Glamour Ghoul, page 17
“Oh, Tony, it’s beautiful,” Maila gasped, choking back a fake sob and holding the ring up to the light. The two had shopped together at Koontz Hardware for a lamp pull made of ball chain, from which Tony had fashioned the ring.
“How did you ever manage it?” Maila asked.
“It’s on the installment plan,” he answered.
That summer, Jimmy was back in town, having finished filming Giant in Texas.
Maila was saddened to learn that while he was there, he’d shot jackrabbits to fend off boredom. Marlon heard the same news and, as a fellow animal lover, was incensed. He told Maila, “Tell your little friend, it doesn’t take a man to kill innocent animals.” Jimmy reportedly was ashamed.
It wasn’t long before Jimmy had a new woman in his life—the as-yet-unknown Swiss actress Ursula Andress, who was also seeing Marlon Brando at the time.
But he still found time to visit Maila on Larrabee, always emulating Marlon’s entrance through Maila’s unlocked front window. In that manner, shortly before his death, Jimmy let himself in one day and found Maila at home. Their conversation was of the surface variety—“Did you hear that song,” “The funniest thing happened today,” “Guess who I just met”—that sort of thing. But then Jimmy’s mood quickly changed, and he became pensive.
He started talking about the arts: paintings, drawings, books. And since the intrusive Jack was not present, Maila thought it was the right time to ask something she’d wanted to know.
Dean had a painting on an easel in his home. The subject was lying in state, a candle burning in the back of him.
“Why do you want to die?” Maila asked.
“How do you know that?”
“Anyone who paints a picture of themselves dead…”
“That’s very clever of you,” Jimmy interrupted and changed the subject.
Maila asked the question again and still got no answer. Finally, she said, “Is it to be near your mother?”
Jimmy’s response this time was immediate. “No, that’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t want to die. I just want some fucking peace.”
A knock at the front door told them that Jack had driven by and spotted Jimmy parked out front.
“Shit,” Jimmy said, and ran for the back door. Maila offered to say he’d gone off with someone else. He paused for just a moment before shaking his head in defeat. When Maila let Jack in, Jimmy immediately suggested they go together to look for Ursula. And off they went.
The passion and frustration escalated, and Jack became repulsive around Jimmy. He mooned about like a puppy; he simpered and clawed. Yes, clawed with hunger at Jimmy. Jack then engaged in much artful conniving. How to find Jimmy, who was now trying to avoid him—how to get him alone, how to drive off all others—and he found ways. In this sense, he was a genius.
Jimmy had him barred from his dressing room. Jack came in anyway. Jimmy had him barred from Warner’s lot. Jack got in anyway. Jimmy in desperation cried out, “Maaaan! How the fuck do you dooo it?” On at least two occasions, I recall being at home with Jimmy when he had successfully eluded Jack. But Jack showed up, and Jimmy would try to hide and then relent and say, “Oh, fuck, man, I gotta go.”
Jimmy returned a final time to Larrabee Street, and this time, Maila was away. To announce his presence, he left a calling card stabbed to the wall in the middle of the giant empty brass frame: an ear, one nostril, and both eyes cut from one of the 8x10 glossies of himself that he kept in his glove box. The remnants of this photo were wadded up and tossed on the front porch, which Jimmy had painted a dark gray a few months previously. Maila’s manicure scissors were left on the marble coffee table and a piece of her costume jewelry was used to tack the artwork onto the wall. In addition, Dean trained the pink ceiling light to focus on his offering.
“Typical Jimmy,” Maila said. “What’s an artist without a spotlight?”
Ear, nostril, eyes, but no mouth. To Maila, that was not an accident. Why no mouth? And then she remembered Jimmy’s words when he stole the ring off the dead guy’s finger. Dead men never tell. If that was what Jimmy was trying to convey, she vowed to ask him the next time she saw him. In the meantime, she planned to send him something equally strange and abstruse.
Problem was, Jimmy had moved, and Maila didn’t have his new address, so she would have to send it to him in care of his new hangout, the Villa Capri.
From contact sheets of her cemetery photo shoot, Maila made postcards from the shot of Vampira sitting beside the open grave. On the last weekend in September, Maila took one of those postcards and wrote on the back: “Wish you were here… Love, Maila.”
