City of Myths

by Martin Turnbull

  “I’m gathering together a welcome party to make a fuss when he arrives. You know, the usual movie star ego stuff.”

  “I don’t know that Gable’s the sort who responds to—”

  “I want you to be a sheepdog.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Discreetly, of course. There’s going to be at least twenty people there, so I need someone to herd them together. Not too close, but not too spread out, either.”

  “Okay.” Gwendolyn wasn’t sure if she had any herding skills.

  “But before that whole circus starts, I wanted to talk about Marilyn.”

  This is why I’ve really been summoned.

  “If I can get the King and Queen of Hollywood together in the same picture, the marquee value alone would be worth a couple of million in box office. I had to give him co-star approval, so I want you to convince him to replace Susan Hayward with Marilyn.”

  “But they start in about an hour.”

  “The public only cares about the finished product. A week or so to get Marilyn up to speed is nothing in the long run.”

  Gwendolyn went to ask him if that was a wise move considering Gable was in his fifties and Marilyn was only twenty-eight. But she kept her trap shut when she realized the age gap was roughly the same between Zanuck and Darvi.

  “I hate to be the one to break it to you, boss, but Marilyn has hightailed it to New York and she’s not likely to return any time soon.”

  “New York? What the hell’s she doing there? Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I assumed—”

  “Your job isn’t to assume. It’s to apprise me of any major decisions Marilyn makes that might affect my shooting schedule.”

  “Including pictures she isn’t cast in?”

  “INCLUDING EVERYTHING!” He walloped the top of his desk. “You should have kept a shorter leash on her.”

  “She’s a grown woman, not a Chihuahua.” Gwendolyn could feel the thin ice cracking below her feet but she didn’t care. I’ll find some other way to repay the bank. “Besides, it’s your own fault.”

  “What is?”

  She plunked her handbag onto his desk. “Aren’t you the one who suggested DiMaggio use Barney Ruditsky to trail Marilyn?”

  His smile was part surprise, part impressed, part arrogance.

  “I suggested it to Sinatra.”

  “Well, it worked out peachy-keen, didn’t it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The night of the fifth? At Sheila Stewart’s apartment?”

  Blank face.

  Gwendolyn laid out for him the events of the previous week. “So you see,” she finished up, “you’re going to have to work hard to get her back to Hollywood.”

  He rubbed his hand along the rigid line of his jaw. “Who else knows about this?”

  You mean apart from Kathryn Massey, Walter Winchell, and probably Robert Harrison by now? “It was just us three girls in the apartment, and poor old Florence downstairs. Beyond that, I couldn’t say.”

  “Shit! SHIT!” Zanuck returned to his side of the desk. “Why is this business so hard?”

  “You’d prefer to run a paintbrush factory?” Gwendolyn asked.

  “THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” Zanuck exploded. “Everyone thinks it’s easy massaging egos, juggling schedules, begging for bank loans, staying up all night to fix a story only to be told the next morning that your leading lady doesn’t like it because the rain storm is going to muss her hair.”

  Gwendolyn heard a piercing crack in the ice beneath her. “I’m sorry, boss. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I brought you in as a special assistant. I never said, nor did I imply, that the job came with the privilege of telling me I’ve fucked up.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “And quit calling me that. I want to hear ‘sir’ or ‘Mister Zanuck.’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He started straightening piles of papers that didn’t need tidying. “As far as Soldier of Fortune goes, I’m assigning you to keep Gable happy during the shoot.”

  The almost imperceptible way he hesitated before the word “happy” set Gwendolyn on edge. “What do you mean, ‘keep him happy’?”

  “Whatever he needs, take care of it.”

  That pause. Whatever he . . . needs. “Could you be more specific?”

  “I had to move heaven and earth to get Gable here, and I want to ensure he’s glad that he signed on with us. You’re a woman—you know what it takes to keep a man satisfied.”

  Zanuck’s office door swung open and Edward Dmytryk walked in with the studio’s head of P.R., along with a pair of flunkies and a photographer. Gwendolyn slipped on a bland smile and retreated to a wall while Zanuck greeted them with a round of handshakes. They were going over the morning’s plan when Hedda Hopper arrived.

