My grandmother had a certain way of speaking. I wish you could hear it. Every word was an overdone drama and to boot, she had all of these cute sayings, as well. While my brother and I were tasting Pate and crackers for the first time, she would start, "You meean to tell me, you never taasted pate before?" (She would say it with such an air, as to say, it was impossible that all six year old American children did not have pate and crackers everyday of their lives!) I've been hooked on pate ever since. (In fact one of my college roommates remarked upon my pate-habit and how rare, old-fashioned and charming it was that I ate it~ and I thought everyone must eat it!) Of course my brother, Jeff, four years old at the time, had to grow into his habit. When my grandmother, after our first sample, said, "Isn't it deeeliciouss-lusciouuss?" I , naturally, agreed and my brother made a face.

It was the same when she introduced us to classical music (an absolute passion of hers!) "Isn't it beautiful!" she exclaimed to the two of us, driving along with her in the front seat of her giant Cadillac. I agreed and fell asleep to the classical station every night after that. My brother pulled a secret aside face to me, thinking she did not see, that said "Yeah, right! What the hell is this?!" I turned to see my grandmother's face and I knew she did see it. (She saw everything, Sometimes, I thought she must have ex-ray vision, special powers or have the whole house secretly bugged. When we would stay with her during the summers, she would come into my room the instant I attempted to sneak away from my mandatory nap. The instant! Whereby, she would exclaim my name with such disdain, that I felt instantly paralyzed with shame.) So, I said to my brother, "What? It is beautiful, Jeff." I said his name with the same disdain I had encountered the day before.

We were on our way to a store that was special to me and her. We were on our way to the store where they sold miniatures. Of course, my grandmother called them, "Meen-ee-ah-churz!" It was fun to go shopping with her. She was a very generous person. (As opposed to my grandfather, who was so cheap that if he actually gave you a gift, he was know to ask for it back a few minutes later~ and sometimes he wasn't even kidding!) She bought me some miniatures, I still have some of them, even to this day. My brother was an avid coin collector, so my grandmother bought him coins...

...Then she took us to buy some supplies to make scrap books, which we worked on all afternoon, on the floor by her bed, where she played backgammon with Grandpa. When he would get a good roll, she would gleefully yell, "Oh, you wicked!" She would teasingly complain to me and my brother, after he won, that every time she won, he never paid-up and every time he won he made her pay. (This was actually true, but she had a good humor about it.) "Oh, you wicked Pampa!" she would exclaim in mock disdain. When she wasn't calling him the wicked Pampa, when she needed her martini, for example, she referred to him as Dad. (Although she had the absolute cutest way of saying it, I read in a psychology magazine that this was a big no-no~ which is a real bummer because I had planned on calling my man "Dad" also.) "Da-ad, would you bring me a little nightcap, please," she would say in a voice as sweet as a bird's. Then, if it was the proper time of evening ~ that being four o'clock, Shawnie-dog, my grandparents golden retriever, would follow my grandfather down the back staircase (or "the secret passage" as me and my brother called it), which connected my grandparent's bedroom to the kitchen, where grandpa mixed himself a Jack Daniel's old-fashioned and made my grandmother's martini, very dry.

Although, I later grew to understand why there was such great animosity in my family towards my grandfather, at this time in my life, I worshipped him. He was incredibly handsome and more charming than the devil himself. And, if you could have listened to his stories, you would know why I was my Grandfather's best and favorite audience. He was the greatest story-teller I have ever known, but like all great story-tellers, he threw in some fibs here and there. For instance, when he would talk of his romantic escapades, he would always begin... "Before I met your Mother..." (I am not sure whether he confused me for his child~ he had seven, after all!~ or whether he had told the stories for so long that it was just habit, but he often addressed me as his own child. It endeared me even more to him. Indeed, there were many times I had wished my grandparents were my real parents. So, I loved when he made these little errors.) When he said this, it was my grandma's cue to roll her eyes.

This time it was the Ava Garner story. That one really got my grandma ruffled ~ for years she would not have the name mentioned in the house~ which I now realize is exactly what he wanted to do, but to me, at the time, it was an irresistible story. Years later, I read Ava Garner's autobiography and I recognized the story he had told me. She changed his name to protect the family, but I recognized him immediately. I won't re-tell the story, but let's just say, if Howard Hughes did not have a thing for Ava Garner, I might not be here. He told so many stories about different women, some famous like Garner, some not, that I now know why my grandma would get so angered when he would ask her a certain detail, like the girl's name, for instance. She would give him a deadpan look and sarcastically say, "Pa-ul, why are you aasking meee? It was before I met you, remember?!"

Though, I realize how cruel my grandfather was, now, to tell these stories about his many affairs in front of my grandmother and the whole family, at the time I was entranced with his many, glamorous Hollywood stories, and I still am, really.

