by Guy Adams
Leo swallowed a little ball of panic. He hated being caught out in his lack of knowledge, it was the sort of thing that lost an audience in a heartbeat. Of course, he wasn’t an expert: the history of this mad town was just too sprawling and the family tree of stardom spread its branches wide. He played for time.
‘There are a lot of Elizabeths,’ he said, though his mental count was still coming up short. ‘Elizabeth who?’
Holdaway’s disbelief turned into sadness. ‘Legends soar, isn’t that what you said?’ He looked away again and Leo stared in the same direction. Beyond the trees he saw a road cutting further up through the hills before sinking away into a valley. The barest glint of sun on glass caught his eye. There was certainly some kind of residence up there, though it didn’t belong to anyone he knew from his scant research.
‘They crash all too easily, too,’ continued Holdaway. ‘Elizabeth Sasdy. Once a queen of this town, adored by all. Now you don’t even remember her.’
Leo didn’t, but he wasn’t going to admit it easily. ‘Elizabeth Sasdy? She lived up there?’
There was a rustle of paper from behind him as Brandi worked her way through her book.
‘Elizabeth Sasdy,’ she said, stumbling slightly over the surname. ‘Born Nadasdy, Hungary, 1885. Silent-movie actress …’ She looked up in confusion. ‘Silent? She never said anything?’
‘It means the movies were silent,’ said Leo with a sigh, though in truth he was glad to have the opportunity to talk from a position of knowledge. ‘All movies were silent – or mostly silent – until the late 1920s.’
Brandi laughed. ‘They can’t have been much good, then! I knew that they didn’t have colour all those years ago but who knew they couldn’t even speak either?’
Cheryl laughed along with her.
‘Some of the all-time classics of cinema were silent,’ said Leo, ‘Griffith’s Birth of a Nation …’
‘Tedious,’ said Holdaway, his attention back with them. ‘Not a patch on Elizabeth’s greatest works.’
‘You’re obviously quite a fan,’ said Leo. He smiled, hoping that he could get the old man onside through a little flattery.
‘I was, but not just that. I worked with her …’
Leo’s mood picked up – it just might be that this trip could be turned around after all. ‘You worked with her?’
‘On a couple of pictures.’ Holdaway looked over at Brandi and Cheryl. ‘Though you sure won’t find me in that book of yours. My career never really took off. Not like hers.’
Leo made a snap decision. ‘You want we should go take a look at the old place?’ he suggested. ‘You could maybe even relive a few memories for us.’
Holdaway looked at him for a moment and then smiled. ‘You like the idea of a guest star, huh?’ he asked. Then he nodded. ‘What the hell. I’ll tell you what I remember but I can’t promise you’ll like all of it. Elizabeth was … well, she had a reputation. They called her the Countess, because of her accent, but the things she got up to in that place …’
Leo didn’t need to hear more. He knew what his audiences liked, the sleazier the better. ‘Roland, get over there.’ He held out his arm to Holdaway. ‘You maybe want to sit up front so you can tell him the way?’
‘Does this mean we’re going to skip Kirk Douglas’s place?’ moaned Vonda. ‘I really wanted to see him.’
‘Just a little detour,’ said Leo. ‘A special bonus, some first-hand Hollywood history.’
‘I can manage,’ Holdaway insisted, pushing past Leo and settling down next to Roland.
‘I’ll have to go on a little way,’ the driver explained, ‘and switch direction at the bridge.’
‘Probably making it up as he goes along,’ said Margaret Riggers. ‘I don’t believe a word of it.’
Maybe not, thought Leo, but at least it’s shut you up about litigation.
It took them five minutes to change direction but then they were off the main strip and heading into the hills. It occurred to Leo that the old house was bound to have new occupants and he hoped there was somewhere they could park and get a good view without having to deal with overeager security personnel.
He needn’t have worried. Once they had climbed a short distance Holdaway directed Roland down into the valley and soon the house was ahead of them. If it had any new occupants they hadn’t yet made their presence felt. As Leo and his group descended towards the building they had an aerial view of the place and the closer they got the more its run-down state became clear.
