by Kerri Maher
“Grace, it’s such a pleasure to speak to you again. I wish I could get out to Denver to see your work this summer.” Typical flattery, Grace thought, waiting for him to go on. “And even though I know your heart is in the theater, I have a movie opportunity for you that I think you’ll find appealing. Now, before you protest, I want to tell you I completely understand your position on studio contracts, and I respect it,” Jay said with surprising conviction. “And for this picture, you wouldn’t have to sign one.” Grace heard the implied threat that this wouldn’t be true the next time, but she held her tongue.
Instead, she said gently, “I’m listening.”
“Good, good. So you’d star opposite Gary Cooper, in a picture directed by Fred Zinnemann. Now, you might not have heard of Zinnemann yet, but he’s making quite a name for himself in town, does a terrific mix of avant-garde and more commercial work. He wants this picture to have a theatrical quality, and so of course Edith and I both thought of you, as did he after seeing that screen test you did a few years ago. And anyway, if Coop’s going to be in it, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
Grace felt her pulse increase, her cheeks flush. Gary Cooper was one of her father’s favorites. And Jay had said the word star—which seemed unlikely as this would only be her second movie, a ploy to lure her away from New York, but still . . . “What’s it about?” she asked calmly, trying to betray nothing of her rising excitement.
Jay cleared his throat. “Well, now, it’s a Western. But as I said, Zinnemann wants it to be more than just that. It’s a real dark-night-of-the-soul sort of picture, if you get my meaning.”
Jay was giving her the hard sell. It made her wonder if Zinnemann had lost his first choice of leading lady, and they were hard up for a second choice. But did it matter? Careers were built on that sort of opportunity.
But a film career—was that what she wanted?
No.
And yet. “Sounds intriguing,” Grace replied.
“I’ll have the script airmailed and messengered to you,” replied Jay. “I’ll need your answer by Wednesday, I’m afraid.”
Oh, yes, another actress had definitely bowed out. She wondered whom. “I look forward to reading it,” said Grace.
“Swell, swell,” said Jay, seeming relieved. “I think you’ll like it, Grace. I really think you will.”
Grace laughed, because how did young Jay Kanter know anything about her tastes? But she tried to make herself sound indulgent, like they were at a party and he’d just cracked the most marvelous joke.
* * *
The thing was, though, she did like the script. Very much. She read it all in one sitting, drinking a pitcher of iced tea with her feet up on the couch. She could see herself as Amy Kane, and—she had to admit to herself—the thought of her name on a marquee and on the posters that would go up all over the subways and movie theaters of New York made her a little breathless. Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. We’ll show them.
Jay had been right about the script having a theatrical quality, and of it plumbing the depths of a man’s soul—a woman’s, too, it turned out, but no one ever mentioned the woman. It was her character, Amy Kane, who would save Gary Cooper’s in the end, after an internal struggle with the demons of her own past. This appealed to Grace. She began considering different ways to play the role of Amy Kane as she read.
When she called Jay to tell him she liked the script and ask about the production schedule, his voice in reply was like a tightly wound coil ready to spring. “I’m so glad you liked it. I had a feeling you would. I appreciate your getting to it so quickly. You’re going to be amazing in this picture, Grace. It’s the perfect next step for you, and will position you to work with only the best directors and actors going forward. I can meet you at the airport the last weekend in July. You’ll meet Fred and get fitted for costumes and such.”
“So soon?!” Her mind was suddenly reeling. Had she even agreed to do the picture?
“Just for a day or two.”
“Yes, well, but . . . when does filming start? How long will it take?” She was thinking now about Sanford Meisner and the classes she was supposed to start in the fall. And Gene. They had been talking around the subject of their continued involvement for the past week. He’d mentioned a possible move to New York. And now she was going to be in California.
“A few weeks, tops, starting right after Labor Day,” replied Jay.
Not forever. Of course. Nothing to worry about. “I need to be back in New York by the end of September to start my studies with Sanford Meisner,” she said.
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” said Jay, though she had the sense he’d say anything to get her on that plane. And she was committed now, even in her heart.
* * *
The next day, Grace showed up at Gene’s place with some blueberry muffins and coffee, and even a beer. “Hair of the dog,” she said as she plunked it down in front of him. There hadn’t been time before their evening performance the previous night to tell him her news, and then everyone had gone out again and there hadn’t been a good time. Plus, Gene had gotten drunk again, which peeved her.
“You’re the best, Grace,” he said with a yawn, as he popped the bottle open with a clink and a hiss.
He revived quickly, and before she could broach the subject, he was kissing her and taking her to bed. She let him, relieved for the temporary distraction.
You have to tell him, she told herself as they lay in bed, her head resting on his chest, their legs languidly tangled together. She liked this better with Gene, in the morning, when he wasn’t intoxicated and about to pass out.
“I got a call about doing a picture,” she said. It came out as sort of a question.
“And?”
