Hollywood Buzz

by Margit Liesche

  Ruthie cleared her throat. “Off with the stockings girls,” she read. “They’re due for the discard and the war effort needs them.”

  I stared. Her voice was high-pitched, quavering, a dead ringer for our First Lady’s.

  While she spoke, the ladies stood and formed a line in front of the bench. They posed as though a chorus line, right foot in front, toes pointed, each foot angled “just so.” Next, they bent down, pretending to roll their stockings from the knee down over the calf.

  Ruthie continued, “In a silk and nylon campaign, the government is asking us to turn in our stockings…” The ladies recrossed their legs, so now the left foot was forward. “Not new ones or good ones, but worn-out stockings. Here, motion picture starlets contribute theirs.”

  The trilling speech? Was it real, or was she acting? But if she was playing a part, why not take on the voice of the film’s narrator, Bette Davis?

  Again, the starlets on the set acted out rolling down their stockings.

  “That’s it, that’s it,” the director said quietly in the background.

  Ruthie continued in her high, quivering voice “Rising film star Ilka Maki collects the stockings at the MGM Studio in Hollywood…”

  In my mind’s eye, Brody’s secretary appeared, entering his office during the story meeting. Like Ruthie’s voice, Myra’s overbite and receding chin had reminded me of Eleanor Roosevelt. At intelligence school, we’d received instruction in the use of facial disguises. Detachable gum pads puff sunken cheeks or transform the profile by filling out the upper and lower lips. If such a pad could be inserted into Myra’s chin, it would change her looks dramatically. For the better, I suspected. An adjustment to her chin might also improve her lisp. Now what about Ruthie? Was that the way she normally spoke?

  Like a row of upended dominoes suddenly toppled, the ideas rippled into one another until I noticed Ilka had taken center stage.

  Carrying the basket, she walked behind the ladies who had returned to the bench and were seated again. As Ilka passed, the starlets turned and placed their stockings in the basket. When she’d finished, Ilka stopped at the front of the set, placing the basket on a small stand that had been slipped in front of her. While she slid a fist into a sheer stocking pulled from the collection, the others gathered behind her. They smiled over Ilka’s shoulder as she held her stocking-covered hand and forearm aloft examining it. After a second, Ilka looked into the lens with an approving grin.

  In the background Ruthie said, “There’s an explosive reason for the silk and nylon drive…”

  The director took up his megaphone. “Cut.”

  He gave a quick synopsis of the scene that would follow. Bette Davis would explain that the stockings were intended to be used in making powder bags for heavy guns. A finished bag looked like a huge long nylon tube and was filled with gun powder. Actual footage of one of the bags being hoisted by crane onto one of the big artillery guns would accompany the narration.

  Miss Riefenstahl, Dr. Goebbels…eat your hearts out. The script was corny, but it was sure to grab the public’s attention. The message was compellingly clear. I was certain that women all across the country would respond by pitching in their stockings.

  I felt a pang of unease. Miss C would probably think that Ilka and the other gals were allowing themselves to be exploited. Ah, well. This little flick wasn’t her responsibility, nor mine. And it was for the cause.

  “After the gun gets loaded,” the director finished up, “the audience will hear Miss Davis say: ‘Girls, here’s how your worn-out stockings will go to war and give the Nazis and Japs a great big sock!’ The finale is the resounding boom of the gun firing.”

  The starlets smiled and nodded agreeably.

  The director took a look through the camera again. “Okay, let’s get a picture.”

  The actresses returned to their places on the bench. Ilka went back to her spot on the sideline. The director called for quiet. The buzzer sounded and the set doors locked. “Roll sound,” he commanded. Then, “Roll camera.”

  The clapper boy held up his slate reading “Uncle Sam Wants Your Old Stockings—Scene 1, Take 1.” Giving it a curt snap in front of the camera, he stepped out of the frame.

  “Ac-tion,” the director barked into the megaphone.

  Camera rolling, the ladies stood and took up their chorus-line position.

  Right away, the director called, “Cut.”

  Impatiently, he shouted, “Second from left, your stocking has a giant snag in front.”

