While I was waiting for Shirley, who was delayed for a few days, I hung out in the gorgeous airy lobby spotting stars and, to my great pleasure, being spotted right back. Jane Russell, one of Hollywood's biggest and sexiest stars of the 1940S and 1950s, invited me to lunch at the Beverly Wilshire. John "call me Duke" Wayne landed his helicopter in the hotel's gardens before striding into the lobby in full cowboy get-up, telling me I was going to be a star and giving me the advice I opened this book with. "And never wear suede shoes," he added.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because," he said, low and slow, "I was taking a piss the other day and the guy in the next stall recognized me and turned towards me. He said, 'John Wayne - you're my favorite actor,' and pissed all over my suede shoes."
As if that wasn't enough, when Shirley arrived back in Hollywood, this powerful and beloved Hollywood figure pulled out all the stops and threw me the most dazzling and glamorous welcome-to-LA party. There I met icons like Gloria Swanson, Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli, and soon-to-be best friends, like Sidney Poitier - with whom I went on to make two movies - and the Hollywood super-agent and super-host Irving "Swifty" Lazar, so-named because he once put together three movie deals for Humphrey Bogart in a single day. The following night Shirley took me to dinner in Danny Kaye's kitchen, where the other guests were the Duke of Edinburgh and Cary Grant, and the night after that it was just a quiet family dinner - except that her quiet family dinners consisted of her mum, her dad and her brother, Warren Beatty.
Michael Caine "Blowing the Bloody Doors Off" (2018)
