Alone Together: My Life With J. Paul Getty Read online

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to

  my beloved daughter, Gigi, who came into my life in

  my darkest hour and has been a lighthouse of hope;

  my son, Timmy, whose spirit has never left me;

  and my treasured friend and stepson,

  the talented composer Gordon Getty

  EPIGRAPH

  This above all: to thine own self be true,

  And it must follow, as the night the day,

  Thou canst not then be false to any man

  —POLONIUS IN HAMLET, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  A Prologue from J. Paul Getty

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1 - In the Beginning

  Chapter 2 - New Faces

  Chapter 3 - Debutante Singer

  Chapter 4 - Bailey

  Chapter 5 - Paul

  Chapter 6 - Versailles

  Chapter 7 - One Fifth Avenue and the Stork Club

  Chapter 8 - Engaged

  Chapter 9 - Martha’s Vineyard

  Chapter 10 - Sutton Place

  Chapter 11 - Nassau

  Chapter 12 - Matters of Life and Death

  Chapter 13 - Marchesi, 1938

  Chapter 14 - War Clouds

  Chapter 15 - Paul’s Mother

  Chapter 16 - Madame Cahier

  Chapter 17 - Married in Rome

  Chapter 18 - Shattered Dreams

  Illustrations 1

  Chapter 19 - Passport to Freedom

  Chapter 20 - Kostya

  Chapter 21 - The Right to Go Home

  Chapter 22 - La Mantellate

  Chapter 23 - Siena

  Part II

  Chapter 24 - Reunited in Tulsa

  Chapter 25 - The Beach House

  Chapter 26 - Hereford, Texas

  Chapter 27 - Song in the Air

  Chapter 28 - The Ranch

  Chapter 29 - My New Career

  Chapter 30 - Spartanette

  Chapter 31 - And So to Bed

  Chapter 32 - Perception

  Chapter 33 - New Year’s Eve, 1949

  Chapter 34 - I Can’t Live Without You, Teddy

  Illustrations 2

  Chapter 35 - Inner Vows of the Heart

  Chapter 36 - Trial Separation

  Chapter 37 - Faith with Real Courage

  Chapter 38 - A Sense of Security

  Chapter 39 - A Different Life

  Chapter 40 - California or Bust

  Chapter 41 - Going Home

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  A PROLOGUE FROM J. PAUL GETTY

  PROLOGUE

  In May of 1935, I opened at the New Yorker, one of the smartest little dinner clubs in the city, located in a fine old house on East 51st Street. I can still remember walking out into the spotlight and singing some of that era’s most beloved songs—“Night and Day,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “Body and Soul,” and “Alone Together.” Although I had been on Broadway twice, I’d never had the chance to sing as part of a floor show and I loved it.

  One night, just as the lights dimmed and I was to go on for the second show, there was a commotion downstairs. Minutes later a group swept up the spiral staircase and was ushered to a ringside table. By their laughter I recognized Betzi and Jeannie, my two dearest friends. Fred, Betzi’s husband, had to be there as well, but who else was with them? It was too dark to see.

  When I finished singing and the applause died down, I made my way over to their table. Three men stood up. In the half-light, I saw my brother Ware, Fred, and a man I had never seen before. “Teddy!” Betzi said excitedly, blowing me a kiss. “This is Paul, my friend from California.”

  I found myself looking into the bluest eyes of an immensely charming man—tall, slender, with sandy hair. “Hello, Teddy,” he said. “What a beautiful voice you have! ‘Alone Together’ is one of my favorites.”

  “Thanks, mine too!” I replied.

  At that very moment, the orchestra started playing. Paul had been holding out a chair for me, but before I could sit down, he grabbed my hand. “Let’s dance,” he said. In seconds I was in his arms, and we were dancing. He held me too close, but it was the beguine, music that made it seem right. I closed my eyes and let my body follow his. We moved as one to the beat of the drums. He was a fabulous dancer, but it ended too soon and then we were back at the table.

