What falls away : a memoir (13 page)

Then a woman doctor arrived and after one second she said, He's dead, which we already knew. Larry and Mrs. Mann were talking about how the movie would get finished, and I'm thinking. Who cares about the stupid movie? Then a waiter walked in with a silver tray: instead of an undertaker, the concierge had sent room service. Nobody spoke any German, so we just pointed at Tony, and the man ran out of the room. Poor Mrs. Mann talked and searched through papers and opened closets. As hours passed, I began to feel quite comfortable, as if I'd been sitting all my life in that hotel room, with those people talking and Tony on the bed, dead. It was no stranger than anything else.

Larry Harvey directed the rest of the movie.

Ghapt er Six

What with one thing and another, A Dandy in Aspic had resulted in absences from my new husband that were long and stressful for both of us. Now that it was over, we were lookmg forward to a period of free time at home. In a few months we planned to work together in The Detective, back at Fox. Already I was wondering what it would be like to be in scenes with Frank, and worrymg that I would disappoint him. Lee Remick, an actress I admired very much, was also cast.

It was at this moment that Paramount offered me Rosemary's Baby, a film to be based on the then-current bestseller by Ira Levin. Roman Polanski, thirty-three years old and internationally respected, was set to direct. It would be my first opportunity to star in a feature film, but more important, to prove myself as an actress. If the project succeeded it might place me in a position where I could choose good projects and roles. My goal was to make just one worthwhile

picture a year. Then I would have plenty of time to be a wife and maybe even someday a mother.

But the timing of this offer was terrible, and I was in a quandary. Frank and I discussed the pros and cons at length. Rosemary was scheduled for a twelve-week shoot, and I asked if he could weather a few more months of my being at work. It seemed like the chance of a lifetime. At least, I reasoned, I would be right here in L.A., home every night. There was just one week in New York at the outset, and three days at the end of the shoot.

Frank tried hard to be understanding but continued to have reservations about the project. Finally, one air-conditioned Palm Springs night, lying on his side of our bed, he read the script. When he finished, his only comment was that he couldn't picture me in the part. I could see his point. Suddenly I couldn't picture myself in it either. I half-hoped he would take the matter out of my hands and just tell me not to do it, but in fact he was reserved and sympathetic, and tried to be supportive.

Riddled with ambivalance, self-doubt, and anxiety, I accepted the role. On an empty soundstage at Paramount Studios, in a confounding maze of tape marks (intended to represent walls and furniture but that I never could make sense of), we began the two weeks of rehearsal, while the actual set was being assembled on another stage. Then, in the sumimer heat of New York City, in front of the Dakota apartment building—now known, tragically, as the place where John Lennon was shot—we began filming. Our family's apartment, conveniently, was right next door, on Central Park West and Seventy-third Street.

Off the set Roman was shy with me, but when we were working he communicated clearly. He had an mfectious enthusiasm that few could resist, and a real knowledge of what would work professionally. When Roman wanted me to eat raw liver, I ate it, take after take, even though, at the time, I was a committed vegetarian. While we were shoot-

ing on Park Avenue, he had the idea that I should absent-mindedly walk across the street into moving traffic, not looking right or left. "Nobody will hit a pregnant woman," he laughed, referring to my padded stomach. He had to operate the hand-held camera himself, smce nobody else would. I took a deep breath—an almost giddy, euphoric feeling came over me. Together Roman and I marched right in front of the oncoming cars—with Roman on the far side, so I would have been hit first. "There are 127 vaneties of nuts," he told a journalist. "Mia's 116 of them." I'll take a compliment any way it comes.

Except for the phone booth scene, all the interiors were shot back at Paramount in L.A. Athough I only weighed about ninety-eight pounds when we started, Roman told me to lose weight for the scenes when I'm sickly pregnant, and we'd shoot that part last.

