“The Thrilling Romance of Troy and Suzanne”

Fan magazines were nothing if not contradictory. After all, not truth but dreams and aspirations — monetized, to be sure, but still dreams — were their business. Take, for example, the three-year romantic saga of Troy Donahue and Suzanne Pleshette, co-stars of the sudsy 1961 film, Rome Adventure (a.k.a. Lovers Must Learn). Their relationship offered sizzle, scandal, and sexual ambiguity, complete with a tantalizing will-they-or-won’t-they trajectory, a glamorous studio-financed wedding at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and a stunningly swift divorce decree issued by the same judge who’d married them. The fan magazines, stoked with images from the two films Troy and Suzy made together, played it all to the hilt.

Donahue is perhaps better known today for his immortalized A Chorus Line “diss” — If Troy Donahue could be a movie star, I could be a movie star — than for his film career. But for a few years Troy, “a gorgeous specimen of healthy, sun-bronzed young male animal” with a face “like a young Viking’s” (“Here’s My Heart,” Photoplay Dec 1961), was among the most popular heartthrobs in Hollywood. Because of his beauty, his agent — “gay Svengali” Henry Willson, who represented Rock Hudson and a string of other single-syllabled, mostly gay actors — and the tendency to confuse Troy with Tab Hunter, people often assumed he was gay. The fan magazines did their part to promote this impression, if only among the cognoscenti, who knew how to read the code within an article title or a casual detail, such as the setting in which Rock supposedly offered Troy some valuable career advice: “That night at Henry Willson’s party the two in the late, late hours found themselves chatting alone” (“Who’s Imitating Rock!” Photoplay, Sep 1962).

Suzanne was dark to Troy’s light, East coast to his California beach boy persona (though he, too, was a New Yorker), and a prodigiously talented, stage-trained up-and-comer. She was nominated for an Emmy in 1961 for playing a morphine-addicted nurse on Dr. Kildare; she replaced Anne Bancroft in Broadway’s The Miracle Worker, to strong reviews. Even so, she remained a virtual nonentity in the fan magazines — until she was linked with Troy in the gossip columns and fan features. Here, then, is the fan magazine chronology of Troy and Suzanne’s courtship, marriage, and dissolution, in all its contradictory, mythical glory. (NOTE: Each passage is a direct quote from a fan magazine.)

One day there was a knock on the door of his dressing room. She introduced herself as Suzanne Pleshette.(1) Troy was shopping in the Ann Sorrel Gift Shop in Hollywoodwhen he noticed Suzanne, introduced himself and got into a discussion about acting.(2) A neighbor, an agent, introduced them and Troy was immediately bent on making her his own.(3) They met in Rome, Troy fresh from a broken romance, Suzanne filled with disillusionment after playing the field, and they fell in love.(4)

They had come from different backgrounds.(5) Is Suzanne Pleshette, with a family background so much like Troy’s, the girl who can bring him understanding?(6) She has a better education; he didn’t graduate high school.(7) He had missed out on an appointment to West Point by hurting his knee in a track meet, so he enrolled at Columbia University.(8)

Troy Donahue admitted his romance with co-star Suzanne Pleshette was the real thing; they’d talked marriage.(9) In words as unequivocal as Sherman’s refusal to run for the presidency, Troy proceeded to set forth that in his present mood of disenchantment he would not touch a romance with a thousand foot pole — even with anyone as beguiling as Suzanne.(10) Su has so much as admitted having used Troy for the publicity value she could derive.(11) From the very beginning she made it clear with Troy, with herself, and with the press that there would be no publicity.(12)

Both discovered they had many things in common.(13) The two are so different. The dark-haired bohemian and the blonde, strictly brought-up young man.(14) Suzy wanted a formal household complete with butler, dressing for dinner, champagne and candlelight meals, but [Troy] insisted on lounging around the house in beach-comber clothes, grabbing a hamburger whenever he was hungry.(15) As we all know, Troy’s had a champagne bucket in his pocket since the day he was born.(16)

Up to the moment the couple pledged their lives and their love together in one of the most beautiful weddings in Hollywood’s history, people wondered why Suzanne was going through with a marriage that looked as if it didn’t have a ghost of a chance to succeed.(17) Everyone knew — just knew — nothing like this could happen to Troy and Susie. Not to those exquisitely matched lovebirds.(18) Even the wedding guests were making book on just how long it would take before the symptoms of the failure were revealed.(19)

