Connie Stevens: A Cricket in the House

When we meet again several weeks post-party, Stevens whispers, thrillingly Susan Slade-like, "Let's go in here--no one else will know we're even in the house." She spirits me through the high-ceilinged foyer and entryway, and past a grand staircase that Bette Davis would have killed to play scenes on. We bypass a capacious living room with a baby grand--the walls facing the sprawling grounds are glass--in favor of a nook filled with couches. Nearby, a custom-built, tropical fish tank ("the first in Beverly Hills," Connie says proudly) stands imbedded in a wall like a giant ice cube. Other than the family photographs that crop up here and there, one looks in vain for tchotchkes--endearing home decorating don'ts--that might mar the oceanic, impersonal Beverly Hills airiness. Some might call the ambience the unbearable lightness of Connie. Most of us would move in there in seconds flat. "So much life happens here that I really believe there's something about this property," says Stevens, dressed with flattering simplicity, snuggling into a floral patterned chair and running her fingers through her meringue of hair.

"Probably Sonja Henie had a nice, peaceful feeling about her, because there are very good vibes in this house--as though they've been handed down. I've evened out a few walls, rounded a few others, but the bones of the old house are still the same. Indicating a majestic elm that anchors a corner of her manicured, rose-spattered acreage, she says, "There's a tree house up there that, as kids, my girls used to climb up and down and out of. Oh, come here a second--I want to show you something."

I trail Stevens back to the living room--you could give a party for 200 in here, comfortably--which is dominated by a gargantuan fireplace with a carved oak mantle. Pointing out a framed Miro, she follows the painting's circuity and bold blobs of color with her finger, explaining, "This is Joely, this is Tricia, this is a scale, this is the umbilical cord. That's why I bought it." Of a larger, ethereally abstract painting by an unknown artist that graces another wall, she smiles and shrugs, saying, "This one's just peaceful and I like being around it. I take it with me wherever I go. Every decorative piece in this house is my feeling, my choice. It might be wrong, it's not the fanciest and by far not the best, but it's bright and it's cheerful."

But it's the fireplace that seems to stir Stevens's house-pride. Her hands riding the curves of three-dimensional carvings that suggest twisted vines, she explains, "I had a French wood-carver do this from a solid piece of oak and you can actually stick your fingers in and out of the carvings. It's beautiful, but so sad that people don't do this kind of work anymore." When we settle back into her out-of-the-way sitting room and Stevens boasts about her daughters ("Tricia Leigh has a new movie, Book of Love, and also a record out," she purrs), I ask her how she feels about the movie version of Postcards From the Edge, a fictional addition to the cottage industry of Tell-All's by movie stars' pissed-off daughters (_Haywire_ by Brooke Hayward, Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford, Detour by Cheryl Crane, My Mother's Keeper by B.D. Hyman). "When I heard that that's what they were going to film here," she says, unsmiling, jiggling her tumbler of designer water, "it was completely ironic. But this stuff goes further back, you see, because some years ago, I had been waiting for a house in Malibu to come on the market. I was retrenching then, trying to find my life. I wanted to live at the beach, raise my children, have them go to Catholic school there. When I bought the house, I said to the realtor about the place next door, 'Is that the height of decadence? Who would build a swimming pool in the sand? He said: Debbie Reynolds.'"

Stevens throws back her head, letting out a tinkly, room-warming laugh. Nonetheless, the bad blood has cooled between the former Mrs. Fishers, so much so that Stevens and daughter Joely were the headline entertainers at a recent fundraiser the proceeds of which went to the Thalians, the charity organization headed by Reynolds.

But, I persist, what if one of her offspring were to unleash a roman a clef about growing up absurd in Hollywood even half as scathingly funny as Carrie Fisher's? Stevens says firmly, "I started to write an autobiography, You Had to Be There, but I got so uncomfortable with the idea. There are a lot of people involved you don't need to be reading about right now. If and when my children write their books, it will be with a lot of love, good nature, and [understanding] of the struggle I had in trying to keep things together. My kids are pretty secure, bright, and know who they are. They've been loved real hard, as I was by my dad. I think my kids know that they're number one; I could have taken the easy way out so many times, by marrying wealthy. And I'm not just talking about Postcards From the Edge now, because that has so much to do with Carrie, but about anybody who writes books like that. I made the decision a long time ago that I had an obligation to my children that I happily fulfilled. I was more secure being a mother than I was walking on a set."

When Stevens pointedly steers the conversation away from personal confessionals, I ask if it is true that she once converted a third floor area of the house--decorated by Henie like a Scandinavian skating rink--into a playroom for her daughters. "This isn't a house for little kids, so I put in a floor that they could roller skate on," she says matter-of-factly, as if any mother might do so. "Then, I closed it off so that they could have on their radios and TVs." She describes, but declines to show, two of her favorite upstairs rooms. One of these she calls "The Womb," which she talks about in a way that suggests a safe house crossed with a permanent, floating pajama party: "a place to hang out for girlfriends who have fights with their husbands or boyfriends, my mom, old friends."

Just as Stevens begins to talk about her other favorite room--her bedroom--in strides a guy as strappingly handsome as any of her Warner Bros, sires. "This is my fella, Charlie Taylor," she says, beaming, as she introduces us. After they excuse themselves to briefly catch each other up on details of their mutual business concerns, Stevens fondly watches her partner disappear down the hall before resuming her description of the bedroom. "The walls are glass and slide open, which isn't done anymore. The birds nest right outside and aren't afraid, so they wake you up and sing all day."

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Comments

  • Connie H says:

    Connie Stevens played in 77 Sunset Strip in the late 1950's NOT Hawaii five-o the latter didn't show up until the late 1960's. Just FYI.

    • John says:

      It was Hawaiian Eye not Hawaii 5 0.although she had one or two spot appearances in 77 Sunset Strip which aired at the same era as Hawaiian Eye as both were detective shows. Hawaiian Eye starred Robert Conrad and Anthony Aisley.