Claire asked, “Hattie, after Reeves was shot, the grief must have been terrible, especially while under investigation for his death.”
Tears welled up in Hattie’s eyes.
“It was an extremely difficult time. I couldn’t mourn the death of the man I loved with all my heart, and I was hounded by the police. I’d cooperated fully with the detectives, yet they seemed determined to drag me through the mud. And in Hollywood, mud sticks.” Hattie nervously clutched a lace handkerchief. “When they arrested me two hours before his funeral, my entire world collapsed.”
“Oh, Hattie, I’m so sorry.”
“They were doing their job; I can see that now, but at the time I was livid. And distraught. Not only had I lost my soul mate, I was denied any chance of saying goodbye. I was a criminal in the eyes of the police and the public. Fortitude Studios dropped me like a hot potato, and I was left floundering on my own, except for my good friends Yvonne, Vanessa and George. Though they had to save their necks, as any association with me would kill their careers.”
“They dumped you?”
“‘Dump’ is such a harsh word. No, they stood by me in silence, and I knew they had my back. I don’t blame them. Hollywood is a small town, and in a time when people were getting banned for the smallest offenses, they couldn’t risk it.”
Claire paused, trying to take it all in. Hattie’s life must have been miserable for so many years. Quietly, she asked, “Did you ever seek out your friends after you moved back to Starlight Creek?”
“I did with George, but I’ll get to that momentarily. When I got back to Australia, I was determined to keep my nose clean and my head down. I said goodbye to Lena Lee as soon as I left Los Angeles, and I haven’t looked back.”
“How is it now, talking about your life as Lena?”
“It’s hard. There’re so many emotions swirling inside me right now. I had a good life for the first few years in Hollywood. It was tough, but the friends I made were incredible, and as my star rocketed skyward I managed to hold on to most of those friendships. They kept me grounded. But life has a funny way of turning things upside down when you least expect it.” Hattie’s laugh sounded hollow.
“What happened when they arrested you?” Claire asked gently. She studied Hattie, watching for any signs of physical distress. So far, so good.
Hattie closed her eyes, and when she opened them they were glassy. “I have no idea how long they held me in jail before my lawyer arrived. It could have been hours. It could have been a day. I’d lost all sense of time in that tiny concrete cell—my heart and mind were with Reeves as I imagined him being laid to rest. I’ll never forgive them for making me miss my final goodbye.” Her words were laced with bitterness, her usually relaxed jaw set hard. “To be honest, after his death, nothing held significance. If it wasn’t for my friend George, and my lawyer, I probably would have gone to jail. I had no energy left to fight. I didn’t think I could go on.”
“What changed?”
Hattie focused on her hands for a time. Eventually, she looked up. “I realized Reeves would be heartbroken if I rotted in a jail for something I didn’t do. Not fighting for my freedom would have been a disservice to his legacy, to our love.” Hattie shifted in her chair and took a deep breath. “The biggest problem was that when Reeves was shot, the cameras weren’t rolling. It was only a rehearsal. I’m sure it would have made a difference if they had seen my reaction on film. I may have been a good actress, but there was no way I could ever have faked my shock and grief.”
Hattie shifted on her seat once more. “Even though I had won over the hearts of fans and brought in incredible amounts of money for the studio, loyalty meant nothing. It didn’t help that real bullets were found in my dressing room, either.”
“Oh no,” said Claire. “How on earth did your name get cleared?”
“It wasn’t for some time. Since it was a high-profile murder, every stone had to be turned over. That takes time. George and my lawyer did what they could, but the public were baying for blood, and circumstances meant it was mine. After all, I was the homewrecker older woman who tore Reeves Garrity and Jeanne Harris apart.”
“Given what you’ve told me, it wasn’t that way at all.”
“It wasn’t,” said Hattie. “But because Reeves and I had snuck around like a pair of adulterers, we made ourselves look guilty.” She let out a long sigh. “I would do things so very differently if I could go back.”
“I think we all would.”
Hattie’s smile was sad. “You still can.” She sat up straight, her voice businesslike once more. “All evidence pointed toward me. If I were a policeman, I would have thrown me in the slammer as well. The perpetrator was clever, oh so clever. I have to give them kudos for that.”
Claire desperately wanted to hurry Hattie along to find out who’d done it, but she remained silent, waiting for the older woman to tell her story. This documentary wasn’t about Claire; she was only a vehicle to help Hattie finish business that should have been over years ago. And she was more than happy to help.
“So with a real gun in my hand and bullets in my purse, they were ready to throw away the key. Then George discovered the one thing that everybody had missed.”
Claire leaned forward. “What was it?”
“Jeanne Harris was one smart cookie. She played the diva so beautifully, and she never really showed how intelligent she was. Even in the time that we were friends, I never realized how cunning she could be.” Hattie inhaled slowly. “Turns out she was very good at making friends with my past.”
“Oh?”
