Florence’s childhood had been blighted when her little brother, Aaron, died in a boating accident at the age of four. Leon and Julia were both shattered by the boy’s death, emotionally catatonic for ten years, until I was born in 1931. Julia always said that just by being born, I had brought them back to life. They doted on me, indulged me, applauded all my little victories, and chastised my flaws, though they mostly overlooked my major faults, so much so that even though the stain on my cheek means I’ll never be truly beautiful, I have a certain amount of confidence, even esprit that I probably haven’t earned.
Quite apart from the fact that I usurped her parents’ affection, Florence never reconciled herself to the birthmark on my cheek. She wept on the day I was born. On the Cyrano set, no less. Certain that my father was having an affair with an actress who played a nun, Florence had insisted on watching the filming even though she’d been having intermittent contractions. Cameras were rolling in that last poignant scene where Cyrano (my father) was about to expire in Roxanne’s arms when Florence let out a terrible scream, and then several more in quick succession. They hauled in a divan, Florence lay down, and Rowland fainted when I was delivered by the studio nurse assisted by the wardrobe matron. Swaddled in Cyrano’s velvet cape, they put me in my mother’s arms. She kept brushing my right cheek with her hand, and crying. And how do I know this? She told me. More than once.
Florence never liked me, but tant pis. I hardly ever saw her after she went to South Africa. That is, until she married Walter, and (still throwing tantrums) I was forcibly removed from Summit Drive to live in stuffy Brentwood. I rebelled in every way I could think of. Irene did not rebel; she just waited it out with a serenity I came to admire, and then, to imitate. Irene refused to call Florence Mom, and I refused to call Walter Dad, so they just stayed Florence and Walter. Irene and I became true sisters, allies against The World of Florence and Walter. Julia and Leon came to love Irene like another granddaughter.
And then she married Gordon. She was not yet twenty. As soon as she moved out of the Brentwood house, Florence started eyeing my birthmark as though she—once again—wanted to “do something” about it. I’d already been subject to two of these painful, fruitless treatments. I telephoned Julia in tears, and she said, “Pack your things. You’re coming home.” Never were words sweeter to my ears.
When Florence found me throwing clothes in a suitcase, I (never averse to drama) declared, “I’m leaving, and you’ll never be able to hurt me again!”
I was certainly wrong on that score, but it felt good to say it. On my St. Francis of Assisi days, I feel sorry for Florence. The rest of the time, I try not to think about her at all.
* * *
• • •
Like Irene, Jonathan too pronounced my Malibu place dreadful. He does not like the sand, or the ocean, for that matter. He’s fastidious; so fastidious that he actually liked the military school his father sent him to. Military school, however, didn’t make him a soldier, and as soon as he graduated he went to New York to study Method acting. When he came back to California a few years later he immediately moved out of his father’s Summit Drive house and rented a big place in Laurel Canyon, quickly dubbed Casa Fiesta, where the parties give themselves. Everyone young comes to Casa Fiesta to complain, to gloat, to boast, or carp, to preen, to get their egos stroked, to get laid, or to get drunk. The liquor bills alone probably eat up half of what Jonathan makes on any given picture, especially since his roles are still minor, and mostly in those dreadful sword-and-sandal pictures so popular nowadays.
“You should have come to last night’s party,” he said, brushing the sand from his cuffs and sitting down on one of the deck chairs after he’d dusted it off. “Perfect for you. Literary, even. Charles Bukowski came and recited his poetry while Bongo played, and a girl in a beret danced.”
“A beret and what else?”
“Not much. I bagged her later that night.” Bagged was Jonathan’s personal expression for his trophy collection. I always said the phrase made him sound like some sort of grouse-hunting aristocrat, which he took as a compliment. “Monty Clift came,” he went on, “and Natalie Wood was there, and that actor you dated a couple of weeks ago. What was his name?”
“I can’t bear to remember. His breath would strip the Queen Mary of varnish. Anyway, I’m finished with actors altogether, except for Bill Holden or Burt Lancaster.”
“They’re too old for you!”
“Well, maybe. But I am getting bored with the usuals, the handsome, the uncomplicated, the good dancers, the good tennis players.”
“And good in the sack,” he finished up.
“Yes, fine. But I’m tired of actors. They are all egotistical, vain, and insincere.”
“You describe me perfectly.”
“You don’t count. You are a Duckling and a Quacker.”
Jonathan and I were once the Order of the Ugly Ducklings. The only two members. As a kid he was fat and had a stammer. Long gone is that stammering, insecure, pudgy youth. Jonathan Moore is tall, dark, and dreamy like Tyrone Power, classically handsome, with an arch, often cutting wit. However, I still have my Ugly Duckling birthmark. I handed him a beer, cracked open my own beer, and plopped down in the chair next to him.
“What do you do out here all day?” he asked.
“Read, walk, eat, drink, swim, play the piano. Watch television when the rabbit ears work.”
“You’ll get fat and stupid if you keep that up, Quacker.”
Bruno, walking on the beach with the Wilburs, saw me, and dashed across the beach and up the stairs, slobbering great doggy kisses and immediately trying to befriend Jonathan too. Jonathan fought him off.
