While Sonya doesn’t let on, she clearly knows the difference between a beauty ritual (Paul Newman be damned) and a hangover assistance. For one, there’s less moaning in a beauty ritual.
Just as the ice-cold stimulation is starting to penetrate Rick’s face, the door to the makeup trailer flies open, banging against the back wall, and the director of the Lancer pilot steps into the trailer with the huge theatrical flamboyance that is his customary method of entering a room.
Greeting Rick as if he were projecting to the back row of the Old Vic, the director announces, “Rick Dalton? Sam Wanamaker!”
The director shoots his hand out to the seated, slightly discombobulated, wet-faced actor, who instinctively completes the handshake greeting with a dripping-wet paw.
Clearing his voice, Rick sputters, “Good to meetcha—uh—uh—uh—Sam. Sorry ’bout the wet hand.”
Sam dismisses the wet-hand comment. “No worries, I’m used to it with Yul,” referencing the exotic Hollywood movie star Yul Brynner, who Wanamaker became friends with when the two acted together in the historical action picture Taras Bulba. Recently, Yul Brynner had backed Wanamaker’s move behind the camera by starring in Sam’s first feature, The File of the Golden Goose.
Wanamaker continues with Dalton, “I want you to know, Rick, I’m the one who cast you, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about you doing this.”
The director is dealing with Rick with a tank of high octane, while the quart-low actor is struggling to catch his equilibrium. Rick’s nerves kick in and his slight stammer starts making its first appearance of the day.
“Well-well, thanks, S-S-Sam, I appreciate it.” Then, finally getting a hold of the sentence, “It’s a good part.”
“Have you met the series lead, Jim Stacy?” Wanamaker asks, referring to the actor playing the role of Johnny Lancer.
“N-n-no, not yet,” Rick stutters.
Does this fucking guy stutter? Sam thinks.
“You guys are gonna be dynamite together,” Sam says.
“Well . . .” Rick looks for the right word, then gives up and just says, “That sounds exciting.”
Wanamaker says confidentially, even though Sonya and Rebekkah can hear everything he’s saying, “Just between you and me, the network cast the series leads, Jim and Wayne.” Wayne is the series co-lead, Wayne Maunder, who plays the Boston-raised Lancer brother, Scott.
“And they did a fine job. But nevertheless, the network chose them. But I chose you. Primarily because I can foresee possible gorilla magic between you and Stacy. And I want you to exploit that.”
Sam leans over Rick, the massive gold Zodiac medallion (Gemini) the director wears around his neck swinging in the air back and forth over Rick in the makeup chair. “That doesn’t mean I want you to be anything less than professional. But you’re the seasoned pro. I want to work with you”—pointing a finger down at Rick—“to help me get what I need out of him”—jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Stacy somewhere outside the makeup trailer. “When the two of you are in costume, I want you”—again pointing down at Rick in his chair—“to subtextually keep the cock-measuring contest continuing between the two of you.”
Waving his hands in front of him in order to frame a picture in the air for Dalton to imagine: “Think of a confrontation between a silverback gorilla and a Kodiak bear.”
Rick chuckles, “Well . . . Sam . . . that’s some image.”
Wanamaker agrees, “I know.”
“Which one am I,” Rick asks, “the gorilla or the bear?”
“Which one has the biggest cock?” Wanamaker answers.
“Well,” Dalton deduces, “that would probably be the gorilla.”
“Have you ever seen a fully erect Kodiak bear?” Wanamaker challenges.
“I can’t say I have,” Dalton confides.
“Then don’t be so sure,” Wanamaker warns.
“When the two of you are in scenes,” Wanamaker directs, “I want you to goad him. You think you can do that, Rick?”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘goad him’?” Dalton asks.
“Goad him,” Wanamaker repeats. “Poke the bear, get his dander up. You goad him as if you’re trying to convince the network executives to fire Stacy and reshoot the pilot with you as Johnny Lancer. You go at him like that,” Wanamaker assures Dalton, “you’ll be doing both him and the show a favor. Not to mention capturing lightning in a bottle.”
Wanamaker finds Sonya behind him in the reflection in the mirror, sitting in her chair, smoking her Chesterfield. He doesn’t turn to address her; he just speaks to her reflection.
