Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant (9 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Discovered

“O
scar, I'm going to have to give you my resignation,” I told my wonderful boss.

“What's up, Diane?”

“I've met a talent agent. Oscar,
I'm going to meet Jerry Wald on Wednesday
! I've been discovered!”

Oscar smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “Take a breath, my dear. Don't quit just yet. You can have Wednesday off, and hey, if you get the part, we'll celebrate like it's V-day. Just don't quit.” I loved Oscar. So protective. So caring.

So I went to meet Jerry Wald on the 20th Century Fox lot. I stepped into his office and looked into a room that was as long as a bowling alley. Way down at the end was an enormous desk, behind which sat Jerry Wald. The desk was so large that at first all I could see was the dome of his bald, round head. It seemed like a quarter mile from the door to his desk.

He looked up at me and, apropos of nothing I could see, suddenly exclaimed, “Explosions! Guns! Cannons!
Excitement!
”

I thought he was talking to someone else. I looked around, but there were only the two of us.

“What's your name, kid?” he asked.

“Diane Friesen.”

“No!”

“Uh, no?”

“Diane
Cannon
!”

“Diane Cannon?”

“Boom! Pow! Bang!”

“Oh,” I said, meaning, “Oy.”

“No more Diane Free-free-whatever! Now you're Diane
Cannon
! And you're going to be a star!”

“Thank you.” It was hard to know what else to say.

“O
scar, it's happening. I'm going to be in the movies. It's real now, so I'm going to resign.”

“Did you get the part?”

“My screen test is Thursday! The movie's called
Harlow.
It's for the role of Jean Harlow.”

“You can have Thursday off. But you can't quit. Not yet. Don't make a fur coat before you kill the bear, Diane.”

Dear, sweet, fatherly Oscar. I knew he was rooting for me, and his quiet admonition of caution was given with the best intention. I decided to humor him.

J
ack Hopkins was as cool as sorbet when he assured me that Jerry Wald would see the same “star quality” in me that he did, but he was positively giddy with joy that his prophecy had been fulfilled. “You're going to do swell, Diane,” he said, patting my hand as we sat in the sitting room awaiting the screen test. I think he was more nervous than I was.

“I hope so,” I replied, just as someone called out the name “Diane Cannon,” which went in one ear and out the other, until Jack nudged me. Oh yeah. Diane Cannon.
Boom! Pow! Kerblooey!
I liked it, once I got used to it.

“Sydney's just about ready for you,” said a young woman about my age. She led me into the makeup department, where there were three barber-style chairs aligned in a neat row in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror. The one chair that was occupied suddenly spun around and I realized that I was looking right at Elizabeth Taylor, who was every inch the goddess that she appeared to be on-screen. She stood up, thanked the makeup artist, then beamed the most gorgeous smile right at me. She was breathtaking.

The makeup artist introduced himself as Sydney Guilaroff. The name meant nothing to me at the moment, but I was about to be made over by one of the top studio makeup magicians of the past half century.

“Let's have some fun,” he said, studying me rather like a mechanic appraising the lines of a classic car. “Just a little accent here and there. You don't need a lot of help.”

A half hour later, I felt transformed, and that boosted my confidence as I launched into my screen test. For it, I was given a scene from
The Long, Hot Summer,
which had starred Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman
.
When I was done, the crew applauded. I came away from it feeling like it had gone brilliantly, and so, apparently, did the director. “You were born to do this!” he gushed. As I floated away, I indulged myself in the fantasy of the large and luxurious dressing room I would have on the lot.

“O
scar!”

“Yes, you can have Friday off.”

“I wasn't going to ask for Friday off.”

“I know.”

“Oscar, this is it. I—”

“Call me after the meeting with the studio boys.”

“How did you know?”

“I'm bringing the ice,” Oscar said, running a letter opener through an envelope.

“To what?”

“To the party.”

“Oh.”
The party
had been hatched all of ten minutes ago by my roommates, who threw caution to the wind and planned a raucous celebration on the very day of my screen test, and Oscar was already invited! It would begin at three
P.M
., the idea being for it to be in full tilt by the time I got back from the meeting to discuss my role in
Harlow.

“Oscar, seriously, I'm so grateful for all of your kindness, but I think the time has come—”

“Diane.”

“Yes?”

“No, it hasn't.”

“What?”

