The Girls in the Picture

by Melanie Benjamin

  And so movie stars weren’t merely movie stars anymore. And Mary wasn’t merely Mary. She was untouchable. She was also ready to grow up on film; she was nearly twenty-nine now. She’d played little girls long past when she should have. She was married, everyone knew it. So why not play a woman now—a passionate woman? And who better than Frances, who had created her little girl persona, to guide her to on-screen adulthood not only by writing, but directing?

  It would be like old times! They could work on the script together at night—Mary’d coax Fran to come over to Pickfair, which, to be honest, Fran didn’t seem to admire quite as much as Mary thought she should. Oh, of course dear Fran, along with Fred, was always invited to every single dinner honoring every single guest, and she always obliged (although sometimes, Fred did not, begging off for some athletic thing). But something about the way Fran’s nose twitched, her mouth continually clamped shut when she was at the table—did she not enjoy meeting all these important guests? And the way she only gazed at Douglas steadily when he pulled one of his jokes that so endeared him to everyone—substituting a rubber knife for a real one, so that some poor duchess couldn’t cut her meat, or setting off firecrackers beneath the table—did Fran not think he was funny?

  Mary would laugh along with everyone else and say her exasperated “Oh, Douglas!” But Fran always remained politely silent, her eyes downcast, concentrating on her plate.

  But surely Mary could coax her over with the promise of hot cocoa and long nights in front of the fire. Surely they could work together as seamlessly as always, one finishing the other’s sentence. Surely, between takes, they could huddle together behind the camera, laughing and making up bits the way they did with The Poor Little Rich Girl; they could have laughing lunches together in Mary’s bungalow, just like before.

  Because Mary, to her own astonishment, needed this; she needed to escape from the responsibility of being the queen, of hosting dignitaries and crunching numbers and trying to find ways to amuse Douglas, to put up with Charlie who followed Douglas around like a puppy, plopped himself in the middle of whatever was going on in her house (when he wasn’t seducing teenage actresses—oh, that man!). Mary needed to go back to the one place that had always seemed safe and right; she needed simply to be an actress again, the camera the only eye upon her.

  And with Fran, she could do that. It would be exactly like old times! Exactly like—before.

  Mary couldn’t wait to begin the film.

  —

  “Are you sure, dearest Fran, we can’t shoot this on the lot?”

  “Oh, Squeebee! But don’t you think it has to look just a little bit like Italy? I found the most marvelous place up the coast, up around Carmel. It’s rocky, a lot like the Italian coast, and the town could definitely double for an Italian village. And look what you’ll save on building costs! We’ll only need a few interiors to be shot here at the studio.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mary nodded; Frances certainly had a point, authenticity was key. Not since Madame Butterfly had Mary attempted to portray someone who was not American. She would need all the help she could get, for she refused Fran’s request that she dye her curls or wear a wig. She would be a blond Italian; dear Fran didn’t quite understand how important this film was, her second under United Artists. After giving her fans Pollyanna, even if she was ecstatic to stretch her muscles and play this passionate Italian girl, she still had to look like herself. She couldn’t risk alienating her fans, not at the box office, not when United Artists needed every penny it could make.

  But dear Fran didn’t quite understand the cost of going on location; of arranging for trains to carry all the cast and crew and studio hands, who would still have to do some work to the existing village, for there always was something needed—a wishing well, a church, a barn, fake flowers, something; bringing in the materials, arranging for lodging for an entire company, paying for meals to be brought in (and you could bet that any local cooks would charge triple their usual asking price when it came to movie people), warehousing costumes, paying locals to use their houses…location was expensive. But Fran didn’t really seem to understand, and why should she? She wasn’t head of her own studio.

  “Will you use a miniature for the shipwreck scene?” Mary consulted the shooting script.

  “I think not, Mary, darling. We want this to be absolutely real. You know that there will be a lot of scrutiny; female directors are a rarity these days, aren’t they? Oh, I do miss Lois!”

