by Steve Fisher
At one long table there were two producers, their directors and assistants from one unit. At another sat a famous director-producer with his two male and one dowdy female writer and his associate director, mixing vitamins with story lines. Legitimate stars were scattered throughout the room and you could recognize more than a dozen familiar box office faces. But what seemed to pack the place were the dress extras in costume who got twenty-five dollars a day and worked maybe one day a month. For them this was a show. It was like opening night at the opera. From the stately character actors to the torn-shirt-Elia Kazan-technique juveniles they sat regally in all their splendid dark make-up, Kleenex tissues tucked under their collars so the brown powder wouldn’t smear. The women were radiant and elegant; some of them looked ravishing. On the street you wouldn’t have looked twice at them, but now they were at their painted finest. They sat like bitchy little queens hoping that some agent who dropped in might notice they were working.
We stood waiting for the hostess to show us where to sit, and I noticed that throughout the room there was a lot of table to table visiting. Desperate, pitiful games were being played. “Well, old Horace, haven’t seen you since Ben Hur!” It had evidently been a hell of a time since Horace last worked. At a small table next to the wall near the place where waitresses stacked dirty dishes sat a director who had three weeks to go, but whose option was being dropped. He sat there like a ghost, nibbling at salad. No one wanted any part of him. No one could afford to be seen sitting with failure.
Lanny, Hurd and I were shown to a table. On the way I brushed against Rhonda Fleming’s shoulder and smiled at her timidly. Then I ran smack into Marlon Brando. It was a lovely day! I heard two female extras arguing about who would pay the check. At the table I lit a cigarette.
“Don’t ever be seen eating alone,” Lanny said. “People’ll think your option is being dropped.”
I grabbed his sleeve and was nodding toward the door. “All right,” he said, “so it’s Audrey Hepburn, what do you want me to do?”
It struck me then, an at once, that this world which glittered was the world into which I arrogantly imagined I could help catapult Vicky. It was suddenly very real. I was losing my courage. But Lanny Craig and Hurd Evans were talking about it with more enthusiasm than ever.
We had just finished soup when Robin Ray walked up. He had just come in from the Old New York set and hadn’t found a table. He was afraid he might have to sit alone.
Robin Ray was a young juvenile. If you’ve ever seen him on the screen you probably forgot it an hour later. He doesn’t make much impression. He’s never played a lead and never will. Producers didn’t decide that: it was the post cards they hand out to fans at previews. Stars are not made, they are elected. On the preview post card you vote for the actors who please you. You rate them. The actor himself never sees them, never knows. If his option is dropped he thinks it’s studio politics.
Robin Ray had been in Hollywood one year and he had been in four pictures. His inter-studio rating was low, but he had a good publicity agent on the outside and for some reason the local papers thought he was good copy. You couldn’t pick up Daily Variety or The Reporter without seeing him plugged in one column or another; and the Los Angeles theatrical pages were always crediting this brilliant new juvenile with sage quips his press agent copied out of Joe Miller Jokebooks. Of course the studio publicity department didn’t like it. Nationally Robin got almost no publicity but locally he grabbed more space than the stars. It’s the trade and local city papers that producers read. But the publicity department’s bitter complaints that Robin’s contract disallowed outside build-up was to no avail. His name appeared almost as often as that of Jack Paar.
“Gentlemen,” he addressed us with actor’s intonation, “gentlemen!”
“Don’t insult us,” said Lanny.
Robin laughed. Last night he had attended a premiere with the biggest star in the business and he felt pretty good. He confessed that he was all alone and asked if he could sit with us. Hurd Evans told him sure, park it. Robin pulled up a chair. That was how he happened to climb on Vicky’s bandwagon.
“We’ve got a scheme.” Lanny said. “You’re just the boy we need.”