“Well, I did a screen test . . . gosh, ages ago for a movie called Taxi. That was how Henry Hathaway found me for Fourteen Hours, and now apparently Fred Zinnemann’s seen it. He wants me in a Western with Gary Cooper next month.”
“Well, dagnabbit, Grace, that sure is the most terrific news,” Gene said in mock cowboy drawl.
She giggled. Gene could be very sweet. “So you think I should do it?” She wasn’t even sure why she was asking, since she’d already said yes. But she needed . . . What did she need? His approval? His permission? Validation?
“I don’t see’s how it’s up to me, little filly,” he said, staying in cowboy character.
Grace sat up and laughed, though she gently nudged him with her foot. “Be serious, Gene.”
“I am,” he said, returning his voice to normal. “It’s your opportunity. I’d never stand in your way.”
Something in her gut wanted him to, though, which seemed insane.
“It is a good opportunity,” she said.
“Then why the long face?” He smiled up at her, his face so open and kind. She thought she was in love with that face. She didn’t want to leave him.
“It’s just that I’ll have to go to California right away,” she said, “and on-site pictures always take ages to shoot—at least that’s what I’ve heard. And I’m nervous about getting back to New York in time to start with Sanford Meisner.” All of which was perfectly true, but she also hoped that mentioning New York would call to his mind their tentative plans to be there together.
“If it were me, I’d skip the lessons to do a picture with Gary Cooper. I mean, it’s Gary Cooper. Coop.”
He said it with incredible confidence. As if there was no question. She envied him that. And she also felt disappointed. Was he not even going to mention the next time he’d see her?
“Right,” she said, nodding and agreeing with what he said. “So . . .” How could she put this? Oh, just ask him. “I don’t suppose you want to come to California for a little while?”
Gene’s eyes widened; then he shut them tight and rubbed both hands on his face as if he was just then waking up. Then
he looked over at Grace. “I do love it here out west,” he said. “I feel freer here.”
Is that all you love?
“But,” he said emphatically, “I have my annulment and other things to sort out. I’ll have to see.”
She must have looked crestfallen—she certainly felt it, literally, as if she were falling off a high precipice, her stomach high above her—because when he glanced up at her, he said, “Hey, don’t be sad. You’ll be doing a movie with a living legend, and I’ll be in purgatory.”
Laughing a little in spite of herself, she said, “When you put it that way . . .”
Then Gene studied her in earnest and took her right hand in both of his and said, “If I can get to California, I will. I promise. I’d like nothing more than to sponge off the purdiest girl I ever seen.”
“Stop,” she said, but she really wanted him to go on like that forever. It slowed the falling feeling.
“The most talented, too,” he added. “How would a cowboy say talented?”
Grace slid back down on the bed so that her toes met Gene’s, then she reached up and ran her fingers through his messy blond hair. “I don’t care how they say it,” she whispered before she kissed him, then reveled in the immediate response his body made to her touch, the hungry way he kissed her back and pulled her on top of him, his hands on her hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her backside. Like this, she always knew how much he wanted her, and she found enormous pleasure in that power.
Chapter 7
United Artists, who was producing the film, put Grace up in the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. The long-necked, chinless bellboy handed her the key and said reverentially, but also as a dare, “Bogart stayed here last week.” And who are you, lady?
She might have been green in Hollywood, but Grace knew enough to know that the Chateau Marmont had been home to all the major stars at one time or another. In fact, when Jay told her this was where she’d be staying, a flutter of excitement made her breath catch in her throat. In contrast to most of the low stucco or angular wood buildings in the Hollywood hills, the Chateau was a white building that looked like a genuine château, or maybe even a small castle. Inside were dark wood beams and paneling, among other heavy Renaissance decor, like the iron chandeliers, fleur-de-lis drapery, and pointed archways. Her room was spacious, with a large bed and a separate sitting area, and a picture window that had a tremendous view of the surrounding area—when she lifted her eyes, they roamed over the piney green hills colonized by houses in a riot of styles: pink Spanish, white Greek, flat modern. At street level were the ubiquitous palm trees lining all the main roads, the streets loud with motors and shiny with brightly painted cars at every hour.
Above it all was that remarkable California sky, which she’d marveled at the last time she was out here. It simply seemed bigger here, which of course she knew was ridiculous—the sky was the sky. But in California, the pale hydrangea blue seemed absolutely limitless.
But it was not calming. She stood at her window, looking into its abyss her first morning after a rotten night’s sleep, feeling completely wrecked, clutching at the lapels of her terry cloth robe. She ought to eat something and try to sleep some more, but she knew she’d never drift off. The only things she had any appetite for were coffee and juice, the combination of which would be hell on her stomach even if the juice was squeezed from oranges grown on these very hills. California was surreal.
She wished Gene were there, but he was sorting things out in New York. They’d had dinner together just two nights ago, and already it seemed a month. He had said he’d be “out west” soon—how she loved the way he said this, the way he referred to this land of sun and oranges and strange faux châteaus as one large, puzzling expanse.
