Goddess of Love Incarnate. Leslie Zemeckis

opposed to Rosemary, but admitted she still adored her charismatic mother.⁶⁷

      In Japan Rosemary suffered a concussion (her third) after falling from her horse.

      One day an agitated Rosemary took her young daughter by her five-year-old hand and managed to make her way into the Royal Palace, intent on warning the Japanese emperor that his generals were plotting against him. Erica claimed Rosemary attempted to drown the crown prince along with daughter Mariga. The emperor’s guards seized and arrested Rosemary. After being given enough morphine to knock her out, Rosemary was entrusted to the care of two nurses who transferred her to a ship bound for Europe. Albrecht was deeply embarrassed by his wife’s erratic and criminal behavior that put him in an awkward and dangerous position with the Japanese. There must have been other episodes to cause Rosemary’s drastic banishment. Mariga stayed in Japan with her father.

      In Hong Kong Rosemary ditched the nurses. Again according to Erica, Rosemary went from London to Berlin intent on meeting Hitler. While staying at the swank Hotel Adlon she slit her wrists. She supposedly lost part of her nose due to jumping out of a glass window. Rosemary was put into an asylum back in Scotland where she had made her way to be with her mother, Anna.

      At Morningside Mental Home she was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1941 the troubled young woman was given one of the early experimental procedures to cure an assortment of mental disorders. Into her confused brain doctors bore holes in either the top or side of the skull and a sharp instrument was then inserted. The instrument was then jiggled back and forth cutting the nerves and the offensive behavior. The two- to five-minute procedure was widely popular, with thousands being performed. The British neurosurgeon Sir Wylie McKissock was said to be responsible for three thousand operations during his days of practice, roughly the same time Rosemary underwent hers.⁶⁸ McKissock admitted that very often the lobotomies killed the patient or left them, in his words, in a “harmless vegetable state.”⁶⁹

      Ian’s sister was left nearly catatonic and “incarcerated” in Craig House, a sixteenth-century house turned into a psychiatric hospital for “paying” customers. The memory of “bolts and bars” traumatized daughter Mariga when she visited as an adult.⁷⁰ Rosemary denied having an adult daughter; she insisted her daughter was five. Rosemary would remain at the home for the next twenty-seven years until she died in 1975 at age seventy-four.

      Though not related by blood, Lili and her exotic step-aunt would share eerie similarities: Both loved traipsing from one exciting locale to another. They expected—demanded—life to be fascinating and adventurous. Lili was impressed by Rosemary’s courtship and marriage to a real prince, regardless of the character of the man himself. For Lili a man’s good looks—a cleft chin and dark chest hair—would be more important than the substance underneath.

      What no one saw coming was that Rosemary’s outgoing, eccentric, and prone-to-depression personality would increasingly echo in her niece, Barbara. That tragedy was many years in the future.⁷¹

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      By 1935 Cordy was racing up and down the coast of California. He was so popular that he was asked to endorse many products.

      Cordy spent a season in Camden in New South Wales, Australia, winning and making large sums of money.

      A British racing scout recruited Cordy and his team to join the English motorcycle circuit, promising him an increase in prize money. Cordy was excited and assumed Lili would be too.

      She wasn’t. She was tired of being left behind. She busied herself at the restaurant and went on a few dates, spent hours at the movies and in the library reading Screenplay.

      She missed Cordy and the excitement. She longed to escape the dusty roads and wide boulevards of her sleepy town. Then Cordy called from England.

      He asked her to marry him.

      She didn’t need to think twice. She was going to marry a semifamous—at least locally—man who would show her the glamorous life. She would escape Pasadena and the restaurant and Alice’s worry and Idella’s criticism, who had taken to declaring that Lili was a bad influence on her sisters. Lili’s head filled with thoughts of transforming herself into Mrs. Cordy Milne.

      Surprisingly the entire family was thrilled for Lili.

      Cordy wired money for a first-class ticket on the luxury liner the SS Manhattan.

      Alice organized Idella and the girls to get together in the evenings and sew beautiful gowns for Lili’s trousseau. Alice paid for the material and they made chic suits, dresses, and ball gowns. They sat on the porch evenings and weekends and laughed while Ben slept in the bedroom. Even Idella lightened up. She complimented all her girls on their excellent sewing skills. Lili had bought yards of tulle. She was making a Venus de Milo–type dress. Also a white jersey dress to get married in. There would be hats, gloves, matching shoes, shorts, and sweaters. She needed so many things.

      Lili was ecstatic. At eighteen she felt as if she was embarking on a life-changing adventure. Finally.

      Lili packed a trunk in a whirlwind of nerves and terror. She wouldn’t know anyone on the voyage. A mixed blessing. She could be someone other than Marie Van Schaack. Soon she would be Marie Milne (though she supposedly also used Willis) She was about to set her slim foot into a new life and she couldn’t wait to see where it would lead her.

      Would they continue to live in England? Would Cordy expect her to work? To follow him from meet to meet? There were a million questions she should have been asking, but didn’t. Nothing was going to hold her back from living the life she had dreamed of.

      LILI FLEW TO NEW YORK—HER FIRST FLIGHT—ARRIVING TIRED AND hot, not to mention wiped out after the utter terror of flying. She would never like flying, preferring trains, but because her new passport arrived late she had no choice.

      Cordy had reserved Lili a room at the San Moritz Hotel. Not yet six years old, the luxurious hotel sat directly across from Central Park at 50 Central Park South. Taxis and cars bustled by. The noise and the lights of the city lit up her mood.

      Beautifully dressed men and women walked arm in arm, some swinging packages from Bergdorf’s department store. Others were walking silly little dogs on dainty chains. She had to feel all the country bumpkin. She had bleached her hair to its brightest incarnation to date, which drew attention from men in the streets.

      The spacious lobby of the San Moritz was sumptuously furnished. On one wall hung a large painting of the resort town in the Swiss Alps, for which the very metropolitan hotel was named. The various guest rooms, suites, and especially the penthouse rooms had open windows where cooling breezes blew in from the park. The décor was opulent and designed to impress. And Lili was impressed.

      On the thirty-first floor was a salon for dancing and dinner. Lili peeked her head in, admiring more oversized murals on the walls.

      If she ran a bath in her room’s tub, it would be the biggest bath she had ever sunk into. She had never experienced such a luxury before. She was overwhelmed with feelings of—love? appreciation?—for Cordy. It was because of him that she was here. She opened her window and listened to the sounds below. Horses and carriages clomped by. Shouts and laughter floated up. The city was alive. She was headed toward something.

      The next morning was a crisp, cool May day. She slept in—she would never be an early riser—ate, and walked in Central Park. In the afternoon, with trunks in tow, she hailed a cab for the port where she would board the SS Manhattan along with throngs of “rich people” anticipating the voyage on one of the most magnificent ships sailing the Atlantic.⁷²

      In 1936 the SS Manhattan was one of the country’s most luxurious ocean liners. Passenger No. 568 was left speechless at the grandeur. The liner had the capacity to hold twelve hundred. There was a full orchestra playing somewhere. Lili would explore the many decks where couples, exquisitely dressed, strolled. Cabin waiters in white blazers rushed to and fro. Someone offered her a glass of champagne.

      A siren blew, signaling it was time for visitors to come off before the ship