“Excuse me, do you mind?”
Mary glanced up; Douglas Fairbanks was standing in front of her. He smiled, his teeth blinding white in his dark face; he held out his arms as if expecting her to leap right into them, and she was furious.
Didn’t he think she could look after herself? Did he believe she—Mary Pickford!—went around letting strange actors scoop her up like a sack of potatoes?
But then she looked down at the wobbling log; she heard her husband’s laughter far up ahead, somewhere in the woods. With Elsie.
“All right, Mr. Fairbanks.” Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be swept off her feet and carried over the log.
“Thank you, Mr. Fairbanks.”
“Doug. Please call me Doug, Miss Pickford.”
“Mary, then. Call me Mary. But I shall call you Douglas, if you don’t mind. You seem more of a Douglas to me.”
Douglas flashed his dazzling grin, set her down gently—he had picked her up as easily as if she were a feather, and she had felt how muscled his arms were—and bowed.
“I hope you don’t mind that I waited for you. I very much wanted to talk to you, back there at the party, Mary. I’ve long been an admirer of your movies.”
“Thank you.” Mary was startled; it had been a very long time since her own husband had complimented her in any way. She felt herself relaxing and blossoming under the unexpected—sorely needed!—praise. “And your films are doing very well, I see.”
Douglas shrugged. “For what they are. I’m under no illusion; I’m no great actor. But I’m told I do have a personality.” His merry eyes crinkled and he grinned again, and Mary decided that Douglas Fairbanks was quite handsome, almost as handsome in real life as he was on the screen in his nice little drawing room comedies.
Eventually, they turned around and went back up to the house; Elsie and Owen staggered in later, laughing, clothes askew, and Mary, humiliated, insisted she and Owen return home right away.
“I hope I’ll see you again, Mary,” Douglas said as he—not Owen, who had already left to get the car—helped her into her furs.
“I hope so, too, Douglas. Thank you for a lovely afternoon.” Mary smiled, and Douglas Fairbanks bowed deeply.
Gallantly.
—
That had been in 1915. Two years ago. Two years in which Mary tried, but failed, to banish all thoughts of the dashing man who had swept her off her feet; two years in which she attempted to avoid him at parties and industry functions in New York. But she couldn’t quite avoid him, at that.
One memorable meeting was at a dance at the Algonquin, where Douglas had earnestly asked her opinion of some movie matters, showered her with compliments once again, then waltzed her divinely about the room until her head began to spin and her heart began to thaw.
For her heart had been encrusted in ice for years; ever since her marriage, six long years ago. No one had touched it, except for Mama and Fran. And her work, of course; her heart was in everything she did for the camera, and all those eager, loving fans she could never stop picturing on the other side of it.
But a man. She hadn’t allowed herself to entertain the idea of loving a man again. She knew she didn’t love Owen, had never loved Owen, could never love Owen. But she also didn’t know how to get rid of him short of praying for his death, which she sometimes did. Guiltily.
Frances could marry and divorce; Frances could sleep with men with no consequences. But not good little Catholic America’s Sweetheart. Mary’s fans scarcely knew she was married—it wasn’t something she talked about much in interviews, although once in a while she and Owen did pose for silly features that portrayed them as happily married, to keep up appearances. If she were to divorce—
Mary shuddered.
She was only twenty-five! She was young, so young, and a woman, despite the fact that she continued to play much younger girls in the movies.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t entertain the idea of loving another man; she couldn’t jeopardize all that she’d worked for. She allowed their friendship to grow, soberly, properly, under Charlotte’s watchful eyes. For two years—seven hundred and thirty agonizing days—Mary had told herself, over and over, that she and Douglas were merely friends. She had tea with his wife, for heaven’s sake! They were simply colleagues, close colleagues, who talked shop. Douglas was nakedly ambitious and hungry for advice from Mary, while at the same time, he never failed to flatter her. And respect her.
