Cybill Disobedience Part 3

"What did you think?" Peter asked.

She directed her answer to me, as if I had asked the question. "Maybe you'll do better next time," she said, then turned her back and shut the door. I giggled a little uncomfortably (after all, we'd gotten a standing ovation), but Peter winced, as if he'd been slapped in the face and muttered "s.h.i.t" under his breath. They never spoke again.

Newsweek called called The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show "a masterpiece... the most impressive work by a young American director since "a masterpiece... the most impressive work by a young American director since Citizen Kane." Citizen Kane." It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, for Best Supporting Actress and Actor (Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson). It won seven New York Film Critics awards, three British Academy awards, one Golden Globe, one National Society of Film Critics award, and was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry. Although the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture went to William Friedkin and It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, for Best Supporting Actress and Actor (Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson). It won seven New York Film Critics awards, three British Academy awards, one Golden Globe, one National Society of Film Critics award, and was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry. Although the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture went to William Friedkin and The French Connection The French Connection, I had become an actress under the tutelage of a great teacher. Like the song about dancing with the man who danced with the woman who danced with the Prince of Wales, I was taught by the man who was taught by Stella Adler who was taught by Stanislavsky. He surrounded me with peole who were the best in the business, helping me avert the kind of early career embarra.s.sment that comes back and bites you in the a.s.s. My a.s.s didn't show teeth marks until later. As Orson Welles said about his career, I started at the top and worked my way down.

Chapter Six.

"WHITE BOYS DON'T EAT..."

MUTUALLY AND ENTHUSIASTICALLY, PETER AND I rejected marriage vows-but both of us will always regret not having had a child together. When we moved into Sunset Towers, there was a period of time when he went "home" each night to put his two young daughters to bed. He usually returned beaten down by Polly's recriminations. Later his girls would visit us on weekends, and for the first twenty-four hours, I was the enemy, but I never tried to woo them or be their mother, just included them in games of Parcheesi and croquet and took them swimming. Eventually, we would all relax just in time for them to go back "home." rejected marriage vows-but both of us will always regret not having had a child together. When we moved into Sunset Towers, there was a period of time when he went "home" each night to put his two young daughters to bed. He usually returned beaten down by Polly's recriminations. Later his girls would visit us on weekends, and for the first twenty-four hours, I was the enemy, but I never tried to woo them or be their mother, just included them in games of Parcheesi and croquet and took them swimming. Eventually, we would all relax just in time for them to go back "home."

I had no more than the occasional bloodless telephone conversation with their mother. Polly was a great help to Peter in his work, but when the marriage was over, their behavior toward each other reinforced a sense of the singular creative hostility between them, still fresh in recent interviews. According to Polly, she not only discovered the novel of The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show but also me. When Peter began work on but also me. When Peter began work on What's Up, Doc? What's Up, Doc?, a screwball comedy with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal intended as an homage to Bringing Up Baby Bringing Up Baby, he decided to hire Polly, who accepted the job of set designer on the condition that I be banned from the set, bravely joking that she refused to be "Cybillized." I visited in San Francisco anyway but was relegated to swimming laps at the n.o.b Hill YWCA and hearing stories about la Streisand secondhand. (Peter asked her to cut her famously talon like fingernails, but she would only comply on her right hand, so in most of the movie, she's holding a raincoat or some other prop in the left.) The closest I got to the set was watching the "gag reel," Peter playing Barbra's part to show her what to do in the scene where she sings "As Time Goes By." He hides under a drop cloth and slithers off the piano, stopping just short of kissing Ryan on the mouth.

My relationship with Peter felt as if it was built on shifting tectonic plates. Our only rule was "Don't ask me what you don't want to know," and the corollary was "Never cheat on me in the same city." I'm sure part of my appeal for Peter was that I was attractive to other men. He'd watch from down a drugstore aisle or across a theater lobby as some guy would circle in preflirting formation, then he'd appear beside me with a smug kiss or gesture of intimacy that announced squatter's rights. I wonder now if he didn't unconsciously condone me having relationships with other men.

The summer of 1972, while back in Memphis, I got a call from George Klein, the local television host who'd emceed the Miss Teenage Memphis pageant. A friend of his had admired me in The Last Picture Show. He was an actor too. And he lived at Graceland.

I'd been crazy jealous when my sister got a record player and a small collection of Elvis Presley 45s back in the mid-1950s, playing "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" nonstop and singing along in a tinny voice that I tried to overshout. Everybody in Memphis felt jingoistic pride in the native son who hung out with the black musicians like Big Joe and Ivory Joe Hunter in the juke joints of Beale Street, adapting their moves and their music. (It was Willie Mae "Big Mama" 'Thornton who recorded "Hound Dog" first, and she was talking about men-"You ain't lookin' for a woman, all you lookin&rsqor is a home.") Sam Phillips, who engineered the radio broadcasts on the Peabody roof, had started Sun Records, signing up Jr. Walker and Little Milton and B. B. King, and he was looking for a white boy who could sing like a black one. A local disc jockey at WHBQ named Dewey Phillips was playing black and white artists on the same station for the first time. He'd spin anything from Hank Williams to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and he put Elvis on the map. But when Elvis went from radio to television and live performances, his music wasn't considered polite (you never saw Sinatra b.u.mp and grind like a stripper), and I could recall with clarity the furor when Ed Sullivan consented to show him only from the waist up, fearful for the overwrought libidos of the nation's youth. In 1972 I was not too interested in Elvis Presley or his moves. He'd become a little pa.s.se, supplanted by Motown and the British invasion of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But he was, after all, the King.

"He's got to call me," I told Klein, "and he's got to pick me up himself."

"Fair enough," he said.

One of his people tracked me down at Jane's house. "It's for you," she said, handing me the receiver with demonstrative boredom. "Some weirdo pretending to be Elvis Presley." When she grasped from my stunned mien that this was no impersonator, she pressed her own ear to the receiver next to mine, the two of us listening to a voice that sounded like melted Kraft caramels.

"I've wanted to meet you for a long time," he said, "ever since I saw you in that movie."

"That was two years ago," I said. "What took you so long?"

He gave an appreciative little laugh. I'd like to see you sometime," he said.

