Platinum Doll

by Anne Girard

Rosalie’s smile faded a degree. “Gee, honey, I’d really like to tell you yes, but since they play at the country club, there has to be an invite from one of the swells over there. Real obnoxious, blue-blooded, East Coast types control everything. Ivor only just got his invitation a couple of weeks ago so he’s still on thin ice till they decide if he’s all right or not.” Rosalie lowered her voice and leaned nearer. “Between you and me, we both hate having to kiss everyone’s posterior around here, but that’s just the way it is when you’re new in town.”

  “That’s okay, I understand,” Harlean forced herself to say.

  She didn’t really mean it, but she wasn’t about to lose this chance with a girl who could show her the ropes. She would need determination in the coming days to get ahead with this tony group. Besides, she really did like Rosalie. She had an infectious laugh and a sweet, sincere disposition. She hadn’t grown up with many girlfriends so this meant a great deal to her.

  “Let’s go see what you’ve got to wear to lunch. The Brown Derby is becoming pretty exclusive, so we’ve got to look the part if we don’t want a table back near the kitchen.”

  “I thought you were an actress,” Harlean said.

  “For now I’m just an extra. If I’m lucky I get a walk-on here and there. But that sure as heck doesn’t mean I can’t act! You’ll see what I mean tomorrow,” she said conspiratorially.

  Even though Harlean couldn’t imagine what Rosalie meant, she was certain lunch was going to be interesting.

  * * *

  Harlean and Rosalie drove to lunch just before noon the next day. Chuck had washed the car until it gleamed because he knew how important it was that his wife had a friend in California and they were going off to do something together. Even though it was a warm day, she decided not to put the top down so she wouldn’t ruin the careful wave she’d given to her usually fluffy blond hair.

  The Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard looked just like its name: it was whimsically constructed in the shape of a huge hat. She had read all about the restaurant and the stars who dined there in Photoplay magazine, so she was almost as excited to see the building as to lunch there.

  “Have you a reservation?” the maître d’ asked, using a slightly snotty French accent. Harlean knew enough French from her school days to know that it was fake. The tag on this lapel read “Francois.”

  Rosalie met his gaze unflinchingly. “Lady Helen Crumley, table for two. My secretary phoned. As usual, we’ll have a booth.”

  Harlean watched his reserve dissolve faced with Rosalie’s hauteur and her believable English accent. “Yes, of course, your ladyship, here it is right here. Lovely to see you again. Please, follow me.”

  He fumbled nervously with the menus, and Harlean was relieved that he turned away to usher them inside, or her stunned expression would have given them away. They were shown to one of the coveted booths along the side of the restaurant. After he had bid them a “bon appétit,” Harlean looked at Rosalie over the top of her menu.

  “Where’d you learn to pull that off?”

  “You know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention.”

  “Well, I certainly believed you, and so did he.”

  “People believe what they want to believe, Harlean. I’ve seen him at auditions, so I know his name is Frankie, not Francois. It mattered more to him that he might have seated some distant royalty that he could brag about than the fact that I might be the same kind of struggling, out-of-work actor he is.”

  Incredulous, Harlean shook her head and tried not to smile too broadly. “I can’t believe the table, either. We can see everyone coming and going from here, and most everyone has to pass right by us.”

  “Speaking of that, you’ll never believe who just came through the door.” Trying not to show the awe she felt, Harlean lifted her menu again and carefully peered over the top of it. “Jimmy Cagney himself is coming our way.”

  “I may just die,” Harlean said quietly.

  “Indeed you will not. Lady Crumley and her sister are never cowed by lowly Hollywood players. We, after all, are from the land of Shakespeare and Milton.”

  Harlean glanced up just in time to see the matinee idol pass right beside them. The spicy scent of his cologne lingered. “Jeez, he’s handsome! But not nearly as tall as he looks in the pictures.”

