“No, I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.” I meandered alone among the guests, most of whom I knew, stopping to chat with those I liked best, like Buster Keaton and Fred Astaire.
For the first time in my life, I watched the waiters at a party. I wondered if they too were relatives of the Dexters and Prescotts, the Goodalls, the Bowers. Where was it written, on what tablets of social stone, that the help should all be black, and the party guests all white? The orchestra, however, was mixed, and the leader was black, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that cheered me. I knew from Terrence’s columns that the only reason they could play together in public (integrated after-hours jam sessions were an open secret) was that the two musicians’ unions had combined into one. I noticed Clarence standing at the French doors, overseeing his particular empire. I would have waved, but he averted his gaze immediately. Well, tant pis, I thought, still angry at the idea of those white gloves he’d handed Terrence with instructions about touching my white skin.
Irene interrupted my thoughts, taking my arm in a no-nonsense fashion. “You’ve been positively beaming all summer long, every time I see you, and it’s getting tedious. You’re sleeping with someone new and fascinating, aren’t you? Tell me.”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
“Don’t deflect. You turned Elliott Dunne down when he asked you for a date. Twice. You know I had my heart set on a big white wedding, little Cindy as a flower girl, and the twins as ring bearers.” She toyed with her amethyst pendant; she was wearing a pale mauve strapless gown. “So who is it? You might as well tell me. I’ll figure it out. Someone”—she frowned—“someone’s husband?”
I waved to Carleton Grimes, who had looked over from across the fountain. He nodded to me. He was with a bejeweled woman I assumed to be his wife. I laughed. “I’m having an affair with Carleton Grimes from Paragon Pictures.” That ought to shut her up.
“Isn’t he a little old for you? He looks forty, at least, and he’s not that good-looking, even with the Errol Flynn moustache.”
“He’s sophisticated. And, well, honestly, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra have nothing on me and Carleton. A forbidden love affair. But oh, Irene, he . . .” I might have gone on at sexy length about my newly unleashed libido, but Carleton and his wife ambled over to us. He introduced his wife, and we all had the expected Hollywood exchange. I was beginning to understand Julia’s dictum on glamour—talk fast, laugh fluidly, gesture economically, and leave behind a shimmering wake. The “talk fast,” that was easy, but I certainly hadn’t mastered “laugh fluidly” or “gesture economically,” and only when I watched Carleton and his wife walk away from us did I realize that he had done exactly that. He was more accomplished than I gave him credit for.
“He’s not your usual pretty choice for a man,” said Irene critically. “Are you growing up at last?”
“Yes. I like them deep and dark and difficult these days. And that’s the truth.”
“Well, I’m going to tell anyone who will listen to me that you are having an affair with Carleton Grimes, and hope it will get back to his wife. That’ll put an end to it, and you’ll go out with Elliott Dunne.”
“Speaking of straying husbands, how is Gordon these days?”
“Like an angel.”
“I can’t quite picture that.”
“All right then, like a thoughtful husband.”
“Can’t picture that either.”
Irene’s cool laughter echoed with her shaking the ice cubes in her glass. “Wait till you get married, little sister. Love, honor, and obey. Well, maybe not for you; not obey anyway. You always make the rest of us look like we settled for the trolley car while you go off on a rocket.”
“Fly me to the moon,” I said with a laugh as the orchestra lit into the song the film was named for.
From where we stood I looked up to see Denise and Jonathan dancing, her bright blonde clarity beautifully highlighting his slick dark hair and fine features. She might be older than Jonathan, but they would look gorgeous together on film. On the strength of the champagne and the warm summer night, everyone here with a stake in Fly Me to the Moon was full of high hopes and high spirits. As was a certain writer in Riverside, no doubt. I pictured Max sitting on the back porch, smiling, watching his wife’s tomato plants gleam in the moonlight.