  Sitting there in the semi-dark, sipping champagne, Paul smiled and said, “You’re very beautiful, Teddy, and your voice is, too. I love the quality of it.” I looked up and saw he was studying me. “You know,” he went on, “you should study opera. You’d be a great Carmen, or Tosca.”

  At these words, I trembled. Although he had no way of knowing, it was my ambition to one day sing in concerts and the opera. I sat there amazed at this stranger who, after hearing me sing only once, was saying exactly what my teacher, Gene Berton, had been telling me. Intrigued by the sincerity in his warm, deep voice, I looked more closely at his hands. They were very masculine, but they were also artistic and expressive. Could he be a conductor? A composer? A critic?

  “And what do you do, Paul?” I asked.

  “He’s in oil,” Betzi cut in.

  “Oil? What show is that?” I asked. Everyone started to laugh. “Of course!” I said. I felt like a fool.

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  IN THE BEGINNING

  When I was a little girl, my mother had a marvelous interior decorator, Anna Della Winslow, who not only had furnished my grandparents’ magnificent duplex at 44 West 77th Street in New York City, opposite the Museum of Natural History, but she’d also redone their summer home, Thorncroft, in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. And then she helped my mother put her lovely things in our home in Belle Haven, Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Annie, as we children called her, was born in Sweden, but was as American as apple pie. She loved doing for others, had great taste, adored the theater, and knew everyone who was anyone in or out of the theater and art worlds.

  Annie kept an office in a boutique on the ground floor of the Great Northern Hotel on 57th Street, close to the famous Russian Tea Room, near Carnegie Hall. I’d always go along when Mother had an appointment with her. Inevitably, we’d have lunch at that famous tearoom, where Annie would hold court. I could hardly eat, it was so exciting to meet so many great artists from the concert and opera world . . . and they all loved Annie.

  In 1924, when I was eleven years old, Stravinsky stopped at our table, kissed Annie’s hand, and wouldn’t let go. Another time, the great contralto Marguerite d’Alvarez, all two hundred pounds of her, swept in and, after embracing Annie, Mother, and me, promptly sat down and ordered a luncheon large enough for two . . . completely forgetting those waiting for her at the next table. Once, the beautiful soprano Marguerite Namara came by for a moment, swathed in furs and Chanel, looking so romantic; every man in the restaurant was staring at her. Dear God, I thought, I hope when I grow up, I can be as fascinating. Of course, I hadn’t realized that not only was she a great beauty, but she also had a voice that enthralled everyone.

  I had a voice, too, even as a child, and loved to sing. But I was far from beautiful or glamorous. In fact, I felt ugly. I figured I had a lot of work ahead of me if I ever expected to sing on any stage and be like Namara. But this was my dream.

  I was still young when my parents divorced, which meant that I never really knew my father, Walter Morris Lytton. After the di
vorce, he stayed in Chicago, where he was an architect, so I didn’t see him often enough to know him. My mother met Frank J. Lynch, who’d been a friend of my father’s, when I was five. I knew him first as Uncle Frank. He was handsome, with blue eyes and great charm. When he married Mother, he became my stepfather, but I called him Dad, and he adopted Ware and me. The two of us took his last name. We moved back east and settled in Greenwich, Connecticut. Henry, our oldest brother, remained Henry Lytton. He was always very serious and straitlaced. He didn’t approve of the divorce, but then again, Henry didn’t approve of a lot of things. A lot of the time, that included me.

  While waiting for the Belle Haven house to be finished, our family moved into a suite at the Greenwich Country Club. Saturday nights, when they held dinner dances, I would gulp down my supper and ask to be excused. Then I would stand near the orchestra and sing along with them, while Mother and Dad danced by. Sometimes couples would stop just to listen to me. That’s when I knew in my heart I could, if I tried, have a career. That was so very important in my mind.

  When we moved into the Belle Haven house, Ware went to Brunswick High, Henry was off to Yale, and I went to the Greenwich Academy. By this time, I had two younger sisters, Nancy and Barbara (Bobby). I was not quite a teenager when they were born. They were adorable . . . blond, blue-eyed, and bewitching. I loved them as babies, and still do. They were and still are my whole, not half, sisters.

