"David Manners: The Final Interview - Part Two"

As I walked in, David was just coming from dinner. He seemed tired and slightly medicated for pain. I didn't want to bother him, but he wanted to know what I had done that day. He was feeling a bit frisky, in spite of stomach pains.

"Pussy cat, pussycat, where have you been?" David asked me. "Do you know?"

"No," I answered. "Tell me."

"I've been to London to look at the Queen. What Queen? Oh, the streets are full of them," David laughed quietly as he recited. But I could tell he was in pain and not at his best.

"Oh, you still have your wit," I told him. "You haven't lost your touch."

I decided that I would try and surprise David and cheer him up. "Look what I am going to be reading this week, David," I said as I took his two books out of my bag.

"Oh, you got them! I thought they were non-existent!"

"I just borrowed them," I told him. "I have to return them."

"Well, I'll be damned," David whispered, slowly opening one of the books. "That's fantastic. How did you do it?"

"You gave these books to the Meyers at Yucca Loma. Do you remember them?"

"My memory is itching," David slowly took the magnifying glass I brought him to try and read the inscription. "But I can't remember."

I could see his mind was distracted from the pain for a moment so I decided to bring the photos out. "Well as long as we are back in time you might like these. Do you know this guy?"

"That's me. And look, there's Beulah. How's that for a sudden memory. Beulah Bondhi."

"Did she come to Yucca Loma?"

"Did she come?!" David looks up incredulously. "Does rain come out of a black cloud? She was marvelous. She was great. She was everything." David disappears into the photo. "Beulah …. "

"Do you know this one?"

"Oh, my God - it's Gwen! My God - it's wonderful!"

"She was your friend at Yucca Loma, her mother owned it. Is it nice to see her again?"

"Oh, it's wonderful … wonderful."

"Tell me about Gwen"

"Oh, she's a book in herself."

"How did you meet her?"

"Through a son-of-a-bitch. A bastard took me up there the first time to Yucca Loma. Oh, this photo is marvelous."

"Who was the bastard?"

"I don't remember," David said cagily. "God, these pictures are doing me in."

"You know this one," I decided to show him one more before he was too tired.

"Who is it?"

"That's you," I told him.

"Oh, my God. My God, my hair is blowing all over in the wind," David said as he looked up at me incredulously. "Give me the magnifying glass. I think that's my writing on it." David reads slowly, his face close to the photo. "Hmm … 'David Manners uses the 'stay-comb'. That's what gives him that well groomed look.' Holy smoke," David shook his head as he paused long and hard and looked deep into the photo " What is it …. ? Holy Moses. I can't get this into my head. Good Gosh," he murmurs as he stares deeply into the eyes on the young picture of David. "Holy Moses. Give me another. Can I stand it?"

"I bet you can. Recognize her?"

"Oh, Beulah again," David smiled. "Oh, my. Wow, this is a shock.." David continued to look long and hard at the succeeding pictures from the stack.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked cautiously.

"Nothing," David answered too quickly and then he was silent as he stared at Beulah for a long time without looking up. "Give me some more. Soup for the idiot.," demanded David.

"Do you know who that is?"

"It's too difficult to see," he mutters. "Wait there's Gwen. That's awfully good of Gwen. But, who's that man? Look at Gwenny all decked out. I remember that tree. Owww, my stomach!" David began to wail softly. He winced and then, just as suddenly, he was back to the photos. "I remember this room. Don't take it away. Hold the glass for me. God. And who is sitting in the arm chair? Oh, my," he muttered as he rubbed his eyes.

"Are your eyes bothering you? Why don't you rest them for a minute?"

"Let me put these down. Oh," David moaned again. "My…" he closed his eyes and grimaced at the pain in stomach. "Oh. Oh," he looked up suddenly." How do you happen to have these?"

"I did my research for the book that I am including you in. I thought it might make you happy to see them again. Are you ok?"

David's eyes closed and I heard a soft moan.

"Take your time, David."

"Owww. Oh, please," David's moaning continued. "Wait a minute. Ooooh. I better lie down."

I took the pictures from David. "Let's get you to your room. You can look at these later."