"Are you sure you're not still married?" I asked. Like the rest of the world, I knew about Priscilla and their daughter, Lisa Marie, and I'd already taken hits for breaking up one marriage, but he a.s.sured me he was separated and in the throes of a divorce. He asked me to join him for a movie that evening--Elvis regularly rented local theaters at midnight for his entourage, unflatteringly known as the Memphis Mafia. Jane was flailing her arms in a silent entreaty, "Take me! Take me!" I asked if I could bring my best girlfriend. Sure, he said. Elvis never did have a problem with two girls.

I dropped my demand about being picked up, since Jane and I were driving together. When we entered the Crosstown Theater, the phalanx of good ol' boys wouldn't let us past the lobby. So Jane and I started tangoing together in front of the popcorn machine, ignoring the people who were trying desperately to ignore us. Word that Elvis had entered the building through a side door filtered into the lobby like a game of whispering down the lane, and we were granted admission, sitting in a row with the bubbas. As if on cue, everybody in the row to my right got up and moved one seat over.

I smelled him before I saw him, but I couldn't for the life of me identify his cologne. Let's just call it Eau de Elvis. His luminous olive skin glowed with what I later learned was bronzing makeup. He was chewing Fruit Stripe gum and offered me a piece, graciously sending another down the row to Jane. As others arrived for the screening, he pointed out a distinguished-looking man. That's an eye surgeon," he said. "He treated me for an infection by driving a needle straight through my eyeball, and I was awake every minute." Then he opened his jacket and revealed a pearl-handled revolver stuck in his belt. "I carry this little girl everywhere I go," he said. When these preambles were over, we watched Goodbye Columbus Goodbye Columbus in silence, while I tried to sneak peripheral glances at him in the dark. There was a second feature scheduled, but partway through in silence, while I tried to sneak peripheral glances at him in the dark. There was a second feature scheduled, but partway through Sunday, Bldy Sunday Sunday, Bldy Sunday, there was a kiss between two men. Revolted members of the Mafia yelled, "That's gross, man," and Elvis ordered, "Stop the movie." And then he was gone, uttering a barely audible "See y'all later."

Jane and I had just reached the sidewalk in front of the theater when a white Lincoln made a U-turn and pulled up to the curb. Elvis strode toward us and asked, "Y'all want to come back to the house?" Jane and I exchanged glances, read each other's thoughts, and declined. With the barest trace of good night, Elvis pulled away and proceeded right through a stop sign, within spitting distance of a motorcycle cop. We watched as the officer signaled the car to pull over and Elvis flashed his Special Deputy badge from the Memphis Sheriff's Department. (Later I got a badge too. It lived in the bathroom drawer until somebody in the sheriff's office was indicted on sixty counts of fraud and bribery, and all special badges were revoked. Fortunately I tend to get in the kind of trouble that doesn't involve law enforcement.) A few days later I was invited to Graceland for lunch. One of the bubbas rang the bell of my childhood home while Elvis waited out front. Mother was oblivious to my caller, and my brother was in his "Everything in my life is terrible because you are my sister stage" I'd been in sw.a.n.ky homes of famous people (in fact, I now lived in one with Peter), but Graceland had a special glow behind its wrought-iron gates, with a tree-lined driveway winding up to a portico fronted by tall white columns and two white stone lions as palace guards. There was a rather formal dining room, but we ate in the kitchen with Elvis's father, and with little conversation. (Southern folk are brought up not to talk with their mouths full.) The meal included the first three of the four southern food groups: salt, fat, sugar, and alcohol. Chicken-fried steak was cooked well done by a housekeeper who called me Missy and sent plates out to the bodyguards waiting by the cars. One of them drove me home shortly after dessert: slices of devil's food cake colored an unnatural red.

I was back for dinner the next day (deep-fried sandwiches made of peanut b.u.t.ter, bananas, and mayonnaise), and it was just the two of us. Elvis led me on a tour ending in his bedroom, all red and black with a fake leopard cover on a king-size bed, four TVs, and smoky mirrors on the walls and ceilings. I had no doubt about how the evening would end-there was soft kissing on my neck and arms, pulling off layers of clothing to reveal new naked places-while I kept thinking: Do I want to do this Do I want to do this? I'd been treated like a hot piece of a.s.s in New York, and I resisted the idea of being a notch on the belt of a renowned lover boy. But his kisses were so slow and deliberate, his skin so smooth-a little soft around the middle but hard in the right places. He nibbled down my body, virile and playful, then stopped abruptly at my belly b.u.t.ton.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"Uhh, well, you see, me and the guys talk, and, well, white boys don't eat p.u.s.s.y," he said.

This was an interesting concept: that the frequency and popularity of oral s.e.x broke down along racial lines.

"You don't know what you're missing," I said playfully, emboldened by the prospect of shaming him into action with my sheer disbelief. "I'm used to men diving for it. Would you like me to show you how? "

He warmed to the subject, as did I. But I had the feeling of being outside myself, watching. s.e.x with another man didn't feel like I was cuckolding Peter-I figured I couldn't cheat on someone I didn't have, and Peter wasn't mine in any real, permanent sense. I kept earnest, copiously annotated diaries in those days written in code in case Peter happened upon them. The musings of youthful self-absorbed angt are fairly insufferable to read now, but there's one pa.s.sage that still resonates: "Elvis's stupidity is rejuvenating against Peter's superiority. I don't think Peter takes me seriously, but going with him has a lot of prestige."

I had fun in Elvis's bed, but I couldn't sleep in it. Shortly past midnight, he drove me home, my face rubbed raw from kissing.