Their marriage lasted exactly six months, twenty-three days, four hours and a handful of minutes.(20) People [were] saying everything from “Troy was continuing a long-running affair with Connie Stevens” to “Suzanne was in love with Glenn Ford.”(21) Susie’s secretary confirmed the belief that career conflict was at the heart of their problem.(22) Susie was most angry at the rumor that [she] was more interested in stardom and success than she was in home and hearth.(23) She made him dress up — no more of the beach-boy jazz he likes. She had his pool table removed from the house. She objected to some of his old friends.(24) Suzy Pleshette had two reasons to file for divorce. The first was for the very reason Lili Kardell once tried to sue Troy [i.e., for beating her up]. Another close “chum” was the second reason. The first would have been enough for me.(25)

He took the split much harder than she did. She seemed to be going some place new at almost any hour of the night. Troy appeared to have shrunk into a shell, almost never venturing out.(26) From the minute Suzy left his home Troy’s been in the constant company of sometime actress, sometime model, who shall remain nameless.(27) She’s been living it up since her split with Troy.(28) Suzanne has turned down date after date.(29) Troy hasn’t been seen in even one nightclub — this really seems to have hit him hard.(30) On the very eve of their [failed] reconciliation, Troy was out on the town, dancing till dawn with a little blonde doll. Now what do you make of that kind of making up?(31)

Can we decipher any truths behind these conflicting reports? As with so much of Hollywood history, we’ll never know with certainty the extent to which Troy and Suzy’s relationship and their fabulous wedding — featured in lavish photo spreads in all the major fan magazines — might or might not have been cynical publicity ploys, nor what caused a “smash-up” so swift that features about “Mr. and Mrs. Bliss” (Silver Screen’s Teen Album, 1964) hit newsstands after Suzanne filed for divorce. Rona Barrett’s inference that Troy assaulted Suzanne was a one-off. Then again, Barrett and Pleshette were friends, had known each other back in New York, so her words carry some heft. Look at the photos of Troy after the marriage and the warning signs are visible, predictors of his not-so-eventual decline into alcoholism, addiction and, for a time, homelessness. What remain, as always, are the images… and, real or unreal, weren’t they thrilling?

For more on Henry Willson, see Robert Hofler, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson (2005), biographies of Hudson, Tab Hunter Confidential (2005), and/or Val Holley, Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip (2003)

Sources for quotes: (1), (10), (17) “Oh God, I’ve Been Such a Fool,” Screen Stars April 1964. (2), (5), (26) “A Woman Must Be a Man’s Instrument,” Movie Mirror Nov 1964. (3) “He Doesn’t Give Girls the Run-Around,” Movie Screen Yearbook No. (12), 1963. 4 “Has Troy Met His Match?” Movie Album No. (9), 1962. (6) “A Warning to Troy Donahue,” Modern Screen Jan 1962. (7) “He Spanked the Girl He Loved!” TV and Movie Screen Dec 1963. (8) “Troy Donahue’s Marriage,” TV Yearbook No. 9, 1961. (9) “Why Suzy Refused to Marry Troy,” Movie Life Feb 1962. (11) “Stars! What Kind of People Are They?” Screen Stars April 1964. (12) “They Stripped My Marriage of All Privacy and Dignity!” The New Screen Stars Dec 1964. (13), (24) “Troy and Suzy’s Marriage Explosion!” Modern Screen Sep 1964. (14) “Troy Donahue Stands Accused,” Movie World March 1962. (15), (18), (22) “Why Did I Leave You, Susie?” Motion Picture Sep 1964. (16) “Rona Barrett’s Young Hollywood,” Motion Picture Feb 1963. (19), (20) “Smash-Up!”TV Radio Movie Guide Nov 1964. (21), (30) “The Real Cause of Their Breakup,” Movies Magazine Dec 1964. (23) “Suzy: It’s All a Mistake,” Movie Mirror Oct 1964. (25), (27) “Rona Barrett’s Private Line,” Movie Mirror Nov 1964. (28) “What Now Bachelor Girl?” Inside Movie April 1965. (29) “5-page Gossip Section by Cal York,” Photoplay Oct 1964. (31) “Who Smashed Up Suzanne and Troy?” Screen Life Jan 1965.

Image credits, clockwise from upper left: (1) 16 Magazine June 1964; (2) Photoplay Oct 1963; (3) Photoplay Aug 1962; (4) Movie Mirror Apr 1965; (5) Movie Mirror Apr 1964.