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My Time with Gary Merrill
 Slightly edited.Greetings and salutations to my favorite website Rantburg Defender-Scimitar and Times-Picayune. I am Bill the Great4152, where it is my pleasure, by invitation, to provide readers with a few brief anecdotes and reminiscences of Gary Merrill and Bette Davis. My introduction to Gary Merrill happened by pure accident in 1976, at a restaurant/bar named Kayo's, which was right next door to the newly constructed Main Police Station, Headquarters for the City of Portland, Maine. Kayo's had a reputation for being one of the city's safest places to eat and drink, as well as being the most convenient place for the highly inebriated to find "alternate transportation" from the city to their homes; the Yellow Taxi Cab company was cattycorner from this policeman's bar. It was an early spring evening when I stepped into the bar to quench my thirst and grab a light dinner. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the place was packed, save for one seat at the horseshoe bar, next to a somewhat disheveled 60-ish year old gentleman, who was sitting and leaning in the "hard corner" of the bar, up against the brick wall. Being the polite 22 year old man that I was, I asked the gentleman if he had need of the vacant bar stool, was he waiting for someone, could I use it. He looked at his watch, said "Beth is a hour and half late, and she likely won't be here anytime soon", motioned to me to sit and said, "It's all yours, friend." I thanked him, introduced myself as Bill and he said his name was Gary, we shook hands and I sat down. I'm a cigarette smoker, so I pulled out one of my packs of Pall Mall Gold 100's filter out of my jacket pocket, pulled one cigarette out of the pack and lit up. My new bar buddy, Gary asked for a cigarette, "Sure, no problem." I had him remove his cigarette from the pack and I put the pack on the bar facing both of us, saying, “They are there when you need 'em, help yourself." I also put my Zippo on the deck of the bar. To my surprise, Gary didn't light up immediately, but instead tapped both ends of the cigarette on my Zippo, ripped off the filter, and then lit up the ragged end of the cigarette. As he lit up, I looked at his face: the light of cigarette lighter showed me a familiar face, and it dawned on me who he might be. I asked him directly, "Gary, you would happen to be The Gary Merrill, The actor, Star or co-star of some of the best B rated movies of the 1950's, would you?" And he replied, "They were all A rated movies as far as I'm concerned, it was the box office that made them B." Jeepers, Christmas in Heaven, Gary Merrill, once married to Bette Davis, Hollywood Legends, holy smokes man, you are talking with a Star. Gary and I hit it off like an uncle with his nephew. We talked about him owning a decommissioned lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, his run for Congressional Office as a Representative of Maine in 1970, his quirky habit of wearing a kilt in summer whilst visiting/shopping in The City of Portland (the first US city called Portland, founded in 1623), his adopted daughter, who wrote a very unflattering biography about Bette Davis and his, Gary's defence of his former wife Beth, (Bette to you), his business voice-overs for advertisements, and a lot more. In closing, I want to tell you, Gary still loved his ex-wife Beth, even in 1975, 15 years after their divorce. I asked Gary, "What attracted you first to your wife Bette/Beth?” and he said to me, “She was older that me, I was 34/35, she was 41/42, we worked on a movie together, I loved her scent, I loved the way she moved. I looked in her eyes they were captivating, but it was her lips that touched me; the best kisser I ever had." Gary died in Falmouth, Maine in 1990... I'll never forget my old drinking buddy. Posted by: Bill the Great4152 2022-01-11 |
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