Living With Miss G (11 page)

and that it was great working with Gregory Peck again. Henry King was a
wonderful old producer, a gentleman of the old school. He was giving her a lot
of help. He’d started in films in the silent days of the twenties and thirties.
The phone calls between us continued. I suppose it was about eight weeks
before Miss G said, “Rene, what are you doing out there? You can’t stay on
holiday forever. Come back to Hollywood and have another holiday here. Rags
is missing you too.”
The dogs, oh God, the dogs. It was Frank who started our dynasty of dogs.
When I arrived, she told me everything about it from the day they got married
on November 7, 1951. Exactly one month later on December 7, 1951, they flew
from New York on a jet bound for London. They were both excited. Frank was
asked to appear at a Royal Command Performance at the Palladium in London–
something he couldn’t miss. Actually, while he was there Frank discovered that
the whole point of the show was motivated by the Variety Club of Great Britain,
an enormous group of actors of all sorts, shapes, sizes and ages. They combined
their talents to present a show before the Royal Family to aid a charity which
helped needy or sick children.
Frank learned this sitting in his dressing room at the Palladium, a stone’s
throw from Oxford Circus, and said, “Hell, why don’t we do the same thing in
America?” When he came back, he started a similar sort of charity in the U.S.
which still functions today in league with its British counterpart. Frank gets a lot
of bricks thrown at him, but he did a lot of things to deserve pats on the back.
I am digressing. Back to the stars. At that time, Princess Elizabeth and the
Duke of Edinburgh had been married for some time. The Duke threw a cocktail
party for all the American stars who appeared at that Command Performance.
Among them were Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, Frank and Miss G.
Miss G was not overwhelmed by the atmosphere of royalty, but she was
enthralled by the Duke of Edinburgh’s dancing. In total admiration she said, “He
was one of the best samba dancers I’ve ever danced with.”
The second surprise? Somehow the royal Corgis got into the act too. With
their shiny black noses, sharp ears, intelligent eyes and four little feet that
trundled them around in doggy anticipation, they captivated Miss G. What was
Frank’s present as they left London? A small, furry bundle–another Corgi puppy
they named Cara. He joined Rags, and they were the first two in a long line that
were to inhabit Miss G’s household until the day she died.

In the first of Mickey’s autobiographies, his firm opinion was that Miss G
was terrified at the thought of having a baby. He was absolutely right. After her
arrival in Hollywood and a quick look around at what was going on, she decided
to proceed cautiously with her duties to God, husband, and adding to the world’s
rising population. The only time in her life her conceptual longings overcame
that native caution was in the year before I joined her during her courtship and
marriage to Artie Shaw. She told him she wanted a baby.

Artie was not remotely interested in producing anything so commonplace.
Artie didn’t like himself all that much anyway, so why expect another small
creature to go through all the trauma without having any choice in the matter?

After that blunt rejection Miss G applied herself to making a living in the
film industry where at least God had equipped her with the face and figure that
enabled her to stay in employment. A darling little baby would put her out of
work. When interviewed by pressmen or gossip columnists, Miss G always
made the right noises, cooing sadly how she would have adored that great
blessing to have occurred and not believing a word of it.

During her marriage to Frank there were three pregnancies. It is difficult to
know exactly what she would have done differently under different
circumstances. In those first years of their association she was the breadwinner,
and no one could hazard a guess when Frank would be producing bread in any
quantity again. That was point one. Point two was Frank already had a family of
three, so did Miss G want to add to that total? I don’t think Miss G ever thought
that through completely, and we never discussed it. We were always too busy.

I went to St. John’s Hospital with her during the first pregnancy when
things were solved very easily by what is referred to as a D and C. In a campsite
in the middle of the African bush things were not quite so easy.

MGM’s decision to remake
Red Dust
, which years before had starred Clark
Gable, Jean Harlow and Mary Astor, delighted Miss G. She was given the part
played by Jean Harlow, Clark Gable was back in his original role, and Grace
Kelly was playing the Mary Astor part. And they changed the name, too, from
Red Dust
to
Mogambo
.

The director, John Ford, was a veteran in the movie business and one of the
most successful in Hollywood history. Who could forget
Stagecoach
, or
The
Grapes of Wrath
? The screenwriter, John Lee Mahin, was highly talented and
innovative.

Instead of following in the footsteps of the old movie, he changed the
location and got rid of the stereotyped, cardboard characters. Sure Clark was
never stereotyped. He was always rock-solid, twenty-three-carat gold,
irreplaceable Gable. Jean Harlow had been the predictable tramp and Mary
Astor the East Coast prissy dame.

Mahin knew about Miss G, her ability as a comedienne, her mischievous
mind and occasional gusts of self-righteous anger. Ava was a Tar Heel. She was
a no-nonsense girl, passionate, devastatingly pretty, with a quick dart of the eye
that augured well for the adventurous male. When Miss G, playing Eloise
(Honey Bear) Kelly, stepped off the up-river steamer in Central Africa barefoot,
wearing a white blouse and water-soaked skirt complete with pearl necklace, a
parasol clutched in one hand, and her suitcase under her arm, she needed no
fictional mannerisms. The real Ava Gardner would do.

As one observant critic pointed out, “Chewing gum or standing against a
lighted doorway in her negligee, Gardner is enough to start any African tom-tom
thumping loudly, much less Gable’s virile heart.”

Miss G had her sights set upon the up-standing big game hunter portrayed
by Clark. Even when Sir Donald Sinden arrived as the dull and earnest
anthropologist, accompanied by pretty wife (Grace Kelly) who falls in love with
Clark, the romantic outcome was really never in doubt. Honey Bear would get
her man.

