Starlight

by Alexandra Richland

  Just once, Aidan wished someone would put the studio boss in his place. As much as he wanted that someone to be him, he also wanted to play Spike Rollins. Ultimately, he didn’t care how many contract actors had vied for the part, it was his now, and he refused to give up a quality role so easily. He was going to use his Method acting training, give the film everything he had, and prove to all of his skeptics and critics that he was the right man for the job.

  After all of his complaining about Hollywood movie making, Aidan often wondered if he was a hypocrite to stay and film Spike Rollins—a sellout, even. In the end, he always convinced himself that wasn’t true, since he really was in L.A. with the honest intentions of portraying a noble character with a good heart as well as making a first-rate motion picture with a respectable message of hope, dedication, and redemption to the best of his abilities.

  Nathan Taggart greeted him at the door of soundstage seven with a cheerful, “Good morning.”

  Stifling a yawn, Aidan acknowledged the young studio executive with a nod. They met when he first arrived in Hollywood. In a short while, he found that besides Preston, Nathan was the only other person at the studio he could stand. Not only did Nathan seem like a straight shooter, but he was also an all-around nice guy. Aidan trusted him, which was rare. He hardly trusted anyone. It was a quality that stemmed from his childhood.

  Aidan grew up in Fairfield, Indiana; a typical farm kid, who enjoyed riding dirt bikes and working with the animals and crops, doing anything where he could get his hands dirty. Aidan’s father, Graham Evans, was a doctor at the local hospital. He also did a lot of pro bono work around town, which meant he was away from his family often. Unfortunately, that also meant he wasn’t around for his son and wife, Catherine, on the night they needed him the most.

  Aidan, an only child, was just ten years old when his mother died thirteen years ago. Afterward, things changed for the worst between him and his father. Emotionally, they grew distant, especially after his father remarried a woman named Betty just one year after Catherine’s passing.

  When Aidan was eighteen, Dr. Evans accepted a job at a private hospital in downtown Chicago, which didn’t help matters. Aidan moved with his father and stepmother because he didn’t know what else to do at the time. He also figured it was for the best that he left Fairfield, since his childhood home held too many bad memories.

  Aidan lasted only a few months in Chicago before traveling to New York City with his meager savings. He needed his independence; it was clear he and his father were not a good fit for each other without his mother around to act as a buffer.

  During his lonely nights in his rented room at the Iroquois Hotel, his first temporary residence in New York, Aidan thought about his mother often. As much as he tried to focus solely on the good times, the bad times constantly won out and it became progressively harder for him to deal with his horrid history. To combat his crippling thoughts, he escaped to the streets and headed into a nearby bar or drugstore. He felt a comfort in the company of strangers, people he never talked to. The noise of their chatter provided him with enough distraction to ease his mind from the past.

  The conversations between struggling actors caught Aidan’s attention. At that time in his life, he was at a crossroads and needed to earn some wages if he expected to make it on his own. He had been ineligible for the draft due so he was able to start setting down roots in the city. Consequently, he decided to give acting a try, though he chose not to hire an agent.

  Aidan didn’t look the part of an actor. He wasn’t clean cut and didn’t have the best manners, but he refused to conform to what was expected or brownnose to get ahead. He didn’t attend mass auditions, or cattle calls, where actors filed past a casting director who judged them on image alone and gave callbacks for readings if they liked what they saw. The notion was humiliating. He wanted to do things his way, which meant he was without work more often than not, and some days couldn’t even afford to eat. Still, he made do, his dignity intact. After a few months of networking and auditions, he landed some live television work and discovered the catharsis performing lent him.

  Every real actor and actress knew about the Actors Studio in New York, run by Elia Kazan, Lee Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford. It was the Mecca for creative kids who looked for a pseudo-family, an outlet for their emotions, and a place to nurture their acting abilities. That description suited Aidan perfectly, so in 1951, after he had a few television gigs under his belt, he auditioned using a nine-minute, one-person scene he wrote himself, when the norm was to audition in pairs. Out of the one hundred and twelve actors who tried out that season, he was the only one accepted. He joined the Actors’ Equity Union and things started happening quickly from there.

  Kazan in particular helped Aidan channel his anger and frustration into art once he started participating in the Actors Studio’s bi-weekly workshops. He discovered that he could become his characters and really feel what they felt by tapping into the boyhood experiences he’d tried desperately to bury over the years. The Actors Studio allowed him to understand the process, how to access those feelings, to dig inside and extract all of the hurt and use it to his advantage.

  Eventually, his Method acting training led him to the theater, where he established a reputation of being moody, undisciplined, and difficult to work with, but also very talented. He started earning steady pay—paltry money compared to what he earned now, but enough for him to stop hopping from one ratty hotel to another and rent a tiny studio apartment uptown.

  Aidan took his work very seriously, usually too seriously, and found play rehearsals his least favorite part of the process. He was too restless, too much of a loner—participatory to a certain degree with his costars and the crew, but not very communicative. They mistook his mumbling and introspective approach as a sign of not caring and wondered how he was cast in the first place.

