Tinseltown Confidential: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 7)

by Martin Turnbull

  “You’re not having a good week.”

  “No, sir, I am not. I was wondering if perhaps I could rent yours.”

  Marcus didn’t really want to part with his precious baby, but his ears pricked up. “For how long?” He really meant, For how much?

  “Today and tomorrow. How’s about five bucks per day?”

  Ten bucks bought Marcus a month of beans and rice. “Sounds good.”

  “Man, oh man, have you ever saved my bacon!”

  Marcus fished out his card. “You can return it here any time over the weekend.” Even though the guy accepted Marcus’ camera like it was the crown jewels, Marcus panicked for a second and questioned the wisdom of handing over his sole source of income to a stranger. For all Marcus knew, he was just some nobody who’d snuck onto the Paramount lot. Then again, he told himself, there was a time when you were a nobody who snuck onto the MGM lot.

  “And you are . . .?” Marcus prompted.

  “Sam Dodds. I don’t have a calling card, but I can be reached through the Hope Enterprises offices here on the lot.”

  “Hello, Sam.” Quentin was back already. He clapped his hands together. “I’m famished and the commissary has a chicken pot pie you won’t believe.”

  As they headed for the commissary, Marcus asked if he knew Sam, and more specifically, whether he could be trusted with his fancy new Leica.

  “Yeah, Sam’s a good guy. And pretty talented, too. He got this great shot of Hope and Jane Russell on Son of Paleface. Hope’s staring at her chest like he was Ponce de León and she’s the fountain of youth.”

  They passed a soundstage with Come Back, Little Sheba written in chalk on a blackboard out front. Quentin pointed inside. “The higher-ups thought we were going to lose that one to your old stomping ground. The script’s terrific; I just hope it translates to the screen, but you never know.”

  Quentin babbled about movies and stars as they walked around the lot. He wasn’t usually much of a prattler, so Marcus wondered what this stream of behind-the-scenes gossip and intrigue was masking.

  “If you’ve got a busy day, we don’t have to have lunch,” Marcus suggested.

  Quentin halted. “I know about the graylist.”

  Marcus jammed his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, I was wondering about that.”

  Quentin led Marcus into a deserted soundstage where a vaudeville theater still stood in case reshoots were needed on the new Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis picture. Quentin sat them down on a pair of seats at the end of the final row. “When you phoned me, I got the feeling that it wasn’t purely a social call.”

  “It’s not,” Marcus admitted.

  “Come on, then. Out with it.”

  Marcus told him about Anson Purvis, how he was stuck on The Lone Ranger and aching to do more.

  “He wrote that war picture for you, didn’t he?”

  “The Final Day was his, and so was Pacific Broadcast.”

  “Would he work without screen credit?”

  In the sunshiny days before the Hollywood blacklist, not getting screen credit was anathema to screenwriters. But now tons of writers were working for a fraction of their former salaries and giving the credit to other writers, some of whom didn’t exist at all.

  “He might,” Marcus told Quentin.

  “We’ve got this picture, Jamaica Run, an adventure yarn set in the Caribbean. The script’s okay but it needs punching up. Done right, it could be pretty good.”

  “Shall I get him to call you?”

  Quentin tilted his head away from Marcus. “I thought the favor would be for you.”

  Marcus laid out his predicament. Shooting on the set of I Love Lucy was great, but what he really needed was a way to get off the graylist. However, nobody could explain to him what the graylist was, and how it worked, let alone how to escape it.

  “You need someone at the top of the food chain,” Quentin said. “Now that Mayer’s out of the game, Zanuck’s your man. That’s tricky, though. He works real long hours and his social life is largely marathon poker games with high rollers. But if you can get in front of him, you might stand a chance. You must know somebody who knows him.”

  George Cukor had said the same thing about Dory Schary, the new MGM honcho, but had offered no path to him. On the other hand, getting in front of Zanuck wasn’t entirely out of the question.

  When Kathryn tackled Marilyn’s pinups on the air, she transformed a sensational headline into a sympathetic opinion piece of the industry’s harsh treatment of vulnerable girls, and she’d heard through the grapevine that Zanuck felt indebted to her.

