by Judith Gould
Despite its obvious creature comforts and luxurious appointments, Tamara was getting weary of living in the bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, which she and Louis had called home since exchanging vows. One evening as they sat out by the pool sipping a particularly fine bootlegged vintage wine, she broached the subject of their getting a real home of their own.
'What's the matter with this bungalow?' Louis asked in mild surprise. 'Anything you could possibly want, they come running with at the drop of a hat. We'll never get such good service anywhere else.'
'It isn't service I want,' she emphasized softly. 'I want us to have a home. A real home. Living out of suitcases just isn't enough.'
He nodded silently. Tamara had a point, he had to admit. They couldn't live at the hotel forever. 'I'll build us a house,' he said. 'I've wanted to ever since my old one slid down the hillside.'
'But it'll be a long time before it's completed,' she pointed out. 'Meanwhile, Inge is living all the way across town.'
'I asked Inge about moving into the bungalow next door when it becomes available. She said she likes the new apartment.'
Tamara didn't doubt it. After Paterson's Mortuary, the worst hovel would have seemed like a palace. 'I know that,' she said patiently. 'But I've got a duty to her. Louie, she's the only family I've got. She and I should be under the same roof.'
'I tell you what, princess,' he said, 'tomorrow I'll call up a real-estate agent. As soon as we find somethong you like, we'll move in.'
She wrapped her arms around him and placed her head on his chest. 'You're too good to me,' she murmured happily, fingering the curly chest hair which peeked out of his shirt.
'Damn right, princess,' he said, 'damn right.' A week later, they signed a lease on a large two-storey pink stucco house on North Beverley Drive. It had three wings attached to the arched main building and a handsome corrugated orange tile roof. The rooms were spacious and it came furnished. Up front were the obligatory locked gates, and in back were a tennis court and a rectangular turquoise swimming pool. There was plenty of room for Inge, and the house came with a Mexican caretaker couple and a Japanese gardener, which simplified matters immensely.
On New Year's Eve, as 1931 was being ushered in, Tamara took stock of her life and counted her blessings. She basked in the sunshine and adulation, happily unmindful that fate could as easily dish out the bad as the good. After all, she had everything. Life was as near-perfect as it could possibly be.
'I think it's a mistake,' Tamara insisted firmly, not bothering to disguise her disgust as she slapped the bound proposal face down on the conference table. This smacks too much of Marie Antoinette.'
'It does not!' young, curly-headed Richard Sonnenthal, vice-president of creative projects, defended in a miffed tone. 'Affair of State is about Madame de Pompadour, and in case you haven't noticed, it's done with a comic twist.'
Tamara rolled her matchless emerald eyes and groaned. 'Spare me the gruesome details,' she said tightly, compressing her lips into a thin red line of annoyance. 'Marie Antoinette's not even completed and you already want to stick me in another one of those damn wigs! I mean, what do you want to do, recycle the costumes? Use the same sets, God forbid? Personally, I think you should shelve this idea and let it collect dust. It creaks.'
'I suppose you have a better idea?' he snapped nastily.
She raised her chin with all the dignity she could muster. 'As a matter of fact, I do. I was thinking more along the lines of something sophisticated. You know, light and witty, modern. Sort of a . . .a stylish comedy of manners.'
'A stylish comedy of manners!' Sonnenthal sighed nastily with exasperation and tucked his chin into his chest. 'So it's something sophisticated she wants,' he said sarcastically, gesturing with theatrical helplessness. 'You all heard the lady.'
'I think Tamara has a point,' Skolnik said unexpectedly.
They all turned to look at him in surprise. Without exception, they'd almost forgotten he was there. For the past half-hour he hadn't voiced a single opinion. He had seemed content to lounge back in his chair with deceptive laziness, puffing on his briar pipe with an expression of benign boredom while the debate had heated up around him.
