How to Be a Movie Star (35 page)

Elizabeth was too smart to think that Hedda wouldn't run a scoop when she landed one; what surprised her, no doubt, was the columnist's combative tone and that Hedda was no longer carrying water for her the way she'd done in the past. Like the MGM executives who contended that Elizabeth was still their property, Hedda and her diatribe symbolized the stubborn refusal of old Hollywood to simply roll over and make way for the new. "I must say I had no regret," Hopper said. "If she'd been my own daughter, I'd have done it. Without a sense of integrity you can't sleep nights."

All during that warmer-than-average late-summer week, people around the country (and then the globe) picked up their newspapers to read about "Liz, Eddie, and Debbie." The scandal trumped all other news: the financial improprieties of Eisenhower aide Sherman Adams, the massive commuter train crash in Newark that killed forty-eight people, even the Supreme Court's landmark decision ordering Little Rock High School to integrate. Elizabeth was stunned by the massive interest. From behind the curtains of Frings's well-guarded house, she watched in disbelief as the furor grew.

But Debbie Reynolds—like Elizabeth a graduate of Metro's last class of studio-trained stars—was definitely not in hiding. Debbie, a former Miss Burbank, had skyrocketed to stardom with her brisk turn opposite Gene Kelly in
Singin' in the Rain
(1952) and then worked her way up the old-fashioned way, gamely playing the perky girl next door in a succession of routine studio vehicles. At twenty-six (just a month younger than Elizabeth), the blond El Paso native was a five-foot-two dynamo—and "one very smart girl who knew how to work any situation," said her friend, the producer Hank Moonjean.

Indeed. As soon as rumors began reaching her of Eddie and Elizabeth's cavorting in New York, Debbie did two things. First she telephoned her husband (or he telephoned her; their stories differ) and learned the truth. Eddie admitted that he was in love with Elizabeth and wanted a divorce. He also said that he wouldn't be returning on the day he'd originally planned, the Tuesday after Labor Day, but would stay in New York a couple of days longer. Then Debbie called the studio. "And they told her what to do," said Dick Clayton, who knew exactly how the Hollywood studios operated. "At times like these, the star went to the studio and they figured out how to [proceed]."

On the day that Eddie was originally supposed to arrive back in Los Angeles, Debbie showed up at the airport bright and early, devoid of makeup, her hair pulled back in a girlish ponytail. Reporters took note as she watched and waited, waited and watched, then seemed to give up. Her chin set bravely, she marched past the reporters and returned home. Eddie steamed. "The fact that I'd just told her I was in love with another woman didn't keep her from going to the airport like the loving wife," he said.

She was met with more cameras at home. Ever since the rumors had begun, reporters were assembling on the well-manicured front lawn of the Fisher house on Conway Avenue in West Los Angeles, their numbers growing as each day passed. Whenever movement was spotted in one of the windows of the house, a volley of questions was shouted. When a friend of Debbie's, the dancer Camille Williams, showed up for support, she was hounded up the driveway and nearly reduced to tears.

Then Eddie came home. Debbie made sure she was cooking lima bean soup—his favorite. When he walked through the door, the aroma drifted out onto the front lawn. But home-cooked meal or not, there was an argument—overheard by the crowd outside—in which Debbie's chief complaint wasn't so much her hus band's infidelity but the damage that it did to their reputations as America's Sweethearts: "It doesn't look good to have stories like this in the papers! You never see stories like this about me!"

With the studio's backing, Debbie was fighting back. She and the studio believed that this thing could be fixed, that the Sweethearts could be saved. Editors at
Motion Picture
magazine told of a personal call from Debbie that day, pleading with them not to blame Eddie, insisting that he was "a great guy." She (and the studio) believed that the marriage could be saved, at least for a while—at least until it no longer looked as if Elizabeth Taylor had broken it.

That was important. To lose her husband to another woman was going to be humiliating; to lose her husband to Elizabeth Taylor when Debbie was a movie star herself was a public ignominy with far-reaching career implications. An actor's stock in Hollywood was a valuable commodity, and Debbie's had just taken a critical hit. Already wags around town were poking fun. "Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth?" Oscar Levant reportedly quipped. "How high can you stoop?"

