Pieces of My Heart Page 10

  Mud was a White Russian who had been born in southern Siberia in 1912 and came to America in November 1930. Her first marriage was already on the rocks by the time she arrived in California, but Nick Gurdin, whose real name was Nikolai Zacharenko, was introduced to Maria by her first husband. Nick and Maria married in 1937, and Natalie was born in July 1938. Although Natalie believed Nick was her father, for all of her life Maria harbored a secret belief that Natalie was actually the result of a long-standing affair she had been having with a man named George Zepaloff.

  Whether this was just another one of Mud’s romantic fantasies or the truth is irrelevant, because Mud lived in her fantasies far more than she lived in reality. From her point of view, I think I was better than any of the alternatives that had presented themselves because I was the sort of man she had dreamed of for her daughter. I was successful, famous, presentable, well connected, and I didn’t take any shit. I wasn’t one of the guys Natalie had been running around with. I was legitimate.

  So Mud was not averse to our relationship, although she was very averse to Natalie leaving her sphere of influence. When Natalie told her she wanted to move out, Mud said, “What’s going to happen to us? Where are we going to go? How are we going to live?” The usual questions you’d get from somebody who’d been supported by her child since she was six years old.

  Natalie had fallen in love with me, I think, but she wasn’t sure, and there were the suspicions that had always been encouraged by Mud, who had always told her to be wary of anybody outside the family who tried to get close to her. There would be episodes when she’d pull back, or even test me. Natalie was a full-blooded Russian and could be very moody and inscrutable; her Russian moods could drive me up the wall. I noticed that rejection could trigger her moods, or a perceived betrayal—the suspicion of having been lied to, or of someone being devious in some way. The bright lamp would suddenly switch off, and she would become gloomy and interior.

  One night after dinner she asked me to drop her off at the Chateau Marmont so she could see Scott Marlowe, an actor she’d had a brief affair with. I didn’t know that Marlowe was basically gay and not really a threat, but I was still furious that she’d make such a request—it was diva behavior, something that’s never enticed me.

  We didn’t see each other for a while after that, but we had patched things up by March 1957, when I had to go to Japan to make Stopover Tokyo—or, as I prefer to call it, Stopover Acting. Just before I left, I gave her a gold charm bracelet with WOW, CHARLIE engraved on it. It was a line of Brando’s from On the Waterfront, and we used to call each other “Charlie.” Once I got to Japan, Natalie and I burned up the long-distance lines talking to each other, but that wasn’t as easy then as it is now. It could take an hour or two to get a connection from Tokyo, so I spent a lot of time in my hotel room. One night I couldn’t find her. I called her mother and asked her if she knew where Natalie was.

  “I think she’s with Nicky Hilton,” she answered. “They went to Mexico.” Nicky Hilton was Elizabeth Taylor’s first husband and easily one of the sleaziest people in Hollywood. He was a handsome but extremely nasty piece of work, and he lived off his father’s hotel business. I was just furious. I ripped the phone out of the wall and heaved it right through an open window. Outside, it was pouring rain.

  I was sitting there fuming when, ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. A very wet Japanese man with an umbrella was standing there holding my phone. It had hit his umbrella, he had picked it up and noticed the room number on the dial, and he had very kindly brought it back to me. Since Natalie was stepping out with Nicky Hilton, I consoled myself with Joan Collins.

  Stopover Tokyo was the only movie directed by Richard Murphy, a good screenwriter. If you haven’t seen it, don’t trouble yourself. The only compensation turned out to be the location. Japan was a fascinating place to be so soon after the war, and Joan was lovely to spend time with, but the film itself was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.

  Once I got back from Japan, I was able to quash the Nicky Hilton thing, and Natalie and I got very serious very fast. We spent many days and nights on board My Lady in the Catalina isthmus, with our single, small Coleman lantern illuminating our faces as we barbecued steaks for dinner. The boat’s table broke down into a double bunk, and overall My Lady was perfectly comfortable for two people, although too small for four. Not that we cared; when we were together, the presence of other people was superfluous. Natalie found that she was quite comfortable on board a boat, so My Lady became our designated getaway.