"Can I keep some?" David asked as he relinquished the photos grudgingly.

"Anything you want David."

"Can I have this, too?" David asked plaintively as he held up the magnifying glass.

"Of course," I told him, frustrated that I couldn't do something more for him. David

moaned in pain as we made our way back to his room in the wheelchair.

"It's awful," David moaned.

I helped David into bed and he asked if he could see the rest of the photos. There weren't really any more left from Yucca Loma, so I showed him some that we had snapped that morning while I was visiting.

"You took this photo of me David."

"I did?! Oh, my. I did that," David said proudly. "Can I keep it?"

"Sure! And here is a nice one of you and I together," I said as I handed him the photo, only hours old.

"What? That's not me," David insisted. "What an awful face."

"No it's not," I tried to tell him as I realized by the shocked look on his face that the sixty years between photos was a harsh reminder of reality. "That's a great face."

"It is not," he said sadly. "Look. I have a big bump on my face. I look awful," he said as his eyes remained riveted to the photo.

"David," I started, hoping to get him to take his eyes from the photo. "I'll take this and make a copy later, ok?"

"Only if you cut it in half," David muttered as he stuck his tongue out at his image."

"Look at this," I tried, handing him another one of the old photos.

"Oh, here I am in front of the garage at Yucca Loma," David lightened up a bit. "My God," he shook his head as his eyes closed again.

"David, I think I should go. You could use some sleep it looks like to me."

"I am just resting," David moaned quietly.

"How about if I read you a little bit from one of those great David Manners novels I brought with me today?"

"Oh, that would be lovely," David smiled slightly, eyes still closed. "Would you?"

"Of course I would," I told him.

With that I began to read the first lines from "Convenient Season." I continued on through the first page. "Are you enjoying this David," I asked him?

"I wonder who could have written that. It's not bad, is it," he asked quietly, his eyes still closed, as his eyebrows raised.

I continued to read and by the next page I could hear his breathing deepening as his jaw dropped slightly. I read on a little longer and then slowly stood up. I had been back and forth from Los Angeles twice today. I knew I would sleep well tonight. And I knew David would, too. I could only imagine the dreams he would have. I was not sure that I was not already dreaming myself. I was glad I could sleep at Marge Mason's board and care tonight and not make the drive south to the city of angels again today. I turned out David's small bedside light and closed the door silently behind me.

The next day I returned to David feeling very positive. I had spoken to his doctor and gotten permission to take him for a drive. He thought it would be very good for David and I agreed. As I arrived David was just leaving breakfast.

"I don't know," David haltingly replied as I told him we could go for a short drive. "It 's too cold. I can't go!"

"It is 80 degrees David," I told him. "It's a great day. Don't you want to get out?"

"I have to use the bathroom," he pleaded.

"Of course," I told him, hoping he was alright.

"OK," David said. "OK."

I wheeled him back to his room but it was clear that it was not a good day. A half hour later David was still in the bathroom. . I found myself completely confused at how to handle the situation.

"Do you need any help David," I asked?

There was no reply. I didn't want to invade his privacy, but I also didn't want to appear uncaring. I had no idea what was appropriate.

"We don't have to go today if you don't want to David," I told him. "It's ok if you don't feel up to it."

"Let me finish in peace!" His voice was loud and harsh.

I waited another fifteen minutes until he wheeled himself back out, looking worse for wear.

"David maybe you should lie down. Are you OK?"

"Get me an attendant," he snapped. This was a David I had never seen.

I soon had an attendant in to help him, and they were off to the bathroom. Soon the attendant walked out of the bathroom, rolling his eyes. I assumed he was coming back, but after another ten minutes there was no attendant and still no David. I began to worry.

"David, are you ok? Would you like me to wait," I asked?

"Be quiet!" he yelled back. I was more unsettled than ever. However a few minutes later he was back out.

"Well, David," I started. "Are you OK? I can go if you'd like to rest."

David looked at me stonily.

"Get out of this scene," he demanded slowly in a chilling voice. I was too stunned to move. I was sure I was guilty of something, but I was not sure what.

"OK," I stammered. "I will come back tonight. Do you need some help getting to bed," I asked?