I am sure there were many a night, my grandmother wished she never walked into the party where she met Mr. Paul Brinkman. By grandpa's account, when she walked through the door of that party, he exclaimed, "WOW!" rather loudly and dropped his drink on the floor. His date was not pleased and she slapped him in the face. He would receive a similar reaction from his new mother-in-law, months later, for Loretta Crain, my great grandmother, was unhappy with my grandparent's marriage and was the source of many marital problems between my grandparents until the day she died.

My favorite story, by far, did not include any woman besides my grandmother. It was the story of Shaw-Shaw, their lioness. It starts off with my Grandma and Grandpa being at a WILD Hollywood party~ of course, you understand, that all the parties in my grandpa's stories are WILD and all the women in my grandpa's stories have "WILD bodies"~ but this party actually had wild animals (or tamed wild animals, anyway) as part of the amusement. Well, they had a super (super was one of my grandma's favorite words, she said it often and with zeal) time at the party, but as they were leaving, my grandfather witnessed the owner of the animals abusing a baby lioness. My grandfather, although he has hunted all over the world including Russia and Africa, has a tender spot for animals. He was so angered to see the lioness being mistreated by the trainer that he grabbed the trainer by the collar and told him if he did not stop hitting that animal, he was going to kill him. When the trainer asked "Who the hell are you?' My grandpa, my hero, proceeded to make up one of his famous fibs. He told the trainer that his brother happened to be the head of animal regulation in Los Angeles and that he was taking the lion into his possession. The trainer tried to argue, but my grandpa would not have it. He threatened to have his whole operation shutdown, if he did not let him take the animal. My grandparents brought the lioness home to their Hollywood Hills ranch (which if it still existed today would be worth an astronomical fortune!) and named her Shaw-Shaw. Shaw-Shaw was their pet for along time, but when she got big and jumped into their neighbor's yard a few times, my grandparents were forced to give her to a zoo. The poor lion died shortly after. According to my grandma, poor Shaw-Shaw died of a broken heart. According to my grandpa, she was fed poisoned meat and died.

My grandmother, was, like my grandfather, an animal lover. In my life time, they had several pets together. I already mentioned Shawnie-dog, a male golden-retriever. Later on a female golden-retriever named Samie-dog a.k.a. Samantha, who was actually my Aunt Maria's dog, joined the family. The whole family wanted Shawnie-dog and Samantha to have puppies. I remember, when I asked my grandma Jeanne why the dogs didn't have puppies yet, she answered, "Shawn-ie-dog has been praying very hard. He prays and prays and prays." (Needless to say, my grandmother is very Catholic.) However, even at six, I suspected that people did not pray to have babies, but after she said this, I was confused for a short time... I figured that people must make love to have babies and dogs must pray. Regardless, Shawnie-dog and Samie-dogs never had puppies, but Sofia, had nine kittens.

Sofia was a beautiful, pure white cat, with one blue eye and another one which was green. This cat was a lady and she was, as grandma put it, "spoilt rotten." My grandmother loved to spoil and pamper her pets. She would cook scrambled eggs every morning for Teddy, a tiny terrier, she bought after my grandpa shot Shawnie-dog and buried him on the Salsupuedes Ranch~ Shawnie-dog was getting too old to walk and was suffering, so my grandpa "put him out of his misery." My grandparents had bought two ranches, "The Coast Ranch" in Santa Barbara and the "Salsupeudes Ranch" just outside Lompoc, when they sold their house in Emerald Bay (Laguna Beach, CA.) My grandfather now lives on The Coast Ranch, though he lived on The Salsupuedes for years. The Salsupuedes was up for sale, last I heard, for ten million, if you have some extra cash lying around. Needless to say, there are many animals on the ranches; horses, cows, deer, roosters, chickens, sheep, peacocks~ Once a baby peacock was being singled-out and rejected by the mother. I put it in a box filled with cotton and took it into my room. I slept with it to keep it warm for a night but I had to leave the next day. I called to check on my baby peacock, which I, of course, had named "Chicken" later that week and my grandpa said she was doing fine. I know one thing for sure, my grandpa is tender-hearted (in a way) that he would not have told me anything otherwise~ but my favorite animal, besides Shawnie-dog, was Mr. Squirrel.

