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Sometimes, a party was just an excuse for bringing an amicable group together — what better excuse could there be? — either chez Jenkins or in the swank home of one of her friends. In Hollywood we dined with Diana Douglas (first wife of Kirk, mother of Michael) and Anne Buydens Douglas (who this spring celebrated her golden anniversary as Kirks second wife); actors Norman Lloyd, who had a long producing association with Alfred Hitchcock, and John Glover, master movie villain (and personal sweetie).
Phyllis would fly back to New York on the slimmest pretext, and in our home town we met Gloria Vanderbilt, Geoffrey Holder (the dancer-choreographer-director whose rendition of the 1957 Calypso Joe I still have on 45 rpm) and Jane Fearer Safer, esteemed wife of Morley and co-author of the book Spirals from the Sea: An Anthropological Look at Shells. In New York we attended a dinner party for the Jenkinses whose guest list was so star-studded, its unlisted; I dare not reveal it. I hope I wont be outed by Robert Novak if I declare that they were, and are, all lovely people.
At one California party we met Jane Wyatt, Americas dream mom of the 50s as Margaret Anderson in Father Knows Best, and a Manhattan baby of the highest pedigree (shes a Van Rensselaer). On our first visit, in 1987, I managed to outrage this lovely lady. When she asked me about a new movie, Cry Freedom, I offered a rude opinion — and she punched me, hard, on my left arm. Later, we got along fine. One brilliant Saturday afternoon, Phyllis took us to tea at the home Jane shared with her stalwart husband Edgar Ward, who died just one day short of their 65th wedding anniversary.
I recall an evening at the home of Frances Lasker Brody and her husband Sidney. Their Holmby Hills mansion, just down the road from Hefs Playboy mansion and Aaron Spellings digs, was a fabulous private museum of modern art, its living room boasting an amazing Braque painting and, in the foyer, a gigantic tiled wall that Henri Matisse had created for that space. At Francies soiree we met Dorothy McGuire. Again I tumbled into disgrace, when I asked the beguilingly ethereal actress about The Enchanted Cottage, in which she plays a homely girl in love with scarred veteran Robert Young. But who could believe you were every homely, I exclaimed, my flattery a-flutter. Well, she replied sharply, you just didnt get it, did you? Chagrined, I slunk down the couch.
Researching this column, I belatedly connected some biographical dots among Phyllis coterie. Her dear friend, Lee Remick, for instance: she starred in the original Broadway version of Wait Until Dark (the Audrey Hepburn role), designed by George. Phyllis friendship with Mike Wallace, who spoke at Phyllis Manhattan memorial service, goes back, Im guessing, to a Broadway play, Reclining Figure, in which the future newshawk co-starred with Arlene Francis husband Martin Gabel in 1954, the year the Home show began. With Phyllis and many notables of the period, there are often no degrees of separation.
NOT THE END
If there was a burden in Phyllis abundance of cherished friends of a certain age, it is the frequency with which they left her. Each time wed talk, it seemed, someone else had died. Lee Remick... Dorothy McGuire... Claire Trevor... Nestor Almendros... Arlene Francis. Mary and I would often call the Jenkinses on either Georges birthday, November 20, or Phyllis, the 28th, and when we rang in 1998 we had just heard of Alan Pakulas sudden and shocking death. (He had been driving on the Long Island Expressway when a metal pipe that had been struck by a car ahead of him careered through his windshield, striking him on the head.) Such calls were filled with condolences, reminiscences and Phyllis indestructible good will. She was often tested; she passed every test.
The sternest trial, surely, was the sudden death of her daughter Sandy. In an awful time, Phyllis dug deep and worked hard with Sandys husband Michaael to see that the two grandchildren would be well and wisely cared for. But even someone as strong as Phyllis needed rehab. Seeking consolation after Sandys death, she went to the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn., not far from her childhood home of Sharon. As it happened, her friend and counselor there, Mother Dolores, was none other than former actress Dolores Hart, the fresh-faced beauty who had given Elvis Presley his first screen kiss in Loving You before taking the veil.
I think Phyllis friends assumed she would outlive all of us; hers was an energy that renewed itself by constant use. She would most likely outlive George, 15 years her senior. But in late 2001 Phyllis phoned us to say that she was going into the hospital. A few weeks later, she sent us (and many others on her life line) a letter punctuated with dashes, as Phyllis had dashed through life:
Dearest friends , my very best.
I have bad medical news I had a seizure thought it was a stroke it was a brain tumor, right front, and I am to be operated on grandchildren + nieces coming round the clock. Taking it day by day UCLA giving fabulous medical support.
Hooray for all our good times! And all our serious times too.
You are very precious to me. Phyllis
Bad medical news couldnt keep a game gal down. Within the month she was calling Mary, who had just been abruptly laid off from her 34-year job at the Museum of Modern Art. Phyllis was brimming with vigorous outrage, sage advice, her patented pugnacious optimism. Ill bet the call to Mary was just one item on Phyllis to-do, can-do, do-good list. She had always been a cheerleader for her friends best instincts, even at their worst moments, and she wasnt likely to alter her game plan just because life had dealt her a black joker.
Phyllis died this February, nine months short of her 80th birthday. George, the old dear, gallantly survives her. He will be 97 by Thanksgiving.
At the New York memorial service for her at St. Jamess Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue this June (another was held earlier in California), Mike Wallace spoke of the many recent deaths of dear friends, and that Phyllis was one of the hardest to take. Indeed it was; her passing significantly depleted the national stock of grace and grit.
Meaning it as a compliment, Id call Phyllis the most elegant woman Ive known. But elegance is not quite the word. It has the musty odor of your grandmothers perfume in a bottle opened after many decades. Elegance lives under glass, in a remote gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where the world cant touch it.
Though she represents the vanished glamour of Manhattan in its golden age, Phyllis didnt dwell on the early good fortune of her breeding or on her famous friends. From Day One to the end, she was part of the world she so loved and worked to change for the better. With her rich, throaty laugh, she bustled through life, enriching each moment. By example, she taught her friends: keep moving forward, its good exercise. Aim higher. Have fun.
So I dont think of Phyllis as having died. Our Auntie Mame has simply ascended another staircase. This time she couldnt take us with her, but she will always be with us. To have earned a permanent home in the best part of so many hearts — that has to beat fleeting fame, any day.