Although I'd made TV appearances as Model of the Year, The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show really inaugurated what becomes almost a tangential career for any actor: working the talk-show circuit. At first I was stiff, calcified, afraid to open my mouth. Then I became awkwardly flirtatious, trying to amuse, drinking too much coffee and talking too fast. Then I would adopt Peter's hauteur, minus his raconteur skills. One of my appearances almost derailed my career. In 1971 Neil Simon, the most popular American playwright of his time, had written his first screenplay called really inaugurated what becomes almost a tangential career for any actor: working the talk-show circuit. At first I was stiff, calcified, afraid to open my mouth. Then I became awkwardly flirtatious, trying to amuse, drinking too much coffee and talking too fast. Then I would adopt Peter's hauteur, minus his raconteur skills. One of my appearances almost derailed my career. In 1971 Neil Simon, the most popular American playwright of his time, had written his first screenplay called The Heartbreak Kid, The Heartbreak Kid, from a short story, by Bruce Jay Friedman. Charles Grodin was to play the nice Jewish guy who falls in love with the cla.s.sic icy shiksa of his s.e.xual fantasies on his Miami Beach honeymoon and ditches his bride, played by Jeannie Berlin. (Director Elaine May had cast her real-life daughter as the jilted bride, although n.o.body knew they were related until filming had begun.) The shiksa role went to the dark-haired girlfriend of Freddie Fields, a powerful Hollywood agent who looked like an early Austin Powers. ("Let me give you some information, kiddo," Fields once said to me, leaning uncomfortably close and breathing hot agency breath on me at a screening in his house. "It's not the directors or the producers who are the real powers in this business. It's the agents.") The brunette had to become a blonde, and rehearsals had already started when her stripped and bleached hair began falling out in clumps. I got a call: could I go for a reading tomorrow? from a short story, by Bruce Jay Friedman. Charles Grodin was to play the nice Jewish guy who falls in love with the cla.s.sic icy shiksa of his s.e.xual fantasies on his Miami Beach honeymoon and ditches his bride, played by Jeannie Berlin. (Director Elaine May had cast her real-life daughter as the jilted bride, although n.o.body knew they were related until filming had begun.) The shiksa role went to the dark-haired girlfriend of Freddie Fields, a powerful Hollywood agent who looked like an early Austin Powers. ("Let me give you some information, kiddo," Fields once said to me, leaning uncomfortably close and breathing hot agency breath on me at a screening in his house. "It's not the directors or the producers who are the real powers in this business. It's the agents.") The brunette had to become a blonde, and rehearsals had already started when her stripped and bleached hair began falling out in clumps. I got a call: could I go for a reading tomorrow?

Although I didn't learn about it until later, Elaine May had seen me chattering mindlessly on d.i.c.k Cavett's show and decided I couldn't play this or any part. (In partial defense, Cavett had started the interview by saying, "I haven't seen your film, but it's supposed to be very good.") The reading for May and Simon took place in a small generic office building in New York. Most of the time when I enter a room for an audition, I know if I've got the job, and I didn't feel like I had this one. But I started to read, and they started to laugh. As we said good-bye, Simon clasped my hand in both of his and said, "I always knew you'd be perfect."

Simon had a contractual guarantee that the dialogue would be used exactly as he'd written it, and we knew that not a word could be altered. (There's nothing wrong with cleaving to good writing: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy always said they were "script technicians" hired to make the lines on the page work.) But May liked to use improvisation as an acting exercise during rehearsals, although she didn't call it that. She spoke about the exploration of subtext, the meaning beneath the lines. And she gave me a wonderful piece of advice that sounds dumb but works. "When you deliver a line," she said, "say it as if you expect the other character to be hearing you, getting it."

May seemed to think that Grodin was hysterically funny and laughed at everything he did. He had lost a lot of weight to do this role, so his skin was kind of hanging off his bones. In a scene where we were lying in bed together, the script called for me to play with his hair, but when I reached up to push a strand off his forehead, he blocked my hand and hissed, "Fake it. This is a rug."

"You're kidding," I said, a.s.suming that he was making a joke to catch me off guard and provoke an interesting facial expression. (I'd nevero;t within calling distance of a toupee before.) "No, really" he said.

You can't be serious," I persisted.

"I'm serious," he said. The exchange did not endear me to him, or him to me.

The Heartbreak Kid was a continuation of The Great Breast Hunt: I didn't want to do the nude scene clearly indicated in the script, but if I'd said so up front, I wouldn't have gotten the part. I still didn't quite trust that stills from The was a continuation of The Great Breast Hunt: I didn't want to do the nude scene clearly indicated in the script, but if I'd said so up front, I wouldn't have gotten the part. I still didn't quite trust that stills from The Last Picture Last Picture Show wouldn't fall into the wrong hands and had no wish to enrich any celluloid archives that could haunt me in the future. I was bothered by the objectified use of naked women, an issue of power, not morality. If Harrison Ford had to expose his b.a.l.l.s on-screen, I don't think he would make as much money. In the past, when nudity was verboten, directors had to be more clever. Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k hired a double for Janet Leigh's shower scene in Show wouldn't fall into the wrong hands and had no wish to enrich any celluloid archives that could haunt me in the future. I was bothered by the objectified use of naked women, an issue of power, not morality. If Harrison Ford had to expose his b.a.l.l.s on-screen, I don't think he would make as much money. In the past, when nudity was verboten, directors had to be more clever. Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k hired a double for Janet Leigh's shower scene in Psycho Psycho, then used seventy-two different shots in forty-two seconds without ever exposing an erogenous zone.

One of the producers of The Heartbreak Kid The Heartbreak Kid was Eric Preminger, the love child of the director Otto Preminger and the burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, who said of her career, "I wasn't naked. I was covered with a blue spotlight." Perhaps Preminger deemed to have a special affinity for female strippers because he was recruited to visit the Playboy mansion in Chicago to audition the bunnies, inspecting their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and selecting a body double for me. When he found the pair he'd dreamt of, he came to my dressing room with a contract and said, "Sign this right away." was Eric Preminger, the love child of the director Otto Preminger and the burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, who said of her career, "I wasn't naked. I was covered with a blue spotlight." Perhaps Preminger deemed to have a special affinity for female strippers because he was recruited to visit the Playboy mansion in Chicago to audition the bunnies, inspecting their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and selecting a body double for me. When he found the pair he'd dreamt of, he came to my dressing room with a contract and said, "Sign this right away."

I didn't know it at the time, but an actor has the right to give written approval of a body double, guaranteed by the Screen Actors Guild. I just knew not to sign anything without a lawyer looking at it (a precaution I have drummed into my children since they were old enough to hold a pen). When I finally saw the scene cut together, Grodin was shown looking at my chest, followed by a shot of the proxy's b.r.e.a.s.t.s (nice ones, by the way) without my head attached. I. found the nudity disruptive, but there was a lot of pressure on me to approve the use of the body double, since Preminger had spent considerable production money on the Chicago trip and had paid the bunny. But I held my ground, and Elaine, the director agreed with me.