Roman preferred to film long scenes in one shot, moving actors and the camera with precision. Because of the inherent technical demands, and Roman's perfectionism, he frequently shot as many as thirty or forty takes. This method of working drove John Cassavetes nuts. John was a wonderful actor, as well as a respected and innovative director and writer of his own highly personal films. But his approach could not have been more different: his films had a raw, improvised quality, while Roman, who had adapted the script from the book himself, expected the actors to utter every word precisely as written and, of course, to hold up through as many takes as he wanted to shoot. John felt that this killed all the life in a scene. I was too inexperienced to have an opinion, but my commitment was to Roman, and I felt embarrassed and upset when the two men openly disagreed and grew apart.

One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction for any one woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded

that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply.

During the shooting, one evening Frank and I took Nancy and her beau out to dinner. As we sat at Trader Vic's in the light of two stubby candles, I sipped a sweet drink and poked at the gardenia floating on top. The talk flowed easily and all was well—until the evening swerved. This had happened countless times before: after dinner and enough Jack Daniel's, Frank was likely to suddenly decide not to go home, but to Las Vegas instead, or Miami, or New York. He would feel the pull of that other world—the third part of his life—and it would be pointless to object. By now I was used to these abrupt departures alongside my husband, who was soon to metamorphose into a virtual stranger and would forget many things, includmg me. My stomach knew to turn over.

That night I couldn't go with him: I had to be at the studio early the next morning. So after alerting Don, his pilot, Frank drove me home, sweetly kissed me good night, and continued on to the airport. Later he woke me by phone to say that he had safely arrived in Las Vegas. I heard no more, nor did I expect to, until the morning, when he reached me on the set at Paramount.

His speech was unclear but I soon made out that there had been a fight, the caps had been punched clear off his teeth, some other guy had been hurt, headlines were sure to follow, and his dentist was on the way with new teeth. It didn't much matter what started the fight: they always had to do with his powerful Sicilian sense of propriet)^ which by four in the morning could get a little cloudy. He sounded bewildered and upset as he said he loved and needed me, and with my whole being I loved and needed him too. And when he told me not to leave him ever, I promised him that. Life was not easy for Frank Sinatra, or

for anyone who stood beside him. Although the armies of his heart and mmd did frequent battle and left him isolated and restless, in matters of conscience and of human hope, they were one.

At Paramount Studios we were falling behind schedule. I appeared in every single scene of the film, except when, during a rape sequence, a body double was used in my place. But I didn't entirely miss out on the scene: one day I found myself—me from convent school, who prayed with outstretched arms in the predawn light—tied to the four corners of a bed, ringed by elderly, chanting witches. The Pope brought over his big ring for me to kiss, while a perfect stranger with bad skin and vertical pupils was grind-mg away on top of me. I didn't dare think. After finishing that scene the actor climbed off me and said politely, in all seriousness, "Miss Farrow, I just want to say, it's a real pleasure to have worked with you."

The sixties were in full bloom. Roman was humming, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair," and I painted the walls of my dressing room with rainbows, flowers, and butterflies. When I was done painting, they brought in a Ping-Pong table and I pestered everybody to come play with me. Except for the days Ruth worked, I was the only female on the set and the guys treated me like a kid sister. Ruth Gordon had been my friend long before we made the movie, and nobody was better company. Her energy and enthusiasm were unmatched. She was sharp and quick and unfailingly saw right to the heart of everything.

Filming seemed to be going well, but very slowly. Across town The Detective was shooting on schedule, and my start date was drawing close: I was expected to report for work there in mid-October. Frank was baffled and outraged by the pace of our filming. When he went to New York for a

few weeks of filming on The Detective^ I joined him on weekends, trying to hold things together. As the date neared, it became clear that Frank expected me to meet my commitment even if it meant abandoning Rosemary's Bahy before it was completed. I began to understand that my whole marriage was at risk. The ultimatum was clear. But if I left Rosemary's Baby, certainly my career would be finished. I thought of the months of long days and countless takes and everyone trying so hard. I thought of the people whose trust rd earned, and I thought of my own work, which for the first time in my life might have some value. To lose Frank was unthinkable, but I didn't believe he would leave me. I also realized that in this decision I would define myself. If I walked out on this project, in time even he would see that I had done a less than honorable thing, and he would respect me less.