Outside the French doors, the night was dark and chilly. The brainstorming session had been scheduled for seven o'clock, but Tamara and Louis had raced in forty minutes late, due to complications on the set. Besides them, Skolnik had summoned Sonnenthal, Claude de Chantilly-Siciles, Rhoda Dorsey, Carol Anderegg, and Bruce Slesin. Upon her tardy but breathless arrival, Tamara had been gratified to notice that the walls, which were hung with framed IA movie posters, had among them not only The Flappers but also, already in the place of honour, the poster of the soon-to-be-completed Marie Antoinette.
'Well, we can always fall back on Joan of Arc? Sonnenthal murmured.
'Joan of Arc? Joan of Arc?' Skolnik's voice suddenly bellowed and he banged a fist on the table in fury. Everyone jumped. 'Christ, what do I pay you for?' He glared at Sonnenthal. 'Are you blind? She's a woman, if you didn't notice. All woman! How's she going to look running around in a pageboy haircut and armour? We're trying to push her glamour image and you want her to play soldier. You want to ruin me?'
Sonnenthal flushed under the verbal onslaught and nervously tapped his pencil against his teeth.
There was a long, drawn-out silence, and the tension in the conference room was almost palpable.
'In case I need to remind you,' Skolnik continued, 'this is an emergency meeting. There's only a week's shooting to go on Marie Antoinette, and none of you've yet come up with a single viable vehicle for Tamara to star in.' He looked around the table. 'That's not what you're getting paid for.'
The others remained prudently silent. From past experience, they knew he wasn't through speaking his mind. 'Maybe I should simplify matters for you,' he said softly. 'As it is, you're all running around in circles, chasing your tails.' He looked questioningly at Sonnenthal. 'What's Tamara's background?'
'A Russian refugee.' Sonnenthal smirked. 'A princess.' He looked around the room with smug laughter in his eyes.
'That's very good, Richard,' Skolnik praised in the honeyed, sarcastic tones of a grade-school teacher. 'However, I strongly advise you to wipe that shit-eating grin off your face at once,' he added in a violent voice. 'I said she's a princess, so by God she is a princess. If you don't agree, you can head straight for your office and clean out your desk.' Skolnik's face darkened and his voice dropped. 'I can also see to it that you'll never work in this business again. Do I make myself clear?'
'Yes, sir,' Sonnenthal gulped, blushing so deeply that his face turned uniformly purple.
'Good. Just so that we understand each other.' Skolnik glared around the table. 'And the same goes for the rest of you.' He paused. 'Now, Richard, bearing in mind of course that you do agree that Tamara is a Russian princess, what is the most obvious thing to star her in?'
Sonnenthal's red cheeks quivered with the indignation he was fighting to control. 'S-something Russian,' he said uncomfortably.
'Ah!' Skolnik made a production of beaming. 'Now you're on the right track. Suppose you use that imagination I'm paying you so handsomely for and think back to your school days. Throw a few titles at me.'
'Catherine the Great.'
'No, no, no, no, no.' Skolnik shook his head in disgust. 'That isn't a title. Even if it were, it would be too eighteenth-century—it brings us right back to the Madame de Pompadour problem. I meant something later, straight from the pages of a classic novel. We barely have the time to work on a script, let alone the luxury of plotting an entire movie from scratch. We've got to rely on a book that's already been written.'
'War and Peace!' Carol Anderegg cried.
Skolnik shook his head. 'It's too long and much too sprawling. It would take half a year just to get all the sets built. And there's no way we can condense it properly into a ninetyto a hundred-and-twenty-minute film.'
Tamara sat forward, her eyes suddenly gleaming. She
felt a surge of pulsing excitement flood through her. 'Anna Karenina!' she whispered, the gooseflesh breaking out on her arms.
Smiling, Skolnik sat back and made a flourishing gesture. 'There it is, folks, on a platter, Anna Karenina it is. My prediction is that it'll be the biggest picture of the year.' Then his smile faded as swiftly as it had appeared. His tone became brusque and businesslike. 'Richard, I want your writers to start on the script first thing tomorrow morning. You've got five days to produce the first draft.'
Sonnenthal blanched. 'Five days—'
'Five days,' Skolnik repeated. 'You can enlist all the writers you need, except those who are revising scripts for properties currently in production. Just break the book down into sections and fan out the work.'
