that I’m not suited to and take another two and a half years out of my
life.”
But so long as she can go on flying, she’ll be happy in the theater. As
Peter Pan, which was a lifetime dream come true, she’s the world’s most
celebrated flying grandmother. Her son, Larry, and his Swedish wife are
the parents of two children.
The other member of the Halliday family, daughter Heller, “eloped” with
her fiancé, Tony Weir, along with her parents, his parents and family,
and the twenty-six guests. They’d planned a reception at New York’s
River Club. Her bridal gown by Mainbocher was made but never worn.
Heller decided that instead of a big wedding, she’d rather have cash to
get her household started, so Mary’s big production plans went up in
smoke.
This was an elopement with a difference. In two cars, one Friday
morning, the wedding party made for Elkton, Maryland, without anyone
remembering that the state law there requires forty-eight hours’
residence before the knot is tied. That made it impossible for them
to get a marriage license before Monday. Heller, Tony, and his sister
Karen took one of the cars and headed south for Alexandria, Virginia,
while the rest of the faltering band drove up to stay in Baltimore.
The bride and groom went through their blood tests in Alexandria.
Heller had to be jabbed half a dozen times before blood could be
drawn, and she finished the day with three pieces of adhesive plaster
on each arm. But they still couldn’t get a license; Heller, short
of twenty-one, needed her parents’ consent. On the following day,
Saturday, the nearest license bureau open in the state of Virginia was
in Leesburg. The doors there closed at noon. So the party took off
bright and early, covered 150 miles in waltz time, and got to Leesburg
just before the deadline.
“Our darling elopers,” Mary related, “were married there in the first
Methodist Church to be built in America. Both mothers cried. I sat on
the wrong side of the church, the groom’s. The happy pair were, oh
so happy, and we are, oh so tired.” Heller went to work showing off
wedding gowns as a model, instead of wearing one.
* * * * *
Sometimes the first breath of success converts an otherwise nice,
well-adjusted girl into a priestess of the cult. Sometimes it takes
longer. It took eleven years, her third husband, and a turnabout in
her faith to convert Doris Day, who was born to Wilhelm and Alma
von Kappelhoff, a German-Catholic couple in Cincinnati, on April 3,
1924, and christened Doris because her mother rated Doris Kenyon the
greatest actress that ever breathed.
The von Kappelhoff became “Day” because band leader Barney Rapp wanted
a name that would fit on the marquee of the Cincinnati night club where
Doris, a puppy-fat sixteen-year-old girl, earned $25 a week singing
with his orchestra. She graduated from there to sing with Les Brown and
His Band of Renown, and the goddess started to breathe harder on her
when Doris recorded her first hit, “Sentimental Journey” with them. She
was making $500 a week when she left the band.
She was a girl who fell in love without pausing for breath. In April
1941 she up and married Al Jorden, a trombonist from Cincinnati who
played for Jimmy Dorsey. On February 4, 1942, Doris gave birth to her
son, Terry. A year later, she went through her first divorce, left her
baby in her mother’s care, and joined up again with Les Brown, the girl
singer who sat primly in front of the band until her turn came to go up
to the microphone.
They were playing at the old Pennsylvania Hotel, which became the
Statler, on Manhattan’s Seventh Avenue, when agent Al Levy first heard
her. Struck by a funny feeling that this girl might go someplace, he
sent her a note inviting her to join him at the table where he sat with
Mannie Sachs, who was then head of Columbia Records. “Have you ever
thought of going on your own?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said. “I’m going to get married soon.”
Eighteen months after, Les Brown was appearing at the Palladium in Los
Angeles, and Doris and her new husband, George Weidler, a saxophonist
in the orchestra, were living in a trailer camp on Sepulveda Boulevard
out toward Long Beach. They quit Les Brown and went on living in
the camp, Doris out of work, George picking up occasional weekend
engagements. Terry was still with his grandmother.
Al Levy had trouble contacting Doris. The trailer was a block away
from the only telephone and, if anybody called Doris, the proprietress
of the camp found it easier to say “She’s not here” than go get her.
But Al managed to exchange a few words: “Call me sometime if you get
ambitious, and we’ll talk some more.”
Mannie Sachs got her one brief job--as singer on a sustaining radio
show that starred Bob Sweeney, now a TV director, and Hal March, who
made a Broadway hit in _Come Blow Your Horn_. She worked for thirteen
weeks at $89 a week, after deductions, but then she was dropped; the
network figured she had no future. So, with no money coming in, it was
time to call Al Levy. “All right, let’s see what can happen now,” she
said.