“Remember I told you about Dotty Parker, how I’d seen her at the premiere of one of my movies?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I didn’t hear from her after that, and I honestly thought all was well. But I should have known better. What came out later was that Dotty had come looking for me at the studios not long before that fateful day. She’d run into Jeanne, who’d been hanging around like a bad smell, and they got to talking and discovered their mutual dislike for me. Jeanne was still furious with me for taking Reeves, and Dotty had never gotten over the death of her brother, Charlie.”
“The man you dated before you started working for the studio?”
“Yes, the one I met when working at the bar.” Hattie ran a finger along the velvet armrest. “He was such a beautiful man. Funny. Handsome. We were quite the item. Even Dotty approved of us.”
“What changed?”
“Charlie had another he was courting—booze. Of course, working in a place with such easy access didn’t help. When he was sober, he was a lovely person, but that drink…oh, it really is the devil. He raised his hand to me a few times, and I quickly realized he was not someone I wanted to be with. Though breaking up with Charlie was harder than it should have been.
“He followed me. Harassed me at every turn, trying to berate me into seeing him again. When I mentioned his issues to Dotty, she refused to believe her brother could behave like that.”
“She never saw him drunk?”
“He was a master of deception. Even when he hit me it was in places that could be covered up.” Hattie swallowed hard. “The point is, he got drunk one night. I fought him off, and he stumbled back and fell down the stairs. I am sure he was dead before he hit the bottom.”
“That’s horrible.” Hearing about all the traumas Hattie had gone through made Claire wonder how on earth she could be the sane, loving person she was today.
“It was. And I felt terrible. The police believed me—they had a record as long as your arm about Charlie’s assaults on other women—but Dotty refused to.”
“That’s some serious sibling loyalty,” said Claire.
“She never forgave me, even though it wasn’t my fault. I tried to make it right, but Dotty wouldn’t hear of it. So I left without a forwarding address, and not long after I was
hired by Fortitude Studios.”
“I don’t quite understand the connection with Jeanne.”
“It all comes together, don’t worry.” Hattie looked away, then focused on Claire again. “Jeanne and Dotty met at the studio, realized how much they despised me and set about formulating a plan.”
“How could anyone do that to you?”
“I represented what they didn’t have—I had the role meant for Jeanne, and I also had Reeves’s heart, and in Dotty’s eyes I took the life of her beloved brother. I’m assuming that once Jeanne heard about Charlie she figured I’d be easy to frame, that it meant I had a higher chance of landing in the clink.”
“Wow.”
“It was a very dark time in my life.”
“I don’t quite understand how shooting Reeves would help Jeanne get revenge.”
“Ah.” Hattie held up her finger. “That’s where everything unraveled. My dress was too tight, and I fell when Alan, the novice actor, tripped. The bullet was meant for him.”
“Why?”
“Because if I got arrested for shooting someone—anyone—then I’d be out of the way.”
“But you didn’t have any reason to shoot Alan. Hadn’t you just met him?” Claire couldn’t quite get her head around this very depressing story.
“Jeanne and Dotty were so intent on setting me up, I don’t think they thought it through.”
“What did George discover that pieced it all together?”
“No one was aware Jeanne was hiding and watching, waiting for me to pull the trigger on innocent Alan. When the gun went off and we realized Reeves had been hit, she ran from the sound studio. She collided with George on the way out, so we knew she was nearby when…” Hattie’s eyes welled up once more.
“Oh, Hattie, I’m so sorry you went through all this. I’m so sorry for Reeves as well.”
“I like to think I’m past it all, but I’m not. You never forget your grand love.”
Claire nodded. After meeting Luke, she knew what Hattie meant.
“When George and Jeanne had run into each other, the contents of her purse spilled everywhere. He went to help, but she yelled at him and shoved everything back in. As she did so, George saw something shiny, but at the time he thought it was an earring.”
“Was it…?”
“It didn’t click with him at first, but after the police spoke to him a couple of days later, he started replaying that moment. Then he realized that the earring was likely a bullet. So the police went to Jeanne’s house, interviewed her and found the bullet, which matched the others in the gun. No one knows why she kept it, but in this instance she did not think clearly. Thank goodness. It took some time, but they eventually got to the truth. Jeanne and Dotty may have teamed up for my downfall, but there was no loyalty between them. They both pointed fingers at each other and got what they deserved.”
“Jail?”
“For some time, but Jeanne went away longer, as she was the one who exchanged the fake pistol for the real one.”
Claire sat back, trying to take it all in. “It sounds like the plot of a classic Hollywood movie.”
“It surely does.” Hattie fell into silence and Claire let her be. Recounting such a torrid and heart-wrenching time would surely take a lot of energy. “I think of him every day.”
“He sounds like a very special man.”
Hattie’s smile reached her eyes. “We weren’t together very long, but they were some of the best days of my life. I loved him so.”
“I can see,” said Claire.
“There are some days I wished I’d stayed and ridden the tide. I was just getting started helping women in the industry. I wanted to use my voice to help them.” Hattie reached for Claire’s hand and held it gently. “You and I are cut from the same cloth, you know. We’re determined, we play on our strengths but are smart enough to work on our weaknesses, and we want to change the paths of the women who come after us.”