It had been built in the Spanish style but its white walls had turned smoker’s-teeth yellow and its orange tiles were cracked and thick with moss. The central courtyard, which had once been laid out to perfection, was now no more than a chaos of bougainvillea, palm leaves and oleander. A driveway, openly accessible because the pair of wrought-iron gates that should have given it privacy had swung wide and rusted in place, was a minefield of potholes and weeds, grass bursting forth in sundried clumps all the way along it to the front door.
‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ said Holdaway, looking at the place, ‘your castle has fallen.’
‘The place is a dump,’ agreed Jerry, with an enthusiastic chuckle. ‘I wonder how much they want for it?’
‘You reckon we could take a peek?’ asked Vonda. ‘I don’t see that it’s trespassing, not with the gates open like that.’
Leo might have pointed out that just because someone left their door open didn’t mean that the law considered it fine to walk right in. But, looking at his passengers, he saw so much excited curiosity that he couldn’t help but pander to it. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘After all, if Gary here was a friend …’
‘I was never that,’ said Holdaway, sitting back down. ‘Nobody was. But there’s no one here anyway, so who’s to tell?’
‘Let’s just get on with it,’ said Tony Riggers and Leo realised this was the first time he’d heard the man speak. It seemed to surprise his wife slightly, too. She glanced at him, perhaps remembering what his voice sounded like after all these years. ‘I want to be back in town on the outside of a cool Margarita, and the sooner we get this over with the sooner I’ll have salt on my lips.’
Roland looked at Leo, who nodded. Grinning, he selected first gear and took the bus slowly down the drive. Margaret was moaning again immediately the suspension took its first jolt as it navigated the potholes.
Leo looked to either side of the drive, seeing the thick grass choked with weeds, and wondered how somewhere like this could have been allowed to deteriorate so far. Surely a chunk of real estate like this should have been worth a fortune? He was as eager to hear about it from the old man as were the rest of his passengers: what had happened here that had marked the place out as a ruin?
Roland gave up two-thirds of the way towards the house, deciding that if they risked going along the driveway any further they might never get the bus back out again. ‘What say you all walk from here?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll turn the bus around.’
‘We have to walk?’ moaned Vonda, ‘I didn’t bring the right shoes.’
‘Maybe just take a quick look around,’ said Leo. ‘Shame not to explore after all – the home of a genuine star!’
‘Maybe you’ll buy this place!’ Cheryl joked with Brandi. ‘We could put in a pool.’
‘There used to be one,’ said Holdaway. ‘It’s probably full of toads now.’
They walked up to the front door, all of them staring at it for a moment before Tony Riggers took the bull by the horns. ‘Christ’s sake,’ he muttered, shoving at it with his shoulder.
The door swung open and its rusted hinges snapped. He was left holding it in his hands.
‘I think we can safely say that nobody’s been here for a few years,’ he said, leaning the detached door against the front wall. ‘So nobody’s likely to be coming along soon, either.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ asked Brandi. She and Cheryl laughed and ran inside the house.
Their voices echoed off the high ceiling of a massive entran
ce hall, a cylindrical room with a large stairway at the far end. The strange sense of abandonment continued inside. A Turkish rug took up the centre of the tiled floor, its colour faded, its weave frayed. It had an animal scent to it and Leo scowled. Clearly, local beasts had made the place their own and he hoped they weren’t going to come face to face with a pack of feral dogs in the dining hall.
Holdaway headed straight through, ignoring the staircase and moving deeper inside the house. ‘I want to see the courtyard,’ he said. ‘The garden … that was where she really lived. All of this was just the walls that kept everyone else out.’
‘Not working so well now, are they?’ said Margaret Riggers, strolling past him, acting as if she owned the place.
‘No secrets here any more,’ Holdaway said as they came out in a large living area. ‘Nothing left to hide.’
There was a big central fireplace, now little more than a pile of wet claylike soot. To one side there was a seating area, with chairs still in place, their upholstery torn or absent altogether, their flanks scratched and gouged by animals that had made beds of them. On the other side was a large dining table, made from a heavy dark wood that had survived the years of neglect better than anything else they had seen so far.
‘What I wouldn’t give to take that back home,’ said Jerry. ‘I could bring that up so you could see your goddamn face in it.’
‘Well,’ said Margaret, ‘if that wouldn’t be enough to put you off your meal I don’t know what would.’
