The Movie

by Patti Beckman

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1985, 2012 by Charles and Patti

  Boeckman, Inc.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  For Heather,

  with thanks for helping make

  this new edition of The Movie possible

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hollywood....

  Natalie Brooks gazed over the smog-shrouded panorama of Los Angeles. From this dusty old office building window she could see the hills of Hollywood in the distance. The view brought a fresh edge to the pain within her. Hollywood—the symbol of make-believe, the shimmering fabric of dreams, of glittering fantasies. She knew that aspect well. She was a part of it. But her own life drama was not pretend. Her heartache was not emotion simulated before a camera lens. It was very deep, very private and very real.

  Then she realized her agent, Ira Bevans, was speaking to her. With an effort, she controlled her wandering attention and turned. Her gaze swept the cluttered office. It was a large, old-fashioned room in an outdated building. A half century’s refuse from the movie industry was stacked around in piles and pasted on the walls. There were framed pictures of Harlow, Gable, Garbo, Bogart alongside faded photographs of Cecil B. De Mille, Jack L. Warner, Louis B. Mayer. Ira Bevans was in many of the pictures, either with an arm around or shaking hands with a celebrity. Each was autographed, “To my good friend, Ira...I love you, Ira....”

  The air was musty. Stacks of old contracts that long ago should have been discarded contained the details of client studio deals going back to the silent movie days.

  “I’m sorry, Ira. You were saying?”

  The man seated behind a wide expanse of a mahogany desk leaned back, stroking his shiny scalp, and gazed at her thoughtfully. Ira was a small man, thin and dry as parchment. Out of the wrinkled, leathery texture of his face glittered a pair of brown eyes still reflecting as much kinetic energy as had gone into negotiations with Louis B. Mayer’s MGM studios.

  “I was discussing the talk shows, sugar. Remember Never Tomorrow? The movie being released this week? You’re the star. Or maybe you forgot already?”

  She blushed. “You don’t have to be sarcastic, Ira.”

  “Sarcastic? What sarcastic? I’m concerned, sugar. You’re off in another world. You haven’t heard two words since you came in here this morning. You’re walking around this office like a lion in a cage.”

  Natalie sighed. She tried to control her restlessness by taking a seat in one of the comfortable old plush office chairs facing Ira’s enormous desk. She toyed with the thought that perhaps Jean Harlow or Carole Lombard might have once sat in this same chair facing this same desk. She crossed sleek, long legs. “I apologize, Ira. You have my undivided attention.”

  Her agent scrutinized her with a penetrating gaze that made her uncomfortable. Ira was one of those few people in the world who knew the real Natalie Brooks. He knew as much about her private life as anyone alive. More, she sometimes thought with a tinge of resentment, than he should. She loved Ira, but he could be extremely nosy. He was of the old-school Hollywood agents who put their agent-client relationships on a very personal basis. Still, she had no real complaints. Ira had negotiated some fabulous movie and TV deals for her.

  Standing five feet five and weighing all of a hundred pounds dripping wet, Ira Bevans gave the impression of an angry sparrow about to pounce on an offending worm. His scorn for some contemporary male Hollywood dress modes involving sport shirts open to the navel and pendants dangling from gold chains was vitriolic. He would refuse to be caught dead in anything but one of his tailor-made suits, imported shirts and ties. He stopped on the way to the office every morning to have his shoes polished to a mirror shine. His jewelry consisted of a diamond stickpin, an expensive watch and a large diamond ring on the small finger of his right hand.

  Ira had once been one of the great agents around town. His cronies included some of the most powerful movie and TV producers, actors and studio heads as well as the unseen powers that ran the industry, the advertising agencies and corporate executives. With the demise of the old studio system, the passing of the Hollywood moguls and the shift of power in the industry to the corporate boardrooms in New York, Ira’s fortunes had been on the decline. He seemed destined to join the memorabilia in his office, the musty contracts and faded photographs of another era. But then, by a stroke of good fortune, he had handled Natalie Brooks’ first acting contract. Her meteoric rise to stardom in a few short years had put Ira back in the mainstream, which to an old man living as much in the past as in the present was like taking a bath in the fountain of youth. The corporate lawyers sent around to deal with Ira had approached the old man with a condescending air, only to find themselves crossing swords with a mind as sharp as surgical steel and quick as a darting rapier. The result had been contracts that made Natalie one of the highest-paid stars of the year and put Ira back into a tax bracket that both awed him and made him furious with the Internal Revenue Service.

