Elaine’s

When I got to 860 a big CBS crew was filming Jamie Wyeth with Arnold Schwarzenegger posing for him for a show called Who’s Who. Cabbed up with Jamie and Arnold to a lunch at Elaine’s for Arnold’s movie Pumping Iron.  Stopped at the Ritz Towers, had to wait five minutes for Paulette Goddard to come downstairs.  She was wearing all her jewelry and was funny.  She said, “If you’d played your cards right, these could have all been yours” - to me. God, when I think of how many hours Bob and I spend taping her, trying to get the real story of her life out of her for that book Mr. Jovanovich wanted… I mean, if I’d been a big Hollywood star and married to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess Meredith and Erich Maria Remarque I think I could’ve come up with a few hot stories.

At Elaine’s Delfina Rattazzi was there. She works at Viking now as a reader for Jackie O.  Victor was there and Paulette was falling in love with him because she was calculating all the Halstons she could get out of him.  Pat Patterson came and sat with us, and Charlotte Curtis from The New York Times was there, too.