  The starlet looked up, wide-eyed. “I thought that was the point. We’re giving up our worn out stockings!”

  The director released an excruciating sigh. “This is a movie, Barbara Jane. Not the real thing. Your leg is what’s gonna sell. And it’s not gonna sell anything looking like ninety-eight-year-old Great Aunt Martha’s beat-up gam.” Another heavy sigh. “Stocking, Ruthie!”

  Ruthie dispatched a bystander to fetch a fresh stocking. As the aide left, a portly man in a fine suit with a handkerchief protruding from the breast pocket arrived on the set. Ruthie spotted the newcomer first and immediately began making a fuss over him. The director joined in. They had a three-way conversation for a few minutes, then the director addressed the cast and crew.

  “ATTENTION, EVERYONE! We’re gonna take a short break.” The director checked his watch. “Take fifteen, but don’t leave the set. I want to shoot this before lunch.”

  I inched my way across the set. “Psst. Ilka.”

  Ilka’s face lit up when she saw me. “Pucci. Thank you for coming.”

  A caterer had brought in coffee and sweet rolls. I followed Ilka over to the laden table, where we each grabbed a cup of coffee. Canvas folding chairs were spaced around the set. Many of the cast and crew were already sitting in them, reading trade papers or conversing in small groups. We found two vacant seats and drew them together far enough from the others so that we could talk in private.

  Settling into her chair, Ilka asked, “Well, what do you think?”

  We discussed the picture, both of us agreeing that, though it was a small film, she had a big part.

  “I thought Mr. Lugosi might be here.”

  “No, as you have seen last night he is in bad way.”

  Sam was also “in bad way.” I buried the errant thought. “The first time we met, I saw the leather case. The vial. Needle. Is he on narcotics?”

  “Morphine. Doctor prescribed.” Ilka shook her head. “The drug, it relieves the pain, it is sure. But it is potent. Makes him a little loco.” She spun her finger in a circle near her temple. “Naturally, I worry.”

  Recalling I’d been outside the kitchen and had overheard her tell Lugosi, “It can kill,” for an instant I was worried.

  “The roles he is getting now are beneath him,” she continued. “Typecast as monster, bah! Frankenstein his big comeback, fie!” Ilka shuddered. “Imagine. Great actor who at the most famous National Theater in Budapest was cast as Romeo. Jesus Christ. Now plays the devil’s disciple. It is sad. I fear the escape to opiates will increase in keeping with declining offers.”

  “But it’s a living. He’s paying the bills, right?”

  Ilka shrugged.

  I felt the tug of the heartstring connected to my soft spot for immigrants. Lugosi had been through a great deal and clearly was up against tough times now. Ilka’s journey here couldn’t have been easy either. She, like Lugosi, struggled to get ahead in the dog-eat-dog world of movie-making. I studied her, trying to imagine what she’d been through, though I didn’t have a prayer of truly understanding the hardships of leaving everything familiar and starting over from scratch somewhere new. What I did know was that it’d taken incredible courage and great strength. Yet the person sitting next to me projected no hint of having ever suffered anything more than a broken fingernail. Even her speech hardly gave her away. And, with her Jean Harlow platinum hair, terrific looks and glamorous figure, Ilka fit in perfectly with t
he Hollywood starlets scattered nearby. No, she stood out. Hadn’t the director said she was “up and coming”? Still…

  “Acting is a brutal profession. Even Lugosi with all his experience and talent is getting tromped on. Why are you so determined to follow him? It’s gotta be tougher for women. And movie people, the movie business…it can be so much phony-baloney. You’ve been through such harrowing experiences. And you survived. With the kind of inner core that’s gotten you this far, you could do anything. You have other gifts…”

  Ilka’s eyes widened. She cut me off. “Think, lady. I already told you. I come from phony.”

  It was my turn to be pop-eyed.

  Ilka’s laugh was tinkly, nervous. She looked around. Two grips, part of the threesome who’d entered the sound stage with me, were seated nearby absorbed in magazines. Her expression softened.