  Unlike Louella Parsons, who was now well into her seventies, strongly conservative Hedda was hitting her stride amid the post-war, post-HUAC, post-McCarthy, mid-Eisenhower era. Consequently, Zanuck couldn’t afford to piss her off. He reassured her that it was wonderful to see her, and that her inclusion in “our little welcome wagon” delighted him.

  Although Hedda had contributed to the demise of her store, Gwendolyn wasn’t sure Hedda knew what she looked like. In case she did, Gwendolyn tried to fade into the background, mulling over Zanuck’s last statement.

  You know what it takes to keep a man satisfied.

  She wanted to think that Zanuck meant Make his coffee how he likes it and ensure a supply of his favorite cigarettes is always on hand, but those words—“keep a man satisfied.” It was hard not to interpret them any way but horizontally.

  * * *

  Zanuck’s eighteen-member cheer squad applauded when Gable walked onto the Chinese restaurant set.

  Zanuck grasped Gable’s hand. “Welcome! Welcome!” He sounded like a circus ringmaster playing to a crowd of thousands. “We’re so pleased to have you here on what I know will be a thrilling picture. Let me introduce you around.” He presented his prize pig to Dmytryk and Hedda and the principal actors: Susan Hayward, Michael Rennie, Gene Barry, Anna Sten.

  Gable had arrived on his own: no agent or assistant, publicity person, manager, or hangers-on. If he was anxious about making his first picture since escaping MGM, Gwendolyn saw no signs of it. He exuded all the charm and self-confidence that had made him a major screen star for the past quarter-century.

  “And finally,” Zanuck said, “this is Gwendolyn Brick. You know each other, I believe.”

  Gable smiled. “We do.” He gave a slight bow. “Nice to see you.”

  “Gwendolyn is the girl I mentioned,” Zanuck said.

  “She is?”

  “If you need anything, Gwendolyn is your point man—er, point girl, as the case may be.”

  Gable continued to stare at Gwendolyn, more than a little disconcerted, as Zanuck turned back to the gathering. “It’s time I left things in Ed’s capable hands. I wish you all well!”

  He swept out of the soundstage like an emperor.

  Gwendolyn ran after him. “What am I supposed to do? Hang around in there?”

  “Yes,” he barked. “You’re to do exactly that.”

  * * *

  Gwendolyn took a seat at one of the tables on the Chinese restaurant set and tried to look interested as Dmytryk led his cast through their first table-read of the script.

  If she’d known she was going to be sitting around for hours on end, she could have brought along a sewing project, or written a letter to Marcus, or finished the new Edna Ferber book, Giant.

  But no.

  She was a well-paid piece of objet d’art waiting until somebody wanted something that she wasn’t sure she was willing to give.

  Surely he didn’t promise Clark that he could just . . . After all, their womanizer reputations aren’t unwarranted. But I’m forty-four years old, for goodness sake. If Zanuck was going to offer up the services of a companion, surely he’d have enlisted any one of the kewp
ies under contract.

  Gwendolyn tried to put questions she couldn’t answer out of her mind and focused instead on watching the cast work through each page, stopping to clarify a motivation or polish a line. The tactic worked for short intervals but her thoughts kept straying.

  Clark’s first wife had been seventeen years older than him, and so was his second. Lombard had been younger, but Sylvia Ashley, whom Gable had divorced a couple of years ago, was five or six years older than Gwendolyn.

  When the company broke for lunch, Clark wandered away from the table. Gwendolyn expected Dmytryk would corral him, but his cinematographer waylaid him. Gwendolyn marched up to Clark as he was putting on the jacket of his impeccable gabardine three-piece suit. “I imagine you’re hungry?”

  Those famous Gable dimples dented his face as he grinned. “Famished.”

  “The commissary makes out like it’s French, but it’s more like American-French. Let me take you there.”

  He lifted his hand in the direction of a cabin standing in a corner of the soundstage. It was painted an unobtrusive dark blue; Gwendolyn hadn’t even noticed it. “I ordered lunch for two to be served in my dressing room.”