* * *
• • •
But when actual filming started, in truth, an unhappy miasma surrounded Fly Me to the Moon. And it did not dissipate. The thirty-six-day shoot (requiring no locations, and thus, no vagaries of weather or transport to contend with) ought to have popped right along, but the production was plagued. Stalled with unending technical problems, gaffes in scheduling and budgeting, an electrical failure, a collapsed set with an injury to one of the carpenters, and a couple of days when Jonathan was late (and hungover). Each, all of these instances drove up costs and shortened tempers. Often in the evenings Jonathan came out to Malibu to rail and moan, a font of irate gossip. He told us the filming was like the fighting at Guadalcanal, and when Terrence asked how he had any idea what Guadalcanal was like, Jonathan said he’d seen the movie.
For all the accidents and incidents, the root of the picture’s troubles lay with Leon. For over thirty years Leon had led Empire Pictures like a general, giving orders from behind a desk. But for this film he was leading the troops on the ground. He was on-set daily, and he did not bother finessing his decisions to smooth feelings or soothe egos. No one dared argue with him as he insisted on the best of everything for Denise, the perfect lighting, the luminous close-ups, the good lines. Every night Leon would look at what had been shot during the day; if he didn’t like it (and invariably he did not) it would have to be re-shot. Moreover, much of it had to be rewritten, driving Charlie Frye to desperation.
Charlie called me nearly every day, sometimes twice a day, at work, at home. I was the only person to whom he could confide, since I alone knew his secret. Leon had totally shattered his confidence, pointing to a scene, describing the changes he wanted, and demanding rewrites, some to be done overnight, some in a matter of hours. I’d seen Max Leslie do rewrites on-set while everyone else was taking a smoke break, but Charlie froze up.
“I can’t do it, Roxanne! It’s like trying to take a shit in front of him!”
“Where are you now?” I took the phone to my office window and stood there watching laundry flap on the line.
“In the Writers’ Building.” Charlie’s voice was wheezy with anxiety. “He sent me back here to work and I can’t. He’s like Captain Queeg, Roxanne. I need help.”
“How can I help? I’m not a writer.”
“You got me into this.”
“You wanted in, Charlie!”
“Well, now I want out.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Silence crackled between us. “You’re right. I don’t mean that. I want the screen credit. I want the money, even if I have to split it with Max Leslie.”
“Don’t say that name.”
“Vic Hale isn’t here.”
“Don’t say it at all. Just go back to work.”
“How can I? Leon humiliates me on-set. He actually asked me today if I needed help to pick up my pen or my prick.”
I knew that Leon could be ruthless, but such crass cruelty I had never seen. Small comfort to Charlie. I hung up and wandered out to the office, where Thelma was typing away. “It’s getting desperate at Empire. We may need to bring Max in for rewrites.”
“Are you crazy? That is foolhardy. No. Too dangerous.”
“We have to save the picture.”
“You mean save Charlie.”
“No, well, yes. Save Charlie and save us. If this is a disaster, all of my clients will suffer. My reputation will never be the same.”
As the days wore on, the woes afflicting Fly Me to the Moon escalated, and repeated crises
on-set undermined everyone working on the picture. Jonathan often came out to Malibu to let off steam. I was his oldest and most trusted friend, and he knew he could rant with impunity, but Terrence was less patient than I. Terrence would go on writing, pounding at the Royal while Jonathan flopped in the chintz chair and told his tales of woe.
“Two weeks into the shoot, and I want to kill myself,” he said.
“Don’t exaggerate.” I brought out three beers from the kitchen.
“I hate comedy. I always have. I told you I’m a serious dramatic actor.”
“You’re working, aren’t you? You’re not wearing a toga.”
“No one takes me seriously.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is! Look at Rock Hudson.”
“You’re twice as good-looking and three times as talented.”
“Yes, but he’s the studio’s creation. The studio sent him to the star-farm, acting lessons, dancing lessons, fencing lessons for grace, horseback riding so he can play George Armstrong Custer!”
