by Anne Girard
“Are you the Platinum Blonde?” The eager female voice behind her was tentative and young. “You’re Jean Harlow, right?”
Rosalie shot Harlean a glance as they both turned around to see a freckle-faced, redheaded teenage girl. She was wearing a navy blue school uniform, and a hopeful smile, and she was carrying an oversize book bag over her shoulder. It looked to her like the one Harlean always took with her into the studio.
“Yes, that’s me.” She smiled brightly.
She was struck by how much the girl reminded her of herself only a few short years ago. Since Harlean was wearing unstructured beige-colored slacks, a tennis-style sweater with a button up shirt underneath and no makeup, it surprised her that she had been recognized by anyone at all. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Susan. I have that picture of you with Clara Bow on my bed at home. Gosh, I wish I could get you to autograph it. You’re in Hell’s Angels, that movie everyone is talking about, aren’t you? With that dreamy Ben Lyon?”
She was chattering nervously in the way Harlean herself had often done when she was first starting out in the business, so her heart softened even more.
“I am, in fact. Everyone is talking about it, are they?”
“Oh, yes! School is full of gossip about it. You’re in it. My friends are never going to believe this!”
“Where do you go to school, Susan?” Rosalie casually asked.
“Hollywood School for Girls.”
Harlean couldn’t help but laugh. It was yet another coincidence. “Why, is that a fact! I was a student there myself once.”
“No!” Susan squealed with delight, and the sound of it lifted Harlean’s mood.
“I absolutely was!” Harlean said with the same delight as the girl. “Tell you what—my friend Rosalie here and I were just about to go up and have a look at a poster they’re doing for the picture. How ’bout you come up with us and maybe Mr. Holl will have something lying around that I can sign for you?”
Susan’s lips parted in genuine surprise. “Do you mean it, Miss Harlow?”
“Come on,” Harlean declared, never losing her own genuine smile. It was what she would have hoped if, as a teenager, she had ever actually gotten to meet Pola Negri.
Harlean happily introduced herself to the receptionist as she put a casual hand on the teen’s shoulder. A moment later, the trio was shown down the corridor to Holl’s studio. Harlean could see her likeness from the doorway, propped on an easel. The poster, with a painted image of her face, was crowned at the top with a single glaring word: Sex!
Seeing it, she felt the blood leave her face. The uncanny likeness to her, and the word, so inextricably linked, was absolutely horrifying. In spite of how aggressively they were promoting her as the Platinum Blonde, this was the last thing Harlean had expected, or wanted for her career. There were already so many hills to climb over it as it was. Rosalie sent her a withering look of sympathy that only made her feel worse.
“Wow,” the teenager exclaimed, looking from Harlean to the poster, and back again with her own stunned expression. “You look so...voluptuous.”
“Why, shit damn and howdy,” Rosalie exclaimed in her Texas drawl as Holl rose from his art table and came forward.
“Miss Harlow,” he said with a genial smile. “Think we’ll sell a lot of theater tickets with these?”
Around the prominently placed poster was a collection of others. Words and phrases like thrilling, air spectacle or multi-million dollar! were used on different designs to promote the film. But one element was consistent—her face and her name dominated all of them. In every case, Jean Harlow was either the only name painted, or it had been placed far more prominently than Ben Lyon or James Hall. She couldn’t imagine that her two costars would be happy about that.
“So, what do you think?” he asked her with hands now expectantly poised on his hips. “If these don’t make you famous, nothing will,” he proudly declared of his work.
“Or they’ll make her infamous,” Rosalie quipped in a low tone. “She’s not wearing a stitch of clothing in the poster for the front of Grauman’s.”
“It’s a rendering...” Holl defended as his smile began to fade in the face of the collective shocked reaction “...a stylized image of the character, to sell movie tickets.”
“But that’s Jean’s name up there, not the character. They’re gonna think she’s as slutty as Helen.”
“It’s all right,” Harlean intervened, but only because arguing the point further in front of this young impressionable girl felt unsavory to her. “Mr. Holl, my friend Susan here would like my autograph but I’m afraid I haven’t anything to sign for her. Could I trouble you for a slip of paper and a pen?”
Susan’s eyes brightened at the request, and seeing that again in this tense moment renewed Harlean’s spirit for the fight. She did not like at all how Hughes’s team was using her in promoting the film. She felt more tawdry than she ever had in her life. But if she expected to pursue the kind of films Paul Bern envisioned for her, Harlean knew that first she must pay her dues, and do it in a smart, professional way. When she had the success she fully intended to have, then she could put her foot down. Like it or not, for now the world would have to think of Jean Harlow as a loose woman. With this kind of promotion there was no avoiding it and it would be a challenge to change that perception, but now she was ready for the fight.
“I think I can do better than a piece of paper,” Holl said, grabbing a photograph from his table.
It was a still from the movie, a shot he had used in the design of one of the publicity posters. The image was of Harlean and Ben locked in a passionate embrace.