  In August 1957, Natalie was going on location for Marjorie Morningstar, and I went with her. The company was shooting at Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, and Natalie and I lived together for the three weeks they were on location. Warner Bros. obviously felt that publicity about our relationship wouldn’t be helpful, because nothing leaked to the press. Mud was there at Schroon as well and served us breakfast in bed, which she probably didn’t do with Nicky Hilton.

  After Marjorie Morningstar was finished, Natalie and I began to have serious talks about our future. We both realized that every day we had to be apart was a day we were uncomfortable. Put simply, we wanted to be together. The only possible problem we could both agree we had was our conflicting careers. We agreed that we should never be separated for more than a couple of weeks, which meant that movie shoots and publicity tours would have to be carefully scheduled.

  On December 6, one year after our first serious date, Natalie got a present for me, an ID bracelet. I took her to dinner at Romanoff’s, but I hadn’t said anything about our anniversary, so I think she was worried that I had forgotten it.

  I opened a bottle of champagne, poured two glasses, and handed one to Natalie. At that point, she noticed the diamond and pearl ring at the bottom of the glass. I told her to read what was engraved on it. MARRY ME, it said. She was totally surprised and immediately said, “Yes!” I ordered more champagne. At the bottom of her glass was a pair of pearl earrings. Another glass, and another charm for the WOW, CHARLIE bracelet. On the back of the charm was engraved TODAY WE’RE ONE YEAR OLD.

  The next day Natalie wrote in her journal: “‘Two lonely stars with no place in the sun found their orbit—each other—and they were one.’ I sent this to R on the anniversary of our first love. It also turned out to be the day that we were engaged to be married, and the start of our real life.”

  My father ran true to form. When I told him that I was leaning toward asking Natalie to marry me, he told me he didn’t want me to get married, not to anybody. He wanted me to wait until I was at least thirty. My response was to mutter, “Fuck you!” under my breath and do what I wanted to do.

  Natalie and I were married a few weeks after that dinner, on Saturday, December 28, 1957. She was nineteen, I was twenty-seven. Warner Bros. wanted to control the wedding because of Natalie; Fox wanted to control the wedding because of me. I realized that if we left it up to the people we worked for, we would be married at the Hollywood Bowl, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic serenading us with “The Wedding March.” The hell with that.

  So we snuck out of town and got married in Scottsdale, Arizona. The church was the Scottsdale Methodist Church. Barbara Gould was Natalie’s maid of honor, and my father was my best man. (He liked her a great deal, and I confess that I still wanted his approval.) There were only about a dozen people in the church, among them Natalie’s sister Lana, Mary Loos and her husband Richard Sale, my business manager Andy Maree and his wife Pru, and Nick Adams.

  Natalie wore an ankle-length gown that was made of white lace and encrusted with hundreds of tiny seed pearls. Instead of a traditional veil, a mantilla of the finest lace covered her head. Natalie was my girl, and now she was my wife, so of course I was enchanted by her looks, but that day she surpassed herself. She was far beyond beautiful, she was exquisite, like a stunning portrait by Velázquez, except Velázquez never had a subject as beautiful as Natalie.

  After the ceremony, we had a pa
rty at the Valley Ho resort and left. I had a train car pick us up and take us across the country to Chicago; then we changed trains to go to Florida. I had booked a place in Stuart, Florida, where we were going to go fishing. Well, Stuart was terrible, totally unromantic. We were there only a couple of nights; then we got on the train and went to New York, to the Sherry-Netherland.

  On the way back, a fellow in Chicago told me we were being given a Corvette to drive back home. I showed up at the dealership, and the manager said he hadn’t heard about the gift, but I could take the car. We’re movie stars, right? Doesn’t the world always open its arms for movie stars? It seemed like the most logical thing in the world.

  So Natalie and I piled into the Corvette and drove across the country. The Corvette was gorgeous—metallic gray finish with red leather interior—but it paled next to Natalie. Our drive across country was intimate, enveloping, and great; radio stations would announce that Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were on Highway 32 outside of Lubbock, and a half-hour later there would be dozens of cars tailing us.

