Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir (37 page)

Back in New York, life went on.
Promises,
which had taken up most of my time, was over, so I had more opportunity to visit the clubs in town. One night a friend of mine called and told me I had to go to a tiny one in the Village called Upstairs at the Downstairs because there was a woman singer there with an incredible act. So I went, and in that little place, I saw the most remarkable club performance I’d ever seen in my life.

The lead singer called herself The Divine Miss M, and her backup group of three women (which included Merle Miller, Gail Cantor, and Melissa Manchester) was called The Harlettes. The
divine one was, of course, Bette Midler, but this was long before anyone outside of the Village had heard of her, or of Melissa Manchester. When she left the Harlettes a few years later, Melissa went on to a successful career of her own, with big hits like “Midnight Blue” and “Don’t Cry Out Loud” during the mid-seventies. All of the Harlettes were great, but it was Bette who was the standout. I had never seen anyone like her. Bette was a complete original, and all of us sat mesmerized by what we were watching.

I went back to that club the next night, and the next, and the next. I couldn’t get enough of it. Eventually Bette and I became friends, and over the years we have maintained that friendship. And to this day I consider Bette one of show business’s national treasures. But Bette, brilliant though she was, was by no means the only reason I kept coming back.

Before Bette even walked out on the stage that first night, I was hooked. As the audience waited for her entrance, her musical conductor came onstage and seated himself at the piano. He was a skinny young man in his twenties with a shock of blond hair and shy, soulful eyes. I took one look and
kaboom!
It was Philippe all over again, except that this time instead of a handsome Frenchman, it was a threadbare young musician named Barry Manilow. Nobody had heard of him in those days, of course, but none of that mattered to me. I watched with fascination as he played the piano that first evening. For the second time in my life, I was head over heels in love.

That night, after the show was over, I went backstage and introduced myself to Barry. To my surprise he recognized me immediately from my work in
Promises,
which was flattering, and was as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. He introduced me to Bette and the “girls,” and after that I went backstage after the show every night and hung out with Barry and Bette. I was becoming a regular groupie.

Once Barry and I met, my relationship with Philippe faded fast. We were still engaged, but I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and at nineteen, I wasn’t really ready to settle down. Paris was rapidly fading into a distant dream as Barry and I began dating. We were swept up almost immediately into a furious, passionate relationship. I don’t know quite where Barry ended and his music began, but his phenomenal musical talent was like an aphrodisiac for me. He was so gifted. He was also funny and tender and shy and romantic. Before long I was spending most of my time at his West Side apartment with his piano and his sad-eyed beagle named Bagel. He would play and sing love songs—all his songs—for me in that little apartment of his. How much more romantic can you get?

After about six months of this, I called Philippe in Paris and said, “You know, maybe we shouldn’t go through with this marriage plan.” You think?

I was nineteen and Barry was twenty-four, and the world had barely heard of either one of us. It was a wonderful time, a precious time. Barry introduced me to a whole range of music that was new to me. At night in his apartment he would play his songs for me, and I would say, “Barry, you’ve got to start recording these. They’re good—very good.” In those days, though, he still thought of himself as a backup person—not exactly the wind beneath Bette’s wings, but still not a solo act.

By then Bette was beginning to make a name for herself, and it wasn’t long before she and her group were touring nationally.
Promises
had closed and I was touring, too, so my nights in Barry’s New York apartment gradually became fewer and fewer. We tried hard to keep the romance going. We called each other from every city in the U.S., and when we couldn’t see each other, we tried to see each other’s friends. My drummer, Lee Gurst, was a good friend of Barry’s, and whenever we played a city with mutual friends, we went out together and caught up on Barry. It was a way of
keeping in touch when geography made it impossible to be together. Nevertheless, though, the romance gradually evolved into a friendship.