“You do less apparent acting than anybody I know,” he’d told her at that dance at the Algonquin, “and because of that, you express more.” Mary had wondered if he was teasing her; her back stiffened against his very sure arm. But then she looked up at his face; those dancing eyes weren’t dancing. They were brown, so meltingly brown, and she felt herself wanting to do anything—anything at all!—if only to keep those eyes looking at her.
Those miraculous eyes expressed pain, too, exactly like a little boy’s, when his mother died and Mary sent a sympathetic note to his hotel. Her telephone rang soon after. “Please come driving with me,” he’d pleaded, his voice flat. “I would like a friend.”
Hurriedly she grabbed a cloak, left her curls down even though she’d surely be seen, ignored Charlotte’s suspicious glance, and raced down to the lobby; he pulled up in a roadster a minute after, and she jumped in the car, and as the roadster roared away, she had the most astonishing sensation of vaulting into her future.
That night Douglas drove slowly once they reached Central Park, meandering through the narrow roads and talking softly of his mother, how much he owed to her, how much he’d been afraid he’d let her down by becoming an actor, by marrying Beth, whom she hadn’t liked. Mary listened, occasionally placing her hand upon his arm, and feeling that nothing more was required of her than her presence; this was a man who didn’t need her to be anything other than who she was, and for once in her life, she felt that herself was enough.
“I don’t know what I’ll do now, without her…she was, she was…”
“Your rock?” Mary thought of Charlotte, how adrift she would be without her mother’s constant love and support, the one thing in this life—this chaotic life she’d never even dreamed of because it hadn’t existed back when she was innocent enough to dream—she could count on.
“Exactly! It’s odd, I suppose—you must think me strange”—Douglas glanced nervously at Mary, and tugged at the collar of his shirt—“a grown man, acting this way over his mother.”
“I think it’s touching, and I think you must have been a wonderful son.”
“I tried, oh, I did try!” He slammed on the brake—they weren’t going very fast, and the road was empty, so it wasn’t a jolt—and suddenly laid his head on his arms, across the steering wheel. And he began to sob.
Mary looked about anxiously, as if for someone to advise her, but of course they were all alone. What to do now? She yearned to take him in her arms, hold and comfort this wonderful man, so strong and yet so heartbreakingly soft in the very best way; keep him in her arms forever, stay in this car, the two of them, and forget everything—husbands and wives and movies and reviews and box office and most of all, the public with its judging eyes and suspicious minds. To remain trapped in this spell that had been created out of sorrow but had spun itself into something beautiful, something healing and binding and promising.
“Oh, Douglas!”
“What?” He raised his head, his eyes still wet with tears, and Mary’s heart gave a little catch. His hair—normally slicked back in perfect drawing room style, like an advertisement for Brooks Brothers—was rumpled. Adorably.
“The clock.” Mary pointed. The dashboard clock had a little crack in it. Time, literally, had stood still. Mary took it as some kind of a sign—perhaps because she was looking for one. “Douglas, the clock stopped, just now. Now, when you were—it was like something, or someone—”
“Just like Mother. Like Mother was telling me something.” Douglas reached for her hand, holding it as
gently as he would hold a baby chick. “Mary, I haven’t cried all day. Not a single tear. I even made my brother go to a Broadway show with me earlier today. Then when I got back to the hotel and saw your note—I’m trying to say, this moment, with you, I could cry. I could feel. And Mother is letting me know that this is good, is right.”
Mary couldn’t speak; she did what she had done for nearly as long as she could remember. She turned to Douglas as lovingly as she turned to the camera, and she let her eyes say what was in her heart.
Two months later, she and Charlotte moved back to Hollywood to set up the production unit with Fran and Mickey. Not very far at all from La Brea Avenue, where Douglas had moved his wife and his seven-year-old son. Of course, Mary paid a social call on the Fairbankses as soon as she had settled in. Beth Fairbanks was warmly welcoming and obviously a little flustered by so eminent a visitor; she’d always been a little flustered in Mary’s presence, to be truthful. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., a round, fair-haired child, was kneeling on the floor, playing with an army of tin soldiers.
