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Lyhapter l i n e e n "I wont be any good at it! She needs a strongperson. " In the autumn of 1956, as the new theatrical season started, the producers of My Fair Lady suggested that Harrison check into Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center for a series of routine tests. Kay had been feeling weak, feverish, and headachy for some time, so she accompanied him. Their doctor was Dana W. Atchley, "physician to the stars" (and for whom Columbia-Presbyterians Atchley Pavilion was named). Atchley could be depended on to keep secrets, which, as it turned out, was a good thing. He told Harrison that he was concerned about Kays tests and that she needed to have further blood work done—Atchley also got in touch with Carl Goldman, who had been the Kendalls' family physician in London since the 1940s. "I don't know what the fuck they're doing," Kay groused to Carol Matthau when she had to go in for further tests. "It's just for overnight or something." Meanwhile, Kay was happily planning her first big, "family" Christmas bash, decking the Long Island house out in lights and wreaths, with a huge tree. Harrison put off Dr. Atchley's repeated requests for an emergency consultation to go over Kay's results: he strongly suspected that this was going to be bad news, and he just didn't want to hear it until Christmas was over. Dirk Bogarde and Tony Forwood came to Long Island to spend three weeks. As the holiday season wore on, guests wandered in and out: Forwood's son by Glynis Johns, Gareth; Harrison's co-star Cathleen Nesbitt; Kay's sister Kim and her husband. Harrison had purchased an expensive record player, and Kay played the soundtrack of the new Judy Holliday musical, Bells Are Ringing, over and over again until everyone wanted to kill her. Bogarde recalled Kay gazing lovingly at Harrison, singing along with Holliday (and her co-star, Sydney Chaplin), "Just in time, I found you just in time. . . . Before you came my time was running low." 106 The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall Kay managed to drag Bogarde to a Christmas party in Manhattan at the home of theatrical producer Gilbert Miller and his socialite wife, Kitty. Convincing him was no easy task, as he wanted to spend his holiday lazing about Long Island and not playing the show-biz game. He grumbled and refused, and a furious Kay stormed off to the city, shouting, "You just don't understand—this isn't the kind of party you turn down—people murder to get invited to the Millers'!" Chastened, Bogarde dressed and followed her— at the party, he was delighted to meet not only Greta Garbo but Judy Garland, who had Kay perched adoringly at her feet all night. Bogarde and Garland became friends and were to co-star in her last film, / Could Go On Singing, in 1962. It was one of the happiest times in Kay's life: she finally had Harrison all to herself (except for having to share him with Eliza Doolittle every night). She had Hollywood begging for her services and throwing great whacking gobs of cash at her. And now she was playing Lady of the Manor to her best friends, showering them with gifts and hospitality. After one long dinner, Bogarde found Kay huddled up happily in a large armchair, exhausted, smiling and muttering, "Oh, wifey, I'm getting to be an old, old woman. . . . Oh! I am a lucky lady. . . . I've got all my loves about me." Even Kay's oft-estranged mother, Gladys, came to visit the couple on Long Island. Harrison could only take so much of Gladys and her friend Jean Baird, who had come along with her, so Kay called her sister and begged Kim to invite the ladies out to her own Long Island home. "I took mother and Jean to stay with us, to help Kay out," says Kim. "Then everything hit the fan! Kay called me up and said, 'How could you do this? How could you take mother away?' And all this after she'd asked me to!" Kay's relationship with Gladys continued to be rocky, and Harrison didn't help matters. As soon as Kay had come into money, she began sending her mother a monthly check, despite their differences. One month she was late and Gladys called to inquire after her stipend. As Kim remembers, "Rex wrote...

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