She put it in an envelope and sent it via messenger—a friend named Randy—to the Villa Capri.
Late on Wednesday night, September 28, the phone rang. It was Jimmy wanting to know if she’d sent him a picture, which Maila confirmed.
“Why?” was all he said.
Maila was confused at his reaction. He should be laughing. The mystery was solved when she learned the postcard was intercepted. Nick, the Villa’s maître d’ and a friend from whom Jimmy now rented, took it home. All Jimmy knew was that Nick told him it was mean.
Maila didn’t want to spoil the joke and told Jimmy to reserve judgment until he’d seen it for himself. He said okay. Just before he hung up, Maila invited him to her “freedom party.” It was to be a celebration to commemorate the day her KABC contract expired and when she would therefore retain full rights to Vampira.
Jimmy didn’t accept or reject Maila’s invitation. Instead, he said he wasn’t sure but that he’d get back to her. It was late and he had to go. That was the last time she ever spoke to James Dean.
September 30, 1955, Maila and Jack spent the day together. Jack was driving Maila home when they spotted Tony Perkins and offered him a ride. Returning to Larrabee, the trio entered Maila’s house and Jack commented that the light in the living room seemed weird, even though Maila and Tony noticed nothing strange. Jack left to go down the block to see a couple of friends with whom he had dinner plans.
Perkins stretched out on the floor cushions, directly below Jimmy’s collage affixed to the wall with Maila’s brooch: a dagger and scabbard connected by a chain. She and Tony were chatting when, at about six o’clock, the dagger came loose from the wall and swung like a pendulum just above Tony’s astonished face.
Just as he reached up and stabbed the dagger back into the wall, the phone rang. It was Randy, who had delivered Maila’s letter to the Villa Capri. Two words. “Jimmy’s dead.”
Maila thought it was a sick joke. It must have been Jimmy’s response to her postcard. He’d put Randy up to it. Even when Randy insisted it was true, Maila wouldn’t believe it. Instead, she called Jimmy’s answering service. After verifying that Maila was on the list of Jimmy’s intimates, the awful truth was repeated.
“We have to tell Jack,” Maila told Tony.
It was a short walk to where Jack was preparing dinner at his friends’ house. Jack answered the door wearing an apron and holding a bowl of Brussels sprouts. Maila blew her way past Jack, saying, “Get out of the way—we have to come in.”
Jack is shocked because, after all, it isn’t even his place. Tony & I sit down & then I tell Jack to sit down, but he doesn’t. He’s still standing there, wondering what is going on.
“What is it?” he says.
And I say, “What is the worst thing that could happen?”
And he says, “Your cats!”
“No,” I say. “What is the worst thing that could happen in this world?”
“Not Jimmy,” he said.
“Yeah. Just what you said,” I told him.
He dropped the bowl of vegetables & in that moment he stopped being Jack Simmons and became Norma Desmond. “No, it’s not true. It can’t be true. I won’t let it be true.”
Jack was a very good impersonator. The best non-professional I ever saw. But he could not process such horrible news as himself, so he became another person. This was too much for Tony, who became embarrassed & left to presumably walk home to the Chateau Marmont.
When Jack came out of his trance, he said we needed to go tell Ursula before she found out over the radio or something. So, we drove over to her little cottage on a dead-end street which was covered with shrubbery.
It was dark by then. I’m thinking, “My God, the sun has set on Jimmy’s last day. He will never feel sunshine on his face again.” But I told Jack I’d stay in the car because I didn’t know her that well & didn’t want to cause any more discomfort. Jack left and walked up the driveway. And then Marlon appeared out of the shrubbery & came up to the car on the passenger side where I was sitting & offered his condolences.
Ursula had called Marlon screaming, “They’re trying to kill me. They think Jimmy killed himself because of me & they think it’s my fault. I’m frightened & alone. Please help me.” So, Marlon was skulking in the bushes to peek in the windows to see if she was really upset or just putting him on.
That’s where Jack found Marlon—in the bushes. And he said, “Maila’s in the car.”
The tragic news stunned the world. With the exception of Jimmy’s Indiana hometown, no place felt the loss more than Hollywood. It was incomprehensible that so suddenly his light had been extinguished on a lonely, desolate road.
