again. Same icy woman, same result, and I’d officially reached my phone call quota.
A couple of weeks went by. I was a little disappointed, but I didn’t have that much invested either, and I had work to focus on, so it was easy to shrug and move along. I also had another dinner party to look forward to, with my pal Patrick Clement, at that same beach house where Harry and I met, so it wasn’t as if my social life was suffering either.
There were a lot of people at that party, but I spotted Harry across the room as soon as we walked in the door. He was with a date. He probably thought I was too, although Pat and I were just good friends, nothing more. It didn’t take Harry long to slip away from his date and catch me alone on the deck while Pat was inside getting our drinks.
He greeted me with a simple, “I thought you were going to call me.”
“I did,” I said. “Twice. You weren’t there.”
“Call again.”
“You call me.” I smiled and left him there on the deck by himself, and it was no accident that I left the party that night without giving Harry my phone number.
Game, set, and match.
I won’t even pretend it surprised me that he got my number from our host and called first thing the next morning. And there it is, the touching story of how Harry Bernsen and I became a couple.
W e actually had a lot going for us when we started out together. We both loved to laugh and had very similar senses of humor. We both loved going to parties, drive-in movies, and the theater. We were both committed to our careers and both spoke fluent “show business,” so we were genuinely interested in each other’s answers to the question “How was your day, dear?” He admired my work, and I admired his, especially when he became an agent, and a brilliant one, at the Jaffe Agency with the highly respected Phil Gersh. He thought I looked gorgeous in an evening gown, and I thought he looked gorgeous in a tuxedo.
A year after we started seeing each other, Harry moved in with me.
His mother never forgave me for taking her darling twenty-eight-year-old baby boy away from her. But she didn’t like Harry’s three sisters-in-law either, all of whom I loved, so I took her disdain as a compliment and happily avoided her like the plague.
L iving with Harry meant that I was now deeply invested in believing he was fabulous, and because I hate to be wrong, I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to any evidence to the contrary. It’s that red flag thing I was talking about earlier. Facing those warning signs meant admitting that I couldn’t trust my own judgment, and somehow that felt more threatening to my sense of security than anything Harry could do to me . . . or so I thought.
I was really eager for my sister, Evelyn, my brother, Jack, and their respective spouses to meet him now that we’d officially set up housekeeping. They met him. They didn’t like him one bit. In fact, from that first meeting on, they were only interested in coming to visit when Harry was out of town.
He didn’t seem to care much for them either, or anyone else I was close to whose status didn’t impress him, for that matter. That gregarious life of the party I’d spent a year dating was suddenly likely to turn sullen and pout his way through any social gathering that wasn’t his idea and/or his guest list. Of course, it became easier to let him have his way than to run the risk of his being rude to my friends and family, so I cooperated more than I should have. Unbeknownst to me until much, much later, he was also screening my phone calls, only passing along messages from people of whom he approved.
And then there was my beloved woody convertible. I had that car when Harry and I met, and I adored it so much that I’d probably still have it to this day if it weren’t for him. But Harry, image-conscious to a fault, felt strongly that as a successful Hollywood actress, I should always be seen in nothing less than a chauffeur-driven
A couple of weeks went by. I was a little disappointed, but I didn’t have that much invested either, and I had work to focus on, so it was easy to shrug and move along. I also had another dinner party to look forward to, with my pal Patrick Clement, at that same beach house where Harry and I met, so it wasn’t as if my social life was suffering either.
There were a lot of people at that party, but I spotted Harry across the room as soon as we walked in the door. He was with a date. He probably thought I was too, although Pat and I were just good friends, nothing more. It didn’t take Harry long to slip away from his date and catch me alone on the deck while Pat was inside getting our drinks.
He greeted me with a simple, “I thought you were going to call me.”
“I did,” I said. “Twice. You weren’t there.”
“Call again.”
“You call me.” I smiled and left him there on the deck by himself, and it was no accident that I left the party that night without giving Harry my phone number.
Game, set, and match.
I won’t even pretend it surprised me that he got my number from our host and called first thing the next morning. And there it is, the touching story of how Harry Bernsen and I became a couple.
W e actually had a lot going for us when we started out together. We both loved to laugh and had very similar senses of humor. We both loved going to parties, drive-in movies, and the theater. We were both committed to our careers and both spoke fluent “show business,” so we were genuinely interested in each other’s answers to the question “How was your day, dear?” He admired my work, and I admired his, especially when he became an agent, and a brilliant one, at the Jaffe Agency with the highly respected Phil Gersh. He thought I looked gorgeous in an evening gown, and I thought he looked gorgeous in a tuxedo.
A year after we started seeing each other, Harry moved in with me.
His mother never forgave me for taking her darling twenty-eight-year-old baby boy away from her. But she didn’t like Harry’s three sisters-in-law either, all of whom I loved, so I took her disdain as a compliment and happily avoided her like the plague.
L iving with Harry meant that I was now deeply invested in believing he was fabulous, and because I hate to be wrong, I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to any evidence to the contrary. It’s that red flag thing I was talking about earlier. Facing those warning signs meant admitting that I couldn’t trust my own judgment, and somehow that felt more threatening to my sense of security than anything Harry could do to me . . . or so I thought.
I was really eager for my sister, Evelyn, my brother, Jack, and their respective spouses to meet him now that we’d officially set up housekeeping. They met him. They didn’t like him one bit. In fact, from that first meeting on, they were only interested in coming to visit when Harry was out of town.
He didn’t seem to care much for them either, or anyone else I was close to whose status didn’t impress him, for that matter. That gregarious life of the party I’d spent a year dating was suddenly likely to turn sullen and pout his way through any social gathering that wasn’t his idea and/or his guest list. Of course, it became easier to let him have his way than to run the risk of his being rude to my friends and family, so I cooperated more than I should have. Unbeknownst to me until much, much later, he was also screening my phone calls, only passing along messages from people of whom he approved.
And then there was my beloved woody convertible. I had that car when Harry and I met, and I adored it so much that I’d probably still have it to this day if it weren’t for him. But Harry, image-conscious to a fault, felt strongly that as a successful Hollywood actress, I should always be seen in nothing less than a chauffeur-driven
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