But very soon our family trips to the video store required a bag to carry all the movies we rented. Our marathon movie nights were an education as well as entertainment, not just for myself but for my kids and their friends.
Despite a long-standing love of film and the darkened theater, I had never given much thought to the Hollywood blacklist era until the 1999 Oscars. The Academy gave a special award to Elia Kazan, the legendary director of On the Waterfront (1954), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), and many other films, a man who, by any artistic standard, had contributed greatly to this art form. Outside of the event, cameras caught sight of protesters carrying signs decrying the award. Inside cameras circuited throughout, and you could see and sense the palpable tension as some of the celebrity-laden audience rose to their feet, applauding Mr. Kazan as he walked onstage while some remained seated, stoic, refusing to honor him. These conflicting reactions were based on Kazan’s 1952 testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Nearly fifty years later, so deep were the passions the blacklist aroused, many could still not forgive him. Kazan and many others “named names” of their former comrades in the Communist Party years before. Those named were themselves called before the Committee, and the people who refused to “cooperate” were universally blacklisted, ruining careers and wrecking lives.
The blacklist era (1947–1960) is a complex, difficult subject with tangled roots in the entertainment industry, in labor history and anti-Fascist movements during the thirties, as well as our alliance with Russia during the Second World War. Victor Navasky’s Naming Names (1980) remains, in my opinion, the “bible” on the subject. This Columbia University professor painstakingly synthesized hundreds of interviews into a narrative that sought to explain not simply how an entire industry had so totally succumbed to fear, but why. A professor asks: What happened and why? A novelist asks: What if? A novelist has to condense and distill the historical past into currents that can lift and carry characters through the story.
I began to imagine a character caught in a web of old loyalties, and affections. Roxanne Granville had to be brash but conflicted. She had to be young enough to be reckless, convinced, as the young are, that bold gestures will be rewarded. She needed a past that would resonate, and so I gave her a unique childhood where she was informally tutored by a cadre of marvelous writers. I gave her a profession that would plunge her into the fear and suspicion that hung over Hollywood like red smog. For all her privilege and position, she also needed something that would give her a measure of insecurity. Without the stain upon her cheek, she would be a less interesting character.
Historical fiction always aspires to create vivid context around personal struggles. The Great Pretenders addresses social upheavals in what—on the face of it—appeared to be an era of happy conformity. I grew up during that fifties postwar boom in one of the new tract houses in the Southern California’s San Fernando Valley, the streets all rigidly parallel, the neighborhoods uniformly white, televisions blinking blue in the living rooms. People took for granted that black and white families would not live in the same neighborhoods, or work for equal pay, or have equal opportunities. But by mid-decade, under all that bland assumption, new currents roiled. Radios blasted out the raucous, rebellious chords of rock and roll. The terrible death of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till outraged the nation. In Montgomery, Alabama, in an unprecedented collective action, citizens walked rather than ride at the back of the bus; they boycotted the buses for more than a year while their struggle went all the way to the Supreme Court. I wanted the reader to experience these contemporary upheavals as well as the political tremors besetting the picture business. I plunged Terrence Dexter, a reporter for a fictional LA paper, into the maelstrom of the bus boycott to experience it personally.
Ideally the human dilemmas that characters face should resonate beyond the pages of any novel. In this book those dilemmas are questions of aspiration and desperation, of betrayal, of loyalty, forbidden love, unregretted folly—in short, choices. Every life has choices. Truly, what are any of us but a handful of character traits tossed into a potful of historical circumstance? We are all obliged to respond, to fulfill or reject, to rise to occasions we could not have foreseen or imagined.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Uncontested assumptions about women’s roles—sexism—constrict Roxanne’s possibilities. So pervasive are these in the 1950s that she scarcely recognizes their effect. (“Isn’t that what women have always been?” Jonathan quips. “Bartered, baffled, and dim but kissable?”) After her encounter with Irv Rakoff, Roxanne begins to understand that these underlying notions are rooted in questions of power. How does she use that insight as she establishes herself as an independent agent? Does she fight sexism? Does she use it to her own advantage? How has the role of women in Hollywood changed? How has it stayed the same?
Born into Hollywood royalty, a milieu that values beauty in women above all, Roxanne Granville remains always at a disadvantage. How does the birthmark on her cheek affect her life?
These characters are constantly being challenged to make choices that can cast them into a net of lies, and potentially into ruin. They are asked to choose between families or lovers. Between personal loyalties or political principles. Between fronting for others, taking the credit, sharing the spoils, or maintaining one’s own work. Who among them makes reckless choices? Who takes calculated risks? Do the individuals in the novel sometimes not know the difference?
“In Hollywood fame, money, reputation, friendship, even love and marriage are conditional, flimsy, and often for effect. No one is invincible.” Is Roxanne’s early observation borne out in the novel? What is the role of reputation in Roxanne Granville’s Hollywood?
How important is the press in the book? Not just the Challenger, but the big daily newspapers, the scandal rags, the trade papers, gossip columns, the critics. Is Roxanne correct in describing the press and the picture business as “mutually voracious cannibals”?
Irene and Roxanne, though not actually related, are truly sisters, and yet their values remain very different. How do their values impact their bond? How and why are they reconciled? At the end of the book, do you think Irene will be supportive of Roxanne and her choices?