“Sonya,” he dictates, “first off, I want to give Caleb a mustache. A big, long, droopy Zapata-like mustache.”
Oh, great, Rick thinks. He hates fake beards and mustaches. It’s like trying to act with a caterpillar glued to your upper lip and a beaver attached to your face. Not to mention he hates spirit gum slathered on his mug.
After Wanamaker mentions the “Zapata-like mustache,” the director bursts out laughing and tells Rick, “And trust me, when Stacy gets a look at that goddamn mustache, he’s gonna flip his fucking wig!” The director explains, “We both wanted Johnny Lancer to have a mustache. I told the network we need facial hair like that to make the genre feel modern. Like what the Italians are doing in Europe.”
Rick winces.
Wanamaker continues, too wrapped up in his story to clock Rick’s reaction, “Well, CBS said no fucking way. You want to put a mustache on somebody, you put it on the heavy. And that means you, Rick,” Sam says with a big grin.
Rick doesn’t dig wearing phony mustaches, but if the lead wants it and can’t get it but he can? That could be a horse of a different color.
“So Stacy wanted to wear a mustache?” Rick confirms.
Wanamaker answers, “Yes.”
“Is that gonna bother Stacy?” Rick asks.
“Are you kidding? He’s gonna go fucking apeshit! But he knows what the network said. So it’ll just add another subtextual layer to the antagonism between you two.”
Then he turns around and addresses Rebekkah: “Now, Rebekkah darling, I want a different look for Rick’s character, Caleb. I don’t want him costumed like they costumed the heavies on Bonanza and The Big Valley for the last decade. I want a Zeitgeist flair to the costume—nothing anachronistic. But where does 1969 and 1889 meet? I want a costume he could wear into the London Fog tonight and be the hippest guy in the place.”
The counterculture-savvy costume designer gives the hip director the answer he wants. “We got a Custer jacket, fringes all down the arm. It’s tan now, but I dye it dark brown, he could hit the Strip in it tonight.”
That’s what Wanamaker wants to hear. He runs a finger down her cheek and says, “That’s my girl.”
Rebekkah smiles back, and at that moment Rick knows Sam and Rebekkah are fucking.
Wanamaker spins back in Rick’s direction. “Now, Rick, about your hair.”
A touch too defensively, Rick asks, “What about my hair?”
Wanamaker answers back, “The Brylcreem-boy generation is dead.” Sam explains, “It’s very Eisenhower. I want Caleb to have a different hairdo.”
“How different?” Rick asks.
“Something more hippie-ish,” Sam tells him.
You want me to look like some goddamn hippie? Rick thinks.
“You want me to look like a goddamn hippie?” Rick questions with a skeptical face.
“Think less hippie,” Sam clarifies, “more Hells Angels.”
Sam’s eyes find Sonya again in the reflection of the mirror. “I wanna get an Indian wig, long hair, put it on his head, then cut it into a hippie hairstyle.”
Then, quickly turning to Rick, “But scary hippie,” he assures the actor.
Rick interrupts Sam’s creative flow with a question. “Sam . . . uh . . . Sam?”
Sam turns toward his actor, giving him his full attention. “Yes, Rick?”
Rick tries, without sounding like a temperamental h
orse’s ass, to slow Sam’s roll somewhat with a practical question: “Look . . . uh . . . uh . . . Sam, if you got my face covered up in all this . . . uh . . . uh,” he searches for the right word, “junk, nobody’s gonna know it’s me.”
Sam Wanamaker takes a beat, then answers the actor, “Well, there are those, dear boy, that call that acting.”
Chapter Ten
Misadventure
The minute Cliff shot his wife with the shark gun, he knew it was a bad idea.
The impact hit her a little below the belly button, tearing her in half, both pieces hitting the deck of the boat with a splash. Cliff Booth had despised this woman for what seemed like years, but the moment he saw her ripped in two, two separate halves lying on the deck of his boat, years of ill will and resentment evaporated in an instant. He rushed to her side, cradling her, holding the two separate pieces of her torso together, expelling frantic heartfelt statements of remorse and regret.
