Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3)

by Martin Turnbull

  “George, this is Alice Moore.”

  Raft was right up Alice’s gold-digging, attention-pulling, star-chasing alley. “I loved you in They Drive by Night.” She’d gone all girly-girl about fifteen years too late. “Most of my friends are rah-rah-rah over that Bogart guy.”

  “He’s okay,” Raft sniffed.

  “But not me, honest injun!” Alice continued. “You were terrif! But then again you always are, aren’t you?”

  Gwendolyn saw her chance to escape. “If y’all will excuse me.” She lingered inside the ladies’ room until she figured the lights were out in the cinema. She cracked open the door, but Alice and Raft were still engrossed in conversation.

  She inched along the wall and made it safely to the doors. The theater was dark and the credits were rolling for Santa Fe Trail as the Warner Bros. fanfare filled the auditorium. She peered around the darkness, hoping to see Kathryn. A flash of light shined in from behind her. “Oh, there you are!” Alice said with a giggle. “We were waiting for you outside.”

  Raft led them to a block of seats on the side, and Gwendolyn recognized Siegel’s silhouette outlined against the Warner Bros. shield. They were already seated when Gwendolyn spotted Kathryn waving and slipped away.

  “Where have you been?” Kathryn whispered.

  Gwendolyn smiled. “Plotting my revenge.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Marcus let his eyes wander over the gathering crowd at Ciro’s, a little relieved that his date was an hour late. He stood with his back to the bar and appreciated what Billy Wilkerson had created. The place was classy but not gaudy, sophisticated but understated, with lots of cream drapery on the walls and dark wood furniture. In a town built on the More Is Better premise, this was an accomplishment.

  His date, Oswaldo, was a Guatemalan dancer he met at the Florentine Gardens, a nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard known for its Italian food and risqué floor show. Marcus picked him up at the bar ten minutes before closing and hustled him home to the Garden of Allah for the first of several weeks of frantic bed-sheet rumpling.

  As fun as it had been, the irony of meeting him at a nightspot named after the hometown of Ramon’s new lover hadn’t escaped Marcus. Oswaldo was a dead ringer for Ramon, which for a while was enough. But after four weeks, the novelty was wearing thin. Marcus ordered up a second martini and said a silent prayer that guileless, unsuspecting Oswaldo had found someone else to play with.

  A buzzy crowd of luminaries had gathered at Ciro’s, and there was a palpable hum of anticipation as people table-hopped and filled the dance floor in front of Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. Judy Garland was making her nightclub debut, and Hollywood had turned out to see if she could conjure in person the sort of magic she invoked on the screen. If she could, they all wanted to be able to say “I was there when.”

  Marcus smiled when he spotted George Cukor in the shadow of Joan Crawford’s flashy entrance. Cukor had just directed Joan in her latest hit, A Woman’s Face. With them was Donnie Stewart, the movie’s screenwriter. It was hard for Marcus to look at a fellow Garden of Allah’er like Donnie and not envy his career. He had a swelling slew of big-budget, high-profile A-list pictures to his name, not to mention his Oscar for The Philadelphia Story. Marcus had been stuck in the B Hive nearly twelve months now and he could feel the ennui seeping into him. He had to get out of there before he stopped giving a damn about anything.

  Marcus was about to cross over to George’s table to say hello when George spied him and headed over saying, “Marcus, my dear,” with his hand outstretched. “How are you? It’s been too long.” He caught the bartender’s attention and ordered a Manhattan, then grabbed Marcus by the elbow and pulled him around to the end of the bar where it curved away from the room. “What a din!” he said. “The crowd is all agog over seeing Judy tonight, aren’t they? I’m so happy for her.”

  “Congrats on A Woman’s Face,” Marcus said.

  “Thank you, yes, it turned out rather well,” George admitted.

  “I was just going to come say hello,” Marcus said. “I met Joan once at B.B.B.’s Cellar. She was there when I saw my very first drag queen.”

  Cukor responded with a reticent look. “I wish there was a way I could say this without being offensive.”