Elaine May chewed No-Doz by the fistful to stay awake. Shooting in a frigid Minneapolis winter, her feet got frostbitten, and we got to keep warm inside, while her toes thawed out. The weather was more accommodating in Miami. I was staying with the rest of the cast at a low-rent Holiday Inn nowhere near the fancy beach hotels and got stuck in the decrepit elevator. I was more bored than scared--which is why, to this day, I never approach an elevator without thinking I should have a book with me, just in case. So it wasn't just languishing for Peter that made me antic.i.p.ate his visit so eagerly: for a few days I would get to stay in the Fountainbleu. Big breakfast buffet. Big swimming pool. Big Atlantic Ocean. Peter was not one for slumming.

Larry McMurtry came to visit too. Peter had suggested that they collaborate on a new script, called at various times West of the Brazos which is a river), then Palo Duro Palo Duro (which is a canyon), then (which is a canyon), then Streets of Laredo Streets of Laredo (which, it turned out, had been the t.i.tle of a mediocre movie starring William Holden and Glenn Ford). "What kind of western do you want to make?" Larry had asked Peter. (which, it turned out, had been the t.i.tle of a mediocre movie starring William Holden and Glenn Ford). "What kind of western do you want to make?" Larry had asked Peter.

"Some kind of a trek," Peter said. "As long as it's not about cows because Howard Hawkes did the quintessential cattle drive in Red River Red River."

From the beginning, the film was conceived as a vehicle for Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne. Peter acted out all the parts while he and Larry wrote the script, and n.o.body does a better Stewart, Fonda, or Wayne excetewart, Fonda, and Wayne. But Wayne apparently asked John Ford's opinion, and although Ford had been instrumental in getting Ben Johnson to do The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show, this time he told Wayne not to do the film knowing full well that if he backed out, the others would follow "The old man doesn't like it," Wayne said to Peter.

"That's not what he told me," Peter said, but for some reason he never confronted Ford. Maybe he didn't want to ask another favor. But Peter would often repeat what James Cagney said about Ford after the director had knowingly let him crash in the sidecar of a motorcycle driven by the character actor William Demarest, who had never been behind the wheel, "There's one word to describe John Ford and the Irish: malice."

The ideas that germinated in the Fountainbleu were eventually reworked into Larry's Pulitzer-winning novel Lonesome Dove Lonesome Dove. Despite the warning that cows had been done, the book centered on the last daring cattle drive from Texas to Montana in the late nineteenth century. But Peter was never given credit for many of the ideas generated at the hotel, which saddened and angered him. "Larry used every part of the pig," he would say.

I hadn't heard from Elvis since Graceland. But when I was back in Los Angeles, he called, offering to send his plane for me for a weekend at the house he'd rented in Palm Springs. One of his henchmen picked me up at the airport, looked at my jeans and tie-dyed mirrored vest and said, "Next time we're in L.A. we're gonna arrange a shopping trip so you can get some nice new clothes because Elvis likes his ladies to look a certain way." Only if I can help pick out his clothes, Only if I can help pick out his clothes, I thought. The house was luxurious in a rental sort of way, sprawling and devoid of personal taste. Everything had a metallic glow. All the King's men were in residence, wearing pins that said TCB, code for Elvis's catch phrase "Taking Care of Business." They spent the afternoon competing to see who could make the biggest splash into a murky swimming pool. I really didn't want to go near that pool but couldn't resist one-upping the bubbas by doing a "can opener" leap I'd learned from the lifeguards at Chickasaw Country Club. The guys raced in dune buggies three or four abreast while shouting into walkie-talkies or sat around a long table with a thick top of beveled gla.s.s, eating their favorite deep-fried sandwiches. Elvis was the first person I ever saw drink bottled water, which he had imported from the Ozarks. "You drink enough of this," he said, "and it'll keep you regular." I thought. The house was luxurious in a rental sort of way, sprawling and devoid of personal taste. Everything had a metallic glow. All the King's men were in residence, wearing pins that said TCB, code for Elvis's catch phrase "Taking Care of Business." They spent the afternoon competing to see who could make the biggest splash into a murky swimming pool. I really didn't want to go near that pool but couldn't resist one-upping the bubbas by doing a "can opener" leap I'd learned from the lifeguards at Chickasaw Country Club. The guys raced in dune buggies three or four abreast while shouting into walkie-talkies or sat around a long table with a thick top of beveled gla.s.s, eating their favorite deep-fried sandwiches. Elvis was the first person I ever saw drink bottled water, which he had imported from the Ozarks. "You drink enough of this," he said, "and it'll keep you regular."

I thought it was a little odd that he slept during the day, and I didn't learn until many years later that he was actually terrified of falling asleep in the dark. He had heavy drapes, blackout shades on the windows, even aluminum foil taped to the gla.s.s to block out every bit of daylight. The sweet charm that I had seen in Memphis seemed to be draining away, replaced by unfortunate frat boy humor. When I emerged from the bathroom before dinner, he said, "I never knew a girl to take so many baths," which caused great guffaws among the cronies, even though his own bathroom had a six-drawer black box of cosmetics--he wore more makeup than I did. We were hardly ever alone and didn't talk much when we were, not about his music or his marriage or his daughter or the lunacy of spending $40,000 to fly his entourage to Denver for a certain kind of sandwich (this, from a man whose father was once sentenced to three years in jail for forging a forty dollar check). He didn't seem too interested in anything I said either, and he acted as if I was putting on airs if I mentioned the book I was reading. I was seeing the morbid cheese ball side of him, and it made me slightly nervous, as if I'd better not displease him or I could get myself in troubleortunately, I was never asked to enact what I heard was one of Elvis's favorite erotic scenarios: putting on waist-high cotton panties, eating cookies and milk, and wrestling with another girl.

