City of Flickering Light

by Juliette Fay

  “It would be helpful for us if you would confirm that name, please.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “His name please?”

  “Wally,” she said. “Wally Walters.” She wanted to run from the room. These men with their expensive suits and calm expressions, behaving as if they could command anything of her, suddenly seemed sinister. “Why am I”—her voice faltered—“here?”

  “Miss Martin, I’m sure you can understand the duty we have to maintain the integrity and good name of Olympic Studios, which as you know provides for the education and entertainment of millions each day through our films.” He went on like this for another minute or so, and Millie heard words like “American institution” and “you, as a patriot” and “a woman’s reputation.”

  She began to feel breathless, nearly suffocating as she had that horrible night. She stood up. “I need to go.”

  Both men jumped to their feet, talking over each other so that she barely understood them. She started to make her way toward the door, but Mr. Sharp got in her way. She looked up at him and saw that his face was stiff with anxiety.

  What’s he worried about? she wondered. I’m the one on the hot seat.

  He was talking very fast now.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to understand him, but he seemed to think she meant he should get out of her way.

  “Please don’t go. Mr. Walters’s contract will be terminated, and we”—he glanced at Manning—“Olympic is prepared to recompense you for your . . . inconvenience. As long as you sign a statement denying any culpability on the studio’s part and promising that you will not go to the papers.”

  Go to the papers? Millie thought. And say what? That I allowed a man I barely knew to force himself on me, so I can be publicly shamed on top of the private shame I already feel?

  She stared at him.

  He stared back, but then he cut his eyes once again to Manning. “A hundred dollars.”

  “A hundred dollars?” Millie said, confused.

  “Two hundred. And another screen test. Wilson Grimes said you were the best fresh talent he’s seen this year, until the other man entered the room.”

  “You’re offering me two hundred dollars and a screen test to keep me from talking to the papers.” Millie thought hard about this. “It’s because of that horrible business with Fatty Arbuckle, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Sharp’s mouth twitched. “Not at all. There is no murder in this case. There may not even be a crime. It’s your word against his, and these things never actually make it to court.”

  He was right about that. But these men weren’t worried about a court case; they were worried about her going to the papers. Very worried. And the longer she didn’t take them up on their offer . . . the higher it went. Which suddenly made her feel a lot less worried. She smiled, and Mr. Sharp flinched.

  “A thousand dollars,” Mr. Manning suddenly growled from across the room. “Now come over here and sign this statement before I change my mind.”

  Afterward, Millie was handed an envelope and told to report to Stage Six on Monday for her screen test. The men were suddenly in great haste to shuttle her out the door.

  “But how did Mary Pickford know? She doesn’t even work for Olympic.”

  Mr. Sharp let out an exasperated sigh. “One of your friends at the Studio Club reported it to the director, who addressed the matter with Miss Pickford. She’s a patroness of the club, or didn’t you know that?”

  Just before the door closed behind her, Millie heard him mutter, “Dumb Dora.”

  She didn’t care. She had a thousand dollars in her hands. And a screen test.

  PART 2

  31

  Men like me because I don’t wear a brassiere. Women like me because I don’t look like a girl who would steal a husband. At least not for long.

  Jean Harlow, actress

  Irene got to the set too early—the crew was only just arriving, and the director wouldn’t be there for another hour—but she wanted to see it one more time before filming started.

  “Nerves?” a gruff voice said behind her.

  Irene spun around and then smiled at cameraman Wilson Grimes. “It’s the first scenario I ever wrote.”

  “A Baby’s Cry is your first baby. That fits.”

  She nodded. “I’m working on others, of course.”

  He turned to the camera and began to feed the unexposed negative film from the compartment magazine into the shuttle gate. “You writers always are.”

  You writers, thought Irene with a smile. For the last five months she’d toiled away in the relative obscurity of the Scenario Department, making comments and suggestions on other writers’ submissions, dashing off her own ideas, and learning the painstaking work of creating a continuity script. There had been department meetings, of course, but mostly she’d done her work alone, in silence.

