Anna Magnani never knew that the young man she’d met on the set of
8½
was the same as the American writer whose cat was stolen. Who, at the same time as she every night, threw food scraps to the cats in the Piazza Argentina. I was three different people in her life.
*
I’ve always had animals. One should never lose contact with growing things or furry things. Never. Because they say, “Well, look here,” you know. “You are so busy with your problems and your thoughts, and it ain’t like that. We live in a huge, varied world.” When I’m feeling at my worst with some of the disasters that have occurred, I only have to look at these darlings to be reassured. Because they say: “You fool.” They say: “You human fool.”
I had my first cat when I was in Trastevere. Paul Wolfe the harpsichordist and myself and I’ve forgotten who else went to meet this wonderful soprano, Emelina di Vita, at the train station when she came back from her triumph in Germany. I got all the composers and musicians I could gather to make a party at the station and greet her coming back to Italy. I wanted this cheering section because she’d had such a struggle and then triumphed in Germany as Elektra. I thought she deserved a mob scene. That evening we had a party at somebody else’s place up on the top of the Janiculum Hill. My place was too small. When it was over, there was a lot of food left, so I was taking some home. On my way back, this strange animal—I couldn’t tell what it was—jumped out of the bushes. Then it said, “Meow, I’m hungry.” It was this poor cat who had gotten into tar or oil and then sand and was just a mess. So I fed it and walked on. Then half a block later, I heard these little velvet paws in the grass. “I’m hungry.” So I gave it some more and went on. The third time I said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, just come with me.” And I picked it up and took it home, and with an old towel and some warm water, I tried to clean it up. It was a perfectly beautiful tabby with some white. That was Felix. He stayed with me forever, died just before his eighteenth birthday, shortly before I was going to leave Rome.
Opening the Windows and Throwing Those Lire Out
Well, two decades passed while I wasn’t noticing. Between
acting and translating, I lived high on the hog. And since nobody ever told me that if you put money in the bank it draws interest, I just had a two-story apartment and a maid and a secretary and opened those windows and threw the lire out. And gave parties.
You might say I’m professional. I profess to give interesting parties. And I work to give an interesting party. I like to make people meet people. I like to make people have dishes they never tasted before. So, since I profess all of this, I guess I’m professional. I tried hard; I worked at it. After all, fun is worth any amount of preparation.
I don’t make lists or anything, but I think it out some days before. Then I get up early on the day and do everything that can be done. At a given moment I like to say in Hindu, “Thus far and no farther.” Then I stop and go have a bath. I put on talcum powder and a little cologne, comb my hair real good, and sit down and have some Jim Beam. I pretend that the servants did all the work. Pretend that I came in from riding the limits of the plantation. Had a quiet bath with two slaves scrubbing my back, saying, “Yes, massa.” And bringing that bourbon on a little servant tray, and then the butler comes and says, “I hear the doorbell. The first guest is arriving, sir.” For a perfect party, you see, the host should always seem to have the use of twenty servants and be absolutely as though you had come to the party after a long afternoon nap, a bath, and a good splash of Yardley. That wasn’t the case, of course. Quite often up until five minutes before the first guest I was running around like mad. I did have my maid and my secretary, who were great help in the morning preparations. I usually had the table set in advance, because the kitty cats were more often on the terrace and in a front room that they seemed to like, so they didn’t climb on and rearrange the table setting.
I loved arranging surprises, and the food was never really complicated. But I always had something that nobody expected, that startled people. My kind of antipasto dish was an English tea muffin very lightly buttered and very lightly toasted. Then with a light thing of mustard and a thick thing of peanut butter. Put back in the oven till the peanut butter was almost bubbling, it was so hot. Then on top of that you put ice-cold bread-and-butter pickles and bring it to the table. Everybody startled out of their wits, you know. One time I just cooked up some eggplants, took the peelings off, and lined them in a buttered casserole. I made this divine mixture of all kinds of things and baked it and turned it out on a plate. I had buttered the thing so heavily that it came out looking like patent leather. So I called it patent-leather pie. It’s not patent-leather pie. It’s an eggplant casserole. That doesn’t matter. The title was catchy. They loved it.