“I’ll ring for some tea!” Beth exclaimed, bustling off, leaving Mary alone with her husband and child.
“Do you mind if I play, too?” Mary asked the little boy, kneeling beside him in her prettiest white lawn dress, a cartwheel hat framing her face.
“You can be the Huns and I’ll be the Frogs,” Douglas’s son told her solemnly, and she nodded and lined up her soldiers.
She looked up, and Douglas’s face was full of emotion—pride in his boy, pure happiness to see her, sadness still there, too. But it was a sadness they had shared, and so it wasn’t tragic; it was bittersweet, and Mary couldn’t help but think reverently of that evening in Central Park—By the clock, Douglas had signed his last letter to her, letting her know he, too, remembered that night with something more than grief.
Suddenly Doug was kneeling beside her, whispering in her ear, his hot breath making the back of her neck shiver, her breasts tingle.
“I can’t wait any longer, Mary. I have to see you. Meet me in Griffith Park tomorrow at three.”
Mary, unable to look at him for fear of what she might do right there on the floor next to his solemn little boy, shook her head even as her entire body flooded with happiness, with desire.
“Oh, dear, this horrible war!” Beth chirped as she returned with a silver tray full of tall glasses and a pitcher of tea.
Mary jumped up, her knees knocking in terror.
“All my little boy wants to do these days is play war,” Beth continued, unaware of the tension in the room. “Because it’s all anyone talks about. I’m so afraid my Douglas will be involved somehow, now that we’re in.”
The war. Mary nearly gasped out loud. The United States had declared war on Germany only a month before, April 1917, finally swept up in the great European conflict. Hollywood was eager to do its part—not to mention eager to move into Allied markets that could no longer make their own films due to shortages of manpower and material—but so far, life was proceeding as usual; movies continued to be made. It hadn’t occurred to Mary that Douglas might have to actually fight until Beth said so.
And whatever last vestige of morals or propriety Mary was still clinging to disappeared as she looked at Douglas Fairbanks and realized that she would miss him even more than she desired him.
“I sincerely hope Douglas will find a way to contribute, without being in harm’s way,” Mary replied as she nodded, just once, and saw Douglas’s face flush with joy. “After all, he has his little boy to think of.”
Beth beamed, while Douglas turned to look out a window at the pretty, manicured garden.
The next afternoon, Mary met him in Griffith Park. She dressed herself, arrayed herself—oh, so carefully! She hadn’t dressed for a man, other than Papa Zukor, in so many years she didn’t even know how to begin, and had an impulse to telephone Fran to see if she could borrow something stylish, something adult. But even as her hand reached for the phone, she snatched it back. She couldn’t confide in Fran. Not yet. She couldn’t confide in anyone; she was trapped in this glass castle of her own making. If she was going to break free of those walls, she would have to do it alone.
So she chose a demure linen dress that didn’t have too many frills—or buttons—on it, and practically raced to her car, so excited was she to do this thing she was about to do, throw caution to the wind, risk everything, but also—be caressed, fondled, adored. Taken.
When she saw him, standing beneath a tree on the designated footpath, she ran to him, into waiting, hungry arms, and when they kissed for the first time, it was exactly as if they’d done so a thousand times before.
—
The day after she and Fran had their little—spat—at the stables, Douglas came to Mary’s house for tea with her and Charlotte.
It was part of the game they were playing; they met in public as friends and colleagues, always with someone else in tow, always loudly discussing work. Charlotte—wise as always, disapproving, too, but as of yet, not saying a word—sat behind the tea set as unreadable as a Sphinx.
“You know, Fran called last night,” Mary said as Charlotte poured and she sliced into the cake. “She wants to go to war, can you imagine? She wants to be a correspondent of sorts, and she asked if I had any contacts in Washington. Of course, I’m thrilled to help dear Fran in any way. But it got me thinking about my own contribution. And yours, Douglas.”
Douglas didn’t reply; she knew he was sensitive about the criticism that he—and other able-bodied actors—ought to be in uniform. But the studios had pulled every string imaginable to keep their leading men safe and in front of a camera.