Toward the end of the summer, Elvis invited me to see him perform at the Las Vegas Hilton. I told Peter that I was spending the weekend with a girlfriend in San Francisco. The spectacle began with the orchestra playing the tone poem "'Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, better known as the theme from 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey. A s.p.a.ce Odyssey. If ever there was music announcing the arrival of a G.o.d, this was it. A noisy procession of motorcycles swept onto the stage before Elvis appeared in a jeweled cape and jumpsuit--splendiferous but a little chubby. I'd always admired his voice, but now, I was moved in a way I had not expected, as if he were singing directly to me, and without thinking, I rose to my feet just like the rest of the audience. After the show, he sat at the piano in his suite and sang gospel songs with his background singers, wearing a custom-made blue velour lounging suit. Then he walked through curtained French doors into the bedroom and collapsed on an enormous four-poster bed. If ever there was music announcing the arrival of a G.o.d, this was it. A noisy procession of motorcycles swept onto the stage before Elvis appeared in a jeweled cape and jumpsuit--splendiferous but a little chubby. I'd always admired his voice, but now, I was moved in a way I had not expected, as if he were singing directly to me, and without thinking, I rose to my feet just like the rest of the audience. After the show, he sat at the piano in his suite and sang gospel songs with his background singers, wearing a custom-made blue velour lounging suit. Then he walked through curtained French doors into the bedroom and collapsed on an enormous four-poster bed.

I didn't know it, but what I was seeing was the full-throttle effect of drugs. I had an adjoining bedroom, and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Any possibility of nooky had evaporated--seemed far away and woozy, his eyes half closed, his speech slurred. Holding out a handful of pills, he said, "Here, take these."

I was confused. "Are you going to take some of them?" I asked.

"Oh, I already had mine," he said. "These are all for you."

I went to my room and flushed them down the toilet. As I got into bed, I noticed a small black velvet box on the nightstand. I opened it to find a diamond and emerald ring that looked like a glob of porcupine bristles-too large, too elaborate, too hideous even for Liberace. I went to the desk and wrote Elvis a note on Hilton letterhead, thanking him but declining his generous and extravagant gift. Then I called the airline to change my return reservation.

Earlier that day in Los Angeles, Peter was driving on Santa Monica Boulevard when he noticed a billboard announcing Elvis's Vegas engagement. He'd been hearing me say that I was fascinated with Elvis (Peter deemed him boring) and had a purely intuitive feeling that I was with him. He called the Hilton, asked for me, and when I answered, he screamed, "You're a G.o.dd.a.m.ned liar!" Then he hung up. I called back to hear more of his invective. "You know what happens to liars?" he shouted. "They get their mouths washed out with soap. You get your a.s.s back here, and I'm going to wash your mouth out with Ivory Soap."

I only heard that he wanted me back, that the damage wasn't irreparable. When I got home, he screamed and stomped so hard that the fake crystal chandeliers of the apartment shook, then issued a summary judgment: "That's what I get for being with an actress." Fortunately, he wasn't home a few days later when I got a call from one of the Memphis mob saying that Elvis needed to talk to me.

"I can't do that," I said.

"He's right around the corner," said the bubba. "Do me a favor, just talk to him because he's really upset."

When Elvis pulled into the oval driveway at Sunset Towers, he seemed sulky and remote--no kiss in greeting, no concern about my disappearance of a few nights before, just a statement of intention and an ultimatum.

"I really enjoy spending time with you, but you've got to get rid of this Dogbanovic guy," he said, mangling the name a little. "It's either him or me."

I was thinking: What's he talking about What's he talking about? Watching someone pa.s.s out cold when I was expecting a rollicking s.e.xual rmp was not my idea of fun. Perhaps it was a bit of posturing from a wounded ego, an attempt to regain control after my rejection of his ring and his drugs. Later I learned that I was a temporary filler for Linda Thompson, who was Miss Memphis State, Miss Liberty Bowl, and Miss Tennessee--a self-described virgin who quit college twelve credits short of her degree, gave up her acting ambitions, and let Elvis make all her decisions, even changing her sleeping habits to become what his buddies called a "lifer." Elvis was a goody I couldn't resist, but I had a life with Peter I wasn't about to give up. I wanted to make decisions, some of them foolish, on my own.

Well, that's it for us," he said. Those were his last words to me. We circled the block in silence until we got back to Sunset Towers, and he paused at the curb barely long enough for me to exit under the yellow and white awning. I said "Good-bye," but he didn't answer. I never saw him again. Five years later he was dead. Peter, unrepentant about his opinion of Elvis, said it was the best career move he ever made.

WHEN PETER WAS ENVISIONING DIRECTING A McMurtry western, he wanted Polly Platt to do the set design, but only on the condition that she knew I would be in the movie, and in her face. The western never got made, and instead they began working on Paper Moon, with Ryan O'Neal playing a Bible-selling con man and his daughter Tatum as the sharp-witted progeny he never knew about but unwittingly befriends. In the late fall of 1972, days before princ.i.p.al photography began in Hays, Kansas, Polly announced to Peter, "I can't handle Cybill coming to the set." It was the end of any pretense of civility between them, and their relationship never healed, although I schemed to defy her, wishing I could make her deal with my presence just once. Peter's whole life was his work, and I was excluded from it because he was working with his ex-wife again. She wasn't even his ex-wife yet. (Their divorce would not be final for three years.) I spent most of my time driving around the depressed prairie towns, photographing dilapidated buildings, railroad yards, and old men's faces, practicing my tap dancing on the linoleum flooring of our hotel room until the people below pounded on their ceiling with a broomstick. We were staying in the utilitarian Pony Express Motel in Elwood (still resting on its laurels of being the first Pony Express station in Kansas) because Polly and the crew were in the marginally better Ramada Inn. The tension must have gotten to Peter because the next to last day's worth of footage was shot with a hair stuck in the "gate" as the raw film pa.s.sed through the camera. (That's why someone yells "Check the gate" after every take.) All these scenes appear slightly soft-focus in the movie, since Peter enlarged every frame just enough to eliminate the hair, but he refused to go back and reshoot, declaring, "It beats spending another day in that h.e.l.lhole with Polly." McMurtry western, he wanted Polly Platt to do the set design, but only on the condition that she knew I would be in the movie, and in her face. The western never got made, and instead they began working on Paper Moon, with Ryan O'Neal playing a Bible-selling con man and his daughter Tatum as the sharp-witted progeny he never knew about but unwittingly befriends. In the late fall of 1972, days before princ.i.p.al photography began in Hays, Kansas, Polly announced to Peter, "I can't handle Cybill coming to the set." It was the end of any pretense of civility between them, and their relationship never healed, although I schemed to defy her, wishing I could make her deal with my presence just once. Peter's whole life was his work, and I was excluded from it because he was working with his ex-wife again. She wasn't even his ex-wife yet. (Their divorce would not be final for three years.) I spent most of my time driving around the depressed prairie towns, photographing dilapidated buildings, railroad yards, and old men's faces, practicing my tap dancing on the linoleum flooring of our hotel room until the people below pounded on their ceiling with a broomstick. We were staying in the utilitarian Pony Express Motel in Elwood (still resting on its laurels of being the first Pony Express station in Kansas) because Polly and the crew were in the marginally better Ramada Inn. The tension must have gotten to Peter because the next to last day's worth of footage was shot with a hair stuck in the "gate" as the raw film pa.s.sed through the camera. (That's why someone yells "Check the gate" after every take.) All these scenes appear slightly soft-focus in the movie, since Peter enlarged every frame just enough to eliminate the hair, but he refused to go back and reshoot, declaring, "It beats spending another day in that h.e.l.lhole with Polly."