  Now he settled forward and rustled some papers on his desk. “The talk shows,” he repeated. “We’ve lined up guest appearances for you for a network evening show, and next week you’re supposed to fly to New York to do a morning show.

  His voice trailed away. He put his cigar in an ashtray and shoved the papers aside. He leaned back, his bright brown eyes narrowed. “You’re not listening again.”

  Natalie felt her cheeks grow warm. “Yes, I am. The evening and morning network shows. I heard.”

  “You can fly to New York next week?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “Now you’re getting snippy with poor old Ira.” His voice took on a hurt tone. “Poor old Ira who loves you like his own daughter and just wants the best for his little girl.”

  Tears glinted in her eyes. “Ira, I’m sorry. I—I guess I’m on edge today. Forgive me.”

  “Forgive? What’s to forgive?” He rose with a sigh, came around the desk to pat her shoulder awkwardly, then moved to the window, taking in the same view that had absorbed her moments ago. “I know what it is, sugar. Old Ira knows. It’s that schlemiel, Kirk Trammer. He’s back in the States. I heard all about it.”

  “He’s no schlemiel, Ira.”

  “No? How can you say that after the way he treated you, sugar?”

  There was a moment’s silence while Natalie wondered at the way she had instinctively leaped to Kirk’s defense. What was the matter with her, anyway? She had to be soft in the head. Kirk Trammer deserved every name Ira could think up to call him, and more!

  “Yeah, I heard all about it,” Ira went on bitterly. “Kirk Trammer, the great director. God’s gift to the movies. Back from his little artsy, European avant-garde films—they don’t call them movies over there; they call them ‘films’—and now he’s going to do this great blockbuster that’ll turn Hollywood around. The trouble is, there ain’t a studio on the West Coast that will touch him with a ten-foot pole.”

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on him, Ira.” Then Natalie thought, There I go again, standing up for Kirk. Was it going to be this way for the rest of her life?

  Ira turned from the window. “Oh, sugar, I haven’t got a thing against Kirk personally. So, maybe he is a genius like some critics think. Another Orson Wells or George Lucas, some of them say. What do I know about geniuses? All I got against Kirk is the way he treated you.”

  Natalie fought a sudden rush of tears. The last thing she needed right now was Ira’s sympathy. It was taking all her effort not to break down.

  But Ira was off on one of his tirades and nothing was going to slow him down. “All those articles in the fan magazines, the cheap grocery store tabloids, the big shiny slick publications, each with their own ‘U
ntold Story’ about Natalie Brooks, about her private life, about her love affairs.

  “You want to know what they are out there, sugar? Cannibals, that’s what. They sit around in their dull little lives hungry for gossip like a drug addict for a fix. The media turns a nice girl into the current sex queen and it starts, the myths, the lies. Once it was Jean Harlow, then Marilyn Monroe. Only day before yesterday it was Farrah, and yesterday Bo Derek and today it’s Natalie Brooks. Minute-by-minute details about how Harlow died. Did Marilyn Monroe really kill herself? The gossip headlines give them all the emotions lacking in their own empty lives; the public wants to wallow in pity, shock, scorn, envy, love and hate. They want all the titillating details about who the sex queen is sleeping with; and if she ain’t sleeping with anybody, the gossip makers, the press agents, the writers, the media will put somebody in her bed.