“One day at a time. Keep your job up until the moment they yell ‘action.' ”

So that Friday, Jack and I were back at the studio to discuss my screen test and what we assumed would be a contract. In the meeting room, Wald and five executives in late middle age sat around a table awaiting me. The executives reminded me of a bunch of old ladies playing bridge.

“Miss Cannon!” Wald greeted me.
Boom, pow!

“Your intelligence radiates off the
screen
!” offered Suit No. 1.

“Your acting is
sublime
!” added Suit No. 2, and so on down the line.

“Your timing,
perfect
.”

“You're going to be
huge
!”

I was beginning to like this.

“The camera
loves
you,
but . . .
”

Kerblooey.

Suit No. 4 came closer and squinted at me through spectacles as thick as architectural glass. I held my breath. “There's a little problem,” he said. “It's your nose.”

“My
nose
?”

“It's too flat.”

“Too flat for
what
?” I asked.

“Oh, your nose is great,” one said.

“But you said it was too flat,” I answered.

“It really has
character
!” Those were fighting words. They might as well have said I reminded them of Jimmy Durante.

They all nodded to each other, individually and collectively, now less like old ladies and more like gnomes. Finally, Mr. Wald broke the impasse with a simple, “Thank you for coming in.”

T
ipsy laughter spilled out of the open window on the second floor where our apartment was. I had completely forgotten about the party. It was some party. The building practically shook.

I slipped into the apartment. It was nearly bursting out of its walls with people, and they were whooping it up like the end of the world had been announced and everybody had been promised a free pass into heaven.

They were in high spirits and full of strong spirits. Luckily, nobody noticed me as I took the phone into the bathroom and locked the door. I just wanted to stretch out and be alone, so I laid some towels in the dry tub and rolled one up as a pillow for my head. Naturally, I called my mother, which was the same as calling my father too, because he always got on the extension.

“Honey, what's wrong?” My mother could hear the tears in my voice.

“Mom, I'm
deformed
!”

“What?”

“My nose isn't right.”

“Isn't right for what?”

“I don't know. But they talked like I'd been in the ring one too many times with Cassius Clay.”

“That's crazy!” my father boomed, now on the extension and deeply offended. By insinuation, his own nose had been impugned. I had my mother's eyes and my father's nose. “Oy,” my mother said.

“It's
your
nose!” Dad boomed. “Your nose is your nose. God gave you that nose! It's not like you can do anything to change it!”

“Ben, there's such a thing as plastic surgery,” Mom told Dad.

“No!” Dad boomed. “She's too young to have plastic surgery! Her nose isn't broken.”

“Ben, she wants to be an actress.”

“I heard her, Clara.”

This was typical. I would call my parents long-distance, and they would have a short-distance conversation with each other in their own home, cutting me out of the talk while they debated what was best for me. That was okay, though. It made me feel right at home.

“I have to get a nose job!” I said, breaking in. “What if the only thing standing between me and being an actress is my nose?”

The line went quiet, then slowly stirred to life with mutterings of “Oy” and “Errgh.”

“I don't think a nose job is a good idea,” Dad said.

“You already said that, Ben. Honey, when you think this through you're going to realize getting a nose job is crazy.”

We talked a few more minutes. When I hung up I immediately got out the phone book and looked for a plastic surgeon.

I didn't really want surgery, but after my near miss, I wanted to be an actor more than ever. I wasn't going to let the
character
of my schnoz stand in the way of a brilliant career. So, I figured if I were going to do something about my hideously flat
muzzle,
with its nostrils flaring across several zip codes, I would go to the best. And Dr. Andrew Park, I was informed by several people I trusted, was one of the most highly regarded plastic surgeons in Hollywood.

At my consultation a week later, Dr. Park pried my nostrils open and looked up inside them.

“Passages are clear as a bell and completely straight,” he said. “Do you have trouble breathing?”

“That's not why I'm here.”

“Why are you here then?”

“So you can fix my nose.”

“What needs fixing?”

“The camera doesn't like it,” I said plaintively.

“Did the camera tell you that?”

“No.”

“Did someone at a studio tell you that?”

“Yes.”

He took my chin in his hand and gently turned my face from side to side. He tilted my head forward and looked down my nose. He tilted my head back and looked up at it.

“Can you help me?” I pleaded.

Then he crossed his arms and looked me straight in the eye.

“Yes,” he said. “Get out of my office.”