  A combined living room/dining room made up nearly half the space. The other half contained a bathroom and makeup table, and beyond that a bedroom with a double bed. A pair of large paintings of Half-Dome at Yosemite and Old Faithful at Yellowstone filled the back wall.

  “Cozy,” Gwendolyn commented.

  “It was Zanuck’s idea,” Clark said, “but I chose the décor.”

  She ran her finger down the wall that separated the living room from the bedroom. “What color do you call this paint?”

  “Californian Avocado. I find it calming. If Zanuck’s going to the trouble to build me a whole bungalow, I figured I might as well get what I want.”

  The dining table was set for two: Caesar salad, cold meats, cottage cheese, and sliced tomatoes.

  Clark pulled out a chair for Gwendolyn. “You have the whole menu to choose from,” she said. “Nothing hot?”

  “Not during the daytime. That’s dinner to my way of thinking, but if you’d prefer a hot dish, I could call—”

  “Mr. Gable—”

  “When it’s just us, the name is Clark.”

  “Clark, it appears that I am the person you call when you want a hot dish.”

  A warm blush prickled her face. If a program of pre-war love songs hadn’t been playing on the cathedral radio set in the corner, the silence mushrooming between them would have been unbearable. He broke it first.

  “Can we clear the air?”

  Gwendolyn clutched her fork like a spear. “I sure hope so.”

  “I was told to expect an assistant to attend to my every need, but I didn’t know it would be you. I must say, though, I was pleasantly surprised.”

  “That’s very nice of you to say.”

  “I’ll always be grateful for how you organized Judy to be at Ciro’s that night. I was able to watch her for hours.”

  “I’m glad I could make it happen. I could bring her to the set—”

  “No! I’d be self-conscious with her around. And I’m insecure enough working at a new studio.”

  “You? Insecure? I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Because I’m Clark Gable?”

  His withering tone made her realize that the man sitting opposite her could play self-possessed newspapermen, aviators, and big-game hunters better than anybody else in the business, but that didn’t mean he was one himself.

  She finished her final bite of Caesar salad and pushed the plate away. “My instructions are to do whatever is necessary to keep you happy. So if there’s anything I can do to alleviate anxiety, let me know.”

  The smile that surfaced on Gable’s face was hard to read. Smug without arrogance, relief tinged with expectation.

  “Including . . .?” He glanced at the bed in the room behind him, then turned back.

  Conflicting emotions avalanched over Gwendolyn, stifling her breath, choking off her voice.

  I’m not a hooker. I’m not a chess pawn. I have a choice. I can say no. I can get up and walk out. But Zanuck’ll fire me. And then what? Go out and get a regular job for a quarter of the dough? Spend the next ten years paying off my debt? Or I could go in there. Sure I could. I’m not married. It’s not like I haven’t had casual flings. I’ve been around. But this is different. It feels like business. Will I walk out afterwards feeling like a cheap slut?

  Gable finished his salad. He pulled the napkin from his lap and slowly wiped it across his lips.

  On the other hand, you’ve got Clark Gable sitting in front of you, offering a tumble in the hay. Thousands—no, millions—of women would have jumped as soon as he said “including.” What the hell are you waiting for? Zanuck’s permission? I don’t think so. This one’s for ME.

  Gwendolyn uncrossed her legs and pushed away from the table. “They give us an hour for lunch,” she told him. “We’ve still got forty-eight minutes.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Marcus stood in the middle of the Piazza Adriana on the outskirts of Tivoli and surveyed the church facing him. Soaring four stories high, it held a ten-foot oval stained-glass window depicting a monk dressed in a brown Franciscan habit with a golden aura extending from his shaved scalp. In one hand he held a small child bearing a similar aura; a bouquet of lilies rested in the other. A pair of bell towers rose overhead with pyramid-shaped roofs painted fire-engine red.

