Waiters hoisting trays sailed through the salon, and the effervescence in crystal glasses caught the light cast by sparkling Venetian chandeliers. Women’s high heels clicked percussively on the black-and-white marble floors. Tall French doors led out to the portico that opened to a view of the terraced gardens and the artificial lake with its leaping Versailles fountain. Strings of colorful Chinese lanterns illuminated the April twilight in the reflecting pools.
Natalie Wood walked up to us, glowing. “Come with me, Jonathan, I want you to meet my director.”
“Nicholas Ray?” Jonathan and I exchanged a quick, intense glance. Rebel Without a Cause, not even yet released, was already rumored to be an Oscar contender. I quickly crossed my fingers for him as she led him away.
To my surprise, Hedda Hopper, the queen of gossip glory, came up to me. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she gushed, “Leon and Denise just eloping like a couple of youngsters.”
“It’s wonderful—so romantic.”
“How is the Granville Agency doing, Roxanne?”
“Beautifully. Just fine.”
“Any great deals to report?”
“I’m not at liberty to say right now.” I have discovered this is a wonderfully evasive phrase suggesting, teasing, titillating that great things hover in the offing, awaiting only some small formality to emerge. “But when I am, you’ll be the first to know.”
Hedda blew a smoke ring, making me think she’d seen right through the ruse. “It can’t be easy being an independent woman agent.”
“It’s not easy being an independent woman, Miss Hopper. As I’m sure you know.”
“No one knows that better than I. Men are always trying to shut me up.”
A snappy retort trembled at the edge of my lips, but I said nothing of the sort. Hedda Hopper can and has made reputations, and just as swiftly rendered them into ash.
“You must have learned a lot from Irv Rakoff when you worked for him.”
“I learned nothing at all from him, thank you.” Unless it was how to pour cold champagne over a man’s dick, and how to sniff condescension at a hundred yards. I smiled at her.
“It’s hard in this business for a woman to deal effectively with men, and to remain a lady.”
“Remaining a lady is not a priority for me.”
“Really?” Hedda’s bright little eyes lit, and I could all but hear her cranial wheels turn.
“To be a lady is to confine oneself to a certain set of expectations that belong to others. At the L’Oiseau d’Or in Paris, they taught us it’s more important to set one’s own expectations—in short, to be clever.”
“Clever girls often overreach themselves,” she said with an implied tsk-tsk.
“But clever women do not. It’s a matter of knowing what tools to use for each purpose. You wouldn’t use an oyster knife to stir your tea, would you?”
I took some small malicious pride to see confusion momentarily cross her face. Perhaps that’s what Julia meant about glamour: Talk fast, laugh fluidly, gesture economically, and leave behind a shimmering wake. Wake or not, I freed myself from that asp in a hat and wandered the stellar gathering, champagne glass in hand. I exchanged false effusions of noisy affection and false promises to have lunch soon with all sorts of people, and when they waxed on about how wonderful Banner Headline was, I agreed without ever observing that the story was a pale imitation—actually a shameless derivative—of the Cary Grant/Rosalind Russell classic, His Girl Friday.
Denise had made three pictures a year for Empire since 1948, and many of them had done well. Particularly in the bright comedic roles, even I had to admit, she had flair. But was she the equal of Rosalind Russell or Carole Lombard? No. Banner Headline (written by Vic Hale, and directed by Phil Tobin) was, in my opinion, only workmanlike, though Leon had filmed it in Technicolor so luscious every frame brought to mind ripe fruit. And of course he had spared no expense on publicity. Witness this party.
I saw Irene sitting on one of the Louis XVI divans in her white gown with emeralds to complement it, her smooth blonde hair in a perfect pageboy. She had collected an admiring coterie, but when she saw me, she rose and excused herself. Arms linked, we floated through the throng, Empire’s daughters, envied and admired. A colored waiter paused in front of us with an assortment of canapés, dollops of pâté, and pale pink prawns. I passed on the canapés, but took a third glass of champagne. Irene beamed to see a slick, handsome blue-eyed man approaching us.