“Down, Bruno!” I pulled him away.
“God! Roxanne! How can you stand that dog!”
“I love you, don’t I, Bruno?” I crooned, and petted the setter’s happy head. I led him down the stairs, giving a halfhearted wave to the Wilburs as he ran toward them.
“Those are your only neighbors? Those two? They look like dried figs with feet.”
I laughed. “They do, don’t they?”
“How can you stand it out here with only those people and their big stupid dog?”
“I like it here.”
“It’s not Paris.”
“True, but it’s home.”
We watched the waves in companionable silence, like two old people who have shared a lifetime together, which, I suppose, we have. Jonathan’s mother had left when he was a toddler, and his much-married father, an imperious executive at MGM, was never interested in him. They too lived on Summit Drive, but Jonathan was much happier at my house, where Leon and Julia were fond of him. As kids, he and I had the run of Empire, the backlots, and any soundstage not in use; we played pirates on the studio’s ships; we sailed our toy boats in the waist-deep water of the filming pool; we had gunfights and wrangled chickens on the Western sets, played cops and robbers on the New York street. We went anywhere we damn well pleased; the studio guards could reprimand us, but we were never punished, because Leon was always willing to forgive us our childish trespasses. We were golden, and ours was a childhood like no other. We took a vow at thirteen always to tell each other the truth, and never to kiss or be boyfriend and girlfriend. We did once kiss, but it was gross. Like kissing your brother.
“Speaking of Bill Holden . . .” He grinned conspiratorially. “You wanna hear a secret? My agent got me an audition for The Bridges at Toko-Ri! Bill Holden! Grace Kelly! Jonathan Moore!”
“You Quacker! Congratulations!”
“It’s the great dramatic role I was born for; well, it’s on the way to the great dramatic role I was born for—Hamlet. I’m every bit the actor that Monty is, that James Dean is, and all I get offered are sword-and-sandal crap.”
“Not after The Bridges at Toko-Ri! The offers will come pouring in! Oh, I’m so jealous! You’ve found the th
ing you were born to do. You can say, ‘I’m an actor!’ Me? I’m fit for nothing.”
“You’re a girl. You just need to get married.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m Roxanne Granville, named for the romantic heroine of a great play. My father has been knighted by the queen. Why would I want to change names?”
“All the girls want to be married.”
“And live like Irene and Gordon in that big, sterile house crawling with servants, and a lot of brats underfoot? No thanks.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“How would you know? Besides, can you think of a single man of our acquaintance who would make a good husband? Even one?”
Jonathan thought on this for a while. Then shook his head.
“Exactly.”
“You could be one of those louche women who lie by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel and float on their money and their connections.”
“Julia would be ashamed of me if I did.”
“Well, what do you want, Quacker?”
“I want to be glamorous like Julia was. She always said glamour is nothing more than knowing how to talk fast, laugh fluidly, gesture economically, and leave behind a shimmering wake.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m not sure. But she could do it. She made it look easy.”
“Maybe you’ll grow into it, Quacker.”
“Maybe, but what’ll I do in the meantime? I need a job. Something.”
“You could have any job you want at Empire, any job a woman can do. Editor, set decorator, costumes, makeup.”
“You have to train for years for those! I’m too restless to be a student of anything. Besides, whatever I did at Empire, everyone would say, ‘Oh, poor Roxanne, only her grandfather would give her a job.’ And even if they didn’t say it, they’d think it. I have to prove my own self worthy of . . .” I didn’t know what. I swilled from the beer bottle in a manner that would have scandalized my grandmother.
“Well, why don’t you try your hand at writing? You had to learn something from those old boys and their story conferences, Simon and Max and Nelson and Jerrold.”
“‘Story is all!’” I said, quoting Nelson. “‘It doesn’t mean your picture will be boffo at the box office, but without a good story, you might as well bend over and kiss your movie goodbye.’”
“All right. Get yourself a typewriter and have at it.”
“I don’t want to write. I don’t have the discipline for it.”
Jonathan sipped his beer thoughtfully, unusual for him. “Why not be an agent? Join one of those big agencies. Go out to lunch and let the waiters fawn over you and your handsome clients.”
“I would never be your agent. I pity your agent.”
“But you admit that I’m handsome.”
“Sure, Quacker. Still, it’s an idea. You don’t hear of too many women agents.”
“You don’t hear of women directors either, but then there’s Ida Lupino, and I know how much you admire her.”
“I do admire her, but I don’t have the . . .” Courage? Heart? Talent? Drive? I didn’t know what I didn’t have.
“Didn’t you just tell me you are the famous Roxanne Granville, named for a heroine? Your father’s a Sir. Why should you be afraid to be an agent?”
“I’m not afraid. I’m . . .” Not sure what I was.
“Everyone knows the studio system is crumbling. Believe me, I’m an actor. Actors, producers, directors, writers, we’re not all living in our little slave cabins around the big house like we used to. We’re more independent, but we need savvy intermediaries. Now more than ever. You could do that. Didn’t L’Oiseau d’Or teach you how to be charming?”
