The story ran front page in the Los Angeles Times and many more newspapers that syndicate Hopper. The Hearst papers, at least in Los Angeles and San Francisco, paraphrased my scoop and lifted the quotes without giving me as much as a nod by way of credit.
One of the first people to read it was Elizabeth. She called the next day, naturally furious, storming over a portrait in print which she believed pictured her as being as cruel and heartless as a black-widow spider. I must say I had no regret. If she’d been my own daughter, I’d have done it. Without a sense of integrity you can’t sleep nights.
“Of course, I didn’t think you’d print it,” she said. “You betrayed me.”
“You didn’t say it was off the record,” I answered. “And it had to be printed.”
That was the last time we spoke to each other for a year. At the office the mail started arriving in stacks, all in Debbie’s favor.
Another call came that day from Debbie. She hadn’t seen a newspaper, she said. “You can’t stick your head in the sand,” said I.
Debbie, who is as shrewd as she is pretty, knew she had been cheated. She needed no prodding to be frank. “Obviously, the man loved me. We had lots of problems the first year and a half we were married. We went to a marriage counselor for advice. We both wanted to make it work. When he left for New York, he kissed me good-by and we were very close. It didn’t mean anything that my husband had to go to New York on a business trip. I had no reason to be suspicious.”
It wasn’t the moment to tell her once again that Eddie had never wanted to marry her. In my book, the little baritone from Philadelphia wanted a reputation as a great lover. He preened in the publicity that marrying her brought him, but I believe she forced that marriage. His Svengali, Milton Blackstone, didn’t want it—the men who steer any entertainer’s career always scheme to keep him single because a wife is an interfering nuisance in their plans. After Debbie had received an engagement ring, plus barrel loads of publicity, Eddie answered a call to Grossinger’s. A friend advised Debbie: “Pack your wedding gown and trousseau. Get on a plane quietly and go after him, then he’ll marry you.” She accepted the advice, and Eddie accepted her. At least she got what she wanted, then.
The storms continued to blow for months. Liz complained to one reporter, Joe Hyams, that I had “betrayed” her, and swore for the dozenth time that she wanted to quit Hollywood, though work for the time being was “therapeutic”—and her pay was rocketing up toward a million dollars a picture. Debbie applied for a divorce, but that wasn’t fast enough for Eddie. He got a quick end to their marriage in Las Vegas. Liz and he were married in that paradise of syndicates and slot machines on May 12, 1959, after she had embraced his religion and dragged her parents out of the background to lend a look of dignity to the proceedings.
Elizabeth’s hatred lasted for a year. But when she had packed to leave for England and the first disastrous attempt to make Cleopatra, she called. “Hedda, don’t you think we ought to be friends again?”