It’s a friendship that has endured. Barry has gone from being the love of my life to being a friend for life. Our relationship has always been close and tender and, in a sense, pure. I’ve been fortunate in holding onto the best of the good relationships in my life. Barry and I have kept in touch for over twenty years, and to this day I can call him anywhere in the world and know he’ll call me back in twenty-four hours. We still share the things that close friends share, and when we need someone we can say anything to, we call one another. He tells me he doesn’t see how I manage to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less dance
and
sing. When Colin and I got engaged a few years ago, Barry was the first person to be really happy for me. He and Colin, in fact, get along great.

Barry and I continue to talk about singing together someday, and he still gives me the star treatment when we’re together. When I went to see him in concert four years ago, I was amused to watch thousands of women throw themselves at him onstage. Afterward, when I went backstage to say hello and was confronted by a horde of hysterical women surrounding him, I was very flattered to find that the flood of females parted like the Red Sea when my name was sent over to Barry. His “people” instantly cleared a path straight to him, and when I got close enough, he swept me up, put his arms around me, and said, “You are coming to dinner with me tonight!” It was like a scene out of
Funny Girl.
When we got to the restaurant, he ignored all the excited fans to take me inside, and we had a wonderful conversation, just like in the old days.

Somehow whenever we’re together, we’re both twenty-something again. Though, that illusion is shattered when he calls me at home. My teenage son, Jesse, answers and shouts, “Hey, Mom, that guy Barry’s on the phone!” Barry Manilow is just one of “Mom’s
friends.” Come to think of it, I thought the same thing about Sinatra.

I suppose that being serenaded by Barry Manilow sounds like the most romantic date possible to many women, but when it comes to romantic, the best date I ever had was a completely different kind—and completely unexpected. It was what you could call a one-night stand to remember.

After traveling around the U.S. with my nightclub act for a couple of years, I had decided to settle in Los Angeles for a while with my sister and her new husband, Jack Haley, Jr. Liza wanted me to come, and it sounded like a nice change, so I went. I was barely off the airplane from New York when, to my surprise, my sister informed me that we (Liza and Jack and I) were going that evening to Chita Rivera’s opening at a great nightclub, Studio One, and Liza had lined up a blind date for me. I was exhausted from the long flight and not really up for being charming to a total stranger all evening, but I knew Chita would put on a brilliant performance and I wanted to be a good sport. So I said, “Sure, great. Who’s my date?”

Liza just said, “You’ll see,” and the next thing I knew, Jack was guiding me to the limo. I settled into the backseat while we made the rounds to pick up Sammy Davis, Jr., and his wife, Altovise.

Liza still hadn’t told me anything about my date except, “You’ll like him. I promise.” I started chatting with Altovise and paid little attention as the limo pulled up in front of a strange house. The driver went to the door, and a few minutes later I saw a man approaching the limo out of the corner of my eye. I assumed it was my date.

The door across from me opened, and I sat up straight and put on my company smile as I turned to greet the newcomer. Liza giggled as I found myself face-to-face with Fred Astaire, dressed to the nines and sporting that magical smile. I hadn’t seen Fred since I was a little girl; to me he wasn’t an old friend—he was a movie
star. I felt as if I’d walked into one of my mother’s old movies. It was magic. I was so surprised to see him I could only gasp, blush, and blurt out like a schoolgirl, “Oh! I . . . I just love you!” I must have sounded as if I were twelve.

Fred smiled that warm, wonderful smile of his and said, “I love you too, Lorna,” and seated himself gracefully beside me in the limo. I was so excited I hardly knew what to say.

The air of glorious unreality continued as I walked into the club on Fred Astaire’s arm. It seemed as though the evening couldn’t possibly get any better, but when we arrived at the party afterward, it did. As Fred ushered me into a beautifully decorated room filled with formal tables, he whispered that he’d asked to be seated by an old friend. He hoped I wouldn’t mind? Then, just as Fred pulled out the chair for me, a man seated at the table with his back to me rose, turned toward us, and greeted Fred. It was Gene Kelly. Once again I felt myself flush and started gushing like a schoolgirl: “Oh, Mr. Kelly!” My sister was older and remembered being on sets with these people, but I didn’t. On that remarkable night I spent the entire evening seated between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, being charmed from either side. It was pure Hollywood magic.