“Really? They’re making a—”
“No, Roxanne, don’t be stupid. What I mean is he goes up on the screen trailing all this glamour that’s been created for him! It isn’t real! But everyone believes in it, everyone takes him seriously. Directors, producers, they look at me, and they think, Hell, we don’t have to take Jonathan seriously. Someone will always give poor Jonathan a job. After all, his father’s an MGM executive. How could he possibly be any good?”
“But you are good! This picture could make you!”
“Maybe, but it’s killing me in the meantime. It’s killing everyone except Denise. I’ve never seen Leon so angry as he was today except the night you rolled the Packard down the ravine and the cops brought us both to Summit Drive along with the open cans of beer.”
“I was sixteen and there was no arrest and no record,” I explained to Terrence, “and Leon made a big fat donation to the Policemen’s Ball.”
“Policemen don’t have balls,” said Terrence, returning to his typing.
“Leon was angry that night,” said Jonathan, “but he wasn’t outright cruel and nasty like he is now. Watching him day after day now, I wonder if he’s going senile.”
“He’s only”—I did the math—“sixty-five or so.”
“He’s not the man I remember.” Jonathan lit a cigarette, and took a long, thoughtful drag. “Why don’t you ever go to Summit Drive anymore, Quacker? You wouldn’t have to bring Terrence, though that would wake them all up, wouldn’t it? Ha! Just think about old Clarence! Your dear old uncle, Terrence. Imagine that!”
“Clarence knows about us,” said Terrence without looking up from the Royal. “All my family knows, and they ain’t happy.”
I wandered over to him, put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m happy.” Terrence absently patted my hand and returned to his typing.
“Well, whatever’s driving Leon, he’s making sure Fly Me to the Moon belongs to Denise. She’s not such a bad kid, you know. Denise.”
“You aren’t telling me you like her, are you?”
“Sure, I like her.”
I studied his face. “You’re not going to fall for her, are you, Quacker? She will chew you up and spit you out!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, I’m bagging Barbara Marsh regularly.”
“Who is she again?”
“She plays the girl behind the perfume counter when Maisie goes shopping, trying to make herself more attractive for Professor Bleeker. It’s Barbara’s first role since she left the Pasadena Playhouse. She’s delighted that Al Gilbert had a mention in his column last week about our little romance.” He grinned like the Cheshire cat. “We were both late to the set the next day, and you should have heard old Phil Tobin. I thought he was going to sprout hemorrhoids he was so mad.”
“I’ll tell you what gives me hemorrhoids,” said Terrence, turning from the Royal and taking off his glasses. “That fucking shoeshine boy who does his little dance there for Professor Bleeker and gets a dime for his trouble. That boy, just a-grinning and a-hoping for a handout from the nice white gentleman, that’s shit. That kid is standing in for the whole Negro race.”
Jonathan looked perplexed. “That scene isn’t making a race statement, it’s just to show that Bleeker has a kind heart.”
Terrence gazed upward. “‘Why, thankee, massa, thankee.’”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t write it.”
“But you didn’t notice it either,” said Terrence. “Before I met Roxanne, I never used to go to the movies much, but the more I see, the more I think Leon Greene is absolutely right. Movies are powerful. They don’t just reflect, they shape. Leon wants movies to save America from the Reds. I want movies to save America from ourselves.” He turned back as though he were about to type again, but changed his mind. “I’m telling you, every Negro who coughs up the price of admission for Singin’ in the Rain, for Magnificent Obsession, that person is crying out”—Terrence looked to heaven—“‘Erase me, O Lord, from America itself! Make me even more invisible, Lord! I been erased from history, and now, I beg you, erase me from the myth as well!’”
“What about Carmen Jones?” asked Jonathan. “That picture had a lot of colored people.”
Terrence looked suddenly tired. “That picture was just as segregated as any other, and offered itself like a vacation destination with voodoo. That’s not what I’m talking about. Movies ought to help America grow up. That’s going to be my column this week.”