“Excuse me?”

“Miss Friesen—”

“It's
Cannon
now. Diane Cannon.”

“Miss Cannon, listen to me. I don't know what kind of Froot Loops these studio guys are eating, but I get paid a lot of money to give people the exact nose you've already got on your face.”

“But—”

“Hear me out, please. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to get in the car with a megaphone and yell for them to stop playing with people's insecurities. Once those studio guys start changing things, they don't stop. First it's your name. Then it's your nose. Then it's your eyes. One day your breasts are not big enough, the next day they're too big. I think they get a thrill out of it. They will turn you inside out, then they will turn you outside in—
if you let them.
”

I gulped.

“Don't let them. They'll change you on the outside, and then they'll try to change you on the inside. And if I were a betting man, I'd lay a pretty good wager that in a couple of years, more than one gal is going to be in here saying, ‘I want a nose like Diane Cannon's.' Do you follow me?”

“Yes,” I said uncertainly. “I think so.”

“I'm sure you can find someone who'll take your money, but
I won't do it
.”

I didn't realize it at the time, but Dr. Park was one of my guardian angels.

I went home and looked in the mirror and decided I liked what I saw. There were other women out there who were far more beautiful, and there were things I would have liked to change, but I decided to work with what I had.

I didn't get the part, of course—or more precisely, my nose didn't get the part. Carroll Baker's nose did. I was a little disappointed but happy that I'd dodged surgery. Things worked out all right, though. Two weeks later, I got a job doing publicity for
Les Girls,
an MGM musical comedy. With Oscar's blessing, I left my job at Eleanor Greene and spent the next four months traveling the world with two other girls, promoting the movie at press parties and screenings. I was making $200 a week, big money for me, and when I got back into town, I treated myself to the gorgeous white Thunderbird that I would later sacrifice so I could stay longer in Rome.

Growing up in Seattle, I'd always longed for adventure. That dream had come true beyond my wildest expectations. And I had a feeling I'd only just begun.

I
looked across the aisle. My scotch-soaked actor friend was snoring loudly, splayed out across the seats. I reclined my own seat and tried to get some sleep before we arrived in London.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Getting to Know You

C
ary's driver had picked me up at the airport, and now he pulled in front of a very old, crooked house that leaned almost like the Tower of Pisa. Cary preferred the privacy of a house to a hotel, so the studio had rented one for him. Standing outside, feeling like someone had thrown a pan of hot tomato sauce on my face, I was tempted to turn tail and head back for the airport. Why had I let him talk me into coming when I was such a mess?

When Cary answered the door, I lowered my head theatrically and pulled my hat down completely over my face. Cary ushered me in and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Now, let's have a look,” he said, removing my hat and scarf. As he looked at me, his mouth flew open and his eyes bugged out. He took a step back, and then another, clapping one hand over his eyes and thrusting the other out to push the sight of me away.

“Oh . . . my . . .
God
!” he said.

I was startled for a split second before I realized he was mugging and I laughed. Then he pulled me close with an urgency that took me by surprise. He held me to his chest and whispered. “Oh, Dyan. I am so happy you're here. I don't think I've ever been this happy to see anyone in my life.” Very gingerly, he kissed my cracked lips and gathered me back into his arms. Then he led me onto the couch and pulled me onto his lap, holding me in a tight embrace, stroking my hair, kissing my neck. “I've missed you so much,” he murmured.

“I look like—”

“It doesn't matter how you look,” he said softly. “It's how I feel when we're together.”

It never occurred to me that Cary would really miss me that much. I wrapped myself up in him and basked in the glow of those warm feelings.

F
or the next couple of days, Cary was tied up in script conferences, but he always stole away for lunch. On the first day, he took me for my first proper meal of fish and chips, English style. And I was hooked. I had to have them for at least one meal a day. Cary loved them too, so he indulged me. On the third day, my rash was almost gone, and we went to yet another little hole in the wall for take-out fish and chips. They were piping hot and in their traditional wrapping of day-old newspaper. Back at the house, we were just about to tuck into them when the phone rang.

Cary took the call and turned his back to me. His voice dropped to what for most people would be a businesslike murmur, but that wasn't Cary's normal business voice. “Ummmm . . . No, not really . . . Well, Sophia, I'm glad to hear it.”