  But was that enough to get Marcus within earshot of Zanuck to plead his case? Even if it was, would it be fair to ask Kathryn to call in a favor she might need for some future scandal?

  “Hey, I promised you chicken pot pie.” Marcus and Quentin strolled out into the noonday sun. “Did you know we’re planning a movie about the Titanic? Maybe you can talk your way onto that one.”

  “Talk my way ONTO the Titanic? That’s what I call fabulous irony.”

  CHAPTER 24

  When Kathryn got out of the taxi with her mother, she could already hear the buzz spilling through the front door of Romanoff’s and onto Rodeo Drive.

  “Are you sure you’re up for coming in?” Kathryn asked Francine. “I’ll be working the room, so I’ll have to desert you. You could just take this cab home.”

  It wasn’t that Kathryn felt stymied by her mother’s presence, but she had a lot to accomplish inside Romanoff’s, and she could be more efficient if she didn’t have to worry about her mother.

  “Heavens, no!” Kathryn wasn’t aware her mother’s voice could even go that high. “I’m still trembling with excitement. I doubt I shall sleep tonight at all!”

  “That was a heck of a concert, wasn’t it?”

  Francine bunched her gloved hands together. “When Judy broke out into ‘The Trolley Song,’ I broke out into goosebumps! All over my body!”

  “You weren’t the only one.” Kathryn paid the taxi driver and guided her mother toward the front doors. “When she hit that note near the end—well, that did it for me.”

  As soon as Judy Garland walked into the spotlight earlier that evening, Kathryn knew it would be a night that divided people into two groups: those who’d be talking about it and those who’d wish they could.

  During her one-woman show at New York’s Palace Theatre the year before, Judy had put to rest any doubts that she was as washed-up as her critics would have it. Truthfully, she didn’t just put those doubts to rest; she walloped them over their head, dragged them to the back alley, and bludgeoned them into bloody pools of mush. By the time she finished her nineteen-week run, she was ready for a triumphant return to California to prove there was a whole lot more life left in her.

  Every song Judy sang and every joke she cracked at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium met with roars of approval. But Kathryn was most surprised—and touched—to see the man a lot of people blamed for Judy’s crushing addictions and erratic behavior. L.B. Mayer was the one who’d insisted on force-feeding Judy uppers and downers to get her through her arduous schedule. And maybe he was to blame, but Kathryn knew he’d also footed most of Judy’s medical bills. Or was that just another rumor?

  Ever since Mayer’s ousting from MGM, he and Lorena were rare birds on the social scene. Kathryn knew that the after party at Romanoff’s would be a nut house, but it might be her only chance to corner Mayer and confirm these Judy stories.

  She’d also heard talk of Mayer staging his own comeback with a new sort of movie house. With television slashing into movie attendance, the logical leap for the studios was toward even bigger screens. Was that what Mayer was up to? Kathryn felt sure he’d refuse to be sidelined, and she figured if she could find out what he was planning and convince him to return to her show to announce it, Winchell could kiss her sweet patootie.

  There was also that little matter of why Mayer had so generously lifted Marcus off the blac
klist. Her curiosity burned like a Roman candle.

  She pulled open the heavy wooden door to Romanoff’s; the chatter swelled. Mayer was nowhere to be seen, but Joan Crawford was circling Louella Parsons. Joan’s fruitful contract at Warners was coming to an end, and Kathryn suspected it would be interesting to know her plans for her next move, because Joan Crawford always had a next move.

  When Marcus approached Kathryn about getting in front of Zanuck, she’d put in several calls, but Zanuck was up to his armpits in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. His secretary told her that until the movie was in the can, he was scarcely returning any calls, so she shouldn’t feel slighted. On top of everything else tonight, she was also on the lookout for Zanuck.

  She spotted a cocktail waiter standing under a huge white double-R emblem on the back wall. The minimalist décor was unusual, but somehow the owner, Michael—who passed himself off as a European prince but who everybody knew was a pants presser from Brooklyn—made it work.

