Linda Christian And Edmund Purdom: What Happened In Venice

Ever since he fell out of love with his wife and in love with Linda Christian, Edmund Purdom has been a prime target. Never more so than last summer when he spent a whirlwind holiday with Linda in Venice, Barcelona, Rome and London. Columnists, gossips and the outraged public drew a bead on him. Purdom reacted characteristically. He went right on doing what he wanted to do, and in fact seemed rather pleased by all the brickbats.

It had been the practical thing, this trip area Purdom couldn’t go out with Linda in Hollywood where public opinion was strongly in favor of his martyred wife. Besides, Linda was making a picture in Barcelona. And so Purdom took off for Europe, flew first to Switzerland to see his sister, then to Barcelona for the rendezvous with Linda.

In Barcelona, Linda Christian waited anxiously for the man she refers to as “a friend.” On the set of Thunderstorm (a picture in which she plays the role of a girl with a past who brings bad luck to every man she encounters) Linda was nervous and ill at ease until Purdom arrived.

According to Purdom: “I came abroad because I needed a vacation quite badly. I’ve made six films in a row in Hollywood and I wanted to get away.” According to Hollywood: “Purdom’s behavior toward his wife was disgraceful. Before he left he and Linda were constantly smooching in public—and neither of them finally divorced!”

The two became inseparable. Every morning Purdom visited the set, helping and advising Linda. One morning Binnie Barnes, the producer, walked up to Purdom and said, “When Linda is playing a love scene with Carlos Thompson, I wish you’d stay out of their range. When Linda sees you she finds it difficult to warm up with Carlos. And Carlos when he sees you is just too embarrassed.”

Purdom deferred to the producer’s wishes. Next morning a story to the effect that Binnie Barnes had thrown Edmund Purdom off the Thunderstorm set, allegedly for interfering with the production, was all over Barcelona.

Unruffled, the tall, dark Englishman denied it. “Hardly fair, that rumor,” Purdom explained. “I may have offered Linda a little advice. But any friend would. It’s true Miss Barnes asked me to stay in the background during the love scenes. But that’s only because Carlos Thompson got embarrassed when he saw me looking on.”

According to Purdom: “I’m here with Linda because she speaks Italian and I don’t and she graciously offered to translate for me.” According to observers: “Linda didn’t have to translate anything because. they never spoke to anyone but each other—not even other Americans. They just wanted to be alone!”

The happy pair

Away from the set Linda and Edmund were gay, carefree, almost like honeymooners. They toured Barcelona with Linda doing the interpreting and Purdom proudly pointing out, “She speaks six languages, you know.”

At the Ritz Hotel “the two friends” held court. To inquiring reporters Edmund explained, “Linda and I may marry, and we may not. I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t want to be asked. The trouble with having any kind of a relationship on our level is that people keep on at you about it. After a while it becomes a bother.” And he would shake that magnificent head of his and look slightly perturbed and Linda lovingly would entwine her arm in his and say, “Come on, darling, let’s eat.”

One afternoon an Italian producer who wants Linda to make a film in Rome, flew into Barcelona. He met the happy pair—they had a friend in tow—in the Ritz—and immediately got down to business.

From his bulky briefcase he took a fat motion picture contract. Handing it to Linda, he began to explain the various clauses in Italian.

Purdom, who doesn’t speak any Italian, turned to the visiting fireman. “You know,” he volunteered, “I’m very proud of Linda. She worked out this Italian contract all by herself. No help from agents or lawyers.

According to Purdom (looking over Venetian glassware and scenery): “Linda and I may marry and we may not. Frankly, I don’t want to be asked. It becomes a bother!” According to London observers: “He brought Linda here to meet his parents. As for her—why, she can’t play a love scene if Edmund’s looking on. Embarrassed, you know.”

“Those stories you’ve heard about her being a rich, idle girl—they’re not true. When she was married to Ty Power she had to give up her career. Now she’s very serious about it. Those stories about her getting a million-dollar divorce settlement—exaggerations. Linda is not interested an just money. She’d like some good parts,”

From Barcelona, Linda, her hair dyed blonde, and Purdom journeyed to Venice. Somehow the story broke in Italy that Linda and Edmund would get married. Since Purdom wasn’t even divorced at the time and Linda’s divorce from Ty Power wasn’t final, the newspaper headlines embarrassed both parties. Linda said she had obviously been misquoted and that Signor Purdom was not her fiancé.

“But what are you then?” an Italian reporter asked.

Linda blew him a little feather of a smile. “Two friends,” she said softly.