Sonnenthal relaxed slightly. 'Well, now that you put it that way, it shouldn't be all that difficult.'
'Good.' Skolnik turned his attention to Carol Anderegg. 'Carol, I want Miles Gabriel to play Count Vronsky. The public adored him and Tamara together in The Flappers, so let's hope history will repeat itself. Has he finished shooting his scenes for that war movie yet?'
'The Front?' Carol frowned. 'I'll have to check, but offhand I'd say there are probably close to two more weeks of scenes left for him to shoot.'
'Check it, then. I know it's behind schedule and over budget, but keep me informed. If need be, have the shooting sequence revised so that the scenes requiring his presence are shot first. I want him to be well-rested before he begins work on Anna, and he'll need plenty of time for rehearsal. Also, I want you to work closely with Richard's department so you can be kept abreast of the characters we'll use, and those we're going to cut from the story. Start rounding up talent immediately. The sooner we know who'll play who, the better. I don't believe I have to tell any of you that I expect each and every one of you to read Anna Karenina,' Skolnik continued. 'Not a condensed version, but the entire book as Tolstoy wrote it. The studio library's sure to have at least one copy, and tomorrow I'll have Miss Martinko get extra copies from the public libraries. If you've already read it, then reread it. That's an order. Claude . . .'
The art director raised his eyebrows.
'This gives you one hell of an opportunity to design one hell of a production. I want it very Russian in atmosphere, very elegant, and very, very slick. I don't think I need to tell you that I want the costumes to complement the set, and vice versa. Pull out all the stops.'
'What kind of budget are we talking about here?' Roger Callas, the general manager and ever the financial pragmatist, asked worriedly.
'Whatever it takes,' Skolnik said. 'I want a projected financial breakdown from the various departments on my desk no later than a week from today, and we'll know then. Bruce, you start the publicity mills churning. I want a massive buildup. Also, you and Tamara sit down together and work out a more detailed Russian bio of her than the ones we've released to date. Add a lot of juicy new information. I want so much press coverage that the public will be panting for this picture to come out. Also, arrange for a newsreel to be made about it while it's being filmed.' He paused. 'Any questions?'
'Yes,' Louis said. 'When do we start filming?'
'Two weeks from tomorrow. In the meantime, I want work to proceed around the clock. And as far as Tamara's next movie after Anna is concerned, I like her idea of a witty, stylish comedy of manners. I don't want her typecast, and this is a good way to avoid that. Richard, get in to'uch with Somerset Maugham and see if he's interested in writing the screenplay.' Skolnik tapped the contents of his briar pipe into a heavy crystal ashtray. 'One last warning,' he said sternly. 'I want you all to bear in mind that we'll be dealing with Tolstoy, and not some local hack. Treat this project with some respect, eh? I don't want to see him butchered.'
Tamara smiled inwardly. There was little fear of that. Louis was too good a director, and besides, she liked this project. Something about it just seemed to sit right. If problems manifested themselves during the filming, which they always did, well, she'd fight tooth and nail for whatever improvements she or Louis could come up with.
'That should about wrap it up for now,' Skolnik said. 'We might as well call it a night. It's late, and I know Tamara has an early wake-up call. Carol, rouse my chauffeur and tell him to drive Tamara home and then to come back for me. Louie, I want you and Bruce to stay awhile longer. There's some other business I want to discuss with both of you.' Skolnik tapped his pipe against the ashtray and the crystal rang out true and clear. 'This meeting is adjourned.'
Because of the ungodly working hours required of a star, Tamara had recently become proficient at grabbing whatever rest she could. Normally she dozed while being driven to and from work; now, however, this recently developed talent deserted her. As Skolnik's three-year-old white-topped Mercedes-Benz Model K convertible slid smoothly through the dark, empty streets of Hollywood, she was too wound up to close her eyes. The meeting in Skolnik's office had been more productive than she would have dreamed, and her energy level was running at an all-time high. She hoped she would be able to sleep once she got home, but she sincerely doubted it. She'd probably have to take a sleeping pill, maybe even two.