  A pair of gimlets later, Kathryn had pointed Francine in the direction of Louella Parsons, who Francine knew through the Association of Hollywood Mothers. It left Kathryn free to strike up a one-sided conversation with Joan Crawford about the troubles she was having with her teenage daughter, Christina.

  Joan was still bitching about Christina’s ingratitude—“I should have left her where I found her!”—when a beaming Judy made her entrance to a thunderclap of applause. Judy’s manager, Sid Luft, made a rehearsed but heartfelt speech about bringing Judy home.

  Conversation was returning to its previous pitch when Kathryn spotted L.B. and Lorena. It was jarring to see the former king of Hollywood sitting alone with his wife, but it suited her purpose.

  She opened with a bright exclamation about how marvelous it was to see Judy performing at the top of her game. Oh yes, they agreed, quite marvelous. She segued into the rumors she’d heard about L.B. developing a new cinematic format, but he clamped down like a prison door and murmured that he couldn’t talk about that just yet.

  It was a perfect opportunity to change subjects.

  “My friend Marcus, you did him a huge favor. So many of MGM’s writers got dumped on the blacklist. You could have helped any of them, but as far as I’m aware, Marcus was the only one.”

  “And you want to know why.” Mayer rolled his cigar around his fingertips, mulling something over.

  “Go on,” Lorena prodded. “You might as well tell her.”

  “Okay,” Mayer conceded, “but you can’t tell him.”

  Kathryn shook her head. “We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “I can respect that, so how about we drop it?” He jabbed his cigar toward a lone figure leaning against the deep rose suede that covered Romanoff’s walls. “That character looks mighty suspicious. Do you know who he is?”

  It was Winchell’s rake. That’s what Kathryn called the skinny moocher with the malleable loyalties she encountered the night of Lili St. Cyr’s arrest. He held a steno pad in one hand while the other sped down the page like he was making a list. Kathryn bet it was names.

  “Yes, I do.” Kathryn hadn’t given up on getting Mayer’s reason for helping Marcus, but this was something she couldn’t ignore. “Excuse me, please.”

  She headed straight for him. He didn’t flinch when he saw her coming.

  “You pop up in the darnedest places,” she said.

  “Don’t I just?”

  She flicked a finger at the pad in his hands. “Taking notes for Winchell?”

  “Not tonight, Josephine.”

  “Awww, did he fire you?”

  “He wasn’t happy to learn that my allegiance was so easily bought. Nor was he surprised. He knows when you get right down to it, we’re all whores. We just got different prices, is all.”

  “If you’re not working for Winchell tonight, will it cost me another wad to find out who you are nosing around for?”

  His smirk blurred with a flicker of warmth, possibly even genuine. “You’re funny,” he said. “You work a room like you don’t care who’s watching.”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  “Yeah, you care. But that’s what I like about you.”

  “So show me your list.”

  “Who said it’s a list?”

  “I could tell by the way your hand moved down the page.”

  “Says the gal who doesn’t care.”

  Laughter exploded from a large group at the center of the room. Judy hit a high C and held it, catching the rake unprepared long enough for Kathryn to snatch the notebook from his hand. He went to grab it back but she stepped away and scanned the page.

  As she suspected, it was a list of people in the room. Not a full list, though, but an apparently random one. Husbands but not their wives, wives but not their husbands, agents but not their clients. There was no pattern that Kathryn could make out, so why did some of them have an asterisk?

  “Who are these people?” she asked.

  “Is there even one person in this room whose name you don’t know?” He was getting smart-alecky now, and it was annoying.

  “And why do some of them have an asterisk?” He stared at her, saying nothing. “Do I need to come up with some cash? Is that what that face is supposed to mean?” Still nothing.

  “Fifty is yours if you tell me.”

  The twerp didn’t react at first. Then, “I’m pulling double duty tonight. I’m what you might call an advance scout.”

  “Who for?”

  “A New York publisher. He’s planning to start a new magazine, probably another cheesy rag like his other efforts. I doubt you’ve heard of him.”

  “Try me.”

  “Robert Harrison. He’s pals with Winchell, who recommended me for the job.”

