to run throughout the set of Chinatown like a dust storm in the Sierras. And as filming began, along with script changes, budget problems, and deadline concerns, the cocaine became ever more present.
Chinatown’s set was far more intimate than that of The Three Musketeers. In contrast to Richard Lester, whose approach was humorous and relaxed, Polanski was serious and driven. One would assume Jack Nicholson would be the most nervous or demanding member of the team, since he had been responsible for picking so many of the key players, but Nicholson listened to Polanski and made suggestions that never seemed to cause a conflict between them.
Faye, on the other hand, asked many questions regarding her character’s motivation. She would not hesitate to express her disagreement, and she was not comfortable with nor did she trust Roman. Perhaps it was because she knew she wasn’t his choice for the part of Evelyn Mulwray. In every scene, just before the cameras rolled, Faye would call her makeup artist to apply Blistik to her lips. This became a running joke with the crew because they knew it drove Roman nuts.
At one point, just as he was ready to film Faye and Jack in an interior scene, he noticed a small piece of hair out of place on Faye’s forehead. Her hairdresser was called to fix it. Yet the piece of hair returned, so Roman walked over and just yanked it out. The power struggle building up between them finally exploded after that, complete with headlines that screamed, DUNAWAY STORMS OFF CHINATOWN SET!
Walking off a set is serious. That night, the house on top of the hill in Bel Air was not a happy one. The phone kept ringing late into the night until a meeting was set for the following day with the studio brass, Faye, and Roman.
I had previously met Sue Mengers, and now I thought it might be constructive if I sat down with her to discuss how to keep the peace between Faye and Roman. Sue was delighted. “Honey, you’re a doll. Meet me at the Palm at seven. If you get there before me, tell Orlando at the desk that you’re meeting me.”
Sue was around twenty-five minutes late. Still, she did a bit of table-hopping before finally joining me at her booth, declaring, “The traffic in this town is from hunger.”
Sue was in her forties, with shoulder-length hair shaded silver and blond and two J-shaped curls framing either side of her round face. Her appearance was set off by huge square lightly tinted blue glasses that blended perfectly with her hair. She wore big strands of pearls and nail polish that matched her brightly colored floral caftan. I felt comfortable with her right away. Like me, she had grown up in the Bronx.
“See the putz over there? He’s probably three times her age. She’s not going to fuck ’im unless he gets her a part in Marty’s new picture. I can tell you how that story’s gonna end. You okay with white wine? Or a cocktail? Surf and turf, if that’s your bag, is divine. For me tonight, a good rib eye and white wine is just fine.”
“Sue, I’m trying to see if I can help keep the peace between Roman and Faye because I know how much time and energy you’ve invested in her career.”
“Peter, listen, darling. I believe Faye is a great actress and one of the most beautiful women in this town, with a shitload of untapped talent. Every time I try to help her, she goes paranoid on me, as if I’m working for the other side. Look, Barbra ain’t a day at the beach, but she at least listens. She won’t fly into tirades unless she’s got a justified reason. Faye—oy vey, I need a week in a rest home after I get off the phone with her. As long as she’s my client I’ll defend her, but sometimes she pushes people just too far, and I don’t think she realizes it. This is a small town, and word flies around fast. You can have a couple of winners—and with one flop they forget about the winners and only remember the flop. Actresses don’t have the longevity of actors. Look around: You don’t see older women with younger men, do you?” Jokingly, she added, “You are over seventy-five, right? Listen, darling, I appreciate what you’re trying to do for Faye, but she’s like a mule, not an ass. A mule, if she don’t wanna move, nothing’s gonna move her, not you or me. Maybe Nicholson can reach her. He’s good at that, because he’s talented, and he’s got the winning edge, and Faye certainly respects that. Does she know you’re meeting with me?”
“No!” I was quick to say.
“I thought so. Oy vey, Faye,” she responded as she cut through her rib eye, all the while casting her fishbowl eyes around the room. Toward the end of our meal, as she ordered a large strawberry shortcake with extra whipped cream on the side, we were joined by Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman.
“So, bubbeleh, how’s it going with Evans?”
De Niro just shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Dustin told a story about a time when he was on a press junket and a reporter thought he was Al Pacino. Dustin, with a grin, said, “Wait until Pacino reads that interview. He’s gonna shit in his pants!”
Sue and I laughed. De Niro, who was very quiet, attempted a smile. When I tried to grab the bill from Sue, she called me a schmuck. “Honey, let the agency pay.”
