Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [42]
“But she always wore feathers in all her movies!” I cut in.
“Exactly,” said Fred with a small smile. “Her mother refused to allow her to leave the feathers off her costumes. And Ginger complied.”
Fred Astaire was such a nice, gentle man, but with that anecdote he lifted the lid on the tensions simmering beneath the pristine surface of his legendary relationship with Ginger Rogers. They’d been a team, yes, but her mother clearly called the shots.
Another legendary star who came into my life briefly was Cary Grant, whom I met in the mid-sixties, shortly before I began working on I Dream of Jeannie.
As a challenge, I accepted a part in a stage musical, The Pajama Game, with John Raitt (now better known as Bonnie’s father), but as I hadn’t sung in public since singing with the band in San Francisco, shortly before the show opened I began to suffer an acute case of stage fright. Apart from my long absence from the theater, I also felt considerably hampered because the show was being put on in a theater in the round, and I’d never performed in that kind of venue before. I was petrified that I wouldn’t be able to find my entrances or exits.
John Raitt was a fabulous actor with a great baritone voice, and he was also something of a ladies’ man. But he was incredibly helpful and encouraging to me. Nonetheless, on opening night I was quaking in my shoes. To compound my terror, just before my entrance I stood backstage and peered into the audience, unable to make out any of the faces except one: Cary Grant’s!
Cary Grant was in the audience with his future wife, Dyan Cannon. And I was sure that I was about to give the worst performance of my entire career right in front of one of the greatest Hollywood legends who’d ever lived. I felt as if I were about to be instantly dispatched straight to hell in a Hollywood handbasket, with no escape, no reprieve.
The band struck up my entrance music. The ground seemed to shift beneath me, and for a moment I thought I was about to faint. I considered making a break for it. But then common sense and a devil-may-care touch of recklessness kicked in out of the blue, and I told myself, Go down there, Barbara Jean, and make a great big fool of yourself! Just do your best and let the chips fall where they may—as long as you don’t fall flat on your face as well!
With that, I stormed onstage and—holy mackerel!—I got through the show in one piece. I didn’t make a complete and utter fool of myself, Cary Grant didn’t storm out of the theater in disgust, and Dyan Cannon didn’t split her sides in derision at my performance.
Instead, John Raitt invited me to join him, Cary, and Dyan for dinner. The consummate charmer and a quintessential English gentleman, Cary made my evening by being unfailingly kind to me and telling me over and over how wonderful I’d been in the show.
I knew he was lying through those perfect, gleaming teeth, but I didn’t care. I felt so marvelous, so grand. And I’ll always be grateful to Cary for making me feel that way.
However, my meeting with another Hollywood legend and one of Cary’s most beloved co-stars, Katharine Hepburn, ended up playing out somewhat differently. During the early eighties, I was invited to see her in West Side Waltz, at Los Angeles’s Ahmanson Theater. My date was Henry Wolltag, a very good-looking, tall, and elegant silver-haired British gentleman in his early sixties, with perfect manners.
She was predictably brilliant in the show, and I couldn’t wait to go backstage and congratulate her afterward. I’d even hesitantly prepared a few things to say to her when we met, including Evie’s revelation that Marilyn had longed to look like Katharine. I was pleased at the prospect of relaying the compliment to her.
So after the show, Henry and I went backstage to pay a call on Miss Hepburn. We were ushered into her dressing room. And I had hardly taken a breath, never mind