Peter met Marlene Dietrich on his way to Kansas--the plane stopped first in Denver, where she was doing a one-woman show. He was not the sort of man who imagined that women were coming on to him when they weren't, and he knew she had something in mind even before he walked into his Kansas hotel room. The phone was ringing: Dietrich saying in a smoky voice "I found you." When Paper Moon Paper Moon was completed, he invited her to its New York premiere, and she was not pleased when she saw me in the limousine, obviously antic.i.p.ating a "date" with Peter. She sat between us, cooing into Peter's ear and digging her left elbow into my side. Marlene Dietrich was the closest thing I had to a role model--a working mother who created s.e.xually powerful roles (she wore pants before Katharine Hepburn) and ended her career with a triumphant cabaret act. I was so excited to be in her presence at I was happily impaled. was completed, he invited her to its New York premiere, and she was not pleased when she saw me in the limousine, obviously antic.i.p.ating a "date" with Peter. She sat between us, cooing into Peter's ear and digging her left elbow into my side. Marlene Dietrich was the closest thing I had to a role model--a working mother who created s.e.xually powerful roles (she wore pants before Katharine Hepburn) and ended her career with a triumphant cabaret act. I was so excited to be in her presence at I was happily impaled.

The next day, a bellman knocked at our suite in the Waldorf Towers. "Flowers for Miss Shepherd," he said.

I opened the door and saw him struggling with an arrangement so large that there was no table that could accommodate it and it had to sit on the floor. The card read "Love, Marlene." Well worth being ignored.

It was about this time that I joined a unique sorority: ever since the release of The Last Picture Show, Playboy The Last Picture Show, Playboy magazine had tried to get me to pose nude by throwing money at me. First I was offered $5,000, then $10,000, then $50,000, to no avail. Then they figured out how to get me for free. My unwelcome Christmas present that year was my naked likeness in the magazine's year-end "s.e.x in Cinema" issue, also featuring Jane Fonda and Catherine Deneuve. Technology provided a method of making a frame enlargement from a 35-millimeter print of the movie that had been borrowed for a screening at the Playboy mansion. I called a lawyer and sued for the right to control my image, insisting that there was a difference between the legitimate press and a magazine like magazine had tried to get me to pose nude by throwing money at me. First I was offered $5,000, then $10,000, then $50,000, to no avail. Then they figured out how to get me for free. My unwelcome Christmas present that year was my naked likeness in the magazine's year-end "s.e.x in Cinema" issue, also featuring Jane Fonda and Catherine Deneuve. Technology provided a method of making a frame enlargement from a 35-millimeter print of the movie that had been borrowed for a screening at the Playboy mansion. I called a lawyer and sued for the right to control my image, insisting that there was a difference between the legitimate press and a magazine like Playboy. Playboy. The suit claimed that I was a young woman of "dignity, intelligence, modesty, and artistic and personal integrity"-a legally accurate if not quite apt self-description. The suit claimed that I was a young woman of "dignity, intelligence, modesty, and artistic and personal integrity"-a legally accurate if not quite apt self-description.

The case dragged on for five years. Playboy started out treating it like a nuisance suit, using their local lawyer in Los Angeles, who coincidentally had been my lawyer's professor at Stanford. When they realized that I was serious, they brought in the head of their Chicago law firm. My lawyer was looking through their files, and either they were pretty dumb or extremely honest because he found a smoking gun: a handwritten memo from Hugh Hefner to his secretary that said, "I've been stymied in every way to get pictures of Cybill Shepherd for the 's.e.x in Cinema' issue. I'm screening The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show tonight, so have [Mario] come up here with his magic machine." tonight, so have [Mario] come up here with his magic machine."

Hef was willing to settle after that. But instead of asking for a s.h.i.tload of money, I wanted a book that Playboy Playboy had under option, a novel by Paul Theroux called had under option, a novel by Paul Theroux called Saint Jack Saint Jack about an amiable Singapore pimp. Hefner came to my house, offering a formal apology and informal arrangements for a settlement. The standard Screen Actors Guild contract now includes a protective clause that prevents unauthorized use of movie frames for still photographs. It served as excellent protection for actors until the world of cybers.p.a.ce, which is proving impossible to police. Not long ago, I discovered that anyone can pay fifty dollars and go to a Web site where my head is stuck on some other woman's naked body in the anatomically graphic poses favored by s.m.u.t magazines. If I decided to sue, I'd have to do it country by country because there's no international law in this area, and the fabricated photos would just resurface in another form. about an amiable Singapore pimp. Hefner came to my house, offering a formal apology and informal arrangements for a settlement. The standard Screen Actors Guild contract now includes a protective clause that prevents unauthorized use of movie frames for still photographs. It served as excellent protection for actors until the world of cybers.p.a.ce, which is proving impossible to police. Not long ago, I discovered that anyone can pay fifty dollars and go to a Web site where my head is stuck on some other woman's naked body in the anatomically graphic poses favored by s.m.u.t magazines. If I decided to sue, I'd have to do it country by country because there's no international law in this area, and the fabricated photos would just resurface in another form.

