Free Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir by Lorna Luft

movies seemed neither possible nor desirable. So she wavered.
    That’s where my dad came in.
    When Mama finally confided her business troubles to him, my dad was emphatic. He thought a concert tour was “a hell of a good idea.” On a concert tour she could sleep all day if she wanted; she could get as chubby as she wanted, too, and no one would care. After all, weren’t some of the greatest concert singers overweight? She wouldn’t need to starve herself and live on diet pills as she had for her films, and she wouldn’t have to drag herself out of bed at dawn, starved for stimulants. Of course she should do it, he told her. It would be wonderful. She could reinvent herself in another country, another setting. She could put behind her all the unhappiness and bad press from her MGM days.
    She took Dad’s advice. Scared but excited, she went to England and prepared to open at the London Palladium. She wanted my dad to go with her for moral support, but at first he refused. He had business concerns of his own, and besides, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea for him to be too closely involved in her business dealings. She had managers for that. That plan lasted about two weeks. A few days after Mama left, Dottie Ponedel, a makeup woman and close friend from her MGM days, called my dad and suggested that he come over to London because it “would mean a lot to Judy.” Two days later Dottie called again from London.
    My dad finally gave in. After all, the FBI might show up at his front door next! He flew to London, arriving the day before the Palladium opening. From then on, there was no going back for myfather. Ready or not, he would be involved in “Judy’s business” for the rest of her life.
    A lot of people have criticized my dad for that. They have implied that he got involved in my mother’s business because he wanted to ride on her coattails, take advantage of her fame. Nothing could be farther from the truth. One of the results of her studio upbringing was that she got used to having everything done for her when she was a teenager, and she kept those habits in her adult life. My mother and Vincente were in debt when they separated; they hadn’t been able to pay the taxes on their homes. Financially, my father was much better off before he married my mother. Dad came from an affluent family, and by the time he met my mom, he had produced several B movies and invested in thoroughbred horses with Prince Aly Khan.
    The most hurtful part of the accusations against my father is the widespread notion that his gambling ruined my mother financially. Once he married my mother and became a target for photographers and curiosity-seekers, he stopped going to the betting windows at the track himself. He wanted to remain anonymous, so he would give the money to his close friend and business partner, Vern Alves. Dad would write down the bets he wanted Vern to place, give the money to Vern in cash ahead of time, and have Vern place the bet at the track. Vern would also collect the cash if the horse won and give the money to my dad afterward. Dad would give him a percentage for placing the bet. This was the system Dad and Vern used during my childhood years in Beverly Hills. Vern still gets angry at the allegations that my dad gambled away all the family money. Vern says that he knows exactly what happened during those years because he handled the money personally, and that my dad used his winnings to pay the house mortgage and other expenses. According to Vern, Dad was always hoping his winnings would be enough to carry the family through the latest emergency. Compared to her years at MGM, my mother didn’t work that muchwhen I was small, and there was never enough money to support the lifestyle she was used to.
    My father was my mother’s protector, financially and in every other way. He wanted to take care of Mama. He loved her, he wanted to help her, and in those days he was still under the illusion that he could solve all