Allegra Huston, little sister of Anjelica Huston, remembers naked sauna sessions with Ryan O'Neill and more:
"But she had a new boyfriend, Ryan O%E2%80%99Neal. Ryan was playing Frisbee on the beach when she introduced me to him. Not one Frisbee, but lots: a bombardment fired back and forth between Ryan and two other men. I found out later that they were his brother and his coke dealer.
He was big and broad-chested with wavy blond hair and lips the same colour as his skin. He%E2%80%99d starred in Love Story. When I was in fourth grade in Long Island, a boy in class was reading the book and the rest of us were shocked.
Ryan had two houses: one on the beach at Malibu and another in Beverly Hills. We%E2%80%99d spend a few days at one, then a few days at the other, according to his moods.
His daughter Tatum was in England, making International Velvet, but her cupboards were bursting with the clothes she%E2%80%99d left behind, all scented with Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, which %E2%80%93 I discovered when she came home %E2%80%93 she sprayed directly onto them and poured into the rinse water of the washing machine.
She and her brother Griffin lived with Ryan because, I was told, their mother was crazy. Griffin was a year younger than me and small for his age, with leaf-green eyes and a freckled face like a street urchin out of Dickens. He seemed lonely.
He tried on my high-platform shoes once at the beach house, acting the clown. Anjel glanced nervously at the stairs. I realised she didn%E2%80%99t want Ryan to see his son wearing girl%E2%80%99s shoes, even for fun.
Ryan was filming The Driver that summer, and it was mostly night shoots. He%E2%80%99d wake up around two or three in the afternoon and head out onto the beach, Anjel and I following, for a session of Frisbee. Griffin rarely played; he liked to surf, but mostly he just stayed in his room, smoking dope.
Then we%E2%80%99d all have a sauna together. Soon I stopped being self-conscious about my nakedness, or about Ryan%E2%80%99s. I did start shaving my legs.
Once it was dark, we%E2%80%99d drive in his magenta Rolls-Royce Corniche down to the dock neighbourhood of San Pedro. Usually I sat on the armrest between the two front seats, while Griffin burrowed like a little animal in the back. Ryan draped his right arm across me to rest his hand on Anjel%E2%80%99s thigh as he drove.
When I was alone with him in the car, Ryan rested his right hand on my thigh, too. %E2%80%9CYou don%E2%80%99t mind, do you?%E2%80%9D he asked me once.
%E2%80%9CNo,%E2%80%9D I said casually, though I wasn%E2%80%99t sure it was okay. For one thing, it didn%E2%80%99t seem safe for him to drive with only his left hand.
%E2%80%9CI can%E2%80%99t drive any other way,%E2%80%9D he said, and held the silence until he was sure I understood that he was telling the truth.
I didn%E2%80%99t wear my seatbelt; I don%E2%80%99t think I%E2%80%99d ever seen anyone wear one. I wanted to put it on, but I was afraid Ryan would take it as an insult to his driving. I tried to relax my thigh so that tense muscles under his hand wouldn%E2%80%99t give me away. I WAS living with my stepmother, Cici, who had split up from Dad. Before long, however, I was spending most of my time with Anjelica and Ryan. Cici wasn%E2%80%99t happy about it, but I put that down to things like no proper bedtime and the fact that Griffin was allowed to smoke dope and snort coke and maybe she thought I was doing that too, which I wasn%E2%80%99t."