  In fact, Aidan learned during his very first play rehearsal that the other actors took bets on how long he would last before he was fired. The director must’ve seen something in him, though, because he never was.

  Onstage at the premiere, Aidan no longer conserved his talent and gave every scene his all. He transformed into his character, stunning everyone who worked with him. The day after, the entire city was talking about him. The same thing occurred with his next three plays. The rave reviews he received were what he assumed led him to his first film offer.

  After agreeing to film Spike Rollins, Aidan finished the run of the hit Broadway play he was starring in and boarded an airplane with Preston Adams. He never forgot his New York acting roots, though, and never rubbed it in when he got the call from Hollywood. He knew a lot of actors in New York who tried out for the part while he got it handed to him without an audition or even knowing what the film was about, and he didn’t want to cause animosity. No one except Kazan knew he was heading to California until the day before he left. Even then, Aidan downplayed it, saying that he was cast in “some film.” He left out the part about how solid the screenplay was and how the director was one of the best in the business.

  Aidan arrived in Los Angeles with only a few belongings. His clothes fit nicely in a paper bag wrapped in string and the only other items he brought with him were his record player and a few vinyl records. There was one item missing from his possessions, which he wished to transport from his father’s house in Chicago to his Manhattan apartment after he finished Spike Rollins, collected the rest of his hefty paycheck, and headed back east for good.

  His mother’s piano.

  Aidan was angry that the instrument currently collected dust in his father’s home. He vowed to one day reclaim it and put it to good use, as his mother would’ve wanted.

  Usually, Aidan refused to revisit his childhood memories because most of them were too painful. However, one of his few positive recollections was his mother playing that piano for him in their Fairfield home, her green eyes radiating dedication as her dainty fingers danced across the keys.

  Ev
ery evening after dinner, Aidan sat next to her and copied the notes as she played. He never learned how to read sheet music. He simply followed by example. After his mother passed away, he played pieces solely from memory. Even though it was emotionally difficult for him, playing piano, like acting, was his salvation from the despair and guilt he felt, though both offered only a temporary reprieve.

  “So how are you this morning?” Nathan asked with his typical enthusiasm.

  The corners of Aidan’s mouth lifted into a grin. “I’m okay.” He peered up at the sky. “Damn, it’s fucking bright out today, huh?”

  Nathan slapped him on the back. “Welcome to Los Angeles, fella. City of rainbows and sunshine.”

  Aidan chuckled and they headed inside. During their casual conversations, he found out that he and Nathan were the same age. Nathan originally hailed from Salinas. He’d left his hometown for New York City before making the permanent move to Hollywood to work for Mr. Mertz. Aidan couldn’t understand how such a decent guy like Nathan ever agreed to work for the difficult studio boss in the first place.

  The two men briefly discussed Spike Rollins as they walked to their destination. Today, Aidan’s schedule consisted of makeup and wardrobe fittings, and he dressed for the occasion in his usual T-shirt and jeans. His first stop was hair and makeup, the bane of his existence. Nathan led him to the makeup room, directed him to an older woman standing in the back, and then took off, citing an important meeting with the Big Boss.

  The woman assigned to Aidan glared at him through her dark eyeliner as he sat down in front of the mirror. He slouched in his seat and closed his eyes, hoping to relax while she worked. He roused when she opened a container of pomade.

  “Sit still,” she said, lathering her hands with the smelly product.

  Aidan cringed as she slapped the pomade into his hair. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Sit still,” she repeated sharply.

  Aidan cursed under his breath and glared at her in the mirror. She gave him a reproachful look before putting another handful of pomade on his head. He watched in horror as she slicked his hair back with a comb so that he looked more like a prep school kid than a gang member.

  “Listen, lady.” Aidan shooed her away. “Spike is supposed to be a cool cat, a rebel, someone the young teenagers of America can emulate, and here you are making me out to look like Mr. Peepers’ son or something. You’re ruining my vision for my character.”

  The woman cackled loudly. “First of all, my name is Victoria. Secondly, where do you think you are, the Actors Studio? Out here in Hollywood, we have to deal with the Federal Communications Commission, and they won’t approve of a young man with unruly hair up on the screen. We don’t want the parents of those American teenagers making a stink and boycotting the picture. Stuff like that is bad publicity for the studio.”

  Aidan was about to reply with a cutting remark when he spied Preston approaching. The director leaned into his ear. “Relax, kid, let’s just get these wardrobe tests out of the way. When we get on set, we can do what we want.”

  Aidan nodded. He was relieved Preston shared his ideas on his character.

  “Okay, Vicky,” Aidan said as the director walked away, “you may continue.”

  Victoria mumbled something under her breath about “difficult Method actors” before getting back to work. She applied foundation to Aidan’s face and continually complained about the dark circles under his eyes.

  Concerned about his tired appearance, Mr. Mertz had suggested that Aidan vacation in Santa Barbara for a week prior to shooting in order to get a tan and rest up. Aidan wasn’t one of the studio’s beefcake pin-up boys and promptly nixed the idea. In his opinion, his dark circles and pale complexion, which had tanned a bit anyway since his arrival in L.A., suited Spike better. After all, his character was distraught over his dying brother and running ragged all over the city with gang members.

