Kathryn wasn’t surprised, though. None of his recent movies had set the world on fire, but he refused to consider a shift to television like so many of his contemporaries. She had overheard Clark tell someone at the Betrayed premiere that he didn’t approve of television because it was destroying the industry he loved. “I owe everything to the movies,” he declared, “and I’m not about to desert them now.”
She’d quoted him in her column, and the next day received an invitation to what Clark was calling his “Exit Party” to celebrate his freedom.
The smooth notes of Eddie Fisher’s recording of “I’m in the Mood for Love” swam through an airy foyer that led to a long living room with all the windows flung open. The place was how Kathryn had always pictured it—wood paneling, firearms mounted on wall brackets, and even a matching pair of rocking chairs.
Following the laughter filtering from the back patio, Kathryn stepped onto a wooden deck and encountered Myrna Loy holding a filled champagne flute in each hand.
“One of these was for my husband,” she explained, “but he’s wandered off with John Ford and Victor Mature, talking about hunting.” She gave one to Kathryn. They clinked glasses. “Clark asked me to keep an eye out for you.”
Kathryn thought of the night when Zanuck showed off his virility at Ciro’s. His antic had made the papers the next day and a few days later Look magazine published a photo.
While Zanuck had been performing for his mistress, Kathryn had been observing Clark as he watched his daughter take in the spectacle playing out in front of her. When Kathryn caught Clark’s eye, he’d looked away, embarrassed at being caught out. She’d kept expecting him to look back, perhaps nod hello or offer up a you-caught-me shrug, but he didn’t.
Myrna angled herself toward Kathryn’s ear. “Are you and Winchell feuding?”
“I haven’t laid eyes on him in a couple of years.” No thanks to Ava.
“He’ll be here today.” Myrna sipped her champagne and eyeballed Howard Strickling, who’d headed up MGM’s publicity department for more years than Kathryn could remember. He’d accompanied Clark to Carole’s plane crash site, so it was no surprise that he was here today. But Winchell? Had he let it be known that he wanted to come and Gable had recruited Strickling as a chaperone?
There’s no such thing as “just a party” in Hollywood.
“Did Winchell invite himself?”
“Clark said to send you into the den and he’ll meet you there.” Myrna pointed to a wing facing the stables. “And when you do, note how much MGM you’ll see in the place.”
“What do you mean?”
“The moment Clark got home from his last day, he got rid of every little bit of MGM paraphernalia.” Myrna winked a knowing eye. “Except one.”
* * *
Clark’s den was a large square, and paneled floor to ceiling in light wood. An extra-long rifle hung from a pair of brackets over a window bordered with calico drapes with a dark green hedge pattern. A triangular cabinet sat snugly in the corner next to a small card table. On it sat a framed picture of Clark and Grace Kelly walking along a dirt road. From his safari hunter uniform, Kathryn guessed it had been taken on the set of Mogambo.
The photo was mounted in a frame made of deliberately rough wood to match the décor. A feminine hand had written the word “Memories!” below Grace Kelly’s right foot.
Stars getting together after the cameras stopped rolling was virtually de rigueur—especially for movies shot on location, away from suspicious spouses. When Kathryn had caught wind of a hot and heavy rumor about Gable and Kelly, she had hardly been surprised. She supposed that once the company returned home, the affair had gone the way of its predecessors, but if this photo truly was the sole MGM souvenir he had kept in his home—
“We didn’t get along too well at first.”
In an open-necked shirt with a horseshoe pattern and a freshly lit cigarette, Clark looked more relaxed than he had in a while.
“You and Grace?” she asked.
“Me and Myrna.”
Kathryn returned the photo frame to the triangular cabinet. “Her instructions were to meet you in the den. How very Hercule Poirot of you.”
She meant it as a light jest to leaven the somber air that had followed him into the room, but it fell with a dull thud on the red Southwestern-style rug.
