Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

Continued from page 32 Whether she was being entertained by the Aga Khan’s widow, the Begum, or being tbe guest of honor at a select little party tendered by M. Lebret. the head of the whole festival, she never let Warren out of her sight. It was this constant “watchful” attitude of Natalie's that prompted Hollywood columnist Dorothy Manners to write: “Some people are beginning to wonder if Natalie’s insistence of ‘togetherness’ with a free soul like Warren is the best technique for this romance. Tbe male is a funny animal. As somebody’s old aunt from Tijuana once said, ‘Keep ’em in sight. But you’ve got to let 'em off the leash now and then.’ ” With her lips. Natalie had said, “No. I will not marry Warren Beatty,” but tbe expression in her eyes, when she followed his every movement from across a crowded room, denied her own words. On Warren’s terms Warren made no bones about how he felt. At one time or another he said: “Natalie and I haven't even discussed marriage ... I love the French. They are more inclined to play with life than fight it . . . I’m confused about marriage. I don’t think I’m ready for marriage . . . I’ve got to be my own boss. I’ve got to make my own decisions. ‘Don’t push me around,’ is what I’m likely to say to anybody who tries to choose for me . . . Right now I’m in my twenties. Those are pretty good years. The important tiling for me now is to have a lot of fun. And that’s just what I’m doing ... I come and go as I please. Me? I do what I wrant, when I want . . . That’s the way it has to be — everything on my terms.” Everything on my terms. When Natalie (at Liz Taylor's suggestion) went to a Paris coiffeur and had her hair done up in an 1880 chignon, Warren was displeased at the results and made his objection clear. Down came her hair over her shoulders, the way Warren likes it. Time to push on — to Rome. No time to visit the “Cleo" set, however. Too much to do. Visits to historic spots. Trips to the beauty parlor — Natalie dragged Warren along and be waited for her inside while the paparazzi (Italian photographers always on the lookout for scandal) milled impatiently outside. Slow walks through the streets (Warren knew the little, outof-the-way romantic spots and served as Natalie’s guide; after all, Warren, the free soul, had been in Rome three times in the past, but with somone else, of course). Dining on gourmet food at famous restaurants at night. But ecstasy is not without thorns. One thorn is the business of staying in separate hotel rooms on different floors. This is right and proper, of course — the accepted procedure for a couple who are unmarried (actually, Natalie’s final divorce decree from Bob Wagner will not be issued until April. 1963), but the paparazzi were bound to try to catch Natalie and Warren together, in his suite or her suite in the fashionable Rome hotel, so as to create a scandal. This separate suite problem had plagued Warren and Natalie once before. That’s when they also were registered in separate suites on different floors at New York’s Plaza Hotel, while on a publicity junket for “Splendor in the Grass.” Maybe it was the fact that they were together in Manhattan that triggered a blast from Bob Wagner, heartsick in London after his bust-up with his wife. “I do not believe that this thing between Warren and Natalie just happened,” Bob declared. “I don’t trust that guy. This whole business smells of planned trickery. If Warren needs the publicity so badly, why didn't he pick on someone else’s wife instead of mine? While he was engaged to Joan Collins, he was going around telling people that he was too young to marry. There is every indication that he never intended to marry Joan. Man, this is one of the wildest ambos (translation: ambitious boys) to hit Hollywood in years.” That had been the plaintive, truculent cry of the rejected husband. But now it was Bob Wagner, the real-life Bob, not the memory of Bob, wdio was to be the sharpest thorn in the path of Natalie and Warren, the globe-trotting lovers. It happened in Rome, in one of those swanky Italian restaurants. Nat and Warren, band-in-band and smiling happily at each other, were ushered by a bowing and scraping maitre d' into an exclusive, private dining room in back. A candlelit, romantic room — a perfect place for an P Open your door... to the 53 minute march MmmMLPALSV intimate tete-a-tete: fine wine, fine food, and the fine feeling of being alone and away from tbe world. Not quite alone, however. Another couple sat close together at one of the tables. Tbe man turned around to look at the new arrivals. It was Bob — Bob Wagner, and the woman with him was Marion Donen, whom he plans to marry when his decree from Natalie becomes final next April. Natalie’s face turned the color of the tablecloths around her. She stared at Boh and he stared back at her — in embarrassment and shame, like two puppies punished for doing something naughty. Then, though she tried to hold them back, big tears ran down her cheek. She was no longer the sophisticated woman of the world, the rebel against the rules and regulations of society. In that one second she became the little-girl-lost. It was Warren who broke the spell. He released her arm, clenched his fingers together like a prize fighter about to put on the gloves; then he turned on his heel and stalked out. Bob and Marion got up quickly and also left. Natalie stood alone for a second in tbe middle of the room, and then she slumped down on a chair and sobbed. The flickering candlelight played on her red-eyed, tear-stained face. It was far from a romantic picture. Anything but! The face of reality Not a romantic picture, but a familiar one. Similar to the expression that eventually stained the faces of all the women who blithely defied accepted convention. Similar to the expression on Joan Collins’ face when she realized that Warren would not marry her and that, in fact, she had lost him to Natalie. Similar to the expression on Ingrid Bergman’s face when — after deserting her husband, Peter Lindstrom, to run away with Roberto Rossellini (who had also left his wife, Marcella de Marchis) following passion that led from Hollywood to New York to Rome to Capri to Sicily and Stromboli — she, lay alone in an Italian clinic, about to give birth to an illegitimate child, while outside her door the nuns fought with the photographers who were intent on breaking in and snapping pictures. Similar also to the expression on Ingrid’s face later when she peeked out through the drawn curtains of the Roman love-nest she shared with Roberto and saw a pile of refuse and garbage piled on the street in front of the apartment house door. As Ingrid said, “It was meant to show a woman of ill repute lived there!” Similar to the expression on Deborah Kerr’s face when, after gallivanting about Europe for two years with Peter Viertel while she was still married to another man, she was informed that the price her husband would force her to pay for her transgressions was to give up her daughters, Melanie and Francesca, whom she loved dearly. Similar to the expression on Ava Gardner’s face when, after a screaming fight with Frank Sinatra in a suite in New York’s Hampshire House hotel, she flung out of the window the diamond engagement ring he had given her. This was the low point in their two-year, worldwide