Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [29]
Greg Peck was another character. I just adored him. He was a really sweet, kind guy and funny too. Not the best drinker in the world, he married the best wife in Veronique, who is still one of my closest friends. They also met in Paris, when she interviewed him for her newspaper. He asked her to lunch six months later, and they were rarely apart for the next fifty years. They had two children, and Greg had three sons from his first marriage.
With people like that as friends, nothing much fazed me, or so I thought. One day I was sunbathing in a bikini when I heard a golf cart roll up and park on the other side of the hedge. Someone stood up and peered over, but the sun was behind him so I couldn’t see who it was. I thought, Go away, whoever you are. Can’t you see I’m sunbathing?
A voice said, “Hi, Barbara. Zeppo told me to drop by and say hello.”
There stood Clark Gable, star of Gone With the Wind, a movie my mother had taken me to see in Wichita when I was twelve years old. “Oh—hello,” I replied, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “Would you like a drink?” Clark, who was dubbed “the King of Hollywood” in his heyday, stayed on the other side of the hedge and introduced his new wife, Kay, a former model. I had someone fetch them iced tea, and we three chatted while I stood there with virtually nothing on. Poor Clark died of a heart attack the following year, aged fifty-nine. He never saw the son Kay went on to bear him.
Whenever the weather got too hot for comfort, Zeppo and I would relocate to his penthouse in Beverly Hills. In Los Angeles he was a member of Hillcrest, the country club that had made Frank Sinatra one of its first Gentile members. A lot of Zep’s friends went to Hillcrest too, including Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, Milton Berle, and George Burns. They’d all sit together at what became known as the Californian Round Table, laughing and telling jokes. Other members would sit nearby, trying to listen in. Eventually, the club managers asked the Round Table gang if they’d mind spreading themselves around the club a bit so that everyone could enjoy their humor, but of course that never worked.
George Burns was adorable, so funny and sweet. He was crazy about his wife, Gracie Allen, and would sit smoking cigars and drinking martinis and talking about her all the time. Poor Gracie was dying of heart disease by then, but even after she’d gone he never stopped speaking of her. Jack Benny was one of life’s nice guys and such wonderful company. I became very close with his wife, Mary, whom Zep had introduced Jack to when she was fourteen years old. Mary had been a successful radio comedienne until stage fright put an end to her career. Remembering my disastrous screen test for Fox, I could definitely relate to that. I played golf with Jack and Mary quite often. Whenever Jack hit a ball right and she heard that telltale ping, she’d call out, “Doll, that sounded great!” (They always called each other “doll.”) Quick as a flash, Jack would quip, “Doll, this isn’t a concert!”
Danny Kaye was another good friend of Zeppo’s, not least because they shared the same sort of zany humor. Danny was very successful at that time, with his own TV show. He certainly made the most of his success, and every time he came to our house he had a different girl on his arm. All these comedians were at the peak of their popularity and welcome at just about every event in town. Frank Sinatra would sometimes ask us to parties with them, but Zeppo mostly turned down invitations to Frank’s Compound. Never much of a drinker and hating late nights, Zeppo didn’t relish the thought