Life Is Not a Stage (18 page)

CHAPTER 15

Hollywood…Finally

B
y the mid- to late 1960s I was getting a lot of media coverage. An impartial observer leafing through my scrapbook from circa 1966–1970 would be impressed with the hubbub of activity. There were newspaper and magazine articles including notices, column items, and in-depth interviews and photo spreads focused on club appearances, benefit concerts, and bigger splashes for starring roles in larger productions like the first revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
South Pacific
at Lincoln Center for a summer run of sold-out performances in 1967.

More than a few of the articles in that scrapbook pointed out how very odd it was that with all the success, Hollywood hadn’t really made a place for me. There was certainly no conscious effort on my part to reinforce any dissatisfaction with my career direction. I was perfectly happy with the way things were. The articles wondered with disbelief how it could be that I was still waiting to be noticed or discovered by Hollywood.

My attitude about the whole Hollywood thing was the same as I felt about my encounter with Frank Sinatra on one of my early trips west. I had just finished doing some live Oldsmobile commercials on a Bing Crosby television special and was outside the studio waiting for a cab. A little Karmann Ghia sports car pulled up, and the man inside rolled down the window. “Hey kid, you need a ride?” It was Sinatra. He was smartly garbed in a hat, a black jacket, and black-and-white-checked trousers. He was a guest on the show and had recognized me.

“I’m going to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel,” I told him.

“Get in.”

The younger and more innocent version of me was a little nervous because Frank had quite the reputation. I knew that because I got more than I was asking for when I once questioned a noted film actress rather innocently after a concert we were doing for Richard Rodgers.

“What was it like dating Frank?”

“It’s great,” she told me. I thought that was the end of her answer, but she added ever so matter-of-factly, “He just can’t ever get off. Wears me out.”

“Really? Hmm.” Not much more you can say after something like that.

Cruising in his sports car, we chatted about some mutual friends, including the choreographer Carol Haney, who taught him how to dance in the movies. Throughout the coming years, I got to know Frank, not well, but he was always very nice to me. But as he dropped me in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt, I was relieved that he didn’t hit on me. At the same time, a tiny little part of me felt humorously slighted not to have been asked. It was symbolic on another level about the Hollywood film and television industry. I was very content with my career, but it would be nice if the studios and the networks came a-courting.

I guess it spoke to the power of putting the message out there to the universe. Only a few weeks after those newspaper articles questioned why I wasn’t doing a film or a television series, both happened in quick order in 1969.

I went to London to do the screen test for
The Song of Norway
, based on the life of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and adapted from an operetta of the same name. I got the part in what would become my first real film. For purposes of historical accuracy, I have to admit that I had done another film a few months before that, but I am happy to say that not even Google makes any mention of my participation. I was with Ira and friends on vacation in Italy when the call came in to do a cameo role. It sounded good at the time—a film with Dick Van Dyke and directed by Garson Kanin called
Some Kind of Nut
. I can only vaguely remember doing a scene in a swimming pool. What was more memorable was a chance to see my musician friend once again before heading back to Italy, as the affair was still on at that point but beginning to wind down.

The Song of Norway
turned out to be a wonderful and totally unforgettable experience for what would turn out to be a totally forgettable movie.

The chance to finally work in film, but also one about classical music, was exhilarating from start to finish. It was a huge thrill that we got to record all the music with the London Symphony. The icing on the cake was the fact that the film would be shot on location in Norway and Denmark for three months. We shot on location in the fjords and mountains and the older sections of very picturesque towns and cities from Lillehammer in the north to Copenhagen and Odense farther south in Denmark. I took my two smallest, Lizzie and Robert, along for a good portion of the production, and they enjoyed the experience too, except for one part. We had to take a seaplane to some location and it was a very bumpy ride. I was sitting next to the pilot and they were behind me. I have a photo of them somewhere showing their sad little faces staring down into the airsickness bags they held at the ready. Poor Robert got the worst of it. Ira brought Barbara and Joseph over for a visit too. I think they enjoyed it.

Hanging out with the legendary actor Edward G. Robinson was an added bonus, and our friendship continued long after the film wrapped. He was short in stature at five feet five, but you wouldn’t know it from seeing him on film. Since the time he first appeared in silent movies in the early 1920s and went on to breakthrough stardom as a gangster in
Little Caesar
in 1931, he had a commanding presence. I asked him one evening what it was like to be regarded as a film star of the highest caliber for so many years. His answer pooh-poohed the whole thing. He explained that his secret of longevity in the business was not taking himself or the business too seriously. “Well, my dear, stars are in the heavens, not here on earth. I’ve just always tried to do my job the best I can and be a real professional. That’s what it is all about.”

It was also inspiring to work with the European talent, notably the Welsh-born comedian and singer Sir Harry Secombe and the great English character actor Robert Morley. Another Englishman on the production, Ray Holder, taught me how to play the faux piano so that it looked like I knew what I was doing. I can read music, but I’m not a pianist. He showed me the different chords and how to place my hands on the dummy keys, and it came off quite authentic on film.

Unfortunately, my accomplished skill at the fake piano was no help in making the film a success at the box office or with the critics. First and foremost, it was a classic case of bad timing. Musicals like
My Fair Lady
and
The Sound of Music
had been huge successes in the mid-1960s.
The Song of Norway
was designed to follow in their golden footsteps (its title has the same ring as
The Sound of Music
). But you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

When the film premiered shortly before Christmas of 1970, society had made a definitive turn in another direction, and it demonstrably could care less about singing and dancing in beautiful landscapes. Edgy independent films like
Easy Rider
resonated more with the times. Our film was among several other miscalculated musical film casualties that came out at the same time, such as
Mame
,
Paint Your Wagon
,
Lost Horizon
(a remake), and
Darlin’ Lili
. It probably also didn’t help that the Norwegian actor who played Edvard Grieg was really not a singer.

