In My Father's Shadow (2 page)

M
Y OLD FRIENDS
Bill and Penny Hutchinson put us up for the night. I had called them at the last minute to ask if we could stay with them, and they had agreed without hesitation. As Irwin reminded me before we fell asleep that night in their comfortable guest room, “You’ve had plenty of problems with your family, but you’ve been blessed with friends who’ve come through for you again and again.”

The next morning we were picked up by Gary Graver, who had been my father’s cameraman for the last fifteen years of his life. Slim, blond, almost
handsome, sporting a California tan and dark glasses, Gary looked like one of the “Hollywood types” Paola had wanted to ban from the funeral, but he seemed pleasant enough. Beatrice had told me Paola was making an exception in letting Gary Graver attend because he had been “like a son to Daddy” and was “devastated” by his death.

As we wound our way through the lush suburb of Sherman Oaks, where Bill and Penny lived, I wondered what was wrong with me. My whole body felt numb, as though I were locked in a suit of armor and could move my limbs only with great difficulty. I saw myself sitting tense and dry-eyed through the funeral while the writer in me took careful notes. Perhaps I should have stayed home and let grief come to me in private.

We began to penetrate downtown Los Angeles. The comfortable split-level homes and tree-lined streets had given way to an endless strip mall of gas stations and fast-food joints. Revolving neon signs issued a nonstop invitation to gorge on tacos, burritos, burgers, or pancakes. The streets were littered with the leavings of junk food and empty beer cans. Few pedestrians braved the sun-baked roads, and only the poor stood stoically waiting at bus stops.

We had entered a slum where every other storefront was boarded up, and yet it was here that Gary pulled into a parking lot in a complex of ramshackle buildings. Irwin and I stared at each other in disbelief. “The funeral’s going to be here?” I asked. Gary nodded, but for several moments I was too stunned to get out of the car. How was it possible that my father’s remains had been brought to this destitute part of town? Why hadn’t an appropriate funeral home been chosen in Brentwood or Beverly Hills—one worthy of a man like Orson Welles? Even if there were no money for a funeral, that was no excuse for holding it in such a dismal place.

Gary led us to a building that looked more like a hot-sheets motel than a funeral home. We entered, tentatively, and were given a room number, as though we were checking in, then waved toward a long corridor. On the way we passed a large, attractive room where another funeral was taking place, and I had to wonder why it had not been reserved for us. Continuing on, we reached a small room at the end of the corridor. Why had we been given this crummy room instead of a much larger one, as though Orson Welles were of no importance? It reminded me of another genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had been unceremoniously dumped in a pauper’s grave.

My two half sisters and my stepmother stood huddled and weeping in the corridor. Beatrice, transformed into a statuesque blond, was wailing “Oh my
God!” and standing with a protective arm around her mother. Becky was taller than I remembered, but she still had a wealth of dark hair and carried herself with a quiet dignity that reminded me of her mother. Although tears were streaming down her face, she was not eliciting sympathy. I gave her a hug anyway. Then we were all hugging and kissing one another, barely able to speak. The door to the room stood open, but no one wanted to be the first to walk through it.

We were still hesitating when Roger “Skipper” Hill walked briskly toward us. He had flown in from Rockford, Illinois, to say goodbye to the man he had called his foster son and had loved more than anyone in his life, apart from the wife he had buried two years before, my Granny Hill. Everyone called him Skipper because he was born to pilot a boat, fly an airplane, and drive anything that moved. With his shock of white hair, his penetrating blue eyes and weathered face, he certainly looked the part. Now a man of ninety, he still walked with a roll in his step like a jaunty young salt on shore leave.

How ironic that Skipper was coming to my father’s funeral instead of the other way around.

“Well?” Skipper eyed us as though we were a bunch of sissies. “What are we waiting for?” And with that he marched through the door of the dreaded room and sat down on one of the plastic-covered sofas.

