Sneak Previews of Forthcoming Books : Escape From Hollywood

‘Regulars of what came to be called the Palm Springs Yacht Club included Douglas Fairbanks Jr., David Niven, Jennifer Jones and David Selznick, and Tyrone Power.’

DURING THE WINTER months, Darryl, his wife, Virginia, and sometimes the children would travel to Palm Springs by airplane or car. In 1943, Zanuck had bought an estate there. Virginia christened it Ric-Su-Dar, after the first syllables of the names of the three children, Richard, Susan and Darrylin. The walled-off compound, which took up most of a block near the town’s center, contained two structures--a two-story main house, where the family and servants stayed, and a pool house with four bedrooms and a living room that guests came to call the “casino.” Separating the two whitewashed, red-tiled buildings was a 70-foot pool. Tall date palms, lemon trees and tamarisks provided shade, and pink, white, red and yellow flowers bloomed out of beds that lined the manicured lawn. The Zanucks added a tennis court behind the pool house.

When Zanuck himself first visited the house to survey the work that was needed, he found an old croquet set. He began to play and, once he became accomplished, took up the sport with a vengeance. Every weekend celebrities would stream to Ric-Su-Dar to relax or play croquet. The two activities were mutually exclusive, since Zanuck took the sport so seriously. For matches that ran deep into the night, the players parked cars around the perimeter of the field and trained headlights on the croquet course.

Joseph Cotten was a frequent guest. Other regulars of what came to be called the Palm Springs Yacht Club included Douglas Fairbanks Jr., David Niven and his wife, Hjordis, Jennifer Jones and David Selznick, Spyros Skouras and Tyrone Power. The chief activity, of course, was croquet, and the lawn was dotted with sturdy white wickets, a scoreboard and other equipment. “If you didn’t play croquet,” wrote Cotten in his autobiography, “you saw Darryl and the others only at lunch, cocktails and dinner.”

Darrylin recalled in an interview for a Palm Springs magazine years later that the games got so rowdy at times that neighbors summoned the police because “they thought somebody was being murdered. What was really happening was that Daddy was shouting that he had seen Clifton Webb or some other player move their ball, and, a couple of times, in the heat of the play, Howard Hawks threw his mallet down and left in a huff. They used to get very, very wild.”

Virginia was the queen of the weekend doings. She hired a chef and a pastry chef to feed the guests, who numbered as many as 40. She would have breakfast served outdoors at six or seven tables. At 11 o’clock, the croquet game would begin. Other visitors swam in the pool or batted balls in the tennis court. Virginia would call a halt to play about two hours later, when everybody would adjourn to the big Spanish patio, where a long table had been set up. Lunch would last for two hours. “By that time,” said Darrylin, “Daddy was raring to go again with the croquet, and they’d go back to it.” Virginia and the women would prowl the Palm Springs shops for clothing in the afternoon. At 7 o’clock, the entire party would meet in the casino for cocktails. Then they would troop off to the main house for dinner--a two- or three-hour affair.

When the game was finished before dark, according to Cotten, “there was dancing to the phonograph or a wild game of charades in the billiards room.” Charlie Chaplin, ironically, “always won the booby prize,” wrote Cotten. Virginia was a canasta fiend, and she would recruit a foursome who would retire to a corner to play. Noel Coward or Judy Garland would sing. And “sometimes, when the stars lowered themselves over the desert to within touching distance, Spyros Skouras would recite Greek poetry in his native tongue,” Cotten wrote.

Zanuck played practical jokes, and though Virginia supposedly disapproved she yowled with laughter at his antics. She didn’t deplore all his jokes, she once declared, because he could take it as well as he dished it out. One favorite ploy was to hand a new guest his “personal mallet.” Zanuck claimed it was so delicately balanced that it would turn a new player into a virtuoso magically. Supposedly the finest wood from the Himalayas or from Lebanon gave it the proper heft. After the third or fourth shot, the mallet would break into a million splinters. To his guest’s horror, Zanuck would wail, “Oh, my God, that mallet is irreplaceable.” Another trick was the erratic ball. It would veer aimlessly no matter how truly a player hit.

Weekends at Ric-Su-Dar were always relaxing--unlike Beverly Hills get-togethers where people were made to dress up in showy, uncomfortable clothing. At Virginia’s home, guests could wear slacks and shirts or golf skirts and T-shirts. When the weekend was over, the Zanucks’ driver would convey them to the airport. Back to the rat race.

Copyright 1989 by Marlys J. Harris.