"Just - leave - this - scene!"

I backed out and wandered to my car wondering what I could have done differently. I had one more interview to do. It was with a local spiritualist who had become friends with David over the years. I felt ridiculous going now as I still felt the sting of David's words. As I drove up the mountain to David's friend's house I began to wonder if perhaps David was just so angry at his frailty and the lack of control he had over his body that he had no other outlet than to yell at me. I went through the morning over and over and racked my brain about the night before, too. I finally convinced myself that I could not have done anything differently and relaxed a bit.

Frank Cassirer's large house was impressive. At the top of a mountain, it overlooked the entire valley. This guru was obviously very successful. A many-doored garage full of cars waited outside. I was a long way from David's old folk's home a few miles away.

Frank was much younger than I expected. Nearly 50 years younger than David he was obviously more colleague than contemporary. Small of frame with a mop of white hair, he looked like part silver-haired adolescent and part mad professor as he welcomed me to the library a few feet from the front door. I was not shown any deeper into the massive house, but it was clear how very much of it there was.

Concerned about David, I asked Frank how he thought he was doing. "David wants nothing these days," Frank began. "I can't think of anyone else who besides you who he sees. His old mentor's wife came, but he asked her to leave. If you approach him in a simple ordinariness, he is there for you. If he remembers your name, believe me, he l likes you.

"That man now has gone from a place of dealing with the silence of the desert, in a concentrated way, to suddenly experiencing the silence all around him in any situation. For a long time, the silence created a lot of alienation. But, he is still not satisfied yet. If he could write now, he could write something you never see expressed. All about nothingness."

As we continued to talk Frank showed me some of David's writings over the years. I found them very moving. Especially the following: "I was born with an empty mind and it seems right that I go out the same way. Let it be as it has to be." I wonder if I am hindering his plan by filling his mind with so much old and new stimulation at this late date. No wonder he is weary. I tell Frank that I wish that I had met David earlier.

"My God," he shakes his head. "You met him now. Be glad. He has found his way by being in the desert and dealing with silence. Death has been his teacher. He is an actor. This is his greatest scene."

I asked Frank what he knows about David's early years and his Hollywood experience. I wondered if he might know of how David left pictures and went to the desert or whether David had ever talked about it.

"He didn't have to," said Frank as he showed me one of David's spiritual books that has long been out of print. On the first page of the first chapter David goes right to the question so many of us have asked as he talks about his youth:

"I suppose one might say in unromantic terms I was searching for my heart's desire and, in quite another way, that is exactly what I searched for, but I didn't know it. I suppose all seekers for Shangri-La did not in those days miss a chance of going to Hollywood, but few found the instant success that I did. Wealth and a certain notoriety did not satisfy the inner hunger. When the chance came, I was off again and did the unforgivable thing of stepping out and away from sharing stardom with a big lady star, which I soon discovered from the venom which poured out after my departure was not the correct thing to do."

David is obviously referring to the famous row he had with Joan Crawford when he turned down her request to star opposite her. David had been the leading man of choice for every female star in Hollywood - Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn and Kay Francis, among others. They never had to worry about David stealing a scene. He was the male equivalent of Rene Russo today - always starring opposite the Clint Eastwood or Mel Gibson, playing spouse or lover and getting great billing - but never eclipsing the star. After the Crawford fight, David never stepped into another film studio.

"Hollywood ended his marriage," Frank continues. "But that is something that David had to say good-bye to. I think it was an issue but nothing could stop him. It's like watching Michael Jordan play basketball. It is amazing. And everything in David's life conspired and pushed him to act.

"I think he was searching all the way through Hollywood. It was quality of life he was looking for and he wasn't finding it. Which was why he was with the famous spiritual teacher Krishnamurti. He and Krishnamurti were best friends at a very young age. That had tremendous implications. When he first came to Hollywood they lived together. But, that was part of that and I am sure that whatever happened to both of them, transformed them both. It ended catastrophically. Krishnamurti was finished with him and didn't recognize him anymore. It was painful for David.