I immediately followed and sat down next to him. Squeezing his hand, I was about to say something consoling when he whispered furiously, “This is awful! Awful! Orson never wanted to be cremated. He hated the whole idea of cremation. Thank God he doesn’t know what they did to him!” We both stared at the plain pine box containing the ashes, which had been placed on a stand in the middle of the room. “God, how awful,” Skipper was muttering, more to himself than me. Then he heaved a sigh, patting my hand. “Well, there’s nothing to do about it now.”

It was extremely upsetting to be so close to my father’s ashes now that I knew his last wishes had not been respected. At first, I could not see anything in the room except the pine box, which looked grotesquely large to me. Until that moment I had assumed that the body of a man even of my father’s generous proportions would dwindle in the fires of cremation until nothing was left but handfuls of dust. There must be huge pieces of bone . . . I shuddered, looking around the room for the first time.

It had the look of a cheap motel room—the impersonal air of a place in
constant use by people whose passion or grief was swept out with the dust of the day. The walls were lined with worn sofas and chairs. Scratched end tables with ugly lamps and ashtrays were wedged into corners. Management had not even contributed a box of tissues, and no one had thought to bring a single flower.

I closed my eyes and imagined how it should have been. We would be sitting now in a small chapel with stained glass windows, the sun streaming through them, scattering the colors of rubies, emeralds, and sapphires on the walls and floor. How much would it have cost to rent such a chapel for an hour or so and buy some bouquets of roses or lilies of the valley? My friend, Bill Hutchinson, would have gladly played the organ for nothing. I would have chosen something by Bach or Albinoni, a composer my father had loved.

The weeping of Paola, Beatrice, and Becky brought me back to reality. I respected their tears, but I was unable to join them. In fact, the longer and louder they cried, the more determined I was to remain a dry-eyed protester against this travesty. How appalled my father would have been to be dispatched with so little ceremony! Nothing had been planned. No one had been asked to speak. We just sat around in this shabby room, our eyes avoiding one another and the box of ashes.

As we continued to sit in silence, a few more people drifted in. Besides Gary Graver, exceptions had been made for two of my father’s old friends, Prince Alessandro Tasca di Cuto and Greg Garrison. How many other old friends, I wondered, had been excluded because they were “Hollywood types”? On the other hand, Paola had allowed the doctor who had signed the death certificate to join us. Why not throw open the doors to Orson’s dentist, his barber, his chauffeur, his accountant, his tailor, and the head waiter of his favorite restaurant? These people had seen a lot more of him than his wife and daughters. In fact, I was beginning to question my own presence there and to feel a mounting sense of outrage that I had flown across the continent to take part in this charade. That a man like my father should have less than a dozen people at his funeral was unbelievable.

For what seemed like a very long time, no one knew what to say. We just sat and sat, the awkward silence broken by bursts of sobbing from my stepmother and half sisters. Then, taking command, Skipper got to his feet and began his spontaneous tribute to Orson Welles. He recalled “the sweet kid” Orson had once been at Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois, where Skipper had been headmaster. “I knew at once that I had a young genius on
my hands,” he went on. “Orson liked to call me his mentor, but it was all baloney. There was very little I could teach him since he already knew everything he needed to know . . .” He rambled on, an old man lost in the intricate maze of his memories, circling around and around, retracing his steps, unaware that he was covering the same ground. At the same time, he was reluctant to surrender his command post.

I stopped listening until I heard a quaver in Skipper’s voice. “There was a sweetness in him, an innocence he never lost, and that’s what I loved about Orson and what I’ll remember, how sweet he could be out of the public eye, when he was alone with the few people he trusted. And that’s what I’ve lost, what we’ve all lost.” He stopped to wipe his eyes. “But the Orson Welles the world knew, the talented actor and the great movie director, that Orson Welles will be more famous and more acclaimed as time goes on. He’ll be larger in death than he ever was in life. I won’t live long enough to see it, but his daughters will.”

Skipper finally sat down. There were a few minutes of silence before Greg Garrison rose to speak, but I was not able to focus any longer. My mind flew back to the grief I had felt at the memorial service for Hortense Hill, Skipper’s wife. Many years earlier, when my maternal grandfather had died, I had wept so uncontrollably at his funeral that a cousin had jabbed me in the ribs to make me stop. And now, at my father’s funeral, I sat through the blah-blah-blah, refusing to allow so much as a lump in my throat. When was it going to reach me that I would never have lunch with my father again in the privacy of his New York hotel room, or pick up the phone and hear his thrilling voice on the other end?

