man and dear friend, played doctor and stitched it up. It was a very ugly, violent scene, complete with blood on the floor—mine.
The next day Spence had no memory of any of it. He didn’t know he got into a fight with the bartender, and he didn’t know my hand had been slashed open by the glass that he’d thrown. “Jekyll and Hyde” is a conventional metaphor, but in this case it was absolutely true. Sober, Spence was Dr. Jekyll and a very dear man, but alcohol turned him into Mr. Hyde, complete with a hair-trigger temper. The strange thing is that on some level Spence was blocked from fully acknowledging his dual nature; when he had played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was one of his least successful performances because he couldn’t quite access Mr. Hyde—he was acting the character rather than being it. He had to be drunk before he could let the animal loose.
That one instance aside, Spence was always a wonderfully kind and generous man. I would name my first daughter after Kate Hepburn, and I was privileged to be a part of their relationship. She gave Katie two dolls that she had made, one of herself and one of Spence as he looked in The Old Man and the Sea . They also gave her a crib. I brought the baby to see them, and they just glowed as they looked at her.
Spence and Kate were like an old married couple in that they had a wonderful humor with each other; they played to each other. You could feel the affection and love they had. And she was so wonderful with him; they had a way of deferring to each other, but ultimately she would defer to him. She would say that he was like a big bear that would put his paw out and slap her down, but gently. Spence was the only person in her life who could tell her she was full of shit, and she loved that about him.
I realize now that the people I was drawn to in the movie business were all older. I respected them enormously because of their accomplishments, but it was more than that. I wanted their secrets.
Was I looking for surrogate fathers?
Absolutely.
I see a lot of my life as a search for the closeness and intimacy of family. Making movies gives you some of that feeling. (Barbara Stanwyck was the same way. Maybe that’s why we were so close.) At the beginning of a picture, everyone is so close. People become fast friends and swear undying loyalty. Sometimes they fall into bed. And then, eight or ten weeks later, it’s “Where did everybody go?” It goes from intensity to…nothing. It’s probably because of my particular emotional chemistry that I remember the offstage part, the relationships, more than I do the films. I remember the times we had.
SEVEN
“SWEET JESUS! IT WAS HOWARD HUGHES.”
At a premiere with Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Jean Peters, just before Howard Hughes spirited Jean away. ( COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR )
S ome people who have gone through a quick rise to stardom report feeling a loss of control, but I never felt that. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.
It’s possible that I had too much of an allegiance to the trappings of my stardom. Once, around this time, I was in a convertible with Watson Webb and Rory Calhoun. I was studiously going through a pile of my fan mail when Rory grabbed it and heaved it up and out of the car. It scattered through the air like confetti, and Rory thought my reaction was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
Watson Webb was a descendant of two great fortunes. His father, James Watson Webb Sr., was a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt. His mother was the daughter of the founder of the American Sugar Refining Company. After Watson graduated from Yale in 1938, he decided to avoid going into either of the family businesses. Instead, he went to Hollywood, where he became one of Zanuck’s most trusted film editors. He was very comfortable editing film in the conventional style of the time, but he was also adept with much edgier, more violent movies. Among the pictures Watson cut were The Dark
The next day Spence had no memory of any of it. He didn’t know he got into a fight with the bartender, and he didn’t know my hand had been slashed open by the glass that he’d thrown. “Jekyll and Hyde” is a conventional metaphor, but in this case it was absolutely true. Sober, Spence was Dr. Jekyll and a very dear man, but alcohol turned him into Mr. Hyde, complete with a hair-trigger temper. The strange thing is that on some level Spence was blocked from fully acknowledging his dual nature; when he had played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was one of his least successful performances because he couldn’t quite access Mr. Hyde—he was acting the character rather than being it. He had to be drunk before he could let the animal loose.
That one instance aside, Spence was always a wonderfully kind and generous man. I would name my first daughter after Kate Hepburn, and I was privileged to be a part of their relationship. She gave Katie two dolls that she had made, one of herself and one of Spence as he looked in The Old Man and the Sea . They also gave her a crib. I brought the baby to see them, and they just glowed as they looked at her.
Spence and Kate were like an old married couple in that they had a wonderful humor with each other; they played to each other. You could feel the affection and love they had. And she was so wonderful with him; they had a way of deferring to each other, but ultimately she would defer to him. She would say that he was like a big bear that would put his paw out and slap her down, but gently. Spence was the only person in her life who could tell her she was full of shit, and she loved that about him.
I realize now that the people I was drawn to in the movie business were all older. I respected them enormously because of their accomplishments, but it was more than that. I wanted their secrets.
Was I looking for surrogate fathers?
Absolutely.
I see a lot of my life as a search for the closeness and intimacy of family. Making movies gives you some of that feeling. (Barbara Stanwyck was the same way. Maybe that’s why we were so close.) At the beginning of a picture, everyone is so close. People become fast friends and swear undying loyalty. Sometimes they fall into bed. And then, eight or ten weeks later, it’s “Where did everybody go?” It goes from intensity to…nothing. It’s probably because of my particular emotional chemistry that I remember the offstage part, the relationships, more than I do the films. I remember the times we had.
SEVEN
“SWEET JESUS! IT WAS HOWARD HUGHES.”
At a premiere with Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Jean Peters, just before Howard Hughes spirited Jean away. ( COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR )
S ome people who have gone through a quick rise to stardom report feeling a loss of control, but I never felt that. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.
It’s possible that I had too much of an allegiance to the trappings of my stardom. Once, around this time, I was in a convertible with Watson Webb and Rory Calhoun. I was studiously going through a pile of my fan mail when Rory grabbed it and heaved it up and out of the car. It scattered through the air like confetti, and Rory thought my reaction was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
Watson Webb was a descendant of two great fortunes. His father, James Watson Webb Sr., was a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt. His mother was the daughter of the founder of the American Sugar Refining Company. After Watson graduated from Yale in 1938, he decided to avoid going into either of the family businesses. Instead, he went to Hollywood, where he became one of Zanuck’s most trusted film editors. He was very comfortable editing film in the conventional style of the time, but he was also adept with much edgier, more violent movies. Among the pictures Watson cut were The Dark
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