From Peter Lawford to Scrooge

Peter Lawford wasn't always an alleged procuror for the Kennedy brothers. You know, the scruffy gossip that he fixed them up with Marilyn. Gee, for him to have done that he'd have to have been into necrophilia and imagined that everyone else was too. Marilyn's star on Hollywood Boulevard is in front of McDonald's jammed between Asinio Hall and Stephanie Powers. Day before yesterday I was there waiting for someone; all along the block the only star that was photographed by tourists was Marilyn's; I took the camera of one family group so the father could be in the picture too. Hope it comes out. In 1961, when I met Marilyn in Lee's private acting class, upstairs in the Capitol Theater Building on Broadway, she actually did seem half dead: hair like brittle aluminum string, voice tiny and whiney, kinda pathetic. The book of plays I gave her, French, which included Mademoiselle Colombre, to ask her to do a scene for class, must have ended up in her estate; I never heard from her. But I'll always remember her asking in her tired, sweet whisper, "What's your name?" I pointed inside the book where I'd written my name and phone number. She wasn't standing up, but sitting she looked very small.

In the movies Peter Lawford played amiable sidekicks all smiles and good cheer. He was the good friend, not often if ever the leading man.  The other day I called someone I hadn't seen since school days when he was perpetually smiling and cheerful; in personality in those days he was a lot like the movie personna of Peter Lawford.

I fear my friend has fallen on evil days. Could he have lost his money? Not likely as he still treks to his Caribean hideout, where, I guess, he's king for a season, waited on and pampered. I don't know that, it's just the image I have from small pieces and clues.

I called him twice: the first time I got his announcement. His announcement consisted exclusively of those he didn't want to hear from, salespeople, for example. His litany sounded as if for his entire adult, long life he'd been hit upon mercilessly. So, am I to assume, he's chosen, for that reason, to live alone? The only weak spots in his fortress, I suppose,  are the phone line and the mails. later in the day when he did answer the phone he alluded to mail from me sent to him from Mexico where I lived for nearly five years, retired; apparently I was rude or abrupt, or something. Maybe I was simply pissed that he didn't answer his mail. In college we dated the same girl, Park Avenue easy type looking to marry money of which I had none, ha ha ha. But he didn't do any better, probably because he really was never really interested in girls of any age; if his interest was her money he could have better not bothered: she didn't really have any, she just had a rich address and a high salaried father.

How bleak life can seem when a Peter Lawford fictional movie character can, in real life, have been whittled down to a Scrouge, alone, bitter, angry, put upon, pestered, judgmental and not doing much, not really, but waiting for death.

Barry