  Now it was March, and she was on set for the first time, about to be surrounded by cast and crew members, and as the scenarist, in constant consultation with the director and cameraman. She had worked all winter on the continuity script, “mentally directing every shot,” as Eva Crown insisted, deciding how each scene would be furnished, lit, where and how the actors would move and talk and emote, the title cards required, and which camera effects to use. (She had learned all about close-ups, traveling shots, fades, triptychs, dissolves, prowler’s view through the keyhole, and the like.) And even then, the most perfectly written continuity script could be mishandled by a lunk-headed director or a ham-handed cameraman.

  Wilson Grimes was known to have the best eye and crank hand at the studio, and she was shocked when he was assigned to such a relatively small-budget picture. During a production meeting, she had mentioned how glad she was to have him on the film.

  “I requested it,” he’d told her. “I wouldn’t miss little Millie’s first big picture for all the kale in the Security Trust.”

  Millie’s screen test back in September had earned her a spot as a fifty-dollar-a-week extra, an enviable and surprising offer for a relative newcomer. The five of them—Millie, Irene, Henry, Gert, and Dan—had dissected this a hundred times and come to the conclusion that it was an inexpensive way for the studio to keep tabs on her and make sure she was holding up her end of the contract she’d signed.

  She hadn’t remained an unnamed “atmosphere” extra for long. In November she’d gotten her first real role, though as Millie put it, she was just some secondary character’s niece, whose only purpose was to smile until her teeth went dry, bob her head, and say, “Yes, Auntie!” Her salary rose to eighty a week, however, and that was certainly nothing to crab about.

  In February she landed the roll of the young mother in A Baby’s Cry, and that night the five friends howled their glee in half the speakeasies in Hollywood. Irene and Millie working together as scenarist and female lead—it had been beyond imagining six short months before when they’d been jobless, penniless, and living in squalor at Mama Ringamory’s.

  Henry might have had a chance at the male lead, if he hadn’t already landed the roll of the title character in a romantic comedy called Husbands for Sale. Dan and Gert hadn’t had quite the same meteoric rise but worked steadily and comfortably as extras or minor secondaries.

  That March morning, on the set of her very first flicker, Irene brimmed with gratitude for all their successes.

  Herbert Vanderslice, who’d been assigned to direct A Baby’s Cry, was not nearly as grateful, however. Irene had heard him muttering about getting placed on a dull domestic drama “with about as much action as an embroidery circle.” The scuttlebutt around the studio was that Vanderslice had been coming in late and over budget with the sprawling western pictures he preferred to make. Studio head Abe Tobiah had finally put him under house arrest, with a picture that would be shot almost completely on the main lot, making it easier to keep an eye on production costs. That picture, for good or for ill, was A Baby’s Cry.

  Millie was still in bed when Irene
had left that morning. At least Irene assumed she was in bed. Now that they had their own bedrooms, Irene had a strange feeling of losing track of her friend in the apartment they now shared at The Hillview on Hollywood Boulevard. It had been built by studio owners Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn specifically for actors and actresses, who were considered undesirable tenants by many landlords. A short walk to Olympic Studios, it was four floors with a lovely courtyard in the middle of the building, an elevator, and even its own garbage incinerator. The basement was meant for rehearsal space, though it was more often the site of parties.

  Separate bedrooms had taken some getting used to after so much time sharing a bed, and it wasn’t rare for Irene to wake to the sound of Millie snoring there beside her. On the other hand, Millie’s social life had expanded exponentially. She made friends with virtually everyone on every picture she worked on and she went out a lot, especially when Irene spent time with Dan. Sometimes they didn’t cross paths for days.

  “She’s a born hobnobber,” Dan said. “And someone falls in love with her every day of the week.”