The profound pain of losing Jimmy coupled with her already fragile psyche made it impossible for Maila to attend his funeral in Fairmount, Indiana. But Jack made the trip, thanks to donations collected at Googies. As testament to his deeply anguished state, he told Maila, “I’m going to rip off the lid [of Jimmy’s coffin] and get what I never had.” Reportedly, the mortuary found that the coffin had been pried open the night before the funeral.
Ironically, Jimmy was buried on October 8th, the day Maila was released from her contract with ABC. They would never have a freedom party.
After Jimmy’s death, Sophie again came to stay with her daughter. Maila was inconsolable and played Rosemary Clooney’s hit song “Hey There” repeatedly hour after hour, day after day. Make no mistake—Maila loved Jimmy like a mother loves her son. Subconsciously, when she learned that Jimmy’s mother was dead, she adopted him, and he became her surrogate to replace the son she gave away.
God, that poor baby, that poor battered blossom. Baby Jimmy. He was beautiful, interesting & fun & I’m glad I let him know I worshipped him. How come he had no friends? I mean here in his adopted hometown—everybody made a great point of letting him know they found him either disgusting or boring. People didn’t understand Jimmy. He never pretended to be anything he wasn’t & people didn’t know how to comprehend that. They’d do or say something vicious to him & he’d run away & they’d say “He’s angry.” He was only hurt, like a child would be. Now I read about how wonderful they say he was. Too bad someone didn’t sort of suggest it to him when he was around.
When he roomed with Bill Bast in West L.A.—his girl threw him out in favor of Bill Bast. Ouch! Bill Bast and “that girl” ganged up on him & created a little boycott. “We don’t play with Jimmy” game. The girl he had in N.Y.C. in 1955 chose an insurance agent. “Bye Jimmy—I’ll think of you.” Pier Angeli choose [sic] Vic Damone—oooh. Ursula Andress chose John Derek. A small group of waitresses in the apartment back of Greenbelt’s started a drama class in their kitchen. Everyone present was invited except Jimmy. They shut the sliding door in his face.
Fellow employees on the set of East of Eden shunned him. Gadge’s [director Elia Kazan] hot shot nose picker from N.Y.!! Boo-oo-oo.
On location of Giant, Chill Wills (that wonderful guy) started a J.D. boycott. It was effective. Rock Hudson was a staunch supporter of it. Back in Hollywood—200 people on the set, those yellow bellied bastards—they refused to even speak to Jimmy during the work day. For the last 30 days of his life he went to work & no one would speak to him. Only Mercedes McCambridge and Elizabeth did. It’s a wonder he wasn’t blacklisted.
Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, wherever you are, I love you—I always will.
P.S. If you ever need anything, let me know. I’ll find a way to get it for you.
The incentive for Maila to leave her home came while passing through the living room and stopping to study the ghostly reminder of Jimmy’s last visit, still affixed to the wall. By then, the ear had dried and curled but, strangely enough, it was moving. To make certain it wasn’t a draft, Maila closed the windows and stuffed a towel underneath the front door. The ear still moved.
Encouraged, Maila asked the ear a question aloud.
“What was Jimmy’s favorite drumbeat? Was it two fast and one slow, or one slow and two fast?”
The ear responded by wiggling two times slowly and then once more.
Much like Marlon’s experience when Einstein died, Maila was convinced Jimmy was trying to communicate with her from beyond the grave. The news was too exciting not to share.
“Ridiculous,” her mother said.
At Googies, Maila appeared dressed in black from head to toe, a black crucifix draped around her neck. Unlike her mother’s reaction, the story of Jimmy’s wiggling ear created much interest. Several wanted to witness the phenomenon for themselves. And so, they came. Some were equally convinced it was Jimmy’s spirit. Most were not. Although she was mocked by some for claiming to communicate with Jimmy from beyond the grave, Maila continued to believe it to be true.
In a 1966 tape recording, interviewed by Marlon Brando, Maila expounds on her connection with James Dean.
“You sound weepy,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“How do I feel?” Maila repeated. In halting, protracted speech, she said, “I feel like Jimmy was the only human being to whom I was ever related. I feel like, before I met him, I lived in a sea of window dummies. And then I met Jimmy, and we were alive in the world together. And now he’s dead. So now it’s going to be harder than before I met him. I don’t know, but that’s how I feel. You did ask.”