  “Sorry,” she said softly. “You cannot imagine the number of times I was caught—or nearly caught—stealing chickens. So many times, it is a wonder I am here.” She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Hoo! The lies I have told to farmers in order to save my skin. So you see, acting it is at the heart of who I am. This is my chance, Pucci.” Her eyes pleaded for understanding. “I am without education, pedigree, or financial security. I have looks, that is it. I must use them to my advantage.

  “When I am actress, I will make money and help friends left behind in the old country. I will help Uncle Bela as he has helped me.”

  I’d really stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong. What did I really know about what was right for her? Or, for that matter, about what she’d been through.

  “Good plan,” I said, meaning it with all my heart. “Didn’t mean to get on a soap box like that. I was thinking of your palm reading. I bumped into Wilma Wallace outside. She was over the moon raving about the guidance she’d gotten. I assumed from you?” Ilka thought a moment, smiled, and nodded. “The silent film actress you brought home the other evening for a special session. She’s another fan…” Ilka frowned. She looked confused, or was it troubled? “You said so last night.”

  Ilka shook her head “Last night, it was very strange night.”

  “Did you get a chance to follow up with any club members? Learn more about the eccentric Hollywood type with the Einstein hair? You said he was a guest. That he was bidding on auction items.”

  The coffee had been hot and I’d been letting mine cool, holding the cup in my lap. Ilka raised her cup to her lips, blew on the dark black liquid. “The man, an I-tal-ian—” Ilka narrowed her eyes seductively and winked, “he is collector. The auction organizer, she got word beforehand. She put notice in paper, a call for Hungarian dolls. He was bidding on our doll in the silent auction before we left. The price it was going higher and higher…”

  “Our doll?”

  Ilka’s eyes shifted. She sipped her coffee. “Yes, my fan who was there once give it to me as gift. The doll, she was in costume. A delicate porcelain face, little leather boots, hand-embroidered apron and vest, beaded headpiece. She was beautiful. A reminder of home. It was not easy to part with her.” Ilka smiled stoically. “But to fill the war coffers for fight against Hitler. To give him a big sock…” She nodded toward the set. “I would do it yet again.”

  “But did you find out his name? Where he lives?”

  Ilka looked crushed. “No, I did not. I was too shocked to ask. Our doll, it disappeared.”

  “You mean it was snatched? Before the money was collected? How could that be?”

  “A waste basket on the stage in front it caught fire. Naturally, people, they were looking there. While they look, the doll it vanish.”

  Arson on the Resisting Enemy Interrogation set. Now fire at a fundraiser. A wild-haired eccentric…

  The news vendor was an eccentric. But he wasn’t Italian, he was Hungarian. Or was he? I’d just assumed from his accent he was Eastern Bloc.

  Ilka’s face filled with concern. “Pucci, you all right?”

  I cleared my throat. “Ilka, the collector. Did he have different colored eyes? One false?”

  “I cannot say. The lights in the room, they were dim.”

  The director’s voice boomed through the bullhorn. “Back to your places everyone!”

  “Ilka, I’m sorry.” I scrambled out of my seat. “I need to get to March Field for my film shoot. Gotta run.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Santa Monica residential area gave way to the camouflaged perimeters of Clover Field. I swung the Packard up a side street, following it to the south end of the field where Miss C’s Staggerwing was being stored. At the small hangar, I climbed out, immediately noticing the canary yellow plane perched near the flight line.

  On the field, cadets in dark coveralls were sopping up their lessons on the tarmac-campus. I wove through the small student groups stationed at models of airplane sections while keeping an eye out for Gunnar. He’d asked to hitch a ride out to March Field; now where was he? The flight to March would take only about a half hour, but I had an 0930 appointment to keep with the P-51 test pilot. He needed to brief me on the plane’s special features before I could take the new fighter up. And I wanted to leave enough time for practicing a few maneuvers before the actual shoot. After Max and I went over the plane with a fine-toothed comb.

  I checked my watch, hoping he still planned to show up. Some critical new and unfinished business needed our attention.

  At last I spotted him walking out of one of the half-hangars at the Douglas facility. Bulk, the AAF mechanic-instructor keeping an eye on Miss C’s Staggerwing, was with him. They skirted a Havoc, a side section of its fuselage pulled apart for repair, saw me, and waved.

