Browning in Buckskin

by Peter Corris

  'She's had lessons from an expert.'

  It was an early afternoon in August, and pretty hot. I was sweating from the heat, even though my chair was in the shade, and nervousness. I wanted to make a good impression. Dick Harlan, the assistant director, was putting the finishing touches on the set-up; De Mille was on his way.

  'We'll run it through,' Harlan said. 'Take your places.'

  I walked out into the sun and stepped to the left and to the right as we mimed the mêlée that preceded the whip-wielding. Jean Arthur, in buckskin shirt and denims, did her part to perfection so that she and I ended up facing each other – me with my gun out and her with the whip uncoiled.

  'Okay,' Harlan said. 'Looks good. Let's run through the whip scene.'

  I watched, horrified, as Jean Arthur moved away and handed the whip to Colin Carter. He lifted it like an extension of his arm and cracked it over his head. The sound was like a shot, and I felt it go through my guts.

  'We'll fake it,' Harlan said. 'Colin, show Jean how close she needs to get.'

  Carter nodded and coiled the whip. I stood rooted to the spot, too frightened to run. I had an empty gun in my hand, and a hundred people were watching me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cecil B. De Mille approaching down the street. Carter's arm moved in a motion like a striking snake; I heard the leather whistle in the air, and then my right arm was on fire from the shoulder to the wrist. I screamed, dropped the gun and collapsed into the dust. The pain was intense, and I remember thinking, just before I fainted: I must be the last man to be flogged for deserting the Australian army.

  19

  That was the end of my work on The Plainsman. They carted me off to the infirmary and treated my arm, which remained blue-black for a couple of weeks. I carried it in a sling and got a bit of mileage out of playing the hero wounded in the line of duty. I got a few days extra pay as compensation, too. I don't know what happened to Colin Carter; with any luck, he broke his neck the next time he fell off a horse.

  Silkstein was happy. 'You done great, kid,' he said. 'Just great.'

  I didn't get a credit or a contract.' I winced as I moved my arm.

  It was a week after the flogging, and we were in his office; he got a cigarette out of his gold-embossed box, put it in my mouth and lit it for me. 'Takes time. You got noticed, that's the big thing. I can get you work.'

  'Bit parts, no doubt. I thought you had something more ambitious in mind.'

  'I do. I do. I'm working on it. Look, take a couple of weeks off. Relax, but stay in shape. There's a boxing picture coming up could be right for you.'

  'Oh.'

  'You don't like boxing? Thought you said you done some ring work back in Australia?'

  'Yes, sure. Boxing's fine. I can handle myself.'

  Silkstein patted my shoulder, and I winced again. 'Sorry, kid. Don't worry, we're on our way.'

  He was sounding like a boxing manager already. I asked him how his enquiries into my situation vis-a-vis the Australian authorities was going, and he said he was working on it. That was N. Robert. He always said he was working on it, but I never actually saw him work on anything.

  The arm was healed enough for me to drive as long as I took it carefully. Making sure no one was around to see me, I slipped the sling off, started the Olds and drove back to Venice. I was feeling fairly positive; I had money in the bank, the prospect of more work and an interesting place to live. I didn't like the sound of a boxing picture too much. Boxing was something I'd always tried to avoid at Dudleigh, usually by faking some injury or illness. I was always big for my age, so when I actually had to get in the ring, I usually had a reach and weight advantage that kept me out of trouble. I took some nasty ones on the nose though.

  The house on Columbia Drive was called 'Casablanca',32 which you mightn't believe but it's the truth. Cleaned up, with the porch boards nailed down and the guttering fixed, it didn't look so bad, and Mr Beer had had no trouble finding tenants. Getting them to stay and pay their rent was another matter. I had the big front room with the balcony that looked south-east. You could see the water if you hung on and bent yourself to look back down the side of the house. It wasn't something to do when you were drunk. There were five other rooms, four of them a good size and one not much bigger than a cupboard. The rents were on a sliding scale according to the quality of the rooms. I forget the prices, all I know is, I lived rent-free and had a little pocket money left over when the rooms were full. When they weren't, I had to cough up.

  'Job works on an incentive system,' Mr Beer said. 'You keep the place nice, people stay, and you're in clover.'

