After that voyage, United States Lines installed “seatbelts” beneath the dining room chairs that anchored them to the floor.16
During a stormy September passage in 1956, Vera Cravath Gibbs sat in her first-class stateroom and wrote in her diary, “Right now, I am sitting in my room while our dear ship rolls,” she wrote. “There is a heavy sea, and I am having my wish. Every previous time I have crossed on the S.S. United States, the water has been calm. Sunday evening was quite rough… ropes up, people slipping around.”17
During that same voyage, Vera opened the door to the sun deck and only barely kept her footing as the wind slammed into her face. But no matter the weather, she made a pilgrimage to a special spot during every crossing. “I took a windy walk on the boat deck,” she wrote, “and of course, went right forward to gaze at the Gibbs & Cox plaque, which I must visit on each trip.”18
The gleaming aluminum builder’s plaque hung just below the bridge. It had no decorative flourishes. The lettering was black and simple. Figures for tonnage, length, and record-breaking speeds were nowhere to be found. It read:
Because her husband did not travel with her on her jaunts to Europe, Vera brought friends with her instead. One was Eugenia McCrary. “Several times, Vera and I took what she called the ‘family rowboat’ over to Paris for 18 hours,” she recalled, “catching the ship upon its return journey to New York. During the interval, we’d dine in some fabulous restaurant do some quick shopping, mainly for perfume and silk scarves, and attend the latest popular French play. I can easily say that traveling with such a close friend on the SS United States to go over for dinner remains one of the most glamorous and treasured moments of my life.”19
Quick trips to Europe were common among first-class passengers, and Vera was just one of many members of New York society who used United States the way ordinary people used the Staten Island Ferry. They often brought their cars with them. At the start of each voyage, cranes lifted up to forty automobiles from the pier and dropped them into the hold. Most of them were luxury makes: Cadillacs, Chryslers, Mercedes-Benzes, Rolls-Royces.
Artist Cissie Levy of Philadelphia remembered that preparation for her honeymoon aboard United States meant packing several steamer trunks for all the clothing required for the five-day trip, including formal wear, because first-class passengers were expected to change what they wore several times a day. The Levys’ traveling companions were TV Guide media tycoons Walter and Leonore Annenberg, close friends of her new husband’s family.20 The Duck Suite especially had to be booked well in advance, usually around the travel plans of its most famous devotees, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the star-crossed and controversial royal couple.
When the Windsors came aboard, they brought along one hundred and fifty Louis Vuitton steamer trunks and suitcases. (Their secretary would inventory their contents, which included many fabulous jewels, twice during the voyage.) Stewards replaced United States Lines’ linens with Windsor monogrammed Porthault towels and sheets. Standard lightbulbs from lamps and ceiling fixtures were replaced with pink-hued ones, presumably because they were kinder to the duchess’s complexion. Custom drapes were installed, leopard-skin rugs were thrown on the floor, and pictures in jewel-encrusted frames placed on the tables. Their suite was no longer fireproof, but it was now fit for royalty, and looked as if the Windsors lived there year-round. Not only that, but their two pug dogs were allowed to romp around the suite during the day.21
The prickly Wallis usually turned down Commodore Anderson’s invitation to dinner. “Ship captains were inclined to pinch!” she once complained.22
Even so, the United States Lines offered the Windsors a half-price rate for the Duck Suite to keep them from defecting back to the Queen s. The special deal benefited everybody: the Windsors saved money, and the United States Lines got great publicity for their ship—the Duke and Duchess gave a press conference aboard after every trip—even if the couple’s demands made life difficult for the stewards department. Everybody wanted to travel on the same ship as the Windsors. And the duke was the only passenger allowed to visit the bridge whenever he pleased, nattily attired in a tweed jacket, plaid socks, and wild-patterned pants. There he would sip a scotch and regale the ship’s officers with witty anecdotes. But he was no aristocratic bore; he actually amused officers with stories about his golf game.23
Gibbs understood the importance of the Windsors’ loyalty to the Big Ship. Every time the Windsors boarded United States in New York, they received a gift from Mr. Gibbs. “Thank you so much for the beautiful roses,” the duchess wrote the naval architect after one trip in 1957. “It was indeed kind of you to think of us…. She is a wonderful ship and you are justly proud of her. The Duke joins me in renewed thanks for the flowers and we send you our best wishes for a pleasant summer.24
Yet some celebrities found the formality on board disconcerting. During one trip, Marlon Brando sat down at the dinner table and glanced at the gleaming array of silverware laid out in front of him. He turned to his dinner companion, Laura Franklin, the daughter of the United States Lines president.
“Laura,” he whispered sheepishly, “which fork is for the caviar?”
After the meal, Brando also asked Bell Captain Bill Krudener if he could borrow a guitar and find a spot away from gawkers and autograph hunters.
“The next thing I knew,” Krudener remembered, “I had 500 guys in and around my cabin all playing and singing along with Marlon Brando.”25
The crew knew which passengers treated them with respect and which looked right through them. On his first trip in 1955, Joe Rota got assigned to operating the elevator that ran between the main deck and the swimming pool. The first day out, when Rota opened the elevator door, actor Burt Lancaster and his two young sons were standing outside. Lancaster was on his way to Paris for the filming of Trapeze.
The actor looked so familiar to Rota that what came out of his mouth was an involuntary “Burt!”
Lancaster looked, in Rota’s words, as if he were about to “step into a snake pit.” He protectively put his arms around his son’s shoulders and hesitated before getting in.
After dropping his boys off at the pool, Lancaster looked warily at the elevator and then started making for the stairs.
“Mr. Lancaster, can I talk to you for a moment?” Rota yelled across the pool.
Lancaster stopped and walked toward the elevator.
“This is only my second trip to sea,” Rota said. “When the door opened, it was exactly like seeing an old friend, and I had grown up seeing your movies. I have to apologize.”
Lancaster’s face broke into his trademark big grin. “That’s perfectly all right. I understand. Take me up.”
When the ship docked in Le Havre, Lancaster picked Rota out from the line of bell staff to carry his luggage from the pier to the Paris boat train. The actor then gave the new elevator operator a handsome five-dollar tip.26
Similarly, on another trip, Bill Krudener found artist Salvador Dali and his wife, Gala, to be extremely courteous. One day, Dali took out a piece of paper and pressed it into Krudener’s hands.