City of Myths

by Martin Turnbull

  And that’s the sort of information that would’ve been handy forty-eight hours ago.

  “In addition to which—” Loretta flicked the swatch of white lace “—the dress can be anything but white because the door I sweep through is white, so I don’t want to be lost against it. But other than that, I want you to feel free to create whatever you wish.”

  But not a ball gown, a tea dress, a suit, or a duster. Or anything in white.

  Loretta bit down on her lower lip as her large gray eyes narrowed in concentration. “What I meant was, anything but an empire cut. I do not look good in high-waisted dresses.”

  There was nothing in Gwendolyn’s sketches that remotely suggested empire cuts.

  “And when I say anything but white, I mean nothing light-colored. Nothing pale, so no pastels, either. Any sort of neckline is fine but I’d prefer no halter necks and nothing squared. One-shoulder designs are acceptable, and while I’m not a fan of Queen Anne necklines, let’s not discount them altogether. As for patterns, polka dots are rarely flattering, in my opinion. Tiny dots might be okay, but no larger than a dime. Other shapes, like stars or leaves or feathers, can work wonderfully well. That is, of course, unless—”

  “Oh, Mother, please!” Judy tossed her paperback onto her chair and started crossing the room. “Like it or not, your movie career is behind you.”

  Loretta looked around, relieved to see they were alone. “I hardly think you’re qualified—”

  “Look who they paired you with on that last picture at Universal. John Forsythe is a nice guy, but he’s just a TV actor. Virtually a nobody.”

  “Must you remind me?”

  “Have you heard about Betty Grable?” Judy persisted. “I sat next to a couple of secretaries in the commissary yesterday and one of them was saying that Betty’s next movie is called Three for the Show, and they’re casting some guy called Jack Lemmon. Another TV actor.”

  Loretta pressed her lips together and scratched the back of her neck, careful to look anywhere but at her daughter.

  “You’re forty now, Mother. Your leading lady days?” She snapped her fingers. “Pffft!”

  Loretta raised an eyebrow at Gwendolyn. “My daughter, the psychic.”

  “I’m just a realist,” Judy said. “If you want to continue acting, your future’s in television. You may as well embrace it instead of putting up all these restrictions.”

  Loretta and Judy glared at each other in a way that told Gwendolyn they’d had this quarrel before.

  A trio of seamstresses entered the room laughing about Robert Wagner’s ridiculous wig, their arms filled with medieval costumes from Prince Valiant. It didn’t take them long to read the tension. They deposited the leather tunics and chainmail armor on the nearest workbench and hurried away.

  Judy returned to her chair. “They’re doing retakes for River of No Return on Stage Seven and I’m going to watch.”

  Loretta jammed her hands on her hips. “I doubt that Mr. Negulesco—”

  “He told me I was welcome at any time.” Judy threw her book into her purse, and strode to the swing doors. “I’ll see you at home.”

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Loretta told Gwendolyn. “And on our first day together.”

  “I’ve heard worse.”

  Loretta ran a fingertip down the side of the tea dress sketch and along the bottom. “What do you think?”

  “I think your daughter has a thing or two to learn in the art of diplomacy.”

  Loretta smiled weakly. “She’s been at a loose end since graduating high school. I thought perhaps if I brought her with me to the studio, she might find . . .” She fluttered her eyelashes and let out a little sigh. “Everything changes when an actress turns forty.” Her voice took on a fragility she usually saved for the emotional scenes in her movies.

  “It’s not fair, is it?” Gwendolyn said.

  “If you’re Gary Cooper or John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart, who cares if you’re forty—or sixty? Those roles keep on coming down the pipeline. But once a woman steps over a certain line in the sand, they’re looking at the twenty-year-old who just stepped off the bus from Omaha. They look at you and think to themselves We could get her to play the mother.”

  “This is a big change for you,” Gwendolyn said gently. You and me both.

  Not too long ago, Gwendolyn had been running her own Sunset Strip boutique, famous for its signature fragrance. But then she fell afoul of a squalid rag called Confidential. She had been relieved, therefore, when Fox’s leading costumer, Billy Travilla, had hired her to work at the studio’s costuming department. He wanted her on hand to help wrangle an increasingly erratic Marilyn Monroe, as well as assist on pieces for other movies. All this on top of designing for Letter to Loretta.

