The Legs Are the Last to Go by Diahann Carroll Page A

been apart. I was having my own problems with Vic, my fourth husband, at the time. But seeing my own parents together like that, so happily together—it gave me the kind of hope I never would have expected at that stage of my life.
    One night I couldn’t sleep and I went to see her. By that point, she was being taken care of by hospice workers because it was near the end. An aide told me she was having difficulty breathing, and I could tell things were pretty bad. So I climbed into bed with her, careful not to disturb the tubes hooked up to her failing body, and I slowly put my arm around her. She felt so frail. Her breathing was labored. I leaned in to her ear, and kept my nose there for a moment, just taking her in. Then I said very softly, “You do know, Mom, that Dad wants to be with you at the end, when you’re both gone, don’t you? You’re the only one.” I waited a moment, then I said, “Did you hear that, Mom? Did you hear what I said?” Some moments passed. Her IV machine dripped, and numbers flashed on machines that beeped and whirred. Then I saw her nodding. I felt her head move up and down against my chest. And then, then she smiled. It was faint, but it took my breath away. She heard me. She understood. She was still in love.
    We sat together for a while. Then I told her I was goinghome to bed, and that in the morning I had to make a speech at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and then I’d return to see her in the afternoon. My driver got a call while I was speaking, and he called me with a message to call him. I knew what had happened. I rushed to her. She lay still in her bed, all life gone from her body. The tubes and machines were gone, too. It was the first time I had ever seen a person who was no longer breathing. I rubbed her forehead, and leaned in and said, “Rest now, Mom. You lived a wonderful life.”
    She wasn’t the only one who was well turned out for the funeral. I wore a stylish Carolina Herrera suit for the occasion, and a big dramatic hat she would have loved. I thought of her when I chose it. I know she would have approved. My mother almost always approved of what I wore. Well, for better or worse, she had my full attention. And when I look back on it now, I’m so glad I was there to give her my love and attention, right to the end. You only have one mother in life, after all.
    Not long after she died, I formed a habit of speaking aloud to her. It helped me a great deal to say, “What would you do in this situation, Mom?” It still does. I know that sounds strange, given all the doubts I had about her. But when I was fourteen years old, there was nobody who had more to teach me than my mother. And later, even with all my issues, I always kept in my mind that she only wanted what was best for me. I’ve had some fans in my time, but nobody could make me feel as special as she did.
    She was the first person who made me want to reach for the stars.
    Sometimes, when I am listening to certain kinds of music,particularly the kind she raised me to appreciate—Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, and Billy Eckstine—I turn it up very loud, and I sing for her. And even though I’m not the best dancer, I dance a little, too.
    I dance for my first and most devoted audience.
    And on many days I wear tinted glasses just the way she did.
    But never with big earrings. Please!

David Frost and Diahann Carroll. (Photograph by Ron Galella/WireImage)
THREE
Men, Take One
    NORMA DESMOND HAD HER MAD SCENE AT THE TOP of the stairs. I, on the other hand, had mine in a condo at the top of a high-rise in Beverly Hills in 1998. It was evening, and the lights were off and the entire city of Los Angeles was spread out beneath my walls of windows. Directly below me was Sunset Boulevard, a streaming river of car lights. I had just gotten off the phone with Vic Damone, who had left me for another woman months before, after ten years of marriage. Our