  Except for times like that, during long stretches of the drive it felt like we were the only people alive, which was very much the way we both wanted it. Unfortunately, I found out that the gift of the Corvette was a practical joke cooked up by a guy at Warner Bros. named Frank Casey. It wasn’t a gift at all, and since I had put thousands of miles on the car, I ended up having to buy it from the dealership in Chicago, which struck me as a heavy joke.

  After we got back to Los Angeles and began married life, we didn’t exactly integrate our very different social circles. Natalie’s friend Nick Adams hung around a little bit, but mostly the group Natalie had been hanging around with disappeared, and we started associating with Frank Sinatra and his circle and the rest of my friends. When it came to dogs, my other great love, Natalie had poodles, which are not my favorite breed, but because they were Natalie’s they were just fine with me.

  We got back to Los Angeles in time for Christmas and spent the holiday at my apartment on Durant Drive. At that time there was a wonderful jeweler out here named Ruser, from whom I had gotten the apartment. Ruser had a superb engraver named Al Lee, and that first Christmas I started to give Natalie jewelry—bracelets and charms with things engraved on them that were particular to us and wouldn’t have as much meaning to anybody else. We never needed a specific holiday to lavish gifts on each other; a simple vacation would be as good a reason as any, or the anniversary of our first date.

  I tended to give gifts that were small in size—I still love to give jewelry—but I found that Natalie liked to work large. She had a knack for fantastic gifts—she gave me a Jaguar XKE once, and another time it was a Mercedes coupe—and they were always complete surprises. We’d walk out of the house and there would be the car. “It’s yours,” she’d say.

  From the beginning, Natalie made me spectacularly happy. It’s so unusual to be in perfect sync with another human being, to have everything understood by both of you simultaneously and to feel no need to explain anything, but at this point in our lives that’s what we had; it seemed like we even stepped on sidewalks at the same time.

  I called her “Charlie,” “Nate,” or “Nat.” Sometimes I called her “Bug.” Mostly she called me “RJ,” although occasionally she would call me “R.” I think the bond between Natalie and me was so strong because we were in similar places psychologically, even though I was older. I was in flight from my father, and she was in flight from her mother. And we were discovering together, not just each other, but our talent and our place in the movie business.

  Natalie’s great gift was her spectacular sense of life as well as her humor. One of the things I loved about her was that she was so genuine with other people. If she liked someone, she took time with that person. She was generous with herself, and when she turned her face toward you, you were the only person there. She didn’t scan the room looking for someone else more important, which is a trait most actors and actresses have down to a fine art. And one other thing: she was fun. God, she was fun.

  Natalie was passionate on the subject of Vivien Leigh, her favorite actress, and the movies she could watch over and over were Gone With the Wind and, particularly, A Streetcar Named Desire. God, she loved that movie, and she loved all of Tennessee Williams—his particular poetic take on damaged souls. She liked to read a great deal, mostly novels, and liked to keep current on what was popular.

  Her favorite designer for movie wardrobes was Edith Head, whom she trusted implicitly in terms of design. Natalie might have seen Edith as a sort of surrogate mother. Edith wasn’t there advising her about every little thing, but Natalie respected her intelligence a great deal. Edith knew the movie business backward and forward and, unlike Mud, was very objective. Certainly, she and Natalie talked about a lot of things besides wardrobe.

  For Natalie’s personal wardrobe, she was always willing to experiment with different people and different looks, with the proviso that some things were not going to change—her love for Jax pants, for example.

  When it came to music, she liked vocalists, some jazz and romantic dance music. And yes, she was a good dancer. Her taste in music was very current, whereas mine tended toward throwbacks—big bands and my passionate attachment to jazz. This, I think, was where the gap in our ages was most evident.

