During the period that Vito Orsini had been in production of The WASP for Curt’s studio, the film had received more than Susan’s usual critical scrutiny. Ever since Vito had practically abducted Billy Ikehorn from her party during the Cannes Film Festival two years ago, she had distrusted him. Even the Orsinis’ divorce, which proved that she had been right all along, hadn’t restored Vito to favor with her. Yes, she’d kept a particularly sharp and authoritative eye on The WASP every step of the way.
Now, her hair drawn back from her face, Susan moved around her bathroom, getting ready to go to bed. She was so delighted with the events of the last few hours that she couldn’t resist breaking into a dance step from time to time, still humming the music from the picture in a gleeful monotone. As she settled down and began to remove her makeup, Susan Arvey reviewed the evening against the background of other charity galas. The hotel ballroom dinner had gone as planned; the food had been up to its routinely boring but perfectly edible standard; the service had been deft; the usual women who didn’t know how to dress for a formal screening had outdone themselves in bouffant dresses that overflowed into their neighbors’ laps; the audience had received the picture with a great show of enthusiasm.
Susan herself had been enthralled by the novel from which The WASP had been made. When Curt told her of the unheard-of sum he’d been forced to pay for the film rights, she had contented herself with nothing more than a side-to-side motion of her head that indicated he’d been suckered. In truth, she was glad that he was to make the film rather than any rival studio. The storyline of the book wasn’t complex—that was one of the beauties of it, Susan thought as she methodically creamed her face.
The action took place over a period of twenty-five years, beginning in 1948 when the WASP of the title, Josiah Duff Sutherland, entered Princeton. He was a descendant of a wealthy Rhode Island family who numbered Presidents of the United States, senators, and presidents of universities among their ancestors.
Sutherland, a veteran of Korea, fine looking, upright, and virtuous, was possessed of a decent intellect and a charming, gregarious disposition. He became a roommate of Richard Romanos, the great-grandson of the country’s most important and long-established Mafia family, a magnetic figure who had been designated by his proud, powerful father to emerge totally from the Mafia and take a place among the American aristocracy.
Rick Romanos was as witty as he was forceful, and possessed of an intelligence far superior to Sutherland’s. He and Josh instantly became friends, attracted by their differences in personality. Forming a tight pair, they went on to Harvard Law School after graduation, always rooming together, double-dating, sharing everything but the secret of Romanos’s true background. Together they joined an important law firm and together they planned how Josh Sutherland would run for the New York City Council, for Congress, then for the Senate and eventually for the Presidency.
Sutherland married a lovely, suitable girl, Laura Standish, descended from one of the great Charleston families, but Romanos remained a bachelor, the ultimate man about town. In the course of the twenty-five years between graduation from college and Sutherland’s attaining the Presidency, Rick Romanos found himself, against his will, growing more and more envious of his friend’s success, a career that he believed was only possible because Sutherland was a WASP. He became equally envious of his friend’s possession of a perfect wife. With Laura he carried on the kind of casual, aboveboard flirtation that can flourish under a husband’s very nose, if the husband is blind enough to be unthinkingly sure of his wife’s devotion.
Eventually, Romanos set out to betray Sutherland, gradually finding ways to use Mafia money to ensure Sutherland’s elections and reelections, slowly placing him under obligations to Mafia interests, encircling his friend with the Mafia so tightly and secretly that there could be no escape for the politician. When he had accomplished all this, he took Laura away from Sutherland in the course of the election campaign itself.
When Josiah Sutherland woke up on the morning of his inauguration, he was not sure whether his wife would be by his side or not. At the last moment she appeared and stood next to him, but even as he took the oath of office, he did not know the nature of her future relationship with Rick Romanos, who was destined forever to remain his closest associate, nor did he know what would be the first favor his friend would require of him, the first of many favors he would have to repay.