He held her that way, keeping her alive, for seven hours. He didn’t risk leaving her side for one minute to call the Coast Guard, for fear without his applied pressure she’d come apart. So for seven hours he held her close and tight, cradling her, calming her down, keeping her alive. If he hadn’t shot her in the first place, the effort would have been heroic.
On the bloody deck of the boat he had named after her (Billie’s Boat), amongst the guts, blood, and intestines seeping out of Billie Booth, the husband and wife, on the brink of death, had the seven-hour conversation they could never have in life. So she wouldn’t dwell on the extremity of her dilemma, he kept her talking.
What did they talk about? Their love story.
In those seven hours, they recounted their whole life together.
As the Coast Guard ship finally approached, somewhere around hour six, the husband and wife were communicating in baby talk like two helplessly-in-love fourteen-year-olds away at summer camp. Each trying to outdo the other in a game of remembering the smallest detail of their first meeting and first date. As the Coast Guard boarded the vessel and drove her into port, Cliff continued holding Billie’s two separate halves together. All the while assuring her that she was going to be okay. “Hey, I ain’t gonna lie,” he said, “you’re gonna have the King Kong of scars. But you’re gonna be just fine.”
Cliff tried so hard to convince Billie of this that, after six hours of committed line readings, he talked himself into it too. So the pragmatic Cliff Booth was, surprisingly, surprised when in the Coast Guard’s efforts to transfer Billie from the boat to the dock and an awaiting ambulance . . . she fell apart.
Oh well.
Inside the stunt community of Hollywood in the sixties, Cliff Booth was greatly admired for his distinguished military career and his status as one of World War Two’s great war heroes. But there existed widespread speculation that Cliff Booth murdered his wife and got away with it. No one really knew for sure if he shot her on purpose. It could have been just a tragic mishandling of diving equipment, which is what Cliff always claimed. But anybody who had ever seen a drunken Billie Booth berate Cliff in public in front of his colleagues didn’t buy that. And since a lot of people in the Hollywood stunt community had seen that, they thought he just fucking killed her.
Cliff even admitted to the authorities his wife had been drinking at the time of the accident. Since the authorities didn’t know Billie, they didn’t know what that meant. But stuntmen and their wives did.
That probably meant Billie was being belligerent. And that probably meant she said one fucking thing too many. And that probably meant Cliff got fed up and, in a moment of weakness, he did something drastic. Something once he did, he couldn’t undo.
How did Cliff get away with it? Easy. His story was plausible and it couldn’t be disproven. Cliff felt real bad about what he did to Billie. But as much regret and remorse as he felt, it never occurred to him not to try to get away with murder.
After all, Cliff had always been a practical what’s-done-is-done type. While taking the whole matter seriously, he also observed it from a pragmatic point of view. He didn’t need to spend twenty years in jail—Cliff could do an adequate job punishing himself for his reckless moment. After all, it wasn’t like he was a criminal. It wasn’t like he plotted her murder. It was practically the accident he claimed it was. When his finger pulled the trigger, was it a conscious decision?
Not exactly.
One, it was a hair trigger. Two, it was more instinct than a decision. Three, was it a pull, or was it closer to a twitch? Four, it wasn’t like anybody was gonna miss Billie Booth. She was a fucking cunt. Did she deserve to be ripped in two? Maybe not. But to say without Billie Booth on this earth the sweet life goes on unabated would be an understatement. Really, only her sister Natalie was upset, and she was even a bigger fucking cunt than Billie. And she was really only upset for a while. So Cliff carried the guilt, Cliff carried the remorse, and Cliff vowed to do better. What more does society want? The countless numbers of American soldiers he saved by killing Japs were definitely worth one Billie Booth.
Now, the law-enforcement agencies that investigated the case were not as aware of Cliff Booth’s violent tendencies as the Hollywood stunt community was. And Cliff’s story of a tragic mishandling of diving equipment was very plausible.
Also, as it turned out, proving exactly what happened when two people were alone, in a boat, out in the middle of the ocean, wasn’t so easy. The authorities had to prove it didn’t happen the way Cliff said it did. So, armed with a story that couldn’t be disproven, Billie Booth’s death was labeled misadventure.
And from that day forward, Cliff became the most infamous man on any Hollywood set he set foot on. Because no matter what set he set foot on, he was always the only man on that set that everybody in the know knew got away with murder.
