Our story of the month: October 2005

"Even The Beatles envied my hair-do"

My friend, Jeff Hunter, was at the wheel of the gleaming Cadillac. "Beverly Hills is over there... that's Sunset Boulevard... now we're in Bel Air. That's Rhonda Fleming's home up there, yes, the big one".

It was a mansion, and we were going there to a party. A great wild, swinging Hollywood party, I thought happily.

Everything, on my first day in Hollywood, was going according to dreamland. As soon as I'd flown in I'd called the only person I knew, Jeff Hunter, who'd said at once: "Come to dinner and on to a party". The Californian moon was living up to all the songs about it. The night air was warm, the stars brilliant, and the murmur of voices floated promisingly across the softly lawns of the beautiful house awaiting us.

We went into a room doused in opulence, Hollywood-style. The whole of one wall was a vast picture window which looked on to gardens and the sheer cliff face of a canyon bathed in lights, constantly changing and many-coloured. The other walls were covered with silk brocades. The room was full of people: young starlets, their heair-styles, make-up and gowns as flawless as though they were just going in front of the cameras; young actors; several well-known screen faces.

Better watch the liquor, I thought, make the first one last, till things get going. Our hostess, Rhonda Fleming, swept up with a wide, dazzling smile: "What would you like - coffee or milk?" I sat down abruptly, coffee cup in hand. The minute I'd done so a very American voice said: "Let us pray". It came from a very American gentleman who was sitting astride a piano stool. everyone bowed their head, so I bowed mine and gazed earnestly at the rapidly cooling coffee in the cup I was balancing. My hand grew a little cramped. I sneaked a glance at my watch. We'd been praying five minutes already. Five minutes later I sneaked another glance at my fellow guests. Every head was still bowed. Hastily I lowered mine again, stealhily changing the coffee cup to the other hand. Another five minutes went by.

Then sixty other cups and saucers started clattering as a follow-up discussion began on the subject of the prayers: "What are we planning to do if The Bomb hits America and - in particular - Hollywood !" Just then the door burst open and in swept Terry Moore, a namesake of mine and currently the big, glamorous sex-bomb star. "Up the Moores !" I thought, now things will happen". They did, but not at all in the way I expected. Terry sat straight down on, and in the middle of, the carpet, and opened her eyes very wide. Then, in the exact hushed but firm tones reserved by Richard Dimbleby for Royalty, she announced: "As of this moment there are approximately three hundred and seventy six million Hindus in India". Everyone nodded. I waited for similar statistics on Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims to follow. But that was it. Terry was now choosing milk from the coffee and milk tray. However, in some strange way I became convinced that the party could not have gone on without this piece of vital information. There was a little more praying, some more talk, then it was over.

Outside I saw a blonde starlet smoothing the fur on her Thunderbird convertible before arranging herself prettily at the wheel. I knew I'd only had one cup of cold coffee. Even so, I walked over the car, touched it, examined it critically. The entire car, wings, bodywork, bonnet, was in a fitted, fur jacket. "Cute, isn't it", the blonde said delightely. "But will it photograph well?" I asked. She pouted, slighty worried: "Maybe I should have gotten me a fur with more markings". "Like leopard", I said. "Yuh, like leopard, but I can't afford that - yet". I went back to my hotel a very sober, fairly bewildered English actor, at the end of my first ten hours in Hollywood.

I was remembering the large picture frame in Al Altman's office in Times Square. Al is head of talent for MGM in New York. It was he who had first tested me and set the ball rolling for MGM to put me under the seven year contract (with option to drop me every six months) which had brought me to Hollywood. Behing the glass in his picture frame was, not a painting, but nine clearly printed, eloquent words: "IT TAKES FIFTEEN YEARS TO BECOME A STAR OVERNIGHT". According to that I had five more years to go. I was a drama student at seventeen, now a Hollywood beginner at twenty-seven. I wondered whether the next five year - if I lasted that long - would infect me with the need to give public parties at midnight for private praying, or order a fur jacket to be tailored for my car. As it happened, they didn't. But that is largely due to a man called Joe Graham who, almost five years later to the month, met me when I had reached stardom and had the ulcers, tensions and marriage problems I'd unwittingly collected on the way and was carrying around with me. Meanwhile, that night, at the beginning of the five Hollywood years, my sleepy thoughts about the future held nothing of the philosophy or understanding he was going to teach me. Next morning I was taken to the studios to meet Al Tresconi, head of talent in Hollywood, and Tommy Tannenbaum, his assistant.

Tommy and his parents, who became my good friends, owned one of the most valuable and rare pedigree poodles in California, called Boffington. It had one unfortunate habit. With all its high breeding no one had been able to make it understand that when you welcomed guests you did not bite them. It became sadly clear to the Tannenbaum that they would have to loose Boffington, or their friends. They didn't want to do either so they enlisted the skills of the best vet and dental mechanic in Hollywood. Impressions were made of Boffington's mouth, his teeth extracted, and a beautiful set of dentures made for him. He wore the dentures at mealtimes. When guests came his dentures were taken out and he gummed you all over with firm but harmless bites. Suddenly everyone loved him. He was a terribly happy dog.

I even began to envy Boffington when, later, the bills came in for the dental work the studios decided I should have done. By English standards I had a perfectly sound set of teeth, unlikely to cause me trouble. Hollywood studio standards go farther than that. If your teeth are sound, regular, and give you a good jaw and mouth line for the cameras, they feel it is vital that you should never have to loose one. They argue that the loss of even a single tooth can alter the facial muscles and contours. They go to work on every molar, filling and capping them with gold to ensure they will last certainly for the span of your movie-making years. It takes hours and hours and hours, it costs a fortune of around £ 1.000 and the bill is all yours.

The story continues next month

Read our previous stories of the month

August - September - October - November - December 2003

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December 2004

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August 2005