Daisy Waugh - Last Dance with Valentino

DAISY WAUGH

Contents

Cover

Title Page DAISY WAUGH

Chapter 1 - Ambassador Hotel New York

Chapter 2 - Summer 1916

Chapter 3 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 4 - 1916–17 Long Island

Chapter 5 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 6 - 1917 Long Island

Chapter 7 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 8 - 1918 Long Island–Hollywood

Chapter 9 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 10 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 11 - 1918–21 Hollywood

Chapter 12 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 13 - 1921 Hollywood

Chapter 14 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 15 - 1921–3 Hollywood

Chapter 16 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 17 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 18 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 19 - 1923–4 Hollywood

Chapter 20 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 21 - 1925 Hollywood

Chapter 22 - Police Precinct, New York

Chapter 23 - 1926 Hollywood–New York

Chapter 24 - Hotel Continental New York

Chapter 25 - Hotel Continental New York

Postscript

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgements

Photographic Insert

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

For my mother, with love.

‘Without any more words, he turned to me – and we danced. There on the veranda, by the light of the moon . . . I swear I never danced so well. I think, in his arms, it would have been impossible to dance badly – as if his grace were like his laughter: irresistibly, magically infectious.

. . . Did I write that I hadn’t fallen in love with him that night? Did I write that? How absurd!’

Chapter 1

Ambassador Hotel

New York

Friday, 13 August 1926

I can still feel him.

I can still feel him, I can still smell him, I can still see the fold in my pillow where he leaned over to me . . . I can feel his tongue . . . his hands . . . his lips . . . his fingers in my mouth. I can still taste him. Only a moment ago he was here, with me, and I can still hear the sound of the latch closing softly behind him. I can hear his voice and his laughter fading as he moves away down the hall.

We made love for hours; all night and all morning and late into the afternoon. Mr Ullman must have telephoned him a hundred times, until finally he pulled the wire from the wall and sent the whole wretched contraption flying to the ground. And we lay quietly, talking in whispers, smoking cigarettes, covering our laughter, even while Mr Ullman was outside the door to the suite, imploring him to come out, to pick up the telephone at least, and to talk . . .

In any case he had to leave our bed eventually, of course. There were people waiting for him. Thousands of them – waiting only for him. What a feeling it must be! I can’t even imagine – I’m not sure I really even want to. But that is his life now, for better or worse. It was what he wanted, all those years ago. Or, at least, perhaps, it is the price of what he wanted – and today I see him carrying the burden of his extraordinary success with that sad, delicious grace, which is so much his own, and which so entirely melts me. Which melts us all, I think.

So – now what? I watched him dress. In evening clothes, for such a dazzling occasion. I lay in this enormous, sleek black bed, and watched him as he prowled, his footfall soundless, from dressing room to bathroom and back again. He stood before the glass at the beautiful Chinese dressing-table and told me about the time, only last week, when he had come away from an appearance like this evening’s – a movie promotion of some type. At his arrival the crowds became so carried away that extra police had to be called. They had mauled him as he fought his way through from theatre to automobile, torn the buttons from his coat, and a great chunk from the lining of his jacket – one woman had clung to his tie and swung: ‘And I wanted to say to them all . . . ’ he told me, that soft, deep voice, smiling, talking only to me, ‘ . . . I wanted to say but, girls – ladies! Are you all quite mad? Can’t you see I am only a man? Just another man. Go home to your husbands!’ That was when he turned, came across the room to me, lying here, and he leaned over the bed and kissed me once more, one last time; a perfectly tender, perfect kiss – ‘ . . . what you see is nothing but an illusion. Nothing but a dream . . . ’

‘Not a dream to me,’ I told him. ‘I hope. You’re not a dream to me – are you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, Jennifer,’ he replied, his hand on my cheek, finger tracing my lips. ‘I think you are the dream, cara mia . . . All this time I have been waiting, and wondering, and hoping . . . hoping against hope . . . and finally . . . ’ He sighed. ‘But I wish you would stay tonight. Or at least let me get you a room of your own. You’d be far more comfortable. And safer. And closer. And then maybe you could accompany me tonight – if you wanted to. Or maybe you would let me come to you later and then – Jenny, if you were here, in the hotel, we could be quite discreet. Quite unobserved . . . ’

Cara mia.

He has been waiting for me all this time.

But I can’t let him get me a room. I can’t go with him tonight. I think we both understand that.

‘Will you be here for me when I return?’ he asked.

I replied that I would be in my own hotel room on 41st when he returned, preparing for my meeting with Miss Marion. He nodded at that. So, I said to him, I would return to my hotel and sleep, and wait for him to telephone me there.

‘Tomorrow, then,’ he said. ‘ After you have seen Frances. I shan’t distract you, I promise. And then, when you’re finished, I shall send all sorts of messages. I shall inundate you with messages . . . I shall telephone you every half an hour. That is,’ he stopped suddenly, ‘if I may?’

If I may! I laughed aloud. And after a polite hesitation, he laughed too.

For I am his completely. We both know it.

Now, it is my turn to wait. Again. It is Lola Nightingale’s turn to wait. Or Jennifer Doyle’s turn, I should say. Jennifer No-one from Nowhere must join the long line . . .

– – –

Last month he was voted the Most Desirable Movie Star in America by the quarter-million astute readers of Photoplay. Hardly a surprise, after all . . . He has lit a fire in us all. Every woman in America! But I have loved him since long before the others, I have loved him from the moment I first laid eyes on him – that airless night ten years ago ... 11 August 1916 . . . Ten years, one day, nineteen hours and twenty minutes . . . It was my first night in America, and he was as lonely as I. Fighting, just as I was, only with better grace and a bigger, warmer, bolder heart, for a little space in this brash new American world...

And now I am alone in his bed, with our salt on my skin, the taste of him, the feel of him glowing, still, in every corner of my being – and he is returning to me because he loves me. He loves me. And I have always loved him.

– – –

I need to leave. I begin to think it’s a little mawkish to be lolling here in this crazy, beautiful bed – now that he is gone. I should get the hell out of this beautiful, warm place before the maids come in and gawk at me, and imagine I am simply another of his little fans.

Only I feel too feeble. I feel so dizzy – I don’t have any strength left, not to sit up, let alone to stand . . . So I shall lie here, mawkish or not, and I shall do what I always do in times of confusion, disorder, disarray, complete and utter madness . . . I shall scribble it down on paper. On his own embossed writing paper, nothing less, since I have found it lying here . . . And then the mental effort of ordering my thoughts will force me to some sort of stillness, just as it usually does.