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Martine’s only attempts at making an art film came with mixed results. Her first, entitled LAST TANGO IN ZAGAROL, was as you can imagine a take-off on the Brando film, only as a comedy. The only drawback was her leading man, Franco Franchi, was no Brando; in fact he was a comic who was simply not funny. During the filming Franco attempted to seduce Martine in the crudest fashion. After having had enough of his gropings, they had a scene in a bathtub, so in front of the entire crew Martine climbed into the tub and lowered her hands into the water as if she were looking for Franco’s private parts. After a moment she looked over at the crew and in Italian said to them, “Where is it Franco? Oh, there it is! Oh my, it’s so SMALL!” breaking up the crew while putting the sexist actor in his place for the duration of the shoot. The other film known as IL BACIO (THE KISS) proved a bit better, at least in terms of wardrobe. Martine was fitted for an elaborate Cocteau-inspired bra made out of disembodied hands, that took three hours to apply. Her role was that of a hedonistic sorceress. Her co-star, the wonderful Valentina Cortese, was playing a drug-addicted countess inspired by the real-life Marchesa Casati, who cast spells. They were required at one point to do a lesbian love scene so, to break the ice, Valentina took Martine to lunch where both ladies got a bit tipsy. When they returned to the set they surprised even themselves with the results, some of which made it into the film. Martine responded well when working with pros like Valentina. Later on she would make her only western, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL with Klaus Kinski, which also became one of her best films. She told me that in spite of Klaus’s reputation they got on very well, and if circumstances had been a little different they might have had a fling. ” There was definitely a connection there with Kinski and me.”

By 1974 Martine found herself in Canada filming SEIZURE, a low-budget horror film marking the debut of director Oliver Stone and starring Jonathan Frid, still basking in his DARK SHADOWS fame. The original title for this was QUEEN OF EVIL, which was Martine’s character in the film, however Oliver thought better of it, if for no other reason than avoiding the possible fallout from a film being called QUEEN OF EVIL that starred Jonathan Frid.

The production was a family affair from day one with cast and crew living commune-style in the old house that served as Frid’s spooky old house in the film. Mary Woronov is among the cast, as is Herve Villechaize. Both became close with Martine as they partied together during the filming that lasted nearly a month.
A few years later I would reunite Jonathan and Martine at my place in Beverly Hills when Frid found himself in a road company revival of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE in Los Angeles. I knew Frid slightly by then and called him during the run to see if he would come by and surprise Martine, whom he had not seen since the film. He agreed straightaway to come by on a Sunday afternoon, which he did, and we had about 45 minutes to catch up before Martine’s beloved black VW (which she named “Pearl”) began to park in front of my patio. As soon as Jonathan saw her get out he remarked, “Well, we will not get a word in from now on, David. La Beswicke has landed.” I wish I had videotaped the event because these two characters relived the whole shoot in my apartment. Frid remembered having to raise his voice to a bellow at one point when the off-set drama was too intense between cast and crew. Martine reminded Frid that she decided from the first day of shooting to romance the DP simply to keep him sober long enough to get the film made, and how strange Troy Donahue was acting all the time, speaking with a whisper on-and-off camera when he was not totally in the bag himself.

At this point in time Stone was in denial about the film, refusing to discuss it, but all that changed by the time the DVD finally made its appearance. Martine was quite taken with the young director during filming but from what I was hearing she had her hands full with all the in-house melodramatics that seemed to plague the set. Frid was charming throughout the afternoon, explaining with little regret on his part that his career never really took off after Shadows; he was really a stage actor at heart and had found his niche doing plays and readings across the country when the spirit struck him. It was in moments like this when I caught a glimpse of what Martine must have been like back in the day in Rome or London, when she was working on the films we have all come to know her from, and yet she could reminisce about it all without the least bit of regret.

The end of the 70’s brought more and more TV work her way and by the time I knew her she was doing at least one guest appearance every other month. One of her favorites was an adventure show called COVER UP which brought male model Jon-Erik Hexum into the limelight, and he was not only one of the nicest guys around but drop-dead gorgeous. Martine was crazy about his voice, telling me what a tour-de-force they would have on-camera when their unique voices could share a scene. Sadly that was not to be because, as we all know, Hexum was killed onset in a freak accident. I was in London at the time and found out about it on the news. Martine did two episodes of the show with his replacement, Anthony Hamilton, a classically-trained ballet dancer-turned-model. I remember Martine calling me after the first day on the show feeling very down because her love scene with Tony was falling flat and she could not figure out why, since they really hit it off when they met before taping! . It did not take long for her to discover that Tony was gay, and that accounted for the lack of fireworks in their first initial scenes together. Well, once she knew this, they worked it all out and became great friends off camera as well, to the extent of spending weekends together with their respective boyfriends. Hamilton was on a short list to play James Bond when Pierce Brosnan could not get out of his Remington Steele contract. The tabloids got hold of a shot of Tony out partying at an after-hours bar called PROBE, which was infamous as the gay bar immortalized in AMERICAN GIGOLO. The result was no James Bond for Hamilton; he did however continue to work right up until his death from AIDS in 1995.