I said, “Sue, you’re my date tonight.”
“Ha! You’re like that putz over there with the young starlet. Don’t think because you’re paying you’re gonna get me in bed. Ha!”
As I was walking her out to her car, she spotted Ryan O’Neal sitting with the musicians Stevie Winwood of Traffic and Glenn Frey of the Eagles. “You youngsters, let Peter hang out with you. I’m heading home to a pile of headaches.”
I liked Sue. Faye hated her.
In the morning, Faye paced the floor, troubled by an upcoming scene in the script. She insisted that “only Jack will understand.”
Faye took several phone calls from Nicholson, who was hoping to make the shoot on Monday go as smoothly as possible, and he invited her over to his house to discuss it further. Faye asked me to join her. After a sharp turn onto a private dirt road, we came to his secluded house overlooking a canyon. Nicholson was sitting on his couch, cocooned in a room hung with exquisite artwork. An amiable host, he chatted with us and with various other people who were hanging out there. Someone had placed an abundant mound of cocaine on the coffee table. As the evening wore on, the other guests seemed to drift away until it was just Jack, Faye, and me. They discussed Polanski and the best way to deal with his temperament. Jack invited Faye upstairs to work on the script, and Faye asked if I would mind waiting. I answered, “Of course not.”
When a half hour became an hour, and then another, I called up the staircase—“Faye?”—but got no reply. I continued to wait in the living room.
Finally, as I saw the sun coming up, it occurred to me that what I thought might be happening was definitely happening. I called out her name again, louder and more forcefully, but still no response.
Beyond the sliding glass doors of the living room, the sun was now reflecting on Nicholson’s pool. I felt I was being suckered, but I was stuck. I couldn’t drive. I had no idea where I was. I searched around until I found an address label on a magazine so I could call a taxi. Soon a cab pulled up the driveway. I told the driver I would be out in five minutes.
I opened the sliding glass doors. Then I picked up the coffee table, laden with books and the large mountain of cocaine, walked over to the pool, and released it all into the water, watching it sink and settle on the bottom. For symmetry, I lowered a chair from the living room into the water, where it landed perfectly at one end of the table. Then I picked up another chair and lowered it at the opposite end. The white powder was dissolving, and a few books floated up to the surface. I felt certain that Nicholson, an art lover, would appreciate my homage to Duchamp.
I left LA, Faye, and Chinatown and boarded a flight home to Cambridge. I was conflicted and hurt but still in love with Dorothy Faye and contemplating whether our relationship was worth fighting for.
18
CAMBRIDGE UNBOUND
Robert Lowell and Bill Alfred
Poet Robert Lowell
IT FELT GOOD to return home to Cambridge, far away from the high-stakes drama of moviemaking. As I wandered through the narrow streets lined with small book and record shops, encountering friends along the uneven red-brick sidewalks, I appreciated the comforts Cambridge offered that my recent stay in Hollywood didn’t.
Back then, Cambridge was still a vibrant cultural outpost for writers, painters, and musicians. The combination of bohemia and academia eased me into a calm state of mind.
My mood was considerably lifted when I discovered that one of my all-time favorite musical groups, the Everly Brothers, was playing in town. Seeing them on my home turf would be a tonic for my wounded spirit.
In my childhood I had made a desperate but failed attempt to re-create their angelic harmonies with my school friends when we formed a doo-wop a cappella group called the Three Imps. It consisted of me and two neighbors who lived in my building, with Richie Gold on clarinet. It’s still a mystery to me why we felt we needed a clarinet; we sure weren’t doing klezmer music. For many weeks we rehearsed the Everlys’ hit “Bye Bye Love” before our debut as contestants in a Bronx Park talent show.
An hour before we were to perform, however, Richie’s mother talked him into abandoning us and performing a clarinet solo as his entry in the contest. We surrounded Richie in the park’s bathroom and shouted all sorts of threats, telling him what we would do if he didn’t play with us. But there was no persuading Richie to go against his mother’s wishes.
That day, too, I learned the hard truth of the old show-biz truism that one should never follow an act with animals or children, thanks to a pair of youngsters named Janet and Gary, ages four and five respectively, who brought the house down by tap-dancing while singing “With a knick-knack paddywhack give a dog a bone.”
The night of the Everlys’ concert I walked to the back of the venue toward the stage door. I knew the staff because I had played there many times. I spotted Johnny T., head of security, standing outside. “John, what time are the Everlys arriving?”