  I practiced singing every chance I could. Many nights Mother would play the piano after dinner, and Ware and I would stand beside her and sing. Sometimes my little sisters would tiptoe down the stairs and peek at us through the rails of the banister, until their nanny scooted them off to bed.

  This should have been the perfect life for Mom and Dad. They had it all—good friends, a great social life, and five fairly well-behaved children. But something was wrong. I couldn’t tell my mom, because it was about Dad. For years, my situation at home had been difficult. I figured his drinking made him do what he did to me, and like most abused children of that era, I remained silent. Singing wasn’t just a career ambition for me. It was something to look forward to, a way out of a bad situation.

  Often, I’d wake up to hear the crashing of furniture, doors slamming, and Mother crying, “Frank . . . NO!” In seconds, I’d be out of bed and down those stairs to defend her! It was horrifying to see him looking quite out of his mind and Mother standing there, terrified. I never really knew what they were fighting about, but he was definitely very drunk and demanding the keys to the car, which she refused to give him. When he threatened her, I’d get between them, but I was small and he’d throw me aside. After that, he would plunge down the stairs and storm out the front door. Eventually, he’d come back, and finally fall asleep. In the morning, I’d go to school, unable to function, but I’d go.

  The next night, Mom would forgive him. He’d tell her he wanted to have a talk with me, to say how sorry he was. As soon as I heard him coming up the stairs, I’d turn off my light and pretend to be asleep, but he’d still come in, very quietly. I’d hold my breath and freeze, hoping I wouldn’t feel him if he touched me. He did.

  “Babe,” he’d whisper as his hands reached under the covers. “I’m sorry about last night . . . I don’t want to hurt your mother—or you. I just wanted to come up and kiss you good night.”

  “Don’t touch me, Dad, or I’ll scream,” I’d say, and suddenly he’d be gone.

  Looking back, I can’t remember just when it began, but when I was a very little girl, about five or six years old, he used to make me sit on his lap. When I was eleven, Mother started making me go with him in the car whenever he’d say he was “out of cigarettes” and had to drive into Greenwich to buy more. Mother thought this was his excuse to buy liquor instead, and she thought I’d prevent him.

  One rainy night, alone in the car with him, driving through the dark, wet, empty streets of Belle Haven, he told me how grown up I was getting to be, and what a nice, strong body I had for such a young girl. As he was speaking, he put his hand on my knee and slowly moved it up my leg. I tried to get away, but he gripped my thigh. “Be still!” he said as his fingers reached up between my legs. “I just want to feel you!”

  “Stop, Dad!” I cried. “Are you drunk or something?”

  “No, babe, I’m not!” he said, lowering his voice. “Be still . . . or I’ll slam on the brakes and the car will skid and turn over.” With that he laughed, enjoying how frightened I was.

  “You wouldn’t dare . . . you might kill us. I’ll tell Mom.”

  “If you do, I’ll tell her you asked me to touch you.” His fingers found their mark . . . “There!”

  “That’s not true!” I screamed. I attempted to push him away, but his hand stayed put. Then I started to cry.

  “Your mother will believe me, not you,” he said, his breath hot on my face. “After all, you’re very mature for your age, and girls who do things like this could be put away in an institution.”

  His threat stopped my tears. Terrified by his words, I pulled away from him. I grabbed the door handle on my side of the car, and held on tight. When we got home, I ran upstairs to my room, threw myself on my bed, and cried myself to sleep.

  I never told my mother, not then, not ever. She would have been devastated. She loved Frank, they had those two adorable daughters, and I couldn’t bear to hurt her. Besides, I was afraid that maybe, just like Dad said, she might not have believed me. From that night on, however, I avoided Dad, except when the whole family was together. I also started locking my bedroom door.