Sophia? Sophia
who
? I knew it couldn't be Sophia Brown. It
had
to be Sophia Loren, the Italian bombshell. Me, jealous? Just because she was regarded as the sexiest, most voluptuous slice of mortadella since Aphrodite? Signorina “Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti” Loren? Just because it was well known to even midwestern grandmas that Cary Grant had had a torrid affair with her while shooting
Houseboat
? Me?

Naturally, being completely free of jealousy (hmmm) and having utter faith in Cary's loyalty to me (uhhhhhh-huh), I wasn't going to just linger there in front of him and eavesdrop. No, I would do my eavesdropping in the hallway. That way we would both have privacy! I sat down Indian-style against the wall with my ear pressed against the door.

I couldn't make out the words, but they were clipped and a little defensive: English decorum versus a torrent of Italian emotion, probably.
Jeez Louise,
I thought.
A gal doesn't have to be a territorial maniac for her ears to prick up when an old lover calls her guy.
But how many gals have to contend with *&^%!!# Sophia Loren?

And then I heard him say, “That was a different time, Sophia.” This was getting interesting. Then Cary's words became hushed again and I didn't hear anything else until the door to the hallway opened. Cary squatted beside me on the floor.

“Why'd you leave?” he asked.

“I thought you needed privacy. Do you want to call her back?”

Cary waved the suggestion away. “No, Dyan, that conversation is
over
.”

I found myself exhaling.

“I think our fish and chips are ice-cold by now,” I said.

“Let's start over with a new batch, hot out of the fryer,” Cary said.

We smiled into each other's eyes. That was that. I felt aglow. Without having to say much of anything, we'd communicated volumes. And that's how it should be, I thought.

T
he day before we left London for Bristol, Cary received a delivery from Norman Zeiler, the furrier in New York. It was a mink-lined coat he had made especially for his mother, Elsie, and it was spectacular. That didn't stop him from fretting over it, though. “I wanted something to keep her warm,” he said, almost in a whisper and completely to himself. “Something very warm and very soft on the inside. Winter's coming.”

“No woman could not love that coat,” I said.

“She's very particular,” Cary said. He held the coat out for me to try on. “Tell me how this makes you feel,” he said, brightening. Whew. I slipped my arms into the coat and he buttoned it. “Well?” he asked.

“If a coat could make you feel loved, this one would be all you need,” I said.

I
wouldn't quite call it a sulk, but Cary's mood during the three-hour drive to Bristol was heavily subdued. He clenched the steering wheel more tightly than usual and stomped the accelerator like he was trying to teach a lesson to the other drivers as he passed them. I finally asked him point-blank what was bothering him.

He sighed and said, “Going back to Bristol dredges up a lot of memories.”

“Your mother is going to be very happy to see you,” I said. “Just think about that.”

“It's a little more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Elsie is a
special
person, Dyan.”

“Of course she is. She's your mother.”

“That's not what I meant. She's been through a lot in her life. And there were many years when I didn't see her. Years I'd like to make up to her. But it's hard.”

“What happened that you didn't see her for so long?”

“Oh, every family has its dramas,” he said. “It's not really that interesting . . . here we are!”

“Not in Bristol already?”

“No. We're coming to the Old Lamb Teahouse, one of my favorite places in all of Britain. They have the best shepherd's pie in the world and I would walk on stilts again for their bangers and mash. We're making good time, let's stop for a bit.”

“I
s this tie too garish, do you think?” Cary took a step back so I could judge.

“I like the contrast,” I said.

“No, it's too loud.”

I smiled. “Why did you ask me then?”

“Maybe the maroon one?”

“Cary, it's not the Oscars. It's your mother.”

“Grrrrrr.”

I'd never seen him so insecure about his appearance, but I was certainly flattered that the teacher was asking the student's opinion. Upon checking into the hotel in Bristol, Cary decided he'd make a preliminary visit to Elsie before he introduced me. That in itself was a little odd, I thought, but now he'd been at my door three times, first demanding, and then dismissing, my opinion of how he looked.

Directly across the hall, the phone in Cary's room jingled. “That'll be Maggie and Eric,” he said.

E
ric Leach was Cary's favorite cousin, and he and his wife, Maggie, were really the only family Cary had besides Elsie. I fell immediately in love with them. They were short, round, and soft, like two human-sized dumplings who seemed genetically engineered for hugging. They were a little younger than Cary, and when he was around, he was their only priority. Cary had said more than once that they were his favorite people in the world, and when he hugged Maggie and held her for several moments, cheek to cheek, I realized it was the first time I'd seen Cary display that kind of plain old familial affection.

