Legends and Lipstick: My Scandalous Stories of Hollywood's Golden Era Read online

  Legends and Lipstick: My Scandalous Stories of Hollywood’s Golden Era

  by Nancy Bacon (edited by Staci Layne Wilson)

  Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Bacon

  Published by Excessive Nuance in paperback

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from Nancy Bacon, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  beforehand

  I have had a fantastic life. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been rich. I’ve lived among the famous. I’ve known beautiful people and I’ve been made to feel beautiful through them and by them. I have loved and have been loved, and, to hear my friends tell it, I am still loved.

  I know it would be more politically-correct for me to confess and express a lot of guilt about the way I handled my life, but I honestly cannot do that. I take full responsibility for what I did with my life and I do not regret very much of it—not enough to bother with at this late date. I guess the reason I feel this way is because I did all the things I did with pleasure and with the joy of being alive. And at the time I was doing them I never intended to hurt anyone. I’m sure that there is going to be a little fuss over what I have written about some of the people I have known, but everyone can be damn sure that while it was all happening and as long as it lasted, everyone enjoyed!

  Inevitably, as the subject of my book became known to friends and relatives, I was asked why I was doing it. And, for the life of me, I can’t really say, except that I happen to feel that I have had a pretty unique life. I wanted to put it all down and thereby put it all behind me. (It’s called an urge to purge, I believe.) I think writing the book is like closure, to use the gestalt psychologist’s term, to one part of this entity known as Nancy Bacon. It has been enlightening, and though I hesitate to use the word therapeutic, it has been that as well.

  I learned a lot about that younger Nancy that I was never fully aware of until I sat down and relived her life. She was some dynamite gal, and, quite frankly, I’m glad she did what she did! I know she was all right.

  Then, too, I wrote the book because I feel it was a life worth telling about. Not every young girl sees her fantasies become realities—her dreams come true. It happened just the way I wrote it; however, it may be a little fuzzy here and there, among the details, a little difficult to recall that precise moment when the stars burst in my head and I was swimming in the golden cloud of love.

  And then, there’s the inevitable fall—what goes up, must come down. After you read all about the stunning highs, you’ll know the searing lows. When I was thirty-one years old, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. I underwent a series of surgeries, which took both my breasts and nearly took my life. I fell into a deep pit of despair that led me directly to the bottom of the bottle. But somehow, I found my way out… I’ve always been a survivor.

  I’ve been pretty lucky—lucky to have known all the flamboyant, beautiful, rich, and outrageous people with whom I spent my formative years. I have soared on drugs, booze, fright, love, excitement, on the edges of dangerous rides—and unlike so many of them, I am still here. I have done everything I set out to do and much, much more.

  If there is any message in all of this, it is simply that I have never soared so high as when I have been in love—cold sober, perfectly straight, and clear of eye. To be in love with life and in love with someone is the ultimate. Someone once asked me, ‘Nancy, what was the worst lay you ever had?’ ‘Terrific,’ said I—and I meant it.

  I fully believe that life is a very simple matter when you approach it with honesty. All you really need is enough to share, to know the good feeling that comes with giving, to experience all the wondrous gifts of life—that’s really living!

  Nancy Bacon

  February 2017

  Post-Script: Many of the photos herein are being published for the first time, but I can’t fit them all… see everything via Instagram/HollywoodTales

  Also: There’s an excerpt from my daughter’s memoir, called So L.A., at the end of this book.

  initials bb

  I was a freckle-faced farm girl, fresh off the bus and wide-eyed with awe at the splendor of the big city: Hollywood.

  I was the youngest of nine children, and grew up on a farm in bleak, cold, nowhere Ellensburg, Washington. My earliest memory, I can’t even put an age on it, was dreaming of escaping. As soon as I could formulate a clear thought it was to get away, to just run and never look back. I ran away when I was still in a training bra.

  I ran out of money in Wickenburg, Arizona, and took a job in Gene’s Chili Bowl, slinging hash and chili to truckers, saving every dime until I had enough for bus fare to the City of Angels.