  St. Anthony was the patron saint of the poor, so Marcus had been picturing a squat building of dreary bricks, disintegrating speck by speck as penniless monks fed the unfortunate with thin gruel and three-day-old bread. But the marble façade depicting St. Anthony’s life, its wooden doors carved with flowers, trees, and plants, with brass bells polished to a high sheen, wasn’t what Marcus had been picturing, but that was okay. This majestic church might have intimidated him if he’d taken this trip a month ago, but he was different now.

  * * *

  Errol’s question—Are you hanging onto your past?—had preoccupied Marcus for days. He hated to admit it, but the answer was “Yes.”

  Domenico was everything Marcus wanted from a boyfriend: loving, funny, honest, uninhibited, tactile when they were alone, and ingenious at finding ways to express his affection when they weren’t. But it was Oliver who continued to haunt his dreams and Marcus was getting sick of it.

  “Forget about him,” Trevor had said. “Let him rot in his scratchy monk’s robe.”

  It sounded like sensible advice, but every time Marcus sat down at a café, the waiter would bring a basket of bread and a bottle of olive oil with the Franciscan monk on the label. He would stare at the damned thing wondering, Am I not letting go of my history, or is it not letting go of me?

  After Gwendolyn’s letter had arrived, with the news about DiMaggio and Sinatra busting down the wrong door and how she’d torn into Sinatra, he’d lived in daily hope that those two Immigration department officials would come knocking.

  Days ticked by. Nobody knocked.

  Rumors of Sinatra’s connection with the mafia had been circulating Hollywood. Domenico had mentioned that Napoleon Conti had mafia connections too. Was it such a stretch to draw a line connecting Sinatra to Napoleon?

  The longer he’d dwelled on it, the angrier he’d got. Soon, he was throwing cigarette lighters across a room when they ceased to work properly, and yanking typewriter ribbons out of their spools when Horatius at the Bridge refused to coalesce into a workable screenplay.

  His dreams had grown more intense. In a particularly heated one, he and Sinatra were standing on the Garden’s diving board having a sword fight using billiard cues made from rigid rattlesnakes. If they fell into the pool, the snakes would come alive. Halfway through the dream, Sinatra had turned into Oliver, and Marcus had become doubly angry and fought doubly hard to force Sinatra-Oliver into the water.

  Anger-fueled fantasies filled his waking hours. He would ima
gine pounding on the monastery doors until they permitted him inside. They would bring Oliver to see him and Marcus would unshackle his frustrations.

  What was so wrong with us that you had to go and join a monastery?

  Did a life without relationships, without sex, without companionship, seem like the better choice than a life with me?

  He would scream as he cornered Oliver in some over-decorated church.

  How could you say goodbye in a goddamned note?

  After everything we’d been through, you ended us with a Dear John letter?

  The depth of his fury alarmed him, but when he thought of Oliver, a steaming geyser of resentment would rise inside him.

  I deserved better. I want an explanation and I’m here to get it.

  Every time he acted out the scene in his head, it ended with Oliver dissolving in guilty tears, begging for forgiveness. You’re nuts, he would tell himself later. Even if that’s Oliver on the label, the chances that he actually lives at St Anthony’s are dim.

  So like any man in his position, he hid this emotional turmoil from his boyfriend under a steady flow of lunchtime prosecco, afternoon whiskey, chianti with dinner, and brandy afterwards.

  Marcus knew what he should do: Jump on that goddamned bus to Tivoli and pound on that goddamned monastery door and insist on seeing the goddamned guy on their goddamned olive oil bottle. But did he want Oliver’s final image of him to be angry-eyed and spittle-mouthed? The bus ride would have to wait, he’d told himself, until he’d drained that reservoir of resentment.

  Everything had changed when Gwendolyn’s cable arrived, telling him her plans regarding Bella Darvi. She instructed him to steer the glacial beauty through press interviews and photo shoots in the lead-up to The Egyptian premiere.

  Between Kathryn’s letter detailing Bella’s candid admission that she slept with men and women, and the on-set gossip during Barefoot Contessa, Marcus had expected an elegant ice queen who uttered as few words as possible—and it’s exactly what he got. Even smiling for the press seemed like a herculean effort for her.