I thought about that evening many years later, when I was walking out of the main post office in Beverly Hills. I was in my thirties by then. The post office looks down on a busy sidewalk, and the steps leading down from the entrance to the sidewalk are fairly steep. As I left the building and walked briskly toward the stairs, I saw an elderly man in front of me, poised uncertainly at the top of the steps. I noticed him immediately because of his jacket: it was a beautiful tweed with a velvet collar, the kind you rarely see in Los Angeles. The man held a cane and was hesitating as he stood there, clearly worried about getting safely down the steps. Seeing his predicament, I walked up behind him and offered my arm, saying, “Can I help you down the steps, sir?”

Turning toward me, he gratefully reached for my arm as I
looked down to take the first step, and a familiar voice said, “Thank you, miss. That’s very kind of you.”

At the sound of his words I looked up, and saw the man’s face for the first time. It was Fred Astaire. He didn’t recognize me, and I didn’t identify myself. I was afraid I might embarrass him.

Choking back tears, I held Fred’s arm and carefully helped America’s greatest dancer down the steps. He was feeble and had to go very slowly. When we reached the bottom, he thanked me again and tipped his hat, still with no sign of recognizing me, then turned and made his way slowly down the street. I got into my car and drove off to work. I sobbed all the way, thinking that I had just helped the epitome of dance down a few stairs. “We all get old,” I thought. Even Fred Astaire.

After a glamorous evening with Astaire and Kelly, where can life go but downhill? Mine did. I didn’t know it yet, but my glory days of romance were already fading. A few weeks after my evening with Astaire, I met Burt Reynolds. As millions of tabloid readers know, love with Burt is a disaster waiting to happen.

The irony is that I never wanted to get involved with him in the first place. Half the women in America were in love with him at the time—but not me. My total lack of interest in the beginning should have been my first warning.

I first met Burt in 1975. I was still living with Liza and Jack at the time. Burt had just made a truly horrendous movie with Cybill Shepherd called
At Long Last Love.
As president of Twentieth Century-Fox, Jack was responsible for trying to market this turkey. With the strange logic of Hollywood that says the worse the movie, the bigger the promo, the studio decided to give the film a huge televised premiere. They lined up people to sing Cole Porter songs for this extravaganza, and Jack wanted me to sing “Love of My Life,” one of my mom’s songs from
The Pirate,
and I agreed. George Rhodes (Sammy Davis’s conductor) did the arrangements for me, and I did two numbers,
including “I Get a Kick Out of You.” I was working only occasionally then, usually club engagements where I sang a lot of Gershwin and Cole Porter tunes.

The party was held in a big soundstage all done up in white, with beautiful plants and tables—a real Hollywood A-party. I was blonder than blonde by then (my personal rebellion against the family resemblance that had begun to plague me), and I wore a slinky red Halston gown. After my numbers, as I started down the steps from the stage in my long gown, a hand reached out for me and helped me down the steps. When I reached the bottom and turned to say, “Thank you,” there was Burt Reynolds, still holding my hand.

Instead of saying “You’re welcome,” Burt said, “When are you coming to Mexico?” He was down there filming
Lucky Lady
with my sister and had just come up for the
At Long Last Love
premiere.

I looked at him blankly and said, “I don’t know.” I was baffled. I’d never met the man. As a matter of fact, I’d never even seen the guy before—never watched him on television, didn’t know any of his movies. So instead of falling down at his feet like most women would have at the time, I just sort of looked at him as if to say, “Who are you?”

He introduced himself, I said hello, and that was that as far as I was concerned. For one thing, he was with Dinah Shore that evening, and for another, I wasn’t interested. But when I got into the car to go home, Liza said, “Burt Reynolds has gone gaga over you.

I said, “He what?”

She said, “You’ve got to come down to Mexico with me. He wants to go out with you.”

I had no interest in going to Mexico. I was having fun partying in L.A. So I said, “Oh, please! I’m not going to Mexico. What am I going to do down there? Stand around on a set with nothing to do but sweat?” End of conversation as far as I was concerned.