“Will this do?” he asked, handing it to Harlean, along with the pen.
Susan’s eager, pimply smile broadened as she glanced down at the image of the handsome young actor. “I’ll be the envy of the whole school. I’ll never let it out of my sight, Miss Harlow!”
“Then it’ll be my pleasure,” Harlean said with a sweet expression that she forced herself to keep as she took the time to autographed it thoughtfully.
“Do you want to come over to the house for a drink? You look like you could use one, under the circumstances,” Rosalie asked her as they drove down Hollywood Boulevard, back toward Beverly Hills afterward.
“I assumed they would be provocative,” Harlean sighed as she tried to concentrate on the road. “Just not quite that provocative.”
“Well, they did look sexy.”
“They looked tacky. People are gonna think I’m like Helen, just the way you said, and God knows how long it will take me to live that down.”
“Mr. Hughes is trying to use what he can to market the picture. After all, that’s Hollywood. Nobody in this town is quite what they seem. Look at you—you’re nineteen and you look twenty-eight. And I have it on good authority that not just James Cagney but Charlie Chaplin wears lifts in his shoes, and Mary Pickford wears false eyelashes regularly to get her eyes so big. You really can’t take any of this to heart, honey. Personally, I’d kill to be in your shoes right now with a part like that in a picture that’s a hit before it premieres. Racy or not, you’re about to become a star, Harlean McGrew,” she exclaimed. “Oh, my stars, I’ve got to stop calling you that now, don’t I, Miss Harlow?”
Harlean thanked her for the invitation but declined it when she dropped Rosalie off a few minutes later. She wanted to be alone for a while. Marino and her mother had driven up the coast to Santa Barbara for a couple of days so she had the house all to herself.
Oscar met her at the door with an excited little yelp while the cats lounged together on the sofa, less impressed by her return. As she bent down to scoop the dog up into her arms, the phone rang. For a moment, Harlean considered not answering it. She did not want to speak to anyone just now with her mind still reeling, and she wasn’t sure for
the moment she could handle any more surprises. But as it continued its loud, persistent jingle, she relented.
“Hello?”
Now the voice on the other end really was the last she expected to hear.
“Hey, doll. It’s Chuck, do you think we could talk?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Harlean sank onto the sofa beside the phone. She could hear how his voice quivered. There was a fragile quality to it that reminded her of so many precious moments between them that she had been trying to forget.
“How are you?” he asked.
She wanted to snap back and ask him why he wanted to know that now, after all these months, and with their divorce nearly final.
She drew in a breath and exhaled instead. This was what she had wanted, after all—just the two of them with time alone to sort things out.
They had seen each other only once, two months ago from a safe distance in court. It had been a gut-wrenching experience since both of them had hurled accusations at each other and, through it, Chuck had refused even to look at her.
“I’m good,” she replied cautiously. “How are you?”
In spite of everything, she truly did want to know.
“Pretty damn miserable without you, to tell you the truth.”
A silence fell between them as Harlean tried to hear what he was really saying. There had been so much bitterness and acrimony. “Where are you, Chuck?”
“I’m back in Chicago at my grandfather’s place. He took me in for a while.” There was another stiff silence before he added, “So the picture will premiere soon, I guess. I’ve been reading about it everywhere. That Howard Hughes must be quite the showman.”
“He’s a character, all right.”
“Did he give you any trouble?” She heard Chuck’s tone harden with the question, and she remembered how quickly his voice could change, just as he could.
“Not how you mean. He’s just difficult, and a little peculiar.”
“I’m excited for you, honestly I am. It’s gonna be a big hit, doll.”
“You hated every minute of me having a career.”
“I was an idiot, a big, dumb, jealous idiot,” he said.
“I kiss a man in the picture, Chuck, two of them, in fact.” She could not keep the warning tone from her voice, nor did she want to any longer. She was still hurt, still wary of him and his temper, and she had become a stronger woman since their separation. She could feel that strength now girding her heart.
“Actors act. I get that now.”
“Do you?”
“Jesus, Harlean, I want my wife back.” She heard the desperation climbing into his voice. She knew how difficult it was for him to be vulnerable like this.
“It’s too late for that, Chuck.”
“We have time before the divorce is final. It’s only too late if we let it be—us and your mother.”
“I’m not letting you start in on her again,” she warned, feeling as defensive as she was confused. “This was never about her.”
“The hell it wasn’t.”
The doorbell rang at that moment and the sudden sound made her jump for how focused she had been on Chuck’s voice. With her heart already racing, and emotion crushing her so that she couldn’t think, Harlean glanced across the room. Outside the living room window, she saw Paul Bern’s car parked in front of the house. She had completely forgotten she had agreed to let him take her to dinner.
“Look, Chuck, I have to go.”
“I’m not giving up on you, Harlean. Not till we hash this all out.”
“Well, for now, I have to go.”