I’m not a chef. I’m an experimental scullery boy. I like to eat. I’m a greedy guts, and any greedy guts becomes a good cook after exposure to simple utensils, a knowledge of heated coals, and a knowledge of seasonings. I never gave up the idea of having twice as much food as you need for the number of guests. That’s Southern hospitality. If you are having four people for dinner, you always have enough for eight. Unlike New York, where they will have four lamb chops for four people. And a Renoir on the walls of this lovely dining room, French porcelain, French crystal, a servant in uniform. But four people, four lamb chops. Suppose somebody was hungry. You always have to say: “Take two; they are small.” Never say, “Do you want some more?” It’s, “You must have a lamb chop,” as if they hadn’t had one, you know. It doesn’t matter whether you have fancy food or not, there’s got to be enough for everybody and some left over. You might be inventing leftover dishes for a week. The servants might come to loathe lamb chops. But it’s just a law of hospitality. Lord, Lord.
And I always had different courses. I never did buffet. I happen to hate buffet. If you’re going to have a dinner, somebody should serve it. Only a couple of times did I get servants in when I had like twelve at the table. But I could handle ten easily. And I always liked to have flowers in the place, always tried to help people who have never met people, always liked to make a mixed batch for any gathering. If everybody knows everybody at a party, then it’s not a party. It’s only a family reunion. And you always have to have some surprises. I tried to have a surprise attraction at every party, like once I had a horse trainer from the circus. And then I had that ancient Swiss vocal teacher who had taught Gwyneth Jones and Leontyne Price. Once I just put a bowl of Silly Putty on the table. I don’t think anybody went away from one of my parties and put it out of their mind as they left my door. Nobody has ever left my hospitality totally depressed.
One night there were these dreary professors who were sent to me from some university. They were brilliant and had published all kinds of things, but they just weren’t party people. They didn’t realize that unserious is much more serious than serious. It was difficult to get through to them and say, “You are not in Minneapolis tonight. You are south of the salt line.” So often it’s professors who have gotten to a certain stage in their academic careers that they have put their minds in cold storage. They have no curiosity about the new books or the other side of town or what’s blooming at the botanical gardens this week. Or what they talked about at the party last night. That sort of mind’s in cold storage. Some of them are very intelligent, but they have just stopped being in touch with the world. So that party of professors was not what I call a party. It was like unrelated spirits. Then I suddenly remembered that a friend of mine had left a phonograph machine at my apartment. So I plugged it in and got out all my 1920s records. And they all died. They slipped slowly out of their carapaces.
I had a party once for Gwyneth Jones, the Welsh soprano, who was coming to Rome with her first husband, who was a Welsh poacher. Gwyneth told me that she learned her roles outdoors. She would sit on the banks of this river watching for the woodsman or whoever owned the property while her husband was poaching wild fowl and rabbits. I can’t remember now how I met her. It’s one of those things. Some people I’ve known forever from other lives. We may have come down the Nile together on a barge early on. I don’t mean in a movie. But I guess I met her at a party. There was something about her. I just went right over to her. We talked, and she said she was a vocal student. She was just beginning to sing. I told her, “I can see you as Aida.” Said it right there at that party. She kind of laughed. And then of course, years later—years later—she was brought to Rome to sing Aida. And she invited me to the gala.
Anyway, Gywneth said that she, her husband, her mother-in-law, and her Hungarian singing coach all were coming to Rome around the same week, and she thought it would be amusing for them to see my Roman palace. That was one of the most amazing parties I’ve ever given. I just had those four, and then I had some scene designer who did opera. I can’t think who. So there were six at the table.