(“I just got the most depressing news, Christopher, another one of my ideas for a picture shot down, you know, and I thought it would cheer me up to call you.” He paused while I pictured him chomping on his long cigar. “But please don’t ask me what I’m doing these days, because I’m not doing anything right now that would make you proud of me.”

“But I’m already proud of you, Father. You can’t imagine how tremendously proud of you I am, and I’m sure you’ll make another picture . . .”

“Darling girl!” he said softly, gratefully.)

It was a relief when we finally filed out of the funeral home and milled around in the parking lot while the pine box containing my father’s ashes was carried out and loaded into the trunk of one of the cars. A light touch on my elbow made me turn around. There was Tasca, a courtly, elegant Italian with
silver hair, smiling gently down at me. “I was the last person who saw your father alive,” he told me. “We sat up half the night, talking, and he spoke at some length about you and how proud of you he was. He said that even though he hadn’t been a good father to you, you’d been a very good daughter to him. It was very touching.”

“Thanks for telling me this . . . but wasn’t Oja with him?”

“No, she was in Croatia, visiting her family.”

This left me wondering if things would have proceeded differently if Oja had been on hand. A moment later Greg Garrison, another good-looking “Hollywood type” in his designer suit and dark glasses, took me aside. “The funeral didn’t have to be like this. Your father had so many friends in Hollywood, and they all wanted to come. You could have had hundreds of people here.” He bit his lip, on the verge of tears. “Anyway, I wanted you to know a memorial is being planned for your father, and everyone in Hollywood will be there.”

“Oh, really? Who’s planning it?”

“It was Dick Wilson’s idea. Do you know him? He used to work for your father.”

“The name’s familiar. Yes, I must have known him when I was a child, but I haven’t seen him in years.” Nor would Dick Wilson have any idea how to get in touch with me. I had kept such a low profile that most people considered me no more than a footnote in my father’s autobiography.

“I can assure you the memorial Dick and others are planning won’t be anything like this. I’m really sorry . . .”

I realized Greg wanted to console me with a vision of a public tribute to Orson Welles attended by thousands. “Thanks for telling me.” We shook hands and exchanged rueful smiles. He had removed his dark glasses and was dabbing at his red-rimmed eyes with a spotless handkerchief.

“Yes siree, the public memorial will be Hollywood’s grand salute to Orson, and it’s about time, too,” drawled Skipper, who had sauntered up and overheard our conversation. “I’ve been asked to deliver a eulogy. In fact, I’m going to be the first speaker on the podium.” He looked more pleased with himself than usual.

“You’re going?” I stared at Skipper in astonishment.

“Of course, I’m going. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Now I was the one fighting back tears. Why had no one thought to include me? And once Skipper had been invited, why hadn’t it occurred to him to
take me along? Skipper who claimed me as his “honorary grandchild,” just as my father had been his “foster son.” Perhaps, like everyone else involved, it hadn’t occurred to him that I might want to attend Hollywood’s farewell to my father.

It was time to return to my real life. I looked around for the only attractive man in our gathering who was bald-headed, squinting in the sun, wearing a crumpled jacket that had not been bought on Rodeo Drive and pants that bagged at the knees. With Irwin’s warm, comforting hand in mine, I would walk away from the funeral home and drive out of the parking lot where everything looked just as seedy as it had an hour ago. The sky was a mindless blue and the sun beat down relentlessly on the burger joints and pancake houses as he and I made our way to the airport. Already it seemed as though the funeral hadn’t happened yet. Or might never happen.

T
HE FIRST TIME
I saw Rita Hayworth, my father was sawing her in half. It was the final and most spectacular trick he performed on the opening night of his Mercury Wonder Show. It was August of 1943, the summer we were at war with Japan, and the magic show was for the benefit of our servicemen who were about to be shipped to the Pacific theater. It was held in a big circus tent erected on Cahuenga Boulevard in downtown Hollywood.