Free Not Young, Still Restless by Jeanne Cooper Page B

away, having a perfectly enjoyable time, when Guy mentioned that he was looking forward to a trip to Majorca that weekend.
    “Majorca, huh?” Harry piped up. “It’s beautiful there. Jeanne, why don’t you go with him?”
    It was awkward, it was embarrassing; Guy and I both stared at him with our jaws hanging open. We knew he wasn’t kidding, and since neither Harry nor I drank in those days, we couldn’t use too much alcohol as an excuse. No, stone-cold sober he had just tried to send his wife away for the weekend with another man—and not just any man, but another man who was also a client, for God’s sake. It disgusted me. It also made me think that my friend Ethel probably knew what she was talking about.
    “No, Harry, I won’t be going to Majorca this weekend, but thank you for inviting me on Guy’s behalf.” I turned to Guy and added as I stood up, “Guy, I apologize for this. It was lovely seeing you again. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
    I went straight to our suite, packed my bags in record time, headed to the airport before Harry got back to the hotel, and flew to Madrid for the second leg of this alleged “vacation.” He arrived two days later, begging and pleading for me to forgive him and please, please not to leave him over a stupid mistake, just under so much stress, will never happen again, loves me and our children so much, blah, blah.
    In the end, we flew home together. I don’t know if this is an explanation or an excuse, but I still had my heart, or head, set on admiring him, despite all evidence to the contrary, and I was more determined to be right about him than I was to do the healthy thing and walk away. Someone put it perfectly once in something I read somewhere: “I think I loved you first and knew you later. I wonder if love is strong enough to overcome dislike.”
    It took years for me to find out the whole story, and of course not from him. Nothing sexual had ever gone on between Dolores and Harry, it turns out. He tried his damnedest, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with a married man. He assured her that his marriage was over—he was taking me on this one last trip to Rome, and then as soon as we got home, I was well aware that he’d be filing for divorce. He had to handle things delicately, you see, because of my mental problems. If I became too upset, I might become dangerous, either to myself or to him or to our children. Unfortunately for Harry, Dolores considered “almost divorced” to mean “still married,” so while they spent a great deal of time together and seemed fond of each other, their relationship was purely platonic. And to keep the cast and crew of Francis of Assisi from passing stories from the set along to me, Harry told them, “Jeanne is giving up her career for the sake of our children, and she resents all the time and attention my work requires, so please don’t upset her by saying a word about my clients or show business in general.”
    Dolores Hart, by the way, made four more films and then, in 1963, at the age of twenty-four, she abandoned both show business and secular life to become a nun. She eventually became prioress of the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. I like to believe Harry Bernsen inspired her decision—if he was any indication of the men she had to look forward to, she would rather run, not walk, to the nearest convent. It’s not remotely true; I just like to believe it.
    T hrough the 1960s and early 1970s, between my healthy, thriving children and my healthy, thriving career, I was so busy and had so much to be grateful for that I chose to assume my marriage was intact. Harry was adamant that he didn’t want to lose our children and me. It never occurred to me to ask him why.
    It’s hard to describe the embarrassment of riches in the world of television back then, decades before “reality” TV convinced network executives that actors and writers are foolish wastes of time and money.