Vanity Farrah
It’s been twenty years since Charlie’s Angels and the poster that drove men wild. But even today, at fifty, Farrah Fawcett still turns heads—including mine.
(Page 4 of 4)
“Well, um, yeah,” she said softly, and then she opened her mouth and hit me again with the smile, the one from the poster, the one that suggested that as innocent as she looked, she knew how to do a whole lot more. “Maybe we should have a shot of tequila before we go,” she said as she motioned for the waiter to come over.
She sipped the first half of her shot like a lady, downed the remainder in one quick gulp, and then took a lime and licked it—slowly. I felt exactly like one of those guys at the UT fraternity parties: The prettiest girl in the room was acting interested in me. Suddenly we were on our feet. I tossed my wine-stained jacket at the waiter, and as we exited the door, I think I said, “Hey, we’re out of here!”
The valets in the hotel parking lot flashed Farrah kiss-ass smiles, and one began heading for her car—a green two-door Jaguar with personalized license plates that say boom. But Farrah abruptly said, “Do you mind if we take your car?” While the suddenly curious valets pulled up my plain red rental car, she retrieved a large gym bag out of her Jaguar. When a valet opened the front passenger door for her, she said, “I’ll sit in the back.”
I shrugged at the valets, acting as if this sort of thing happened to me all the time. Maybe, I thought, Farrah was accustomed to being chauffeured around. Fine with me. It was only a couple of minutes later that she informed me that she was sitting in the back seat so she could change her clothes. “I need to look different for our adventure,” she said.
For a moment, I could not help but marvel that I had gotten myself into this position. My teenage dreams were coming true: Farrah Fawcett was half-naked in my back seat. But, God’s truth, I never looked. I was having enough trouble getting us to our destination. Reading from a sheet of directions that had been typed up for her, she said, just as I settled into the far left lane of the freeway, “Here, take the next exit.” I looked to the right, but I couldn’t find an opening. The sight of a blonde writhing around in my back seat had apparently caused other drivers to slow down beside me.
“Right here,” she said again, as if I hadn’t heard her the first time.
“I’m not going to make it,” I whined.
Farrah leaned forward. I could feel two soft streams of breath from her nostrils against the back of my neck. Then, using the kittenlike voice that has mesmerized men for decades, she whispered, “Go for it.”
I thought about something that director James Orr had told me: “Farrah has the quality of seduction. I’m not just talking about some cheesy physical seduction. Any woman can do that. But Farrah draws you in, a little at a time, until, in spite of yourself, you’ll do anything she wants.”
Sure enough, I slammed down on the gas pedal, swung the wheel to the right, cut across two lanes of traffic, and raced up the exit ramp like a bat out of hell.
“Oooh,” said Farrah, leaning back in her seat.
We drove east for a few miles until we hit a run-down neighborhood. Farrah consulted her directions. She still wouldn’t tell me where we were going. Hopelessly lost, we cruised the streets like two desperate junkies in search of a crack dealer.
Finally, she saw it. “There, that church,” she said.
A church? This would be our adventure?
“It’s for the Robert Duvall movie,” she explained. “As part of my research, I need to watch a church choir rehearsal.”
I couldn’t wait to see what outfit Farrah had put on. She emerged from the back seat wearing blue jeans that rode down so low on her hips I could see the top of her underwear. She was wearing the same skintight shirt, but she had added a black baseball cap, worn backward, apparently in an attempt to hide her hair and make herself inconspicuous. And she had pulled a video camera out of her bag. “To record my research,” she said.
Then she started wobbling toward the church: The tequila, it seemed, was taking its toll on her petite body. After we entered through a side door, she touched my arm and said, “Um, will you make up something about why we’re here?”
“They don’t know we’re coming?”
“Well, I only had my office call and say a ‘Jane’ wanted to watch choir rehearsal.”
She giggled again as a large woman headed our way, and as I explained to her that “Jane” and I were documentary producers working on a PBS special about religion, Farrah wandered around the sanctuary, filming everything in sight in jerky, film noir movements. At one point, she planted herself by the organist, shooting his feet as they touched the pedals.
“What the heck are you doing?” I whispered.
“I have to play the organ in the movie. I need to know how I should look.” She started giggling again.
I was amazed that the members of the choir didn’t recognize her. As they belted out lyrics about something “washed in the blood,” Farrah did some close-ups and walked to the back of the church, bumping loudly against a pew in the process. When I caught up with her, she was already on her cell phone. “Ryan,” she squealed, “you’re not going to believe this.” She held the phone up so that O’Neal, back home in Beverly Hills, could hear the choir. Then she told him to hand the phone to Redmond so he could listen.
“Can I ask one thing?” I said, remembering the tabloid stories about O’Neal’s jealous temper. “It doesn’t bother him that you’re out with me tonight, does it?”
“Um, I don’t think so,” she said with yet another smile.
“He knows I’m with you, doesn’t he?” I said nervously.
“Um, I think he does.” And then she elbowed me in the arm and headed back toward the choir.
AN HOUR LATER, WHEN WE PULLED UP TO THE BEL-AIR, the valets rushed to greet Farrah, only to come to a dead stop when they realized she had changed clothes. Awestruck, they turned to look at me, and I could practically hear what they were thinking: What have you been doing with Farrah? I shrugged and handed them my keys. I knew I would never again feel such a sense of power over other men.
For thirty more minutes, we sat outside on a bench. She told me that as she neared fifty, she felt better than she ever had in her life. She said that despite the rumors that her relationship with O’Neal was (to use a Hollywood phrase) in turnaround, they were still happy together. “With me, he met his match,” she said. “Don’t you think so?” She told me she loved being a mother, and that if she never acted again, that would be fine, because there were so many other things to do. “I could spend the rest of my days painting and sculpting in my art shack,” she said. “I’d love for you to come see it sometime.” I knew, of course, that I never would.
As I walked her back to the parking lot, she quoted her favorite saying. “I think it’s from Shakespeare, maybe Antony and Cleopatra,” she said. “It goes, ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety.’ Isn’t that beautiful? That’s what I want my life to be.” There was no question that Farrah knew exactly what she was doing. She has always been aware of the effect she has on men. Even today, at fifty, she has this great way of taking you back somewhere, of capturing all the themes of youth. She is the last link to a certain kind of past.
This time, the valets gave us a respectful distance. She pressed her cheek against mine, climbed into her Jaguar, and left. A slight breeze—just like a wind created in a movie by one of those wind machines—skittered leaves down the street, pushing them against my pant cuffs.
Ten minutes later, I was back in my hotel room and the phone rang. It was her. Her voice was breathy, mystical. “Skip,” she murmured, “I’ve been thinking about it. I’m going to turn the car around and come back to see you. What’s your room number?”
The silence must have lasted for fifteen seconds. Finally, I asked, “Are you serious?”
As her Jaguar climbed higher into the hills above Sunset Boulevard, static began to interfere with the transmission from her cell phone. Her voice was fading. Still, I was able to hear that unforgettable giggle.
“Just kidding,” Farrah trilled. “But tonight was a lot of fun, wasn’t it?”
And then the line went dead.
My Library
