The “before the show” in Boston is still one of my most painful memories these 48 years later. We were staying at the Ritz Carlton hotel, at that time arguably the best hotel in the city. Judy had an elegant gold-and-white suite overlooking the Boston Common gardens and pond. She’d decided to dress in the suite that night, which was unusual because she disliked dressing at the hotel prior to any concert, and she gave me no reason why she was changing her routine. It meant, however, that I would have to return from the setup to the Ritz to collect her. At seven, I left the Boston Public Garden, went back to the hotel, went up to the suite to put together the Act II costume change, and as I stood asking her about taking additional eyelashes to the hall, she slit her left wrist with a razor, cutting deeply into an artery. The moment was made even grislier by the fact that when she made the cut she was looking at me and smiling.

I learned many things that night that I could have gone on through life never needing to know. One was that blood doesn’t leak out; it spurts, it arcs. I can see it still on the gold-and-white bedspread, on the flocked wall covering and matching drapes, and on me. I was wearing my new favorite outfit, my first-ever ensemble, a three-piece outfit manufactured by my husband’s uncle from whom I bought the most wonderful designer rip-offs wholesale. The fabric of my wool challis blouse matched the lining of my coat. I definitely loved it too much. That night when I walked into her room I thought I looked so snazzy. But all I see now is her blood all over my once-beautiful ensemble, on my skirt and coat. My hands. My hair. I stand there horrified at what has just happened to me. TO ME! Why am I feeling sorry for me and not for her? Because this was her normal! This is what she did. This is who she was. What a teacher she was. I was beginning to understand that these events were all about manipulation and control.

Judy’s suicidal episodes gave her power. With every horror, she became the center of “his” attention. “His attention” was owned by the man of the moment, David Begelman. She craved his love much more than the adoration of her fans. They were but strangers. It would soon be over for her—this episode—and she would go on to the next, but not so for me. I would never forget it. It would be seared into my memory, and I would be doomed to replay it forever. I still do. I still feel sorrier for me.

So why slit her wrist on that particular night? Let me repeat it: it’s a love story. On this particular night, she did it for David, for the love of this man, who was, at this moment in time, the single most important consideration in her life. (I often wondered—still do today, and will for as long as I live—if I could have sat her down in a totally sober moment—of which there was none—and asked her: Judy, what’s more important to you? Being in love? Or singing? What would her answer have been? Some may think they know that answer, and they may be right. But I do not know it. I never have, and I don’t think I ever will.) But let me get back to her heart, and her affair with David Begelman! After an absence of a few weeks, Begelman was back in New York. Judy was in thrall with him. Obsessively. They’d been having an affair for some months and the affair was forever tripping down a rocky road; for the last many weeks, it had been caught on some insurmountable boulders due to David’s disappearance. Judy did not, like other women, tell everything to her hairdresser because her hairdresser sometimes changed as often as her wardrobe. I was her confidant; she told everything to me, and I knew about the affair from the beginning. I often wished I did not because David was my boss. It put me in the very uncomfortable position of being in the middle when Judy sought insider information. She would ask me questions about his wife, Lee, and where he’d been on certain nights, questions I couldn’t answer . . . sometimes because I didn’t know, and sometimes because I didn’t want to. Recently he’d gone on a trip abroad, and had dared to take his wife along with him. And how did Judy know that? Not from me. She’d checked with his housemaid whose confirmation had sent her into a tailspin. She could not be jollied out of it. I faced daily questions like: “Do you think he’s sleeping with Lee?” What was I supposed to answer? My best shot at a response was: “How could he be sleeping with her if he’s in love with you?” Answering her question with a question wasn’t really answering her question at all, and I preferred to do that than to lie. Judy was sure that David was in love with her. And I was happy to leave it right there. I knew the truth, and it was ugly. David was ugly. I had now been in his employ a year and a half, and I was learning what a liar he was. The truth would have hurt. The truth might have cured some other person, but not Judy who lived in a make-believe world.

She would sometimes tell me the romantic things David told her, and I knew they were all lies. She giggled like a schoolgirl when she confided: “We’re making wonderful plans to travel.” Travel with David? He was a different kind of addict: a gambler and a workaholic who went on vacation only when forced to by his wife, and this is exactly what had happened. Lee Reynolds had her social set, a finite group of wealthy couples, the wives of which performed good works mostly for themselves, and who spent hours on the phone each day discussing how to spend their husbands’ money. One day Lee announced that they were all going yachting in the Greek Isles, and off David went with a small library to forfend the boredom he suffered around Lee’s entitled entourage. He told Judy he was going to London on business. “What plans are you and David making?” I asked Judy. “We’ll rent a marvelous big yacht just for the two of us and we’ll cruise the Greek Islands,” she answered. How cruel David was.