  Mary nodded. True, Lois Weber was washed up; her message films were no longer in the public favor. After the war, people wanted escapist fare, dramatic love stories. Not morality plays.

  “Fine, we’ll send someone out to look for a ship we can buy up there.” Mary made a note in her ledger, and Fran smiled happily. “Now, about the cast—”

  “I have an idea.”

  Mary’s heart sank, but she wasn’t surprised. She had seen the way Fran looked at her new husband. Not only with love, with desire, but with ambition. Calculation.

  “You want Fred.”

  “Yes! For the German soldier. It’s not a large part, Mary, but he has to be physically imposing and handsome. I know he’s new to this, but with you to play off—you know how brilliant you are, Squeebee, how expressive and generous! He’ll be learning from the very best. From you!”

  Mary looked down, squelching a smirk. Fran knew her too well; knew her vanity. Still, if Fran was intent on making her husband an actor, he would have no better launch than playing the love interest in a Mary Pickford movie.

  “I think it’s brilliant, Fran. And you know I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it—I’m putting up the money, you know!”

  “Yes, you’ve said,” Fran murmured, and now it was her turn to look at the ground.

  “Then it’s settled,” Mary said, and they went on to the next item on their agenda. But it wasn’t settled, because she had to tell Douglas.

  And she had a very good idea of how he would react to the news.

  —

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight while you’re making love to that man!” Douglas’s dark face turned even darker; he ground his teeth. “I saw the way you looked at him in Europe!”

  “Oh, Douglas, don’t be absurd! You know I only looked at you in Europe—I only look at you, every day of my life!”

  There was nothing Mary could say that would placate him; she’d tried before. But Douglas was terrifically protective of Mary; she was learning she couldn’t even look at another man without having to deal with the ramifications once she and Douglas were alone. He wasn’t physically abusive, like Owen—thank heavens! But he imagined flirtations where none existed; it was as if, since their own relationship had begun out of wedlock, he thought she was a certain “type.” A woman who couldn’t be trusted. Yet he seemed to put her on a pedestal at the same time; there were moments when he looked at her as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune; as if he couldn’t believe that she even could exist in the ordinary world.

  If he could, he would have locked her away in a pretty little cell full of the finest objects on earth, to which he had the only key.

  But she trusted him. She’d seen him on set filming love scenes; he was no good at it, awkward and always with a panicked look in his eyes. She’d never seen Douglas come even close to a flirtation, except with her. He was not the kind of man, like Charlie, like John Barrymore, like Wallace Beery—like so many in Hollywood!—who looked at all the eager young starlets as his own brothel. Who promised a girl a part in a movie if only she would…

  No, Douglas wasn’t like that at all. He was rather a snob, she had to admit. A prig, at times. She trusted him. Why couldn’t he trust her?

  “That Thomson is a looker, I know. Your friend certainly chose well.”

  Mary refrained from revealing that actually it was she who had picked Fred Thomson out of a lineup of strapping young soldiers. And obviously she had chosen well; the two were so in love that sometimes it hur
t to see. For theirs was an uncomplicated marriage, unburdened by the public’s enormous expectations.

  Mary shrugged; she knew it would only make things worse if she continued to protest.

  So Douglas—who was in preproduction for The Mark of Zorro, which meant he had time off—insisted on accompanying the entire company to location.

  Obviously, then, this film set was not going to be like old times with Frances.

  After they all descended upon the little village, figured out lodging—Fred and Frances and Mary and Douglas were going to share a house—production began. The first scenes shot were easy ones, and for a while, Fran and she did recapture some of the magic of the old days with Mickey; there were fun shots with dogs and children that had them in tears behind the camera, silly bits where Mary had to play the spitfire early in the scenario, doing some comic fighting with her “brothers,” clowning around in the “Italian” streets. While they filmed these scenes, Fred and Douglas went off to do some fishing, and so it was just the two of them on set, and if Mary tried hard enough she could imagine it was like when they filmed Stella Maris or M’Liss or Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley.

  Only this time, Frances sat in the director’s chair and said, “Cut.” Sometimes even before Mary thought she ought to.