  “Most of the time there’s not a word of truth in any of it! So what? The truth doesn’t sell newspapers or satisfy gossips. How disappointed those vultures out there would be if they knew the truth about Natalie Brooks, that she doesn’t live on an exotic diet of herbs and natural foods to keep her incredible figure so slim, her complexion so flawless. She doesn’t have a string of lovers. Natalie Brooks is truthfully a straightforward, unselfish girl who is a soft touch for anybody in trouble. She doesn’t take drugs or smoke pot. She doesn’t even smoke cigarettes. Sex Goddess? Ha! Look at you right now. Dressed casually. Very little makeup. Still a lady down to the tips of your toes. Everything about you spells class—the way you pronounce every word so perfectly, the poise, the good manners, the aristocratic breeding. Another Grace Kelly. The only thing the gossips got right is that smartass Kirk leaving you to go sulking off to Europe because his big feature motion picture bombed out. That they got right, except for the lies they told about you. For that, I could kill all of them!”

  “Ira, for heaven’s sake, you’re getting your ulcer all stirred up. Calm down, will you? That’s all in the past. Kirk is in the past. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t? I guess maybe what’s on your mind is if the Dallas Cowboys are going to beat the Houston Oilers? Don’t lie to old Ira. I saw it all over your face the minute you walked into the office this morning. You’re all torn up over him being back in the States. Why didn’t you divorce him while he was gone, anyway? Wash your hands of the bum! You’re right. My ulcer is hurting.” He opened a paneled cabinet, took out a packet of antacid powder, emptied it into a glass of water and gulped it down.

  Feeling a sudden wave of concern, Natalie jumped up and impulsively put her arm around her agent. “Please don’t get yourself so worked up over me, Ira, honey. You shouldn’t become so personally involved with your clients. I’m a big girl now, I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Ira muttered. “I can’t help worrying about you, Natalie. You’re too good-hearted. You’re a patsy. In this business, you got to learn to be tough. Sometimes your best friends are your worst enemies, like that bunch you started hanging around with when you went to USC. The new breed of moviemakers. They’re going to change the industry. The young rebels they call themselves, the Lucases, Coppolas, Spielbergs and Kirk Trammers. Sure, the industry has changed. The great old moguls like the Goldwyns, the Zanucks are gone. Now the studios are owned by the big corporations out East. But it’s still the studios that run the show, put up the money, control the distribution, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Why on earth are you telling me all that stuff, Ira? What has that got to do with my personal life?”

  “Just a word of warning, honey, from a guy old enough to be your grandfather who’s lived and breathed this business for fifty years. You’re a star, Natalie. You’re big box office. You got a fabulous future ahead of you. I worry that Kirk Trammer and that crazy bunch of USC friends of yours are going to get you involved in something you’ll regret. You’re too big for that now. You outgrew your friends. Maybe that sounds cruel, but it’s true, and in this business you got to look out for number one, or they’ll eat you alive.”

  Natalie frowned, eyebrows drawing pensively over huge brown eyes. Did Ira know something he wasn’t telling her, or was he second-guessing? He claimed to have ESP where the Hollywood scene was concerned. Nevertheless, she felt something of a shock that he would mention her USC friends. Was it just coincidental that she had been invited for a get-together of the old crowd over at Bill and Sally Dentmen’s Malibu beach house tonight? There was no way Ira could know about that, or could he? Why was he tying this all in with his tirade about Kirk? She knew Ira had never liked Kirk, so she wasn’t surprised that he would become all stirred up over Kirk’s return to the States. But she sensed something else was in the wind, something that made her vaguely uneasy beyond the natural emotional turmoil Kirk’s return had awakened.

  With one of his sudden changes of mood, Ira dropped the subject of her personal life and became all business. For the next fifteen minutes, he explained the intricacies of the various contracts and financial statements on his desk that required her signature.

  With that out of the way, Natalie left his office and took the elevator to the parking garage where her bright red Porsche was waiting. A few minutes later, she was pulling away from the building into the flow of Los Angeles traffic.

  She felt detached from the traffic around her, the sound of horns, the swish of tires on pavement, the rumble of engines. Automatic reflexes took over her handling of the powerful little car. Her mind was saturated with painful memories; the image of intense, hazel eyes, waving hair carelessly combed, a mouth that could be sensitive or angry, broad shoulders, strong arms. The nights of romantic fulfillment she had known in those arms woke remembered waves of heat coursing through her body and stabbed her heart with pain.

