In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

v_yhapter I hirteen "I am not thinking of matrimony either with Mr. Harrison or anybody else. " As it became more apparent to her friends that this relationship with Rex Harrison was not simply a passing fancy, they became concerned. Many of them looked fondly back on Sydney Chaplin, Bill Hanson, and James Sainsbury as much more suited to Kay than this pompous ladies' man. "Oh, Rex was never the love of her life," snaps Kim Kendall. "She was so crazy about Bill Hanson she couldn't see straight!" Other friends feel that Chaplin better fit that description. Decades older than Kay, Harrison was well past his prime as "Sexy Rexy." But for once, she had latched onto a man who could keep her on her toes mentally and emotionally as well as physically . "She was terribly funny with Rex," says Laurie Evans, who was later Kay's agent. "She was a match for Rex, which nobody else was, intellectually and on a sense-of-humor basis. Lilli was not gifted with a sense of humor." All her life, Kay had lived in a dreamy Noël Coward comedy of her own making. A drama queen from childhood, she had been looking for a leading man as self-obsessed and witty as she; and now she had found someone to play Elyot to her Amanda in a twenty-four-hour-a-day production of Private Lives; a Nick Charles to her Nora, a Petruchio to her Katharine. Actress Nancy Olson told one of Harrison's biographers that the couple's public fights had "great humour and tremendous style. It was like a contest to see who could be the most outrageously nasty, but with an undercurrent of such amusement with it all and tremendous fun. It was not lethal venom—but theatrical venom. They played the part well and they enjoyed their own performance tremendously." Carol Matthau recalls a romantic restaurant dinner during which "Kay suddenly showed the stress [of their ongoing triangle] by throwing her drink in Rex's face. He barely moved, but he threw his drink in her face.... I came to learn this was normal behavior for these two." Kay's friend Princess Lilian (^hapten I hipteen 8 7 remembers that "We were always laughing and giggling because she was so rude and insulting to Rex—he was so pompous." She particularly enjoyed taking him down a peg or two in public, at one party yelling at him, "Sexy Rexy! Who said you were sexy?!" Those who had felt the sharp edge of Harrison's temper through the years were delighted, and Kay gained many admirers for this alone. It was during this time that Kay first got to know her half-brother, Cavan Kendall, the son of Terry and his second wife, Doric. Cavan was twelve years old in 1954 and in boarding school. Kay tried her best to befriend the pre-teen; she would hire a hotel room for the weekend and take him to the beach or to restaurants. He remembered Kay sitting up in bed, surrounded by framed photos of Rex Harrison, along with one or two of Dirk Bogarde. His school chums, who thought his half-sister "quite dishy," were green with jealousy. She brought him a St. Christopher's medal from Cartier's in Paris and, in a totally different approach, introduced him to champagne cocktails. For breakfast. "I didn't know what it was at the time, and it certainly tasted good, so I knocked it back," he recalled. "I think I giggled for the next four hours." Kay also had the pleasure of introducing Harrison to her beloved father—as well as her stepmother, the bête noire of Gladys Kendall's existence . The glamorous couple would show up with a bottle of Chianti, and the Kendalls would lay out a spread of shepherd's pie. Cavan noted how much Kay and Harrison loved getting away from it all, "sitting on the settee watching TV and having dinner on their lap on their own." Kay hoped that being in such a settled family atmosphere would give Harrison ideas—but he still showed no signs of wanting to make their relationship official. In the fall of 1954, the theater gave Kay perhaps the best role she would ever play: the delicately bitter, sarcastic ghost Elvira in a touring company of Noel Coward's 1941 play Blithe Spirit. The role (which had been created in London and New York by Kay...

Share