  The name meant nothing to Kathryn. “What’s your other duty?”

  “Sheldon Voss.” Kathryn felt a dull pain press against her chest. “He’s hired me to scout LA for possible venues for his tent revival meeting. It’s gonna be a doozie.”

  “You’re going to suggest Romanoff’s?”

  “Hardly.” He tried to suppress a smile. “He also wants me to recruit volunteers.”

  “The hell you are,” she told him. Your job is to provide my shady uncle with a list of people he can denounce during his big LA broadcast.

  “Kathryn? I’m getting awfully tired.”

  Francine’s timing wasn’t great. Her face was turning red—a clear sign that she was getting fatigued. Kathryn grabbed her mother’s arm and guided her toward the exit. A taxi was already idling out front. Kathryn told the driver to take them to the Marmont, and fell against the back seat.

  “That was certainly a night to remember,” Francine declared.

  “Sure was, Mom.”

  The driver made a swift U-turn and headed north. By the time he reached a deserted Wilshire, Kathryn’s mind had drifted back to the asterisks on the rake’s list. There was a pattern. She could feel it.

  And what about Mayer? Had Marcus done Mayer a favor and this was payback? But surely Marcus would know if he had. Did something happen during the making of Quo Vadis? Or did it have to do with Mayer’s departure from MGM?

  As the taxi drove up Rodeo toward Sunset, she connected the dots between all those asterisks and let out a startled, “Oh!”

  Francine grabbed her daughter’s arm. “What’s the matter?”

  Kathryn faked a smile and wondered if Marcus was still awake.

  CHAPTER 25

  Gwendolyn was laying out the last of the punch cups on the patio table next to the diving board when Marcus called from inside the bar.

  “What about now?”

  She looked up at the trees. “Nope.”

  “Dammit!”

  “Marcus, honey, forget about it.”

  “But they’ll look so pretty if I can just figure this out.”

  Marcus had spent nearly two hours stringing up tiny lights among the trees surrounding the Garden of Allah’s pool. But now that he’d hung twelve of them with
yards and yards of wiring, the damned lights refused to glow. It felt cruel to keep his hopes up, but she knew why he persisted.

  He didn’t have the funds right now to contribute booze or food to the party, but he could string up the coils of lights he’d recently unearthed in the basement of the main building.

  “I could at least add atmosphere.” He’d tried to hide his embarrassment behind a chipper mask that probably would have fooled someone who hadn’t known him for twenty years.

  “And you could take photos,” Gwendolyn suggested. “I’m sure Marilyn would love some pictures as a keepsake.”

  A few weeks ago, when Gwendolyn asked Marilyn if she had any plans for her twenty-sixth birthday, she was shocked that the answer was no.

  Over the past year, the girl had become one of the most talked-about new stars in Hollywood. Then she started dating Joe DiMaggio. And then the news of her nude calendar broke. Suddenly the whole world was gaga for Marilyn and yet nobody was throwing her a party? Gwendolyn told her there would be a poolside potluck at the Garden and to invite anyone she wanted.

  “What about now?” Marcus called again.

  A warm summer breeze blew down from the Hollywood Hills and through the trees, stirring the top branches. But they remained lit solely by the setting sun.

  “Nope,” she told him. “I need you to hop over to Schwab’s for the ice. They asked if you could go to the back door.” No response. “Marcus? You haven’t electrocuted yourself, have you?”

  A thousand tiny bulbs suddenly bathed the oaks and maples around the piano-shaped pool in golden light. It was enchanting.

  “I kept shorting a fuse.” He stepped out onto the patio and rotated full circle. “Not too shabby, huh?”

  Gwendolyn kissed his cheek. “James Wong Howe couldn’t have done better. Now, scoot over to Schwab’s.”

  He wasn’t gone a minute before a squeal pierced the evening air. “You should have warned me!”

  Marilyn walked through the bar’s French doors wearing the purple gingham halter dress Gwendolyn made for her the previous week. Gwendolyn wasn’t sure gingham was right for such a glamorous creature, but watching the girl totter onto the patio, it was clear that Marilyn could knock ’em dead wearing anything at all.