She said she was going to go to New York because Hollywood held too many memories of James Dean.
“How will you support yourself financially?” Marlon asked.
“I suppose I could do television commercials, or maybe I’ll be a blues singer. I can’t sing worth a damn, but I sure as hell know how to be blue.”
Marlon chuckled and then asked, “How much money do you have? I can help you.”
She had 210 dollars. But she would leave without saying goodbye and without accepting his financial help. No address. Nothing. She didn’t want his charity.
Chapter Fourteen
In the wake of Jimmy’s death, New York City offered a new beginning. A hopeful Maila moved into a third-floor walk-up in a brownstone at 136 West 46th Street. The former tenant’s name, Peggy Willson, was not yet removed from the mailbox slot in the foyer.
Maila’s move may have been impulsive, but it wasn’t entirely ill-conceived. Of course, memories of Jimmy were too fresh in Hollywood, but Maila moved to New York to be near Tony Perkins, who was back on Broadway. She had a kind of desperate need to sustain their blossoming friendship. The bonus was that Perkins’ East Coast connections could potentially bring her work in the theater as well.
Not that she longed to be an actress. She was still holding out to become an evangelist. It wasn’t that she was even religious. It was just that evangelism was something she was familiar with, having listened to her father’s orations for so many years. As well, Maila still held out hope of somehow being able to fund an animal sanctuary or the ability to help abandoned animals in some capacity. She hoped that as a woman proselytizing, gowned in lavender from head to toe, she could find a niche that could fund that dream.
The apartment was barren except for an enormous pile of shredded lavender cellophane, used as postal packaging. The excelsior served as Maila’s makeshift bed, above which she hung a photo of a Tibetan monk she’d torn out of a magazine. On the floor sat a vase with her 13 vulture feathers.
Years before, Peter the Hermit, the bearded, robed, self-proclaimed metaphysician who prowled Hollywood Boulevard by day and lived in a tent by night, told Maila her aura was lavender, “the sign of the spiritual seeker.” The pile of lavender packaging that the former tenant had left behind delighted Maila. She interpreted it as a sign that she was on the right track with her evangelistic pursuits.
With the few dollars she had, she splurged on a can of paint and, in an attempt to create a sanctuary of harmony, Maila painted everything in her living space an ethereal shade of lavender. And not just the walls—anything that would accept a coat of paint, including the icebox, the stove, and her suitcase. In doing so, she believed her personal energies and the lavender splendor of her surroundings would merge to resurrect Sister Saint Francis who, wearing a lavender-hued nun’s habit, would become a champion of animals.
Until the rebirth of another of her alter egos could manifest, Maila relied heavily upon Tony for companionship. He showed up at all times of the day or night for a glass of coffee, and if she were lucky, he’d bring her food. (She had no cups and no money.) Tony was assigned a specific knock so that Maila would know when he was at her door. In the unlikely event she found a more intimate kind of companionship, or simply wanted to be left alone, she would then open the door a crack and say a specific name, which would be code for “Go away, I’m busy,” or “Come back later.”
In New York, Tony was no more likely to take Maila out in public there than he was in Hollywood, with one exception. He wanted her to meet his friend, Helen.
Just how Helen fit into Tony’s life was a mystery. Maila couldn’t figure out the close relationship between the two, but he obviously idolized her. Maybe she was his surrogate mother; she certainly was old enough. The two lived together just a few blocks away. While in Hollywood, Tony spoke of her often and in glowing terms. Whatever the relationship, they were extremely close, in an almost creepy sort of way.
According to Charles Winecoff in his biography on Anthony Perkins, Split Image, the actor invited Maila over for dinner to finally meet Helen. While there, he gifted Maila with one of his paintings. During dinner, which Helen graciously prepared and served, Tony was rude and demanding toward Helen, treating her “like a housekeeper” in her own home. Maila was horrified at his behavior and became so upset, she forgot to take the painting when she left. When she asked for it later, Tony reportedly said, “Well, you left it behind, you didn’t want it, so now you can’t have it.” Winecoff quotes Maila as saying, “That was the first time I realized Tony was cruel.”
