Helen Hayes' latest autobiographical book, "My Life In Three Acts," was written because the 89-year-old first lady of the American stage is still the girl who can't say no.
A free-lance writer, Katherine Hatch, approached Hayes with the idea for a book filled with anecdotes about her life in Mexico, where she has long owned a second home."I couldn't imagine why anyone would want such a book, but she was so enthusiastic I agreed," she said.
"I think the book ended up with less than 10 pages about Mexico."
Hayes' more than eight decades in show business have included such Broadway hits as "Victoria Regina" and "Happy Birthday," films ranging from "A Farewell to Arms" to "Airport" - for which she won an Oscar - and countless television appearances.
She has written or contibuted to several books, including an earlier autobiography titled "On Reflection," which was published in the 1950s.
Her new book turned out to be rich with anecdotes about famous figures who came to be her friends - Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Irving Berlin and William Randolph Hearst among others.
She first met Chaplin when she was invited to a party at the home of Alice Duer Miller, a writer whose home was later to become Gracie Mansion, home of New York City's mayors.
The trouble was Chaplin failed to make the party. Later when Irving Berlin, Alexander Woollcott and Hayes and her playwright and screenwriter husband, Charlie MacArthur, were walking home "a taxi careened around a corner and roared toward us. It stopped with a jerk and out tumbled Charlie Chaplin."
Since the party was over, they went to Berlin's apartment.
"It was the first meeting between Chaplin and Berlin, and they were bent on impressing each other," she recalls. "Irving played song after song on his small upright piano, which he could play only in the key of C. He changed keys by pressing a little lever. A tune he had just finished, called `Remember,' which he sang in his reedy voice, became my and Charlie MacArthur's special lovers' song.
Hayes is most moving when she writes about her love for her husband of 30 years, the personal tragedies, such as the sudden and untimely death of her daughter, Mary, from polio, and her return to Roman Catholicism after her husband died.
She met MacArthur for the first time because she bumped into Marc Connelly, who asked her to help him choose a Christmas present for his lady friend. Then he took her to a party filled with New York sophisticates and she felt decidedly out of place. She took a glass of sherry and moved off to a secluded niche.
"About twenty minutes later, a good-looking fellow with curly brown hair and sparkling green eyes came over, maybe because he felt sorry for me sitting there all alone," she writes. "He held out a small paper bag. `Wanna peanut?' he asked. `Thanks,' I said. He poured a few in my hand and said, `I wish they were emeralds.'
"Well, I was bowled over. Right then and there I fell in love with Charles MacArthur, the most beautiful, most amusing, most amazing and dazzling man I had ever met."
Charlie, she writes, could not bear to take a wife better known than he, a constant thorn as Hayes remained better known.
When "The Front Page," opened, Charlie and his co-author, Ben Hecht, fled to the fire escape shortly after the curtain went up.
"A few minutes into the first act I knew we were in. Percy Hammond, the Tribune critic, was chuckling and pounding his companion on the back. Charlie Chaplin's eyes were rolling. The audience was breaking up with laughter.
"I ran to the fire escape and shouted, `It's a hit!' Whereupon Charlie opened his arms and asked, `Will you marry me, Helen?'
"It was a marriage planned by God," she says, despite its rocky times, mostly caused by MacArthur's love of the bottle. "Until Mary died, the drinking was only sporadic. But then Charlie set about killing himself. It took seven years, and it was harrowing to watch," she writes.
Hayes does not care for any of the movies she made. After the TV movie "Murder with Mirrors," the producer called to tell her 20 million people had watched it.
"I found that I felt depressed," she writes. "Twenty million people! The total audience I had reached in 80 years in the theater - all those plays, all those beautiful lines, all that shared intimacy with live patrons - amounted to a tiny fraction of the number of people who had watched me the night before in a mediocre TV show."
Hayes writes hilariously about her encounters with royalty. Her mother had lectured her never to speak to celebrities unless they spoke to you.
She tells of her meeting the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, who had a job promoting Machiavelli's perfume at Bergdorf's.
"When Marie came into my dressing room, she sat down on the sofa and gave me a bottle of perfume," Hayes writes. "Before I could stop myself, my first utterance was, `Is Your Serene Highness still working at Machiavelli's perfume counter?' "
Then there was an afternoon ferry boat ride with Beatrice Lillie to Blackwell's Island in the East River, home to a hospital for the mentally ill. After strolling around, lunching on hot dogs, ice cream and lemonade, they decided to leave. In private life Bea Lillie was Lady Peel, married to a member of the British peerage and capable of pulling that rank when needed.
At the ferry, a guard asked for their passes.
"`My dear sir,' Bea replied in her toniest Lady Peel voice, `I am Beatrice Lillie, and this is Helen Hayes. We both have performances to give tonight, and we have to get to our theaters.' "
"The guard was unmoved. Then she added, in her best British accent, `I am Lady Peel; Miss Hayes is the first lady of the American theater, and this gentleman is the distinguished playwright, Mr. Charles MacArthur.'
"The guard sighed wearily. `Listen, lady, we're already got some Lillies here and several first ladies and maybe a couple of MacArthurs, too. So show me a pass or get back to the hospital and take tea with Greta Garbo and Lady Astor. There are a few of them, too, roaming around.' "