Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [28]
But Michael, a decisive man with very little self-doubt, wanted more. One afternoon, without any warning, he showed up on the How to Marry a Millionaire set. He kissed me, then held out a white paper bag.
“Oh, goody!” I said. “Candy!”
My mouth started watering. I foraged inside the bag for the candy, and pulled out a diamond engagement ring instead.
“I think it will fit,” Michael said laconically.
It did. It fit perfectly. A metaphor, in more ways than one, for our relationship and, I hoped, our future together.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t quite prepared to commit to marriage to Michael then and there. My mother’s advice not to go steady too soon or marry too young still held sway over me. So I hesitated in accepting Michael’s proposal.
Meanwhile, Tony had somehow found out about Michael and had gone berserk when I refused to see him anymore. He called me constantly, waylaid me at the studio, and became so menacing that I was forced to ask the security guards at the gate to stop him from entering the lot.
I’ve never scared easily (not even when I had a death threat further along in my career, which I’ll tell you about later), but Tony was totally out of control and I was terrified.
One night Michael and I were snuggled up on the couch in my apartment when the telephone rang. I picked it up and heard Tony’s voice, muffled but instantly recognizable.
“Goodbye, Barbara. Goodbye,” he said in a slurred voice, and hung up.
Within minutes, Michael and I were speeding over to the Highlands, the apartment complex where Tony lived. As we approached his apartment, we could already smell the gas.
Michael, ever a man of action, smashed through a window and climbed in, and I followed.
Inside the apartment, Tony was on the sofa, unconscious. Gas was pouring out of the oven. I grabbed a cloth, pressed it against my nose and mouth, and switched the gas off, while Michael dragged Tony outside to safety. An ambulance raced him to the hospital. To our great relief, Tony ultimately survived his suicide attempt.
But from that night on, I viewed Michael with new respect. He had stood by me in the midst of a crisis. He hadn’t panicked, but had been there for me, a rock. He was strong, dependable, and gorgeous, but he was also eminently decent. Above all, he was a good man, and I hadn’t met many of those in Hollywood. The town was full of boys trying to be agents and boys trying to be actors, but no real men. Michael was and is a real man.
Right after Tony’s attempted suicide, I accepted Michael’s marriage proposal. We were so in love, so eager to be married and spend the rest of our lives together, and we couldn’t wait to tell our nearest and dearest the wonderful news.
Naturally, I expected all our friends and family to be happy that Michael and I were getting married, and in particular Booker McClay, the Cupid who’d introduced us to each other in the first place.
To my surprise, when I broke the news to Booker, he was less than enthusiastic about my marrying Michael.
A few days passed, then he sent word that he wanted to see me in his office again. He didn’t beat around the bush. “Barbara, we—the studio—think you ought to wait a while before marrying Michael,” he said.
Wait? This from the man who’d set up our first date? I was dumbstruck.
“You see, Barbara, we don’t think you realize how many women hang around Michael on the Broken Arrow set each day. Women are flooding into Hollywood on Greyhound buses from all over the country hoping against hope to see him. He’s surrounded by women who are crazy about him,” Booker said grimly
I drew myself up to my full height. (Not that impressive when you are only five foot three, but you get the picture.)
“That’s lovely,” I retorted loftily. “Because I don’t want someone whom nobody else wants!”
Now it was Booker’s turn to be dumbstruck.
That night Michael and I set our wedding date for six weeks later.
Neither of us dreamed that