Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me... (23 page)

Then, early one morning around three a.m., Peter rocked me out of deep sleep (why do stars always feel it's necessary to call at ungodly hours?) to tell me that the house had poltergeists. I didn't have the slightest idea what a poltergeist was. Steven Spielberg had not yet popularized the word, and no need for it had entered into my experience. “Uh-huh” I said. (David Begelman had taught me this all-purpose response long before. He said it could be used with many intonations and various voices. It could sound concerned, acquiescent; it didn't have to sound stupid.) “Disembodied feet are walking up and down the stairs, Stevie darling. Pictures are changing places on the walls. My man Bert is sitting right next to me, and he can attest to all of this.” Peter then must have pushed the phone into Bert's face.

“It's terrible,” Bert said. “Isn't it, Peter?”

“Terrible, yes,” and Peter pressed on.

“Windows are going up and down by themselves.” I then heard windows slamming shut. By this point the poltergeists and their talents were all too clear. “Uh-huh,” I responded again, waiting to hear what my marching orders would be.

“By noontime I would like to be ensconced [“ensconced”?!] in the interlocking suites in the penthouse of the Regency Hotel. I mean
all
the suites in the Regency penthouse. You know the place, don't you? On Park Avenue.” I got lucky. We often used the Regency for clients in from LA, and I had struck up a professional friendship with the hotel's wonderful manager, a lovely Englishwoman, Mary Homi. I even had her home telephone.

“By noon and not a moment later!”

“Certainly, Peter.” Notwithstanding that stars feel just fine about phoning at outrageous hours, propriety dictated that I wait until at least 7:00 a.m. before making the call to Mary. I caught her on her way out the door.

The English are all so stiff-upper-lipped that they don't react with shock and awe to anything. Tell an American hotel manager that you wish to dislodge his or her clientele, and I reckon that if they don't hang up on you their reactions are bound to be more aggressive or even slightly more animated than Mary's was. “How do you think we can go about getting rid of our clientele?” she calmly asked me. “The penthouse is rather fully booked.” Her tone was as cheery as her “Good morning, Stevie.”

“Make them an offer they can't refuse.”

“How much are you willing to spend?”

“Money is no object.” We discussed her picking up the evacuees' entire tabs in order for them to accommodate Peter. “Bribe them,” I said. “Whatever it takes!” for that's what Peter had told me. “I don't need to know. Just present the bill to Mr. Sellers when he leaves the hotel, and that will be that.” I knew that Peter had an accountantmanager type who could be difficult. He would probably give Freddie Fields a heart attack over this one, but not my problem. Besides, the hotel cost would turn out to be the least of the expenses.

What I did not know on the night of the poltergeists was that it was Peter's first night back from a weekend in Miami, where he had gone to judge the Miss Universe contest. While there he had fallen under the spell of all the beautiful blond misses from Scandinavia, and had invited Miss Denmark, Miss Sweden, Miss Norway, and Miss Finland to return with him to New York for a wonderful time. (Indeed, the only thing that had been wrong with the house in Sands Point is that it had not come with sexy blond housemaids.) The voluptuous Scandinavians had all accepted Peter's invite, and by noon that day they were all comfy in the Regency penthouses, ready to enjoy a wonderful week of partying with Peter in glorious NYC.

Sadly all good things must come to an end, but I can only imagine each of the women rejoicing, for as Peter kissed each statuesque blond beauty good-bye she was presented with a large ruby ring encircled by diamonds. Harry Winston, the exclusive Fifth Avenue jeweler, rolled out a red carpet for me when he heard what Peter had ordered me to select for him. Each ruby the size of a dime, and the circlet of ten diamonds looked to be a half carat each. My popularity at the jewelry store didn't net me more than a thank-you, which is more than I got from Peter.