  “That’s because directors have been known to stand him on a crate. I saw it for myself when I was an extra last year in a picture with him.”

  Harlean wished she could order a drink with lunch to tame her open sense of awe and keep it from getting out of control. Her mother had taught her to have a love of gin, although hers was not Chuck’s great passion for it, certainly.

  “Don’t look now,” Rosalie said. “But that’s William Powell sitting across from us. He was just in that picture called The Last Command. And I’m fairly sure that’s Greta Garbo and Irving Thalberg with him. Thalberg is a huge producer over at MGM, even though he looks like a kid.”

  Harlean was certain that Powell was the most attractive man she had ever seen, far more so than on-screen. He had a thin, perfectly groomed mustache, a winning smile, and such strikingly bright blue eyes that she could not stop staring. There was something so debonair and sophisticated about him, not matched by any other Hollywood matinee idol.

  When the waiter came to take their order, Harlean could only follow Rosalie by muttering, “I’ll have the same.” She had no idea what they had ordered, and she could not have cared less. She couldn’t quite believe she was actually here.

  A few minutes later, the striking ingenue Joan Crawford was shown to a table nearby. Harlean would have recognized her anywhere for all of the magazine covers she had graced this past year. She was dressed casually in loose-fitting trousers and a cardigan. It was an easy style Harlean longed to emulate. Casual elegance, her mother called it. If she were a star like Crawford, she would dress just exactly like that. Though the idea of comparing herself, even privately, to a girl like Joan Crawford was slightly absurd.

  Before today, her movie idols had seemed only fantasy beings. Yet here they were, real and wonderful, eating steak and salad, chattering away at lunch tables that looked just like hers. She was a part of it all.

  After lunch, they went down to the Bullocks Wilshire department store, a luxury art deco palace. The display windows along Wilshire Boulevard were full of the latest styles from New York and Paris. Inside, Harlean found a temple to fashion, complete with travertine floors and crystal chandeliers. There were as many fashionably dressed sales clerks as customers, and more attitude than ambiance. She could hardly quell what she knew was her awestruck expression.

  Rosalie led the way straight through the vaulted first floor Perfume Hall as though she absolutely belonged. Harlean hurried behind her, trying in vain to match Rosalie’s confident stride.

  Upstairs in one of the showrooms, Rosalie selected two dresses from the mannequins and asked to see them modeled for her, as was the custom, since the store considered a clutter of hanging racks gauche.

  She marveled at how Rosalie simply refused to be undone by the world, no matter the circumstance, and she understood now that her friend truly was the essence of an actress. She had promised yesterday that Harlean would see it, and she had delivered in spades.

  “It would look great on you,” Harlean said to Rosalie as the model paraded before them in a belted celery-colored dress with a lace collar and cuffs.

  “That’s an awfully expensive ensemble, my dear. Perhaps you would prefer to look at something a bit more...practical,” the middle-aged store clerk suggested.

  Rosalie lifted her chin a fraction as she turned around to face the clerk. “I’m the least practical person you’ll ever meet. So, no, I don’t think so. I’ll take this one. And you can wrap up the other one, too.”

  The woman’s mouth fell open
. “My dear, have you any idea the cost of those two dresses?”

  “Since I have a rich husband who loves to spoil me, no, actually I don’t,” Rosalie replied breezily. “You are all on commission here at this shop, I assume?”

  Harlean watched the silver-haired woman’s demeanor change abruptly and her expression soften. “Why, yes, we are, but of course—”

  “Then today I’ll be buying them from that sales clerk over there. And next time I decide to shop here, you would be wise to leave your attitude in the stockroom if you plan to wait on me, since I almost always buy something expensive, but not from someone with a chip on her shoulder.” She met the woman’s gaze unflinchingly as she tossed a business card onto the countertop. “Charge the dresses to my husband’s account and have them sent to my home.”

  Both girls linked arms proudly once they had gotten a few feet away from the store outside. Harlean was fully realizing just how much she could learn from Rosalie, and she was duly impressed.