  Once I got there, I took a job as an usher in a Glendale movie theater and, just like in the cinema, a suave, elegantly attired gentleman approached me one evening, presented his card and said, ‘If you’d ever like to do any modeling or be in the movies, give me a call.’ I almost fainted and couldn’t find my voice until he was almost out of the door, but then I went rushing after him, yelling, ‘I do! I do!’ Goll-ee, I thought, imagine that? My dream is coming true just like I knew it would. Hollywood really is a magic place! I was to be ‘discovered’ at least a dozen times more during my stint in Tinseltown… But then, I believed everything I heard and trusted everyone I met.

  He took me to The Brown Derby for coffee. (The Brown Derby? Omigod! According to the movie magazines I devoured like so many M&M’s, every star in Tinseltown went to the Brown Derby.) His name was Jim Byron and he was a personal manager. (Harold Robbins wrote a book loosely based on Jim’s life called The Dream Merchants about a Hollywood agent who plucked pretty young things from obscurity and turned them into superstars.) The fact that he thought I was pretty enough for this special attention was baffling. All my life, Mom had told me I was ugly, plain, worthless, just another kid taking up space in her already overcrowded life. So, this was a revelation.

  Jim told me there was a beauty contest corning up and he wanted to enter me. First prize was a six-month contract with Universal International Studio, home to such stars as Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Sandra Dee, and dozens of huge box-office icons in the fifties.

  Much to my amazement, I won! At that time, the French sex kitten, Bridgette Bardot, reigned supreme as the most nubile nymphet ever to grace the silver screen and was known to the world simply as BB. Jim thought America should have its own BB and so he promptly changed my first name to Buni.

  The next two months were a whirlwind of photo shoot. I appeared in so many magazines I couldn’t count them, but Jim had his eye on the big prize: Playboy. What better place for his little Buni to strut her stuff than the Bunny Hutch itself?

  As a warmup, I went to my very first exclusive Beverly Hills pool party with Jim. I was stuck dumb by the opulence, the lush, tropical gardens, the tables laden with exotic dishes, the gorgeous and scantily-clad women, and of course, the open bar where every type of booze imaginable was available. It was surreal.

  After a few drinks downed too quickly in the blazing California sun, I was sufficiently relaxed enough to slip out of my clothes and into my bikini and then into the pool. Amid much laughing, groping and horseplay, someone pulled off my top and swung it in the air. I was mortified and quickly covered myself, cringing in the corner of the pool. Without a word, Jim took off his elegant silk shirt, strode down the wide steps of the pool and draped it over my shoulders.

  To give you an accurate picture, Jim was tall, aristoc
ratic, his manner and carriage royally intimidating. The waters parted (as it were!) and he led me up the steps to dry land where a waiter immediately wrapped me in the fluffiest towel I’d ever seen. We left the party, as everyone stared in awe.

  swept away

  Jim introduced me to Bob Darin, an agent of questionable reputation with a small, cluttered office above a shirt shop on Sunset Boulevard. When I arrived the next day, I found a half dozen girls lounging about on sofas and chairs, some touching up their makeup, others reading, others still, napping—but all of them were obviously bored.

  Darin appeared and whisked me into his private office and preceded to explain. ‘I get jobs for pretty girls,’ he said, ‘any job, anywhere. The more you work, the more you make. Sometimes the shots calls for semi-nudity, nothin’ dirty, mind you, just some bare boobs – and some cheesecake stuff. What do you say, kid? Wanna get yourself in the movin’ pitchers? You’re a little beauty. I can peddle your ass all over town—figuratively speakin’, ya understand.’

  I realize now that he had a Brooklyn accent but to my untrained ear he sounded like James Cagney in White Heat. I was entranced. He went on to say that everyone was doing pinup shots these days, citing Monroe’s infamous nude calendar as an example, and assuring me that producers and directors looked through ‘the girlie mags’ every month, just in the hopes of discovering another Lana Turner or Susan Hayward.