“They’re already here. Just go on up and say hello—nobody’s in the dressing room but the two of ’em.”
I didn’t climb but ran up the stairs to the second floor and down the long hall, following the sound of their familiar celestial voices. The dressing-room door was open, and there they were, Don and Phil, both strikingly handsome, with shining pompadours, wearing immaculate suits and playing their black Gibson 185s with stars on the fretboards. They noticed me standing by the door, but it didn’t seem to bother them, so I discreetly slipped in and sat nestled in the corner. Their voices were beautiful, and it was enchanting to watch. For almost an hour—surprisingly—they sang nothing but songs by the Beatles, whom they had undeniably influenced. As soon as Don finished one, Phil would start another, never speaking, only singing, face-to-face. It was not a secret that the brothers had a somewhat fraught, combative relationship, so it seemed like they communicated purely through song. When they stopped playing, there followed a silence, and, like a church congregant, I quietly left. I hardly remembered the actual concert after the private recital I was so fortunate to witness.
Late the following afternoon, my phone rang. “Peter? William Alfred here. Am I interrupting anything?”
I would have recognized that voice anywhere. Its tone was soft and seemed to come from another era, one of manners and refinement. “No, Bill. It’s great hearing your voice.”
“Likewise, Peter. I’m having a bachelor’s dinner at my house tomorrow—six thirty, cocktails at five. I’m serving lamb chops in an attempt not to overcook them, along with baked potatoes and spinach. Weren’t we always made to feel spinach was the most important of all vegetables? I blame Popeye for that propaganda.”
I understood him and agreed, saying, “But Bill, didn’t we all grow up awaiting the Sunday funnies?”
Wistfully, Bill sighed. “I did love Krazy Kat. How sad that he seems to have vanished like some character from the age of Pericles. Now, if you can make it, you’ll also get to taste my mother’s secret lime ice recipe. I follow it as carefully as if it were a eucharistic prayer. So sorry for such short notice. I hope you’re available.”
“Bill, I’d be delighted to come.”
“Good. Then see you tomorrow—and don’t bring a thing. As my father would say, ‘Button up tight when the cold winds blow!’”
I had met Professor Alfred before meeting Faye, but it was always in very formal circumstances, since many of my Harvard friends were also his adoring students. As soon as I met him, I understood why they were so enamored of him and his gentle ways.
The professor’s house, appropriately for a classicist, was located on Athens Street. The neighborhood, slightly outside the confines of Harvard, was peacefully placed in the shadow of St. Paul’s, the Catholic church where Bill attended mass every morning. The houses were close together, and the trees offered cool, welcoming shade in summer. In the early evening you could hear the sounds of dinner preparation from open kitchen windows. It was a mixture of blue-collar and middle-class homes sprinkled with residences of families from many generations past. Bill lived in a gray Victorian house with white trim, and although it was well worn and in need of a thorough makeover, it had an abundance of character, a prelude to what awaited one inside. An unpolished brass number 31 was centrally placed on the solid oak door, flanked by two narrow etched-glass windows allowing a hazy view of the inside stairs and small hallway.
In my ignorance, I was unaware that it was proper for dinner guests to bring something, like a bottle of wine or chocolates, not to simply arrive empty-handed with a large appetite. I was wearing what I considered my most formal outfit: all black, including tight jeans, a leather jacket, Capezio shoes, and a Freddie Fields–gifted turtleneck. With my ever-present Dunhill cigarette holder in my mouth, I knocked at five sharp, confirmed by the ringing of the bells of St. Paul’s.
I heard a stirring from inside, then Bill opened the door wearing a suit and tie and a heavily stained long white chef’s apron. “Come on in before the coppers get you! That is the greeting my father would say when we lived above a bar. May I take your jacket? Cal arrived early. Go right inside and introduce yourself while I keep a sharp eye on these chops… boy, oh, boy, lamb chops!”
Playwright and poet William Alfred
I stepped inside and handed Bill my jacket. Facing me was a long flight of stairs; to the right was the sitting room. The house had the warm aroma of furniture polish. The walls were covered with old wooden clocks of every shape and size. Bill rushed off to his chops, and I entered the sitting room, with its curtained bay windows that faced the street, allowing in rays of soft blue light that contrasted with the gentle yellow glow from the table lamps. There was a working marble fireplace and on its mantel, under a bell jar, a statue of Saint Francis. Bill was a devout Franciscan who had taken and lived by the vows of the order: prayer, chastity, and charity toward the poor.