I WENT TO THE PETER BOGDANOVICH SCHOOL OF Cinema. Peter didn't want to exercise, sweat, get dirty--he only liked to watch movies, and he watched with a curator's eye. When we went to a movie theater, he was always quick to tell the projectionist if a reel was out of focus. In our apartment, the focal point of the living room was a rebuilt 16-millimeter projector aimed at a blank wall. Several times a week we went to a studio screening room that smelled as if it hadn't been opened since Fatty Arbuckle was thin. We'd eat moo shu pork out of paper cartons while we watched Cinema. Peter didn't want to exercise, sweat, get dirty--he only liked to watch movies, and he watched with a curator's eye. When we went to a movie theater, he was always quick to tell the projectionist if a reel was out of focus. In our apartment, the focal point of the living room was a rebuilt 16-millimeter projector aimed at a blank wall. Several times a week we went to a studio screening room that smelled as if it hadn't been opened since Fatty Arbuckle was thin. We'd eat moo shu pork out of paper cartons while we watched The Merry Widow-- The Merry Widow--the silent Erich von Stroheim version with Mae Murray and John Gilbert (and an extra named Clark Gable)-- then the 1934 remake with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, and the other Ernst Lubitsch musicals: The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, One Hour with You. The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, One Hour with You. When we moved to a house, the first thing we added was a screening room that right red carpets and plush white couches with ottomans, the walls covered with cla.s.sic movie posters. The film department at UCLA would let us borrow silver nitrate prints of the golden oldies, even though it was illegal to screen them at home: the film is flammable and explosive if it breaks, and the law stipulated two projectionists and a double-insulated flameproof projection room. But screening the only 35-millimeter print of Ernst Lubitsch's When we moved to a house, the first thing we added was a screening room that right red carpets and plush white couches with ottomans, the walls covered with cla.s.sic movie posters. The film department at UCLA would let us borrow silver nitrate prints of the golden oldies, even though it was illegal to screen them at home: the film is flammable and explosive if it breaks, and the law stipulated two projectionists and a double-insulated flameproof projection room. But screening the only 35-millimeter print of Ernst Lubitsch's The Smiling Lieutenant The Smiling Lieutenant that existed at the time was like seeing the way G.o.d sees: a face in sharp close-up, scenery in the distance, and everything clear in between. The expression "silver screen" comes from the actual silver in the film itself, which shimmered. All of modern technology can't achieve that brilliance and depth of focus. that existed at the time was like seeing the way G.o.d sees: a face in sharp close-up, scenery in the distance, and everything clear in between. The expression "silver screen" comes from the actual silver in the film itself, which shimmered. All of modern technology can't achieve that brilliance and depth of focus.

My endurance level didn't approach Peter's (often a triple feature), and I sometimes fell asleep during the third movie. I learned that all kinds of acting can work: the broad energy of James Cagney or the minimalisim of Gary Cooper. The only important question is: do we believe the actor? Can we suspend disbelief? Movies demand a leap of faith from the audience, a willingness to forget that what it's seeing is fake. It was said that when Jimmy Stewart appeared on-screen, he annihilated disbelief.

I would ask Peter, "You sure you don't mind seeing this again? You've seen it twenty-seven times." He would say, "I'm looking at it with new eyes." Every week he'd mark the TV Guide for the films I should watch. Anything directed by John Ford, Howard Hawks, or Jean Renoir became required viewing. Living with Peter was like inhabiting these movies. We developed a private language, borrowing bits of dialogue, like "I close the iron door on you" (John Barrymore in Twentieth Century Twentieth Century), or "Don't you think it's rather indecent of you to order me out after you've kissed me?" (Carole Lombard in My Man G.o.dfrey My Man G.o.dfrey). And we weren't above quoting from The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show ("Comb your hair, Sonny--you look like you smelled a wolf"). Sometimes when we were out, I'd stomp my feet and pound my fists, and people in the restaurant would think I had lost my mind, but Peter would crack up, knowing that I was doing one of Lombard's tantrums from ("Comb your hair, Sonny--you look like you smelled a wolf"). Sometimes when we were out, I'd stomp my feet and pound my fists, and people in the restaurant would think I had lost my mind, but Peter would crack up, knowing that I was doing one of Lombard's tantrums from Twentieth Century Twentieth Century.

We were living in Bel Air at 212 Copa de Oro Drive, a Mediterranean-style house with a red-tiled roof that had belonged to a newlywed Clark Cable and his bride Kay Spreckels. I found that house in 1974, and Peter bought it with money borrowed from Warner Bros. against his next project. We moved in with only a mattress on the floor and filled the rooms with furniture by spending a whole day at a Beverly Hills store called Sloans. Each of us had a bedroom suite upstairs, connected by a large closet: after years of unlocked doors and a sister who pummeled me out of bed, I readily embraced Virginia Woolf's fine idea about a room of one's own. Peter's room had a niche in the wall for an antique Italian daybed covered with champagne-colored raw silk. Mine had a waterbed with a patchwork quilt we bought in Big Sur. Every wall was white and hung with Peter's father's paintings.

Peter and I were the couple du jour du jour in Hollywood, but I often felt like an impostor among the real denizens of the film world, and I tended to be quiet in their company. When Larry McMurtry wrote in Hollywood, but I often felt like an impostor among the real denizens of the film world, and I tended to be quiet in their company. When Larry McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove Lonesome Dove, he sent me the galleys with an inscription that said, "You were the seed of so much of it. I started it fourteen years ago with Lorena's silence--the silence of a woman who won't give her voice arid heart to the world because she had concluded that the world would not hear it or understand it or love it. I felt such a silence in you." People often acted as if my brain was blonde and watched rather than listened when I spoke, as if wondering where the viloquist's hand went.

Even my agent, Sue Mengers, seemed to perceive me that way. "When you go to a meeting, don't talk," she'd instruct. "Just wear a lot of makeup and do your hair." Sue was never known for her tact. She spoke very slowly to me, as if I needed extra time to process the information, Peter would get annoyed and tell her, "You don't have to talk to Cybill that way." She'd speed up to normal for a while, then decelerate and say, "I'm so sorry, I did it again."