  'You've got too kind a view of human nature.'

  'Me?'

  I did my best to get the plumbing fixed and the rubbish carted away and to provide roach killer and mouse traps, but times were still hard and people were on the move. Especially in Los Angeles, where many are called but few are chosen. I had a couple of rules – no women, a month in advance, no cooking in the rooms, no obvious blacks. By the last rule I mean that I let rooms to light-skinned negros who could pass as white, or to smooth-talkers who said they were from Kalamazoo or some such place. If they didn't look like field hand niggers or behave like animals, it was okay by me, as long as they could pay the month up front.

  It made Casablanca an interesting place to be, all this passing and various humanity. There were actors, of course; some on the way up and some on the way down; James Murray stayed a few weeks when he was really on the skids. Some musicians, mostly drunks and misfits, who played their instruments at all hours, hocked them for the rent and flitted. Cornell Woolrich was at the house for a few weeks, until I threw him out for bringing back sailors in the early hours of the morning. A guy who said his name was Jim Thompson stayed for a month or so. I heard him typing and shouting and drinking in his room. Then he got a big cheque and left. He might have been the guy who wrote the paperbacks,33 I don't know for sure.

  But there was a more settled population, like Eben Cartwright, the schoolteacher, and Renee Duluth, the magazine illustrator and the boxer, Larry Spielberg. The schoolteacher was trying to be a writer, Duluth was painting in his spare time and Spielberg was fighting smokers and working days in a fish cannery. I never learned anything about writing or painting, but Spielberg and I used to spar and fool around a bit, and I picked up a few boxing tricks I figured would be useful if Silkstein got me into a fight picture.

  We had some great parties that summer – Casablanca was a good partying house, with its big rooms and easy access from the kitchen to the outside The parties started in the afternoon and went on through the night into the next day. Movie people came along; not the snotty ones earning the big money, but the bit players and technicians and others whose names, at that time, didn't mean anything to anyone. They mean something now: David Niven came once or twice, but he was so high on kif, which was what they called marijuana then, that he didn't recall a thing about it. I used to try to convince him in later years that he'd been to the notorious Casablanca parties. As I recall, his usual response, sweetly said of course, was something like, 'Shut up, you colonial oaf, and see if you can organise me another gin.'

  John Farrow, who later became famous as a writer, director and father, turned up at Columbia Drive a few times. He was an Australian, and I think he came out of homesickness. I spent as little time with him as I could, as with all Australians in Hollywood, of whom there were a good number. They tended to ask uncomfortable questions about your parents and what you did in the war and how you got your work permit. I usually managed to pass myself off as British or South African. Once I even made out I was a New Zealander, which mystified everybody.

  I've got a photograph somewhere taken at one of these bashes – maybe thirty people lolling about on the balcony and striking poses on the scruffy grass in the backyard. All smoking, and not necessarily tobacco – reefer-smoking wasn't a gaoling matter then. I tried it a few times myself, but I never really cared for it. I remember wandering into a movie ho
use when I was high on kif and sitting through a few sessions of Mutiny on the Bounty. I came away very frightened of the sea and ships. Had nightmares about drowning for months afterwards.

  Alcohol was the popular party drug, of course. You can see some of the bottles and jugs of muscatel. All the men are in open-necked white shirts, and with wide-legged trousers pulled up under our armpits – ghastly. The women who came along weren't the type to weigh themselves down with gloves and hats, and they looked pretty in their summer dresses and ankle-strapped shoes. Especially Belinda Douglas.

  I fell heavily for Belinda. She was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen – medium-tall, dark with huge eyes and chunky white teeth that she only had to show briefly to get my blood pumping. She came to a Casablanca party with someone who left early. She found me on the balcony, smoking a cigarette and feeling a little blue. I'd had no word from Silkstein about the next picture. I felt a hand go into my pocket and take out my cigarette case. I turned quickly, and there she was – black hair and eyes lit up in the match flare. And those teeth.

  'Thanks.' She handed back the cigarette case. 'You the host?'

  I nodded.

  'Actor?'

  'Trying to be. Richard Browning, how do you do. What's your name?'

  'Belinda Douglas. Let's go to bed.'