  What she hadn’t counted on was having to deal with a capricious star unprepared for the transition out of romantic leading roles in feature films and into hosting a television show.

  “May I be frank?” Gwendolyn ventured. For my sanity as much as yours.

  “By all means.”

  “I believe your daughter’s not far off the mark.”

  “I probably don’t want to hear this, but go on.”

  “I think you’ve been handed an opportunity. Look at Lucille Ball. The other day I read in TV Guide that more people watch I Love Lucy every week than saw her last seven movies combined. If this show is a hit, you could be seen by millions. And if that’s the case, you get to make a wow of an entrance every week and countless people will see it.”

  “The big entrance at the top of the show? That was my idea.”

  “And it was a good one.” Gwendolyn brushed her sketches off the table and onto the floor. “Let’s start from scratch.” She took a blank sheet and drew two vertical lines down the page, then wrote YES at the head of the left-hand column, NO in the middle, and MAYBE on the right. “We make a list of what looks good on you, and what doesn’t, and what’s up for negotiation.”

  Loretta’s shoulders slumped. “What if I change my mind?”

  “That’s what erasers are for. We’ve got ten days to create an eye-catching gown that will allow you to make such an entrance that America will be forced to tune in the following week to see what you’ll be wearing. So tell me, what goes at the top of the YES list?”

  Loretta stared bleakly at Gwendolyn’s paper. “I’d prefer my career was based on acting ability and not how I looked in a new frock.”

  And I’d prefer to be designing Marilyn Monroe’s wardrobe in There’s No Business Like Show Business, but we’ll take what we can and be happy with it otherwise we’ll go nuts wishing for a life that used to be. If I can say goodbye to Chez Gwendolyn, you can say goodbye to movies.

  Gwendolyn tapped the tip of her pencil on the YES she’d printed across the first column. “Shall we begin?”

  CHAPTER 3

  The alabaster tower of the Carthay Circle Theatre blazed like a Roman candle under the four searchlights trained on its whitewashed walls.

  Kathryn handed her car keys to the parking valet. Roman candle, she thought. That’s not bad. She pulled out her notepad and jotted it down.

  When she’d first heard that the director of Roman Holiday had cast a newcomer called Audrey Hepburn, she had made the rookie mistake of dismissing the unknown out of hand. Casting nobodies in starring roles wasn’t unprecedented, but the idea flopped more often than it flourished.

  The chances of this European greenhorn making good opposite Gregory Peck, who was coming off his David and Bathsheba smash were slim at best. Kathryn had taken to calling her The Other Hepburn in her column until she’d learned that the girl had starred on Broadway in Gigi and that her mother was a Dutch baroness, so her role as a European princess wasn’t too much of a stretch.

  Chastened for her curt assumption, Kathryn had paid more attention as production photos of the movie started to circulate, showing a poised Hepburn blooming under William Wyler’s astute guidance. By the time the movie was ready for its unveil
ing, the entire world was primed to see what this swan was all about.

  Kathryn waved to the rowdy moviegoers installed on wooden bleachers. An usher in a black-and-red uniform pulled the door open and welcomed her with a program. She accepted it with a nod and stepped inside. The face of her beau, Leo Presnell, loomed above the heads of invitees assembling around the crowded foyer.

  He kissed her cheek. “You’re right on time.” He seemed surprised.

  “You make it sound like I’m not punctual!” She swiped him across the shoulder with her program. “I’ll have a manhattan, and make it snappy.”

  Leo pointed to the bar, where a matching pair of cocktails was set up next to a bowl of peanuts.

  “Does this mean you’re thoughtful or that I’m predictable?”

  He pressed his hand to the small of her back and nudged her toward the bar. “It means we know each other very well.”

  The manhattan wasn’t as chilled as she liked it, but the bartender had blended the bourbon and vermouth perfectly. Kathryn took a second sip and exhaled slowly with a low groan, letting the tension of the day leak out of her.

  She knew she had taken a risk earlier that afternoon when she rode the elevator to the seventh floor of 510 Spring Street, where the National Council of Negro Women kept their offices.