‘Are you calling my husband ugly?’ Vonda asked. But Margaret ignored her, heading straight over to the far side where there would once have been a massive set of French windows but which was now open to the air. Beyond, sunk down so that they loomed over it, they could see the massive courtyard garden, a space all of five hundred feet long and three hundred wide. It was like looking down into a small jungle and as Leo came up behind Margaret and Holdaway he couldn’t help but imagine what might be inside it.
‘There’s probably animals in there,’ he said, which made Holdaway laugh.
‘There certainly always were,’ the old man said. ‘Dangerous animals indeed.’ He turned to address them all with a slight theatricality that Leo couldn’t fail to notice. Once an actor, always an actor …
‘The silver screen was where Elizabeth Sasdy’s reputation was born, that courtyard was where it grew and, eventually, that was where it also died. In blood, death and terror.’
‘Sounds groovy,’ said Cheryl, laughing. ‘Tell us more.’
And so he did.
FIRST REEL: THE THIEVING MAGPIE
THE SCREEN SPUTTERS WITH PRINT DAMAGE, SCRATCHES AND LIGHT FLASHES. AN OLD NEWSREEL BEGINS TO PLAY. SEPIA-TONED, OVER-CRANKED SO THE FOOTAGE MOVES AT ONE AND A HALF TIMES NATURAL SPEED. CROWDS OF PEOPLE GATHER AROUND GRAUMAN’S CHINESE THEATRE. A TANGIBLE SENSE OF EXCITEMENT.
VOICE-OVER: And here we are at the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard where crowds gather to wait for the thrilling premiere of the new picture from Sunset Studios, Where the Devil Takes Me. A savage romance set against the backdrop of Eastern Mongolia, it promises to be a smash hit with the public and critics alike.
A LIMOUSINE PULLING UP AGAINST THE KERB, THE CROWDS JUMPING.
V.O. (Cont.) And we all know why! Here they are, Hollywood’s golden couple and stars of Where the Devil Takes Me – Elizabeth Sasdy and Frank Nayland!
THE COUPLE GET OUT OF THE CAR, SMILING GRACIOUSLY TO THEIR FANS. SASDY IS BLONDE, PERHAPS A LITTLE MORE CURVACEOUS THAN IS THE CURRENT PETITE FASHION. SHE IS WEARING A WHITE GOWN THAT SHIMMERS DESPITE THE DAMAGED FILM FOOTAGE. NAYLAND IS EVERY INCH THE MALE IDOL, SQUARE-JAWED, SLICKED-BACK HAIR AND A PHYSIQUE THAT FILLS OUT EVERY CORNER OF HIS IMMACULATE TUXEDO.
V.O. (Cont.) Who doesn’t love these stars of our age? Whose hearts couldn’t be warmed by their story?
CLOSE-UP ON SASDY AS SHE LAUGHS, HER EYES LUMINESCENT.
V.O. (Cont.) Elizabeth Sasdy, the all-American farm girl from Wisconsin. Spotted by a Hollywood talent scout, she has shot to fame over the last three years, appearing in over ten films for Sunset. Living the dream, proof that anybody can make it in this country of ours!
CLOSE-UP ON NAYLAND, WAVING AT THE CROWD. HE APPEARS TO SPOT A FACE HE KNOWS. HE POINTS AND SMILES.
V.O. (Cont.) Frank Nayland, lord of the English stage, now idol of the silver screen, the man all the ladies wanted to walk them up the aisle.
TWO-SHOT. NAYLAND AND SASDY PULLING CLOSE TOGETHER, SHE LOOKING UP AT HIM WITH CLEAR ADORATION IN HER EYES, HE LOOKING DOWN AT THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN HIS WORLD.
V.O. (Cont.) But plucky Elizabeth beat them all to it! The happiest couple in the country, Frank Nayland and Elizabeth Sasdy – it’s not just the moving pictures that have happy endings!
NEWSREEL FLICKERS. THE FILM RUNS OUT, LEAVING THE SCREEN A BURNING WHITE.
FADE TO BLACK
ONSCREEN CAPTION: 23 JANUARY 1934, FIVE YEARS LATER
IT TOOK FRANK Nayland a few moments to discern what it was that he was seeing, to translate the multitude of limbs, the writhing of sweating flesh and break it down into its constituent parts.
‘What?’ his wife asked, raising her mouth from the groin of the Puerto Rican boy splayed under her. ‘You don’t think to knock?’