He had put $25,000 into a management agency called Century Artists,
which gave him forty per cent ownership. Dick Dorso had started the
business with a small stake from Lew Levy, no relation of Al’s, who
was manager of the Andrews Sisters and the husband of one of them,
Maxine. Lew wasn’t acting out of undiluted generosity--he wanted to
get his brother-in-law, Marty Melcher, out from under his feet. Marty,
Patti’s husband, used to handle such chores as fixing the lights for
the sisters’ act. Marty became the second partner in Century Artists as
part of Lew’s deal with Dorso. The agency, which took on the sisters
as clients, had its offices next to mine in the Guaranty Building on
Hollywood Boulevard. Al also assisted my manager, Dema Harshbarger, in
booking talent for my weekly radio show.
Al brought Doris to say hello as soon as he’d signed her. She was a
scared little creature, smothered in freckles, wearing scuffed-up
shoes, skirt and sweater, but not a lick of make-up. For months she
wore skirts and sweaters. When I asked why she never wore a dress,
she said: “I can only afford skirts and sweaters.” Her first need was
clothes. He found a little dressmaker in Los Angeles to make her four
evening dresses on Century Artists’ money.
In New York, Billy Reed was opening his Little Club on East Fifty-fifth
Street, uncertain whether or not to have any entertainer work in the
squeezed-in room he’d rented, which he was doing up with striped-silk
walls. A friend of Billy’s, Monte Proser, thought Doris might fit
there. He passed the word to Al, who persuaded Billy by telephone to
try her for two weeks at $150 a week.
Al bought train tickets to New York for Doris and himself. Still
deeply in love with George Weidler, she telephoned him every night.
For the opening of the Little Club, Billy and Al had packed their
friends in, making sure Doris got a good hand. This was going to be her
springboard. If she succeeded here, it would be easier to make it in
Hollywood.
The notices she received were encouraging. Billy engaged her for an
extra four weeks, and Al returned to California to see what he could
line up for her there. Ten days later she telephoned him in tears: “I
can’t handle the rest of my time at the club alone. I want to get back
to George. I’ve had it.” Al took it philosophically. “Come on back
then,” he said. On the way, she stopped off in Cincinnati to see her
son.
Meantime, Mike Curtiz, a sentimental Lothario from Hungary at Warner
Brothers moved in to succeed Hal Wallis, who started in business for
himself. Mike had Jack Warner breathing down his neck to start making
a musical to be called _Romance on the High Seas_. Betty Hutton was
supposed to play the girl lead, but at the last minute Curtiz wouldn’t
hire her. He decided to look around for a lesser, cheaper name, though
he was growing more panicky by the day with Warner starting to twist
his arms.
Song writers Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, who were writing the score
for _Romance_, had an idea that Doris might do for the picture and
suggested to Al that he ought to arrange an audition for her. He called
Doris to come home. The day of her promised return to Los Angeles
brought no news of her, though her audition had been fixed for the
following morning. In the evening, on a hunch, Al drove out to the
Sepulveda camp. In the darkness he thumped on the trailer’s door until
Doris put her head out the window and promised again to turn up in the
morning.
When he collected her in his car, she was weeping hysterically. Her
marriage was on the rocks, she said. George Weidler wanted out. “I
can’t do the audition. You’ll have to cancel.”
“Look, if your marriage is breaking up, you’ll sure need a job,” said
Al. “It’ll get your mind off your trouble, and you’ll have to make a
living.”
She accepted the logic of that and dried her tears. He sent out to buy
her new stockings, since those she was wearing were laddered, then
took her to meet Curtiz. In the middle of singing for him, fresh tears
trickled down her cheeks at the thought that her husband was leaving.
Curtiz thought this was one of the great acting performances of all
time and invited Al to talk contract. They settled on $500 a week for
her, and because Jack Warner regarded television as nothing more than
furniture that stares back at you, Al got her TV rights. Doris wasn’t
in a mood to care much about anything. She was still pining for George,
hoping she could bring them back together.
Moving out of the trailer, she was so lonely that her agent wanted
some place for her to live where she could look out the window and see
people; she had no more company than that. He put her in the Plaza
Hotel across the street from the Brown Derby and stopped by every
morning to take her to the studio. When the picture was finished, he
came up with another idea. Why not see Sinatra, for whom Al had worked,
and check whether Frank could use her on his radio “Hit Parade”?
