made Lili unhappy or stood in her way, to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This no doubt led to a sense of entitlement that Lili (and Barbara) had. Lili would callously disregard relationships when she no longer wanted them. No matter her actions, Lili was taught to believe it was okay. If someone opposed Lili, Alice let it be known she was against them. She would remain fiercely loyal to her granddaughter.
Idella was quite another matter and launched into many a stormy scene. “You are supposed to be an example for your sisters,” Idella screeched. Lili had tossed away stability. Lili didn’t need stability; what she needed was romance. Lili tried blocking out Idella’s ranting and ravings about her “wicked ways.”94
After the altercations, Lili admitted, “I kept away from my mother.”95
Lili had to feel as though she had failed. At night her heart pounded while she fought for sleep on the porch, right back where she had started. Except for blonder hair, tweezed eyebrows, and a thinner waist, she was the same, no closer to living an exotic life than before. It wasn’t long before she would begin waltzing to a very different dance step.
According to Dardy, Lili had a brief romance with a young Pasadena boy, setting off on a road trip by car as he dragged his horse trailer behind. Dardy wasn’t surprised that it did not last.
Perhaps not wanting to admit how passionately she had fallen for Maxwell or how much she had hoped they would wed, Lili would claim she spent the next several years traveling back and forth on luxury liners, paid for by various lovers. At the time of her biography she was well into maintaining her image of a hard-boiled sophisticate. The truth is Lili did sail the Atlantic several times. However, it was usually with Maxwell, or on the way to visit him. For Lili, her relationship with Maxwell was serious. Serious enough to span three years.96
On the sea she lived in a kind of a suspended reality. Lili (and Maxwell) traveled first class, dining on sturgeon and shrimp salad and “Matie Herring on Ice,” “Artichoke a la Grecque,” soups of potage essau, consommé ecossaise, chicken gumbo, and delicious cold beef broth. There were platters of boiled fresh codfish, sole a l’orly, soft-shell crab, halibut, poached eggs, shirred eggs, omelet, veal, lamb, chicken, pork, brisket, and on and on.
Lili was registering as Miss Willis Marie Van Schaak [sic].
From 1937 through 1939 Lili was often in the company of Maxwell, perhaps while she waited for her divorce to come through.97 She experienced the best of the best, the SS Washington, the SS American Banker and Antonia and Queen Mary. She saved menus, itineraries, photos, and notes that she glued into her scrapbook:
“Good morning, we have searched the ship over a dozen times for you. . . . Have your dessert over here,” and, “Sweet!!!! Do come and talk to us. Mac has asked you to dine this evening.”98
By July of 1938 Lili and Maxwell sailed from New York to England, arriving August 2. She is listed in the manifest as Willis Van Schaak [sic] and Maxwell lists himself as a “farmer” (perhaps meant to be “furrier”). Later in the month they sailed from New York to the UK, returning to New York by September 26. Maxwell spent Thanksgiving in America with Lili. By December she was finally divorced and no doubt hoped things would progress to matrimony with Maxwell.
IN HER CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY, WRITTEN WHEN SHE WAS SIXTY-FIVE years old, Lili writes that sometime in 1939 she received her first telegram:
CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU (STOP) MARRY ME (STOP)
COMING TO AMERICA (STOP) LOVE MAXWELL99
A happy Lili with—presumably—Maxwell in America
Instead of excitement she was frantic and sent a return telegram telling him it was best to meet in San Francisco (to keep her family away). She had implied she was a rich young American and was afraid he would see the reality.
Sometime possibly in April of 1938 Ben died, and Alice moved in with Ian and Idella. Lili makes no mention of Ben’s passing.
She met Maxwell in the lobby of the Saint Francis Hotel in the heart of San Francisco on a balmy day. The St. Francis, on Powell and Geary on Union Square, was a simple square façade that belied its fabled and fashionable reputation. In 1921 Fatty Arbuckle held his infamous party after which starlet Virginia Rappe tragically died of a ruptured bladder, not raped by Arbuckle, as he would be put on trial for. Celebrities and heads of state regularly stayed at the St. Francis.
With a blue sky overhead and a mild breeze blowing off the Pacific, Lili had dressed carefully.
They would naturally have had separate rooms, but she spent the entire two days before the boat set sail in his suite. If he poured champagne and ordered caviar, they could dance effortlessly together as if it was their first night on the SS Manhattan, or cuddle in the Rose Room of the hotel and listen to jazz late into the night. She would have found herself swept up again. This is how she wanted to always feel. She later admitted she agreed to marry Maxwell because of the style of life he offered.
Lili would recall that her feelings were a mess. What would Garbo do, she wondered. Did she love Maxwell? She had pursued and wanted him for so long she was no longer sure. Would she be giving up her independence? Since leaving Cordy she had made no advancement in her life and future beyond aimless travel. Alice reassured her the best she could: “You’re young, Willis. It’s the time to enjoy everything.”
Days after Valentine’s Day, on February 17, Lili boarded the ocean liner with Maxwell and together they watched the Golden Gate Bridge fade in a swirl of fog. Arriving in New York on March 6, they sailed on the Antonia to the UK, arriving back on Maxwell’s turf April 4. In the ship’s manifest Lili lists Maxwell’s Bond Street shop as her proposed destination.
On the boat there was tension between Maxwell and Lili due partially to her continuous flirting—so much so she thought the two were finished. Maxwell instead surprised her by presenting her with a diamond ring.
Now that she was free to marry she was filled with doubts. She dreaded arriving back in London and the trial of meeting Maxwell’s family. She had told him she was the niece of Rosemary, Princess von Urach, desperately wishing she came from that sort of a royal family.
Maxwell booked her a room at the Dorchester House overlooking Hyde Park. The Dorchester had a long history with burlesque. Roz Elle Rowland had danced there nude except for a costume of gold paint. At the Dorchester Roz Elle met the suave and sophisticated Baron Empain of the famous Paris subway family, eventually marrying him. Coincidentally, Lili would end up friends with Roz Elle’s sister, Betty Rowland, who held the moniker the “Ball of Fire” for her flaming red hair and her hot style of stripping.
Lili was full of second and third doubts about meeting Maxwell’s family. Did she really want to go through another marriage? Would she have to beg for money as she had with Cordy? And after the numerous flirtations with other eligible handsome men on board the Ile de France she wasn’t sure she could stop herself. Or if she wanted to be faithful.
In a panic she locked herself in the bathroom.
What Maxwell’s perplexed family must have thought. Surely it was uncomfortable not just for Maxwell and his parents but also his brother, the future playwright Neville who would go on to write All the Year Round