  Marcus buried his alarm beneath a grin. “Spit it out. I’m a big boy.”

  “The Powers That Be have told me I must watch who I’m seen with in public.”

  Marcus blinked slowly.

  “I don’t blame you for feeling slighted,” George said. He grabbed Marcus’ left shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “Please know it’s not my choice.”

  “Who else can’t you be seen with? Negros? Orientals? Lepers?” Marcus tried to say it lightly, but there was no disguising his bitterness.

  The bartender presented George with his drink. He took a deep sip from it. “I was told that I’m an A-list director so it’s crucial I’m seen with A-list people. Stars, preferably. Female, of course. I feel so awful not being able to invite you over.”

  “Company rules are company rules.”

  Marcus turned away from George and looked back over the crowd. But George stepped in front of him. “You cannot let yourself languish in the B Hive. You’re too good. You need to come up with something the front office can get excited over.”

  Marcus’ spirits slumped lower. He hated that his friend knew what a merry-go-round the B Hive rewrites were. He fished a Chesterfield out of his jacket and watched a young woman in a shimmering black beaded gown enter the room.

  At first he thought it was the same girl he’d embarrassed himself with at the Biltmore. But when this girl turned to let Walter Brennan light her cigarette, he saw she was a little shorter and heavier than the Biltmore one. Her face wasn’t in the full light, but Marcus could swear—

  “A friend of yours?” George asked.

  “Nope.” Marcus composed himself and turned back to George. “I’ve been toying with making a biopic of the life of—”

  “A biopic isn’t going to do it. I know they’re your forte and all, but the suits are looking for something with mass appeal. You want them saying, ‘Okay, now THAT would make a heck of a picture!’”

  The house lights flickered—it was ten minutes to showtime. “Looks like you’d better head back to your A table,” Marcus said.

  When they shook hands, Marcus ignored the mixture of pity and apology in Cukor’s eyes. The crowded dance floor thinned out while Cukor slipped back to his A-list group. Marcus scanned the room for the girl in the black and red dress and saw her over near the hat check stand. He picked his way around the tables and by the time he got there, she was talking to the girl behind the counter.

  The generous spray of freckles dotting her bare shoulders was just as he remembered. Marcus bit down on his lip to steady his excitement and approached the girl. He reached out and gently tapped her shoulder. She turned around.

  But it wasn’t Doris, and for the second time, he found himself apologizing to a stranger.

  The house lights dimmed. Marcus felt like a fool as he made his way back to his bar stool and ordered another Four Roses. A male voice announced over the PA system, “Ladies and gentlemen, Ciro’s proudly presents, in her nightclub debut, Miss Judy Garland!”

  Judy appeared on stage in a gorgeous buttercup-yellow gown with sprays of saffron rhinestones. It made her look far more mature than her twenty-one years. Even before The Wizard of Oz, Marcus had been something of a fan, catching all her movies and buying her records. But seeing the girl he admired so much appear in person sent a tremor of excitement through his body. A smile broke out on his face, taking on a life of its own, and his hands started to clap. The crowd followed his cue and a wave of applause swelled from the back of the room and surged forward, breaking on the edge of the stage and flooding Judy with love.

  She raised her arms and let out an excited laugh. The crowd roared its approval. Judy grabbed the microphone as though it were a life preserver and started
to sing “Strike Up the Band,” the title song from her recent hit movie. She sang beautifully, her voice even stronger and more poignant than on screen. She concluded the number with a long, clear note that filled the room. Before she was finished, the crowd was already applauding.

  Judy glowed in the spotlight as the opening bars to “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” filled the room. Marcus watched the way she wound her way around the lyrics, her voice trembling with the uncertainty and doubt of ever finding love.

  Marcus watched as Judy finished her song and the audience responded with a deafening ovation. He’d seen his fair share of performers, but rarely had he witnessed an entertainer connect with her audience the way Judy did. The girl was barely old enough to drink, but she was already singing songs as though she were twice that age. It was no wonder she was fast becoming one of the most valuable stars on the MGM lot.