“Elliott Dunne, do you know my sister, Roxanne Granville? Elliott came to Empire when you were away in Paris, Roxanne. Elliott’s just had a promotion, haven’t you?”
“Vice president for production.” He grinned.
“I might as well tell you both,” Irene confided, “I am making it my mission to see that you two have an affair. I’ve decided, so don’t quarrel with me.”
“No quarrel here,” said Elliott, smiling.
Unlike most of Gordon’s cadre of imports, Elliott was not crew-cut; he had a luxurious mop of sandy hair and an ingratiating smile. Irene’s idea of a petite affaire was suddenly appealing. At least I’d be spared “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
“You’re the agent, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, pleased. “What is Empire looking for these days?”
“Well, another big hit to follow up on Banner Headline,” Elliott replied loyally, going on to glorify the film as though it had the critical clout of East of Eden, the poignancy of Marty, the five-million-dollar box office of Magnificent Obsession.
“And you think Vic Hale can give it to you?” I asked with dramatic disbelief.
Elliott evaded this topic while his eyes cast over me, frankly admiring. I’m sure Irene was delighted to note that the conversation meandered pleasantly down flirtatious paths. Across the room I saw Leon and waved. A momentary look of pain crossed Leon’s face, which I have to assume was occasioned by the red dress, but he moved through the throng to join us. He kissed my cheek, and Irene’s.
“You girls look like fire and ice,” he said, beaming.
Elliott respectfully excused himself. Gordon beckoned to Irene, and she left us.
Leon and I moved out of the main currents to a place near the French doors, and never mind the red dress, his voice filled with its old warmth. I told him how much it meant to me to have a real office.
“Yes.” He smiled. “I thought that house might suit you, though you know it’s not zoned for business. It’s a residential block, so you have to be discreet.”
“The Granville Agency doesn’t exactly have limos full of movie stars pulling up in front of the house, so I think we’re safe.”
His eyes lit with tender affection. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, Roxanne.”
“I’ve missed you, Leon.” I hugged him, and I knew Irene was right: I didn’t want to lose Leon. Of course I could accept Denise. I didn’t have to like her or respect her, just accept her.
My resolve was immediately tested when Denise joined us, taking Leon’s arm possessively, dwarfed by his height and intellect. Enormous blue eyes set in her perfectly oval face; fresh, full ruby lips; blonde hair waved up high; spit curls the size of quarters stuck to the sides of her face. By any standard, Denise was a ravishing beauty, broad shouldered, with enormous breasts. I liked to think in ten years, say, around 1965, she’ll look like Ma Kettle, but in the meantime she radiated fleshy vitality in a Technicolor-yellow gown set off by a necklace of yellow diamonds and a yellow diamond bracelet gleaming on one of her long white gloves. She gazed up adoringly at Leon, and he beamed at her like Joseph Cotton seeing Dolores Costello again in The Magnificent Ambersons. “My beautiful wife.” Leon savored that last word as if it were a piece of toffee.
As the daughter of Sir Rowland Granville, I said, “Congratulations on Banner Headline. It’s a great picture.”
“You’ve
seen it, then?” asked Leon, clearly pleased.
“Yes, Jonathan and I went together. We both loved it.”
“I’ve heard so much about you and Jonathan,” Denise said in her low, trilling voice, “running wild all over the studio when you were kids.”
“It was our playground.”
“They were sweet kids,” said Leon.
Her mother, Elsie, clad in a gown of an unbecoming salmon color, joined us and offered me a gloved hand as Leon introduced us. “Enchanté,” I said.
A photographer approached and asked Denise and Leon to pose with Phil Tobin, the director of Banner Headline. Elsie followed them.
“That’s a very daring dress,” said a voice behind me. I turned around to see a short man with thinning hair and sharp features. “Red is a dangerous color these days.”
“It’s a dress, not a metaphor.”
“Are you a Communist?”
“Are you the FBI?”
He laughed, a genuine, self-deprecating laugh. “FBI men are rumpled and sweaty, and they wear glasses and hats ten years out of date. They’re generally unshaven and chain smoke. I assure you, I’m not FBI, Miss Granville.”