Frank, who knows talent, liked that fine. She went with him to New
York for the weekly shows, and life was starting to look rosy when the
blight attacked again. The sponsors, the American Tobacco Company,
decided that her singing style was too close to Frank’s and they dumped
her. Doris was knocked off her feet again. This time she felt sure she
was finished. “I guess I can always go home to Cincinnati,” she said.
Al was running into complaints from his partners. “Why do you waste
your time on this dame?” they demanded. “She’s not the most beautiful
girl in the world; she’s loaded with freckles; she’s got no clothes
sense; she’s going nowhere.” But Al’s mind revolved around the memory
of Alice Faye, another girl with a voice. “People could identify
themselves with Alice, and they can with Doris,” he argued. “Because
any girl in the audience could be Doris Day, and she could be any girl.”
So when Curtiz wanted her to work for him again but was stuck for a
story to do, Al promised rashly to think up a plot, which he dictated
to a writer as _My Dream Is Yours_. She went into that with Jack Carson
and Lee Bowman. Bob Hope was also persuaded to put her on his radio
show at $1250 a week.
Doris, who nowadays shies away from appearing for charity no matter
what, was more co-operative then. Hearing her sing at a benefit in
the Beverly Hills Hotel, Curtiz decided she needed a vocal coach, and
she went along with him for a while. By now her career was beginning
to move. She was waiting for her divorce, and was going out on dates
again. She also went to her lawyer and had him draft a new contract
to be signed between Al and herself. It contained an escalator clause
giving him up to twenty-five per cent of her earnings as they increased.
“I don’t want anybody but you to take care of me,” she told him.
“You’re already under contract,” said Al. “This new one isn’t
necessary, but if you really want it, then fine. I’ll be happy to sign
it.”
His partners were still telling him: “You’re spending too much time on
her. You’d better get on to something new.” Al disagreed. “If this girl
hits like I think she will, we can make a whole business around her
alone.”
She decided she was secure enough now to buy a small house in San
Fernando Valley, to bring out her son and mother. This was a taste of
heaven for her, bringing her family under one roof. Her parents had
been separated when she was twelve. In 1961, her father at the age of
sixty-two married Luvenia Williams Bennett, the forty-five-year-old
Negress who managed the bar he owned in Cincinnati. The telegram he
sent Doris to break this bit of news went unanswered.
The last benefit Al Levy asked her to do was to be held at the
Hollywood Bowl for a local disk jockey. She agreed, as usual then, but
didn’t show up for rehearsal with the band. Her agent telephoned to ask
why.
“Marty says I don’t have to do the benefit,” she answered.
“What’s he got to do with it? He hasn’t been in the picture much so
far.”
“He told me you’ll be traveling around a lot and getting other things.
He said it will be best if he starts taking care of part of my business
in case things come up when you’re away.”
“That makes sense,” said Al. “Okay.” That was the last time he had
anything to do for Doris Day.
He left for Century Artists’ New York office with his wife, Ruth,
shortly after, to take a look at a bouncing baby called television,
switching places with Dick Dorso. When the Andrews Sisters went to
London for a big season at the Palladium, Marty Melcher stayed home and
got to know Doris well. Later, his marriage to Patti Andrews ended in a
heartbreaking divorce for her. Marty and Doris were married on April 3,
1951, her twenty-seventh birthday.
In New York on the Christmas Eve after he and Dorso had exchanged
assignments, Al received a call from Melcher: “I just want to tell you
that as of now you’re out of Century Artists. Doris and I have decided
we don’t need you, and that’s it.”
After Christmas, Al Levy walked down the hall to his Hollywood office
and found a locksmith changing the lock on the front door. Inside,
Marty had his brother and sister occupying the place to prevent Al’s
moving back in. In his absence in New York, he had been voted out of
Century Artists. He paid off the locksmith on the spot to keep the lock
unchanged. He settled with Melcher and Dorso that he would retain the
offices but not immediately take any big lump sum out of the agency;
they would pay him off on the installment plan, sending money each
month to his parents in Arizona.
Shortly before her third marriage, Doris, born a Catholic, became a
Christian Scientist. Soon after the marriage Marty, born a Jew, also
became a Christian Scientist.
Marty set out to do over Doris, making her an entirely different
kind of woman. A long list of subjects was barred in interviews
now. Questions were welcome that let the two of them concentrate on
picturing her as the girl next door who never smokes, drinks, or
cusses, and always minds her manners. Any queries that probed into
the real past were rejected. “Doris is not a movie star,” Marty told
me blandly. “She’s a talented girl who through circumstances has been
pushed into the limelight.”
