Years Nancy Gross met Howard Hawks on August 30, 1938. She was twenty; he was forty-two. She was born in Salinas, California, East of Eden country, and her father owned several fish canneries in Monterey. She was a beautiful convent girl, but a spirit of adventure and a sports car took her to the Furnace Creek Inn, a classy resort in Death Valley, not far from the Nevada border. There she met movie stars—William Powell (he called her the “Slim Princess”), Warner Baxter, David Niven, Cary Grant. Next thing, she was invited to San Simeon, and became friendly with its owner, William Randolph Hearst, and with Marion Davies. (Hearst was seventy-five in 1938 and Marion was forty-one.) Very soon, Slim was in Los Angeles, and on that August 30 she had been taken to the fights by two men, actor Bruce Cabot, the hero in King Kong (“seriously dumb,” she said), and Cubby Broccoli (“truly intelligent”—he would make the Bond pictures one day). After the boxing they went to the Clover Club, the most fashionable gambling nightclub in town.