So it was no surprise that the reporters jostling one another for position on Debbie's front lawn would witness a parade of Metro "flacks" going in and out of the house. Although Debbie and Elizabeth were both MGM stars, it was clear who the studio was backing in this situation—even if the big New York premiere of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
was just days away. After all, Elizabeth had severed all practical ties with the studio once the filming of
Cat
had finished, and she was never going to sign another contract with them. Debbie, on the other hand, had just starred in the phenomenally popular
Tammy and the Bachelor
and was about to begin another important picture,
The Mating Game,
costarring Tony Randall. Debbie loved the studio as much as Elizabeth loathed it, and as always, Metro took care of its own.

No doubt it was the studio that arranged for the Fishers to visit a marriage counselor—rather late in the game, but it was good for appearances. To get there, they had to slip out the back way and climb over a wall to reach Camille Williams's waiting car. Eddie, sighing and shrugging, went along partly because Elizabeth was incommunicado and partly because he never could say no to Debbie. As he hiked his wife over the wall in her capri pants (what would Hedda say?), one of those Metro "flacks" was stepping out onto the front lawn to read a statement. "We have never been happier than we have in this past year," he quoted Debbie as saying. "There was no trouble between us until he got to New York." And then the kicker: "I still love the guy."

But Hedda's explosive front-page interview with Elizabeth changed the arc of the story dramatically the next day. Now headlines blared:
DEBBIE: I LOVE EDDIE; MISS TAYLOR: HE DOESN'T.
For all Hedda's supposed advocacy of "poor little Debbie," she had placed her so-called friend in an extremely awkward situation. Columnist Irv Kupelnet saw this immediately, deploring the "untenable positions" that both Debbie and Eddie now occupied because of the way Hedda's story (and those that resulted from it) "blew the case wide open." Now
hundreds
instead of dozens of reporters took up camp on the Fishers' front lawn. Police had to cordon off the street.

Of course, the marriage counselor did no good, and Eddie moved out a day later. The press was in an uproar, but Debbie seemed unfazed. When she emerged from the house now, she was cheery. Dressed in dungarees, her hair knotted in a long pigtail, she'd clipped a couple of diaper pins to her blouse. She explained to reporters that she'd just put baby Todd down for his nap. Then she called in to little Carrie, who came stumbling out the door perfectly on cue and ran directly into her mother's arms. As she settled her daughter into the family car, Debbie was asked if it was true that she and Eddie were separating. There was a pause as Debbie slid into the car. Then she turned to face the photographers. Her eyes were moist, but she didn't cry. "He isn't coming home," she said plainly. The tabloids had their picture—and their headline—for the next day.

"That was Debbie Reynolds's greatest performance," said Mark Miller, who had some key insight into the proceedings from Rock Hudson. Others agreed. Debbie "wasn't quite the 'little darling' she appeared to be," said columnist Earl Wilson. "To put it bluntly, Debbie has more balls than any five guys I've ever known. She pretends to be sweet and demure, but at heart she's hard as nails."

Debbie would insist that she had acted with complete authenticity. Those diaper pins were stuck in her blouse simply so she wouldn't "forget them"—though she did admit to "obliging" photographers with a picture that came to symbolize the "Rejected Woman" in the next day's newspapers. So obliging was she, in fact, that when one reporter called out that he hadn't gotten a shot, Debbie stopped the car as she was backing out of the driveway and posed again. Eddie griped that she was "playing the martyr thing."

"But what other choice did she have?" Dick Clayton asked rhetorically. After all, she had to "protect her own interests," said MGM publicist Rick Ingersoll. Alan Cahan, who was just then starting a long career as a publicist, thought that Debbie's behavior was a classic example of how a star can use the media for her own advantage. "Debbie Reynolds considered her options and made a choice," he said. "Either be typed as the undesirable woman, which would've been pretty pathetic, or go for the sympathy vote. It wasn't going to make her as glamorous as Elizabeth Taylor, but who could compete with that? So she went the other way and decided to be the Good Girl to Liz's Bad Girl."