That was quite an interview, telling as much in its silences as in its
words. They came in to see me together, and that’s how they answered,
though they didn’t exactly overflow with information. So they won’t be
misjudged, I’ll quote them verbatim:
“How does being married to you affect him?” I asked.
“He couldn’t live without me,” she said.
“Seriously, how has this marriage affected you?”
“I’ve learned an awful lot.”
Marty broke in: “That’s pretty ambiguous.”
“Let me put it this way. We’re both striving to be real good people.
Marriage has made a terrific change in Marty.”
“In what way?” I said.
“We’re very serious about our religion, but we can’t discuss that.”
“Why not? I think it should be discussed. Do you go to church every
Sunday?”
“No, we’re not churchgoers. But we’re trying to be good people, and
we’ve come a long way. It’s helped me to be less impatient. I used to
be so impatient. Now I’m not.”
“Our religion,” Marty explained in words of one syllable, “is being
good. Take out one ‘o’ and you’ve got God. To do good is to prove God.”
Doris hastened to explain: “For instance, we don’t gossip. We don’t
talk about people. We don’t stand in judgment of others. We have only
enough time to mind our own business.”
Minding their own business has made Mr. and Mrs. Melcher into a
ten-million-dollar corporation. They hold interests in a motion-picture
production company, recording companies, music companies, real estate,
and a merchandising firm with plans to cash in on Doris’ new-found
reputation as a clothes horse by peddling “Doris Day” dresses and
make-up.
In spite of, or maybe because of, the dollars that come arolling in,
Doris is neurotic about her health, which can cause mighty big problems
for a Christian Scientist. When she was sure she had cancer--she was
wrong--she put off going to a doctor in case she would be betraying
her faith. Her brother Paul, who was going to be her manager on the
recording side of her career, was a convert to the same faith; he died
of a heart condition in his early thirties.
Both the Melchers keep a tight hold on their money. Their social life
scarcely exists beyond having an occasional couple in for an early
dinner--carrot juice in place of cocktails and desserts from Doris’
celebrated home soda fountain. She also holds on tight to the clothes
she gets from her movie roles. When Irene Sharaff, who designed her
_Midnight Lace_ outfits, wanted to borrow one coat to be modeled on the
Academy Award night where Irene won an Oscar nomination, she had the
devil of a time borrowing it--and it had to go back to Doris the next
morning.
As for Al Levy, he had one more bit of business to sort out with
Marty Melcher. Century Artists’ client list was shrinking as Marty
concentrated on Doris, and the decision was made to sell the agency
to MCA, who would latch onto anything in those days that promised to
increase their holdings in the industry. There was just one cloud on
the legal title when the time came to close the deal--the contract
Doris had once insisted that Al sign with her.
“It doesn’t mean anything now,” the lawyers told Al Levy. “So just let
us have a release before the first of the year.”
“If it doesn’t mean anything, let’s forget it,” he said, by this
time deep with David Susskind in Talent Associates, the television
production company that Al founded the day after he sent the locksmith
and Marty’s relations on their way.
But the lawyers insisted that something had to be done to satisfy Lew
Wasserman, president of MCA, that Century Artists was in the clear.
“All right,” Levy told the attorneys, “I’ve never asked Doris Day for
anything in my life. Fact of the matter is, I put more money into her
than I ever took out in commissions. So you give me a check for $3000
signed by Doris--it’ll buy a mink coat for my wife.”
He got the check and gave it to his wife. But Ruth Levy didn’t buy a
coat. She put the money in their bank account.
[Illustration: 1. At sixteen, in my first evening gown, made by loving
hands--my own.]
[Illustration: 2. My son, Bill, at age of five, relaxing against me
at our home in Great Neck, Long Island. Even at that age he loved the
Navy, or I did, because I selected a Navy suit for him.]
[Illustration: 3. Ken Murray burping. My beloved mother, Mrs. David
Furry, and her daughter Hedda. At a picture premiere. Later at Ciro’s
we were joined by Edgar Bergen. I introduced them. She was a bit hard
of hearing and said, “Who?” I whispered in her ear, “Charlie McCarthy.”
She said, “Is he now?” (_Photograph copyright Vitagraph, Inc._)]
[Illustration: 4. Clark Gable, who won the title of King and deserved
it; he was the first I was photographed with when I started my column
in 1938. And he was one of my greatest friends until the day of his
death. (_MGM photo by Ed. Cronenweth_)]
[Illustration: 5. Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard, and I in the good
old days when pictures were fun for everyone except the producers.