“I’m calling you back tomorrow. I’ll call at the same time so you’ll know who it is, if you have to grab the phone before Jean or Marino. Just please tell me you’ll answer and we can talk again.”
Why did he always do this to her every time she thought she had let go?
Paul rang the bell again.
She glanced over at the door. She was gripping the phone receiver tightly. “I have to go,” she repeated.
“Tomorrow, doll. Answer when I call, please?”
* * *
As promised, he phoned her every day for three days after that while the Bellos were away, and they spoke. While they were both cautious, there was even careful laughter between them a time or two.
Chuck said he would come back to Hollywood. They had things to discuss in person, and Harlean found herself wanting that—not wanting things as they once were, but wanting closure. At the very least, she wanted to end things on a better note than with the memory of those terrible fights or with a day in court. Nostalgia held a heavy pull, but she knew she was viewing things through rose-colored glasses.
Then suddenly, after the third day following the Bellos’ return from their trip up the coast, the calls ceased. Harlean waited in the living room at the agreed-to time, yet the phone did not ring again. It was two days before the Hell’s Angels premiere and while she had begun to think of asking Chuck to escort her if he did return to California, his sudden silence brought confusion.
On the subject of Chuck, her mother and Marino were the last two people she could ask for advice. “Why not ask Paul Bern to escort you?” Rosalie suggested as they walked together along a quiet stretch of Santa Monica beach late one afternoon. “He seems a nice enough fella. He sure does like you.”
“It’s not like that between us. We talk about books and poetry. He’s never even tried to lay a hand on me.”
“Then that’s perfect.”
“I just don’t understand why Chuck stopped calling, Rosie. We were talking, and it felt good to sort out all of those lingering issues. I want us both to be able to move on with no regrets.”
The beach breeze was cold and Harlean pulled her scarf more tightly around her neck as a seagull soared over the water beside them. The waves crashed and the sea foam rushed in, swirling around their bare feet.
“Maybe there is a logical explanation. You could call him?”
“I just can’t,” she said, and even Harlean could hear the ache in her own voice.
She could feel her old defenses flaring in the echo of that declaration. Her love for him made her feel far too vulnerable. Harlean could not abide the sensation any longer while she was trying so hard to become independent and strong in a business that absolutely required it.
“I’ll think about asking Paul,” she said. “Hopefully, he’ll be free.”
“Oh, he’ll be free, honey, don’t you worry ’bout that. No matter how he acts for now, that man’s got a thing for you!”
* * *
Marino thrust the newspaper at Harlean the moment she arrived at the breakfast table. Her mother sat beside him in her dressing gown and slippers. Both of them were wearing irritatingly eager expressions.
“It’s absolutely perfect for us, Baby! Read the ad. Marino is going to speak to the real estate agent first thing this morning. Just look at that house. It’s fit for a king—or in our case, a rising young movie star.”
Harlean opened the newspaper warily. Marino had dog-eared the page.
Our Masterpiece Overlooking Los Angeles Country Club
Magnificent ten-room English stone–trim house. Perpetual view of country club, city, sea and mountains. No details have been overlooked to make this the perfect home. Large rooms, finest hard wood...4 bedrooms, 3 beautiful baths, den.
“Whoa, wait a minute you two. We’re not anywhere near ready for something like this!” she exclaimed as she looked back at them. They looked like children on Christmas morning. She knew them only too well. This had already been decided.
“Oh, nonsense,” her mother chirped. “Don’t be so uninspired, Baby. You know what Marino always says!”
Harlean rolled her eyes in response. How cou
ld she not know what Marino always said? Quoting Oscar Wilde liberally was a favorite pastime, an irritating hobby.
“‘Anyone who lives within their means suffers from lack of imagination,’” Marino said unnecessarily.
She desperately wanted to quote Wilde herself at that moment that “quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” However, she held her tongue.
“Darling girl, now that you are about to be a star, you need to live like one. Remember, appearance is reality!”
“Mommie, Mr. Hughes is only paying me $150 a week.”
“For now. But once the picture is released you’ll be in the driver’s seat, and that will be chump change.”
“Well said, my dear,” Marino chimed as he drank his coffee with a nonchalance that suddenly made her want to slap him.
She was the one working, worrying, fretting—and allowing herself to be transformed. Not him. Not either of them.
“I drove by the house yesterday afternoon and I can tell you ladies both that it is truly magnificent. It looks rather like an English manor.”
Marino had always believed himself destined for life as lord of a manor somewhere so the comparison did not surprise her. At this particular moment it irritated her more than ever.
“I can’t believe you two would decide something like this on your own.” She was suddenly angry with both of them and, for now, unwilling to stifle it. It had been a few days with one challenge too many.
“Nothing has been decided yet,” Marino said calmly.
“That’s not true, and you know it! You mean to get that house, I see it in both of your faces.”
“Baby!” Her mother gasped indignantly. “Is that any way to speak to your stepfather?”