Mr. Squirrel lived in the trees at my grandparent's house on Hilgard Avenue in Westwood, next to a "cheeky" blue jay and just over the rabbit and ginea-pig cages. Every morning around ten, he would start his chatter in the backyard. My grandpa always brought a huge bag of walnuts from a tree off the Salsupuedes Ranch and kept them in his office. Gram Jeanne (as I have called ever since one Christmas long ago... My great-grandmother, Loretta Crain, who would not allow me to call her anything but La-La, was telling me to stop calling my grandma, "Grandma." La-La was insisting that I should call my grandma, "Jeanne." My grandma said this was silly. As they were arguing over whether it should be "Grandma or "Jeanne," I came up with the compromise and it's been "Gram Jeanne" ever since!) and The Wicked Pampa would talk to Mr. Squirrel as if he were human. Indeed, Mr. Squirrel certainly was one of the family. He would sit up in his tree and argue with "that cheeky jay!" who sometimes stole his breakfast. Then, he would come down and make his way over the brick patio, up the stairs to the sliding glass window, near the breakfast table and he would take a walnut right out of your hand. Sometimes he even came inside the house. My grandpa would call him a "rascal" and show him his proper place. Once when my grandparents were touring Europe, Mr. Squirrel broke into my grandpa's office and stole some walnuts. My grandpa was very protective of his office-- it was off-limits to anyone but him-- he always kept it locked, but Mr. Squirrel made his own private entrance by chewing a hole in the door. Mr. Squirrel came around to entertain us for many, many years until after a decade or so his tail began to dwindle and one day he disappeared. I remember, one Christmas my Dad got me a camera, my very first portrait was of Mr. Squirrel running along the top of the side fence.

When I was young, naive and knew nothing of hair dye, I would tell friends, "My grandmother is magical. Her hair does not turn gray. It turns red instead." An adult once overheard me say this and told me, "She probably dyes it." Suddenly hot tempered, I turned and said, "No! My grandmother is special. She never ages and her hair turns red instead of gray." Eventually, I figured out she did dye it, but I never stopped believing she was magical.

Years later, when I was about twenty, I was looking through my favorite bookstore at the time, Rizzoli in Beverly Hills, and I found a little book with my grandmother on the cover. It was Bernard of Hollywood Pin-Ups: REDHEADS! I was so excited, I bought it and immediately brought it to my grandmother's house on Hilgard.

My Gram Jeanne was never as excited as I was about these things. In fact, it seemed to me she had a certain contempt towards some of her Hollywood days. At least, she always tried to downplay it. One Christmas, for instance, my friend Jeni came to my grandfather's ranch on the coast of California with me. We gathered around a giant table that belonged to European royalty, Gram Jeanne, Grandpa, Jeni and me-- Jeni was even more fascinated than I always was with the Old Hollywood stories. In a room built in stone and filled with orchids and wild animal heads, she asked my grandmother if she knew Marilyn Monroe.

"Sure," my grandpa exclaimed, "She shared a dressing table next to her for years."

Jeni asked what she was like and my grandmother said that she wasn't very interesting and not very bright, either. Jeni pressed her for more and my irritated Gram Jeanne said it was a long time ago and she did not really remember. Now, if you know my grandmother-- the woman still has the mind of a steel trap and the memory of an elephant (to coin two phrases) and believe me, nothing escapes her-- you would know that was her way of closing the subject.

It was hard to get too much out of her about those days, My grandfather was the one who always telling the stories. In fact, the family told him for years to write a book. We bought him tape recorders in hopes to record his entertaining and fascinating stories. I never got tired of his stories, even the ones he had told a few times before always had some new delicious tidbit that would carry him off onto another new adventure or tangent.

But, Gram Jeanne worked very hard during those years-- the studios worked you like an animal. They still work you pretty hard today, but there are limits and concessions today that film people did not have then. I remember, my grandmother told me about the one traffic ticket she has ever received. She told me this story when I was eighteen, had already received two or three tickets, had caused two accidents and had the nickname "Crash!" Naturally, my grandmother was hard to live up to in many ways- she received straight A's all through school, was extremely well read and knowledgeable, had achieved stardom and wealth, spoke several languages and was a great painter, not to mention the fact that she had a genius IQ and a huge soul-- But to only get ONE ticket in your entire life? That is how close to perfection my grandmother got in periods of her life! Anyway, she was driving home from the studio at five in the morning, she had been working countless hours for days on a film and was so completely exhausted she could barely drive herself home. My grandmother was always a very careful driver, but apparently she was too careful that morning because an officer gave her a ticket for going UNDER the speed limit.

When I decided to announce to my grandmother that I wanted to follow in her footsteps and pursue an acting career, she was horrified. "WHY? It is such an awful business! Why would you ever want to be in it?" I was shocked at her response. She had achieved absolute success in her field. She was number one box office for a couple of years, at one point she was the highest paid star excepting Clark Gable, she really made it. I could not understand how she could say that. Later in life, I realized more of what my grandmother must have gone through. She had seven children, a difficult and highly demanding career, a cheating and sometimes abusive husband and she had to pull it all off while looking beautiful and glamorous. I am sure several times in her life she must have wished she would have become a nun, like she had wanted to become as a girl. I know her resentment also had something to do with how her career ended.