“Please don’t say Leon, or this movie in particular, honey,” I said. “If they think you’ve read Fly Me to the Moon, people will wonder how you saw the script.”
“Don’t worry, Liza Jane. Here’s what I’m going to write: Why doesn’t someone make a movie of Up from Slavery? You remember that scene, Liza, where Booker T.’s mother somehow finds a chicken, cooks it, and wakes her children in the middle of the night so they can eat it on the spot? That’s pretty goddamn dramatic.”
“What’s Up from Slavery?” asked Jonathan.
“Just what it sounds like,” I said before Terrence could say something sharp. “Booker T. Washington was born a slave and went on to do great things.”
“Oh,” Jonathan said, waving his cigarette in the air, “a movie like that wouldn’t make any money.”
“Maybe what needs to change,” I said, “is the audience, what people are willing to pay to see.”
“Themselves!” cried Terrence. “Don’t you understand? Except as sexpots or servants, we don’t exist. What do you think that does to little black children? Maybe they’re out there singing ‘Davy Crockett’ now, but in ten years they’re going to grow up, and they’re going to say, to ask, ‘Why don’t I see anyone who looks like me anywhere on that television? Why don’t I see anyone who looks like me being something other than a slave or shuffling yassir-man?’ There’s going to be some hell to pay. One day.”
“It’s a question of changing what people expect, breaking habits, breaking customs,” I said. “If people expect only white people to be on the screen, then when there are black people, it’s like they don’t belong. If a female Robin Hood swooped in, people would be dumbfounded. But Maid Marian is fine being bartered about.”
“Isn’t that what women have always been?” asked Jonathan, laughing lightly. “Bartered, baffled, and dim but kissable?”
“Maisie isn’t dim,” I insisted. “That’s why the picture has such charm. It upsets people’s expectations. Women are either passive pawns or they’re scared of everything.” I brought my hands to my face in mock horror. “Outrageous things happen to women all the time, and no one seems to care.”
Terrence shot me an odd look, but the conversation went on, and not until Jonathan had left did he ask me what I meant. “Did someone do something outrageous to you, Liza Jane? Something you haven’t told me?”
“No, I just meant . . .” And then I thought, why shouldn’t I tell him? Why should I keep this all bottled up for two years, a nasty secret? “It was before I met you.”
“Somebody hurt you?”
This was the first time I’d told the Irv Rakoff story to anyone except Thelma. I told him about hairy-handed Larry Sanford too, and all the rest of them, their easy assumptions that women, any woman, could be had because men had the power, and we knew it. I started to cry, and stopped myself, but Terrence kept his arms around me, held me, and told me to go ahead, cry, get it out. And when I was done, he said, “You gotta promise me, Liza Jane, if shit like that happens again, ever, you gotta tell me. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”
Chapter Nineteen
The next day, I’d no sooner walked into my office when the phone rang. “Just one minute, sir,” said Thelma. She came to my office door and mouthed, “Leon.”
He got right to the point. “Charlie Frye doesn’t always show up when he’s wanted on-set, and when we have to send someone after him, they find him in his office, sharpening pencils and throwing darts. If he is there at all. He doesn’t make the changes when they’re wanted, which, as you know, is instantly. He’s costing us time.”
“But he does make them.”
“He’s costing us time,” Leon repeated, “and time is crucial. He wrote a brilliant comedic script. Why can’t he make some brilliant comedic changes? He’s your writer, isn’t he?”
The question hung there between us. “Sure, Leon. I’ll talk to him.”
“He’s already been talked to, Roxanne. You set this in motion. You need to see he acts responsibly. This would never have been tolerated in the old days.”
A chill pierced my very bones. “I will take care of this,” I promised, not knowing if I could deliver. Or if Charlie could deliver. Max, of course, could deliver, but he was in Riverside, sixty miles away. I hung up and said to Thelma, “There’s no choice. We need to have Max do the rewrites, and somehow we’ll have to get them to Charlie.”
The Great Pretenders Page 19
