I first met Bettina straight out of college, just as my career as a dancer was beginning. She was married — at 21, which seemed awfully young to me — to another chorus boy, Eddy, with whom I found myself working on The Carol Burnett Show, The Sonny & Cher Show, and the short-lived Chester Burnett Show, the viewing audience’s indifference to which scared producers from presenting anything similar until The Stevie Ray Vaughn Blues ’n’ Comedy Hour in 1983. She had emigrated with her family from Guadalajara to Los Angeles when she was a child, and was intent on becoming one of southern California’s pre-eminent dermatologists.
As we entered our 30s, with the embarrassment of people unaware of how gloriously young we still were at that age, and would in fact remain for years to come, she left Eddy for a younger member of the dance troupe he’d put together to entertain on army bases, and was ordained to practice medicine. She bought the practice of a retiring San Fernando Valley-based eczema specialist and began earning much, much money. Physicians commonly drive far nicer cars than chorus boys, and she was no exception.
Younger Member cheated on her, and she left him for a Belgian alcoholic with whom she had two sons. I suspect she wasn’t aware of his alcoholism when she married him. She lived with her boys in Boys Town, West Hollywood’s gay neighbourhood, where tastefulness in attire and interior decoration was rampant, and more moisturiser was used per capita than anywhere else in Los Angeles County. I periodically consulted her regarding my adult acne, and to get exfoliated. At one visit, her hygienist told me Bettina always made sure her makeup was perfect before stepping into the examination room in which I waited. That worked for me, and how!
She left the Belgian alcoholic, and my first wife left me, and there we were, two attractive young (though we may not have realised it at the time) single brunets. Coming in to see her about my skin, I got wind of the fact that she had a birthday coming up, and asked if I might take her to a deluxe birthday brunch.
I wore the capacious Stop Making Sense suit I’d bought in London, and was still in my 30s when I came to collect her on the big day. She, fan of British music and fashion, was palpably impressed, but not a tenth as impressed as I, as she greeted me at the door in the shortest skirt in the history of clothing, and stilettos. That worked for me, and how! We took her Mercedes to a chic bistro on La Cienega Blvd. and conversed amiably. God knows how I was able to think straight over the din of my every gland bellowing, "Secrete! Secrete!"
We returned to her home for what I had hoped would be an evening of wild torrid heterosexuality. Boy, was it not, as she turned out not to fancy me to the extent her makeup-freshening and scandalously short skirt might have suggested. I didn’t insist, but imagined that if I were to remove my suit, and all else, and to display my gorgeous self in full, her inhibitions might melt away like lemon drops. I was still running for slenderness in those days, before my knees and ankles began howling, “Enough already!”, and going regularly to the gym for muscularity. I imagined that the sight of Little Elvis in full preparedness might do the trick, but no such thing was the case.
We made plans to go out again when I returned to Los Angeles the following month for Thanksgiving weekend. She’d decided to take her boys out of town for the weekend, and hadn’t thought I might have appreciated being so advised. I saw the writing on the wall and it said, “This doesn’t look like it’s going to work, big boy.”
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