The production dragged on for two months longer than planned, which created some scheduling difficulties for my next job. Most of the crew caught heavy colds and were ill from the thirty-below freeze in the winter months. Fortunately, Harry Secombe’s abundant supply of cognac came to the rescue.

The film was an inspiration to many film critics to get creative with their prose, as my old scrapbook bore witness. “The actors perform as if they were cardboard cutouts in a Christmas display in a department store window,” wrote one reviewer. “It would take more than the arrival of a truckload of Nazi storm troopers to save…this year’s imitation of ‘The Sound of Music.’” Vincent Canby of the
New York Times
echoed a similar sentiment, calling the film a “living postcard.” “[It is so] full of waterfalls, blossoms, lambs, glaciers, folk dancers, mountains, children, suns, fjords and churches that it raises kitsch to the status of a kind of art, not without its own peculiar integrity and crazy fascination.” He added that this scenery was “so overwhelming that people are reduced to being scenic obstructions.” The reviewers were kinder and more compassionate toward me, noting that I had done well despite the circumstances. Joseph Gelmis in
New York Newsday
wrote, “Like Bogart in his worst films, she emerges unscathed because both she and we know that she is better than her material. Yet she is not patronizing, either.”

Just as I was preparing to go off to Norway to do the film, another opportunity was knocking at the door. It would come to fulfill the second part of that strange fortune cookie the media served up about why Hollywood hadn’t yet found a place for me. Film and now television were manifesting all at once.

“I don’t want to do a television series.” That’s what I told Sandy Gallin when he wanted me to meet with the producers who were putting together a new show called
The Brady Bunch
. First of all, I had four children to take care of and I was working on trying to improve my relationship with Ira. We all lived in New York, and the show would be shot in Hollywood. I also knew that the intense pressures of that lifestyle made divorce an all too common consequence, and my marriage was in such a fragile state. I had also heard about the incredibly long hours it took to do a weekly series. It was no wonder why actors would say how they came to regard the crew like family members since they spent more time with them than with their actual families.

From a professional standpoint, I also questioned my sanity for even considering doing a television series. I was perfectly satisfied with the way things were. After doing the film in Norway, I was prepared to pick up where I had left off. Vegas and club dates beckoned. If a great part in another film or a Broadway play or touring company came up, I had the flexibility to choose. I was also having fun and staying in front of the audience by doing
The Tonight Show
,
Dean Martin
, and other variety and game shows. That lifestyle afforded me that precious balance between being a mom and having a successful career. So when my kids needed me to be there for Back to School Night, a big game, or some other important priority, nine times out of ten I could make it happen. A potential television series in Hollywood would clearly make that more difficult.

“Well, just go down and meet them,” Sandy pleaded with me with every ounce of common sense he could muster. When a manager invokes that tone, even very successful actors go into the old insecurity mode of fear-based thinking. Your inner little voice warns, “If I don’t at least go and take the meeting, maybe my phone might not ring again. Perhaps my agent will think twice next time about submitting me for something else. Maybe that next time, he won’t bother to call about such and such a part that I really want.”

Backing down, I told him, “Okay, but I have to be on a plane to Houston tonight.” I was scheduled to begin an engagement there at the Shamrock Hotel. The rehearsal was the next day and the opening on the following. But today there was no excuse. The timing was opportune, because I was already in Los Angeles having just guested on
Dean Martin
. So I made the six-mile trip from the Beverly Hills Hotel to Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the meeting.

Entering the gates of Paramount that day (and every time thereafter) gave me goosebumps. I was always aware of the enormity of its history. I had loved movies all of my life. Going to the cinema was and remains to this day a sacred event, and for me, performing is like going to church. On the other side of those gates was where some of the greatest films of all time were shot. In the years to come, I thought of all the legendary stars who had used my dressing room and the parking space I now occupied. I thought about all the classics like Hitchcock’s
The Man Who Knew Too Much
,
The Graduate
, and
Rosemary’s Baby
that had been filmed on Stage 5, which would soon become my home away from home.

Once at the studio I was shown to an office where three people were waiting to meet me: the show’s creator, writer, and producer Sherwood Schwartz, studio production head Doug Cramer, and director John Rich. Sherwood was coming off the success of what would prove to be another all-time TV hit,
Gilligan’s Island
. He had worked for decades as a writer on some of the top radio shows of the 1940s and was a pioneer writer on 1950s TV comedy classics like
Ozzie and Harriet
,
Red Skelton
, and
I Married Joan
. His creativity extended to music as well—he cowrote the catchy theme songs for both
Brady
and
Gilligan
. When he was ninety-two years old in 2008, he finally got a Walk of Fame star on Hollywood Boulevard, and I was thrilled to be there to help honor him and participate in the ceremony. Doug oversaw
Mission: Impossible
and
The Odd Couple
for Paramount, but went on to his biggest success with
Dynasty
and
The Love Boat
in the 1980s, partnered with Aaron Spelling. The third person at the table was John Rich, a heavyweight in comedy television for directing
Mister Ed
,
The Dick Van Dyke Show
,
All in the Family
,
Newhart
,
Barney Miller
, and the list goes on.