sat in a silver ice bucket at his table.
“Mr. Welles—”
“Orson.”
In the middle of the table was a small vase of fresh flowers. He plucked a rose from the arrangement and put it in his buttonhole. Then he did the same for her.
They made idle chatter but didn’t stay long, not even to finish the bottle.
“Do you drive?” Orson asked.
She smiled sheepishly. “I do . . . but not well,” she admitted. Driving made her nervous. She found it a difficult task and had a hard time concentrating behind the wheel.
Orson stood up. Lili stood nearly as tall as the director. They were two distinct figures as they strolled arm and arm across the crowded club and out the front doors. Lili could feel jealous eyes boring into her, which made her stand even taller, basking in the glow of envy. It was a different kind of attention, and one she didn’t mind. She had stopped caring that women sent daggers her way. Recognition of any kind was paramount for Lili.
Lili and her first car
Welles slid into the big Pontiac that another admirer of Lili’s had lent her. It was a beautiful black convertible, big enough for her to feel safe behind the wheel. Lili took the steering wheel in hand.
WELLES WANTED TO TAKE HER “SOME PLACE SPECIAL” AND INSTRUCTED her to head east on Sunset Boulevard, then west toward Watts, south of downtown, which was at the time only just becoming a predominantly black neighborhood.149
Lili nervously parked on what she thought was a rather dodgy street, hoping nothing would happen to her borrowed car.
They got out of the convertible and walked to a nondescript one-story building. Welles knocked on the door.
The door opened a crack and a man’s narrow face poked out. There was an exchange Lili didn’t hear but immediately the door was hinged open.
It was a big room, grand, yet dark, with many tables filled with laughing and drinking couples and heat. There was a tiny stage with a black pianist playing jazz. They were ushered to a table near the piano. The black man acknowledged Orson and continued playing with a big grin on his face.
Interestingly, Lili’s fifth husband, Ted Jordan, would make note of a “Brothers Club” that Orson liked to go to about this time, which was surely the same club he took Lili to. One knocked on the door and a “mean-looking man glared at you through a porthole” until you said the password, “Brother, let me in.”150
To Orson the place was hip. They ordered sloe gins. Orson ordered BBQ chicken and ribs. They didn’t speak much, just listened to the loud music as it filled the room. Orson liked it more than Lili. But she was enjoying herself. Jazz would never be her favorite music nor places like this her thing. Still she loved the illicit feeling of it, the hipsters in their bright clothes. Hepcats. The men wore shiny high-waisted, tight-cuffed zoot suits, pinstriped or brightly colored. Others wore shiny tuxedos with opera scarves trailing off them. Watches dangled on chains down to baggy-panted knees.
It was nearly 4 a.m. when Lili dropped Orson at the Garden of Allah, the hotel where he was staying at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights. He chastely kissed her goodnight.
“Tomorrow?”151
They agreed and she drove to her tiny apartment in Hollywood. Still not tired, she undressed, washed her face, and leaned her head against the window sill looking down on the side of the opulent Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. A cool breeze lifted her hair.
The next night she met Orson at his hotel. He had been renting an apartment at the former residence of silent-screen actress Alla Nazimova. And, in fact, he’d broadcast several live episodes of his radio series Campbell Playhouse from the Garden of Allah.
The Allah was the place where a multitude of celebrities found refuge, both short-term and long. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald lived there, as would Dietrich, Garbo, and writer Robert Benchley. There was the main hotel, Nazimova’s former mansion, with twenty-five individual villas built around the three and a half acres of gardens. It was Spanish Moorish and exotic like the former actress herself. There was a central pool where many recovered from hangovers. The parties flowed endlessly. It was charmingly decadent, just what Lili approved of.
Lili thought the setting incredibly romantic and ideal for a rendezvous.
For the next week she would drive to the Garden after her show or meet Orson at the Florentine and they would go together for a late dinner at any of the illegal bars in Watts that he loved. Orson seemed to know them all. One night her tires were slashed outside a club while they drank inside. He offered to pay for new ones. They would end their nights in the early-morning hours at his bungalow listening to the sounds of others partying nearby.
One morning when she woke, it was early afternoon and she discovered a note on the pillow next to her. “I am at the pool.”152
She put on her sunglasses and the pair of shorts she had brought and wound her way over to the pool where she was surprised to see Orson in a sport coat and open shirt, scripts scattered about, surrounded by a bevy of sycophants hanging on to the his every order. She thought he acted like a king.
She stretched out on a lounge in the sun. He made sure one of the hotel’s staff brought her a steaming cup of coffee, which she savored as she watched him, amused by how his minions fluttered nervously, worshipfully around him.
Orson had a two-picture deal at RKO and acted like royalty, a script in his hand and one at his feet. A cigarette was lit, and he constantly ran a hand through his hair.
A young secretary was taking notes. He was planning his next film, what would become the now classic Citizen Kane.
Tired and bored, Lili fell asleep. She was rarely impressed with the stature of others, much preferring to have attention center on herself.
One weekend Lili decided to stay out in Eagle Rock and asked Orson to catch a ride out to fetch her. This way he could meet Alice and the rest of the family.
He arrived at Bedlam Manor, hat in hand, carrying a large wooden staff, something Moses might have shook at the heavens, and wearing a wool burnoose. There was even a hooded cloak dramatically thrown across his wide shoulders. He claimed to be preparing for a part.
Dardy and Barbara couldn’t help but giggle.
The entire family gathered around to listen to him pontificate about New York and the film he was writing. A film that was going to change movies forever. As he talked, the women sized him up. True, he was a movie star, but he sure liked to go on about himself. This was a houseful of women who each thought they were the center of life.
Lili kept her date waiting while she curled her hair, applied makeup, and dressed meticulously. The family’s eyes started glazing over as Orson kept talking, not allowing anyone to get a word in.
They were grateful when Lili finally descend the staircase. She towered over most people, except her sisters and Orson. The director with his thinning hairline,