  I bought it, of course, and eagerly signed the contract he shoved across his desk. Within a month, I, too, was languishing outside in the outer office, bored, waiting for a photographer to call and ask for a girl. But Darin kept his word, soon he was ‘peddling my ass all over town’—I cut countless ribbons at super market openings, pitched appliances, live, on local TV shows, modeled everything from mascara to mink coats, jumped out of cakes at silver wedding anniversaries and graduation parties, did a thousand ‘walk-ons’ in a thousand television shows and ‘movin’ pitchers,’ did beach layouts for fan magazines (in those days almost every issue of the very popular fan mags like Silver Screen and Motion Picture ran a series of photos showing starlets cavorting on the beach with the current hunk of the day, such as Troy Donahue, Fabian, Frankie Avalon).

  What innocent sounding words those are now—pinup and cheesecake—but in the middle fifties it was scandalous to show a bare breast. Most of the modeling consisted of skimpy outfits, wispy scarfs and lots of innuendo with cleavage down to there but not a nipple in sight. That changed within a year or so, but pubic hair was not shown in Playboy until January 1971 when Liv Lindeland showed hers. (By the way, I never was featured in Playboy, as Jim had hoped—I did make it into a ‘college-girls’ pictorial in 1960, and was in several fashion ads that appeared in the magazine… the one I did for Van Heusen men’s shirts was so sexy it might as well have been a centerfold.)

  In the summer of 1955 I was doing a shoot with photographer Harry Maxwell, whom I had worked with a dozen times before. He loved nature and the outdoors and always shot me out in the country somewhere. There was still a lot of country left in those days and we always had plenty of beautiful locations to discover. This day we had gone to Burbank, in the hills surrounding Warner Bros. Studio, and set up our paraphernalia, lights, cameras, costumes, make up, etc. While Harry took light readings, I wandered down along the stream, occasionally wading in the ankle deep, icy cold little brook, until I came to a small hill overlooking the meadow below.

  The Wyatt Earp television series was being shot and the movie company had set up in a clump of trees near the stream. There were several buses, trailers and automobiles parked in the shade of the huge pepper trees and crew members and actors milled about in the sultry heat, wiping their foreheads and downing cans of cold beer or soda.

  I saw the star of the series, Hugh O’Brian, saunter across the set and disappear into his trailer dressing room and I caught my breath in awe. He was the very first movie star I’d ever seen up close (close enough to swoon over his rugged good looks and sexy body) and I was a card-carrying fan along with millions of other females of all ages across the country. I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing a Tuesday night in front of my television set, watching the dashingly handsome Wyatt Earp mow down a dozen bad guys with his trusty ivory-handled six shooter while holding a lissome widow in his free arm. His skintight western trousers were always immaculate and they hugged his sexy, well-formed body like a second skin. His dark, curly hair fell just so over his furrowed brow and his smile was slow and crooked. One lazy arch of his eyebrow sent females of all ages into a tizzy of fantasy and I was certainly no exception. I had had a mad schoolgirl crush on Hugh O’Brian ever since his series had debuted a few months before. Now here he was! Not more than fifty feet away from me!

  I don’t know how I got through the morning, but somehow, I performed to Harry’s satisfaction and when we broke for lunch I asked if he’d go with me to watch them shoot. We approached cautiously and asked the director if it would all right to watch for a while and he said, ‘Sure, no problem. Just don’t move around or talk to anyone.’ We watched a scene with a group of outlaws gathered around their camp fire, discussing their next job of robbing the bank or some such thing. I wasn’t paying that much attention as I was furtively glancing around to see if I could spot Hugh O’Brian.

  At the completion of the scene, everyone started milling about again, setting up for a new shot, moving cameras and cables and checking their scripts. I wandered through the set, frankly thrilled to death to actually be on a real movie location, and several wolf whistles came from the cast and crew, causing me to blush and almost trip over a huge, black cable. I was wearing a short silk shift that stopped at my thighs and was scooped low both in front and back. My hair was almost waist length, dark auburn, tumbling in a mass of wild curls from the wind that swept down through the meadow. I knew I was causing a sensation and I hoped that Hugh was watching. The wind snatched handful of dirt and sent dozens of tiny tornados skittering across the dusty set as I casually meandered toward the trailer I’d see him entering earlier that day.