Well, they couldn’t have started out with a better cast, Susan thought, as she gently began to wipe away her discreet eye makeup with an oiled pad. Diane Keaton for the girl had been a perfect choice, physically far better suited to Redford than Dunaway or Fonda, and totally believable as a politician’s well-born wife. Yes, the ordeal of making The WASP, the ordeal that had been visited on Vito Orsini, the ordeal she had watched unfold with mounting fascination and pleasure, had begun with a perfect cast.
The first glitch came when the location scouts had bad luck with the Newport “cottage,” the mansion that was to serve as the Sutherlands’ family summer home, and the scene of much of the action. Too many canny, rich Newporters refused to rent their homes to a movie company at any price, and Vito had been forced to settle on an estate that was simply too small. The ballroom and other large sets had had to be built on Hollywood soundstages, but not even an expert could tell when an actor moved from one room in the real house into the next room, built on a set three thousand miles away. He had lost that authentically perfect Newport view, but who among the audience would know the difference? she wondered.
Yet it was there, with the location failure in Newport, that the budget had started to get out of hand, way back there, Susan thought, before a finished script had been delivered. Or rather when the first of the five scripts that were eventually written was still in progress.
Susan paused, one eye made up, one naked, and considered the nature of the four top scriptwriters Vito had approached. Naturally each of them, faced with a completed book, saw a way to tell the story with a shade of difference from the author’s own viewpoint, each had had a series of minor insights of his own that he fought for, insisted on. But no, Vito Orsini would never allow one of them that relatively small amount of creative freedom, that necessary amount. His ego growing larger by the day, he had become as protective of the absolute integrity of the book as if he’d written every word of it himself.
True, Susan admitted to herself, after fighting to a point of rupture with four of the top screenwriters in the United States and England, Vito had indeed managed to find an unknown writer who’d made a totally faithful and workable translation from book to script, she couldn’t deny that. Of course, by that time the budget had grown yet larger than expected, but writers weren’t your chief expense on a picture, not when you emerged with a good script on which everyone could agree.
Susan completed the removal of her eye makeup and reached for the bottle of rosewater she had made up for her at a local pharmacy. There was nothing as gentle for removing the thin film of oil that remained on her skin. Now directors, she told herself, looking back in delectation at the suffering that directors had managed to inflict on Vito, directors were, of course, notoriously impossible, far worse than screenwriters. She’d been doubtful when Vito went after Huston, and when that deal had fallen apart, she hadn’t been surprised. The two men weren’t destined to get along, even Curt had agreed with her on that.
Of all the egomaniacs who band together to make films, directors are unquestionably the worst, but wouldn’t you have thought, she asked her pale, clean, perfect face, that one of them would have suited Vito, bloated with self-importance though he was? Milos Forman, John Schlesinger and Sir Carol Reed had all read the script, had all been eager to direct The WASP, until Vito made it plain that he would attempt to dominate them, until they came to understand that this producer, this mere producer, had every intention of coming to the set every single day and breathing down their necks as they plied their trade, instead of taking himself off to an of
fice somewhere, hopefully deep underground, from which he would devote himself to making their lives easy.
She hadn’t tried to resist telling her husband that it served Vito right for not having signed Fifi Hill who had directed Mirrors and won the Best Director Oscar last year, but of course by the time Vito tried to get Fifi he was unavailable. Yet, even then, Susan thought, breaking into a wide smile at the memory, Vito had made another of his last-minute saves. From somewhere he had gotten his hooks into a young director, Danny Siegel, who had been responsible for two low-budget films, both critical successes, a director still so new to the business that he’d jumped at the job of tackling a huge picture in spite of the specter of Vito’s control looming over him.
Yes, at that point even she had almost decided that the movie was out of the woods from a preproduction point of view, Susan remembered. With the stars signed, the character parts cast, a good finished script, a talented if untested director, and an experienced producer who had just won an Academy Award, the number of things that could go wrong seemed to have diminished. Her good humor had faded as Vito seemed to have overcome his problems.