In Venice, the two friends—that’s what they were called on the Continent—checked into the Lido. The Venice Film Festival was in progress and it was expected that the couple would turn up at the Palazzo del Cinema. Linda was expected to wear something new and ravishing from the Fontana fashion collection.

Instead of joining the other film celebrities, Linda and Purdom remained at the hotel, dining on chicken broth, frogs’ legs, boiled shrimp, tomato salad, pie with whipped cream, fruit and a light white wine. The two friends wanted to be alone and despite the pleadings and demands of the Italian journalists who watched their separate suites, they were.

The following morning in order to avoid the waiting photographers, Linda, wearing dark glasses, raced out of the hotel lobby and jauntily stepped down into a motorboat that had just pulled up at the hotel dock. A moment later, coming from the opposite side of the hotel, Purdom did the same. The motorboat whizzed off, taking the lovers to Cipriani’s where they lingered over lobster a l’americaine.

“I can’t understand it,” one lensman complained. “I thought they loved publicity.”

Not in Venice, they didn’t. They spent much of their time avoiding it, hiding out on the various islands in the lagoon. On Murano, for example, home of the world-famous glass factories, Linda was delighted and fascinated as she watched the glassblowers at work. “Darling,” she would say to Purdem as she picked up an ash tray, “do you like this?” And Edmund would nod.

On St. Francis of the Desert, another island out from Venice, Linda and Purdom, just like any other pair in love, sat on the retaining wall, exchanged tender glances, and looked out to sea at the fishermen’s boats and the setting sun and the reflection of tall trees in the water.

Questions and answers

In Rome they were barraged with questions.

Was there any truth that he and Linda were planning on marriage? Purdom was asked.

Said the actor, adjusting his spectacles, “People are making too much out of our relationship. ’m here with Linda because she speaks Italian and I don’t, and she graciously offered to translate for me. To show me Rome.” And he smiled at smiling Linda.

“How about your divorce?”

“By the time my wife Tita gets through suing me,” Purdom confessed, “I’ll be lucky if I have fifty dollars a week left.”

At this point in the press conference a priest approached the group. Nodding toward Linda who stood five feet away, her back to him, the priest said to Purdom. “A most attractive girl. Most attractive.”

“Indeed,” Purdom agreed. “Indeed.”

“I married her to Tyrone Power,” the priest said. And then as casually as he had entered the group, he walked off.

Purdom took it in stride. “Frankly,” he continued to the newsmen, “I needed this vacation quite badly. I’ve made six films in a row in Hollywood, and I wanted to get away.”

“Darling,” Linda interrupted, “we have to go.” And go they did while the tongues of the newsmen clucked.

“I wonder,” cracked one, “if Signor Purdom will take Linda home to mother?”

A week later Edmund brought Linda to London to his parents.

Said Edmund’s mother to her son, “Linda must be good for you. You look much better since you met her. You’re fatter in the face and it suits you.”

Purdom grinned and Linda beamed happily. Over tea, charming, witty, enchanting, the actress captivated Lillian and Charles Purdom completely. That night Linda Christian felt there would be no parental objections should they decide to marry.

A difficult young man

Whether that time will ever come is difficult to tell, largely because Edmund Purdom is a difficult young man to understand. His behavior is unpredictable. He will say the most outrageous things at the ‘most inopportune times.

For example, in London he went out of his way to blast Lana Turner, with whom he did not get on any too well during The Prodigal.

“I played some scenes with Lana in The Prodigal,” he revealed one afternoon, “and ‘I didn’t know if she was in them with me or not. She was aloof, cool, distant. So lady-like you’d never believe it. If only she’d get back to being what she used to be. She was so good then. They wanted me to make Diane with her. In the part she was supposed to teach me how to dress, how to speak, how to deport myself. Fancy Lana Turner teaching me how to speak!”

Why Purdom had to talk this way only he knows. A friend who played with him on the London stage says, “He’s really very insecure, and being insecure, he strikes out; he says the first thing that comes to mind. He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. He’s really a very fine chap. Perhaps Linda will put the bridle on him and make him the likable fellow he basically is.”

Linda Christian is a woman of the world, well-educated, widely-traveled, and expert in the ways of men. It was ironical to watch her guiding Purdom around Rome, for only a few years previously she had done the same for Tyrone Power. Linda knows all the sights and smells and shouts of Rome, and in presenting them to Purdom, she undoubtedly impressed him. Because Purdom is a relatively inexperienced young man, especially where worldly women are concerned.

Anyone who has seen Purdom and Linda Christian together, especially in Europe, cannot doubt that they find joy and daughter in their companionship.

Whether love will bind their lives together in eventual marriage no one can at this point—but a large number of people are anxious to find out.

THE END

—BY THELMA MCGILL

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE JANUARY 1956