Robert Wagner and the women he loved
“THERE’S SOMETHING in the nature of the movie-going experience itself that approximates the reverie that overtakes you when you’re in love with a beautiful woman. Going to the movies drops you into a neutral dream state, in which you become receptive, then, hopefully, enchanted.”
That’s from Robert Wagner’s new book, “I Loved Her in the Movies: Memories of Hollywood’s Legendary Actresses.”
I MENTIONED this delicious tome a while back, and correctly described it as a great read, but I realized — after a number of emails — that I hadn’t given out any “dish.” No details or anecdotes. So today, I’ll redress my sin of omission.
Fair warning, this is not an exploitive tell-all. Robert (RJ to all his friends) knew most of the ladies he writes of in this book, some rather intimately. But to describe him as a gentleman of the old school would be an understatement. Nobody gets scorched — sorry.
This is not simply a memoir, but also a history of female stardom and image building. RJ is a very smart guy, who genuinely adores women and loves the movies, but he received a great deal of help on the “history” part from his clearly supersmart and equally moviebesotted co-writer, and former Palm Beach Post reporter Scott Eyman. I found myself in almost complete agreement with the pair’s conclusions about certain careers and performances.
Here are just a few of RJ’s recollections on many of the glorious women who hypnotized generations of fans.
Joan Crawford: “Joan and I had a brief shipin-the-night fling when I was a young man in Hollywood, and we saw each other occasionally at events after. She was always gracious in a grande dame sort of way. At the premiere of ‘Prince Valiant,’ Joan came over to congratulate me. I was kneeling down to talk to her and the photographers were gathering. ‘Stand up,’ she said under her breath. I never look down at anybody!’ I loved Joan. She was always Joan.
Mae West: “She was a howl — a little middleaged pouter pigeon of a woman who wasn’t particularly attractive but clearly thought she was, so everybody else played along.” (RJ hits on something here I’ve always thought and stated — Mae was one of the most content of all the stars because she totally believed the publicity she created for herself and lived entirely in that bubble of fantasy.)
Katharine Hepburn: “What she had absolute self-confidence in was her personality. She was well-aware that there was nobody else remotely like her … and that her singularity would pull her through, even if her talent failed her. You might not like her as an actress, but you could not disregard her as a woman. She counted on that.”
Bette Davis: “For all of her volatility and the special handling she mandated, I always adored her. Her personal courage never flagged. She did the best job she could raising her children, and I genuinely believe that vile memoir her daughter B.D. wrote helped kill her — it was the kind of primal betrayal that destroys the will to live.”
Elizabeth Taylor: “Some people vote for Ava Gardner, but I think Elizabeth was the most beautiful woman of her time. Elizabeth moved through life with bravado, gusto; she understood that life has to be seized or it can dribble away, and seize it she did. Elizabeth had a major impact on my emotional life. I adored her as a woman and respected her greatly as an actress.”
Natalie Wood: “She was a complicated woman, which is just one of the reasons I loved her. You could never really plumb Natalie’s depths.”
Jill St. John (RJ’s wife of 30 years): “She reads everything and is ridiculously smart … the gap between what she played onscreen and who she is, is vast. She is as attached to the earth as anybody I have ever met … she can bring the world around her to its fullest possibilities … I still have a sense of discovery with her every single day.”
THERE’S MORE, more, more — Audrey, Sophia, Doris Day, Jean Peters, Julie Andrews, Glenn Close, Debra Paget, and marvelous insight to the perils of female movie careers — then and even now. Heloise
Dear Readers: Today’s Sound Off is about grocery-store cashiers not being considerate of people who’ve been in line waiting to check out. — Heloise
“Often when standing in line to purchase merchandise at a grocery or other store, an employee will open a new cash-register line and signal the person farthest behind me, who has been waiting the least amount of time, to come over to her newly opened line. Why do they