The "party"-- the brand new television season had just begun. And it promised to be a real ball. At their appointed places were all the "guests"-- the 34 new programs, including "The Tammy Grimes Show." But when the fun and hi-jinks were barely under way, some character from TV's upper echelons tapped Tammy on her delectable shoulder and growled, "You! Out!" After only four episodes had hit the homescreens? Who would have predicted it? Not I, certainly-- not after that unforgettable day when I lost my heart irretrievably to Tammy Grimes, and "Tammy," no thanks to Debbie Reynolds, became my forever-favorite song. Take Tammy Grimes off the air? Why, it's downright unpatriotic! I waited for Tammy in the outer office of her studio bugalow. It was late afternoon. Her secretary said Tammy had been working on the set since 6:30 that moring and now they were fitting her for a costume. A maid came darting out of the dressing room leaving the door open and I got my first glimpse of Tammy Grimes-- draped from head to toe in a huge silk American flag! Instinctively, I jumped up, put my hand over my heart and started the pledge of allegiance. But, I wondered, would I have to stand at salute during the interview? What's the law in a case like this?
I wasn't looking forward to this interview too hopefully. In the first place, how many startling revelations could I expect to get out of a star who has never bothered to change the name she was born with? In Hollywood, that's practically an affectation! And that wasn't all. Consider what the brief bio put together by ABC's Press Information had to say about her: "Tammy Grimes is combustible, volcanic, explosive and volatile." Combustible means "easily burned up." A volcano is "a vent in the earth's crust through which rocks, dust and ash are ejected." Explosive means "tending to burst forth noisily." And volatile means "fickle, quickly evaporating." If that's the best ABC could say about her - - - well!
Born in the swank Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill, the biography said, she attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Then came the usual grind-- two years in New York with the Neighborhood Playhouse: parts on TV; understudy on Broadway; starred in a show that never got past Philadelphia; nightclubs; the part of a courtesan in Look After Lulu which didn't break any records. And then The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Okay, so she was a sensation in that, it ran two years, and she won all kinds of awards-- but they didn't even ask her to make the movie! They used Debbie Reynolds instead and Tammy posed for vodka and cigar ads. An then she was hilarious as a ghost in Noel Coward's High Spirits. So what kind of part is a ghost? She did a movie with David McCallum, Three Bites of the Apple, not released yet...She married Christopher Plummer in 1954 and had a daughter named Amanda but got divorced in 1960, and in June, 1966, she married Jeremy Slate.
When I read that I thought, well, the girl has to have something if two big handsome stars like that married her. Maybe she's gorgeous. The biography said she's 5'5", has light brown hair, green eyes, weighs 118 lbs., measures 35-25-26. Not bad for starters. But then I recalled how various critics have described her: "Wide mouth, uphill nose." "Pointed features." "Her face more or less resembless a sickle moon and she is box-like in construction." "That isn't hair she's wearing all over her head. It's tumbleweed. She looks like an unkempt poodle."
And what was all that about her voice? From the critics again: "One haughty hoot from her train whistle voice, and you feel the Santa Fe is coming and you'd just better duck." Well, she must at least have a lot of sex appeal, I thought desperately. Depressed, and wondering how come I never got to interview Elizabeth Taylor, I had put off making a date to see Tammy until I had talked to Alex Gottlieb. Alex is one of Hollywood's great writers of comedy and he was listed as co-producer of The Tammy Grimes Show. I hoped he could give me an angle. "Alex," I said, "why did you ever get mixed up with this kookie dame?" "are you kidding?" he said, "I specialize in kookie dames. I discovered Doris Day, sold her to Jack Warner and I made her first six pictures. But now I've got the kookiest dame of all and I've never been happier. Except for a couple of problems." "A-hah!" I said. "Problems like what?" "Well, everybody thinks she's English because she has that Boston accent. I have to teach her how to say "half", "can't", "park the car." Why wasn't she born in America instead of Boston?"
"How did she get the show in the first place?"- "Because Bill Dozier wanted her and he's the boss. Batman was his idea, too, you know?"--"That explains a lot," I said. "First Bill offered her Bewitched but she wouldn't take it. She said the show was too hokey and nobody would believe it. But Bill still wanted her and kept slipping her scripts. And this one she finally liked." alex briefed me on the show then, and Tammy's part in it.
And now, finally, I was waiting in her bungalow to meet the lady herself, but like I said, not too hopefully. A heroine who, according to the story outline of the series, never wins a battle and always loses her man! And all those other things about her -- her appearance, her voice. And now I had an American flag to worry about. But when her dressing room door opened again and people streamed out, Tammy came out dressed in a fur coat. The temperature was 85 degrees but she had the coat wrapped around her so tightly that I had the distinct impression it was all she had on. She held her hand out to me, smiled, and said in a small voice, "I'm Tammy Grimes." Something inside me went "Boing!" You never saw such a smile-- the lips never parted yet it was shy, warm, pleading to be liked. And you never heard such a voice-- not in any known eartly key yet somehow matching her smile-- shy, warm, pleading. I followed her into the dressing room staring at her hair and getting ready to catch it. I was shining gold piled precipitously and help up precariouslly by a single overworked comb. We sat down and I groped for question. "How's the show coming? seemed innocuous enough to start.
"I don't know, she said. "We've shot six so far but I haven't seen any of them. I'm afraid to look. After all, I was on Broadway for years and never saw myself, yet I didn't do too bad. Maybe it's better that way." "But you've got to admit that Broadway was never like this," I said. "Nothing was ever like this. I still don't believe it. But the amazing thing to me is that everybody in television acts as if perfection is entirely possible in spite of the back-breaking time pressure they all work under. And it's catching--I'm knocking myself out."
