him went to him and said, “Dave, you’re giving us stomach problems. You can’t just have us eating chili.” They’d ask for chicken, and he’d run down the street and get some chicken someplace and bring it back. After a while, he just expanded.
I had a wonderful German woman named Frieda who came in to clean for me, and when she knew Ronnie was coming for dinner, she’d stay and cook dinner for us. He’d bring a bottle of wine.
Even after Ronnie and I were married and I’d stopped working, one thing never changed: I didn’t cook. I still don’t. For some reason, I was great with pancakes, waffles, French toast, but three times a day might be a little much.
Dave Chasen knew that I wasn’t a cook, and I suppose it worried him a bit. So when Ronnie and I got married, he sort of took me under his wing. At that time, he was one of only two restaurateurs in town who went down to the meat-packing district and picked out his beef and supervised the cutting of it himself. “Nancy,” he said to me, one day not long after our wedding. “Why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you how to pick out good meat and how to have it cut.” Of course I said yes, and down we went. He was a dear man.
—
The quiet life that Ronnie and I had together wasn’t like any he’d known before, but he liked it, and I did too. We started spending more and more time on the ranch in Northridge, sometimes staying out until evening to have dinner with Nino and his wife, Ruth. Nino would always call Ronnie when a mare delivered, and we’d rush out—it was so exciting and the foals were always so darling, so wobbly at first. Before long, Ronnie taught me to ride horses. (“Show him who’s boss,” he said to me the first time I got up on a horse. That’s ridiculous, I thought. This animal knows perfectly well who’s boss and it isn’t me.) I took some spills—one, I remember, landed me right on my bottom—and I never became a great rider. But Ronnie rode, so I did too. I was, I suppose, a woman of the old school: If you wanted to make your life with a man, you took on whatever his interests were and they became your interests, too.
And so when Ronnie bought Yearling Row, his first ranch in Malibu, I went out and took it upon myself to paint his picket fences. That was no small job: It was a 360-acre ranch! I painted into the sunset, until there wasn’t a single streak of light left in the sky. At the end of each day, I’d take off my blue jeans and they’d be so caked with paint that they’d almost stand up on their own. My skin would be in similar condition. One day my makeup man at Metro said to me: “I have to tell you, Nancy, this is a first: I’ve never had to make up an actress at Metro and first remove paint from her face.”
The house at the ranch was really pretty sad; it had no foundation, and it listed, but we tried to clean it up so it was a little usable. It had what we called a pool—a pretty broken-down pool. But with all that land, it was a wonderful place to walk and ride. I remember, when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco, Ronnie read somewhere that the whole kingdom of Monaco was 360 acres, too. He said, “Do you realize that Yearling Row is the same size as Monaco, and you could be Queen Nancy and I could be King Ronnie?”
Ronnie loved to do outdoor work on the ranch. He was always looking around him and seeing new things he could do. He built all the fences, as he would again on the ranch we had later near Santa Barbara. There, when we’d go riding, he’d look around and comment on the trees, saying how he could make them look even better with some trimming. Then, of course, he would go up and trim the trees—and they
would
look better. We painted the interior of the Santa Barbara house and laid the tiles. He did the roofing. He just liked working with his hands—he always did.
After two years had gone by, marriage began to seem inevitable to both of us—and, I suspect, to
I had a wonderful German woman named Frieda who came in to clean for me, and when she knew Ronnie was coming for dinner, she’d stay and cook dinner for us. He’d bring a bottle of wine.
Even after Ronnie and I were married and I’d stopped working, one thing never changed: I didn’t cook. I still don’t. For some reason, I was great with pancakes, waffles, French toast, but three times a day might be a little much.
Dave Chasen knew that I wasn’t a cook, and I suppose it worried him a bit. So when Ronnie and I got married, he sort of took me under his wing. At that time, he was one of only two restaurateurs in town who went down to the meat-packing district and picked out his beef and supervised the cutting of it himself. “Nancy,” he said to me, one day not long after our wedding. “Why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you how to pick out good meat and how to have it cut.” Of course I said yes, and down we went. He was a dear man.
—
The quiet life that Ronnie and I had together wasn’t like any he’d known before, but he liked it, and I did too. We started spending more and more time on the ranch in Northridge, sometimes staying out until evening to have dinner with Nino and his wife, Ruth. Nino would always call Ronnie when a mare delivered, and we’d rush out—it was so exciting and the foals were always so darling, so wobbly at first. Before long, Ronnie taught me to ride horses. (“Show him who’s boss,” he said to me the first time I got up on a horse. That’s ridiculous, I thought. This animal knows perfectly well who’s boss and it isn’t me.) I took some spills—one, I remember, landed me right on my bottom—and I never became a great rider. But Ronnie rode, so I did too. I was, I suppose, a woman of the old school: If you wanted to make your life with a man, you took on whatever his interests were and they became your interests, too.
And so when Ronnie bought Yearling Row, his first ranch in Malibu, I went out and took it upon myself to paint his picket fences. That was no small job: It was a 360-acre ranch! I painted into the sunset, until there wasn’t a single streak of light left in the sky. At the end of each day, I’d take off my blue jeans and they’d be so caked with paint that they’d almost stand up on their own. My skin would be in similar condition. One day my makeup man at Metro said to me: “I have to tell you, Nancy, this is a first: I’ve never had to make up an actress at Metro and first remove paint from her face.”
The house at the ranch was really pretty sad; it had no foundation, and it listed, but we tried to clean it up so it was a little usable. It had what we called a pool—a pretty broken-down pool. But with all that land, it was a wonderful place to walk and ride. I remember, when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco, Ronnie read somewhere that the whole kingdom of Monaco was 360 acres, too. He said, “Do you realize that Yearling Row is the same size as Monaco, and you could be Queen Nancy and I could be King Ronnie?”
Ronnie loved to do outdoor work on the ranch. He was always looking around him and seeing new things he could do. He built all the fences, as he would again on the ranch we had later near Santa Barbara. There, when we’d go riding, he’d look around and comment on the trees, saying how he could make them look even better with some trimming. Then, of course, he would go up and trim the trees—and they
would
look better. We painted the interior of the Santa Barbara house and laid the tiles. He did the roofing. He just liked working with his hands—he always did.
After two years had gone by, marriage began to seem inevitable to both of us—and, I suspect, to
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