  Irene didn’t like the sound of that. “She’s no vamp!”

  “Of course not. She’s just absurdly likeable. And very . . .”

  Irene crossed her arms. “Very what?”

  “Very pretty.”

  Irene fired off a warning look. Dan slid his arms around her waist and murmured in her ear, “Not as beautiful as my Irene, of course, but she’s okay if you like that sort of thing.”

  Irene smiled. “What sort of thing, exactly?”

  “The sort of thing that makes your eyeballs fall out.”

  “Excuse me, is this Stage Four? I know I’m a bit early.” Irene and Wilson looked up to see a young man standing at the edge of the platform. He had thick, sandy blond hair, soulful brown eyes—the type they called cow eyes—and a deep dimple in each cheek.

  You could carry spare change in those dimples, thought Irene.

  “Nothing wrong with early,” Wilson said, cutting his eyes at Irene. “You’re Jack Dennis, our burglar.”

  “Why, yes!” The young man strode forward, leading with an outstretched hand to shake. He was wearing a bedraggled, ill-fitting suit and a plaid shirt with no tie. “You must be Wilson Grimes. I’ve heard all about you. And I’m just mad about your pictures, of course.”

  Wilson gave his hand a hard pump, nearly destabilizing the boy. “This is Irene Van Beck. You’ve heard all about her, too, of course.”

  Jack opened his mouth to speak but just ended up nodding and smiling instead.

  “Incorrigible,” Irene hissed at Wilson. To Jack she said, “I’m the scenarist. This is my first big picture, too.”

  Jack let out the breath he’d been holding and laughed. “Are you as nervous as I am?”

  She smiled. “Maybe even more so.”

  Millie came in behind Jack, wearing a much flimsier nightgown than the script called for. It was sleeveless, with a low neck, and made of a pearl-colored silk satin that clung and shimmered all the way down to her calves. She was playing a new mother, for goodness’ sake, not a bride on her wedding night.

  “Irene, can you check my makeup? Am I supposed to be wearing lipstick this dark?”

  Millie had always done her own makeup from her little kit, and she was quite good at it. But as the star of the film, she now reported to the makeup department.

  “Vanderslice made a few changes to the continuity last night,” murmured Wilson.

  “I’ll say.” Irene shook her head. “Millie, did you bring your kit so we can fix it?”

  But Millie didn’t answer. She was looking at Jack Dennis, her face lit with interest. “Hello.”

  Jack’s eyes went even wider than they normally were. Irene wondered if Dan had been right, and his eyeballs might actually fall out.

  “Hello,” he said. After another moment, “I’m Jack Dennis.”

  “I thought maybe you were. I’m Mildred Martin, but my friends call me Millie, so I hope you will, too.” Spying Wilson, she gave him a wink.

  Absurdly likeable. Dan had been right about that, too.

  Several crew members began to filter in, and Millie made a point to introduce herself to each one and learn their names. “Dan taught me that, by the way,” she murmured to Irene afterward. “He said they can tell you things the director might not let you in on. Your sheik knows his onions.”

  Irene tried not to roll her eyes. Since the movie The Sheik had come out the previous year, catapulting Rudolph Valentino to the peak of stardom and women’s fantasies, people had begun using the term to mean a handsome man, particularly if he was someone’s boyfriend.

  “Did he say anything about underwear?” Irene whispered. “Because I think he would tell you to wear some.”

  “First of all, I tried it with drawers and a camisole and it utterly ruined the line. And second, Dan would never be so crass as to talk about underwear with me.” Millie nudged her. “I hope he talks about it with you, though.”

  No, she and Dan didn’t talk about underwear . . . but they had recently become rather familiar with each other’s undergarments, specifically how quickly they could be discarded.

  In many ways their courtship had been backward. After that first night in his apartment, curling themselves around each other on the braided rug and revealing things they’d kept locked away from almost everyone else on the planet, it had felt strange to go on dates. To do mundane things like choose a movie or discuss current events or comment on the weather. They’d gotten serious first and had to learn how to be casual.