“You make it all sound so noble,” said Claire.
“During my time in Hollywood I would never have said it was noble, but now, looking back on the lives I was able to change, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. Even if the end of my career brings me heartache.” Hattie stared into the distance, then shook her head, as if bringing herself back to the present. “George and Anna May—the young actress I first helped—kept up the home for actresses with the money from Reeves’s estate. Unbeknownst to all of us, he’d changed his will prior to his death. Anna May became famous in her own right, so she banded with a few other high-profile actresses to continue the legacy, and that network still exists—at least half a dozen houses now, as I understand—and well-known actresses still go there to give guidance and free acting lessons to those just starting out.”
“What a wonderful legacy.”
Hattie sighed. “I wish I could have seen it all through. Anna May writes often and tells me how it’s all going and what the latest success stories are.”
“What about George?”
Hattie dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “He passed away a few years back. That’s one of my biggest regrets, you know. I never saw him after I left Los Angeles. We talked, and we wrote, but it just wasn’t the same. He was my dearest friend, and I miss him.”
“Did he ever find love again?” She was met with a bright smile from Hattie.
“He did. A young man from New York. A banker, of all people! An interesting match, but George and Ethan were extremely happy, and for that I am thankful. They still had to be secretive about their life together, but at least George left this world in peace with his heart full.”
“I’m so happy to hear this,” said Claire. The way Hattie spoke about them, with such detail and emotion, it was impossible not to feel like she had met them herself. “Would you ever go back?”
“No.” Hattie shook her head. “Too many ghosts.”
“Ghosts can find us no matter where we are,” said Claire.
“This is true.”
“How hard was it to adjust back to life in Starlight Creek? After all, you’d spent years going to glamorous parties and wearing designer gowns, only to return to overalls and gum boots.”
“It took me a very long time to be happy about living in Australia once more. After all, I hadn’t had any plans to leave Los Angeles, yet I found myself hounded out of there clutching a fistful of broken dreams. I laid low for a long time, living with my parents out on the sugarcane farm. My mother still ran the cinema, but I never went near the place. Once they’d died and I inherited it, I discovered reels of every movie I’d made, aside from the one with Reeves, which was never finished.” Hattie sighed. “That was the best work I’d ever done. Our chemistry on and off the screen was incredible. But I digress.” She rolled her shoulders back. “I inherited the cinema, and they’d even written into the will that I was welcome to sell it. Living on the farm had become difficult, because I was now a city girl trying to fit into country-girl shoes.”
“I can relate.”
Hattie laughed. “I think you’re more country than you realize. Anyway, I needed some space to myself, and the cinema was the only place around here that afforded me that opportunity. Remember, I’d gone from a mansion in the heart of Hollywood to a tiny two-bedroom house on a farm. By the time my mother and father passed, the cinema had been closed for a few years.”
“That’s such a shame.”
“It was,” she said. “TV changed everything. The cinema used to be where everyone would gather with their families and discuss the latest goings-on in the town, but television fragmented that sense of community. Instead of chatting with friends between short films, people opted to stay home and watch TV. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy snuggling up on my own couch and watching a movie, but it’s not the same as going to the cinema. Maybe that’s where it all started going wrong.”
“What did?”
“This town. Maybe this lack of community started when people exchanged a large screen for small.” She shrugged. “Who knows. This is just the speculation of an old woman.”
“It’s a fair point,” said Claire. “Do you think, though, that things are swinging around again? That movies will become social occasions? That they could bring a community together once more?”
“You could be on to something.” Hattie tapped her fingers on the arm rest. “So anyway, I moved into the cinema, as it wasn’t operating anymore. I originally thought it would be like living with ghosts, but somehow it was strangely comforting. Maybe being able to sit in the quiet and remember fonder times of my life as a starlet was what I needed. I’m sure it helped me come to terms with realizing that part of my life was over.”
Claire hesitated, not sure about asking the next question. “I imagine painful memories would crowd in on the good.”
“Yes,” said Hattie. “I look at those early years living here as therapy. Mental health professionals might call me crazy, but it worked. I managed to face my demons. Well, most of them. In a way, this cinema became my crutch.” She slowly looked around, taking in the expanse. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through it without all this.”
“Is that why you didn’t sell?”
“When I first inherited it, I tried, but who wants to buy a cinema that’s gone broke?”
“I’ve heard of people buying old churches and renovating them into bed and breakfasts.”
“Pfft.” Hattie waved her hand. “Those yuppies and their money.”
Claire tried to contain her amusement.
“Oh, laugh all you like, but these young folk with money often don’t have taste.” Hattie rolled her eyes. “Will you listen to me? I sound like my grandmother! Ha!”
“Well, I, for one, think you have a very progressive view on the world.”
“I like to think I do.”
Claire looked at her extensive notes. “After the Hays Code was abolished in the late sixties, do you feel women in the industry have more opportunities for substantial roles?”
The Cinema of Lost Dreams Page 34