  At the Greenwich Academy I studied singing, wrote poetry, and was on the field hockey, basketball, and riding teams. History, my favorite subject, made up for math, which I never conquered. I loved movies and Saturday afternoon football games. Actually, I loved one of the players much more than the game itself. His name was Tim Crowley, he was a member of the Brunswick High football team. Once I left a junior dance at the Field Club to take a ride with Tim on his motorcycle, ending up in his arms on a couch in his mother’s living room. My brothers burst through the door just in time to stop me from what I longed to do and brought me home. Henry told Mom, who promptly cried. Dad stormed up and down the hall and called me a whore. “We didn’t do anything bad,” I said, defending myself. “We just kissed!” Years later I figured out what really bothered him: he didn’t want anyone else to touch me.

  That night my parents decided to send me away to school in Europe. Less than two weeks later, Mom, Dad, and I were aboard the SS Paris en route to France. The memory of that trip has never left me. We had bad weather all the way across the Atlantic. Even worse than rough seas and high winds, however, was Dad’s drinking. He and Mom returned to our suite very late after a party. I awoke to hear them arguing—again. When Mom cried out, I ran to help her, but Dad just threw me across the cabin. I hit my head on the edge of the bunk, and stayed there stunned and bleeding. There was a sudden knock on the door and two officers called out in French, “Is something wrong?”

  “Merci . . . c’est rien,” Mom replied. Moments later, she dissolved in tears as Dad staggered out, heading for the bar.

  They took me to Marymount Convent, 72 Boulevard de la Saussaye, Neuilly-sur-Seine, just outside of Paris, one block from the American Hospital. I stayed there for the next year and a half. On entering Marymount, one had to sign a paper promising not to speak English . . . ever. I learned French in a hurry—I had to, if I was going to eat. Even so, Marymount was a wonderful experience. I was the youngest student; most of the other girls were of college age. I went with them to the Sorbonne for classes in literature and history. Even better, I studied singing with Maestro Maugiere of the Opera Comique, who taught me a duet, the barcarole “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour,” from Offenbach’s opera Les contes d’Hoffmann.

  I think that is when I really fell in love with opera. The seductive melodies, the stories, the passions enchanted me, transporting me into another world. When I finished my term at Marymount, Mo
ther, Dad, my sisters, and my brother Ware came over on the SS Majestic, bringing a brand-new Packard touring car with them. After Mother hired a governess, a chauffeur, and a cook, we spent the next four months at the Villa Lalo in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, just south of Biarritz on the west coast of France. I was so happy to again be with my whole family that I never once thought about why I’d been sent to Marymount in the first place, nor did I think back on what Dad had done to me. I forgave him and forgot about it. It just seemed like a bad dream, something that happened long ago, and I pushed it out of my mind.

  We came home on the SS Berengaria. It was another terrible crossing, with monstrous waves so high and frightening that no one was allowed on deck. We were a day late getting into New York. Still, it was great being back in America, and as a teenager I was allowed to choose my next school. I chose Harcum in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, because it was widely acclaimed for its music department. Ware went off to Roxbury; Henry was still at Yale.

  Along with my singing, French, Latin, math, English, and history classes, I played on the hockey, tennis, basketball, and riding teams. Not having enough to do, I also decided to take ballet with Mikhail Mordkin, Anna Pavlova’s last partner. I made a lifelong friend in Jean Donnelly from Scranton, who introduced me to the entire University of Pennsylvania football team. None of them were good dancers, so at proms I depended on Ware’s friends from Roxbury as dancing partners.

  I loved Harcum; I felt free and happy there—until the weekend when Dad drove down from Greenwich and took me into Philadelphia for a special outing. It was supposed to be a treat—he had reserved a suite for us at the Ritz. We dined, went to a movie, and called Mother to say good night. After thanking him for our time together, I went to my room, undressed, climbed into bed, and fell asleep.

  I was awakened by the sound of the door opening. I heard him coming toward me. I was so frightened that I didn’t dare move. I could tell by his breath he’d been drinking, but how could that be? He’d only had one cocktail at dinner. He pulled back the covers and crawled into my bed. I could feel his body; it was burning. We lay there, kind of in spoon fashion, for what seemed like hours. I was very scared, and when he touched my breasts, I started to tremble. “Dad, don’t!” I pleaded.