Chapter Eleven
The Twinkie Truck
As Charles Manson negotiates the twisty roads leading up toward Terry Melcher’s house on Cielo Drive, in the beat-up Hostess Twinkies Continental Bakery truck, he knows he’s taking a chance.
When Charlie drove out from San Francisco to Los Angeles, it was with the purpose of getting his music published, his songs recorded with him singing them, landing a recording contract, and then finally becoming a rock-and-roll star. This whole being a spiritual leader to a bunch of zonked-out kids and a guru to a harem of runaway girls was just supposed to be something he did in the meantime. And at first, it worked. In fact, at first, it worked really well. His girls led him to create a relationship with the Beach Boys’ drummer, Dennis Wilson, a real honest-to-goodness rock star. Which led Manson into a relationship with Wilson’s friends Gregg Jakobson and Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher.
And that led to happenings, shindigs, toke parties, and jam sessions with other successful musicians on the L.A. rock-music scene. Before Charlie knew it, he was sharing a joint with the lead singer of the Raiders, Mark Lindsay, hobnobbing with Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Buffy Sainte-Marie, and jamming on guitar with Neil Young. Neil fucking Young!
Charlie not only jammed with him; his musical improvisation skills seriously impressed Young. (That night jamming with Neil Young was the closest to legitimacy Manson ever got.) Charlie hoped his jam session with Young would lead to a meeting with Bob Dylan, but Bobby proved elusive. The closest Charlie ever got to meeting Dylan was trading a few words with Bob’s sidekick at the time, Bobby Neuwirth, at the London Fog. No doubt about it, during the time when Charlie Manson and his “Family” were hanging out at Dennis Wilson’s pad, his musical aspirations had forward momentum. There was even a recording session where Charlie put some of his tunes down on three-quarter-inch tape. It’s doubtful that Melcher ever really entertained the idea of signing Charlie to Columbia Records. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he entertained the idea of recording some of Charlie’s songs for other artists. For all of Charlie’s jailhouse wisdom and philosophical savvy, Manson was almost charmingly naïve when it came to the music busines
s. Charlie knew Terry Melcher was wishy-washy about his record-selling potential. But he never allowed himself to get discouraged by it. To an admirable degree, when it came to the subject of himself, Charlie was always the eternal optimist. A foot in the door was all he ever said he wanted. And a foot in the door is what he got when Terry Melcher assured him that, at some point, he would sit down and let Charlie play him some of his music on his guitar.
Did Manson turn his relationship with Melcher into more than it was? Absolutely.
Was Melcher somewhat intrigued by Charlie? Maybe.
But Charlie’s hottest prospect for gaining a record deal was his close relationship to Dennis Wilson. Dennis was the only real rock star of the Beach Boys. Brian was fat and getting fatter, Al Jardine looked like a skeleton, and Mike Love had been going bald since he was eighteen. Dennis was a sexy dreamboat, who even in the early sixties gave off a Zen late-sixties vibe. For a while, Dennis Wilson truly believed in Charlie’s musical potential. He shared late-night trip sessions with Charlie, where Manson’s philosophy and view of the world honestly impressed Dennis (Wilson also shared Manson’s distrust and fear of black males). During jam sessions at his house, Dennis bore witness to Charlie’s undeniable gift for in-the-moment improvisation behind a guitar. Still, it’s dubious to think the untrained, undisciplined, loosey-goosey Manson would have ever gotten the hang of capturing his music in the pressure-filled, anxiety-inducing, sterile environment of a professional recording studio. (In that regard, Charlie would have some serious musical-genius company. Recordings of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly serve more as historical records than as evocative representations of their musical talent.) But it’s not out of the question to imagine, in an earlier time, Charles Manson making his way and learning the ropes in the pass-the-hat Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene of the late fifties and early sixties and on the hootenanny circuit, where his gift for musical improvisation, skill with a guitar, and prison background would’ve all been assets. For a while, Dennis Wilson sincerely encouraged Charlie’s musical dreams, even going so far as recording one of Charlie’s songs (Cease to Exist, his signature Family tune), rewritten under the title Never Learn Not to Love, and putting it on the Beach Boys’ 20/20 album.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Page 13