He said, “I want your advice.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Jane Russell and her husband are forming a production company, and one of their projects is called The King and Four Queens. Sort of a comedy-drama-western. They’ve asked me if I’d like to co-produce the movie with them and I want to know what you think.”
And give what could turn out to be the misguided advice that capsized the greatest screen career to have ever come out of Hollywood? No thanks.
“Jimmy Stewart’s the person you should be talking to.”
“Why is that?”
“A couple of months ago, I was at Paramount to see Hitchcock’s Rear Window set, and Jimmy Stewart told me that Universal first offered him two hundred thousand to make Winchester ’73. But he decided to take a chance and countered with a smaller acting fee plus a cut of the profits.”
Clark nodded thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on the drapes. “Did he tell you how much he earned?”
“Six hundred grand.”
He blew out a plume of white smoke that reached the window. Every inch of his frame radiated relaxed geniality. Not all stars had managed to age this well. The last time she’d seen Errol Flynn was in The Master of Ballantrae. She knew enough about movie lighting to know that they must have spent a great deal of time getting him to look halfway decent.
Clark broke into a dimpled grin. “I knew you were the one to ask.”
“Don’t you have a manager or an agent?”
“Sure I do, but they have a vested interest in prodding clients toward the biggest paycheck. But you’re a straight shooter with a good grip on what’s going on.”
She gazed up into his gray-green eyes. Like Gwendolyn, she’d grown up missing out on knowing who her real father was. It had left a man-sized hole in her life that she was only now getting around to filling. Don’t be that dad, she wanted to tell him. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
His brows wrinkled together. “You’re looking at me kinda goofy.”
“I was thinking about that crazy night at Ciro’s,” Kathryn prodded. “After Zanuck did those pull-ups on the trapeze, you took to the dance floor with Jane Russell and every pair of eyes was on you.”
Clark lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “I noticed you watching.”
Me watching you dance with Jane? Or you watching Judy watching Kay? She was still formulating a clever response when Walter Winchell strode into the den like he was Lord Cardigan leading the charge of the Light Brigade.
“There you are, Gable, ol’ sport. I’ve been looking all over for you!”
Clark stepped forward to greet Winchell, revealing Kathryn behind him.
Winchell smiled in anything but genuine surprise. “And Miss Massey. If you’re the two birds, I must be the one stone.”
Neither telephone, telegram, nor mail had helped Kathryn contact Winchell. She’d have tried smoke signals or carrier pigeon if she’d thought it would do any good, but now the man she liked the least but needed the most was within handcuffing distance. He presented her with a token nod as he spirited Clark away. Determined not to lose him, Kathryn followed the two men to the patio bar.
Kathryn lingered within direct eye contact as Winchell worked through the crowd. The guests greeted him with pleased-to-meetcha handshakes as though to prove Myrna’s declaration that nobody says no to Winchell.
She stuck around through a long conversation with John Ford’s wife, Mary, about their days at the Hollywood Canteen. Later, she endured a one-sided monolog from Clark’s stunt double on Mogambo, who’d also been the location manager on The African Queen. He was still filling Kathryn’s ear when the maid wheeled o
ut an enormous chocolate cake frosted with the single word “FREEDOM” in large pink lettering.
Clark waved down the applause. “I’m very thankful for everything MGM has given me over the years,” he told the group, “but times change and we must change with them, otherwise we risk getting stampeded by the onslaught of progress.” He plunged his carving knife into the cake. “This isn’t the freedom from MGM. It’s the freedom to pursue opportunities.”
John Ford led the group in a trio of hip-hip-hoorays for their host and wished Clark well on whatever successes awaited him.
It was a long time to be standing in heels on a stone patio, and Kathryn was looking around for a chair or a bench when she heard America’s most famous radio voice behind her.
“The next time you want my attention, may I suggest you don’t send Ava as your emissary?” Winchell made a pretense of contemplating the freshly filled glass of champagne he’d elevated to eye level.
“You could have replied to the myriad telegrams, letters, and phone messages I left with your secretary.”
“I wanted to see how desperate you were, because I doubt that you trust me any more than I trust you.”