  A month ago, when Kathryn had stepped in front of a radio microphone to sabotage evangelist Sheldon Voss’s scam to bilk thousands of dollars from unsuspecting believers, the Council had been the first worthwhile cause that came to her mind. It was run by a formidable no-nonsense type named Mrs. Cornelia Wyatt, who welcomed Kathryn with a hug to her substantial bosom and insisted they share a cup of “the best damned coffee you’ll find west of Little Italy.” Alongside the coffee, Mrs. Wyatt had set down a slice of rhubarb pie big enough to choke the last four winners at Santa Anita.

  “It must have taken you ladies a week to count all those quarters,” Kathryn had told her.

  “The grand total came to $8,137.25—you should have seen our faces.”

  “I wish I’d been here to witness it for myself.”

  “Miss Massey, you can’t begin to know the good that money will do among black folk all over the state.”

  As heartwarming as that was to learn, Kathryn had been there to test a theory. “You should tell Sheldon Voss.”

  Mrs. Wyatt sneered. “Oh honey, the decision to donate those funds had nothing to do with that no-account hustler.”

  Kathryn swallowed a chunk of melt-in-the-mouth deliciousness. “You think Sheldon Voss is a charlatan?”

  “I know it, and I know you know it.” Mrs. Wyatt spooned sugar into her coffee and stirred it leisurely. “We don’t often receive manna from heaven, so when it comes our way, we’re not disposed to question the whys and wherefores. But between you, me, and my rhubarb pie, we knew that money was intended for the eighth floor.”

  Kathryn knew a rat when she smelled one and she’d been smelling one since she learned where Voss’s Quarter Cans were supposed to be delivered. “The eighth floor is why I’m here. It houses the FBI, doesn’t it?”

  Mrs. Wyatt closed her office door; the chatter of typewriters and telephones dropped away. “Officially, the eighth and ninth floors of our building are unoccupied, but we hear them walking around, sometimes yelling fit to wake Beelzebub himself. Those agents, they’re all cut from the same cookie mold. They think they blend in, but they don’t. When you’re riding the elevator with a Bureau boy, you know it.”

  “Do you ever speak with any of them?” Kathryn asked.

  “We ain’t nothing but a bunch of black women, but I’ll tell you something for nothing: word around the building is that the FBI’s LA office has gone rogue.”

  Kathryn pushed away the rest of her pie; she simply couldn’t finish such a huge wedge. “You don’t say.”

  “The week ahead of Voss’s broadcast, this building was swarming with Voss Vanguards mixing with them Bureau boys. They were in cahoots and ain’t nobody going to tell me any different.”

  “Has Voss ever shown his face around here?”

  The woman’s mouth flattened into a determined line. “I’m not about to let some two-faced hustler like that claw back one single quarter. Not that that’s likely, considering what’s happened.”

  After Voss’s Sea to Shining Sea March, which had culminated in a tent revival meeting in MacArthur Park, Kathryn had expected Voss would announce a new venture. Perhaps another march from California back to Washington, DC, or a radio show, or maybe he’d build his own church. But instead, the most publicity-hungry media celebrity of 1953 had disappeared like he’d been nothing more than a mass hallucination.

  Both the public and the press—Kathryn included—began to speculate whether Voss’s vanishing act was a replay of Aimee Semple McPherson’s “disappearance,” when she resurfaced a few weeks later with a patently phony kidnapping story.

  But Voss was too wily, too greedy, and far too egotistical to stay out of sight for long. Kathryn hoped Cornelia might have had a Voss sighting she was keeping to herself—Kathryn was desperate to find the guy. Minutes before she’d walked on stage to announce his “donation,” Voss had admitted to Kathryn that he’d helped frame her father’s conviction for treason. As far as she was concerned, Voss was the reason why Thomas Danford was in Sing Sing and only he held the key to getting her father exonerated.

  Voss going to ground was a wrinkle she hadn’t counted on. But nor was this information that the LA office was playing outside the FBI rule book. Could she use it as leverage?