We four sat around a table and made Vicky a star. Immediately after lunch we’d interview her and she’d sign a paper putting herself under our personal management for the next five years. She would have to have a talent agent to sell her to the studios but he would get only five percent of her salary instead of the usual ten. That was fair. We would collect the other five percent for our investment. Eventually there would be a profit since we also collected three percent as managers. That was eight altogether. The law won’t let you take more than thirteen percent of any actor’s pay. Our own actual outlay (besides our time) wouldn’t be so much. The main item would be two hundred and fifty a month for a publicity agent. If she needed clothes for special occasions she could rent them from a wardrobe company. Almost everything else could be chiseled by pulling one string and another.
“This is a sweetheart,” Hurd Evans said. “Once it starts it’ll gather momentum. People’ll think she’s an angel dropped out of heaven.”
It was decided that I’d take her to the highest priced flack in town late that afternoon and get things started. Lanny and I would help the guy cook up stories. Her name would be linked romantically with Robin Ray. I protested, but they said a writer didn’t have enough glamour and anyway, Robin was safe. They said Robin would take her to any big function where they’d be seen and get their pictures taken. Laughter and champagne copy. Robin’s press agent would work on this angle so we’d really have two flacks busy turning out printed glamour for her. Meanwhile, Lanny would can up the West Coast editor of a picture magazine and talk him into a two-page spread on the Hollywood Cinderella angle. For this favor Lanny would get drunk with the editor and give him many lush telephone numbers. Hurd Evans would get in touch with a cosmetic company and Vicky’d do a series of pictures from a demure ingenue into a glamour girl. The process of being made up, step by step. Before and after. These would go in beauty magazines and drug store windows. I would phone my artist friend and persuade him to use her for a model on a magazine cover and then I’d write a brief article to tie up with it. Robin Ray would arrange that a certain radio columnist give her a send-off as a “sparkling comer.”
We sat in the commissary until two-thirty and planned a background for her. That none of it was true made no difference. She was half French. Her father was a naval officer. She had been a debutante at swank Coronado. But, like other society creatures, she had been a blues singer with a band. The band had been playing Glendale when Hurd Evans had spotted her and rushed her to an agent on the Sunset Strip. And now she was on her way. Amen.
“It’s like creating our own Cinderella,” said Robin Ray. “Gentlemen, this thing fascinates me!”
Robin Ray was good looking and jovial, but you didn’t quite trust him. Certainly he tried hard to be a regular guy. He was a little hurt that he wasn’t always considered one. There had been a nasty crack in the trade papers that he couldn’t keep one woman more than two weeks. This was his sore point. Once a rumor gets started about an actor it can finish him.
He wore a checked suit and a Kleenex tissue in his collar.
He smoked a cigarette. There was a heavy silver ring on his finger.
“I’m glad I got in on this,” he said.
I asked him how he had gotten started.
“Well, you’ll laugh.” His voice was deep. “It was in the Little Theatre. Straw Hat. Somebody saw me.”
Hurd Evans glanced at his watch. “Let’s go see our merchandise,” he said.
The four of us were in Hurd Evans’ office when Vicky entered. She closed the door and stood there. She froze. She looks awful, I thought. We had been talking about her for hours. Nobody could have been so terrific as the girl we had been discussing. For a minute nobody spoke. Vicky thought maybe she was fired. She knew everyone by s
ight but I went through introductions.
“I’m charmed.” said Robin Ray, “charmed. I understand we’re going to hold hands in Winchell’s column.”
Vicky did a take-em. It was natural and she looked cute. We all sighed. We were started. The ice was broken.
“Let’s see your legs,” said Hurd Evans.
She glanced at me and I said no. Hurd Evans looked at me as though to say he supposed I could vouch for them. But it was an right. We called in a secretary. We dictated a letter to the studio for Vicky to sign saying that she was quitting. Then we made up a temporary contract. We’d give her money to live on if she needed it and pay for everything else. Vicky was shaking by now. She had gone white. She kept looking at me. She signed her name to everything in a jerky scrawl. Then she went to the door. She tried to thank us but her voice broke and she rushed into the hall.
“She’s nice,” Lanny Craig said, “nice!”
Vicky went home for the afternoon to get fixed up. When I picked her up at six o’clock she had taken a shower and changed clothes and she was fresh and pretty. I took her to Beverly Hills to see the press agent. We’d already talked turkey to him on the telephone.