I though how pretty she became when she warmed up to a subject. "Alex told me what the program is about," I said. "How do you like playing a gal who can't be trusted with money because she'd give it all asway?"
"Perfect casting," she said. "When I was working in the box office at the Playhouse in Westport, Conn., I got fired because I gave away $500 worth of free passes. So putting me in a bank, surrounded by all that money that I try to give away, was a great show idea for me. It's so much in character that they'd better not leave any real money lying around."
"But this is your first TV series. Isn't it murder to have to spend most of your time rehearsing, a new script every week? When you had a hit show on Broadway you spent all your time just performing."
"I'm a rehearser, not a performer. I love to rehearse. I hate to perform. I'd like to spend my whole life just rehearsing. Know anybody who needs a full-time rehearser?"
There was that smile again, not quite so shy but even warmer, still wanting to be liked-- and getting all its hooks into me deeper and deeper. I needed another question quick. Anything would do. "What was your proudest moment in the theater, Tammy>"
"My proudest moment in the theater wasn't in the theater. It was the night I sang at the White House dinner." She found the invitation in a drawer and showed it to me, proudly. "I didn't eat much," she said. "I was too nervous...You know, when you think of the White House you think everything must be very huge and very sumptious and very formal. But actually it could be any lovely home. And Mrs. Johnson is the most wonderful hostess I've ever met. First of all, she was beautiful. And she knew all about everybody there and talked with all of us about ourselves. She's even seen my Jeremy in Gunsmoke a few days before and remembered the whole plot! And she asked me if I knew "Melancholy Baby' How lucky could I get? 'Melancholy baby' is what I sang when I auditioned for Molly Brown! So I added it to the medley of songs I sang. Afterwards, the President came over and said, "and thanks for 'Melancholy Baby', that's my favorite." He was charming, but he looked so tired and worried and sadly wise..."
She (Tammy) looked so sad herself and so little-girlish. And I felt so big and strong.
Tammy sighed, "It was quite an evening. The President and Mrs. Johnson requested the pleasure of my company at dinner. How will I ever top that?"
I wanted to get her back to me, I didn't like competing with President Johnson and Lady Bird. "Tammy, do you watch much television?'
Her eyes came back to the present. "Television? Westerns? I love Westerns? Bang, right between the eyes! Bonanza is great. I'd like to be a squaw having a baby on a mountain top." When she's excited like that she bombards you with atoms or something. I was a gone goose. But I took a firm grip on myself. "I should have asked you this before, Tammy. What made you decide to become an actress?" "It was in school. I got 2% in a math exam. I decided right then and there to seek other intellectual horizons. Actually, I've always wanted to make people laugh. It's a way to make life go the way I want it to go. And I've always felt, if you can't make life go the way you want, send it up."
'Send it up?"-- "Send it up. I think we should all live on the tilt."
"The tilt?"---"Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's flappers. Bang, bang, ban! Without worrying how it will all come out. For instance, I don't think I was really naughty but I've been in swimming pools that didn't have any water in them. And even if you don't have both feet on the ground don't let it show. Kick up your heels."
"Is that why you divorced Christopher Plummer? If you can't make life go the way you want, send it up?"
"Show me a rose, and I'll show you a girl named Sam."
I guess I did another take. "That's from a song Groucho Marx used to sing," she explained. "It's absolute double talk and I always use it to answer questions I don't want to answer."
"Is all right to ask about Amanda?"
"Certainly"
"You mentioned 'a girl named Sam' and said it was double talk, but you named Amanda 'Michael' didn't you? Isn't hat her middle name?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact it was going to be her first name (wow!!) We thought it was a beautiful name. But we didn't know how she would take it so we played it safe and put 'Michael' in the middle. She never uses it."
"Tammy is a very beautiful name too" I said. "but I'm not sure it goes well with Slate. Tammy Slate. Oh well you can get used to it, I guess. How did you and Jeremy happen to get married anyhow?"
"I won him in a bet."
"A bet? What kind of a bet?"
"Well, we were going together and we both made pilots of new TV shows. Then they told us that his show and my show were competing for the same time slot on ABC. So we made a bet. If ABC bought his show he'd get me, and if they bought my show I'd get him. And I won."
"Lucky girl," I said. But to myself. "So she won him in a bet. That's Hollywood for you. Easy come, easy go. Maybe there's a chance for me!"
"Tammy," I said, "please listen to me. First you married Christopher Plummer. That didn't work. Then you married Jeremy Slate, another actor. You're in a rut. Actors aren't for you anyhow. You need somebody who'll put your picture on his night table instead of his own. Somebody who can stimulate you mentally. You've been married to Jeremy for several months already. Don't you think it's time for a change? A real change. Somebody on your own intellectual level-- like me. I'm going to be a big writer someday Tammy, you'll see. And in the meantime I can cook for you-- wait 'til you taste my tartar steak with raw onions!"
"Take me Tammy," I pleaded, "Take me!" I lowered my eyes and my voice dropped to a whisper. "I love you." I said simply.
Tenderly she replied, "I gotta get back on the set."
She didn't say No!!" In Hollywood that means I'm engaged -- to the most wonderful girl in the world. Stooping to leave her bungalow because I felt ten feet tall, I picked up the sign on her parking space and hung it proudly around my neck--RESERVED FOR TAMMY GRIMES."