  They also struggled to keep their hands off each other. Pressing their clothed bodies together on that first night had created a powerful physical intimacy that made mere necking feel childish. Irene knew it was her job as the woman to keep things from progressing too quickly, but there were times when her desire for him bordered on lunacy. She’d always been warned about men’s urges, but no one had warned her about her own!

  Dan never, ever pressured her, but by January he let it be known that he was open to the idea of her spending the night with him again, this time on the bed, and with substantially less clothing between them.

  “You won’t respect me,” she told him.

  “That’s Van Wert talking.”

  “That’s all of America talking.”

  “Whoever it is, it’s not you, because you know that’s not remotely true.”

  “So I’m supposed to ignore everything every girl has always been told, and just make up the rules as I go.”

  His dark eyes glinted with humor, and before he’d even said a thing she was already smiling right along with him. “Why don’t you make up a rule about how much I love you, and how much you love me, and how badly we want to—”

  “Don’t say it!” she yelled through her laughter.

  “I don’t need to say it,” he murmured, slowly drawing her into his arms and swaying her back and forth until she felt loose and giddy. “Because you know.”

  Afterward as they lay tangled together beneath his blue cotton blanket, Irene decided that making up her own rules was far better than following other people’s.

  I’ve been bedded by a savage Indian, she thought blissfully. I’ll never go back to Van Wert again.

  The first day of filming A Baby’s Cry got off to a rocky start. The scenario began with a seemingly happy, well-to-do husband and wife walking down the street on a Sunday morning, pushing a perambulator. As they walk up to a church to attend services and the wife is busy parking the pram and lovingly taking out the baby, the husband gives admiring glances to two young women walking past him and into the church. Irene was quite happy with this as the opening scene because it gave the audience a firm footing for all it needed to know about this couple—the devotion of the wife and mother, the wandering eye of the husband.

  But it was pouring rain so they started with the first indoor scene, a shot in which Millie descends the stairs in her nightgown and encourages her husband to come up
to bed.

  The philandering husband was played by Conrad Wallace, who was nearly forty. He’d had the gray hair at his temples and in his pencil mustache dyed tar black, and the makeup department had done a wondrous job on his crow’s feet. He was clearly a friend of director Vanderslice, calling him Slice-old-boy, and slapping him on the back more than was completely necessary. Irene remembered seeing him as the leading man in a few films when she was around fourteen or fifteen, but not much since then.

  Conrad was to stand at the window fully dressed, drinking amber liquid from a short crystal glass. He would then look up the stairs at his lovely young wife, who smiled shyly and beckoned. Conrad’s husbandly smile was decidedly wolfish.

  “Cut!” called Vanderslice.

  “Slice, old bean, what’s the trouble?”

  “Well, you’re not meant to look quite so interested, Connie. Remember, you have another woman waiting for you, with whom you’d much rather be.”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t the audience think I was off my trolley for not taking this girl for a quick roll first? I mean look at her, for the love of Christ.”

  Millie clasped her hands under her chin, tilted her head, and mugged a silly grin. Chortles erupted from the crew; Vanderslice, however, was not amused. The shot took seventeen takes because he was never fully satisfied with Conrad’s level of interest in his wife, which ranged from listless to lewd, nor with Millie’s level of sultry attractiveness, which ranged from high to higher.

  “See why he got grounded?” Wilson murmured to Irene.

  “Yes, but why do the rest of us have to take the punishment, too?”

  Wilson patted her shoulder. “You’re new around here, aren’t you.”

  The baby, an adorably pink and pleasant child named Rosemary, who was bright-eyed and ready all morning for her first paying job, passed out like a drunken sailor in the afternoon. Nothing could rouse the poor exhausted infant, which made it tough to pull off the scenes in which she was supposed to be crying and miserable.