  “You really are amazing,” Harlean said with a zeal she could no longer contain.

  “Aw, thanks, honey, but it’s nothing you can’t pick up. No telling where a little ingenuity can take someone like you, too. You’ve got that something extra inside of you, I can tell.”

  Harlean thought that it might just be true since she was quite adept at wrapping her mother and Grandpa Harlow around her finger with ease. In spite of their blustering threats, they both had eventually given in on the subject of Chuck. Her gaze, her pout and her ability to summon tears always won the day. Until now, Harlean hadn’t fully considered the power potential in that. It reminded her of what her mother always said about star quality: it was as elusive as it was indefinable. If you had it you had it, and if you didn’t there was nothing in the world that could change that. Perhaps Rosalie was right.

  “You need to try it,” Rosalie said as they neared the car. “See what that smile of yours, and those brains, can bring you.”

  Men stared at them both as they passed. Some nodded and smiled, another tipped the brim of his fedora.

  “I’m not sure why I’d ever want to find out, since I’ve already got everything I want—Chuck, the new house, certainly plenty of beautiful clothes.”

  “A little adventure, maybe? Nothing against my sweet Ivor, he’s swell, but I just can’t sit around the house all day baking cakes and waiting to have a baby. That’s why I audition. When I get a walk-on or a part, I feel like I did something all on my own—that somehow for just a moment, I stood out.”

  Harlean looked over at her friend as they got in the car. “Chuck is enough adventure for me at the moment. Besides, I watched my mother try and try to get parts all over this town and all she ever got was rejection. You know the studios are absolutely crawling with gorgeous girls, one prettier than the next. For me, there wouldn’t really be any point in an adventure like that.”

  “I see what you mean.” Rosalie paused for a moment, and then she said, “But do you think tomorrow you could drive me over to Fox to check the casting-call roster? Ivor needs the car again.”

  “Sure. What else have I got to do?” But then she had an idea and suddenly she hopped out of the car.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m putting the top down. All of a sudden I feel like being a little crazy,” Harlean exclaimed with a carefree laugh. “To heck with my hair!”

  Chapter Three

  She had meant to stop and ask where to park but, to her shock that next day, with Rosalie beside her, the uniformed guard waved her car in past the imposing scrolled Fox Studios gates. He even had a smile for them as he tipped his navy blue cap.

  “What the heck just happened?” Harlean gasped in amazement as she kept driving, afraid even to glance back.

  “See what beauty and confidence will get you?”

  “But that wasn’t meant to happen! I’ve been here before and this place is like Fort Knox!”

  “Well, honey, I’ll go out on a limb and say he assumed you were someone else. Clearly, he thought two well-dressed knockouts belonged here. Or maybe you reminded him of someone’s demanding girlfriend who he was afraid of offending,” Rosalie opined on a tinkling little laugh. “Either way, we’re in.”

  Nothing like this had ever happened when she had come here with her mother. Back then, extras had been herded onto the lot like cattle, lined up and made to wait.

  “You can park right over there by the soundstage.” Rosalie pointed with an authoritative air. “I won’t be long so that’ll be fine.”

  Harlean brought the car to a stop against the curb and raked her tousled hair back from her face with both hands.

  “How do you do that?” Rosalie asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Get all wind-blown and still manage to look like a million bucks.” She brought a comb and hand mirror out of her handbag and glanced at her own face. “I’m sure I’m an absolute wreck.”

  She thought Rosalie was a classic beauty, with her lustrous mahogany hair, round cocoa-brown eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows, small mouth and flawless olive skin.

  In contrast, the white-blond hair of Harlean’s childhood had deepened to a more muted shade of ash blond and her glass-blue eyes and a ruddy blush over porcelain cheeks gave her the look of a China doll.

  “I’ll be back in a flash,” Rosalie declared as she strode, hips swaying, toward the door across the street marked Casting Office.