  Hmmm. Marcus stroked his thumb around the edge of his tumbler.

  That night at the Biltmore, when Marcus told Taggert he wanted back into the big house, Taggert told him the way to do it was to remember the golden rule: “Big stars need strong projects.”

  I’ve been doing this ass-backwards, he realized. All this time, I’ve been trying to come up with a strong project without giving any thought to which star it’d get assigned to. But now he saw what Taggert meant. First find the star, then write the story that will bring out her star qualities.

  Marcus wanted to smash his empty glass over his head. He’d had the right story in his drawer for years. As Judy launched into “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart,” he waved over the bartender.

  “One more, right here. Make me merry.”

  CHAPTER 32

  When Kathryn received word of the Hollywood Women’s Press Club’s emergency meeting at the Vine Street Brown Derby, she smelled a rat—one with big teeth, woeful taste in hats, and a strong penchant for brandy. Louella Parsons ran the club, and if she was calling an emergency meeting, there could be only one thing on the agenda.

  Hedda Hopper didn’t waste any time breaking the news to Hearst about Citizen Kane. He’d refused to see it for himself, but sent Louella to RKO to demand a private screening. The rumor tore around town the next day that she left the screening room lobster red.

  Her response was to wage a one-woman telephone campaign, intimidating all the studio heads with unholy hell if Citizen Kane ever got released. She threatened to go public with every squashed scandal and hushed-up transgression on her files—and everyone knew how thick Louella’s files were.

  It appeared to work. Nicholas Schenck, the powerful head of MGM’s parent company, approached RKO honcho George Schafer on behalf of all the other studios with an offer to reimburse RKO if it would destroy the master negative of Citizen Kane. Everybody assumed that under such gargantuan pressure, Schafer would buckle.

  But before Schafer had a chance to respond, Welles went public with a front-page declaration: He and his money men would buy the movie for a million and show it themselves. Kathryn knew better than anyone this was typical big talk from Orson. In the heat of battle, he probably meant it, but a million bucks was a lot of cabbage. Then Schafer announced Citizen Kane would be released as scheduled, and would receive one of the largest publicity campaigns in the studio’s history.

  The wagging tongues of Hollywood concluded that if George Schafer was willing to go so far out on a limb for this Citizen Kane movie, it must be one hell of a picture. Rumors of special secret screenings flourished, but nobody Kathryn spoke to knew where or when. None of the people who’d been at the RKO screening had published a review or mentioned it in their columns. And now the Hollywood Women’s Press Club was holding an emergency meeting. Kathryn could hear the armies on both sides of the trench loading their muskets.

  A couple of years back, when Kathryn broke the news that Selznick had bought the screen rights to Gone with the Wind and appointed Cukor as director, she’d been the first gossip columnist to out-scoop the unscoopable Louella. Their unraveling relationship reached its nadir at a dreadful encounter in the Bullock’s Wilshire tea room, which ended in Louella dumping a plate of chicken fricassee over Kathryn. Since then, Louella and Kathryn had avoided each other at premieres and footprint-in-cement ceremonies at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

  And yet Louella had seen fit to invite Kathryn to this emergency meeting? This was a development as interesting as it was unexpected, and while Kathryn hadn’t been to a HWPC meeting since the fricassee incident, she knew she couldn’t miss this one.

  Kathryn arrived at the Vine Street Brown Derby unsure why she felt so jittery; it was a long while since she’d let Louella Parsons rattle her, but she could sense the formidable forces of the Hearst press aligning behind Louella. There’s no need to worry, she reminded herself as she pulled open the door. I am Switzerland.

  The Brown Derby had set up two long tables down the middle of the room and a lectern at the far end. Louella extended a sliver of a smile when she spotted Kathryn. Kathryn scanned the room for Hedda, but she wasn’t there. She quickly found someone to sit and chat with while coffee and cake were served amid tense smiles and guarded laughter. The crowd fell to a hush as Louella approached the lectern.