  Not many minutes later she was saying, 'You're out of practice, Dicky. Wait a bit while I finish up.'

  She masturbated quickly and effectively, while I lay rigid beside her. When she'd finished she snuggled up. 'That was nice.'

  'Glad you liked it,' I said.

  'Quit being huffy. You really put me in the mood, lover. I'm sure we'll have lots of fun together.'

  She had a deep, throaty voice that oozed sex, and she never used words like 'don't', 'not' and 'can't'. It was exciting to be around so much positive thinking. We were both in the mood again within a very short time, and I played my part much better.

  'Told you so. Now, where are we? I was a bit squiffy.'

  'My bedroom.'

  'Any women's clothes around?'

  'What the hell d'you mean?'

  She laughed. 'Hey, hey, don't worry. You did fine. If you're queer you're a great actor, and who the hell cares anyway? No, I mean like things your wife or girlfriends might've left.'

  'I'm out of practice with women, as you indicated.'

  She punched me lightly, well, not so very lightly, on the mouth. 'Listen, Dicky. I like you. I like big, dark, handsome men who've been around. I like to drink with them and screw with them. Come to think of it, small fair men're OK, too. But I like you, and I think we can get along.'

  She showed the teeth at the end of that speech and I was ready to die for her. 'But . . . ?' I said.

  'Don't sulk, don't complain, laugh, be nice. Know why?'

  I shook my head, but not sulkily.

  'I'll tell you. They're going to blow up the world in ten years' time.'

  It was all I could do to stop jumping out of bed. If there's one specimen of humanity I cannot stand, it's the religious crazy. I eased away a bit, I'm sure. 'Who's they?'

  'The Krauts, the British or us, what difference does it make? You ever heard of nuclear fission?'

  'No,' I said truthfully. That was the first time I'd ever heard the words.

  'It's physics. I like to read about physics. It's this way, split the atom and you get enough energy to blow the fuckin' world apart.'

  'Why would anyone want to do that?'

  'You could make bombs that'd do it.' She clapped her hands. 'Goodbye London, goodbye New York, goodbye Berlin.'

  'Jesus. But can that be done, splitting the . .. whatever it is?'

  'Atom. They're working on it, brother, they're working on it. And if they get it right the party's over, so let's have a good time.'

  I grabbed her and kissed her hard. I wanted to feel the teeth press against my mouth. If she wanted to have a good time because mad scientists were planning to blow up the world, that was all right by me. She returned the kiss and we made love again. It had been a fair while for me, and I was stoked up. Belinda was impressed.

  'Nice going. Now, about the clothes. Any women live here?'

  I shook my head. I was ready for some sleep.

  She got out of bed. 'Shit. I'll be leaving dressed the way I came, and I don't like that. On the other hand,' she leaned down and kissed me, 'I sure did come.'

  'Leaving? I don't understand.'

  'Belinda doesn't stay overnight, honey, and she tries to change clothes every twelve hours. I mean really change clothes. I'd steal your pants and a sweater if you weren't so big. You going to drive me home to Culver City?'

  I'd have driven her to Nome, Alaska. I scrambled out of bed, dressed and drove her to Culver City. On the drive she told me a little about herself – born in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July, 1910. She had a Mexican grandmother.

  'She and my mother died on the same day, and I left.'

  'Accident?'

  'No, my father shot them.'

  And that was all she ever said about family life. She'd been around the movies since she was seventeen, getting regular work in Westerns as a Mexican dish, or in costume pictures as a slave girl. She made a living and didn't care enough about the business to try to move up a slot.

  I was crazy about her, but I was crazy about making it in the movies too, which was just as well, because Belinda wasn't a one-man woman. I got as much of her time as she allowed me, but I did get her to stay overnight once – that was after we celebrated the news that Silkstein had got me into Kid Galahad with Robinson and Bogart.

  20

  I was excited when I saw the script. I knew I was too old to play the bellhop fighter managed by Robinson, but there was a good part for the tough champ managed by Bogart. I figured the more scenes I got with Bogart the better.

  'I've been picking up tips from Larry Spielberg,' I told Silkstein.

  'Larry what?'

  'He's a fighter.' I mimed a few punches. 'I know the moves. Well, I always did, but fighting styles change and now . . .'