It was, one had to admit, a glorious African location set on a high bluff in
the virgin African bush above the Kagera River where the rapids roared and
hippos and crocodiles flourished. The Kenya Press called it the greatest safari of
all time. Miss G had lots of critical things to say about MGM in terms of
salaries, contracts and suspensions, but when they put their mind to making an
epic, they found an epic location. To start with, an airstrip more than a mile long
had been constructed. Supplies and 200 white and 400 black workers were
ferried by plane between the camp and Nairobi.

The tented village was enormous, and the accommodations for stars and
high-class personnel were superior to those of many luxury hotels. Running
water was the only luxury not on tap. There was a hospital unit, a sport’s area,
kitchens and bars, even a prison for those who might raise hell after a drinking
spree.

At times one felt that Africa itself was more colorful than the story being
filmed. It had lions, leopards, snakes, buffaloes, antelopes, war-painted warriors
shooting the rapids, native witch doctors rattling their magic bones, and
handsome, well-paid, white big-game hunters patrolling at all times in case a
hungry lion came in to take a bite out of one of the cast.

Honey Bear arrives by river steamer, Grace Kelly arrives over land, and
both fall in love with big-game hunter Clark Gable. He dillies and dallies with
both of them until Grace gets fed up with his philandering and takes a pot shot at
him with a revolver. Naturally he only receives a slight nick in his upper arm. In
fact, has anyone ever heard of Clark Gable being killed in his movies?

In real life Grace really fell in love with Clark, and he took a great shine to
her. Whether this love affair was ever consummated under those huge golden
African moons, only Grace and Clark will ever know. Miss G knew, but she
wasn’t telling anybody or hazarding any guesses.

Miss G’s own love life wasn’t all that romantic because after a few weeks
on that location she found she was pregnant. This, of course, was difficult
because they were going to be on location for a long time and Miss G’s stomach
was going to advance from the concave to the convex. John Ford had to be
informed.

John was of Irish extraction, with a fiery temper and an antipathy to pretty
doll-like Hollywood actresses with minds obscured by their makeup. As a very
senior director who had wanted Maureen O’Hara to play the part of Honey Bear
but had been overruled by MGM’s financially skeptical executives, he looked
with a jaundiced eye at Miss G, who didn’t have a good Irish name like O’Hara.

This antagonism seeped into the first few shots when filming began. He
reacted with venom to one of Miss G’s light-hearted cracks about one scene
being a bit of a mess up. He was outraged and asked if she would like to direct
the film herself.

Clark Gable, who thought John had gone too far, walked off the set.
Working on the principle that the show must go on, they all got together again.
John Ford discovered that Ava was half Irish, that she could cuss, argue, and
reason in a very un-Hollywood fashion, and they started an enduring friendship.

When Miss G revealed that she had to go back to London to get an
abortion, John, a good Catholic, tried to reason her out of this. She was married,
so there was no disgrace about such a natural outcome. As her condition became
more apparent, he would shoot all her scenes in a way so that it would not be
noticed. John was wonderful, but the production of babies was not on Miss G’s
list of priorities. She went back to London, got her abortion, and returned a few
days later to go on filming.

During those entrancing African evenings they sat outside their tents
drinking long, cold drinks and discussing life, Miss G keeping an amiable eye
on Grace. The concern was necessary, as Grace got a bit upset about Clark. In
her distress she was liable to run away into the bush to have a little weep. For
Grace that love affair was really serious. They were both unencumbered. Grace
had no dream of a future in which she would marry a prince and live in a palace
in Monaco, but she was aware that for Clark there were few dreams left after his
much loved wife Carole Lombard was killed in a tragic plane crash.

Frank came over to spend Christmas with them bearing the great news that
he had got the part of Private Maggio and that shooting would start in a few
weeks. Frank never knew Ava put up money for Harry Cohn as a guarantee if
Frank flopped.

Frank could not have been more friendly and helpful. He took over the
Christmas festivities, becoming very absorbed by the intricacies of African
songs and the booming harmonies that accompanied them. He even trained an
African choir to sing Christmas carols. This created a little furor among white
African-born contingents who were not quite attuned to the realities of racial
harmony.

Frank’s best present to Miss G and Grace, however, was to enlist the aid of
the camp carpenter to build a little hut and to supply a pump and rubber pipe that
would bring water up from the river to run a shower. It delighted them both.
And he got Miss G pregnant again. That meant another trip to London.

Overall,
Mogambo
was a great experience for Miss G. She did not adore
Africa in the same way that both Clark and Grace did. It was too big and wild,
too primitive, and there was violence toward animals, as well as human beings,
that she abhorred.

She did make two great friends. Grace and Miss G became bosom buddies,
and in the future Miss G was always popping over to the palace in Monte Carlo
to attend some princely function and enjoy a little gossip. Miss G also kept in
touch with John Ford and visited him in Hollywood regularly. Later when he
was in the hospital and dying, she became a constant visitor, helping his days
along with talk about old times.

For the first and only time in her life Miss G was also nominated for an
Oscar. She was really very pleased when Audrey Hepburn won the award for
Roman Holiday
. I mean, really pleased. If Miss G had won, how could she have
gone on protesting that she knew absolutely nothing about acting?

Miss G flew back to London to finish the last few studio shots of
Mogambo
. True to the financial philosophy of MGM to keep their payroll artists
working, she found she had another part in
Knights of the Round Table
. Miss G
was playing Guinevere, the lovely damsel loved by that fearless noble knight
Lancelot, played by Robert Taylor. As far as Miss G was concerned, her co-star
had lost all his noble knight stuff long ago and was now relegated to the chilly
status of past friend.