  “I must bring up a distasteful subject,” she announced. “Orson Welles’ terrible motion picture.” She pulled a face as though someone had just filled her hat with moldy cow plop. “I cannot bring myself to say its name. But discuss it, I must.”

  Kathryn looked around. There were close to a hundred women in the place. No one spoke, moved, or blinked.

  Louella drew in a deeply melodramatic breath. “I have seen this monstrosity and I am here to assure you that never in the glorious history of this industry has a picture been made from such mean-spirited motivations. It is crude and blasphemous. It concerns itself solely with the glorification of greed, corruption, lust, and power. I cannot state my repugnance to this picture strongly enough, ladies. It is no less than the work of the devil.”

  Kathryn could see little blobs of foam forming at the edges of Louella’s mouth and wondered if anyone else found it as distracting as she did. It was hard to take someone seriously who was showering her closest audience members with spittle. Louella’s breathing had become so labored that she was starting to wheeze, but she pressed on.

  “Let me take this opportunity to state categorically: It is the most un-American motion picture I’ve ever had the misfortune to sit through. At a time when half the world is plunging into war, we in America should be making films that reflect the bastion of democracy that has made this country great. If England should fall under Hitler’s boots, it will be up to America to keep alive the flame of freedom until those Nazis can be pushed back into the hole from whence they came. The very last thing this country needs is Mr. Welles’ demoralizing, anti-American, left-wing, Communistic propaganda.”

  Oh, for God’s sake, Kathryn thought. You’ve missed Orson’s point entirely. A month later, the movie’s images were still haunting her. The silhouetted castle looming in shadow, the gigantic jigsaw puzzles, the shattering snow globe, the flames engulfing a child’s sled—one finely etched image after another chilled Kathryn in a way no other picture had done. Its message of the fruitlessness of material pursuit kept churning in Kathryn’s mind.

  “And so I would like to put forward a proposal.” Louella’s face was pinched into a bulldog grimace. “We journalists must not wilt in the face of controversy. I propose that the Hollywood Women’s Press Club make a public stance. As individual members of the press and as a respected professional organization, we must come out against this movie in the most steadfast and united fashion.”

  A murmur of approval fanned down the two long tables, but judging by the deflated look on Louella’s face, it was a far cry from the thunderous approval she’d expected. She relaunched.

  “Ladies, now is the time for us to declare on which side we stand. Who among this sensible-thinking and morally clear group of intelligent professionals could po
ssibly disagree?”

  Kathryn couldn’t stand one more second of this poisonous diatribe. The gushing applause at the end of Louella’s speech petered out to a spluttering hiccup as Kathryn rose to her feet.

  Louella looked at her with the face of a constipated gargoyle. “Have you something to say, Kathryn?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  Louella made a maddeningly dismissive wave with her hand. “If you had seen this atrocious motion picture, your views might be credible. So until you have—”

  “But I have seen it.”

  Louella’s thin lips pursed into obscurity. “Oh? A personal preview, was it?” Titters broke out among the crowd.

  “I saw it at RKO.”

  Kathryn could feel the atmosphere start to turn. As one of the only people in the room who’d seen Citizen Kane, she had authority.

  Every eye was now on Kathryn. Her mind flashed onto her boss’ face. We are Switzerland! She felt her hands start to shake and clasped them together.

  “I, for one, have no intention of earning a reputation as someone who makes my mind up about things I haven’t seen for myself. I refuse to be dictated to like a meek little lamb.”

  She paused for a moment to check the mood of the room. She couldn’t detect the wave of hostility she’d half expected; only pockets of it, mainly coming from Louella’s end of the table. Fortified, Kathryn continued.

  “At this point, I think we need to stop and ask ourselves this: Is Citizen Kane solely about Hearst? Or is it possible he’s just one of the true-life personalities Welles drew his inspiration from? What about Joseph Pulitzer?” Kathryn paused to let the name of the mogul whose newspapers were every bit as yellow as Hearst’s and Kane’s sink into the minds of her audience. “Or what about Harold McCormick from the Rockefeller Foundation? Or Samuel Insull from the Edison Company? Or, for that matter, Howard Hughes?”