“We could offer to do a bond tour,” Mary continued. “Think of how much money we could raise! I suppose we ought to include Charlie, too. After all, we three are the biggest stars in Hollywood.” Mary said it matter-of-factly; it was precisely that, a fact. Based on data she pored over every week, comparing box office and grosses and number of theaters.
Douglas—not quite as used to his prominent position as Mary was, as he had only recently attained it—grinned jubilantly, and did a handstand right there in the middle of the parlor. While Charlotte gasped, Mary smiled indulgently; he was so like a little boy, having to express himself right then, in the most physical way; burning off all that energy and blinding charisma. If he didn’t do things like leap over couches and stand on his hands and juggle croquet balls, he would combust.
“Charlie and I can do stunts! We can box! We can juggle and do gymnastics! And you can give speeches—there’s no one like you, Tupper, when it comes to moving a crowd!”
Mary grinned and blushed; Tupper was one of his new names for her. She had no idea what it meant, but she’d taken to calling him Hipper or Duber, and she had no idea what they meant, either. It was all part of the exhilarating world they found themselves in, a world of secrets and hiding and longing, a world in which she found herself—she, Mary Pickford!—donning ridiculous, hilarious disguises and then hopping into Douglas’s new Hudson Phaeton, and laughing as they roared around town, up and down hills, around orange groves, finally finding quiet little dead-end alleys where Douglas would stop the car and pull her over to him with a sure grip, and she’d melt into him, and they’d kiss, and touch, and murmur, and tell each other nonsense.
And then there were the times, like yesterday, when they’d throw caution to the wind—because kissing and touching and murmuring weren’t always enough, especially for someone with Douglas’s ferocious energy—and they’d go to his brother’s, or sometimes she’d sneak into his house if Beth was back in New York. And it was heavenly, it was dangerous, it was always rather rushed; they always had one eye on the door. But still, their sex was better than anything she’d ever experienced with Owen. Even if Douglas sometimes did get carried away and bounce her off the bed or sofa. But that was part of him, part of it all—he swept her up and off her feet every time she saw him.
“A bond tour,” Charlotte said now, raisi
ng an eyebrow. “So you’d all be together, touring the country, then? Making appearances? Together?”
“Yes, Mama, of course. For the war effort.” Mary refused to look at her mother. “Of course we’d all have to be together.”
“And you think that’s wise?”
“I think it’s important,” Mary responded, choosing her words carefully. Oh, Mama! She saw right through everything but this time, unlike with Owen, Charlotte was biting her tongue. So hard that sometimes she actually winced. Mama had forbidden her to see Owen back then, and that was something she had always regretted. She wouldn’t do the same thing this time. But she had her ways, nonetheless; her ways to make Mary feel as guilty as, well—as guilty as she should feel. Because Douglas was married, and so was she, and there was a child involved, and she had her career and their welfare to think of—
But right now, for the first time in her life, it didn’t matter. Not her career, not her public. Right now, she was only thinking with her heart and other parts of her body that hadn’t been considered in such a long time. Her conscience would overtake her sooner or later. It always did.
And so Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin agreed to embark on a whirlwind bond tour across the nation, to raise money for the war. It was her patriotic duty, and she felt her heart swell with pride as she donned her military uniform, made for her by her costume designer at the studio, and set out to review the troops of the 143rd California Field Artillery, which had made her their honorary colonel.
Before they left on the tour, Mary had one more film to make. One more film with Frances, who was acting so strangely these days, feverishly casting about to find an assignment overseas. What was dear Fran thinking? Why would she want to abandon Hollywood just when she had reached the top of her profession?
But of course, Mary was only too happy to help her friend; a few phone calls and the whole thing was taken care of. Fran began to plan her departure—after she agreed to write Johanna Enlists for Mary, a film to help the war effort. A film to keep Mary working alongside Douglas, who was filming, too, until they could both embark on the bond tour, leaving Beth and her son at home.
The Girls in the Picture Page 15
