The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Your driver.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yes. Hi.”

“I know what I want,” he said.

His voice was confident. Its strength scared me. I felt so weak right then. But I knew it had been my idea for this call to happen. I had set up the nature of it. Tell me what you want to keep you quiet was what I had said without saying it.

“I want you to make me famous,” he said, and when he did, the very last shred of affection I had for stardom drained out of me.

“Do you realize the full extent of what you’re asking?” I said. “If you’re a celebrity, last night will be dangerous for you, too.”

“That’s not a problem,” he said.

I sighed, disappointed. “OK,” I said, resigned. “I can get you parts. The rest is up to you.”

“That’s fine. That’s all I need.”

I asked him his agent’s name, and I got off the phone. I made two phone calls. One was to my own agent, telling him to poach Nick from his guy. The second was to a man with the highest-grossing action movie in the country. It was about a police chief in his late fifties who defeats Russian spies on the day he’s supposed to retire.

“Don?” I said when he answered the phone.

“Evelyn! What can I do for you?”

“I need you to hire a friend of mine in your next movie. The biggest part you can get him.”

“OK,” he said. “You got it.” He did not ask me why. He did not ask me if I was OK. We had been through enough together for him to know better. I simply gave him Nick’s name, and I got off the phone.

After I set the phone back in the cradle, I bawled and I howled. I gripped the sheets. I missed the only man I’d ever loved with any lasting meaning.

My heart ached in my chest when I thought about telling Connor, when I thought about trying to live a day without him, when I thought of a world without Harry Cameron.

It was Harry who created me, who powered me, who loved me unconditionally, who gave me a family and a daughter.

So I bellowed in my hotel room. I opened the windows, and I screamed out into the open air. I let my tears soak everything in sight.

If I had been in a better frame of mind, I might have marveled at just how opportunistic Nick was, how aggressive.

In my younger years, I might have been impressed. Harry most certainly would have said he had guts. Plenty of people can make something out of being in the right place at the right time. But Nick somehow turned being in the wrong place at the wrong time into a career.

Then again, I might be giving that moment too much credit in Nick’s own story. He changed his name, cut his hair, and went on to do very, very big things. And something tells me that even if he had never run into me, he would have made it happen all on his own. I guess what I’m saying is it’s not all luck.

It’s luck and being a son of a bitch.

Harry taught me that.

Now This

February 28, 1989

PRODUCER HARRY CAMERON HAS DIED

Harry Cameron, prolific producer and onetime husband of Evelyn Hugo, died of an aneurysm over the weekend in Los Angeles. He was 58 years old.

The independent producer, formerly a Sunset Studios mogul, was known for shepherding some of Hollywood’s greatest films, including the ’50s classics To Be with You and Little Women and some of the most exciting films of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, such as 1981’s All for Us. He had just wrapped on the upcoming Theresa’s Wisdom.

Cameron was known for his keen taste and kind but firm demeanor. Hollywood has been left heartbroken with the loss of one of its favorites. “Harry was an actor’s producer,” said a former colleague. “If he picked up a project, you knew you wanted to be involved.”

Cameron is survived by his teenage daughter with Evelyn Hugo, Connor Cameron.

Now This

September 4, 1989

WILD CHILD

BLIND ITEM!

Which precious Hollywood progeny was caught with her pants down? And we mean that literally!

This daughter of a former A++-list actress has been having a rough time. And it appears that instead of lying low, she’s going wild.

We hear that at the age of 14, this Wild Child has been MIA from her prestigious high school and is often seen out at one of New York’s various high-profile clubs—at which she’s rarely, ahem, sober. We’re not just talking alcohol, either. There seems to be some powder under your nose there . . .

Apparently, her mother has been trying to get a handle on the situation, but things hit the fan when Wild Child was caught with two fellow students . . . in bed!

SIX MONTHS AFTER HARRY DIED, I knew I had no choice but to get Connor out of town. I had tried everything else. I was attentive and nurturing. I tried to get her into therapy. I talked with her about her father. She, unlike the rest of the world, knew he had been in a car accident. And she understood why something like that needed to be delicately handled. But I knew it only compounded her stress. I tried to get her to open up to me. But nothing was helping me get her to make better choices.