  Suddenly, she stopped and pivoted back. Her brown eyes were shining as she stood there, holding her small, white gloves, and wearing one of the expensive new dresses she had bought the day before.

  “How do I look now?”

  Harlean cupped a hand around her mouth and happily called out, “A real stunner! I think today is gonna be your lucky day!”

  Then she watched Rosalie join the long line of girls wrapped around the casting building. It was a sight she remembered all too well. She could never tell Rosalie, but after only a moment, she lost sight of her friend as she faded into the sea of other hopefuls.

  She sat for a moment, taking in the activity of the back lot. Huge props were being wheeled past groups of actors, and other workers were pushing stuffed racks of costumes. Harlean was fidgeting with her wedding band and finally growing restless, after almost thirty minutes of waiting, when a man in a gray three-piece business suit and a felt homburg walked briskly past the car, and then he did a double take.

  Panic set in because surely he was going to ask her to leave. As he approached the car, she tried to think of something clever to say, a plausible reason why she was parked here so he wouldn’t insist that she move along.

  “Say, don’t I know you?”

  “I don’t think so,” she replied, and her voice broke as she looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  “No, honestly, whose wife are you?”

  “No one you know,” she returned with caution, but he was undeterred.

  He looked down at her appraisingly. “You’re in a new picture then, that’s gotta be it.”

  He seemed to be taking her apart with his eyes as he waited for her to reply.

  Harlean was surprised at his insistence. She could feel herself trembling like a leaf. “I’m not an actress. I’m waiting for a friend, Rosalie Roy. That’s her stage name.”

  “Rosalie, yeah, I know her. She’s a good kid. You sure you’re not an actress?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He glanced around, then back at her. He seemed hesitant suddenly. “Listen, could you, I mean, would you mind stepping out of the car just for a minute?”

  Harlean looked at him as she tried to discern if he was flirting with her or about to call a security guard. But if he was flirting, he had a strange way of showing it. Not sure how to say no, she finally opened the car door and stepped out. His visual
sweep of her went from head to foot and back again.

  “Did you ever think of trying to break into pictures?”

  Harlean softly chuckled as she shook her head at the absurdity of the question.

  “I’m only here because Rosalie asked me to give her a lift, honest.”

  As an afterthought, he finally introduced himself and reached for her hand. “I’m Bud Ryan, a casting director here.”

  “Harlean McGrew,” she said as they shook.

  “Can you wait here a minute?”

  “I’ll be here till Rosalie comes out.”

  “Okay, good. Don’t go anywhere!”

  She watched him dash past the line of would-be actresses and inside the casting office, and then she sank against the car seat and slipped on her sunglasses, feeling entirely embarrassed by the encounter.

  When she looked up again, the young man was hurrying back toward her car with Rosalie and two other men. They were older, serious looking, and they were staring at her with the most curious expressions, even Rosalie.

  “See what I mean?” she heard the first one say to the others as they approached.

  “So then, what is a dame who sparkles like you doing sitting here if you’re not trying to break into pictures?” one of them asked.

  She glanced over at Rosalie, whose usually cheery smile seemed hidden behind something that looked like a glimmer of envy.

  “I was just waiting for her, that’s all. Tell ’em, Rosie.”

  Rosalie was silent.

  “Well, miss, whatever your story is, I want you to take this,” the shorter of the two men said as he began to write something on his clipboard.

  Harlean saw Rosalie look away.

  “It’s a letter of introduction to the Central Casting Bureau. All three of us are gonna sign it.”

  “That’s awfully nice of you, but, honest, I’m not—”

  “Listen, sweetheart, everyone has a story, so you don’t need to sell us. Dave is definitely gonna want to see you.”

  “Dave Allen is the top guy over at Central Casting. It’s at the corner of Hollywood and Western Avenue. Head over there right now and give his secretary this letter.”