On her way to the studio for read throughs, she’d tried knitting in the car sent to fetch her, but she couldn’t concentrate on the fuchsia yarn. A bad sign. Knitting usually relaxed her. Then she felt like a real bumpkin arriving on the partially built set with her tapestry bag of knitting supplies, wearing her glasses—even if she was dressed in a crisp white blouse with navy culottes and espadrilles, an outfit she’d meticulously re-created from the pages of Vogue’s recent “California Style” spread.
Gary Cooper’s hand was callused like she imagined his character Marshal Kane’s must have been, and his grip was firm but not too tight. His sun-stained skin was deeply creased above his brow and around his mouth, and he greeted her with a ready smile and a “Pleased to meet you at last, Miss Kelly.”
“Likewise, Mr. Cooper,” she replied, amazed she could make her voice work at all. She hoped she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.
“Please. Call me Coop.” He looked kind. And as old as her father. And yet she was supposed to be playing his wife.
She smiled and nodded. “And please call me Grace.”
And with that, they got to work. Curly-haired Fred Zinnemann sat in his director’s chair opposite a lineup of Grace and Coop, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, and Katy Jurado, and asked each of the actors to explain in a few sentences who their characters were and what they wanted. Grace appreciated this icebreaker, especially because it gave her an opportunity to understand not just each character better, but how each actor intended to play the character—and also how Fred wanted the character played. He even counseled Gary not to play the marshal with too much confidence, saying, in his light Austrian accent, “Will Kane is a man at the end of his tether. I don’t want to see Gary Cooper in front of the camera, but a man who’s ready to die to save the town, even though the town has turned its back on him.”
This correction made Grace feel better when it was her turn, and she said, slowly and unsurely—for she thought it would be too presumptuous to say what she really felt, which was that Amy was the ultimate hero of the picture—“Amy Kane’s a young bride who wants to start over with her new husband, to escape the violence of her youth. So when she finds that she can’t escape it, she’s devastated.”
“Devastated, yes,” said Fred, looking into Grace’s face and intensely holding her gaze, “but she also finds her strength when she realizes what she must do to help her husband. She cannot run. She must fight.”
“Yes,” breathed Grace, relieved that the director shared something of her vision of Amy. Strength was a word most people would apply to Katy Jurado’s character, the capable and seductive saloon owner Helen Ramírez, but when Fred used it to describe Amy, Grace felt her stomach settle down—at least partially. She still had to figure out how to play Amy opposite a man so much older and more experienced than she was, in a medium with which she was not trained and far from familiar. Her television work had taught her to modulate her facial expressions and voice for the camera—everything had to be bigger and louder for the stage—but the big screen was another beast entirely. She hoped Zinnemann and Cooper would be able to give her good direction. At least she seemed off to a positive start.
* * *
The Hollywood machine managed to link her to virtually every actor in town except Gene, the one she was actually involved with, chewing her up and spitting her out in gossip columns everywhere. If she so much as greeted another actor with a kiss at a party—or, even more tamely, at a restaurant when they were seated at separate tables!—some stealthy photographer captured the moment and printed it with a headline. What’s going on with Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper? Marlon Brando! Gregory Peck!
Some of the gossip hit closer to home, though. Obviously, some of her old Academy compatriots had decided to sell lascivious stories about her to the press. One recent column speculated about Grace’s willingness to sleep her way to the top, citing a relationship with “one of her teachers at the American Academy,” and quoting an unnamed former peer who said, “It’s well-known that Grace would do anything to land a role. When she got in line for a part, the rest of us didn’t stand a chance.” This barb made Grace irate, flooding her with all the ange
r she thought she’d left behind when she boarded the plane for California. Don had been one teacher, and she’d loved him. He was the first person in her life other than Uncle George with whom she’d been able to discuss the subjects closest to her heart—of course she’d been attracted to him! And she’d lost many, many more roles than she’d won. All those wasted mornings in bed nursing her bruised ego. These articles made it sound like she was a ruthless harpy who’d never suffered a day in her life.
“It’s insane,” she said to Uncle George as they sat in air-conditioned splendor in his very square white house on a golf course in Palm Springs, where he’d recently decamped with William. “It’s like the papers and their sources just make things up!”
“If you signed with a studio, they would manage the press much more closely,” George said.
“You can’t seriously be suggesting I give up that much power to one of the studios? They might control what goes into the press, but I’ll have no say over what they do tell reporters.”
“They’re a necessary evil in the business, I’m afraid,” he replied with a shrug.
“There must be another way,” said Grace, shaking her head, then taking a sip of pink lemonade.
“The old Kelly obstinacy,” George laughed. “I like it. See what you can do.”
“I get it from both sides,” Grace pointed out. “The Majers are hardly fainthearted.”
“Too true,” agreed George. “But do be careful, Grace. Many actors have tried to fight the studios and lost. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
“I know, I know, Bette Davis, blah blah,” Grace said, rolling her eyes.