“Anyhow, I didn’t feel a goddamn thing, nothing whatsoever. Bob was flying. He was fine and dandy. On the way home we stopped at a bar—dry martinis were the thing in those days—and once I’d had a martini, I felt as if I was sitting about two feet above the stool. Everything I reached for I reached a little off, a little to one side. It took the martini to bring on the feeling of the pot. Bob did his best to convert me to marijuana, I tried, but I never got into it. It never became a habit.”
“What happened to Mitchum?”
“Our affair, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I was crazy about him. I know he was pretty gone on me, too. But the truth was—it still is—he was committed to his wife, Dorothy. She was a saint. She was devoted to him. I once proposed to him, kind of kidding on the square. He said, ‘It’s okay with me, baby. But you’ll have to clear it with Dorothy first.’
“When I told him I was also seeing more of Frank, that’s when he told me Frank was the only man he was afraid of. He said, ‘Get into a fight with him and he won’t stop until one of you is dead.’ He didn’t want to risk it being him, he said.”
I could believe it. I’d had my own run-in with Sinatra, but I didn’t want to tell her that.
“You must have been mad telling Frank about your fling with Mario. You knew how jealous he was. You must have known it would mean trouble,” I said. “Why did you do it?”
“He kept on at me. I fell for the oldest con in the world. He said it didn’t matter a damn if I’d slept with Mario or not, it was in the past. He just wanted me to be honest with him. He said if I told him the truth, it would all be forgotten. So I told him the truth and, of course, it was never forgotten. He brought it up every goddamn argument we had. Even when we weren’t arguing, he’d bring it up. He never forgave me.
“You know, his eyes do the most incredible thing when he’s angry. They turn black. I swear to God, they become as black as the ace of spades. It’s frightening. It makes your blood creep the way he does that. He never forgave me,” she said again.
“But he still married you,” I said.
“November 7, 1951. A day that will live in infamy.
“Only days after his divorce from Nancy became final. It was too soon, but that was Frank all over,” she said again. “He was always in such a fucking hurry. He insisted he had left Nancy years before: physically, emotionally, you name it. He said that except for the kids, she was out of his life. I believed him. Like I believed him when he said he’d forgive me for screwing Mario.
“Plenty of people told me I was mad to marry him. Lana Turner had had an affair with him after she divorced Artie. ‘I’ve been there, honey,’ she told me. ‘Don’t do it!’ I should have listened to her. The girl had been around.
“The trouble was Frank and I were too much alike. Bappie said I was Frank in drag. There was a lot of truth in that. He was the only husband I had that Bappie didn’t approve of straight off the bat. I’m not saying she disliked him. On the contrary, she thought he was great—but not for me. I should have listened to her.”
“Why didn’t you?” I said.
“He was good in the feathers. You don’t pay much attention to what other people tell you when a guy’s good in the feathers,” she said.
“The fighting always began on the way to the bidet. Didn’t you say that?”
She laughed. “It sounds like something I might have said. It sounds about right. Let’s say I said it.”
It was the perfect opening. “Didn’t you also once joke that there was only ten pounds of Frank but there’s one hundred and ten pounds of cock,” I said.
She stopped laughing. Abruptly. “Who said that?”
“You apparently,” I said.
She looked stunned. “I never said that. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”
“On Mogambo, didn’t you say it to a visiting British dignitary?”
“It’s sick.”
“John Ford apparently encouraged you,” I said to jog her memory, and offer her a way out—and get me off the hook.
“It’s vile,” she said. “I would never say anything so disgusting. Ford would never have encouraged me to say such a thing.”
“It’s in Kitty Kelley’s biography of Frank,” I said.
“I’ve read that book. It’s a piece of shit.”
“Nevertheless, I think it’s in there,” I said.
“I’d remember it if she’d written something as disgusting as that. It’s smut. It’s sick. It’s fucking obscene.”
I had the Kelley book in my bag with the passage and her quote underlined but I decided not to embarrass Ava by confronting her with it. “I’ll read it again. I’m sure that’s where I saw it,” I said.
“Don’t bother. I’ll ask Bappie. She’s the family historian. She’ll know if it’s there. I’ll call her. I’ll ask her.”
I looked at my watch. It was 8:15. It was after midday in California, and I suggested we call her at once.
“I’ll call her later,” she said.
“Okay,” I said docilely, remembering how carefully I still had to tread around the subject of Sinatra. But to my surprise, she never mentioned the story again, except once. A few mornings later, in the early hours, she called me: “I’ve spoken to Bappie. She says that story you told me about what I’m supposed to have said about Frank’s cock definitely isn’t in Kitty Kelley’s book. Bappie’s read it again and it’s not there.”
“I could have sworn that’s where I saw it,” I said lamely.
“Well, it isn’t. Forget about it. It’s garbage anyway,” she said.
I got the message.
22
“Honey?” she said softly.
Before I understood the extent of her insomnia, I had encouraged her to call me anytime she couldn’t sleep, and knew that I had only myself to blame whenever she phoned me in the middle of the night.
“Honey?” she said again, more urgently.
“Ava, good morning,” I said. I tried to get my head together, and waited for her to tell me what was on her mind this time.
“Why do actresses always have this need to write their memoirs? If we want to be remembered we should keep our mouths shut. Orson got it right. He didn’t just saw Rita in half,” she said ambiguously.
I knew that Orson Welles had once sawed Rita Hayworth in half in his magic act, but I still couldn’t follow Ava’s logic. “How did Orson get it right, Ava?” I said.
“Didn’t he say actors should never explain anything to anyone? Actors should keep their private lives private.”
“He might have. I don’t recall it,” I said carefully.
“Wasn’t it in Citizen Kane?”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll check,” I said.
“I’m sure it was in Citizen Kane.”
I let that go. I was tired. None of this was faintly interesting to me.
“Anyway, actresses should never put in writing anything that can bite them in the keister,” she said.
That made me sit up. “You haven’t changed your mind about the book, have you?” I was wide awake now, and worried.
“Why do you say that, honey?” she asked innocently. “That’s not what I said. Have you changed your mind about the book? You must tell me if you have, honey. I won’t mind.”