Peter eventually married the Scandinavian of his choice. Britt Ekland was as sweet as she was beautiful. Without any real estate help from me, the newlyweds found one of the swankiest flats in all of London and decorated it with the most exquisite furniture, occasional antiques, and the finest objects that money could buy. Peter was a rich man, and Britt had superb taste. One night in a fit of pique, or in the pique of passion, all their objects, including the artwork, became weapons. There was an epic fight in which lamps were smashed, tables thrown: assault by antiques—not exactly weapons of mass destruction. However, the destruction to their apartment was massive; not a whole lot could be salvaged, including Peter's reputation as a sane man.

*   *   *

I signed David Bowie hot off the
Ziggy Stardust
album (
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
). I'd been campaigning to get music clients in London, but I had never met Bowie's manager, Tony DeFries. He called me out of the blue. Bowie was a rising star in the early seventies—unique, hot, and everyone producing concerts wanted his first American tour.

Bowie not only dominated the music scene when he arrived here, he totally changed it. Who was this person in these strange outfits with these off-the-wall lyrics? He created a new world, a whole universe of his own. I thought he was amazing. The manager was pretty amazing as well; a Bond Street guy in a Lower East Side world, a cool cat with shoulder-length hair as wide as it was long, not one inch of which went with his three-piece Savile Row suits and his conversations about arbitrage.

My understanding with DeFries was that I would try hard to get David work in the film arena, and in return we would book his first American tour. It was a coup. Bowie's upcoming tour was making entertainment headline news. It also made the head of the music department of the now-very-large CMA extremely happy because it would make his department very profitable for an entire calendar year.

*   *   *

Back in the day (and maybe it's still true today), when an important client had a personal manager, an agent mostly spoke to the manager; however, I knew that having a separate but equal relationship with the client was a good thing because of the volatility of stars. Anyone can be in one day, out the next. It felt, however, quite impossible to befriend David because I was far from being a part of his scene. I never became a groupie, never did strange piercings or body paintings, and never hung out backstage. My one real meeting with David was the day he personally delivered the representation contract to me at my apartment. We had “tea and sympathy” and precious little conversation. In the half hour we spent together he impressed me with his sweetness and his intelligence. Well traveled and aware of the political scene, he seemed to be a man of the world at a very tender age. He was soft-spoken and exceedingly kind and polite. That was the real meeting. The next was unreal.

While I was talking up Bowie to anyone in Hollywood who would listen, CMA's music department went to work to produce an eye-popping tour, breaking lots of ground by creating new perks and precedents the likes of which promoters hate agents for. The tour made geographic sense, financial sense, and all kinds of sense to Tony, the manager.

When the contracts were completed, they were sent to the promoters for signature. Upon their return, they would be presented to David for his countersignature. Many had already been signed and returned to us by the promoters. We were awaiting just a few more when Tony came to my office with the bad news: David was canceling the tour. I was practically speechless (I am never entirely speechless). I knew I was hearing straight talk. Tony DeFries was neither a drama queen nor a kidder. I still think of him as a businessman with an edge. He was all business now. He didn't waste any words: “I couldn't change his mind. He will not do it. I suggest you talk to him yourself. He's at the Beverly Wilshire.”

It was already late in the afternoon, but I could still make one of the nonstops to Los Angeles at 6:00 p.m. if I left immediately, forgoing luggage and any other preparation. Screw what was on my desk—the unreturned phone calls, the other important deals. Screw it all. I told the head of music about the mess we were in. I told my secretary to get me a plane reservation. I told Tony to tell David Bowie I would knock on his door the next morning promptly at ten, and I was out of there. I had to succeed or the music department would fall off a cliff.

At the appointed hour, I was standing in front of Bowie's door at the Wilshire. I was shown into the living room of a suite decorated in some ersatz French Provincial style that was warm and welcoming. David was warm and welcoming too, but not to me. To the guy on the couch! He was sitting on the lap of an attractive black man, and they were in a lip-lock. They were both fully dressed, and I'm not at all sure what was going on between them as their lips remained sealed—to each other's.