A gravel path led down a gentle slope and into a grove of cypress pines. A bench of burnished copper slate sat in front of the largest one. She suggested they take a stroll, and said nothing until they were settled on the bench.
“As you know, Sheldon Voss admitted to me that he helped frame my father.”
“But Voss is still AWOL,” Winchell pointed out.
Kathryn nodded. “As I’m sure you can appreciate, I want my father to be exonerated. With Voss missing indefinitely, I need access to the files the FBI collected on Thomas Danford.”
“What makes you think they have a file on him at all?”
Kathryn threw him a look that said The FBI has a file on everybody. Winchell didn’t argue the point but instead nodded for her to continue.
“The fastest way to get a look-see on those files is via J. Edgar Hoover—”
“And he kind of hates you.”
Kathryn knew Hoover wasn’t her biggest fan, but it hadn’t crossed her mind that he actively hated her. “That may or may not be true—”
“Believe me.”
Kathryn wished she’d grabbed a drink from a passing waiter. At the very least, the flute would have kept her hands busy. “Here’s my proposal: You go to Hoover and tell him about Voss laundering money through the FBI’s LA office.”
“Hoover has his finger in every pie in the FBI bakery. He’d know if the Los Angeles office had gone rogue.”
“If he doesn’t, it’ll be quite a feather in your cap.”
“You got proof?”
“Didn’t you think it strange that Sheldon Voss handed his donations to the National Council of Negro Women?” The tentativeness in his eyes told her that he did. “Did you know that the offices of the NCNW are directly below the FBI’s LA bureau?”
“Are you saying that the National Council of Negro Women are helping the FBI office to launder money?”
“God, no! They helped me fit the final jigsaw puzzle piece.” He didn’t laugh her off the bench so she faced him more squarely. “I’m no Hoover fan, but I do know he has a very strict moral code. A little twisted, in my view, but that’s beside the point.”
“What is your point?”
“He’ll be horrified to know his LA office is involved in money laundering.”
“We can agree on that, at least.”
“You bring him this information and in return, you ask for access to Thomas Danford’s files. When his innocence is proven, you can take all the credit for righting the wrong that befell an unjustly imprisoned American.”
Up the hillside, someone had slapped Kay Starr onto Clark’s record player; she was belting out “Wheel of Fortune” as though her life depended on it.
“What’s with all this altruism when you could claim the glory for yourself?”
“I don’t want to be publicly connected to Thomas Danford; I just want to see him released from jail. So will you do it? You’ll get gobs of inches out of the whole thing.”
“Yes, but do you trust me with the contents of your father’s FBI file?”
“What if our situation was reversed?” she asked.
He gave her a down-up-down lookover: Not a chance in hell. But if this was what it took to get her father exonerated, it would all be worth it.
Winchell chewed over her offer for a few more seconds—longer than he needed, but enough time to make her squirm. “I haven’t been on a juicy crusade in ages,” he admitted. “What the hell. Sure. Okay.” He shot to his feet and tipped the brim of his fedora.
She watched him amble back to the house as though they’d been discussing nothing more exciting than the recent renaming of the Pasadena Freeway.
The heat of a panic spread across Kathryn’s chest like sunburn.
Is this what it feels like to make a deal with the devil?
CHAPTER 18
Marcus and Domenico wandered through the deserted theater foyer and onto the sidewalk. They stopped in front of a poster featuring a girl with her arms outstretched in alarm over the title “Destinazione . . . Terra!”
“It was stupido, no?” Domenico asked.
Marcus grinned to himself. It was the dumbest movie he’d seen in forever. The plot was illogical, the acting was overripe, the dialogue was wooden, and the special effects were anything but special. It Came from Outer Space represented the nadir of American cinema—but he loved it with an unprecedented level of patriotic fervor. Being six thousand miles from the nearest cheeseburger, large fries, and strawberry thick shake made Marcus yearn for anything American.
“It was very stupido,” he agreed.