My first real Hollywood party was at Sue's faux chateau in the Hollywood Hills, at the end of a series of hairpin turns on a thrillingly narrow road. We had to park in what seemed like another town and arrived somewhat breathless to see Gregory Peck straddling a chair, drunk as a skunk. I felt as if I had entered a parallel universe in which my idols turned into their evil twins. I didn't have the courage to start a conversation with anyone, and the only person who approached me was a producer who said, "So you're an actress. Who are you studying with?"

"n.o.body," I answered.

"That's a mistake," said the producer with a sniff. "You'd better start soon because you'll need all the help you can get."

I put down my winegla.s.s, fled outside, and was halfway to the car when Peter came to retrieve me.

"They're all phonies," I said. "They're all horrible."

"I know," he said, "but we can't leave."

When I did open my mouth, my irreverence sometimes backfired. Sue Mengers was hoping to foster the notion of my working with Dustin Hoffman, another of her clients, and she gave an intimate dinner for Peter and me, Dustin and his wife, Anne, and Sue's husband, Jean-Claude Tremont. Entering the small dining room, Dustin sat down just long enough to look up at me, my rather long torso extending well above his, and then pushed up on his arms, as if trying to make himself taller.

"Why don't you ask Sue if she has a couple of phone books?" I said with misguided humor.

Dustin looked as if he'd just been hit but didn't know how to fall down, and the evening never recovered. The Hoffmans made a flimsy excuse and left early.

Foolishly trying to mitigate that sin, I went to the set of Marathon Man Marathon Man, taking an inch-thick Beverly Hills phone book. I delivered it to Dustin, saying, "This is what I meant." He mumbled "thanks" and walked away. Perhaps this was one of those times when he stayed up for days to look appropriately scruffy and exhausted for a scene, prompting his costar, Laurence Olivier, to ask, "My dear boy, why don't you try acting?"

It would be an understatement to say that I failed to impress Marlon Brando. On a warm summer night Peter and I drove the great acting coach Stella Adler to a party in her honor at Brando's home atop Mulholland Drive. There were j.a.panese lanterns strung through the trees, and I was seated on a garden bench next to Brando, but for once I was chattering away rather than deferring to the conversation of others. Brando was holding a beer bottle when he looked at me with unsubtle disgust.

"If this girl doesn't shut up," he said to no one in particular, "I'm going to hit her in the face with this bottle." Then he turned to me and said, "Would you get up and go over there so I can watch you walk away?"

Years later, when I was doing the Cybill Cybill show, Brando was the only celebrity the writers knew they could malign with impunity. I'd say, "Just make it Brando, and I don't have a problem with it," so the joke would become, "One bee sting, and I swell up like Marlon Brando." show, Brando was the only celebrity the writers knew they could malign with impunity. I'd say, "Just make it Brando, and I don't have a problem with it," so the joke would become, "One bee sting, and I swell up like Marlon Brando."

PETER TOOK EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO SIT AT feet of great filmmakers, and I usually got the big toe. In 1972 he readily agreed to interview Charlie Chaplin for a doc.u.mentary conducted at his home in Vevey, Switzerland, but Chaplin was in his dotage. At lunch, he suddenly stopped eating and said, "You know, my daughter Geraldine is very rich." feet of great filmmakers, and I usually got the big toe. In 1972 he readily agreed to interview Charlie Chaplin for a doc.u.mentary conducted at his home in Vevey, Switzerland, but Chaplin was in his dotage. At lunch, he suddenly stopped eating and said, "You know, my daughter Geraldine is very rich."

We'd been there four hours, and those were the first words I'd heard him speak. "Really?" I replied. "That must be nice for her." Then I went back to my soup.

One day Peter came home from a visit with Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k, badly in need of black coffee and aspirin. Peter has little taste or tolerance for drink, but he had arrived at the great man's hotel suite to find him pouring whiskey sours. Although Peter tried un.o.btrusively to nurse the drink, Hitchc.o.c.k kept noticing and chastising him in that sonorous voice, "You're not touching your gla.s.s."

By the time the two of them left for dinner together, Peter had a nice little buzz going. They were descending in the hotel elevator full of people when Hitchc.o.c.k turned to him and said, "So there he was, sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from every orifice and seeping into the carpet." Peter reeled. He was a little drunk, but had he blacked out momentarily and missed the earlier part of this conversation? Everyone else in the elevator was rapt as. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k went on, "The music that had been playing in the next room stopped, and I could hear a scratching sound." Just as the elevator reached the ground floor, Hitchc.o.c.k said, "So I kneeled over him, asking, "My G.o.d, man, what happened to you?' He grabbed my shirtfront, pulled me down and..."

Just then the elevator door opened in the lobby. The other people were hanging back, straining to hear the end of the story but Hitchc.o.c.k sailed past them, with Peter in tow, and began discussing the restaurant plans.

"But Hitch," Peter said, "what happened to your friend?"

"Oh, nothing," Hitchc.o.c.k said, "that's just my elevator story."

In 1973, John Ford was to be given the Congressional Medal of Freedom, the first filmmaker so lauded. The public knew him as the director responsible for such cla.s.sics as The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Searchers The Searchers. I knew him as a neighbor, living across the street, and as a flasher. By this time he was mostly confined to bed, dressed in a pajama top and a bedsheet that he liked to rearrange for shock value, often after drinking one of the two daily bottles of stout he was permitted. (Mary, his wife of fifty years, once told me, "Never believe anything you hear or read, and only half of what you see. And make sure the back of your skirt is clean because that's where they'll be looking.") On the night of the award ceremony, outside the hotel, Henry Fonda had to fight through the anti-Vietnam picketers led by his daughter. Cary Grant was standing on line ahead of us, and as we got to the reception table, he said to the ticket taker, "I'm terribly sorry, I've forgotten my invitation."

"Name, please," said the woman, consulting her master list without looking up.

"Cary Grant," he said.

The woman glanced up over half-gla.s.ses. "You don't look like Cary Grant," she said suspiciously.

"I know," he said apologetically, "no one does."