Degas subsequent organized for me to satisfy Dufty. A journalist by coaching, in 1965 Dufty had sat subsequent to Swanson at a medical convention. Swanson, a longtime natural-health advocate, was appalled to see the heavyset man beside her dumping increasingly more sugar into his espresso. She instructed him he was killing himself.
Over the following 12 months, Dufty translated You Are All Sanpaku, the Japanese ebook that popularized macrobiotics, and despatched a replica to Swanson, who invited him to her house. The person she greeted on the door had misplaced 80 kilos, and he instructed her she was liable for the change.
He was practically 17 years youthful than she, separated from his spouse, with whom he had a 20-year-old son. Earlier than You Are All Sanpaku, he had ghostwritten Girl Sings the Blues, the memoir of Billie Vacation, who was a pal of his spouse’s.
Dufty and Swanson quickly grew to become a pair. In 1975 he revealed Sugar Blues, concerning the deleterious impact of sugar on America’s well being, and Swanson went on the ebook tour with him. They married the next 12 months, when he was 60.
Our assembly at Degas’s was very quick. Dufty made no effort to be cordial. He mentioned he was writing a brand new opening for the ebook, not acknowledging that I had recommended it. He mentioned that he would end it in every week or so.
I by no means noticed him once more.
Degas introduced me the brand new opening chapter on October 19. It was a exceptional enchancment, with Swanson not solely reliving her marriage to Henri, Marquis de la Falaise de la Coudraye, and her triumphant return with him to America, but in addition disclosing the abortion she underwent in Paris so as to keep away from scandal and save her profession. The chapter opened with an merchandise concerning the marriage ceremony by a reporter named Basil Woon, and that gave it a real taste.
It additionally gave me an thought: begin chapters with epigraphs. I known as Michael Lutin, an astrologer pal, mentioned I used to be enhancing Gloria Swanson’s autobiography, and requested if he might give me a quote for an Aries born March 27, 1899, to open Chapter 6.
He got here up with a passage from his ebook Saturn Indicators, ending with: “The world’s massive, and you will notice all of it. You’re an arrow because it travels between the bow and the goal.”
I handed this on to Degas, who reported that Swanson was thrilled with it. I mentioned in that case we would want a lot of high-powered quotes for epigraphs from necessary individuals in Swanson’s life, beginning with Cecil B. DeMille. Degas mentioned that may be straightforward; Swanson was a pack rat. She had saved each article, interview, clipping, program, invitation, and letter, sufficient to fill tons of of bins, which she saved in storage.
One week later I began enhancing. The schedule earlier than us was daunting. Degas had promised Epstein the complete manuscript in a 12 months. Six months had been spent on these first 100 pages, which I lower significantly. We figured we would want to supply a chapter every week for the following six months.
In explaining how the chapters he began bringing me have been arrived at, Degas mentioned Swanson was not getting together with Dufty, so that they stayed at reverse ends of the house. Degas labored with Swanson at her finish, getting her to inform every little thing she might keep in mind, prompted by the fabric in her bins of recordsdata. Collectively they formed her recollections as dramatically as they may, and Degas gave the ensuing narrative to Dufty, who composed a tough typed draft. I didn’t query Degas about this strange-sounding association, however I felt that he was not giving me the entire image.
I often did a heavy edit of Dufty’s work—steadily rewriting complete pages—and copied my edit out in longhand on authorized pad pages. A typist made a clear copy, and Degas delivered it to Random Home.
Every week Degas introduced me the following chapter, and I learn my edit of the final one aloud to him. Sometimes he would interrupt me, saying, “That’s a phrase Gloria would by no means use,” and collectively we might modify the language.
The longer this process went on, the extra apparent it grew to become to me that I used to be Swanson’s ghostwriter greater than Dufty was. For example, I proposed that we finish the primary half of the ebook the place it began and repeat the flashback sample, beginning with Sundown Boulevard for the second half. Regardless of reservations Swanson had about Sundown Boulevard, Degas satisfied her I used to be proper.
Swanson had routinely complained to interviewers through the years that, after the success of Sundown Boulevard, producers saved making an attempt to typecast her as Norma Desmond.
From little hints Degas dropped, nevertheless, I started to sense increasingly more strongly that the doppelgänger within the movie was taking on. As Swanson put her life on pages, she began to inhale the outdated glory days, when headlines referred to her by her first identify solely and the world was at her ft. On the similar time, in her Fifth Avenue house she was really replicating Norma Desmond’s scenario in Sundown Boulevard.
Simply think about: Within the film Norma is revising the screenplay with which she hopes to recapture her stardom with assistance from Joe Gillis (learn: Degas), a good-looking younger man who is totally at her disposal as a result of he’s broke. (Within the authentic script, it was Norma’s memoirs they have been engaged on!) With every passing day, she falls extra deeply in love with Joe, till she can’t bear to have him out of her sight. And although Joe yields to her advances out of gratitude and necessity, deep down he yearns for the day when he can return to the world of his contemporaries.
On the premises, all of the whereas, working as Norma’s butler, doing his half to maintain her legend alive, is Max, the discarded, degraded husband: Dufty.
On the finish of 5 months, Degas instructed me Swanson was going to a spa in California for 2 causes: She wanted a relaxation, and he or she wished to get away from Dufty. As he delivered the information, I acquired a definite sense of aid in his voice. Throughout Swanson’s absence, he can be free to be himself.
Shortly after she left, nevertheless, issues took a wierd flip. Degas instructed me Dufty had come on to him. When he went to choose up the most recent pages, he mentioned, Dufty had met him on the door in an open gown with an uncovered semi-erection. Degas mentioned he had pretended to disregard the creepy overture.
Per week or two later, issues acquired even weirder. As regular, Degas introduced me a brand new chapter, however he mentioned Dufty had instructed him he didn’t need me to the touch this one. It was a prolonged diatribe about Joseph Kennedy. Along with being a criminal in enterprise, Dufty mentioned, Kennedy was an intensive degenerate who led a dissolute life.
“He mentioned he didn’t desire a phrase modified,” Degas mentioned. “He wished it to go straight to Jason Epstein. What shall I do?”
“Give it to Epstein,” I mentioned.
Degas later reported Epstein’s response. “He requested if it was some form of joke.”
I do not know what occurred to these pages. No a part of them acquired into Swanson on Swanson, and really quickly Dufty was out of the image.
