In one of the marquees put up for the occasion I was offered some bourbon and water. “I’d like some champagne,” Eddie told the waiter.
“Sorry, sir, but we’re not serving champagne.”
“Then I’ll take a dry martini.”
“I’m afraid we can’t mix drinks—too many people here today, sir. We can offer you whisky, gin, vodka, or bourbon.”
“Well, then, I’ll have a scotch and soda,” said my nondrinking companion.
As we left he walked over to the U. S. Air Force Band, which was playing there, borrowed the baton, and conducted the orchestra. What some of the London newspapers said the next morning about that bit of ham-handed showmanship would have driven a more sensitive man into a knothole.
Back in Hollywood, Liz started on another picture, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Then came the spring day when the plane, Lucky Liz, dived into the desert in New Mexico; the end of Mike Todd was almost the end of her.
She finished the picture like a trouper only weeks later. The following July I flew with her to New York. We sat up aboard the airliner until 3 A.M. talking about the happiness she had known with Mike. She showed me his wedding ring, taken from his finger after death. “I’ll wear it always,” she said. “They’ll have to cut it off my finger before they’ll get it off my hand.”
I took her to the first party she went to after Mike’s death. Though Arthur Loew, Jr., the producer, had her children in his home, she then had a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When I went in, it looked as though a cyclone had hit her bedroom. Every dress she owned had been pulled out of the closets and thrown onto tables, chairs, bed or floor. She was wailing, “What shall I wear?” as soon as I opened the door.
I picked up a red dress. “This.”