“Then the meeting got savage. Jack Ford was there, for a change, and he said, ‘My closest friend is Merian Cooper’—remember Merian Cooper: he made the original King Kong?—‘and he happens to be a brigadier general in the United States Army, and last night, as we were having dinner, Coop said he wouldn’t sign any goddamn loyalty oath and he said what we were making was a blacklist, and if a brigadier general in the army tells me it’s a blacklist, then it’s a goddamn blacklist!’ And George Stevens came down to De Mille’s chair and he said, ‘By the way, C.B., when I was up to my ass in mud at Bastogne, how were the capital gains doing back home?’ It went on in that spirit, and after a while I’d made up my mind, and I went ahead and ordered Herbert Leeds, our secretary, to call a general meeting of our members for the very next Sunday night. Whereupon De Mille walked out of the place, slamming the door behind him.

“What was so funny?” I asked. “I’ve forgotten how Mexicans are,” John said. “Well, what did he say?” I asked.” ‘On any other subject,’ he said, ‘there would be no limit to what we could do to help you here. But Emiliano is the hero of every forward-looking patriot here. For instance, imagine if we went to your state of Illinois with a Mexican actor and director and made the story of Abraham Lincoln, what would you think?’ That was when I said, ‘That’s a good idea! Why don’t you?’ That was when I laughed! Well, I guess all we can do now,” John went on, “is have a beer. I like their beer, maybe a couple, no?” “How no?” I said.

In the next weeks, I had a fascinating time observing my producer and through him the men in this community. Charlie was exceptionally well dressed—he bought his ties by half-dozen lots of each color or design—and rather handsome in a soft, yielding way, his body suited to bed and armchair. He ran a successful agency, and this gave him prestige in the community and power over young actresses. Still he was full of complaints about his love life—if you can call it that. “Now it’s Uncle Charlie,” he griped, referring to the response young women were increasingly giving him. “I say, ‘How about me?’ and they laugh. There just aren’t any real women anymore. High school girls!” He would spend long hours on the telephone, holding a little black book in his hand, trying number after number. I remember a scene in the “game room” late one afternoon, when three men of recognized glamour, Pat De Cicco, Raoul Hakim, and Charlie, all constant presences in gossip columns that celebrated their successes with women, each with a telephone and each with his little black book, were calling girls one after another, razzing the ones who wouldn’t or couldn’t and razzing the ones who did accept. Either way, the frequent response as they hung up was: “Why do I bother?”

Often Charlie would have a date, and they were quite pretty girls, usually recent arrivals in the community. Charlie would ask them to come to his house in their own cars, so he wouldn’t have to drive them home later, and they’d go out together to Romanoff’s or Chasen’s, always one or the other, and when they came back I had to assume they went into Charlie’s bedroom. The next morning I’d say to my host at breakfast, “How was she, Charlie?” And his answer was invariably one word: “Nothing.” He once had taken out Greta Garbo; he dropped this to me one day, and of course I asked him, “How was she, Charlie?” “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing!” And he shrugged. I couldn’t imagine what the hell he was used to, and I never heard him take any responsibility for his sexual partners’ lack of ardor. It didn’t occur to him that the fault might be his. On the other hand, as an admirer of Miss Garbo’s genius, I had to face the possibility that one night, for a few hours, she’d desired Charlie Feldman; I must say this upset me.

Relieve your mind now of the images you have of this person. When I met her, she was a simple, eager young woman who rode a bike to the classes she was taking, a decent-hearted kid whom Hollywood brought down, legs parted. She had a thin skin and a soul that hungered for acceptance by people she might look up to. Like many girls out of that kind of experience, she sought her self-respect through the men she was able to attract. Johnny Hyde had been, at least for the time, perfect protection.

People talk of the technique of seduction as if it’s an art. In my experience it consisted of listening, paying attention, affording true sympathy, and letting some time pass; that is to say, being human and not pressing. All young actresses in that time and place were thought of as prey, to be overwhelmed and topped by the male. A genuine interest, which I did have, would produce results. I’m still surprised at how quickly women will empty the most intimate secrets of their lives into a sympathetic ear. I was good at listening, and the stories she told me, with neither malice nor regret, were amazing.

She’d married Jim, her first husband, so that she wouldn’t have to go back to the orphanage where she’d been put after the dissolution of her parents’ home. She was sixteen. She didn’t like “anything Jim did to me—except when he kissed me here” (she touched her breasts). After he was finished, Jim would fall asleep, leaving her awake and unsatisfied. She remembered taking long walks at night along the tracks where they lived in Sawtelle. A lover found her available. Fred was a musician, scrawny but able in love. She came as many as three times with him in one go. He was vulgar and coarse and scornful with her. He said she was no good for anything except fucking. He found her dress “cheap.” He told her her breasts were too big. He didn’t like to sleep in the same bed with her. He thought her beneath conversation, said she was stupid and only good for one thing, which he didn’t regard too highly. He boasted that he never had to make a pass at a woman—they all came after him.