“You know who I am?”
He chuckled. “That’s why I thought the red dress was especially provocative—daring, given your grandfather’s patriotic zeal.”
“Have we met, Mr. . . .”
“Carleton Grimes.”
I could not place him. He had hooded blue eyes, a thin, elegant moustache, and receding ginger-colored hair, and he carried himself with a kind of low-key sophistication.
“Everyone in Hollywood knows Roxanne Granville. Or knows of her. You’re an independent agent, aren’t you? Who do you represent? Anyone here?” He gestured around the gilded gathering.
“I don’t do actors.” Unfortunate phrasing. “I don’t like them very much as a tribe, I mean. My clients are writers.”
“Yes, actors have no substance if they’re not reflected in someone else’s adoring eyes.”
“You must be a writer.”
“No, I work at Paragon. Noah Glassman was my father’s college friend at NYU.” He paused when I frowned. “Noah’s the president of Paragon Pictures.”
“Oh yes, I remember now.”
“I came out here from New York to make plays into films. I wasn’t fast enough with The Country Girl. But I did manage to meet Grace Kelly, and we got to be friends, so that was some consolation.” He nodded in the distance to where the statuesque Miss Kelly stood like a pale flame collecting admiring moths. He took another glass of champagne from a white-gloved waiter. “This must be quite a good moment to be an independent agent. Films need stories. Stories need writers, and all the old guard, the really reliable talent, they’ve been swept out by the Red-hunting broom. We should have lunch sometime, Miss Granville. I’m always looking for interesting properties.”
“I’d like that, Mr. Grimes. I happen to have interesting properties,” I said as Gordon joined us.
“Look at all the television people,” Gordon muttered angrily. “I can’t stand them. Irene insists everything has to come to a stop once a week to watch I Love Lucy. I keep telling her, it’s crap! Lucille Ball was a failed chorus girl! What makes her so funny? They’re taking bread out of our mouths.”
Carleton and Gordon immediately dove into a rant on behalf of butts-in-the-movie-theater instead of butts-on-the-couch.
“My perspective is a little different,” I offered. They both looked surprised. Men are always surprised when women differ with them. “I quite love television. Sure, the pay is poor, the prestige is nil, and the hours are brutal, but on behalf of my young, ambitious writers, I am grateful to television. Television, gentlemen, is the great, roaring beast in the basement of the entertainment industry. You just keep throwing chunks of meat at it, and it roars the louder, and wants more.”
“A rather odd way to describe your writers’ work. Meat?” Carleton observed.
“Television doesn’t need deathless dialogue. Just lines to fill up the box.”
Carleton laughed. “You know that the dialogue on Dragnet is so wooden because they’re too cheap to pay for rehearsals and they read it off of the prompter as they’re filming.”
“‘Just the facts, ma’am,’” I said, imitating deadpan Jack Webb.
“But just look at what Disney’s done with Davy Crockett, and all those little buckaroos,” said Gordon, a despairing note in his voice. “Three million annually!”
“Pity the fucking raccoons,” said Carleton.
“I hate it when my kids go around singing Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier,” Gordon grumbled. “Who would have ever dreamed some old frontier tale would make that much money?”
The gods of irony intervened as the orchestra on the gallery broke into a rousing version of the Davy Crockett theme song. Throughout the huge crowd, uncomfortable laughter rippled, and then everyone went back to pretending that they hadn’t noticed that every one of them—from the oldest to the youngest, from the studio mogul to the Negro waiter—could probably sing every verse.
“We’re negotiating now with that man.” Gordon pointed to a slick, handsome man with gleaming hair and a five o’clock shadow. “Ernest Todd from CBS. He came out here from New York last year. CBS is interested in showing some of our old films late on Saturday nights.” Gordon nabbed a shrimp off a passing tray. “Todd bought Max Leslie’s old house on Carolwood Drive.”
Ernest Todd ambled over to us. Gordon introduced us and again told the story of how Irene insisted life come to a halt so everyone could watch I Love Lucy. Only this time he left out the bread-from-our-mouths bit and told it in a bright-eyed, cheerful way intended to elicit the goodwill of this New York guy who had bought Max Leslie’s house.