This flack’s name was Johnny Wismer. He was pretty big. They said if he took a girl on she couldn’t miss. He was a thin, anaemic, sleepy-looking guy. His clothes were loose and just hung on him. He didn’t get excited. He didn’t smile or frown. He took down all the facts and some of the angles we had planned and kept saying, “Yeah … Yeah.” In about two hours Vicky went out and I stayed there a minute.
“Well?”
“I’ll take her on,” he said. “That’s my business. But she ain’t got a prayer.”
I went cold.
“I’ll give you two to one any day in the week she’ll never top Jayne Mansfield.”
“Well,” I said, “even if she doesn’t—”
He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and grinned. “Yeah. Even if she doesn’t, that ain’t hay, is it?”
“No,” I said, “it ain’t hay.” We shook hands and I went out.
I never knew what glamour could do. You’d think I’d have had sense and realize it was all faked. But no. Vicky was confused and scared more than happy. But I regarded her differently. I couldn’t believe she was quite real. There is the story of the press agent who built up a girl, then fell in love with the glamour he’d made. It was going to be like that. I could feel it already.
Jill was at the apartment and she ate dinner with us in the kitchenette. The band had broken up. Jill just listened to everything we told her and she seemed to be transfixed. Her hair was copper under the electric light and her eyes were very blue. She thought it was wonderful. She wasn’t a bit jealous. She wore a yellow house dress and a white apron. She cooked the dinner. But when it was all on the table, Vicky couldn’t eat. She said she would be an right. She just wanted to go in the bedroom and cry a little.
I sat opposite Jill at the table. My head was singing. Jill ate her food and watched. Then she stopped eating and wiped her pretty mouth with a napkin.
“You’re swell, Peg.”
“But this is going to be fun,” I said.
“I don’t care. You’re swell.”
After a while Vicky came out and had coffee with us. In about an hour Lanny Craig came over. He gave Vicky a fatherly kiss and then he shook both of Jill’s hands. He walked with a limp to the divan and sat down and made a place for Jill.
Hurd Evans arrived next. The little guy wore a tuxedo. He still looked dandy. Lanny had told me that he had a rotten temper. He had been known to slap a woman in public. He looked so bright and gay I could believe it! He was still Joe College to me. If he’d told a girl in the sticks that he was a director she would have laughed at him. He came in and kissed Vicky behind the ears. He treated her like a goddess. That’s the way we all felt. Then he sat down and made a bid for Jill. But he was very friendly about it. He and Lanny were old pals.
“Don’t let mama catch you out, Lanny, or she’ll be in Reno tomorrow.”
“Mama doesn’t make me wear a slave bracelet,” Lanny said.
Hurd Evans looked at the bracelet. “A very dear friend gave me that,” he said solemnly.
We all laughed and the bell rang and it was Robin Ray. He made the magnificent entrance. He was lit. He wore tails, white tie, and a top hat. He strode in dramatically, pulling something on a piece of string behind him. He took off his top hat with a wide sweep and bowed low, first to Vicky, whose finger tips he kissed, and then to Jill. Then he turned around and hauled in on the string, Tied to it was a caravan of three cardboard boxes; the first was loaded with bottles of Scotch and the second two were heaped with roses. There were five dozen of them. Red and yellow and white. We had just emptied the boxes when the bell rang again. Robin answered it and his chauffeur came in, carrying a case of imported champagne packed in ice. He put it in the kitchen, and departed without a word. There were flowers and bottles of Scotch an over the floor and Robin stood among them, bowing again, to Vicky, then to Jill. He was smiling, a broad smile. Then he put on his hat and took Vicky in his arms and kissed her on the lips.
“You’re my girl, he said, “for keeps.”
“But—”
“In the newsprints, sweet. In cold black type … but alas, not in the flesh! With bitter envy I am compelled to bow to the gentleman on my right.” He bowed to me. “You have my solemn word that I’ll make no passes—while he’s in the room.”