By that time the budget had been thrown away, of course. With so much time wasted on the aborted scripts and finding a director, Siegel would be forced to shoot in “platinum time,” which starts after double time is over, paying everyone on the picture triple time to finish the picture on schedule, to work twelve-hour days, to work weekends and holidays. But what did millions of dollars in additional crew costs matter on what was going to be the picture of the year? Wasn’t that how Curt had put it? Her father would have put it more pungently, perhaps Joe Farber wouldn’t have put up with it at all, but directors in his day weren’t as powerful as they had become.
Susan Arvey began to slowly brush her hair. Getting ready to go to bed was a calming ritual with her and she never rushed, no matter how late it was. She brushed and brushed, all but grinning now at her reflection in the mirror, remembering the way in which young Danny Siegel had immediately made Redford and Nicholson like him, trust him. The man had a way about him, a dynamic force, an all-but-irresistible youthful imagination that was so fresh, so inventive that when he’d had his brainstorm, his stroke of genius, when he’d hit upon the most unexpected and challenging way to use the actors, they had immediately responded to him.
She’d never forget the day Curt came home and told her that on Siegel’s suggestion Redford and Nicholson had decided to exchange roles, that Redford was going to play the Mafia prince and Nicholson the WASP. Vito, Curt said, had been totally caught up in their wave of excitement, Vito had completely agreed with Siegel that it was a brilliant idea, Vito had been utterly convinced that only a young jerk of a film student would cast Redford as a WASP, that only a hack producer would cast Nicholson as a Machiavellian mafioso, but that to let them play against type was an act of courage, of daring, of sheer brilliance that would never be forgotten in Hollywood.
The makeup people had done their best, particularly since the two men had to age twenty-five years during the picture, but with stars like Redford and Nicholson there was a strict limit to the amount of makeup you could use to change their internationally famous faces. Susan Arvey walked into her closet to put on her nightgown, shut the door behind her and gave herself over, doubled up, into a fit of laughter that would have turned into hysteria in a less well controlled woman.
Redford, with his blond hair darkened, but burdened with his saintly blue eyes, his indestructible good-guy smile, his entire personal baggage of Anglo-Saxon heritage, his aura of built-in sweetness, his beatific teeth, for Christ’s sake, plotting corruption against his best friend with an assortment of sinister mafiosi, each one of them supposed to be a member of his very own family; Nicholson, in that perfect WASP toupee over his toned-down but unmistakably diabolic eyebrows, his wickedly gleaming eyes, his marvelously crazed smile, his cacklingly naughty laugh, supposedly having no problem at all in earning the trust of the American voters.… both actors doing their excellent best, God knows, but quite unable to escape from the power of those essential and uniquely personal qualities that were the bedrock reason they were stars, not mere actors. Christ, she hadn’t dared to look at the screen during most of the charity showing, for fear that she’d start to shriek with laughter and not be able to stop.
She’d had to concentrate hard on her contempt for the benefit crowd, civilians every one. They were so excited by having secured their coveted, expensive tickets, so awed by the scenery and the elaborate sets, so sucked in by the guaranteed star power on the screen, so pleased by the faithful rendition of the plot of the book, that they hadn’t dared to trust their own judgment about the casting, even assuming that they were making judgments. Critics, she told herself, they weren’t. The critics, the real critics, would have their say soon enough.
You’re dead meat, Vito, Susan Farber Arvey told herself cheerfully, and blew a kiss to herself in the mirror.
“Susan? Where the hell are you?” Her husband was prowling around outside her bathroom, never daring to violate her inner sanctum.
“I’ll be right out,” she called. After all, she reminded herself, twenty-one years of marriage.… she’d have to take pity on the poor schmuck, as her father had called him to his dying day. Tonight at least.
“Tired?” she asked sympathetically, as she emerged, tying the sash of her satin robe.
“Yeah, beat. These previews take a lot out of you, even when the press hasn’t seen the picture yet.”
