IT SEEMED IMPORTANT AT THE TIME by GLORIA VANDERBILT

Author:GLORIA VANDERBILT
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

A R ED ROSE

Sinatra had ringie-dinged away on his tours, attentively calling from Australia, Hawaii, Las Vegas, wherever. He was on my mind, but not as much as the professional acting classes I had begun taking under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. That was what was really on my mind. Carol Marcus Saroyan was still staying at my studio, and she also enrolled in the class. And she had a new name, christened by the Heathcliffian Saroyan: Carol Grace. “You’ll be like an ocean liner—you know, the Grace Line, toot-tooting out to sea,” he said, not without a tinge of undisguised hostility.

We were a dedicated group in Sandy’s class—George Peppard, Suzanne Pleshette, Steve McQueen, Peter Falk, Marti Stevens, Pat Boone, Joanne Woodward, Anita Ellis, Timmy Everett, Sidney Pollock, and so on. All we thought about were our careers.

As for me, I never wanted to get married again—never again give my secret heart to anyone the way I had to Leopold. From now on I’d go my way by myself—whoever myself was. Although I had moved out of Ten Gracie Square and was staying in a hotel, Leopold refused to leave. He knew I’d be back.

Richard Avedon photographed me for Harper’s Bazaar, and he was saying, “There’s someone I’d like you to meet: Sidney Lumet, a director. He’s just separated from his actress wife, Rita Gam. I think you’d each have something to give the other.” I was intrigued—a director—maybe we would work together (Garbo and Stiller?). Fun to dream, isn’t it? Why not?

A week later the Avedons gave a dance at their house on Beekman Place for Grace Kelly. I had little sleeveless short dresses made of satin in an array of delicious colors, long-waisted, in an F. Scott Fitzgerald mode, with pumps dyed to match, and that night I picked the framboise to wear. I fluffed up my hair and out I went alone to the party. And there he was, waiting for me—Sidney Lumet, enfolding me in his arms like a teddy bear. As we danced I could feel the energy of his heart and soul going through me like warm honey. How’s that for romance? But then I got panicky because he said he had to leave the party to meet an agent at Sardi’s.

I didn’t think he’d come back. “Bet a red rose you won’t,” I told him. I was sure there would be some glamour girl with the agent, and he’d forget all about me. But he did come back; he did; he not only came back, he was holding a red rose (exactly the color of my framboise dress), and together we left the party, and from that moment on we were glued each to the other—so glued that our friends found it hard to be around us. But that was OK, because all we wanted was to be alone together.

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