  “Bad day?” Leo asked, snapping Kathryn back into the present. She hadn’t shared with him what she’d learned since the night of the meeting. She felt like she was wading into a murky pit of morally questionable quicksand. The more she shielded him from it, the quicker he could claim ignorance in case the situation became dire.

  “Kathryn, my darling! How are you?”

  Edith Head emerged from the crowd, her arms outstretched.

  “I hear your work on Roman Holiday is Oscar-worthy,” Kathryn said.

  “We’ll see,” Edith responded, feigning indifference. “That girl is all bones and long limbs, so it was a challenge to camouflage her flaws.”

  “If the production stills are anything to go by, I’d say you’ve pulled it off.”

  “Only if it works on screen.” Edith permitted herself an inscrutable smile. “Of course, I’ve encountered no such problems with Grace on To Catch a Thief.”

  The other big news over the summer of ’53 was how Alfred Hitchcock had lured Cary Grant out of self-imposed retirement. Cary had declared that the rise of Method actors like Marlon Brando meant that moviegoers were no longer interested in seeing his style of screen acting. Six months later Hitchcock cast him opposite Grace Kelly.

  “As soon as Grace walked into my office,” Edith went on, “I had inspiration for half a dozen outfits. If I couldn’t use them in the movie, I knew any of them could be part of her press junket wardrobe. We’re a match made in heaven. Her words, not mine.”

  The front doors of the Carthay Circle Theater swished opened and a thick knot of people marched in. At its center stood the svelte figure of Audrey Hepburn in a white strapless dress.

  “She really is like a swan, isn’t she?” Kathryn commented. “That beautiful, long neck.” Now that she could see The Other Hepburn in person, Kathryn felt bad for having dismissed her so cavalierly.

  “She’s a sweet little thing,” Edith said. “How she’ll survive the minefields of Hollywood is anyone’s guess.”

  A semicircle of flashbulbs besieged Hepburn.

  “Someone needs to hand her a cheeseburger.” Kathryn took out her notebook again and scribbled down a few observations. “Look at those collarbones.”

  “She confided in me how hard it is for her to keep the weight on. Chronic starvation during the war, apparently.”

  Hepburn caught sight of Edith and gave a little wave. She glided her hand down the white tulle and gave Edith
the thumbs-up. She looked like she wanted to stop for a chat, but the momentum of her entourage propelled her into the auditorium.

  Kathryn finished off the last of her manhattan, bid Edith farewell, and took Leo’s arm.

  Paramount had allocated them seats in the eleventh row, directly behind James Mason, who was about to start work on Judy Garland’s A Star is Born remake at Warners. He was keenly aware that he’d gotten the part of Norman Maine after more than a dozen actors had knocked it back, including Bogart, Flynn, and Peck. He’d told Kathryn he was going to give the best he could to what was probably a thankless role in the shadow of a towering talent like Garland making her comeback.

  They were still chatting when the house lights went down and the credits began to roll. The travelogue of images around Rome—the Colosseum, the Forum, Vatican City—reminded Kathryn how deeply she missed Marcus. To anyone who didn’t know him better, his frequent letters told of an enchanted life: three-hour lunches of mouth-watering pasta and smooth chianti, sunset walks through the gardens of the Villa Borghese, people-watching on the Piazza Navona. But she also knew of a recent trans-Atlantic phone call. Marcus’s frustration over being trapped in Rome seeped between the lines.

  Around about the scene where Gregory Peck shocks Audrey Hepburn by pretending to have lost his hand in the Mouth of Truth, Kathryn’s attention began to splinter from the charming romantic comedy unspooling on the screen.

  A four-word phrase repeated over and over in her head.

  To Catch a Thief.

  To Catch a Thief.

  To Catch a Thief.

  Sheldon Voss was a thief. She didn’t believe for a minute that he was gone for good. Ruthless shysters like that aren’t easily thwarted. But he had hidden himself away so well that nobody could find him. If Kathryn was going to get her father exonerated, she had to do it by either luring Voss out of hiding or sending someone on his trail. A job like that took a professional.

  Her mind turned to the private eye she had employed to look into Voss’s murky past. When she’d first met Dudley Hartman, she hadn’t been immediately impressed. She’d been hoping for a bulldog, but he’d struck her as more of a basset hound. He did come up with the goods, though.