In the period after I left Jack, my life was one big quest for love, drugs, and an imaginary happiness. The source of happiness seemed to be getting high, so I developed a deep unquenchable thirst for drugs, alcohol, and selfish pleasures. This quest took all the sanity out of my mind.
I left a husband who took care of me the best he knew how, brought me coffee in bed in the morning, put up with my hangovers, which were getting to be every day, and really did everything for me. I wanted animals, he said okay. Jack would go to farms to pick up hay and other food for the animals out in the middle of the countryside, and bring it back to Hollywood just to please me. We took many trips together, or he would let me go off by myself to Tahiti (yet another story for the book), Bora Bora, Moorea, Raiatea, Papaiety, and Venezuela. He let me go to Mexico whenever I wanted, which I did frequently so I could escape into more alcohol and drug adventures, like with Buck Rogers. I had many friends like the ex wife of Ron Lavender who owned a very famous Gallery. She introduced me to many people among which an incredible lover, who was handsome with black azabache hair. (but this part of my adventure goes on in the book).
Jack said that he didn’t realize how badly I was strung out on drugs, which shows how deceptive addiction can be. He thought I was just having fun, because I hid my worst behavior and made him believe I was okay. At that time everybody I knew in Hollywood seemed to be strung out on something. I thought it was okay flirting and even going to bed with other men, because that is what I learned from my first beloved man. My fantasy of selfish, make-believe happiness was really just to camouflage my own inner pain and the sickness of addiction.
There were parties at Sammy Davis Jr.’s place in Beverly Hills, with lots of cars parked in front of his house. Sammy loved collecting expensive new cars, like many nouveau riche people. He was born Catholic but converted to Judaism, probably for the convenience that it offered in Hollywood in those years, and the movie business. You got more work if you were friends with the Jewish directors, investors and agents. Also they made great husbands. I was married to two of them, Tom and Jack, and let’s not forget my first love, Walter, who was also Jewish. Although he was not so good, promising the sky and yet he gave me nothing, only took from my youth, the innocence. But he made me dream of a better tomorrow.
I don’t know what he really believed. I had a photograph of him swearing an oath to Satan, some Cult of 666 that was popular, especially for the sex. I have one photo of me, taken for a magazine, posing at a dark castle on the Hollywood Hills. I went there and saw caskets in the rooms, weird things; as I was leaving the photo shoot, people were arriving dressed in strange black costumes, so that gives you an idea what was going on. But he was a great singer and dancer, one of the best in that period, or maybe the best eve. The parties were wild and full of drugs and liquor. I personally only can say about him that he was a gracious host and very lively, a nice person to me and Jose, so let God be the Judge. I liked him very much as a performer.
There were many parties and stories that I will keep writing but not all of them here in my blog, you will have to read my book.
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