I excused myself and went to the French doors, searching for Jonathan. I saw him down there on the second terrace surrounded by a bevy of the young, beautiful, and ambitious, some of whom frequented Casa Fiesta, though they were certainly better behaved here, and better dressed as well. I meandered down to them, and came in the midst of Diana Jordan raging against her agent, Irv Rakoff. Diana had a raw energy about her, a sort of sexual swagger few women would dare to parade; not perhaps what Julia would have recognized as panache, but unmistakably brassy charisma. Given this venue, she was more restrained than usual. “As soon as I can get rid of Irv, I’m coming to you, Roxanne. I want a woman agent.”
“I only handle writers. Writers are easier than actors, not as needy. More grateful,” I said as all these actors laughed out loud.
“A woman agent?” chuckled Rock Hudson, still glowing from his starring role in Magnificent Obsession (which, for all its magnificent profits, was a corny, one-hanky weeper). “What’ll they think of next? Women directors?”
“And why not?” I retorted.
“Men don’t want women ordering them around.”
“Well, I have two words for you, Rock,” I said. “Ida Lupino. She is a genius. She directed The Hitch-Hiker a year or so ago. Didn’t any of you see it? That’s no teatime drama. She directed that picture with such a sure hand, it gave me nightmares for weeks—oh, and it was an all-male cast too, in case you missed it.”
“Women lack authority,” Rock insisted.
“Don’t get Roxanne started,” Jonathan warned.
“Where is it written in stone that just because we have ovaries, we have no balls?” That got a laugh, and I might have gone on being outrageous (and, of course, amusing) but Clarence interrupted us with a white-gloved tap to my shoulder.
“Miss Roxanne, Mr. Greene would like you to join the family on the gallery for the toast.”
I excused myself, and returning to the salon, I could hear the musicians hurrying through “Three Coins in a Fountain” so fast it sounded like a polka. I lifted my luscious red skirt and went royally up the stairs to where
the family had gathered, along with Vic Hale, Banner Headline’s writer; Phil Tobin, the director; and the leading man, a harmless hunk.
I joined the luminaries in the gallery. To my right I saw Irene gazing with the calm of a blonde Buddha, and beside her, Gordon with his worried-cobra look. To my left I saw Elsie exuding the smug exultation of a woman who has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Beside her stood Denise, proud as a gilded figurehead on a full-sail clipper ship, oozing confidence as Leon addressed the gathering below, extolling the picture and all the many people he wanted to thank for its glorious success, beginning with his lovely wife. Applause. Applause. Denise blew kisses. Perhaps she was rehearsing for her Oscar moment.
And yet, as I stood there, looking across this constellation, I knew that for all their cool sophistication, their jewels, their gorgeous good looks, each man and each woman here knew that beauty wasn’t enough to crown you with success. In the fight for screen credits and star billing, for sex and swimming pools, for love and glory, as they say in Casablanca, you couldn’t be stupid and survive. You couldn’t be scandalous, or at least you couldn’t be caught. You couldn’t cling to the past, not even to past greatness. The present shone. This season’s box office. This season’s awards. And the future? I wondered if Davy Crockett and the blurry gray light flickering across American living rooms would make coonskin caps of us all.
Chapter Ten
Music blared out of the hi-fi: sounding brass, piping fifes, crashing cymbals, the roll of drums, peaking, ebbing, peaking, ebbing, then blasting gloriously forth . . . bright bells . . . no, wait. That was the phone. Great tubas resounding across vistas of marching . . . the phone.
“Charlie, that was the phone.”
“Wait, Roxanne, no, just wait, please . . .”
“I have to get the phone. In my business the missed call is the lost deal.”
“Just wait,” he panted, working hard. “Just wait, please . . . please . . . Ah! Ah! Ah!”
I scrambled out from underneath Charlie, raced out to the desk in the living room, and picked up the phone, surprised to hear Thelma’s voice on a Sunday morning.
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