Read My Lips (22 page)

Ellsberg had been working at the RAND Corporation when he made his now-infamous copies of documents related to US policy in Vietnam. My sister had worked at the RAND Corporation as a secretary during his time there. I dined out on that all afternoon. What a strange small world: Me, Diana, Ellsberg, Kissinger. . . .

Not long after that rally, a postcard arrived in the mail from Russia. It had a picture of Red Square and the Lenin Mausoleum. It read:

From Russia with love, Henry (Kissinger). Hope I see you soon.

Thank God he put “Kissinger” in parentheses. I was always getting postcards from the Soviet Union in those days.

S
EVERAL MONTHS LATER
M
ICKEY AND
P
AUL
Z
IFFREN HOSTED
a dinner for Henry, and he invited me to come as his date. Paul Ziffren was an entertainment lawyer for people like Charlton Heston and Danny Thomas. Paul and his wife, Mickey, often hosted get-togethers that brought candidates together with people from the entertainment and corporate worlds. Paul was very tight with Henry. By this time, fall of 1972, I had finally sold the big house and moved into a tiny little rental in Malibu, right down the beach from the Ziffrens’. I’d unloaded the gargantuan house in less than a year.

My entire new home could have fit in the living room of the house I’d just sold.

I had decided to save money for the first time in my life. So I borrowed a friend’s camper and packed up what was left for the trip across town, thinking I would move everything with the help of some friends. When it was time to unload, Jerry Brown—the future governor of California—was the only one who showed up to help. You can see why I have to campaign for Jerry for the rest of my life, no matter what office he’s seeking. I even did a promotional video for him when he ran for president, which may be why he wasn’t elected. My “cousin” David Bennett had a fantasy I’d marry Jerry and that one day I would be standing in the White House Rose Garden in my notorious pink nightgown. David, however, would be standing on the balcony chatting with President Jerry. David’s fantasy, not mine.

So I had gone from a huge house with no furniture to a teeny-tiny house crammed to the rafters. It was adorable, though: a little Spanish-style house right on the beach. Wendy Stark—now Wendy Stark Morrissey—the Los Angeles editor of
Vanity Fair
and daughter of the movie producer Ray Stark, lived next door. Robert Redford shot a scene in that house for
The Way We Were.
I could never look at Wendy’s house without thinking of Robert and my idol, Barbra, in that film, so achingly in love.

I wasn’t ready when Henry arrived to pick me up for the party.
I stuck my wet head out of the shower and yelled, “I’ll be out in a minute!”

I emerged one hour later.

In the meantime Henry had little to do. No crackers or cheese or drinks. All he could do was sit and wait while my trusty Cocker spaniel, Holly, barked incessantly at his Secret Service men outside.

Henry assumed we’d drive to the Ziffrens, which I thought was ridiculous.

“Come on, Henry,” I told him. “It’s only a few houses down the beach. Let’s walk. We can carry our shoes.”

“Sally,” Henry chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re trying to ruin me.”

On the walk over he turned to me and said, joking, “I know you’re working for McGovern, but when we win, we’ll still give you a passport.”

It was a nice party, a nice night. At the end of it Henry gave me a kiss on the cheek and off he went.

About a month later I got the following letter, dated October 29, 1972:

Dear Sally
:

Sorry to be so remiss in writing, but I’ve been busy stopping a war.

What have you been up to lately
?

Best,

Henry

Henry Kissinger never intimidated me. I loved his humor, which made mine better.

One day Henry called from the White House and as we were talking on the phone, he said, “Sally, the red light is on—it’s the president.”

“So?” I’d reply. “Who’s more important?”

“Sally, you’re trying to ruin me,” he said with a laugh.

Directors made me nervous; other industry people could make me feel competitive, insecure, or desperate for validation. But someone like Henry Kissinger, easily one of the world’s most powerful men? I wasn’t worried about what he thought of me. He couldn’t get me a role. He couldn’t do anything for me except maybe get me a passport.

And just a few weeks after his letter arrived, Richard Nixon won reelection as president of the United States by a landslide. I sent a telegram to Henry at the White House:

All right, I give up. You win. Will you still get me a passport
?

The following year, when Watergate broke, I was at home lying in bed with actor, singer, and songwriter Clifton Davis, with whom I was having a nice romance at the time. He was the only man I was ever with who wasn’t angry. Claire adored him.

The phone rang. It was Henry. He had called, in essence, to let me know that he had not been involved in the scandal. It was the last time we ever spoke. I liked Henry a lot, but geography and travel and schedules and international crises can be real obstacles. We drifted apart.

My time in Malibu was short, but it capped off a hectic couple of years. I was ready for a change, personally and professionally. And this time I wouldn’t need Rick or anyone else to help sabotage my career—I was going to do it fine all by myself.

“Where the hell are any answers . . . Inside me, I guess.”

  
—Sally Hughes, my character in
Lost Horizon

“Everything we need is within us . . .”

  
—Edith Kellerman, my mother

I
HAVE BEEN GETTING THIS MESSAGE IN VARIOUS FORMS FOR
years—from my mother, my characters, and my psychotherapists. Sometimes it sinks in; other times I misinterpret it as justification for ignoring the well-meaning and better-informed advice of others. It’s all in the interpretation. The devil is in the details.

