Robert Wagner on Life, Career and Natalie

Sept. 22, 2008 — -- With five decades as an actor under his belt, Robert Wagner has a lot of stories to tell, and in his new memoir, "Pieces of My Heart," he opens up about his career and personal life.

The star of such films like "Kiss Before Dying," "The Longest Day" and "The Pink Panther," Wagner talks about about the sudden death of his life's love, actress Natalie Wood.

Read an excerpt of "Pieces of My Heart" below and check out more books featured on "Good Morning America" by checking out our library.

Each of the major studios was like a royal court that was in competition with the other royal courts. Each studio had a social lion who maintained a prestigious individual salon, and it wasn't necessarily the studio head. Then there were the salons that owed no special allegiance to any studio, but cherry-picked from all the elites, such as the one maintained by Bill and Edie Goetz.

At Fox, the elite circle was presided over by Clifton Webb. I worked with Clifton on "Stars and Stripes Forever," a biopic about John Philip Sousa, then "Titanic," and I was invited into his group. Clifton's friends included people like Noel Coward and Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder's partner, who never got much credit from anyone, especially Billy. Charlie was a kind, well-educated, very bright gay man who was fairly deep in the closet.

Clifton lived with his mother Mabelle, who was a total character, and ruled the roost. The father had left very young, and was out of the picture, if he'd ever been in it. Mabelle had opened a dance school in Indianapolis, and she and Clifton gave dancing lessons together. He teamed up with Bonnie Glass and formed a very successful duo that followed in the footsteps of Vernon and Irene Castle. I never saw Clifton dance on the stage, but people who did told me he was a magnificent talent, the equivalent of Astaire but with a fey manner that he managed to get away with. Always high style: white tie and tails. Certainly, he had a major career, starring in shows like Sunny and Irving Berlin's "As Thousands Cheer."

Clifton and Mabelle were completely devoted to each other; Clifton would dance with her at parties. She was outrageous, and would order Clifton around. "We are going to sit here," she would announce, "and then we are going to move over there." Mabelle was always at the head of the table, and Clifton was very respectful of her, although he had his eccentricities as well: he had an African grey parrot he would wrap in a napkin and put in a brandy snifter at the dinner table.

It was as if they were competing to see who could be the most like Auntie Mame. They both had a larger-than-life quality, and the bond between them was very thick. Sometimes too thick. One time Noel Coward called Clifton, and Clifton was going on and on about Mabelle, as he tended to do. And Noel said, "Dear boy, if you want to talk about her, do it on your nickel."

Clifton was gay, of course, but he never made a pass at me, not that he would have. I never saw Clifton with a man; I never knew of Clifton being with a man, or having a lover.

Clifton had a very rich deal at the studio, and his house reflected it. It was Victor Fleming's old place, and Clifton had done it in a bright, comfortable style, in the mode of Billy Haines -- the go-to decorator in that era. I remember at one point Clifton did the bar in a Greek style, full of things he brought back from the location of "Boy on a Dolphin." The word was that Clifton earned the same money that Darryl Zanuck earned. He didn't get the stock that Darryl got, but he earned the same money. Clifton had a string of enormous successes. There was "Laura," and "The Razor's Edge," then "Mr. Belvedere" and two sequels, "Cheaper by the Dozen," "Stars and Stripes Forever," and "Titanic" – all big hits.

I was learning that this kind of moviemaking was typical of Darryl; he never had the money that MGM or Paramount did. He couldn't buy stars, he had to make them, and if he didn't have enough stars to make a movie, he had the extraordinary ability to make the movie itself the star. Darryl had the vision to see real possibilities in an effete stage star, and to build very effective vehicles around a personality centering on asperity and waspish intelligence – hardly the stuff of mass audience entertainment then or now, but somehow Darryl and Clifton made it work.

Clifton was very social; he gave wonderful parties, so he had a lot of leverage by dint of his position as well as his commercial cachet. It was Clifton who introduced me to Noel Coward. Noel was playing Las Vegas and Clifton threw a lunch for him. Eventually, everybody else left, and I was alone with Noel. And he said, "Come and sit over here." So I went over and sat down, and he put his hand on my leg.

"Are you by any chance homosexual?" he asked.

"No, I'm not."

And he said, "Ah, what a pity." His hand came off, and that was it. After that, he couldn't have been more of a gentleman, and I always adored him.

************** Living with Barbara, hanging around with a social set that was a generation older, I was very consciously styling myself after an earlier era and in a sense swimming against the tide, which in that era consisted of Marlon Brando and Monty Clift. But my interest in associating with people my age was no more than nominal. I wanted to see the great stars I had watched at the movies up close. I wanted to learn their secrets; I wanted to learn how they did what they did.