“The word is charmant! Agents aren’t charmant. They are mercenaries.”
“Mercenaries in a good cause. Pity the poor, struggling actor or writer, Roxanne.” He folded his hands in prayer and looked out to the horizon. “They have talent, ambition, high hopes”—he smashed out his cigarette and added—“but they need someone to look after them, to make sure they’re always working. You’re Roxanne Granville who knows all the right people! You should become an agent and help these poor, lost souls.”
“I told you, no more actors.”
“Okay, writers! You like to read. You actually like writers, and you did learn from the best of them.”
“That’s true.”
“They’re clever. You’re clever.”
“That’s true too,” I said, pleased.
“There’s your answer, Quacker.”
Two days later the prestigious Rakoff/Holtz Agency hired me without a blink, though I had no experience, no references, couldn’t type, and hadn’t graduated from college. Perhaps they were impressed that I could speak French and Italian fluently, that I had once mastered Debussy on the piano, that I had gone to L’Oiseau d’Or finishing school, that I wore couture clothing (Dior and Balenciaga). Perhaps they were impressed that in modeling myself on the late Julia Greene, one of the city’s most renowned philanthropists, I had the aristocratic confidence to wear a diamond ring in daytime. Or perhaps because my grandfather is the legendary Leon Greene of Empire Pictures. Or maybe because my father is Sir Rowland Granville, recently knighted by the new queen and currently wowing West End audiences in Macbeth. Let me put it this way: I didn’t have to drop any name but my own. And I sure as hell didn’t start in the mail room.
Chapter Four
Rakoff/Holtz had a high-rent address on Sunset, four floors overlooking the boulevard, and twenty years’ worth of cinematic history to its credit, with a dazzling roster of actors, directors, and writers. The offices were traditional as a pair of spats. Irv’s partner Sidney Holtz had died the year before, and an enormous oil portrait of him hung in the reception room. Bad art and bad taste, if you ask me, though, of course, no one did. When I have my own agency, I intend to have splashy modern art on the walls.
Far from where any Rakoff/Holtz clients might see us, we five trainees shared an undifferentiated, nearly windowless room that we called The Farm. We were the Farmhands. Each gray metal desk had a hulking typewriter, a telephone, and an address book that popped happily open when you put the arrow on a certain letter. A bulletin board across one wall listed our assignments color-coded to our names. As the only girl, the guys teased me about how badly I typed. To their gibes I would reply: Does Swifty Lazar do his own typing? No. When I have my own agency, I won’t have to type. However, I kept an empty desk drawer so the trash can would not visibly fill up with my mistakes.
Three fans hummed on low, but we were sweltering on this August morning. The guys took off their jackets the minute they arrived, loosened their ties, and rolled up their sleeves. Joe Roberts even had his shoes off and his feet up on the desk as he read the Hollywood Reporter. No such mercy for me: stockings, heels, slim skirt, and a crepe de chine blouse. Tom Willis’s desk was empty, and we all wondered if he was too hungover to come to work. He drinks more than all of us put together.
“Hey, Roxanne,” Joe called out. “It says here that over fifteen million Americans now have television sets, and by nineteen fifty-five there’ll be another fifteen million. What does Leon Greene think of that? I bet he’s trembling in his boots, isn’t he?”
“Probably crying in his beer,” offered Dave.
“Leon Greene is not trembling in his boots, nor crying in his beer,” I retorted, though in truth, since I moved to Malibu, I had seen Leon only on three public occasions honoring Julia’s gifts to the arts, galas where Denise was emphatically not present. My grandfather and I were not on the best of terms, but I wasn’t going to let these two think they could belittle him. “Leon has had thirty-five years in the film business, and that’s like a hundred and thirty-five anywhere else. He survived the talkies. He survived the formation of the unions and the strikes that followed. He survived the
costs of Technicolor. He survived the War. And when the courts made the big studios divest themselves of the theaters they owned, he survived that.”
Joe made a snorting noise. “Oh, he prospered from that, Roxanne. The smaller studios like Empire and Paragon, they never owned theaters. That leveled the playing field for them. What I want to know is, will he survive television and the Red Menace?”
My phone rang before I could reply.
“Come up to Mr. Rakoff’s office at ten forty-five,” said Bonnie, Mr. Rakoff’s secretary. “And it’s too hot for coffee. He wants champagne this morning. Three glasses.”
Today was the first time Mr. Rakoff had asked for champagne, and I wondered if there was a special occasion, or just the heat. In the kitchenette I put the bottle in its crystal ice bucket and the flutes on the tray, and started up the stairs. L’Oiseau d’Or taught me how to master the stairs in high heels, though, admittedly, as a student there I did not carry a tray. The other Farmhands actually envy me this part of my job. The guys are almost never face-to-face with Irving Rakoff himself (to say nothing of the firm’s most illustrious clients). But after working here for six months, I know exactly what will happen. While I pour coffee, Mr. Rakoff will say something like, Of course you remember Roxanne Granville . . . And I exchange pleasantries with whoever it is, usually someone I remember a lot younger with less paunch and more hair.
The Great Pretenders Page 4