She was fourteen years old and had lost her father with the same swiftness and heartbreak with which I had lost my mother so many years before. I had to take care of my child. I had to do something.

My instinct was to move her away from the spotlight, away from people willing to sell her drugs, willing to take advantage of her pain. I needed to bring her someplace where I could watch her, where I could protect her.

She needed to process and heal. And she could not do that with the life I had made for us.

“Aldiz,” Celia said.

We were talking on the phone. I had not seen her in months. But we talked every night. Celia helped ground me, helped me to keep moving forward. Most nights, as I lay in bed speaking to Celia on the phone, I could speak of nothing but my daughter’s pain. And when I could speak of something different, it was my own pain. I was just starting to come out of it, to see a light at the end of the tunnel, when Celia suggested Aldiz.

“Where is that?” I asked.

“It’s on the southern coast of Spain. It’s a small city. I’ve talked to Robert. He has a call in to some friends he knows in Málaga, which isn’t too far. He’s going to ask about any English-language schools. It’s mostly a fishing village. I don’t get the impression anyone will care about us.”

“It’s quiet?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said. “I think Connor would have to really go out of her way to find trouble.”

“That seems to be her MO,” I said.

“You’ll be there for her. I’ll be around. Robert will be there. We will make sure she’s OK. We will make sure she’s supported, that she has people to talk to. That she makes the right types of friends.”

I knew that moving to Spain would mean losing Luisa. She had already moved with us from L.A. to New York. She wouldn’t want to uproot her life again to move to Spain. But I also knew she had been taking care of our family for decades and was tired. I got the impression that our leaving the United States would be just the excuse she needed to move on. I would make sure she was taken care of. And anyway, I was ready to take a more hands-on approach to maintaining my home.

I wanted to be the kind of person who made dinner, who scrubbed a toilet, who was available to my daughter at all times.

“Are any of your movies big in Spain?” I asked.

“Nothing recently,” Celia said. “Yours?”

“Just Boute-en-Train,” I said. “So no.”

“Do you really think you’ll be able to handle this?”

“No,” I said, even before I knew what Celia was specifically talking about. “Which part do you mean?”

“Insignificance.”

I laughed. “Oh, God,” I said. “Yes. That’s about the only part I am ready for.”

* * *

WHEN THE PLANS were finalized, when I knew what school Connor would go to, what houses we were going to buy, how we were going to live, I walked into Connor’s room and sat down on her bed.

She was wearing a Duran Duran T-shirt and faded jeans. Her blond hair was teased at the crown. She was still grounded from when I had caught her having a threesome, so she had no choice but to sit there with a sour face and listen as I spoke.

I told her I was retiring from acting. I told her we were moving to Spain. I told her I thought she and I would be happier living with good people, away from all the fame and the cameras.

And then I very gently, very tentatively, told her that I was in love with Celia. I told her I was going to marry Robert, and I explained why, succinctly and clearly. I did not treat her like a child. I spoke to her as an adult. I finally gave her the truth. My truth.

I did not tell her about Harry, about how long I had been with Celia or anything that she didn’t need to know. Those things would come in time.

But I told her what she deserved to understand.

And when I was done, I said, “I’m ready to hear everything you have to say. I’m ready to answer any questions at all. Let’s have a discussion about this.”

But all she did was shrug her shoulders. “I don’t care, Mom,” she said, sitting on her bed with her back against the wall. “I really don’t. You can love whoever. Marry anybody. You can make me live wherever. Go to whatever school you decide. I don’t care, OK? I just don’t care. All I want is to be left alone. So just . . . leave my room. Please. If you can do that, then the rest of it, I don’t care.”

I looked at her, stared right into her eyes and ached for her aching. With her blond hair and her face thinning out, I was starting to fear that she looked more like me than Harry. Sure, conventionally speaking, she would be more attractive if she looked like me. But she should look like Harry. The world should give us that.

“All right,” I said. “I will leave you alone for now.”

I got up. I gave her some space.

I packed up our things. I hired movers. I made plans with Celia and Robert.

Two days before we left New York, I walked into her bedroom and said, “I’ll give you your freedom in Aldiz. You can choose your own room. I’ll make sure you can come back here to visit some of your friends. I’ll do whatever I can to make life easier for you. But I need two things.”