It wasn’t that we didn’t have our disagreements from time to time. Unlike my first marriage, where I avoided conflict and kept my mouth shut many times when I shouldn’t have, I got the courage to be tough when the situation called for it. Before, I could get a little pushed around by agents and other people I worked with. One day I got very upset with John, and right in the middle of it all he started laughing. “Well, I might have taught you how to be tough, but I didn’t mean that you should be that way with me.”
After we had lived together for three years, we got married. I was doing a big show in Las Vegas, and we decided on the spot to formalize things. In my heart, I intuitively knew that the amount of time I had left with John would be limited. He had heart problems already by the time we met, and for that reason I was determined not to waste a second. It turned out in the end that we had nearly twenty wonderful years together. In all probability, I gave him more years than he might have had, just by being there as someone who really cared. “Let’s try this,” I would suggest. “Maybe if you ate differently.” I hired a trainer. He had already had his first bypass surgery. The trainer got him on the treadmill. One day he said, “That’s it. I have only so many steps in life. I don’t want to waste them on a treadmill.” I couldn’t argue with that.
My whole attitude about death and impermanence had certainly shifted to a much healthier place, a combination of my inner work and the experience of the passing of two of my dearest friends. The comedienne Totie Fields taught me a lot about courage. She was truly one of the funniest people in the world, and we worked together a lot and became very close. When she went out onstage, she always came out in grand style, wearing the best clothing and her hair done up perfectly. She was very overweight and diabetic, but she wanted cosmetic surgery to lose weight to be in shape for her daughter’s wedding. I told her not to do it. Lose weight first, get healthy, and then consider it, I suggested. She was that kind of bullheaded but adorable person who would eat my dessert and say it was okay as long as it wasn’t hers. Finally, she found a plastic surgeon in Connecticut who agreed to operate on her, and with predictable results. She went into vascular shock and almost died on the operating table. She was transferred to another hospital and somehow fell out of bed and injured her leg. It had to be amputated.
I came to visit her at the hospital almost every day. “Goddamn phantom pains,” she cried out and grabbed on to the bar above her bed. I asked her some questions about the pain, when it came on, how long it lasted, etc. I thought her description was similar to the contractions when you are about to give birth, so I had an idea.
“I’m going to teach you some breathing techniques, so you’ll know how to use them when it starts up.” I showed her the breathing patterns from natural childbirth. She tried it a few times, and it started to work.
“Oh, you little cunt,” she said, using her favorite term of endearment. “Here they give me all this medication and all this physical therapy, and you come in here and teach me a few breaths and I’m cured!”
Totie fought back and learned how to walk with an artificial leg. Even that became a joke with her. She had several different fashion looks on the legs that she used—one had Gucci designs all over it, another was black. A group of us flew up for her first appearance in Las Vegas after her recovery. She walked out on that stage and showed incredible courage coming back and poking fun at herself and her infirmities. She inspired us in the way she persevered despite the devastating effects of diabetes. Her father had the same disease and died at age forty-nine. Her beloved sister also died at the same age from brain cancer.
“I’ll never make it past forty-nine,” she told me.
“Totie, stop saying that,” I warned her, lecturing to her about the power of the mind.
She fulfilled her own prophecy. It was a great loss.
Elsie Giorgi’s passing also had a profound impact on my spirit. She had been a great support to me throughout the years, always there to help when something came up. As she got older, it was my turn to take a more active role in taking care of her. But she could be a stubborn patient. After she broke a hip, she started slowing down. Like many transplanted New Yorkers, she loved the freedom of driving in Southern California. She had personalized license plates made up for each new car, the first one with her initials, EAG, followed by the number 1, EAG2 for the second one, and so on.
“Elsie, I told you I’d always tell you the truth,” I told her. “You can’t drive anymore.” I took away the keys to EAG9.
“Noooo!” But after she yelled at me, she quickly acquiesced. Not long afterward she had a stroke and lost the ability to speak, and for someone who loved to talk as much as she did, it was heartbreaking. I had been on the road in Nashville and just returned home when I got the call that she had taken a turn for the worse. I raced to Cedars-Sinai hospital. When I came into the room, a nurse told me that she