  We found that it was very easy to get acclimated to each other’s tastes. The only thing about Natalie that initially brought me up short was her choice of perfume: Jungle Gardenia, which was Barbara Stanwyck’s favorite as well. I asked Natalie about it, and it turned out that more than ten years before we were married, when Natalie was a child actress, she had made a movie with Barbara called The Bride Wore Boots, and she had fallen in love with Barbara’s perfume. She decided when she was an adult she would use Jungle Gardenia as well. Well, okay, but it was always a bit disconcerting to me. However, I knew that when Natalie made up her mind, whether it involved a young contract actor she passed in a hallway or a perfume, she got her way, so I didn’t try to get her to change.

  At this stage of her life, she was very ambitious and fascinated by actors who were doing things she wasn’t. She always had a great desire for the authenticity of New York—that’s where she met Jimmy Dean before they made Rebel Without a Cause—and she was fascinated by the actors who were working in television drama, the shows that Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer were directing, because they were so much more raw and passionate than the movies she was making.

  For that matter, Elia Kazan excepted, they were more raw and passionate than the movies anybody was making. Those TV shows were far in advance of Hollywood in terms of their choice of material and the handling of that material, and they really pointed the way to the kind of movies Hollywood would increasingly make in the 1960s and ’70s. The vast majority of those ’50s TV shows would never have been made by Jack Warner.

  Natalie’s fascination with New York translated into a fascination with young Method actors, guys who played the same brooding notes as Brando and Monty Clift but didn’t actually have their talent. Scott Marlowe, for instance. In Natalie’s mind, New York was always a sort of acting promised land.

  I found her to be outwardly much less conflicted than most of the parts she played. She was naturally inquisitive about how things worked, and she was also very interested in how other people lived. I came to realize that she was extremely intuitive and perceptive about people—about who was honest, who was dishonest. She seemed to live in a perpetual state of joyful discovery, and since she had never met people like Fred Astaire or Clifton Webb, there was a real sense that she was coming into a new world. Her parents had kept her on a short rein, so by marrying me she gained, for the first time, a sense of real freedom.

  We didn’t really talk about having a baby; we were very young, and we wanted to enjoy our togetherness before anything else. A child wasn’t completely out of our minds, but we didn’t work at it. We thought we had plenty of time, and besides, there were our careers.
Natalie in particular was working all the time, going from one picture to another, as was I.

  As a woman, Natalie had that radiance that made her one of those women everybody loved. She was everything I had imagined, and she immediately became the preeminent component of my life. My memories of those first years with Natalie are almost unmarked by any genuine stress between us. Those first years, as well as our later remarriage, had a purity of emotion that was never affected by any transient arguments.

  NINE

  “HE NEVER SPOKE ABOUT AVA, NOT EVER.”

  A surprise party for my thirtieth birthday that Natalie threw for me at Trader Vic’s. The only guest was Spencer Tracy. What a present! (COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)

  Just about the time Natalie and I were getting serious, I had made The True Story of Jesse James, a remake of a Henry King picture from 1939 that the studio assigned to Nicholas Ray. I was looking forward to working with Nick Ray on a western, but he was a very strange man. He was bisexual, with a drinking problem and a drug problem—a very confused and convoluted personality, even for a director, few of whom were as obviously tormented as Nick. I found Henry Hathaway, for instance, to be all about action; I don’t think he ever gave me a direction that involved the character’s state of mind. Hathaway thought in terms of direct lines of physical movement. But Nick was the complete opposite—he hardly ever gave you a physical direction. It was all about emotions, and that’s what he tried to put into the movie.

  The problem was that Nick was always anesthetized; he’d stare off into space and then he’d say, “Try this. No. Wait. Don’t.” He liked acolytes; I have this mental snapshot of him wearing cowboy boots, surrounded by actors sitting around him on the ground. I remember thinking that he looked a little too comfortable. He was terribly enamored of Kazan, but he completely lacked Gadge’s focus. Every morning we’d all wonder how Nick was going to be today, which is no way to make a movie. I liked working for him—he was as close to the avant-garde as Hollywood got at that time—and he was very interesting in his various pathologies. I always enjoyed working with Jeff Hunter as well, and the picture turned out okay.