Body and Soulmates

We've all heard those sorry sagas of husband-and-wife teams in Hollywood: how perfectly good marriages have been ripped apart when one spouse hits the big time and the other is left behind, doing bit parts and supermarket commercials. Or how some husbands maneuver themselves into the role of Svengali/manager, guiding the blossoming career of a beautiful wife. If he's successful in making her a star, his reputation as a manager is secured--an odd symbiosis that has also led as often as not to the divorce court. Jayne and Leon Isaac Kennedy have the best--and the worst--of both worlds. For much of their ten-year marriage, Leon has been behind the scenes, choreographing Jayne's career, from her days as an 18-year-old Miss Ohio, when they met, through stints as a dancer on the original Laugh-In and as a Ding-a-ling Sister on the old Dean Martin show, to her first real break, as a commentator on CBS' NFL Today. "I don't call myself the manager," explains Leon, "but I've always been the guiding force in Jayne's career."

It was Leon's idea, in fact, for Jayne to co-host the short-lived and much-maligned Speak Up, America on NBC. "People said I ruined her career with that decision," he says. "But people in the industry finally saw her, and saw what she could do."

Jayne readily admits that it's Leon who calls the shots. After the Speak Up debacle, Leon suggested that Jayne sign up to do boxing commentary for cable TV. Jayne said no. "I was adamant about not doing it," she recalls. "I was tired and I wanted to stay home. I didn't feel like going on the road again and I wanted some time to study boxing. I didn't want to just go in there and flub my way through it. Leon kept saying, 'It's important for you to do the boxing,' and I kept saying, 'I think it's important, too, but I don't want to.' I went on the road during one of our arguments and when I came back, he'd signed the deal."

To further complicate their relationship, Leon only two years ago got his own shot at stardom. He had been working as a disc jockey when he met Jayne in Cleveland. Known as Leon the Lover, he liked to promote himself as the ultimate fantasy for his female listeners, a soft, sexy voice making love over the airwaves (Jayne, who's three years younger, had been a fan while growing up). But shortly after the couple arrived in L.A., he hung up the Don Juan act to manage Jayne and run a chain of discos. Then director Jamaa Fanaka, an old friend, asked him to take over the lead in Penitentiary, a sleeper hit that garnered Leon an immediate following, particularly among women. "People ask us now what it's like having two sex symbols in the same family," he smiles. He quickly began pushing his own career as relentlessly as he had pushed Jayne's, even printing up a poster of himself, striking a shirtless and sultry pose, and selling it through the mail. His next step was parlaying his acceptance with black audiences into a three-picture deal with Cannon Films.

Cannon wanted Leon to star in a black remake of Body and Soul, a 1947 hit about corruption in boxing starring John Garfield and Lilli Palmer. But Leon was thinking big--he said he'd star, but only if he could write, produce and, of course, cast Jayne as his main love interest.

When it came to modifying the film's original characters, Leon didn't stray too far from real life. Not only does Jayne play a sportscaster but Muhammad Ali is on hand, too (as Muhammad Ali, of course), to give Leon a few tips about fighting and promotion. And what gimmick do they come up with? Leon becomes Leon the Lover, a pretty boy of the ring who passes out roses to his female fans and wears a bright-red heart on his boxing shorts. Only Peter Law-ford, who (text concluded on page 192) Body and Soulmates (continued from page 153) plays the crooked fight promoter, seems not to be cast as himself.

The plot centers largely on Leon the Lover's beginning to believe his own hype and, with some prodding by the evil Syndicate, turning away from Jayne and succumbing to the temptations offered by some of his more luscious fans, played, appropriately enough, by Playmates Rosanne Katon, Ola Ray and Azizi Johari. But while Leon the actor was cavorting before the camera, Jayne the wife was fuming behind it.

"He had some love scenes in the movie with other ladies," explains Jayne. "I figured he wrote the script, so this must be what he wanted to do. And I was a little disturbed by that."

Things got worse when director George Bowers got ready to shoot the big scene in which Jayne discovers Leon in bed--and not alone. Bowers suggested doing the scene in cuts, so that Jayne wouldn't actually have to see her husband in bed with three nude women. "It's just a movie," Jayne shrugged, and she agreed to do an actual take. "When I walked in the door, it wasn't just a movie," she says. "I found myself getting mad. Leon tried to talk to me after the scene, but I just left the set."

Leon claimed he was just following the script--his own script, of course. "Throughout the movie, we weren't getting along at all because of the pressures put on me as writer, producer and actor," he explains. "And there were many days on the set when I was waiting for the movie to be finished so I could just leave, so I didn't have to be around her. The day we had our own love scene we were very mad at each other. It was almost like kissing a stranger. It was just two professionals doing what they had to do."

But that was six months ago and, with filming over, the tensions have disappeared. Jayne has written many of their problems off to Leon's dedication to his work. "Everything else is put aside until the project is finished," she says. "And sometimes that also means a relationship. He likes everything he does to be perfect. And that is certainly not a fault."

However, that doesn't mean that Jayne is rushing into Leon's next movie project for her, a film biography of the late Dorothy Dandridge. She's waiting, instead, to see if a CHiPs spin-off she's filmed will be picked up as a series, and she also has Jayne Kennedy's NFL Report, a syndicated TV show, ready to go in the fall. When it comes to working with Leon, she says, "Once a year is enough."