(_Photo by Fred Hendrickson, Copyright 1940, RKO Radio Pictures, Inc._)]
[Illustration: 6. The beautiful Merle Oberon, after telling me she was
divorcing Sir Alexander Korda.]
[Illustration: 7. Jane Powell and I were supposed to look alike. I was
once engaged to play her mother at $5000 a week. But Louis Mayer was
feuding with me at that time. Someone else got the part, but I got the
money. The boy is Vic Damone.]
[Illustration: 8. Ida Koverman, everybody’s pet, between two of her
greatest discoveries, Bob Montgomery and Clark Gable. She fought like a
tigress to see they got the top roles at Metro.]
[Illustration: 9. Cary Grant and Randy Scott were once young bachelors,
sharing life together. (_Copyright 1935, Paramount Productions, Inc._)]
[Illustration: 10. No wonder I look sad. Errol Flynn, Marion Davies,
and Cissie Patterson have all passed away. But we were a gay quartet
when this picture was taken at San Simeon during one of William
Randolph Hearst’s birthday celebrations.]
[Illustration: 11. At the San Simeon wedding of Mary Grace (daughter of
Mrs. Grace, one of Marion’s cooks) Doris Duke and Marion Davies were
bridesmaids. James Cromwell, who was married at the time to Doris Duke,
was a guest of honor and William Randolph Hearst was the host.]
[Illustration: 12. Charlie McCarthy’s Edgar Bergen and I at a
fancy-dress do. Our mothers would never have known us.]
[Illustration: 13. I aimed for Duke Wayne, but Charles Luckman got in
the way.]
[Illustration: 14. Hedda and the great Hemingway in Havana. We met too
late. (_Jerome Zerbe photo_)]
[Illustration: 15. Mario Lanza, the great. His voice is silent but
you’ll never forget him. He didn’t sing as well as Caruso, but his
voice was much sexier. When he’d sold a million copies of his first
record, he received one made of gold and insisted that I present it to
him. (_Photo by Earl Leaf_)]
[Illustration: 16. With Moss Hart and Lady Elsie Mendl at the premiere
of his _Lady in the Dark_. When Moss and I got inside, there were no
seats for us.]
[Illustration: 17. Tony Perkins, Sophia Loren, Hedda, and George Raft.
This was Sophia’s first introduction to Hollywood, a party given
for her by Twentieth Century-Fox. Jayne Mansfield almost stole the
spotlight from her in a low-cut gown with a break-away strap--it broke.]
[Illustration: 18. Designer Omar Kiam, Hedda, and Bill Hopper at the
_Marie Antoinette_ premiere, where Norma Shearer, the great Antoinette,
wore two evening gowns--one gold, one black spangles.]
[Illustration: 19. Ingrid Bergman and Hedda Hopper signing autographs
at Hollywood Canteen during World War II, with a member of the shore
patrol looking on. This almost broke up my friendship with David
Selznick. I didn’t ask his permission for Ingrid’s appearance at
the Canteen. He called up and said: “Now you’ve got me into trouble
with Louella.” My reply: “That’s your hard luck.” (_Photo by Joseph
Jasgur_)]
[Illustration: 20. James Shigeta, Robert Merrill, Charles Durand, Luise
Rainer, and Ethel Barrymore on my Hollywood radio show. I can still
close my eyes and remember that lovely voice of Ethel. No one like her;
no one will ever forget her. (_NBC Photo by Gerald K. Smith_)]
[Illustration: 21. Stephen Boyd and Hopper when she was handed the
Foreign Correspondents’ Golden Globe Award by Vincent Price. (_Los
Angeles Times Photo_)]
[Illustration: 22. Hedda, Mrs. Eisenhower, Mrs. Raymond Massey, Mrs.
Charles Brackett lunching at Romanoff’s during Mamie’s visit to
Hollywood. You may notice how young Mamie and I look. The best brush
man in Hollywood worked on our faces and eliminated the lines. When I
thanked him, he said, “I’m now retiring and presenting that brush to
the Hollywood Museum.” (_Photo by Twentieth Century-Fox_)]
[Illustration: 23. Hedda Hopper receiving a new bonnet from Jackie
Gleason, who was playing _Gigot_ in Paris. (_Photo by Jean Schmidt,
Paris_)]
[Illustration: 24. Elizabeth Taylor and Arthur Loew, Jr., her devoted
admirer, with yours truly, whose hair needed the attention of both Mr.
Kenneth and George Masters for this party. (_Nate Cutler Photo_)]