During the spring of 1980 Martine accepted an offer from Cannon Films to be the third actress to play Xavier Hollander in THE HAPPY HOOKER GOES HOLLYWOOD, stepping into the footsteps of Lynn Redgrave and Joey Heatherton to give her spin on the fun-loving madam. Cannon films was then at the height of their productivity with dozens of films being made around the world (I covered this aspect of their productions, including HOOKER, in the January 2008 Camp David column A CANNON-BURY TALE). Martine was optimistic from the beginning about this production since she would be the star sharing bon mots with scene-stealers like Phil Silvers and Richard Deacon. However her leading man was to be played by Adam West, whom she thought too unlikely a choice for scenes involving her character to be in lust with him. This was even more problematic when they began filming as it took all of Martine’s suspension of belief to get this scene on film. She told me, “I really went the distance with Adam West on HOOKER, since I was required to have two on-camera orgasms with a man I would not be attracted to otherwise, but that’s why they call it acting.” Fortunately during the production Martine was happily involved with a very handsome boyfriend which more than evened-out the chores of lusting after an aging Batman.

The HAPPY HOOKER GOES HOLLYWOOD opened nationally a few months later and we all went down to the local cinema on Hollywood Boulevard to see its first run on the big screen. Martine, looking adorable wearing a cowboy hat, arrived with her boyfriend in tow. Afterwards we all returned to her place for champagne and giggles about her giving Adam West a climax in the movie. In spite of her misgivings about West, and the producers’ attempts to add soft-core when her back was turned, I thought she did well in an exploitation film that was never anything more than a tease in the first place. It reminded me somewhat of the old AIP beach-party flicks, except this time people actually got laid in a tasteful fashion for 1980.

One of the more difficult assignments for Martine during this time was playing a semi-regular on the soap DAYS OF OUR LIVES which meant waking up at 3am and having to run lines right up to going on camera live in front of millions of people. The stress was of course enormous and yet Martine seemed to thrive on the energy of it, at least for a while. I used to tape her appearances for her and I remember her calling me towards the end asking me to tape a certain day to see if she survived the shooting. When I asked what this was all about she explained that if the camera panned down and there was a long shot that showed her body she might survive for another paycheck? I dutifully recorded the moment when her character was gunned down, and no, the camera did not pan down, and that was the end of Martine on DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

“I have been very fortunate during every aspect of my career in the sense of knowing what I am capable of doing as an actress. I mean, one must work with the face and body you were given and in my case my looks always got me through the door. In Hollywood it takes far more than just being beautiful because the town is filled with stunning-looking men and women every day of the week. I made the decision to leave Europe and come to Hollywood because this is where you must be if you are really interested in having a career. I have made some unforgettable friendships here that will stay with me all of my life, so I will never regret the time spent in Hollywood because I have had a ball.”

There are so many memories I share with her that I cannot possibly recount them all; I mean dancing to the Disco heat at Studio One with Calvin Lockhart, or watching in dismay as I dropped my dancing partner mid-air in front of an amused Anthony Hopkins at the Variety Arts during his opening-night party for THE TEMPEST, or getting hopelessly lost in Chinatown with John Carpenter in tow…

The list goes on. I am however proud to have been the one to divert her attention to doing memorabilia conventions, so for over a year she and I traveled to New Jersey and back doing CHILLER THEATER as well as several other venues. I was officially her manager, securing the bookings and taking care of the cash. These were the best of times: waiting for her to collect me in the early morning hours when we did them locally and heading to the Ray Courts autograph show, her ritual of summoning the “great spirit” to give us a positive and hopefully profitable day. The public for these shows were usually respectful and for the most part fun. We did have our share of crazies, including some rather rude questions about her sex life. On one occasion someone asked, “Just how big is Sean Connery’s cock?” I must say she handled the situation beautifully, without a hint of anger; just a laugh, which is all one can do in these situations.

One of the most memorable conventions was the one we did with Udo Keir in San Jose, with our friend Mary Woronov as well, although we flew up from LAX with just Udo who, under any circumstances, is a handful. The convention was a bust due to the weather so all of us just sat out the convention part of it and spent our time chatting away with the other child stars from yesteryear until 5pm, then went down to the cocktail lounge to blow off the experience as best we could (I have already written about one of the other encounters we enjoyed in the May 2008 installment of Camp David entitled “THE HILLS HAVE EYES…AND AN OPEN BAR”).

By 1998 Martine had somewhat retreated up to a small community near Santa Barbara, where for a year she ran a restaurant (appropriately called Delilah’s). As with everything she does she put her heart and soul into this venue, only to discover that she was working day and night with no time off since she was the boss. After a year Martine made the decision to return to England to be closer to her Mother and sister. I knew this was a difficult choice for her since her extended family, all her friends of the last two decades, were all here in Southern California.

Once she made her mind up the only thing left to do was organize a farewell party and that she did in short order. I received this invitation by mail:

THE GRAND DUCHY OF DRAGONIA

CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO ATTEND

A JUBILEE IN HONOR OF HER HIGHNESS

THE DUCHESS OF DRAGONIA

ON THE OCCASION OF HER RETURN TO THE MOTHERLAND

(GOD SAVE THE QUEENS)

BY ORDER OF THE COURT THIS REGAL DAY OF MERRYMAKING SHALL COMMENCE

MARCH 17TH 1998

FROM 4PM UNTIL THE DUCHESS IS SPENT

The merrymaking did indeed last all through the night with guests like Tab Hunter and most of her many close friends from days gone by under the Hollywood sign. I could never really say goodbye to someone like Martine because she will always be in my heart, which is so right for a woman who made hearts her signature. Martine’s heart was always open, allowing love to find its way in.

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