“Excuse me, David. We need to talk.” The lip-lock remained unbroken. Was this how I was going to have to talk to him? I figured it was (going over to the couch and pulling the two men apart didn't seem a viable option). So I made up my mind that despite what I was seeing I had David's attention, and who knows? Maybe I did. I barreled ahead, starting with a boring logical approach. “David, canceling this tour is a very bad career move. The promoters aren't going to sit still for it; they will all sue you.” On and on I went for at least ten boring minutes. No response. What to do next? I hadn't a clue.

“David, talk to me. I flew all the way out here to see you, to talk some sense into you. At the very least, kindly acknowledge that I am here in this room.” A no-change case! Neither man had moved nor changed positions even once. I was looking at a tableau, statue-like, a beautiful contrast in colors. David, whitish skin, strawberry-blond hair, pale-blue suit; the other man, a light-skinned black, white shirt and dark-brown suit. I was looking at a beautiful blend—at my undoing. My exasperation—nay, my desperation—was growing. What now? I tried reciting Lewis Carroll's “Jabberwocky.” Bowie was English, after all:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

But then, when I looked over at the couch, nobody had moved an inch. I was riveted. I stared for a while. And then I went on to gibberish of the sensible kind.

“You know, David, something's definitely wrong with my life. Can you tell me, please, what it is? Where did I go wrong? Where did I take the bad turn in the road?”

By that time I was getting up in the wrinkled clothes I'd been wearing for the last twenty-four hours, and within a minute I was out the door. I wanted to peek through a keyhole to see what happened next inside, but no keyhole, so I moved on. What were my options? The way I saw it, I had only one: Go back to New York. Face the music. Only there would be no music. Had I been closer to David, perhaps I could have had a real conversation, but I doubt it. Their tableau had been too carefully thought out. There would be no music.

*   *   *

On the plane ride home I had a revelation. I started to believe that I'd been witness to a well-staged event. David knew I would come to California and attempt to talk to him. He would not refuse to see me; he was a polite, kind man. So he had arranged a setting in which he could be present and yet not respond. Call it a happening.

I decided I should be amused. I liked him. He also knew that by canceling he was putting me in a spot you couldn't sell to a leopard. Why would he do that? The answer has to be that he had his reasons, and I will never know what they were. And could he even explain his reasons to me? I was not a Martian. I would not understand, and he found an amusing way to avoid having to explain. Who would think of such a thing? Not I. But then I would never have convinced the world that I was a hermaphrodite, or that I had come from another planet.

By the time we were flying over Chicago I began to realize that David would not cancel the tour because it wouldn't simply ruin his career, it would end it. I reckoned he must have figured that out. He could, however, postpone the tour. That could make some kind of sense. If something important to him intruded on the dates originally scheduled, a postponement might be the solution. But he had not suggested the P word, and therefore he didn't have to defend it. The idea became mine, and I thought I could make it work. Promoters weren't in the business of suing big singing stars; they depended on them.

I decided over Chicago not even to try making sense of what had happened, but simply to go for the postponement and see if it could fly. I instructed the guys in the music department to come up with some new dates, ones that everyone could live with, and we would be home free. Why wasn't I smart enough to think of this before I left New York? For me, smart has always taken time. One plane ride does not smart make. I'm a little slow. Two plane rides—and I finally figured it out. Postponement worked like a charm. The tour was a mind-blowing success. His audiences were beyond thrilled—transported, I would say.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Fun in the Sun

My mother and father were gone. My husband too. Judy gone. All within a stunningly short period of time, from 1968 to 1972. Time to move on. As the seventies opened, women's lib was in full flower, and I found myself marching in the feminist parade in DC with tens of thousands of other women supporting the ERA. Additionally, although I did not have a high profile like Jane Fonda, Judy Collins, or Joan Baez—politicized entertainers whom I admired enormously—I got on my own soapbox and protested the war in Vietnam whenever and wherever I could.