  Locked in amiable discussion, walking more briskly now, the two men skirted the end of the runway. Gunnar wore a leather flight jacket, dungarees, and the beat-up cowboy boots he favored. Tall and fit, his bearing casual, he strode as if at ease with himself and the world. Bulk, who was medium height and barrel-chested, wore grease-stained coveralls stretched taut over his stout physique. He swaggered with the effort of moving his full frame, especially at the stepped-up pace, but he appeared perfectly satisfied with the man he was, as well.

  They drew near. Bulk removed his billed cap. “Great day for blasting off into the wild blue,” he said, brushing a hand over a bristly crew cut. “Gunnar tells me you’ll be flying the P-51 later today. That’s some hot plane. Impressive they’ve agreed to let you fly it.”

  His admiring look and the reminder of the impending flight sent blood rushing to my face.

  “Taking the P-51 up is an honor, all right. Kind of bowled me over, too, getting the nod.” I checked the cloudless azure sky. “Yup, perfect day. But this is the hot machine I’m going up in first, right?” I nodded to the Staggerwing.

  Bulk sensed my impatience to get underway. He flashed an okay sign and lumbered over to the plane. With a grunt, he mounted the wing and climbed into the cockpit to inspect the interior. Gunnar and I remained on the ground.

  “You’re too modest,” Gunnar said. “Getting approved on the P-51 is a huge privilege only an ace pilot would have been allotted.”

  I shrugged and began my walk-around check. Gunnar stayed with me. “You’re an ace saleswoman to boot. The Pentagon isn’t usually looking for publicity for a prototype plane. In fact, the strategy is generally the opposite. Keep the enemy in the dark whenever possible.” Gunnar’s mouth spread into a slow grin that dimpled a tiny spot on his cheek.

  “Miss Cochran called the base commander. She secured the P-51.”

  Gunnar shook his head. “Miss Cochran’s support carries weight. Not in this instance, though. Decision to extend you permission for the P-51 had already been made by the time her call came through.”

  I started to ask where he had gotten his information then realized: Gunnar had an inside track to the brass. I continued checking the landing gear and other inspection points. Gunnar followed along, observing. At last, walking to the front, patting
the plane affectionately on the nose, I turned to face him.

  “Why are we talking about the P-51? What’s going on with drop site? Any developments? Did the minnow take the bait?”

  Gunnar’s shoulders fell. “No. No activity. It’s almost as if he’s been tipped off.”

  I took a big breath. “Gunnar, I think I had a brush with the minnow. Possibly one of the big fishes.”

  Gunnar’s sandy eyebrows peaked in the center. He stared as I told him about the attack at the club.

  “We nearly had him, but he bolted before I could even get a good look at his face.”

  “How do you know he was trying to skewer you, not Lugosi?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I don’t trust the coincidence…”

  There was a slight thump as Bulk dropped from the wing. A Hershey’s wrapper escaped his pocket. While he bent to pick it up, Gunnar leaned close to my ear. “To be continued,” he murmured.

  “Everything checks out inside,” Bulk called out. “You two ready?”

  I pulled the speed prop a few times to clear it. “Yup. Ready.”

  ***

  Gunnar and I strapped in, then taxied away from the hangar. I spun the radio’s dial to the proper frequency and called the tower. A reply crackled from the plane’s receiver.

  “Beech one-three one-three able. You’re cleared to runway One-Niner. Wind’s from the southeast at fifteen knots. Altimeter setting, two-niner-eight-six.”

  I rolled to the end of the strip, turned into the wind, and paused to do my pre-takeoff run-up. Instruments, controls, engine magnetos “checked.” Fuel mixture, nose trim, carburetor heat, throttle “adjusted.”

  Cleared for takeoff, I advanced the throttle. My feet dropped from the brakes, the Staggerwing lunged forward, and we sped down the runway. A quick climb to cruising altitude and I banked sharply, taking up a course to the east. Easing the power back, I leveled off, scanning the instrument panel and rotating the wheels to adjust the trim tabs with the engine speed. The Pratt & Whitney hummed low and even. A few more alignments and I turned to Gunnar. He was staring over the side.