When I first knew her, after Johnny’s death, she was being courted by Joe Schenck. He hadn’t moved in as quickly as I—he’d allowed a “decent interval” to pass—but soon he was trying to see her regularly. Mr. Schenck was one of the richest as well as the most respected men in the “Hollywood” community, especially honored for having gone to jail for bribing an officer of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, to prevent a strike in the industry. She told me about the night when Schenck had taken her dancing and asked her to marry him. Mr. Schenck was then seventy-one years old, had at least fifteen million dollars (a lot more money than now), and had had his first cerebral hemorrhage. He was a pretty good dancer for an old man, she told me, and as they moved around the floor, he suggested that they fly to Las Vegas right then and “get spliced.” “Every night you’d be right here in my arms,” he said. Later he took her to his home and showed her a large, expensively decorated room that would be hers anytime she wanted. But he didn’t make a pass at her. Then he gave her some paternal advice. “Don’t be a scalp in some man’s belt,” he said, “don’t be a cuspidor, don’t be an ashcan.” Again and again he told her his age, that he was not long for this world and his widow would be “fixed” with millions. Marilyn got the suggestion, but she didn’t respond; then Joe Schenck made his final appeal. “I’m seventy-one,” he said. “I know I’m a man of limited powers. But you’ll find that I’m understanding. If my wife feels she must go with other men, I’ll understand. But only so long as it’s not the same man twice in a row.” This did not appeal to Marilyn, who was a romantic. She was very touched by Joe’s offer, but the fact was that he had nothing but the money with which to try to buy his happiness at the end. A few nights later, she gave him her answer. I wondered about the women who had watched Darryl’s croquet game. Might not some of them have been tempted? In that culture, it seemed to me, Marilyn was the pure in heart.

Then he got down to business. “Have you thought of anything,” he asked us, “for the anti-Communist gimmick?” Neither Miller nor I answered him immediately, so Brewer went on. “As a suggestion, why couldn’t we have a reporter from the People’s Worker approach Marty [the central figure in The Hook, a longshoreman] and ask him for his support? Marty could say, ‘We don’t want any Commie sheets around here.’ ” Brewer stopped, looked at us, and waited.

Harry Cohn was studying Miller.

Art responded that we could try to get that in some way. Brewer noticed the lack of enthusiasm in Miller’s voice. “You don’t want to give the impression that your picture is a plea for the support of Bridges, do you?”

Harry Bridges, president of the International Longshoremen, was a man we admired.

“You should show in the strongest way you can,” Brewer went on, “that Marty does not represent the so-called progressives. The great problem in the unions is the Communist. The racketeers are much less a menace to labor than the Communists.”

Why couldn’t Art do the same thing—if he had reason to? Then—and perhaps here I was naive—we could continue our project. Maybe Art had been rattled by his marital situation and the distress it was causing him. But how could he be that deeply involved in a passion for Marilyn? (How quickly I’d forgotten Constance and how much I’d been on the verge of giving up for her!) He wasn’t a teenager, after all. It had to be because of his inexperience. I mean he couldn’t be thinking of marrying her! Marilyn simply wasn’t a wife. Anyone could see that. Even with all his inexperience, he was smart enough to know that. The wife he had (how patronizing I was!) suited him. He certainly wasn’t going to upset his whole life, divorce Mary, leave his children; it was too absurd to even imagine. I had the European viewpoint: Everything in its place. Marilyn was what she was, a delightful companion. A delightful companion is a delightful companion, not a wife.

Now that he’d left California and I was alone, I had a caretaker’s relationship with Miss Bauer. I knew she was in love with Art despite any feeling she had for me. His letters to me showed how much he cared for her. He needed what he got from her. After what had happened with The Hook, she was a blessing to me; she lifted my spirits. But I was not desperate about her—or she about me. We were good fellows. If Miller came back, I’d yield, and wait and see what happened.

Then why did I marry? And why Molly? It’s a long story, but I’ll simplify it. Everything in my early life gave me a sense of worthlessness. (Relax, reader, I don’t want your pity.) My foreignness. My looks—or what I thought of them. The mumps at fourteen and what resulted. My father’s opinion of me and his disappointment, the boys in school pushing me outside their society, the girls whom everyone else was “taking out” and their indifference to me. At Williams I was not invited to join a fraternity, at the Yale Drama School I showed no talent, and none as an actor to the directors of the Group during that first unsuccessful summer. I finally had to believe what Harold Clurman believed: that I had no gift except an excess of energy, therefore no future with the Group or anywhere else.

On all these particulars Molly set out to reassure me. She was the first person who saw artistic potential in me; she not only stood behind me, she pushed me forward. She was sure I had a great talent; when events proved that I did have some, she became my talisman of success. She made me feel I could get to the top of a profession in the performing arts. With her help! And along with all that, she couldn’t wait to get in bed with me.

I wanted everything I could get and went after it. When she withheld her approval—or when I thought she did or might or would—I resented her. After a time even her esteem alienated me; I didn’t want to have the qualities she praised me for possessing. Anger fired revenge, and the revenge was always a woman who liked me for what Molly disapproved of. I would seem perfect to the newcomer and I’d enjoy that and contrast it to the critical stance of my wife. But since I was the same man, the others soon developed the same reservations about me that Molly had. For a time they’d be reticent about expressing their criticism; there’s always a mini-honeymoon in these affairs. Then the same relationship would recur—with a different person.

All that sounds sick, and it was. But there was a true side to the struggle, which I cannot discount. People make fun of the male crisis at forty-five. I had that crisis all my life. I knew there was more to life than I was getting, and I didn’t want to miss out on anything. People forget that we only live once; I knew it from the day I was born. Every new girl was an adventure and an education, a friend in need, someone from whom I benefited in many ways. I even believed that my infidelities were an effort to continue with my wife, to “save the marriage.” It was the only way I could go on with her. As I say, I should not have married. But I wanted that too.