“I thought Diane Keaton was a revelation, darling, I had no idea she could be so overpoweringly sexy. When a woman can be made to understand that another woman’s sexy …”
“That scene where Romanos seduces her in the suite at the Marriott while Sutherland is making his big campaign speech in the ballroom.…”
“It was as lowdown and dirty a scene as you can get on the screen … everybody will be talking about it … I could see it again and again.”
“I never thought we’d get so many clothes off her,” Curt Arvey said.
“All her clothes were a triumph, darling. The Annie Hall look is gone forever. In fact, everybody who had anything to do with the wardrobe should get a raise.”
“And the music, Susan, was it great, or was it great?”
“It’s still going through my head, the theme in particular.”
“What about the sets, Susan? I told you they’d work, even without those damn places we couldn’t rent in Newport.”
“Who’d ever know? If I hadn’t been to Newport myself, I would swear that you’d shot there. Vito had a brilliant set designer, Curt, not just Newport, the whole picture was drop-dead gorgeous.”
“And that Diane!” Curt Arvey whistled. “When I think that Vito wanted Fonda … I’m glad I talked him out of it.”
“Amazing that you actually talked Vito out of even that one detail, dear. The entire picture is his, you realize, totally his. A Vito Orsini Production, never forget it. Vito’s vision, dear, his responsibility, his final imprint, his every last one of the important decisions.” Susan fussed with the pillows on her bed until she had them arranged in the way she liked them, which no maid had ever quite learned. She turned to Curt, who was sitting on his bed, looking into space.
“You know, Curt, I’d be the last person ever to underestimate the importance of a studio, you financed it, it’s part of your yearly product, but let’s face it, darling, Vito Orsini is going to grab all the credit, there’s no way out of that. I have to admit, in all fairness, that he’s the final creative force on this picture, whether I like him personally or not, and I still don’t, no matter how well this picture does. Just as Vito lapped up all the credit on Mirrors, I assume he’ll do the same with this one, and, as usual, we’ll just have to stand by and watch him get the glory, while nobody even remembers the name of the studio that financed it.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that, Susan.” Curt Arvey smiled for the first time in five hours. “Yeah, it’s Vit
o’s baby, all right, from beginning to end, every last frame of the picture. I think I’ll try to go to sleep now, Susan.”
“Sweet dreams, dear.” Susan Arvey gave her husband a kindly kiss. She would go straight to wife heaven for this night’s work, she thought, as she planned her visit to Geoffrey Beene’s trunk show at Magnin’s the next day. Beene was her favorite designer, and she rather thought she might just order one of everything, in fact she was sure of it.
On the day Curt had come home and told her of the exchange of roles between Redford and Nicholson, on that day which marked the exact minute when Danny Siegel took over the picture and Vito, megalomaniac that he was, had not seen the trap he was falling into, had, incredibly, been so puffed up by his illusion of his personal infallibility, that he had climbed on board little Danny’s bandwagon of lunatics, Susan Farber Arvey had told her husband that he must cross-collateralize the profits of Mirrors against the future profits on The WASP, and do it at once. She had not bothered to sugar-coat her words that day, she’d said “must” and she’d meant must. Curt had listened to her without objections. Vito had made no difficulty about the change in the deal, as carried away by the conviction that he couldn’t make a mistake as he was convinced by Curt’s threat to shut down the picture and write it off as a tax loss.
The Arvey Studio’s yearly balance sheet wouldn’t suffer by so much as a penny from tonight’s delicious debacle, she thought blithely, for The WASP, a thirty-million-dollar movie that would lose everything it cost, was completely covered by the profits on Mirrors that continued to roll in steadily from all over the world.
In fact, as this happy financial truth sank in deeper and deeper, Susan Arvey decided that the day after tomorrow she’d commandeer one of the studio’s jets, fly to New York and do some meaningful shopping, antique shopping, for there was a limit to how much serious money you could spend on clothes. Perhaps she should consider redecorating the entire house. On reflection, it cried out to be done. She’d call Mark Hampton in the morning. She deserved her little rewards.
Scruples Two Page 11