I pictured myself in Las Vegas sitting with the hookers as I had so many times before. It is 4 A.M. Frank and the other men are telling jokes and laughing loudly. A jaded piano plays the cocktail songs. The women are apart, we are wearing our best dresses, our faces are fixed right. We chat about cats, and we wait.

In dread I continued to report for work each day and prayed that he would change his mind. Jacqueline Bisset was cast in an abbreviated version of my role in The Detective. There were rumors of an affair between Frank and Lee Remick. Then, without warning, on an afternoon in November, Frank's lawyer, Mickey Rudin, appeared on our set carrying a brown envelope. He puUed out documents that I looked at just long enough to see they were made out in my name: they were an official application for a divorce from Frank Sinatra. I remember the unprofessional look of surprise as Mr. Rudin realized I had not expected his visit, nor did I know anything about the papers he carried. This was the first mention of divorce. I held myself together and signed all the papers without reading them. If Frank wanted

a divorce, then the marriage was over. I told Mickey Rudin that I would do whatever they wanted. I would have no need for any legal counsel myself. After he left, Ruth and Roman tried to patch me up and get me back on the set, but I needed some time, and closed the door.

All the detail, illusion, and embellishments of my mortal self — all that was nonessential — was sin^d to gray ash and blew away where I stood, a bare, scorched human stalk, bent into the wind. The familiar bulwarks held fast; pain, doubt, hope, and something else too; a large internal eye, blankly hanging in the space of me, restUssly scanning the depths of my being, beholding nothing.

I applied myself to the remainder of the movie with a fervor usually reserved for prayer. The days were long and difficult. I was still living in the Tudor-style house, and speakmg with Frank in New York whenever he called. Neither of us mentioned Mickey Rudm's mission. On weekends, the rented house in Malibu that Roman shared with Sharon Tate was filled with friends and laughter. Like the princess in a fairy tale, Sharon was as sweet and good as she was beautiful. Generously they mvited me mto their lives, and smce I now had none of my own, I gratefully spent my weekends with them.

Relations between John and Roman, however, had broken down. While mapping out the final sequence of the movie, John became openly critical of Roman, who yelled, John, shut up! and they moved toward each other. Every time in my life when the commonplace has veered into the netherworld, it is as if I am watching television and I can't change the channel. It was Ruth Gordon, with consummate professionalism, who said, "Now, come on, let's get back to work," and saved the day.

Back in New York, Ruth and I filmed our last scene on Fifth Avenue in front of Tiffany's. I stood for a moment on the sidewalk, watching everyone pack up and scurry back to their lives. It was Christmas. I returned to Frank's orange apartment on the East Side and packed up all my things.

Then I sat down by my suitcases, trying to decide where to go. At that moment Pamela Hayward breezed in. She had been worried about me. She was heading to Palm Springs that day to spend Christmas with Frank. I heard her on the phone telling Frank how pale and thin I was, and the next thing I knew, we were landing in the Palm Sprmgs desert.

Frank was waiting on the tarmac, we hadn't seen each other for over a month, and despite the tender greeting, his overall mood was withdrawn and stern. Still, I was grateful to be there, and anxious not to do anything wrong. We didn't talk about any of it—not Rosemary's Baby, or The Detective, or Ms. Remick, or the papers I had signed, and, above all, not the future. And each night, in our old bed, sleep found us entwined in hopeless silence.

From the beginnmg, a short life had been predicted for our marriage, and now, with two Hollywood studios involved in the endgame, the tabloid headlines rang with reports of every kind. Nonetheless, life went on as usual at the Palm Springs compound. Just as before, Frank asked me to arrange the seating for each night's dinner, with the instructions that under no circumstances was I to seat a certain woman next to him, because she was so boring. Each evening I dutifully reshuffled the twenty-two guests around three tables, careful to place the offensive guest anywhere but next to her host. Frank tolerated this woman because her husband was so amusing, and they were established members of the A-group. On the fourth night I was in the living room alone after dinner when the woman's husband came toward me. I smiled, but his words were already flying at me, shrill and furious. "We've been here four days," he began, "and not once have you seated my wife next to Frank. She is upset and embarrassed and insulted. I think you are a stupid, rude little girl—you will never be a host-ess!