The studio system was collapsing, therefore the business was changing and she wanted to start doing different kinds of roles instead of always playing the girl-next-door which was even more risky to do than it is today, she started getting second or third billing instead of top billing (a huge blow to the ego!) combined with a few bad movie choices killed her career, at least killed what it had been. She cold have still worked, but it would have been very a different ballgame. I remember, as a matter of fact, she was still being sent offers to do Loveboat by Aaron Spelling and a couple of other television shows by a few others who remembered her while I was in acting school at UCLA. I remember feeling jealous, I mean here I was, a struggling actress who would beg for an opportunity she would never even think of excepting. Aaron Spelling is a good friend of my grandmother's, as my grandfather tells it (he minces no words) he always loved my grandmother because "she was nice to him when he was a nobody." It is hard for me to imagine Aaron Spelling as a nobody-- but it just goes to prove we all start somewhere! Anyway, the point is she could have kept acting if she had wanted to. At a certain point she left it behind and started a new journey. When I pressed her a few times about why she did notact anymore-- a producer had told me he would give me a part in his movie, if I could get my grandmother to do a cameo appearance-- she said she wanted to be remember for who she was then.

She started a new life in Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach, California. Painting one or two paintings a day-- her painting sold very well for a time-- and traveling the world. My grandmother found a new creative life for herself in Laguna. Yet, around the time I was three or four, my grandfather talked my grandmother into selling the house in Emerald Bay to buy two ranches up north. For several summers my grandmother returned to Laguna for the summer though. She would rent a place in Laguna the family called "the Witch's Castle." It was a very strange and magical house with a dozen oddly placed, badly lit rooms rumored to be haunted by a witch. I remember getting frightened one night and spending a sleepless night squished between my grandma and grandpa. My grandfather’s loud, passionate snoring was echoing throughout the house and my grandma was wearing an eye cover that made me think of a pirate, the room was pitch black-- it was almost as scary to me as coming face to face with a witch. Still, it was one of my favorite places to go. My Gram Jeanne would take me down to a private cove. We would sit in the shade, which was strange for me (I was a little sunworshipper) and I would listen to her graceful, dramatic voice come from behind her big hat and sunglasses and I would feel like I was with a goddess with skin made from milk. One summer she stopped renting "The Witch's Castle." Everything seemed to go down hill after that.

Until a few years ago, I enjoyed wondering through my grandmother's house on Hilgard Avenue in Westwood. I would spend hours playing dress-up in her moviestar clothes, looking through old magazine articles written about my grandmother, finding unique objects from her trips to Europe and the Orient (some of which had been left unopened and abandoned)-- but my favorite room by far was a room filled wall-to-wall with my Gram Jeanne's paintings. I would look through hundreds of paintings and pick a few to talk to her about. She taught me many things about art, it was a topic she could speak endlessly about. I would ask her about the paintings and she would tell me about the people in them or the places she painted them in. She always insisted her paintings were unfinished, but I loved them. To me, they were perfect the way they were. Unlike my desire to act, she always encouraged my painting, which was my second love.

I have three paintings to view on the website, all untitled. I will tell you what I know a bout them. All of these paintings were painted in Laguna Beach in the sixties and seventies. One is of three women, one holding a flower. Another one is of two gypsies from Laguna. My grandmother was very fond of these two gypsies--they were man and wife. When I brought the third untitled painting, of one woman sitting in front of a yellow backdrop, into my grandmother’s room, she instantly exclaimed, "Oh her. Now, she was a character!" All of the paintings have this flow and this big softness. You can see my grandmother's soul in these paintings more than you would see it in her acting.

Sadly enough, my grandfather never understood the beauty of my grandmother's work. He thought it was "weird"-- of course, he also thought Picasso's art was some kind of a trick he played on the world and over-rated non-sense. Maybe that is why she eventually gave it up. When I was twenty I asked her why she stopped painting, she gave no real answer. She said she was planning to start again, but she has not to this day. I suppose she will not ever paint again, but I hope not. At a certain point, she checked out of life and decided to sit in bed in front of the television. I've always wondered why.

These days, well. I feel conflicted at this point... Maybe it is better for people to remember her how she was in the movies. But, what is that really? I think people could learn so much from what I have learned by being part of my family and watching her. You tell me, do you want to remember her how she was in the movies or do you want to know what her life really became... I don't want to be a disher of the dirt. I t has always perplexed me how a woman who had everything could have become so destroyed by life. My whole family had great minds, great talents, beautiful looks, privilege-- yet my father overdosed on alcohol in a motel room and died when he was 43 and I was 22 and my Uncle Chris overdosed on heroin in his early thirties in a Hollywood motel room a few years ago. The tragedy I have witnessed has been enormous and it has remained an enormous secret and I can not decide yet whether or not I should tell it.

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