Hollywood may have changed a lot since I played my first big role in
Reform School Girls
in 1957, but one thing has remained the same: it has a very short memory. You blow some good will, and Hollywood moves on to the next flavor of the month. And why shouldn’t it? Every time I land a part, I know there are thousands of other women lined up around the block who could do just as good a job as I would if they were only given the chance.

So why blow the chances you’re given? Well, if you’re me, you do because you’re convinced that you should follow your bliss. This was the 1970s, man—come on.

My bliss was singing. As much as I loved acting, I never wanted one career instead of the other.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. I had no idea how to build a career as an actor or as a singer. I didn’t understand that when opportunities come to you, like being in a hit film and being nominated for an Oscar, you have to go with them. Instead, my inner monologue was,
Good. I’m all set as an actress. Now I’ve got to work on my music.

I
DID SOME SINGING IN THE FILM
Lost Horizon.
A
T THAT TIME
Burt Bacharach and Hal David were on top of the world. Burt is so talented, so brilliant and handsome; and Hal was a genius lyricist. I knew Burt slightly before the movie, and though it was my first time meeting Hal, he would grow to be one of my dearest friends. The only reason I did
Lost Horizon
was because I wanted to sing with Burt and Hal.

I didn’t have much of a character in
Lost Horizon;
it was one of those films with twenty-five stars, each of whom got seven lines a piece. I wasn’t crazy about the script. There was a scene in which I committed suicide, but for the life of me—pun intended—I had no idea why my character would do such a thing. But, hey, that’s why I’m an actress—to figure things out. I was willing to look past a lot of my concerns because of the people involved. Along with Burt and Hal, my friend Morgan was working on the music, and the cast included Sir John Gielgud, Michael York, Charles Boyer, Olivia Hussey, Liv Ullmann, and Peter Finch.

People had loved James Hilton’s book about a group of people whose plane crashes in the Himalayas, where they come upon a lost Utopian world. The legendary Frank Capra had directed the book’s first film adaptation. But that was back in 1937. This time around Shangri-La was going to be in color.

In many ways it was such a joyous time. I got to work with Hermes Pan, the choreographic genius behind Fred Astaire’s moves. We had exercise classes in which Hermes—gorgeous
Hermes, who actually looked a little like Fred Astaire—had me (and I am no dancer) sailing over library tables and dashing up ladders with Olivia Hussey. She was five-foot-two (and slightly pregnant, rumor had it), whereas I was five-ten and so thin you could hardly see me sideways. (That’s what divorce will do to you, no dexamyl spansules needed.) I thought Olivia and I made a darling couple.

In one of my more confident—more like cocky—moments, I had actually said to my agent that I wouldn’t do the film unless Burt Bacharach wrote a song for me personally. In my mind I was going to get something smoky and sultry that stuck in people’s heads, like Dusty Springfield’s “The Look of Love,” which Burt and Hal had composed for
Casino Royale.
The camera would come in on a close-up, and there I would be: an instant singing phenomena.

Burt had said the actress Ursula Andress inspired him to write “The Look of Love.” Ursula and I were friends; we’d met through my close friend, actress Lizabeth Hush. I remember watching Ursula emerge from the surf one day out at the beach. I turned to Liz and said, “I don’t think she has such a great figure.”

Cut to: Ursula Andress, legendary Bond Girl in a bikini and overnight sensation.

In the end I did get to sing my own song: “Your Reflection Reflects in Everything You Do.” Smoky and sultry it wasn’t. It was a rather jaunty tune that I sang while jumping over garden stones with Olivia.

The other actors were lovely. Michael York was a sweetheart, and I was in awe of Sir John Gielgud. Then there was Liv Ullmann. She had already been director Ingmar Bergman’s leading lady of choice—professionally and personally—and was just as sweet, funny, and unassuming as you could ever want anyone to be. We became very good friends over the five-month shoot. One day Liv asked Morgan if she thought I would come to her house some afternoon, even if there weren’t any men there. Morgan replied, “Sure, as long as you talk about men.”

Men or no men, I enjoyed visiting Liv at her rented house in Beverly Hills. We’d sit out by the pool and watch her little darling daughter Linn play-vacuum and talk to herself in Norwegian. Or was it Swedish? Liv speaks both languages, plus a few more, and I could never tell the difference. One time we decided to have a party and invite only men—Liv’s idea, as she was newly single—except for herself, Morgan, and me of course. Jerry Brown came. Then Peggy Lipton showed up with Quincy Jones. They walked in, sat down in the middle of the party, and started necking. Gotta love those two. We didn’t mind. Our odds of flirting with the invited men were still pretty good.

But though I loved my castmates,
Shangri-La
itself was not exactly a utopia for me.

I locked swords more than a few times with the producer, Ross Hunter. I’d get furious with him if I was given an
A.M.
call time and then didn’t actually go to work until 5
P.M.
So I started showing up at noon—bad form. I still didn’t start working until 6
P.M.,
but Ross got wind of my defiance. When I complained, Ross retaliated in a way that he knew would silence me. Shortly after one angry episode, he sent a note over to my trailer: I was no longer allowed to bring Claire on the set. As for excuses for my behavior—besides me just being a jerk and unprofessional—I was still reeling from my divorce. It had forced me to really look at myself. I wasn’t ready for that, and it showed.