“We could have watched the new Roberto Rossellini instead. Why didn’t we see that?”
Because Italian movies are so gritty and earnest. I was desperate for some all-American nonsense.
Marcus turned away from the poster.
“You miss them, don’t you, my Marcus Aurelius?” Domenico asked.
“Who?”
“Signore Bogart, Signorina Bacall, Signorina Gardner.”
The day before Joe Mankiewicz left for the States, he had taken Marcus to a bistro for lunch and told him of Zanuck’s decision to film The Egyptian in Los Angeles so he no longer required the penthouse in Melody’s building.
“I’m sure Zanuck was looking forward to banging that girl all summer, but the budget worked out better if they shot in LA so he was forced to zip it up.” Mank sprinkled crushed chili peppers on his quattro formaggi pizza, “On the plus side, Zanuck was very happy with your production shots. You should also know that he’s less than happy with the Carmen Jones screenplay and needs someone to punch it up. They start filming in June.”
It was exactly the sort of opportunity Marcus had been hoping for to relaunch him onto the Hollywood scene. “Who’s directing?” he asked Mank.
“Preminger.”
“We worked together on The Moon is Blue, and I was instrumental in helping them blunt the power of the Breen Office.” In truth, “instrumental” overstated Marcus’s role, but Hollywood was a town that thrived on dramatics. “Maybe you could suggest to Zanuck that I would be the right guy for Carmen Jones.”
Mank pulled a string of mozzarella out of his teeth. “You’re better off aiming for The Virgin Queen. Bette Davis is doing Elizabeth I again and she’ll be pulling out all the stops. It’s a big-budget costume picture, so Zanuck’s throwing buckets of dough at it. Henry Koster is directing because he made such a success of The Robe, but a reliable source told me the script is a disaster.”
Marcus reminded Mank that he’d been gone a while, so he doubted anyone would hand him a prestige picture. Mank nodded as he chewed. “There’s always a pile of projects going on, so don’t worry.”
They were encouraging words, but you were only as good as the last favor you did for someone.
Marcus and Domenico wal
ked away from the cinema. “Sure I miss them. We’ve lived in the same hotel at one time or another. Being together again was like Old Home Week.”
“What is ‘Old Home Week’?”
“It’s what you call a reunion with people you haven’t seen in a while.”
Domenico was always keen to improve his English and pounced on unfamiliar English phrases. Marcus gave him a full explanation, as he had also done with Rossano Brazzi, who had proved to be a diligent student. Fox had hinted that they were planning to bring him to the States and promote him as the next big thing in European lovers, so Brazzi was keen to master English as best he could.
But months and months of having to halt a conversation and explain what taking a rain check meant, or who Will Rogers was, had left Marcus wishing he could have a regular conversation with regular Americans. He’d got his fill being around Mank, Bogie, Bacall, and Ava, but their departure had opened a need in Marcus that even someone as thoughtful as Domenico couldn’t fill.
They arrived at the corner of a busy intersection where a newsstand butted up against an ancient bank building.
Domenico pulled Marcus toward it. “Look!” he exclaimed, “they are still selling your Epoca.”
In early February, Epoca had splashed Marcus’s photos of Melody in front of the Triton Fountain in Piazza Barberini across a four-page spread and saved the best one for the cover. Everyone had talked about the photo of Melody holding her shoes aloft as she romped around the knee-deep water, her sunglasses skewed off her face.
A month later, Epoca featured an article proclaiming Lo Scattino Americano as the most skilled street photographer in Rome. “Perhaps it takes an outsider to capture post-war life,” the article said, “in the city fast becoming the new European epicenter of film, fashion, and café society.”
Domenico bid him arrivederci and told him that last-minute reshoots on the new Fellini movie, La Strada, were likely to go late into the night. It suited Marcus—he wanted to include a letter to the girls with the Epoca he bought at the newsstand. But when he returned home, Signora Scatena flung open her front door, a registered letter fluttering in her hand.
City of Myths Page 14
