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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Q:

Did he die?

Cerf:

No, he did not die, but it was a very serious illness. We brought him down to New York. Russel Crouse, who was an old friend--he'd been the press agent for the Theater Guild and adored Gene--and Saxe Commins (I'll have to tell you about Saxe Commins in a minute) and I brought Gene down to New York and put him into Doctors‘Hospital. He was terrified of Carlotta: “Keep that woman away from me. She almost killed me.” He was in the hospital here for weeks. Then we all decided together he was going to live in New York, not go back to Boston. At that time there was no space to be had in New York; everything was overcrowded. But Phyllis, my wife, found a place for him at the Carlyle on Madison Avenue. Of course, for Eugene O'Neill they moved heaven and earth. We also found a male nurse to take care of him. He needed it; he was that bad, that weak. He was down to under a hundred pounds. He had gotten well enough so that he could leave Doctors‘Hospital, and it was arranged that this male nurse would call for him at ten o'clock the next morning to take him to the new apartment at the Carlyle Hotel. When the male nurse and the doctor arrived to get him the next morning, he was gone! Carlotta (they couldn't keep her confined; nobody would certify that she was insane, and at times she could be absolutely normal and very convincing and charming and meek and beautiful and lovely) had found out where he was, come down to Doctors‘Hospital and mesmerized him into going back to Boston with her.





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