“I know it’s not popular to say. I know everybody’s looking for some sexy marriage nowadays. But I was really happy with your father. I really loved having someone look out for me, having someone to look out for. Having someone to share my days with. I always found him so fascinating. All of his opinions, his talent. We could have a conversation about almost anything. For hours on end. We used to stay up late, even when you were a toddler, just talking. He was my best friend.”

“Is that why you never remarried?”

My mom considers the question. “You know, it’s funny. Talking about passion. Since we lost your dad, I’ve found passion with men, from time to time. But I’d give it all back for just a few more days with him. For just one more late-night talk. Passion never mattered very much to me. But that type of intimacy that we had? That was what I cherished.”

Maybe one day I will tell her what I know.

Maybe I never will.

Maybe I’ll put it in Evelyn’s biography, or perhaps I’ll tell Evelyn’s side of it without ever revealing who was sitting in the passenger’s seat of that car.

Maybe I’ll leave that part out completely. I think I’d be willing to lie about Evelyn’s life to protect my mother. I think I’d be willing to omit the truth from public knowledge in the interest of the happiness and sanity of a person I love dearly.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just know that I will be guided by what I believe to be best for my mother. And if it comes at the expense of honesty, if it takes a small chunk out of my integrity, I’m OK with that. Perfectly, stunningly OK.

“I think I was just very fortunate to find a companion like your father,” my mom says. “To find that kind of soul mate.”

When you dig just the tiniest bit beneath the surface, everyone’s love life is original and interesting and nuanced and defies any easy definition.

And maybe one day I’ll find someone I love the way Evelyn loved Celia. Or maybe I might just find someone I love the way my parents loved each other. Knowing to look for it, knowing there are all different types of great loves out there, is enough for me for now.

There’s still much I don’t know about my father. Maybe he was gay. Maybe he saw himself as straight but in love with one man. Maybe he was bisexual. Or a host of other words. But it really doesn’t matter, that’s the thing.

He loved me.

And he loved my mom.

And nothing I could learn about him now changes that. Any of it.

The driver drops us off in front of my stoop, and I grab my mother’s bag. The two of us head inside.

My mom offers to make me her famous corn chowder for dinner but, seeing that I have almost nothing in the refrigerator, agrees that ordering pizza might be best.

When the food comes, she asks if I want to watch an Evelyn Hugo movie, and I almost laugh before realizing she’s serious.

“I’ve had the itch to watch All for Us ever since you told me you were interviewing her,” my mom says.

“I don’t know,” I say, not wanting to have anything to do with Evelyn but also hoping that my mom will talk me into it, because I know that on some level, I’m not yet ready to truly say good-bye.

“C’mon,” she says. “For me.”

The movie starts, and I marvel at how dynamic Evelyn is on-screen, how it is impossible to look at anything but her when she’s there.

After a few minutes, I feel the pressing urge to get up and put on my shoes and knock down her door and talk her out of it.

But I repress it. I let her be. I respect her wishes.

I close my eyes and fall asleep to the sound of Evelyn’s voice.

I don’t know when exactly it happens—I suspect I made sense of things when I was dreaming—but when I wake up in the morning, I realize that even though it is too early yet, I will, one day, forgive her.

NEW YORK TRIBUNE

Evelyn Hugo, Legendary Film Siren, Has Died

BY PRIYA AMRIT

MARCH 26, 2017

* * *

Evelyn Hugo died Friday evening at the age of 79. Initial reports are not naming a cause of death, but multiple sources claim that it’s being ruled an accidental overdose, as it appears that contradicting prescribed drugs were found in Hugo’s system. Reports that the star was battling the early stages of breast cancer at the time of her death have not been confirmed.

The actress is to be buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.

A style icon of the ’50s, turned sexpot in the ’60s and ’70s and Oscar winner in the ’80s, Hugo made a name for herself with her voluptuous figure, her daring film roles, and her tumultuous love life. She was married seven times and outlived all of her husbands.

After retiring from acting, Hugo donated a great deal of time and money to organizations such as battered women shelters, LGBTQ+ communities, and cancer research. It was just recently announced that Christie’s has taken in 12 of her most famous gowns to auction off for the American Breast Cancer Foundation. That auction, already sure to raise millions, will now, no doubt, see soaring bids.

It comes as little surprise that Hugo’s will has bequeathed the majority of her estate, save for generous gifts to those who worked for her, to charity. The largest recipient appears to be GLAAD.

“I’ve been given so much in this life,” Hugo said last year in a speech to the Human Rights Campaign. “But I’ve had to fight tooth and nail for it. If I can one day leave this world a little bit safer and a little bit easier for those who come after me . . . well, that just might make it all worth it.”

VIVANT

Evelyn and Me

JUNE 2017

BY MONIQUE GRANT

* * *

When Evelyn Hugo, legendary actress, producer, and philanthropist, died earlier this year, she and I were in the process of writing her memoirs.

To say that spending the last couple of weeks of Evelyn’s life with her was an honor would be both an understatement and, to be frank, somewhat misleading.

Evelyn was a very complex woman, and my time with her was just as complicated as her image, her life, and her legend. To this day, I wrestle with who Evelyn was and the impact she had on me. Some days I find myself convinced that I admire her more than anyone I’ve ever met, and others days I think of her as a liar and a cheat.

I think Evelyn would be rather content with that, actually. She was no longer interested in pure adoration or salacious scandal. Her primary focus was on the truth.

Having gone over our transcripts hundreds of times, having replayed every moment of our days together in my head, I think it’s fair to say that I might just know Evelyn even better than I know myself. And I know that what Evelyn would want to reveal in these pages, along with the stunning photos taken just hours before her death, is one very surprising but beautifully true thing.

And that is this: Evelyn Hugo was bisexual and spent the majority of her life madly in love with fellow actress Celia St. James.

She wanted you to know this because she loved Celia in a way that was in turns breathtaking and heartbreaking.

She wanted you to know this because loving Celia St. James was perhaps her greatest political act.

She wanted you to know this because over the course of her life, she became aware of her responsibility to others in the LGBTQ+ community to be visible, to be seen.

But more than anything, she wanted you to know this because it was the very core of herself, the most honest and real thing about her.

And at the end of her life, she was finally ready to be real.

So I’m going to show you the real Evelyn.

What follows is an excerpt from my forthcoming biography, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, to be published next year.

I have settled on that title because I once asked her if she was embarrassed about having been married so many times.

I said, “Doesn’t it bother you? That your husbands have become such a headline story, so often mentioned, that they have nearly eclipsed your work and yourself? That all anyone talks about when they talk about you are the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo?”

And her answer was quintessential Evelyn.

“No,” she told me. “Because they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo. And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.”