Posts Tagged ‘Eveylyn Duke’

Arranged Marriages

Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

heart

You’ve heard it, opposites attract.  My parents were just about the most opposite you could find.  And, I never even thought about that until just now, while sitting down to write about their relationship.  Your parents are the only parents you have, so you don’t stop to think, “What did they see in each other?”

My mother was quiet, elegant and intelligent.  My father was loud, lovable and crass.   Taste was not exactly his strong suit except, of course, his great taste in women.

They met at a party.  He saw this stunning, very young, exotic looking woman modern-dancing.  Alone.  Seductively.   Twenty years older, he was intrigued.

Cliff Notes to get you up to speed:  They dated.  He knocked her up.  He said he didn’t want kids.  She was set to have an abortion.  Her family strong-armed him or he had a change of heart.  Or both.  She had their first child, my brother Alan but first they had a quickie wedding.  In Vegas, where else?  First meal in their home together, my mother cooked.  My father complained about the way she made the eggs.  She threw the whole pan of eggs at him.  Two years after the first child, she was pregnant with me.  I was a teeny tiny thing.  Still am.  She had taken the drug DES which would later be known to cause cervical cancer in the daughters of women who took it to prevent miscarriage. (more…)

340 South Roxbury Drive

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

 

me and my mom at our beach house

In our family, life is six degrees of feline separation.

I often tell people I was meant to grow up in Malibu.  That is where we lived — right on the beach – but my mom’s cat Jezebel was killed by a car, and that incident turned my life around.

My mother decided it wasn’t safe on the highway (PCH) and we moved to the house on Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills.  The year was 1955.   The former owners sold it to us with one perfect provision: the cat comes with the house.  What are the chances of this?  We move because a cat gets killed and instantly we have this new one.  Hangover, who came with his name, was a rather large, slightly feral black & white street boy.  The name, in the lore of our family (and from what the previous owners told us), came from this big-ass cat’s habit of hanging over the sides of trees that he climbed.  He was not a drunk.  He was really frisky, almost unsafe for a small child.

Hangover the cat!!!

On days when I was sick at home, Sheriff John would be playing on the TV, but I wouldn’t be watching — because I was too busy forcing Hangover’s paws to crayon  pictures with me getting scratched by the real leader of our family.  He kept me/us in line.  He was also the first creature I would love. (more…)

The Ugly Duckling

Sunday, July 31st, 2011


I was born with one lung not working and was promptly whisked away to an incubator. Age two, I got scarlet fever and my parents worried I might not survive. Age three I was fully cross-eyed. But I did not (as yet) have an inferiority complex. I was very happy-go-lucky. Chatting it up all the time with my imaginary friends and all.

Oprah tells this story about herself, a lot. A random woman walked up to her in church one day and commented on her bee-stung lips. She had paid her a compliment on her beauty that was long overdue. Until then, no one had noticed any beauty in Oprah and it meant so much to her that she found the woman, this white woman, many years later and thanked her.

During my cross-eyed period, when I was old enough to be cognizant, people, random people on the street, would turn their heads to look at my brother Alan. He was adorable. They might even comment on his fetching looks, then look back at me and not say a word. Not a word. It would kill me; my fragile little ego, so wounded by a random stranger. And I would wait until I got home to cry from the sting of not being noticed as beautiful.

My mother would look me in the eyes, those crossed eyes with their hideous glasses, and say, “By the time you are 16,” yes, she nailed the number down — not 15, not 18, but at 16 “you will be prettier than them all.” Uh huh. I thought that the crystal ball she was looking into was on crack (and there wasn’t even crack yet). Or perhaps, it was gazing into the far distant future and seeing my drop-dead, gorgeous daughter Augie.

my gorgeous daughter Augie!!!!

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JTC066

Monday, March 14th, 2011

I saw the black shiny car in its perfectly renovated state driving down San Vicente in Brentwood. That car is an old friend, I thought for a second. This new tricked-out version brought me straight back to the late 1950’s when I was first introduced to it.

I was driving and it was hard to concentrate on both the road and the flood of memories at the same time. I was holding back tears when I lowered my window to yell to the new owner, “Hey, that’s my car!” Well, not technically mine anymore, but it was my mother’s, we had it my ENTIRE life. I miss that car and I’m sorry I never drove it. The new owner convinced me he is taking very good care of it and loves it. For years, I kept harboring that sedan in various garages where I lived.

Most people get to inherit small, valuable items, like rings. Not me. I got the beloved, vintage Mercedes. It had only one owner and that was my mother.
I was still a child when our Mercedes Benz came from the dealership to our parking spot; a day I will never forget. It was 1959. I was six years old. That vehicle holds more sentimental value to me than any ring.

The car represented freedom and independence for my mother. She was out there, struggling on her own and it would be the first and maybe last big purchase of her life. A huge, in-the-tabloids battle raged over a red Cadillac convertible during my parents’ divorce. The newspapers claimed that Evelyn Duke, divorcing producer Maurice Duke, had received the car as a gift to match her red hair. She didn’t get it in the settlement. (more…)