Smiling to herself in the cushioned leather seat, she was oblivious of the chauffeur as she hummed the theme song of The Flappers to herself. She could feel adrenaline still pumping mightily. She was so swept up by Anna Karenina that she felt like she'd been drugged. Now I know what it feels like to be at the top of the world, she thought.
Even now, several miles from the studio, she could somehow feel things gaining more and more momentum. And half a year from now when the picture would be completed, her performance captured for posterity, and the reels of film fanned out to the network of IA theatres, the public would sit enthralled. She was sure of it.
How lucky she felt, having been able to sit in on the film's humble conception.
What a shame that she had to finish Marie Antoinette first.
Anna Karenina was more than a role. The very idea made something stir deep inside her bones. It was as if she were going to be transported back to her childhood, but as a woman.
Chapter 13
'Either of you care for a drink?' Skolnik asked after the others had left.
'I'll take one,' Bruce Slesin said immediately.
Skolnik looked questioningly at Ziolko.
'Why not?' Louis said, blinking the blur away from in front of his eyes, it's been a hell of a long day.'
It had been, too. He and Tamara had awakened at four-thirty in the morning, been on the set by six, worked thirteen and a half hours straight through with only a forty-five-minute lunch break in the commissary, attended the meeting, and it was now well past nine o'clock. Unless it was a Saturday night, he and Tamara were usually asleep by eight-thirty. In any case, he had little choice but to have a drink—Skolnik hadn't asked them to stay for nothing.
'Let's go into my office,' Skolnik suggested, leading the way from the conference room to his adjoining office. He headed straight for the bar. Before she'd left, his secretary had seen to it that the sterling bucket was filled with ice and the cut-crystal tumblers stood in readiness. Using tongs, he plopped two cubes into each of the glasses, added a generous splash of Chivas Regal from a decanter, and handed them out. 'Let's go sit.'
Skolnik sank into the chair nearest the fireplace, placed his glass on the fender, and busied himself with the ritual of stuffing a meerschaum pipe with an English-blended tobacco while Ziolko and Slesin took the chairs facing his.
As soon as the pipe was drawing, Skolnik wasted no further time telling them what was on his mind. 'The Academy Awards are becoming more and more important with every passing year. You've only got to look at the winners of 1930-31 to figure that out. Lionel Barrymore for A Free Soul, Marie Dressier for Min and Bill. And RKO for Cimarron? His cheeks tightened angrily. 'As soon as those pictures were nominated, they enjoyed a new life. The public went in droves to see what was so special about them. And when they won . . . well, need I say mo
re?'
'Why harp on the awards?' Slesin said curiously. 'With The Flappers we've had the largest six-month box-office receipts in the history of this business.'
'That's beside the point,' Skolnik said darkly. 'What I'm getting at is that the Academy Awards have captured the public's attention.'
'Which means you want to get an award for Anna Karenina, I take it?' Louis asked. 'That's what this conversation is leading up to?'
Skolnik sucked thoughtfully on his pipe. 'Of course. Anna Karenina is our best chance at next year's award,' he agreed, nodding. 'And I want it badly.' He paused, took the pipe out of his mouth, and when he spoke again his voice was hushed. 'But what I want isn't just one award. I want the whole package. The Best Actor award. The Best Actress award. The Best Picture award. I want IA to come out a triple winner.'
Louis let out a whistle. 'You don't want much! Just the whole shebang! It hasn't happened so far. Not even two of them. What makes you think we can take all three awards for one picture?'
'With you as director, Tamara as actress, and Miles as actor—any way you look at it, that makes for one damn fine team. And don't forget, Anna Karenina is one of the best stories ever written.'
'Still, what you're after is a little unrealistic,' Louis warned.
'Not from my perspective, it's not,' Skolnik growled. 'I think the awards are political, and they'll only get more so as the years go by.'
'The awards are based on merit, and you damn well know it!' Louis said hotly. 'This year's movie and performances deserved to win. So did last year's. And the year before that.'
