William D. Cunningham and Associates Agency - Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & me...: a memoir

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For Nico and Dylan.

Swing for the fences.

Im in the bedroom of Judy Garlands suite at New Yorks Plaza Hotel. Its just past four thirty in the afternoon on a cold November day and Judy is still in bed, late for the four oclock meeting in my office with her business manager, Charlie Renthal. Thats why my boss has sent me over: Get her here, David Begelman ordered.

What do you want to wear? I ask Judy sweetly. She doesnt answer me. I stand therelike the dummy I was at twenty-fivestaring at her. She takes the Salems off the nightstand, removes a cigarette, and puts it in her mouth. She takes a pack of matches, strikes one, and sets her nightgown on fire. What?! A small flame appears. Oh no! Lightning explodes in my head. Please Godnot now! But I have no time for this thought. For thinking at all. Time collapses. An instantaneous chill overtakes me. What if? She could die. Every possible terror collides in me at once as I grab the blankets and smother the flame about to consume the pale-blue nylon gown. Judy offers no resistanceand no help. Done. It is over. Another catastrophe averted. Why am I still so cold and frightened? Her leg is slightly burned. She puts her hand on it, examines it, and gets out of bed. The bedding is only scorched. I shiver and stare. My hands are icicles. I am in a state of complete shock. I dont know what I feel besides icy cold. Not a word from her about it. She heads to the bathroom. I better wear tights, she tells me.

This ugly incident wasnt the first, and it wasnt the worst. That came when she attempted to kill me instead of herself. Drugs were responsible, and Ill get to that. I will show you a woman whose mind was destroyed by prescription drugs and alcohol. But let me stay with the Plaza for a moment so that I can explain that while self-immolation was hardly a daily event, it did occur sometimes when she reached the depths of her despair on the emotional roller coaster she was riding, a trip that was picking up more speed all the time during the four years we spent together in the early sixties.

When she was up she was totally manic, her fast-paced conversation larded with brittle laughter; when she was depressed, it was nothing like a normal depression, for she could not hear the sound of a human voice. She was in a foreign country. Deeply felt pain, however, was a constant in the daily existence of this troubled and immensely talented woman whose life was spiraling down and, at the same time, gaining momentum in helping to shape my own.

I had recently turned twenty-five when she set her nightgown on fire at the Plaza; Judy was thirty-nine, and we had known each other slightly less than a year. Although there was only a 14-year difference between us, it might as well have been 114. I was still an innocent; she had lost her innocence before I was born.

If timing is criticaland it has always been for meJudy and I connected at a moment when she needed company and I needed an opportunity. That moment would forever change my life. Judy had virtually retired. She had fled the United States, where in Hollywood shed been labeled unreliable, and she was quietly living a healthier lifestyle abroad when my first real employer pitched a comeback to her. She was bored enough doing nothing in London to jump at the chance. But while she was mentally ready for another shot at stardom on the silver screen, she still was not emotionally stable enough. The outcome was at once triumphant and tragic. The triumph was her immediate success when she reappeared on the American scene; the tragedy was the reemergence of the rampaging insecurities that fostered her reliance on drugs and alcohol. As her anxieties took over again, prescription drugs once more dominated her daily life and finally killed her.

For a lonely, latchkey, star-struck kid from a Conservative Jewish household, being sent on the road with Judy was like being shot out of a cannon into the fast-and-furious lane. Once there, I had no choice but to grow up quickly or go away and forget about the life in show business I had dreamed about. It was with her that I discovered my staying power and the determination necessary to accept a harrowing existence. Along the way she became my greatest teacher.

As I turned from twenty-five into thirty and from thirty into forty, Judy was by then long gone from my life, but I discovered that in fact she had never left me. I came to realize that many of the decisions I made were filtered through a brain stem overloaded with things I had learned from being with her, from my exploring and finally understanding who she was personally as well as professionally. She taught me both how to and how not to live. She was the major ingredient in the special lens through which I have seen, lived, and dealt with my life. Even today, what comes out on the other side of my filtration system is heavily influenced by that education. Given what Ive gone through, I realize Im still standing because of the greatest lesson Judy Garland taught me: how not to fold.

* * *

Judy Garland was hardly the only celebrity in my life whose insecurities led to the kind of abuse that destroys all happiness. My day-to-day was filled with the addictions of others, most notably Liza Minnelli, whom I represented for fifteen years at the peak of her career. Their desperate lives were not what I had grown up expecting, not what I stood in line for, but once my ticket was stamped, I entered into the theater of abuse for most of my professional career.

I could have opted outat great cost to myself. Instead I chose to stay inalso at great cost to myself. Eventually I discovered that there were many different kinds of addicts in the world of entertainment, no different from the universe outside its cloister. I saw the dysfunction this kind of behavior causes. I saw firsthand how alcoholism damages the families of stars and their associates, how it ends friendships and relationships. However, in spite of my disapproval and my disgust with addiction, I nonetheless managed to fall into the same dumps the addicts were in without ever taking any drugs or enjoying more than the occasional glass of wine.

Most addicts I dealt with at arms length, but a few I wrapped my arms around and married. Those missteps tested the limits of my endurance. I allowed myself to be sucked into personal relationships that I failed to examine.

I might not have finally succumbed to a breakdown had I only listened to the men who courted when they spoke, but it took me a while to learn how to listen. Addicts can be most charming and seductive. Certainly Judy was when she was in her best of all possible worlds. When it came to my personal life, I threw caution to the winds.

So to an extent this book is also about what can happen to an enabler on the sidelines. I am that person, and only one of millions like me. I never saw myself as a victim. I was righteous, self-confident, judgmental, and imperiousuntil the day I wasnt anymore.

* * *

Judy may have been my greatest teacher, but she was not the only one. I was extremely fortunate to find a wonderful mentor, Freddie Fields, one of the all-time best agents on the planet, whoalong with his partner, David Begelman, a sick puppyplayed an enormous role in my career. Their arrival in my life was a matter of good timing, the result of shifting professional circumstances that opened a door for me at the right moment. Ultimately Freddie, a sport-coated, charming smart aleck, gave me the skills I required to become effective in the motion picture industry at a time when the only women in the agency business were locked in rooms reading screenplays, manuscripts, and books. He taught me what the agency business was mostly about: representing stars. He made me understand that it didnt matter where you sat in New York, Hollywood, or anywhere else if you had the right clients. I became a client signer, and the stars I represented were the real deal, big-money talent who could make the Hollywood cameras roll.