“What are you running off for, love?” Maggie asked. In a rare instance of crossing his own wires, Cary had called his cousins and then had decided abruptly to visit Elsie when they were already on their way over.

“Just thought I'd pop in for a bit to break the ice,” he said. He was carrying a canvas sack with the mink-lined coat and some other gifts he'd bought for her.

“Oh, Archie, it's not like she's going anywhere,” Maggie said softly.

“Let him go, love,” Eric said. “He's come a long way to see her and he's eager.”

“All right, then,” Maggie said.

“Why don't you take Dyan out for a little spin?” Cary said. “She's never been to Bristol before. Show her a bit of the
real
England.”

“Have you been to England before?” Maggie asked.

“No,” I replied. “London was the first time I'd set foot here.”

“London isn't England, love! It's
London
.”

“Different breed of cat, those Londoners!” Eric said.

“Indeed, love!” Maggie proclaimed.

I wanted Maggie and Eric to adopt me. Everyone and everything was “love,” and they gave you the feeling they really saw the world that way. If everyone had a marriage like Maggie and Eric's, all would be well in the world. They were one person in two bodies, forever sharing the same thoughts and completing each other's sentences. Maggie patted Cary's arm and said, “Go on and drop in on Elsie,
love,
and we'll give Dyan a bit of a look-see.”

That they did. They showed me the house where Cary grew up. It was an unremarkable row house in a working-class neighborhood. I imagined Cary as a boy, romping down the steps, bundled up against the cold, on his way to school.

“I hope he finds Elsie well,” Maggie said to Eric.

“Ah, yes. The poor dear.”

“Isn't she well?” I asked.

“You can never tell with Elsie, can you, love?” Eric said.

“No, never,” Maggie confirmed. “With Elsie, you can never tell.”

I was in the front seat with Eric driving and Maggie in the back. I turned around to look at her.

“Maggie,” I said, “Cary mentioned that he went for a really long time without seeing Elsie. Did something happen between them?”

At this, Maggie and Eric stiffened ever so slightly.

“Has Cary told you much about his parents?” Maggie asked cautiously.

“Nothing very substantial,” I said.

“That's quite like Cary, isn't it, love?” Eric said.

“Oh yes,” Maggie replied. “He's quite private about such things.”

“He always was,” Eric said. “Cary was always special. Even as a wee thing. He had such a tender heart, I think we all wondered how he would make his way through the world. Isn't that right, Maggie?”

“Oh, yes, but
talented . . .
”

I didn't come to understand it until later, but English indirectness is like a verbal form of kung fu. Subjects and situations an American would charge straight into like a buffalo are, in English culture, insinuated, suggested, or hinted at, but rarely stated in the open. I was aware that the pair had spun me around to a different subject, but they'd done it so deftly I gave up and went on to something else: Cary's exes. I asked if they'd met any of them.

“Oh yes!” Eric said.

“All of them!” Maggie said, then changed the subject. “Dear me, I hope things are going all right with Elsie.”

Back at the hotel, the desk clerk rang Cary in his room and he told us to come up.

“How was your grand tour of Bristol?” he asked with a kind of exaggerated cheerfulness. He set down a small whiskey and water on the dresser. “Did you show Dyan all the local color?”

“I got to see the house you grew up in,” I said.

“Now your life is complete,” he laughed. I could tell he was exhausted, running on fumes, but putting on his best game face. Then I glanced at the bed and noticed the coat he bought for Elsie lay there in its garment bag. Maggie noticed this too and read the signs.

“Was she in a bad way, love?” Maggie asked.

“You know Elsie,” he said. “You never know what branch she's going to fly off of. Dyan, I'm afraid you won't be meeting Elsie this trip,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Let's just say she's not at her best.”

“Let's be off, Maggie,” Eric said. “Cary, Dyan . . . we'll catch up with you tomorrow.”

“Don't rush off,” Cary said weakly.

“No rush, love,” Maggie said. “But it'll be nice for you and Dyan to have some quiet time together. I know Eric and I could do with some, can't we, Eric?”

“Of course, love.”

When they'd pulled the door shut behind them, I picked up Elsie's coat and slipped it onto a hanger.