  Silkstein lifted his hand so that his pinkie ring glinted in the light. 'Yeah, yeah, that's great, Dick. Just don't get your hopes up too high.'

  'What d'you mean? It's a great part.'

  'What is?'

  'Bogart's fighter.'

  'You ain't Bogart's fighter, kid. That part's for Bill Haade.'

  'What am I, then?'

  Silkstein shrugged. 'Who knows? Whatever they ask you to do – sparring partner, stumblebum, whatever.'

  I sat down in one of Silkstein's leather armchairs. 'I won't do it.'

  'You got anything else?'

  I shook my head.

  He knew he had me and could afford to be magnanimous. 'This is a Warners' picture. It'll pack 'em in. Do it right and you'll be noticed. Trust me.'

  'You said . . .'

  'I know what I said, and I'll deliver. Keep on with Spielberg. Stay in shape. You'll hear from me. And, Dick, I hear you've got that faggot writer staying at your place.'

  'Woolrich? I threw him out.'

  'That's OK. You've been seeing Belinda Douglas?'

  There was no keeping anything from Silkstein. I nodded. 'Anything wrong with that?'

  'Not a thing. Has to do you good. You get her to sleep over?'

  I answered without thinking. 'Last night. We . . .'

  'Great. When you're on your way, we'll put that around.'

  'You'll do what!'

  'Just kidding, just kidding. See you, Dick. Keep your nose clean.'

  When I told Belinda the news, she got angry. 'That Silkstein's a bum. You ought to be with Myron Selznick.'

  'Sure,' I said nastily, 'like you are.'

  Belinda laughed. 'No agent for me. There's no chance I'm going to pay a guy ten percent of what I make and suck his cock too.'

  Belinda had a way of speaking that won her a lot of arguments.

  We were eating lunch in Schwab's drugstore on Sunset Boulevard. Belinda was wea
ring a black and white suit that looked expensive but was a bit crumpled. She saw me eyeing the crushed collar. 'I was over at some place in Malibu last night. Everyone running around buck naked. I smuggled this out in a towel. Nice, huh?'

  'You'll get caught one day.'

  She shrugged. 'I always leave something behind. Fair exchange's no robbery. Seriously, lover, if you want to get ahead in this business, you've got to start making some moves.'

  She bit through a celery stalk (as well as being the first person to talk about nuclear fission, Belinda was the first vegetarian I ever met); as usual, the sight of her teeth did me good. I smiled and made a rude gesture with a breadstick. 'Such as?'

  'When's the shoot start?'

  'September sixteenth.'

  'Good. I start in Show Boat the same day.'

  'What're you doing in it?'

  'Showing my little brown tits down on the levee, what else? Point is, we can throw a party at Casablanca. Who's directing your punch picture?'

  'Michael Curtiz.'

  'Invite him. And Bogart and Robinson and everyone else.'

  'They won't come.'

  'I'll invite some of the right girls. They'll come, or some of 'em will. I know a young one Flynn's interested in. Maybe he'll come.'

  'I keep hearing about Flynn.'

  'He's a dish.'

  'Have you . . . ?'

  'Nope. Look, you've got to get Curtiz or Bogart or even some of the technical people at Warners to take some notice of you. That way you can make this picture work for you.'

  'Do I invite Silkstein?'

  'Fuck Silkstein.'

  'Have you?'

  'His father. Once. Damn near squashed me to death.' Belinda fished a small diary out of her jacket pocket and thumbed through it. 'How about September fourteenth?'

  'Fine,' I said.

  She scribbled in the diary, then she giggled. 'I wonder what the girls'll be wearing.'

  Organising a party in Hollywood in those days was mostly a matter of making a lot of phone calls and ordering up a lot of booze. You had to be careful not to invite people too recently divorced from each other, or the lovers of wives and husbands who didn't know their partners had lovers. In the sweller parts of town you needed a couple of kids to park the cars, and waiters and a barman. In Venice you parked youself and drank out of the jug if you had to. It was a good idea to have a word with the cops. A few dollars in the right hand ensured that they'd cruise by keeping an eye out for car thieves and sitting on anyone who complained about the noise.