  “Fran…” Mary took a big breath; the scene had involved a lot of physical activity, and she’d given it her all. She consulted a scratch on her wrist and summoned the makeup woman to tend to it. “Didn’t you think I could have done a bit more with the bit in the barrel? I thought it would be cute if we had a glimpse of my legs kicking.”

  “I don’t think so, Squeebee. Remember, you’re not a little girl in this, you’re a young woman.”

  “Yes, but my fans—they do like those little bits, you know. They’ve worked well for us in the past—remember The Poor Little Rich Girl?”

  But Fran only shook her head and consulted the shooting script, setting up the next shot. And this time—for the first time in all the years they’d worked together—Mary had no choice but to move on.

  Still, it was such fun at night, even with Douglas and Fred there, to sit in front of a fire with a glass of milk and talk about the day’s shoot, gossip about which extras were in love with each other, discuss the next day’s schedule. Fran didn’t try to tell Mary how to play her part, at least; she never had done that. And Mary was grateful; what she did to prepare, she couldn’t really discuss with anyone. She read the script over and over, daydreamed about the girl she would play, her childhood, her life. She’d read some books about Italy for this one. She spent a lot of time in front of a mirror practicing gestures that seemed authentic. When she went to sleep at night, she imagined herself as this other person; pretending to be anyone but who she was relaxed her and allowed her to sleep untroubled.

  As they neared the scenes she’d have to film with Fred, however, she noticed that Fran began spending more time with him, talking him through the script. Naturally, Fran had to; that was her job! But Mary did feel, if not left out, exactly, a little neglected. Of course she was a pro, she reminded herself. She was the one with experience. Fred was the newcomer.

  As they staged the love scenes, Douglas was always on set, glowering as Fran, with the script in her hand, walked them through their paces. Fran always had an arm on Fred, gently guiding him, while she merely pointed at Mary’s marks. “Mary, go through there. Walk here. Look there.”

  When they started to shoot, the camera clicking noisily, the little orchestra on set—accordions and violins playing Italian music—starting up, Fred was very stiff. Take after take was required to get him to relax—and Fran knew that Mary was best on her first takes! She was an instinctive actress, and after three or four takes she simply wilted, all her emotion spent. But no, Fred was too inexperienced; it took him that long to stop looking at the camera in terror.

  Also—and she did tell dear Fran this, several times, but Fran didn’t seem to hear—there were a few too many takes with her and Fred in profile, equally sharing the screen. Mary was accustomed to at least one full close-up in all of her scenes; after all, hers was the face people paid good money to see! But Fran made sure that Fred had a few close-ups of his own. A few more than Mary’s typical leading man. Of course, Fred was handsome, but Mary was the star. Which she also—so sweetly—reminded dear Fran. Several times. And dear Fran, while she certainly heard, didn’t appear to consider this as seriously as she ought.

  The first time she had to be embraced by Fred while the cameras turned, Mary actually heard Douglas growl. When Fran looked at him in astonishment, he quickly smiled and made as if he was clowning around. But Mary’s heart sank. What a fool Douglas was! This wasn’t fun, this wasn’t amorous. If he could only see the terrified expression in Fred’s eyes as he lowered his head toward Mary’s! It took all her self-control not to laugh out loud. She tried to guide him, thinking that her character—Italian, of course!—might be the aggressor, and she caught Fran’s subtle nod from behind the camera when she reached out to pull him toward her, for the poor man’s arms were so stiff, tense, it was as if he had no idea how to make them work.

  As the days went on—and they were going over schedule because of Fred’s inexperience, but Mary bit her tongue because she knew it would do no good to say anything, even as she stayed up late at night going over the ledgers, trying to move money from one department to another—Douglas paced and paced behind the camera, needing an outlet for both his jealousy and his boredom. He was not accustomed to being merely an observer on set. At one point, Mary suggested to Fran that she might use him as a stunt double, but Fran felt very strongly that the audience would identify him, which would take them out of the picture. Mary had to admit she was probably correct.