Lanny Craig laughed. Hurd and Jill started gathering the flowers. We had to send downstairs for more vases and glasses. Harry Williams left the switchboard to bring them up. When he saw the littered room his white face looked puzzled. His yellow eyes blinked behind the thick lens of his glasses. He scowled at me. Robin Ray spotted him. He strode over and kissed Harry on either cheek.
“You may exit, Jasper,” he said.
Harry was stunned, confused. He stared at Robin.
“Dr. Cyclops,” Robin said. “Be gone, dog!”
Harry Williams moved toward the door. He turned back once. We were an looking at him. I think he would have said something nasty but he was afraid of being fired. He went out, slamming the door.
“Just a sweetheart,” Hurd Evans said.
“Yes, isn’t he?”
“Don’t ever get trapped in a broken elevator with him, Jill,” Lanny said.
After that we forgot him, and the party got hilarious. It was the beginning of something: an epoch. Vicky was never more beautiful. But I noticed she didn’t pay so much attention to me now. It was Robin’s show and I guess he dazzled her. Hell, he dazzled me! He was an exhibitionist— but he was really funny. I thought it was a shame they made him play straight in the films. Robin said that champagne and Scotch mixed was the best drink in seven countries. He said it was known as the drink of the Hollywood Virgin. He gave Vicky the first glass, then he mixed the others. It was a fine party. I guess I couldn’t blame Vicky for leaving me alone so much. Only, even with all the noise and the music and the drinking, I felt a stab of loneliness. It was Jill who came to me.
“What’s the matter, Peg?”
“Nothing.” I said.
“Vicky really appreciates you doing all this for her.”
“Sure,” I said, “I know.”
I remember at midnight we stood Vicky up on the kitchenette table and drank to her, and she said this was the happiest moment in her life. She stood up there and said: “I love you all very dearly.”
4
WE WERE ALL crazy the next few weeks. History was made in Hollywood. A magic legend was created and her name was Vicky Lynn. In the movies they call it montage. Gaudy and noisy. Scenes, and bits of music; snatches of dialogue, and laughter; the flash of cameras, the clatter of typewriters. All of it building … building … building. These are the things I remember:
Hurd Evans: “Yes, I discovered her. She was singing with a band in Glendale… .”
Vicky: “It was Mr. Evans who saw me first. It wa
s at a navy party in Coronado.”
The flack: “Hell, no, she was never a secretary. Who ever said she was a secretary? She never saw a typewriter in her life!”
Robin Ray: “When I saw her I knew she’d be the girl. It’ll be Vicky and me from now on. No, we haven’t set a date. Her career, you see—”
Lanny Craig: “Sure, we’re sponsoring her. Who wouldn’t sponsor her if they had the chance?”
Jill: “You’re swell, Peg. You’re real.”
Vicky: “Baby, I love you. Don’t be jealous of Robin. I love you! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Here, I want you to have the key to my apartment. If I have to go out to a premiere, you go in and wait for me. No, keep the key. I’ll have another made. Kiss me, baby. Are my tears wet, darling? You’re wonderful, have I told you?”
Pictures with make-up on. Pictures with make-up off. Vicky sitting still and one of the country’s best artists painting her for a magazine. Vicky sitting in the Sunset Strip office of Max Epstein, the talent agent. Listening to him as he talks, slowly and carefully, choosing one word after another. When you go in to interview a man look at him as though he were the only man in the world. Make it seem as though you are breathless. We are selling the charm of your youth. We are seffing your sex.
Portraits of Vicky for the studios. Leg art. Bathing suits and rented formals. Portraits laughing. Portraits of tragedy. Vicky walking up and down the apartment with books on her head. Vicky learning how to make up with grease paint. Vicky, gorgeous and radiant, with grace, with poise, with natural ease.
Vicky at a premiere. The floodlights shining down on her, the crowds surging behind ropes. Vicky coming in, splendid in a silver gown, on the arm of Robin Ray. Robin in tails, smiling and beaming. Flashlight pictures. A word in the radio microphone. Lovely Vicky Lynn, Hollywood’s newest personality.
