She continued to promote the film, but even after she was nominated for an Academy Award and the job offers increased to the point where she could have had any role she wanted, she said no. Once when we were alone, I asked why she was going through with it when it really seemed again that the sky was the limit for her career. She said, “I used to think that everything was in acting. Do it right, and all the answers, plus all the rewards you’d ever want in ten lifetimes, would be there at the finish line. You could find your place, you could find a home and peace… Then after a couple of bad choices I began realizing it wasn’t so. But my life was caving in then too, so I thought maybe that’s part of the disillusionment. One of the main reasons I made Wonderful was to see if this was true. Those last few films I did before quitting the first time were dogs. Just work to put money in the bank. I was ashamed and embarrassed when I saw them. I thought, Fuck it, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to keep some of my soul intact. So I quit. When Weber asked me to be in this, I knew, no matter what, it would end up being a great movie. The best possible environment to work in. But even this one left me genuinely cold, Rose. Like going to bed with someone you once loved but don’t anymore. Don’t even feel a spark for. No matter what, this’ll definitely be my last.”
The four of us went to the Oscar ceremony together. Before it began, I told my best friend that if she didn’t win I would personally blow up the Academy. I knew she was serious about her plan to stop. There had been a gratuitously cruel article in a national magazine about her that implied nasty untrue things. It concluded by sneering how “timely” it was that Ms. Ford had announced her retirement long before the awards, implying she’d done it to get the sympathy vote. She was the one who gave me the article, saying only, “Here’s another good reason for going back to Vienna.”
When Weber’s name was announced as the winner of the best director award, Arlen put her fingers together and whistled like a doorman. Before going down to accept it, he pulled her up out of her seat and hugged her a long time. She was crying when he let go. Clapping madly, she didn’t sit down again until he started his speech, thanking everyone, but her most of all.
It would have been perfect if she’d won for best actress, but she didn’t. Instead, some old woman who should have won years before for much better performances wobbled up and thanked the Academy with a wink and a measured smile that said, All of us know I shouldn’t be up here for this but—”
Crying, I turned to Arlen and said, “It’s wrong. You deserve it and everyone here knows that. The whole world knows it, Arlen.”
She squeezed my hand and said, “Everything you want in life has teeth.”
A week later she moved to Austria for good.
Part Two
WYATT
“Holy cow, it’s Finky Linky! May I have your autograph?”
I love giving autographs, love the fact someone thinks my signature is important enough to want to keep. What astonished me was that people still asked for it years after I’d disappeared from the almighty television eye. It had been so long since I was a celebrity that it seemed like life on another planet. So now when someone came up and recognized me for the being I once was, it was like a phone call from Saturn or Pluto. But a welcome call certainly, one that I was glad to receive.
The only problem was that Sophie and I had just finished a horrendous trip from Los Angeles, one of those flights from hell the modern traveler is subjected to more and more. The ordeal began when our flight was delayed for an hour and we were stuck in the hot packed plane, our freshly pressed clothes and spirits already sinking into wilt. Then, in evil stereo, two unhappy babies traded off shifts of howling around us throughout most of the flight. Round the ride off with a pack of stewardesses so lacking in kindness and professional concern that you were afraid to ask for a glass of water for fear of annoying them.
Twelve hours to Europe, then a three-hour layover, where our jet-lagged and shell-shocked burning eyes watched the frenetic race and flutter of that giant airport. Finally back onto another plane for the flight to Vienna. On arriving we were supposed to have been met by Sophie’s sister-in-law Caitlin, but she didn’t show up, and we had to figure out how to get from the airport to town in a language that neither of us understood beyond my high school German.
Welcome to Europe. We took a bus to the Hilton, and as I wrestled our bags from here to there, I heard that normally welcome request. I was so tired, stressed, and confused by the rush of what was going on and where we were that I didn’t think it strange to be asked for an autograph in Vienna, Austria, where there couldn’t have been a whole lot of people who’d seen The Finky Linky Show, much less recognized me long after it was off the air.
When I turned to see who was asking, I laughed for the first time in twenty hours. One of the most beautiful and, until a few years before, famous women in the world held out a cheap pen and a scrap of paper for me to sign.
“I’m your biggest fan, Mr. Linky.”
“Arlen! My God, how long has it been?”
We embraced. “Too long, Wyatt. Too damned long.”
“I completely forgot that you live here. How great! Arlen, this is my friend Sophie.” The two women shook hands. Sophie said hello but her face didn’t, which was strange because normally she’s very open and pleased to meet new people. But it was plain she didn’t take to Arlen, who, despite her fame, happened to be one of the nicer people I knew. The Arlen Ford too, the one who had had the colossal nerve and courage to walk away from her movie star career at its peak. Weber Gregston had introduced us years before, and for a while we saw quite a bit of each other. She was smart and sensitive and great company. Also she had been generous enough to come on my show a couple of times and be silly with us. Judging from the mail we received afterward, she was a big hit with the kids.
We stood around chatting for a while until a man came up behind her and touched her shoulder. She whirled around and, on seeing him, Arlen simply blasted out love and joy. Whoever this fellow was, he owned most of the real estate in her heart; nothing could have been plainer. She took his hand and gestured toward us. “Wyatt and Sophie, this is Leland Zivic.”
“Hello, Leland. Tell me again how you say your last name.”
A warm and friendly smile broke across his face, revealing big white teeth with an interesting gap between the front two. “Ziv-itch. I know, it’s a funny one. Part of me is Yugoslavian.”
They were on their way to Italy. When I’d known Arlen in California, she was cool and sophisticated and didn’t suffer fools gladly. The same woman now reminded me of a teenager in the first throes of love. She couldn’t take her eyes off Leland. In Hollywood she’d had the reputation for living close to men who worked out too much or fought too much and wore sunglasses after dark. But from his looks, Zivic was definitely not one of those. Quite tall, he had longish brown hair and a pleasant round face that appeared open and friendly. I think his eyes were a bit small, but it was hard to tell because he wore wire-rimmed glasses with gray-tinted lenses. He had on a brown leather jacket, corduroy pants about the same color, and scruffy white sneakers. Comfortable clothes. That’s all. Everything about him looked comfortable, even his face. As if he were a living, breathing easy chair you loved to sink into whenever you had the chance. All this took place in no more than five or six minutes, but I came away with the impression that Arlen was madly in love with a plain nice man. I didn’t know if I was more delighted or surprised.
She gave me her telephone number and said to be sure to call in a few days so that we could get together for a meal. She made a point of including Sophie in her invitation, but again my friend was merely pleasant in her thanks. The happy couple got onto an airport bus and we went looking for a taxi.