From Arthur Winfield Knight
James Dean: Eartha
I took a dance class from her the summer I was in New York. Eartha taught me how to move. Her skin was the color of café au lait, heavy to cream. She might have passed as an exotic looking Caucasian, but she was comfortable being a Negro.
When we’d both ended up in L.A., I’d take her riding on my cycle at two or three in the morning, because we were both night people and I could think better when the streets were deserted. Sometimes, if it was early enough, we’d stop in front of the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, stating at my name in lights once East of Eden had opened. Sometimes, a couple of hours before dawn, we’d drink coffee at Googie’s on the Strip because it was never shut and we liked to watch the other night people. We held hands a lot, because I loved to touch her. I could only guess how beautiful she’d be, naked. Sitting in a back booth, I said, “I wonder what it would be like if we were lovers.”
“We wouldn’t be able to be friends once it ended, and it would have to end.” Eartha could be very fatalistic. “Sex would ruin everything.”
“It would be fun for a while, though,” I said, but I knew she was right.
James Dean: Sammy
He said he knew all the important people in Hollywood, and he was proud he was a member of Sinatra’s ratpack. I gave him a ride on my Harley one Sunday afternoon, taking the corners fast, up into the Hollywood Hills, past the mansion where Bugsy Siegel had lived. I could tell Sammy was scared by the way he clung to me, but he kept saying, “Wow, man, what a fucking gas. I’ve got to get one of these,” because he needed to be the coolest man in the world, even if he was black. Especially, since he was black.
I knew it was difficult to be a negro in Hollywood, but Sammy worked too hard at being hip. He said, “I’ve got a phone book of the hottest chicks in town, man. We got to get loaded and have an orgy.”
Sammy opened a bottle of expensive wine Dean Martin had given him and lit a joint. His black face glistened from the heat, and I could smell the sweat on him. Sammy said, “I’m fucking this blonde sex goddess from Switzerland who can barely speak English, but we communicate in other ways. Dig? The three of us have to get together and make it. I believe in sharing with my buddies, and you’ve me buddy, man.” I flinched when he put his hand on my shoulder.
Sammy was beating his bongo-drums when I left. Maybe he really believed he was the “hippest cat in L.A.,” but he was just a nervous, little guy, and I felt sorry for him. He desperately wanted to be white, and it was impossible.
James Dean: Kendra
She was singing in a small club along the Strip the night we met. Kendra wore a floor-length skirt, standing behind the microphone, caressing it. I didn’t realize she had only one leg. Later, she told me she’d lost it in a motorcycle accident.
I understood why she kept saying, “Jimmy, not so fast” when I’d take her for a ride on my bike, but she never said no. Kendra thought most lives weren’t dangerous enough, Sometimes she’d leave her artificial leg at home. Depending on the kindness of strangers. She’d lean against me, or I’d carry her, particularly if we’d been drinking.
I asked Kendra to take her clothes off the first night we went to her apartment. She had long blonde hair and small, delicate breasts. She body shone in the soft dark. She balanced herself against the bed, then I touched the place where her leg used to be, kissing her. There. She was sobbing when we lay next to each other on her bed. I said, “We don’t have to do anything. It’s all right,” but it was never going to be all right.
James Dean: Brando
Ursula spent her afternoons at Brando’s house, studying English with Marlon’s fiancèe. Josianne, although her and Ursula had been lovers, too. They’d lain nude in a field next to a ruined castle in Italy, yellow flowers poking up between their legs. Marlon got Paramount to bring her to America. It was difficult to imagine the three of them spending their days together. Josianne was French and Ursula was Swiss, and the only thing that bound them together was their lack of English language skills and the fact that they’d both slept with Marlon. The women talked into a tape recorder, trying to improve their accents, while Marlon watched, brooding. He never let them out of his sight, Ursula said. It was as if he feared they might steal something if he left the room, even for a moment, but he was always an uncertain man when he wasn’t in front of the camera. I always thought his imaginary life was more real than the one he lived each day. When I’d arrive at his house, Marlon would stand on the deck overlooking the ocean, his back to me. He’d ask Ursula, “Who do you go out with him? What are you doing with this boy?” She’d answered him dozens of times, sounding out each word, but he was never satisfied--or he had the worst memory of any man I ever met. He certainly had the worst manners. I never understood why everyone thought he was such a fine actor.
James Dean: Ursula
She’d dated Howard Hughes when she’d arrived in America, but he’d never cast her in a picture. Probably he’d cast her elsewhere, but Ursula and I didn’t talk about that. She’d starred in two minor Italian movies before coming ot Hollywood, but no one took her seriously as an actress. She was 19 and liked to wear tight sweaters or low cut blouses with no bra, so it didn’t matter if she had any talent. Her breasts were spectacular. She had what most producers were looking for, but her Italian was terrible and her English was worse. Ahe’d grown up speaking German in Switzerland. She was having an affair with a second-rate actor named John Derek, whose wife was going to have Ursula deported is she continued to see him, but Ursula was cavalier about it. She and I stayed up later than anyone else in Hollywood, so we were bound together by default, neither friends nor lovers. We were emotional storm troopers. We spent so much time fighting in public one reporter wrote, “James Dean is learning German so that he can fight with Ursula Andress in two languages.” It was funny. We stopped seeing each other before I took my first German lesson, and Ursula’s English was still awful.
James Dean: Terry Moore
She was more than a sex symbol. She’d been nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in Come Back, Little Sheba when she was 21, the same yea she’d had a stillborn girl by Howard Hughes, and she’d been a celebrity usherette when East of Eden opened in New York. Jack Warner said it would be good for business if I took her to a premiere. It was the only time I ever wore a tux.
Terry must have had half a dozen petticoats under her white dress, but she managed to squeeze into the back to the limo with me. She was breathing hard, but said, “Oh, hello,” as if she were startled by my presence. She didn’t say anything else until we pulled up in front of the theater, then she smiled and put her arm through mine and began to whisper, blalalalala, leaning on my shoulder. We looked like the hottest couple in Hollywood. The photographers went crazy.
Terry didn’t say another word until Sabrina had ended and we were leaving the theater. She grabbed my arm again, her breasts heaving, star in her eyes, flashbulbs popping all over the place, blalalalala, then we were back in limo, and she was quiet again. I smoked half a pack of cigarettes but the time the limo pulled up in front of her house. I felt like a fool.
