Authors: Rue McClanahan

My First Five Husbands (43 page)

BOOK: My First Five Husbands

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He took me outside, into the air, into the oxygen, and right away was working on what to do. We called the producers and told them I had to drop out of the play to deal with this emergency and spent the next days seeing surgeons and oncologists. Through the batteries of tests and procedures and decisions that immediately hit like a blizzard, Morrow helped me gather facts, weigh options, and weed out priorities. Dr. Larry Norton at Sloan-Kettering was the only one who didn’t want to do a single or double mastectomy right off the bat.

“I think we have a shot at a lumpectomy,” he said, “and if the borders are clean, we’ll start on a stiff regimen of chemotherapy and radiation. The cancer’s moving quickly,” he added. “So we have to move quickly, too.”

During chemotherapy, New York City, 1997. Hey, a good lookin’ woman looks good in anything—or without anything!

I said, “All right. Let’s get started.”

As plans for my treatment moved rapidly forward, the producers called early every morning, telling me how much they loved me—and how much they urged me to do the play first and
then
get the surgery.

All heart, those two.

O
ne evening the following week, Morrow took me to see a revival of
Chicago
. Sitting there beside him in the dark theatre, I discovered I wasn’t in the mood for the ol’ razzle-dazzle. At intermission, I said, “Let’s leave.”

“Let’s go to Sardi’s,” he said, “and have a glass of wine.”

We sat across the table from each other, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

“You know, I bought the sheet music for ‘I’ll Be Seeing You,’” said Morrow. “If you’d gone back to L.A. before I worked up the nerve to tell you I love you, I was going to FedEx it so it would get there before you did.”

“Good grief, Morrow. I would’ve had to turn around and fly right back to New York.”

“Well…that was the general idea.”

I couldn’t help hearing the song in my head when he told me that. The most heart-meltingly poignant song ever written, so full of longing and tenderness.

Over my second glass of red wine, I said to Morrow, “I’d like to marry you.”

Such an expression on his face! His eyes grew wide.

“Will you
marry
me?” he said.

“Yes.”

After a moment, he said, “
Will
you marry me?”

“Yes!”

I guess he believed me, because he didn’t ask a third time. We’d known each other two weeks and five days, and while that might sound like the old
BA-RUMPH! BA-RUMPH!
to some, it was actually more like that time back in 1949 when I emerged from the subway on Forty-second Street, inhaled my first breath of New York City, and immediately realized:
I’m home.

Christmas Day, 1997, Morrow and I were married at the Waldorf Astoria between my sixth and seventh chemo treatments. I was bald as a billiard ball. Morrow had bronchitis and a 102-degree fever. The wedding was ridiculous and the honeymoon was worse, but I’ve been Mrs. Morrow Wilson a lot longer than I was ever Mrs. Anybody Else. And without a shiver of panic.

With Morrow at Sardi’s, June, 1997. “I’d like to marry you.”

I can only surmise that someone somewhere must have sneaked out in the dark of the moon and buried a new potato on my behalf. Ain’t that Saint Dymphna a hoot and a holler?

T
he sun is streaming down on Manhattan’s East Side, and across my back fence a children’s tennis class is presently in progress. Every morning, we find chartreuse balls hiding in the foliage like Easter eggs. We figure they’re ours, since they say “Wilson” on them. The exuberant voices of the instructor and kids come sailing past the fence into our lovely garden, along with the balls bouncing off the walls of the high-rise buildings around us. I used to say I wanted to die onstage after the curtain goes down on a play that I’m in. Now I think I’d be just as pleased to check out right here in the garden, listening to those kids’ voices across the fence.

A writer friend of mine says there’s no such thing as happy endings, only happy intervals and inevitable conclusions, and that an author must choose whether to follow a story to its inevitable conclusion or draw the curtain at a happy interval. And so, my dears, I’ll draw the curtain here. On days like today, there is no ending. Perhaps there never is. All I know is that at this moment, I am happy. I love my life as it now is. I hate the madness going on in the world, but in my personal life, the beauty stays ahead of the ugliness, and in my professional life, good work hasn’t stopped coming my way, bringing joys and challenges.

In my vast collection of memories and mementos, one of my proudest possessions is a letter quoting Tennessee Williams’s reaction to my performance in
Dylan
.

“Your work has that rare combination of earthiness and lapidary polish,” said Mr. Williams, “that quality of being utterly common and utterly noble. Frippery combined with fierceness…”

Oh, Lord, I wish I’d gotten to meet him! I had no idea he even knew who I was, but he certainly had me pegged.

Frippery combined with fierceness
.

Even as a child I had the strong feeling that life was good. I had a passion for work, an openness to love, and a penchant for joy. In a word, I had hope.

I still have it.

One more thing…

“Thanks for noticing.”

—E
EYORE

S
everal years ago, I did an event at Chippendale’s, the popular male strip club in New York. Not my cup of tea, but I did it to help PETA, which was a new group at the time. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals accomplishes courageous and compassionate acts on behalf of our animal friends who can’t speak for themselves, and I’m proud to lend whatever support I can. I testified on PETA’s behalf when they were sued by a trainer who’d been caught on film beating orangutans he used in his Vegas act. Initially, the bastard won, but PETA pushed the case to State Supreme Court and got the trainer and his act barred from ever appearing in Nevada again. Ingrid Newkirk, director of PETA for more than twenty years, is a true heroine. Dan Matthews and the rest of PETA’s staff and volunteers bravely fight cruelty, work for the prosecution of those who cause suffering, and close down facilities not operating within the law. From time to time, I appear at events in order to encourage more people to attend, and it delights and amazes me that the bubble of celebrity actually has this powerful inside. To learn more about PETA and discover what you can do to help, visit their Web site at www.peta.org.

PHOTO PERMISSIONS AND CREDITS

Diligent efforts have been made to locate the copyright owners of all the photographs contained in this book, but some have not been located. In the event a photograph has been used without permission, the copyright owner should contact the author, c/o Broadway Books, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, Attn: Editorial.

TEXT

Chapter One: (three photos) Author collection

Chapter One: Author collection

Chapter Two: Author collection

Chapter Twelve: Photo by Dick Bowen

Chapter Twelve: Author collection

Chapter Fourteen: Photo used by permission from NBC Universal Page 250: Author collection

Chapter Twenty-Two: Author collection

Chapter Twenty-Three: (two photos) Author collection

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Author collection

BLACK-AND-WHITE INSERT

Chapter Eleven: Author collection