  The wardrobe tests were next. They bored Aidan immensely. He wondered why actors needed their hair and makeup done to model costumes, but Preston explained that the stylists needed to make sure their clothes complemented their hair and complexions—yet another thing that was different from the way they did things in New York.

  Aidan and the other principle cast members also posed in their costumes in the same shot to ensure they complemented each other. Aidan still didn’t see the point. Spike Rollins wasn’t a fashion show. They were making a picture about anger and despair! Instead of complaining, he played nice and, following Preston’s earlier advice, decided to wait until they actually started filming before he brought up his additional ideas for the movie.

  Before Aidan left for the west coast, Elia Kazan reminded him that most directors in Hollywood liked to tell actors how to feel when acting out a scene, but since Aidan was a Method actor, it was important for him to stick to how he thought his character would feel.

  Kazan, or Gadg, short for Gadget, as his friends called him, knew firsthand, because in addition to co-creating the Actors Studio and directing Broadway plays, he’d also directed a few films for Starlight Studios, and he didn’t agree with how most of the other directors handled their actors.

  Aidan had lucked out that Preston was the director of Spike Rollins. Preston had twenty years of filmmaking under his belt and actually consulted with his actors. Aidan discussed some aspects of the film with the director on his trip west, not only to understand his character better but also to avoid talking about his personal life. No one in New York knew about his mother and neither did anyone at Starlight Studios. He wanted to keep it that way.

  It was Aidan’s first plane trip, so he spent the first hour with his nose pressed to the glass, taking in the experience like a little boy. Afterward, Preston asked Aidan how he saw Spike and what he thought was important for the picture. The discussion continued until they landed. Aidan was impressed the director cared enough to want to listen to his opinions.

  For the duration of filming, Aidan was following what Kazan taught him: He was Spike; they were now the same person. If he thought about it any other way, he’d be cheating his audience out of a genuine performance. Thankfully, he didn’t need to change Spike’s wardrobe. He figured that Preston had some input into his character’s clothes because the style actually made sense for the movie. Jeans and T-shirts were the main choices, which was fine with Aidan, since that was his usual attire, anyway.

  Aidan wore a plaid jacket, too, and in one scene where the police arrested his character for theft, he wore a red jacket. The windbreaker’s vibrant color represented rebelliousness and leadership. It was perfect for Spike, who didn’t take orders from anyone. He was happy the picture would be filmed in Technicolor because the red color would blaze across the screen during the most pivotal moments.

  As Aidan hung around in front of the camera with various cast members, testing out the visual dynamic of the group, he glanced at Richard Rooney, the actor playing his younger brother in the film. He wasn’t satisfied with that particular casting choice. Richard was the right age and looked innocent enough, but he didn’t resemble Aidan at all with his olive complexion and black hair.

  It was no secret that Richard got the role because he was the studio’s leading child star and had made Mr. Mertz a fortune over the last several years. Richard worked his way into the hearts of millions of people all over America with his Rudy Ruxton pictures and Mr. Mertz signed him on to Spike Rollins to capitalize on his popularity.

  Although Aidan felt Richard was miscast, he wasn’t about to demand the ten year old boy be fired from the film. Especially because he knew firsthand what it was like to be judged on looks. When Aidan showed up at the studio for his first makeup and lighting tests in his ratty clothes from New York, the crew actually thought he was the stand-in for the real actor playing Spike Rollins. When Preston explained that Aidan was the lead actor in the film, he’d never seen so many shocked faces.

  Ultimately, Aidan decided he could accept Richard if the child star deli
vered his lines well. Given his extensive acting resume, Aidan assumed he would work out all right, even though Spike Rollins was different from the films that the boy worked on previously.

  Richard’s parents, on the other hand, annoyed Aidan to no end. During Aidan’s first week in Hollywood, Preston brought him to the studio to meet Richard so he could see how they looked together through the camera lens. Throughout the entire meeting, Richard’s parents yelled at their son to stand up straight and remember his manners. Richard even had to ask permission to go to the bathroom and his voice often trembled when he spoke to them.

  Aidan didn’t envy child stars. In fact, he truly felt sorry for Richard. The boy had been working for the studio since he was three years old and had never attended a real school or played with people his own age, like kids should. The entertainment industry was all he knew.

  Richard would never have control over his own career and Aidan didn’t know if he even enjoyed acting. Aidan was sure the boy’s parents never gave him the chance to form his own opinion on his job, never mind leave the business if he wanted to. Richard’s childhood was robbed from him; something Aidan related to, but for different reasons.

  When Preston announced the conclusion of their day, Aidan left the soundstage in a hurry. His first stop was the bathroom, where he scrubbed his face with soap and water. He left his black jeans and black T-shirt in the dressing room and opted instead to walk out in one of Spike’s outfits—blue jeans and a white T-shirt—but not before grabbing his package of Winstons from the pocket of his old jeans. He figured that wearing his character’s clothes would help him mentally prepare for the role. He would have worn the red windbreaker, too, but there was only one of those and Preston would’ve noticed it was missing.