Many years ago I visited the fabled art director, producer, and screenwriter, in her snug little house in Venice. I wanted to write about her and it was the most nervous I had ever been about anything. To quiet my panic Polly offered me a drink; I told her I had taken a tranquilizer. I had the drink anyway. But then I noticed she wasn’t drinking. Because she didn’t. She was sober. I felt like one big slurred word next to her precision, humor, blonde quiet. She was writing her memoirs, she said, and I offered to read it. Oh, she said, instead, would I read something her daughter had written? I agreed. I read the paper, it was very good, I wrote to Polly (this was some months after we met) but never heard back. I only learned after her death that she had been ill with Alzheimer’s. When I unpacked my bags from that LA trip–the trip where I met the fabled Polly Platt–I found her address written in her own hand; we meant to stay in touch, but life did not allow for that. I had the note framed and it has taken me several more years–until tonight, in fact- to hang it, near my desk, if only because I didn’t want her death to be real. Then I began to think about it another way: given how I placed the memento, Polly was not looking over my shoulder, but towards it, and having a little rest there.
Gosh, I love Polly Platt. Are you writing something about her? Did her memoir come out? I loved The Women. Especially Dorothy Dean. I enjoy your blog. I always remember the interior of the pool hall in The Last Picture Show.