Plan A—preserving the marriage to keep her reputation intact—hadn't worked, so it was time for Plan B, which turned out be far more achievable. The press, uncomfortable with nuance and easily susceptible to archetypes, loved the Good Girl–Bad Girl dichotomy—a narrative as old as time and still trotted out today. The words used to describe Debbie were significant. She was always "brave" or "plucky" or "unassuming." When she spoke, she always "managed a smile" or "held back tears." For the next several months hundreds of photographs of Debbie and her children would be taken—but, in direct contrast to the usual practice, it was usually only those in which Carrie and Todd looked sad and distraught that made it into print.

One other bit of manipulation seems to have been attempted as well. On the very day that most other newspapers were reporting that the Fishers had separated, some provincial papers were printing a piece supposedly written by Eddie in which he claimed to be "still very much in love with my wife." It forced a quick denial from Eddie's lawyers, who insisted that he hadn't penned the article. Of course he hadn't. It was likely written by the Metro publicity department before Hedda's bombshell interview with Elizabeth had changed the storyline, and only those far outside the Hollywood loop—like the
Times
of Chester, Pennsylvania—still considered the press release relevant.

Meanwhile Elizabeth kept mum, refusing to get out of bed at Frings's house, eating carton after carton of beef-and-pinto-bean chili from Chasen's restaurant, and speaking to no one. But Eddie ventured forward in an attempt to prevent the bad press from sticking to his ladylove. "I'm the heavy," he said. "Don't blame Elizabeth." But he offered no such solicitude for Debbie. Though he accepted "full responsibility" for their problems, Eddie stated, "My marriage would have come to an end even if I had never known Elizabeth Taylor." This, though the truth, directly contradicted what Debbie had said, and led to her announcement the next day that she'd sue for divorce.

Once more, Debbie was forced out front to "protect her interests." To reporters, she issued a mawkish statement about "how blind love can be." She knew what she was doing. Faced with this humiliation from her husband, she knew exactly which cards to play. "I will endeavor to use all my strength to survive and understand, for the benefit of my two children," she said. Of course the press ran her statement under pictures of her holding Carrie and Todd.

The archetypes—Good Girl, Bad Girl, Errant Husband—were hardening into place, no matter the more nuanced picture that a few tried valiantly to describe. Veteran Hollywood journalist Vernon Scott was one of those who attempted to tell the truth to his readers. "Insiders know the Fisher family has had serious problems from the very beginning." But the public wasn't listening. All they knew was "poor little Debbie," as Hedda had described her, had been abandoned with two small children. "It seems unbelievable," Debbie told the press, "to say that you can live happily with a man and not know he doesn't love you. But that—as God is my witness—is the truth."

Debbie didn't just invoke God in that statement. She conjured up the greatest fear of many housewives—that a more beautiful, more desirable woman lurked around the corner, waiting to sneak in and destroy their marriages and ways of life. Hands down, the public-relations battle was won. In just two days' time—from September 11 to September 13—the world turned sharply against Elizabeth Taylor. No longer the beloved young widow, she was now that blackest of fifties stereotypes: the home wrecker.

The first delivery of letters—maybe a couple dozen—arrived at Hedda's office on September 12, the day after her front-page exclusive. On the 13th, one of her secretaries lugged in a heavy burlap sack that had just been dropped off by messenger from the
Times
building downtown. As Hedda sat back wide-eyed and slackjawed in her chair, the secretary proceeded to empty the sack onto her desk. Hundreds of letters spilled out, growing into an enormous pile, several slipping off and falling to the floor. Many were addressed simply to "Miss Hopper, Hollywood." The post office knew how to find her.

Hedda dug in gleefully. "For many years, I have been a fan of Elizabeth Taylor," read one of the first letters, from a woman in Lompoc, California. "I haven't missed a single movie that she has appeared in. I was definitely looking forward to
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
But now I wouldn't go to see her movies if someone paid my way. She has made herself sickening and disgusting ... I surely hope that [Eddie Fisher] will see the light of day before it is to [
sic
] late and return to his sweet wife and family."

Nearly every letter contained more of the same. On the 14th, two sacks were delivered to Hedda's office, and secretaries began sorting the cards, letters, and telegrams into piles on the floor. As Hedda's story was syndicated across the nation and the saga of Liz, Eddie, and Debbie dominated the news, the flood of mail increased. Missives arrived from every state in the union and as far away as Norway and Australia.