  She might try to hide her feelings from Ira but she couldn’t hide them from herself. Fortunately, she wasn’t involved in shooting a movie at the present time; in her state of mind she’d never be able to remember her lines.

  Pushing sentiment aside, she thought with a wave of anger that Ira was right. What she needed to do was settle this matter once and for all. She was never going to have any peace by clinging to those good times she and Kirk had shared. They were long gone. Kirk had by now no doubt forgotten them. She was a sentimental idiot to brood over something that was ended. She supposed she would always love Kirk, but she had her own life and career to think about, as Ira had wisely pointed out.

  She raised her chin with a gesture of defiance and determination. Sooner or later, she was going to have to have a confrontation with Kirk. She would tell him she wanted to get the matter of the divorce settled.

  She left the Ventura Freeway, merging with the southeast-bound traffic on the Hollywood Freeway. She was driving through familiar territory. Here, in roughly a fifty-square-mile area were situated the studios, the sound stages, the lots, all the facilities of the movie industry. In the northern section were the Disney, Universal and Burbank studios. At the southern tip was MGM and United Artists studios on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot. To the east were Paramount Pictures and the ABC studios, and to the west, Twentieth Century-Fox.

  This was the place the world knew as Hollywood, where artists wove the tapestry of imagination and fantasy on movie and TV screens to satisfy the dreams of the world.

  She passed landmarks like the John Anson Ford Theater and the Hollywood Bowl. She took an exit and saw the street signs of Sunset, Vine and then Santa Monica Boulevard, that would take her to her home in Beverly Hills.

  On the way, she turned off at Rodeo Drive, that cluster of exclusive shops, boutiques, cafés and banks contained in a few blocks of glittering opulence. Names like Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Gucci lined the street. It was the shopping center for movie stars and millionaires, an area that ranked with Paris’s Faubourg St. Honoré, London’s Bond Street and Rome’s Via Condotti. Rolls-Royces, Lincolns and Mercedes filled the parking areas. In the shops one could spend as much as $24,000 fo
r a topcoat or $38,000 for a bedspread. It was a street where famous stars rubbed elbows with oil rich sheiks from Saudi Arabia or corporate executives from New York.

  Natalie strolled through Rodeo Drive’s newest mall, the Rodeo Collection. It was a three-story structure with more than thirty-five stores including glorious art galleries and specialized elegant boutiques. There was Portuguese marble construction with lots of glass and bronze trim and various walls of hand-laid bricks in intricate patterns. From the penthouse level huge pots of white jasmine floated down the cascading glass windows to the lower level. It was a glittering fairyland of exotic plants, solid brass rails costing $450 a running foot and a scenic glass elevator. The mall housed such couture shops as Fendi, Nina Ricci, Ungaro and Luis Vuitton.

  The same restlessness churned in her that had made her so jumpy in Ira’s office. The minutes of an emotional time bomb were ticking away inside her. She couldn’t get her mind off the matter of Kirk’s being back in California and the fact that, sooner or later, she was going to encounter him face-to-face. That prospect was like a gathering storm on the horizon, threatening to rip her life asunder again. That was the effect Kirk always had on her existence. Her nerves were drawn tight.

  Natalie was in a strange, reckless mood. After a champagne and caviar lunch at Nipper’s, she was seized with the impulse to buy something casual yet wildly extravagant for the Malibu beach party tonight. At one of the designer shops, she found just what she was looking for—a beach ensemble that consisted of a flowered wraparound top and sarong which, untied, cleverly revealed a hidden bikini. It was exactly the kind of abandoned, daring statement she wanted to make. She signed a check for eight hundred dollars. The clerk accepted it without hesitation. Everyone in the store had recognized her. They waited on movie stars every day. Still, Natalie’s beauty and current popularity made her something of a VIP among celebrities.

  She left the store, putting on sunglasses to shield her eyes from the bright California sunshine. On her way to her car she was stopped several times by fans eagerly requesting her autograph. She complied, smiling, wondering if these strangers had any inkling of the emotional turmoil boiling inside the person they saw as a poised, glamorous movie star. Today she was much more aware of her role in real life as a woman confronted by heartbreak.