"It was painful, but it was through that pain again that brought him to his own realization back in the thirties after he was at Yucca Loma. He designed and built the tennis court, brought people to Yucca Loma, worked on buildings and had his own relationships there. It was a matter of him forgetting all of Hollywood and not trying to make himself into something that was expected from him. Even people like Clark Gable, whom he didn't care for, he didn't encourage a relationship with. It was not something that was created where he said 'I am going to change my attitude and stop eating this or I am going to change who my lovers are.' It came about through letting himself be whoever he was and experiencing a place that was completely unconditional. And then of course he wrote books about his experience. His father was a publisher at E.F. Dutton and the head man there. The books were very successful, too. Being an incredibly incisive character, he saw what was happening to him in Hollywood, going from roles that created a fixation on him like "Dracula" and whatever, to going beyond that and developing an identity as part of his experience.

He didn't want more experiences of sex, of money, of fucking, of drugs. He didn't want more. He wanted quality and the two can't go together. So, to David leaving was always a gift because he could become more of who he really was. He wouldn't lose himself in you. And that was a fear for him. Does that make sense? It was done out of fear - fear of losing himself. He was overwhelmed by so much input. It was there that the desert came. The silence.

"For David, for a long time, nothingness was very frightening. In his relationship he could cope by keeping very busy in education and being goal driven, always as an escape from himself. And he feels bad about how the thing with Bill ended, his lover. Bill was a kind of a fixer-upper kind of guy, kind of like a care-taker. - when the door broke he would fix it. David felt guilty for years, that he was responsible. But when he embraced that nothingness, he was a free man."

Frank and I talk about David's writing and how it is a shame that in today's market none of his work is in print. Frank looks at me in silence as I realize suddenly that the time is up. A few more pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, or at least I think they have. Frank walks me out to my car.

"I will tell you something," he says as he closes my car door for me. "If his books were written now they would be best sellers. No one knows. No one has any idea."

I am weary as I drive back to Marge Mason's. I know more about David than ever and perhaps less. Part of me feels I am invading him, but another part thinks he is much, much too smart for that. He has left bits of himself all over the planet; in print, on celluloid and in so many people's memories. I wonder if he was just waiting for someone to pick up the pieces.

That night I had a home cooked meal with Marge and her friend Geri, who had taken care of David, too. I told them about my day with David and how confused I had been. They both understood completely, having had had similar experiences with David many times over the years. I felt better talking to them. I had decided to stay the night but had to leave very early the next day. If I was going to see David again it had to be tonight. I asked them if either of them wanted to go. Marge declined, she knew too well what David could be like and decided to give him a day to swing back. Geri acquiesced and hopped in the car with me. After a short drive we arrived. Once again, David was not in his room. Now I was sure he was better and probably zipping all over the home in his chair. After looking around we still couldn't find him. As we turned the last corner making a circle back to his room I spotted him. There he was, sound asleep in his chair. An ineffable feeling of sadness enveloped me. Totally vulnerable, as if marooned on an island, he dozed in the middle of the hallway.

Geri gently woke him and we helped him to his bed. He was medicated and never completely woke. When we left him we took a side door out. As we walked down the path I stopped. It was a warm, southern California night, smelling of lemon blossoms, and I suddenly had an urge to see David one more time. You never know when you won't have the opportunity again.

I turned back and could see David in his room by the light of the full moon. His drapes were open and he was only a few feet away. He was deep in slumber and looked 200 years old in the moonlight. I realized that at this age one spent less and less time on this plane and more and more time flirting with their next world. I felt very lucky to have the time I did with him. I said a silent good night to him and walked back to the car.

When I got back to New York City after the Oscars I found a letter in my mailbox from David:

Dear Rick, dear Rick, dear Rick,

Here at 97 I don't know much. Yes, 97, I said! Oh dear, the heart is still young and wanting. Let it play. I'll do the best I can to respond.

First goes the mind. It is near stopping altogether at 97 - you know. Wow! What's the next stop called?

Dear Rick, dear Rick. It's too late. Maybe it's a blessing. There was a day! Oh yes, there was a day!

Blessings, Love!

David

Addendum: David Manners passed away peacefully on December 26th, 1998 - nine months after this interview.

Rick McKay - January 1999