  Did dear Fran spend a bit too much time on Fred’s close-ups despite the delay, insisting on standing behind the camera herself so that he would appear more natural? Yes. But Mary would never say this out loud. She would never complain. She channeled it all into her own close-ups, welcoming the camera into her heart, opening up her face like a flower.

  Determined to wipe the screen with poor Fred.

  Still, there was a lot to admire about Fran’s direction. She had a good grasp of camera setups, if she wasn’t as imaginative as Mickey. Mary was proud to have her friend, a woman, behind the camera; she gave interviews wholeheartedly recommending women directors. “It’s nice to have someone who understands relationships, who takes the time to establish them,” she said. “Women have a natural feel for emotion, and don’t allow technical aspects to get in the way.”

  To all the press who ventured up, the set was one big happy family, the two couples as close as ever, the shoot simply an extended part of their joint honeymoon. They posed together, making spaghetti in their kitchen, laughing, smiling. “It’s wonderful to have your best friend as director,” Mary chirped.

  Privately, it began to dawn on Mary that she and Fran were rarely speaking off the set. She didn’t quite understand when or how that happened; it simply had. They both retreated to their respective suites with their respective husbands after the day’s shoot, and no longer did the two couples meet in front of the fire to gossip about the day.

  “Good night, Mary.”

  “Good night, Fran.”

  And—slam. Doors shut.

  The last day on set—thank God! Mary couldn’t wait until every last bit player and light hanger was on the train south so that she didn’t have to pay their living expenses one minute more—was a terrible, stormy day full of heavy blue-black clouds and a lashing, pelting rain that churned the water into terrifying surf. A fitting end to this uneasy shoot.

  It was the day they had to destroy that boat—the boat Fran had insisted on buying instead of using a miniature. The storm successfully smashed the boat against the rocks, but a stuntman doubling for Mary got into trouble; he was struggling against the surf, going under time and again, and suddenly everyone was wild with action. Someone screamed, someone else ran ar
ound looking for a boat to launch into the water. But Fred and Douglas didn’t wait; they both, with a single look between them, tore down the rocks and jumped into the rough water to rescue him. Mary, soaked to the skin despite her heavy raincoat, couldn’t bear to look; she could only pray. Turning to Frances, she prepared to fling herself into her friend’s arms as their husbands risked their lives.

  But Fran wasn’t even looking at her. She stood, tall and steady next to the camera, her mackintosh soaked, her black hair undone and unkempt, wet ringlets streaming down her back. But she did not move an inch; she shouted at her terrified cameraman to keep shooting despite the fact that her husband was being tossed about by the churning water as if he were a doll. And in that moment Mary admired her more than she ever had. She doubted even the great DeMille would have remained so calm, so in control, under the circumstances.

  The Love Light opened on January 9, 1921. It did well enough, but it wasn’t the spectacular hit that United Artists needed and in retrospect, Mary resented Fran talking her into being a mother on screen. Mary’s next film returned her to playing a child herself—the child, the child her public demanded she remain, the child Fran had written for her in the first place. Although Fran did not write Through the Back Door.

  It would be ten years before Frances and Mary worked on a film together again. Ten long years, in which so much would happen, so much they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—share.

  Well, we’d gone Hollywood.

  That’s what we told all our friends, gleefully and also somewhat abashed. For all the times we’d gone to Pickfair and put up with the stifling ostentation, then come back to our cozy little apartment to kick off our shoes and laugh about it, we’d done the same as Mary and Doug.

  We’d built a palace of our own.

  But ours was different—or so we told ourselves. What we built wasn’t a mausoleum but a living, working ranch with stables and bunks for cowboys. Yes, the main house had an enormous pipe organ, shipped over from Italy; yes, there were gardens and guest rooms and a screening room and a pool. Yes, we were on top of our own hill, like Doug and Mary. The top of Smokey Mountain, in the Beverly Hills, to be precise. Yes, our neighbors were movie stars with their own pools and stables.