Many of these characters engage in socially unacceptable love affairs, not merely unwise unions, but outright forbidden. Are these people changed by the experience? Are there regrets or insights gleaned? What are the costs to the lovers themselves? To their families and friends? To their reputations? Are these the sorts of relationships that still, in our own day, extract a heavy price from anyone brave or foolhardy enough to engage in them?
Returning to LA after Julia’s death, Roxanne’s feelings for Leon remain ambivalent. She does not want to live in his shadow, and makes a great show of independence. Yet she makes many important decisions based on resentment, affection, respect, and other complex emotions she feels for her grandfather. Despite her bravado, why can she not quite free herself from Leon Greene?
Roxanne Granville assumes that black people exist to serve white people, herself in particular. The servants at Summit Drive, for instance, are mere backdrop for her. She never suspects that Julia contributes to civil rights causes. How and when does Roxanne start to question her assumptions? How does Terrence Dexter enrich her understanding of the way family and society work—and how they ought to work? Why are both Roxanne’s and Terrence’s extended families so vehemently against their affair? Does Roxanne’s meditation on family Christmas day, 1955, seem utterly improbable for that era? And now? What do you think?
Terrence and Roxanne are each brought up with a serious set of doctrines, Terrence in the Baptist church and Roxanne in the Church of Rick and Ilsa. When they first meet they are utterly ignorant of the other’s beliefs, even though they both quote “scripture.” How essential are these beliefs to their relationshi
p? Do they learn from each other? How?
The novel is bookended by two funerals. Roxanne comments on the theatrical aspects of each. Is she correct in thinking that they are similar?
Terrence Dexter, a seasoned reporter for the Challenger, goes to Montgomery, Alabama, to report on the bus boycott. What does it mean to him, personally and professionally, to be a participant in these events instead of just a witness? How does his time there affect his relationship with Roxanne? With his own family? How does it change him? Can you imagine the book he is writing? Would you want to read it?
Roxanne is fond of quoting Julia’s maxim, “Glamour is nothing more than knowing how to talk fast, laugh fluidly, gesture economically, and leave behind a shimmering wake.” Do you think Roxanne ever quite figures out what her grandmother meant by this? Julia makes it sound easy; is it? Is this description of glamour allied to the notion of panache that figures so prominently in Roxanne’s vision of herself?
Terrence says, “Leon Greene is absolutely right. Movies are powerful. They don’t just reflect, they shape.” Do you think this is true? Do you think that today’s more diverse films still shape the way we live?
In 1958, The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, which was given to the author of the novel, Pierre Boulle. Monsieur Boulle did not even speak English. The actual screenplay was written by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, blacklisted writers who had fled the country, Foreman to England, Wilson to France. (Their credits were not restored until 1984.) Do you see parallels between The Bridge on the River Kwai and Adios Diablo? Why did Carleton Grimes not shut down production on Adios Diablo when he could, before the truth came out? Can you think of instances today where the tainted reputation of filmmakers or actors is enough to tank a multimillion-dollar movie?
“Max, Simon, Nelson, Jerrold, taught me, early on, that the dramatic core of any film is characters who are being tested. Whether high drama or slapstick, High Noon or Duck Soup, the characters don’t have to be saints, they just have to be interesting, have interesting motives, and respond to unlooked-for challenges.” Is this an accurate description of what makes a good film? Now that films are able to depict sex, does that alter the standard?
People in the novel are always talking about loyalty as a laudable value. Who are the loyal characters? What or whom are they loyal to? How are they tested?
Roxanne describes her job like being “the feeder in the zoo, the guy who walks around with the bucket full of meat and throws it at the lions, and the bucket of bananas for the monkeys and the bucket full of palm fronds for the giraffes. Occasionally I wear a pith helmet. It’s a jungle out there.” What sorts of havoc did television wreak upon the 1950s entertainment world? Why are Gordon and Carleton and Leon so afraid of it?
Who are the great pretenders of the title? Are pretenses, lies, and secrets all the same thing?
Acknowledgments
First, a great round of gratitude and applause for Pamela Malpas, agent extraordinaire, insightful reader, and dear friend.
Many thanks to Danielle Perez, who inherited this project and brought to it her enviable editorial skills. She brought out the best in this novel.
Thanks too to supportive amigas and early readers Cami Ostman, Pam Helberg, Victoria Doerper, Tele Aadsen, and Connie Feutz. Grateful to Andrea Gabriel for website design.
A belated thanks for a long-ago delightful evening to Bob and Phyllis Joseph, who shared their Malibu memories.
Merci mille fois to my son Brendan for taking the time to drive me many places I needed to see, and to my son Bear for musical insight.
Lifelong gratitude to my mother, who shares the dedication of this book. She typed my novels—many drafts over many years. She has been my inspiration, and I like to think now that she is writing her memoirs, I have the opportunity to be her inspiration.
Author photo by Jolene Hanson
Laura Kalpakian has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Anahid Literary Award for an American writer of Armenian descent, the PEN West Award, and the Stand International Short Fiction Competition. She has had residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Montalvo Center for the Arts, and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. She is the author of multiple novels and over a hundred stories published in collections, anthologies, literary journals, and magazines in the US and the UK. A native of California, Laura lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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