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The next morning he had to leave very early for a meeting. A couple of hours later when I opened the front door to pick up the newspaper, a large empty box of Tide laundry detergent filled to bursting with a hundred red roses was there on the step. The note taped to it bore Roland’s abominable handwriting, in a quote from A
Some months later Arlen asked if I would consider becoming her personal manager, professional adviser, whatever I wanted to title it. The salary would be three times what I was making and the work as she described it would be challenging but not difficult. Much of it was similar to what I was doing at the studio. Still, I was initially hesitant. But I knew, through living with her, that the more famous she became, the more puzzled and disturbed she was by a world that never stood still long enough for her to stop being dizzied by it. From me or someone else, she definitely needed help.
At the di
Of course there were dangers involved, especially now that Roland and I were going to marry and the co
It turned into seven years. In that time, among other gulps and hurrahs, I learned two things. One, be suspicious of anyone who uses his or her middle name in a professional capacity: Mark Gary Cohen, Susa
The other thing I learned was when something drops, never try to catch it before it hits the ground. Let it fall. If you don’t, you’ll catch the wrong part or edge and hurt yourself. Naturally this applies to both objects and people, including me. In those seven years, I had an affair and would not listen to my good husband, who kept trying to catch me as I fell into dishonesty, ugly silliness, and making those who loved me suffer. It ended only when I realized I was about to smash onto a floor of terminal selfishness and desire. I survived, but didn’t deserve to.
So it was ironic that I was the one who kept trying to catch Arlen as she fell in so many different ways. The movie world is made up of fabulously successful people who never believe their victories are genuine. Judging from the enormous and often instantaneous turnover of fates in those high places, they’re right to be unsure.
I particularly remember going with Arlen to a party at Malibu Colony jam-packed with the famous and powerful. The biggest shots gravitated to the living room. At first glance it appeared to be a relaxed gathering of the gods in jeans, swapping fu
Sadly, Arlen was one of those straining people. She had begun as an actress who made it on talent and beauty. But then the movie community, and later the world, said, That’s fine but what else do you have? She was indignant. I’ve given you everything I am. Where do you get off asking for more? They were silent, but the time came when her new films didn’t do so well, and people quickly began talking about her in the past tense.
She panicked, and her personal life began careering around like the ball in a pinball game. There were bad, self-destructive love affairs, which in one case resulted in her spending three weeks in a rehab center for cocaine abuse. And other unbelievably wrong decisions that led to ugly celebrity behavior; she was on the covers of sleazy magazines that cater to the failed, the furious, and the miserable. The photograph of her coming off a plane at Rome airport with an ugly snarl on her face and an arm cocked to punch the photographer… Was that really Arlen Ford the movie star? Looking so old and hysterical? The woman we all once wanted to be or have? Falling without trying, she gave them what they wanted. Enough to make them indignant and fascinated with her again, but now for the wrong reasons. She showed she was human, and we’re always more comfortable with people than with gods.
The grand finale came not from death or drugs but a tuna fish sandwich. One night after returning from a party, Arlen switched on the light in her living room and discovered a middle-aged woman sitting on the sofa holding a wrapped tuna fish sandwich in one hand and, in the other, the crowbar she’d used to break into the house. “You’re so ski
There was no place left to hide, not even her own home. So she luckily did something very smart: dropped out for a year, moved to her beloved Vie
Her letters from that time (at the begi
Some people there knew who she was, most didn’t, but from what she wrote, none of them cared. One of the good things about living there was that Austrians were generally unimpressed with celebrities, unless they were famous conductors or opera singers. Leonard Bernstein and Jessye Norman were mobbed for autographs on the street; Arlen Ford was not. She loved that. In one of her letters she said, “Sometimes living here I feel like a child hiding from my parents under the bed covers. I know they’ll be angry when they find me, but until then down here it’s cozy and safe. I get the feeling if I just stay still and don’t move, maybe they never will find me.”