  ‘Hey, come on in and I’ll buy you a drink,’ (Psst, little girl, want a chocolate bar?) I heard a voice say just above me and turned to see Wyatt Earp himself smiling down at me from his dressing room window. I hesitated about one second then stepped inside the door that he was holding open for me. ‘Help yourself, honey,’ he said. ‘Beer’s in the fridge.’ He motioned toward a small refrigerator in the corner and I helped myself, even though I really didn’t care that much for beer.

  As I stooped over to get a can, I heard Hugh murmur, ‘Jesus Christ!’ Then his hands were on my hips and he was pulling me down on the sofa with him. He kissed me, all but taking my breath away, and I clung to him, dizzy with surprise and a sudden raging desire. I don’t know how he got his trousers unbuttoned so fast, but a moment later I was confronted with what romance novelists call ‘his rigid manhood’ and before I even had a chance to say, ‘How do you do?’, I was doing it!

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, when it was over, but the sexy glint in his gorgeous brown eyes and the amused curl of his lips belied his words. ‘Here—drink your beer. Now you really look hot.’ He laughed and kissed me and I was struck mute on the spot. I couldn’t have uttered a word if my life had depended on it. I sat in a state of shock, perched on the edge of the sofa, my hair and clothes in wild disarray, dazed and dazzled. Needless to say, nothing like this had ever happened to me before!

  I drank my beer without tasting it, my eyes wide with awe as I gazed into Hugh O’Brian’s famous, handsome face as he explained in his sexy, husky voice that he’d just lost his head—and most probably his heart. He’d been on location all week, he said, and he was tired and cranky and horny and when he saw me, in all my nubile sensuality, he simply couldn’t help himself. He laughed and tweaked my nose and ran a hand through his crisp black curls, then leaned over and kissed me again, his lips lingering ever so sweetly on mine and I thought I had surely died and gone to heaven.

  ‘Let me m
ake it up to you,’ he murmured against my lips. ‘How about dinner tonight?’

  I nodded mutely and stumbled backwards out of the trailer, my cheeks flaming and my legs so weak I could barely walk. The window above me slid open and Hugh called, ‘Hey, beautiful, what’s your phone number?’ He gave me his cocky, charming grin, adding, ‘And your name?’

  Too stupid to be offended (and also thrilled beyond words), I told him and ran like hell to Harry’s car.

  When Hugh called that evening, I had been ready and waiting for an hour, dressed in my very first strapless gown ever. It was black satin and hugged every curve from bodice to knees—in fact, I could hardly move without wiggling my derriere like Marilyn Monroe, but to my young eyes I looked gorgeous! My shoes were also black satin with stiletto heels and toes as pointed and sharp-looking as a dagger. I couldn’t wait to sweep into some Beverly Hills eatery on the arm of Hugh O’Brian and knock everybody dead.

  But when Hugh casually suggested that I drive over to his place and he’d cook dinner for us, my balloon deflated a bit. It was my first encounter with the typically selfish, egotistical movie star who expected, and got, doorstep delivery. In the fifties, young ladies did not go to a man’s house nor did they meet him at a restaurant; they expected their dates to pick them up at their place and present them with a dozen roses, or at least a small mixed bouquet, to show their appreciation for the pleasure of being with you. I was not exactly a virgin angel, but there was still protocol in those days. I hesitated, but I didn’t have time to think about it and passion ruled. This was a brand new exciting world to me and I was eager to fit in.

  I borrowed my roommate’s car and made it to the intersection of Mulholland Drive and Benedict Canyon in record time. Hugh’s sprawling bachelor pad set back at the end of winding private road, bordered in all around by towering trees and thick scrubs and hedges. Before I could open the door, two snarling, huge German Shepherds came charging toward the car, leaping against the door and holding me prisoner inside. I was just ready to honk the horn when I saw the porch light go on and Hugh came walking toward me. He called off the dogs, opened my door and helped me out and directly into his arms. He was so much taller than me, he lifted me right off the ground and his mouth was hot and hard against mine.