I had decided since the leek is a Welsh symbol and since you can almost always get beautiful little fresh leeks in the market in Rome, I was going to have caramelized leek as a separate dish by itself to begin. You take a little bit of sugar which you use to make the coloring this lovely shade of honey as you cook them very, very slowly in the skillet in unsalted butter. Then I had some real Hungarian paprika, which is a mild paprika with a different flavor. It’s made from a slightly different pepper. Since the lady was Hungarian, I was having a chicken with that paprika. There were fresh beans—some little dark beans. I didn’t know what they were. Still don’t. They were unlike any other beans, dark brown and little. I had gotten up early and gone to market and shelled three millions, because that was the moment of those beans. And of course, a salad. Everybody always wanted salad when they came to Rome because the greens sat with mama in the country until that morning.
Well, now, my stove ran on a
bombola.
What do they call those iron containers? It’s a
bombola
in Italian. My stove ran on a big one of those that fitted into a compartment in this very modern stove. I would never use the gas system, because in Rome, if you live on the top floor, at a certain time of the morning, noon, and evening, everybody is cooking. And the pressure just doesn’t reach the top floor, because it’s ancient piping from the turn of the century. It’s much better to have one of these
bombolas,
you know. It’s exactly like any gas stove, but these were attached to the tanks.
While everything was cooking, I shaved and jumped in and out of the tub. Just as I put on my shirt, the
bombola
ran out. The
bombola
has a life of about a month. All I had to do was call the corner and the
bombola
woman would send the
bombola
boy. But it was a day in the week that they were closed. There was an emergency
bombola
place, but it was across town. There was nowhere. So I hastily dug out of the closet my little hot plate. I said, “My God, what am I gonna do?” I had this vat that I put on the hot plate, and I dumped everything in there. I put the leeks, the peas, chicken, and the paprika. I said, “I think I’m going to call this Hungarian stew.” And I thought, I’ll just open black olives and green olives and little French gherkins and have hors d’oeuvres
variés
to begin, and then go right away to a big plate of Hungarian stew, and then salad and then fruit. And hope for the best.
But there was something about the weight of this huge vat on this tiny hot plate that it blew a fuse. All the lights went out. I had candles on the table, but I quickly dug out every box of candles I had and put them all over the place. I hastily pulled myself together, was just sticking my shirttail in, when the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and here were these two little old ladies from Wales. They were wearing their Sunday-go-to-meeting best and they had these little fur stoles and they’d been to the beauty parlor and had their hair crimped. Behind was Gwyneth and her husband, the poacher. I was this wild-haired figure leaning out of this dark apartment, saying, “Welcome, welcome. I’m trying to do a real Roman evening for you. Come in.” I quickly served sherry, and bourbon to the poacher. I said, “You will think it’s strange our main dish is warm rather than hot. But in Rome in the warm weather, we always prefer the food lukewarm. As you will notice in restaurants, it’s never really hot.” “Oh yes,” they said, “we noticed that in London in the restaurants.” I had taken all the tomato slices out of the salad and put them on these plates with the green and black olives and those little cocktail onions. And thank God I had some breadsticks and a beautiful wine. And I carefully opened a lot of bottles. Like a bottle almost to every place.
Then when I served my stew, the Hungarian vocal teacher tasted it and put her fork down. I’ll never forget the color of red on her hair. She had henna like you have never seen, and enough mascara to do India-ink drawings for generations. You would have had to take orange Easter egg dye, henna dye, and red drawing ink to get that red. And the white skin and the black, black, black around the eyes. She tasted it rather gingerly—I mean, rather paprikaly. She put her fork down and said, “Eugene, I haven t tasted this since I was a little girl. My grandmother used to make this stew.” I said, “Oh yes, I’ve always loved Hungarian food.” That was a great party. It was a great party.
*
One day I was sitting minding my own business in Rome and the telephone rang. This charming voice that I thought sounded familiar said hello. “Is that Eugene Walter?” “Yes.” “Is it true your cat Felix wags his tail like a dog?” And I said, “Well, he does have a special wave, but I don’t think it’s like a dog.” I said, “Who is this?” She said, “If I came to Rome, would someone give me a party?” I said, “Well, yes, but who is this?” And she said, “Well, this is Judy Garland.” I was about to say “Come again?” but then I recognized the voice. “Mark says that your cat Felix wags his tail like a dog. So if I came to Rome, would someone give me a party?”