What with her thick Hungarian accent and her slavering lips Nayland had trouble understanding her words, though her meaning was clear enough. She hated nothing more than being interrupted. Her other attendant clearly had no such compunction, manoeuvring in behind her and pounding away at her rump with the sort of relish that can only come from a young man who earns his living by the hour.
Elizabeth continued to stare at Nayland, seemingly unmoved by the exertions behind her.
‘Get out,’ she said, her voice quiet and flat. ‘The last thing I need to see is your pathetic face.’ She protected herself from seeing more of it by closing her eyes and resuming her suckling.
Nayland left the room, saying nothing.
He stood in the hallway for a moment, staring up at the Lempicka portrait of his treacherous wife and wishing he could take a knife to it, maybe carve the smile he couldn’t find on his own face into the oil-paint representation of hers.
As the noise of sex built to a crescendo behind him he decided to at least save himself the experience of hearing every pump and thrust. He made his way down their wide staircase, looking down at the perfection of their entrance hall, the opulent foyer that greeted all who came to their door. If only it matched their actual life.
‘I didn’t see you go up there,’ said Patience, their housekeeper, ‘or I would have told you not to.’ Her face was as impassive as ever, always the figure of propriety even here in a house of sin.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Nayland said. ‘I should know better by now.’
Patience nodded slightly, though whether in agreement or deference he couldn’t decide. He didn’t care to guess so he walked off, making his way out into the garden.
The air was cool and it felt like just what he needed. He sat on the steps and let it chill some of the anger from his face. That emotion was quickly followed by embarrassment. After all, he had never been in any doubt concerning the nature of their marriage. They were a Hollywood confection, all part of the Sasdy Legend, like Elizabeth’s Wisconsin homeland. He was window dressing, beefcake to help sell the story of her pure romantic heart. If she even had a heart – he had yet to glimpse it.
Not that Nayland hadn’t benefited from the arrangement, of course. Attached to hers, his reputation had risen just as high, his fortunes swollen as large. It had been a sensible business arrangement and one that he had entered into willingly, because at the time he hadn’t had the slightest feeling for Elizabeth. It was a constant source of self-disgust that now, after years of abuse and infidelity, he had fallen in love with her. What sort of idiot did that make him?
There was the distant sound of birds in the trees and Nayland looked towards the hills, watching as something took to the sky and soar
ed towards the horizon. He envied it.
The doorbell rang and he got to his feet, the false smile he dropped into place on his face brilliant through years of practice.
He heard Patience open the door. That sound was followed by the garrulous voice of Fabio, their manager. The last person he wanted to see.
Fabio wore his ethnicity like a badge, claiming to have Sicilian blood and the ear of every unsavoury crime lord in the country. Nayland didn’t believe a word of it. Fabio was corrupt enough, of course – he worked in Hollywood – but Nayland didn’t believe a real criminal would have the patience needed to deal with him. Five minutes, Nayland thought, that’s all it would take in the company of genuine mobsters before someone reached for a gun and put everyone out of their misery.
‘Hey, Frankie!’ Fabio shouted, holding out his short arms. To Nayland he looked like a beetle trapped on its back in the sun, his massive belly the greater part of him. Nayland accepted the hug. The manager buried his face into the actor’s chest like a frightened child seeking comfort.
‘So glad I caught you on your own first,’ he said in a stage whisper. ‘Where is she?’
‘Busy.’
‘Then we can talk?’
Nayland nodded and led him back out to the garden. On the way, Fabio ordered something to drink from Patience as if she was his servant, not Nayland’s.
They sat at a small table by the pool, Nayland trying to soak up the calm around him and cancel out Fabio’s whine.
‘Chester’s been calling again,’ he was saying. ‘He really wants you for the picture and it’s perfect for you. You play a policeman in a little town … I don’t know where the hell it’s supposed to be … Bavaria, fucking Transylvania … you know, whatever set’s still standing at Universal. Horse-drawn carts and old guys with their pants tucked into their socks. Something’s draining blood from the local maidens and it’s your job to hunt them down.’
‘Sounds great,’ Nayland replied with heavy sarcasm.
‘Hey, it’s work and the audiences love this shit. They’ll get in Lugosi or Atwill or Karloff or one of those guys and they’ll be screaming in the aisles. That’s what the people want these days, you know? Mad scientists and vampires.’
