The It Girls

by Karen Harper

  She had made a terrible mistake. She had sold out, ruined things. Her dream of design for the new world was over, shattered.

  “Lady Duff-Gordon, just a moment, please. Mr. Green, the new manager, will see you now!” came the receptionist’s voice behind Lucile as she turned and fled, even shaking off the hand he dared to lay on her arm. Mr. Green had not even come out to greet her. And John Shuloff was a barbarian, a proletarian who had no sense of beauty in his soul—if he had one at all. From now on, she would think of him as Attila the Hun, slayer of the gilded past, no better that the kaiser, whose soldiers had ravaged France.

  As she headed for the door to the hall to make her escape, she was nearly sick to her stomach on the new linoleum floor of the reception room. She was certainly sick to her soul.

  PART V

  Hollywood and Home

  1920–1926

  CHAPTER Thirty-Three

  This entire, glossy-looking Hollywood deal was starting to make Elinor feel ill. Four other authors had left in a snit already—including Somerset Maugham—because their scripts and advice were not being heeded. But Elinor had decided to take a stand with Jesse Lasky after she’d suffered through several months of being challenged at best, ignored at worst.

  “Mr. Lasky,” she called out to him, rising from her canvas deck chair on the set of The Great Moment, the first of her books for which she’d written the screenplay. He’d actually taken over the director’s tall chair this morning, saying things were moving too slowly. The cast, standing on their marks, ready to go, stopped to look her way.

  “If this set is to be an English castle,” she announced in a loud voice, since everyone was used to orders through those dreadful megaphones, “there should not be spittoons lined up on the floor nor those modern art, florid works on the wall. You have imported me, so to speak, to elevate the script, and it has been grievously rewritten by your so-called continuity staff of your scenario department or by their stenographers, no less.”

  She waved the rolled-up script at him as if it were a sword.

  “Cut! Cut the action!” he called. “Elinor, dear,” he told her from his elevated chair, “I don’t expect you to grasp how different this is from words simply lying there on page, but—”

  “Words in a novel—or a script—are never simply lying on a page! They leap at the reader or listener. They go deep into the mind and heart, if written correctly, and that is a huge ‘if’ around here! They express feelings, and a fictional reality, and—”

  “And,” he interrupted, now shouting through his megaphone, “you must learn to be the cog in the machinery, as are we all. Time is money, so we need to get back to work.”

  “My high and mighty lordship,” she said, hands on her hips, “money, money, money is all I hear around this town! But what matters is that the heightened suspense you asked for in my second revision of this script is becoming a farce in the filming! I do not wish to turn tail as have your other excellent writers, for I believe in what you are doing to reach and entertain the common man as well as the culturally sophisticated, but—”

  “Elinor, your ending just won’t work,” he insisted, putting the megaphone down. “As for the set, we can do away with the spittoons, but that space needed to be filled. All right, clear away the spittoons, all but one,” he called, picking up the megaphone again.

  The men she’d come to think of as Lasky’s lackeys these last months jumped to obey. Ignoring them and Lasky, she strode over to the back wall of the set and lifted down a hastily daubed painting that looked to be of a tropical isle. That’s where she wished she was. So many of her hopes had been dashed about her Hollywood career. She might as well be on a desert island for all the attention they paid her. Her goal to glorify romance on the cinematic screen was about to go down the proverbial drain.

  She set her jaw firmly but blinked back tears. She’d met many big names, as they called them here, and several actors and actresses she admired who were waiting to be big—just as she’d hoped to be “big” behind the scenes. She’d spotted the handsome but shy Rudolph Valentino at once, a young unknown whom she longed to cast in Beyond the Rocks. Gloria Swanson seemed talented as did Gary Cooper and even the saucy Clara Bow. She’d been to two parties thrown by the so-called king and queen of the moving picture industry, Douglas Fairbanks and his lovely wife, Mary Pickford. They were as close as anyone came to royalty around here.

  Yet she was tempted at this moment as she hid the painting behind the set to also hide there and just cry. No, she told herself, she had been built for stronger stuff than that, been through worse than this. Still, as different as this situation was, she kept remembering feeling terrified and out of control when that carriage had abducted her from the Warsaw train station and had driven her off into the dark, snowy night.

  “Places again, everyone!” Lasky boomed through his megaphone. “We’ll do this scene, then take a break while I confer with Mrs. Glyn. And someone, get another painting for that wall. Something ‘terribly English,’ as they say. But we need to stay under budget, something perhaps foreign authors don’t understand,” he added, with a narrow glance her way again. “All right, one more run-through, then we’ll shoot.”

  When Elinor stomped back to her chair, a bald man with dark brows, some years younger than her, stood there as if waiting for her. He was smiling broadly. Was he laughing at her?

  “You’re right, you know,” he leaned forward to tell her in a calm, assured voice. “It may all be pretend, but it must seem real. Step over here, Mrs. Glyn, and let’s talk. I’m Cecil B. DeMille, also a producer, one with—I dare say—a bit more heart than Jesse Lasky.”

  Elinor had never heard of the man, but there was something about him she instantly related to—trusted in. Certainly not like she’d trusted Clayton once, or Milor back home. But this was Hollywood, and money men ruled it. As the Americans liked to say, “She still intended to give it a go.”

  Lucile was at sea again, though this time, alone and feeling very much that way. No Franks and certainly no Cosmo on the ship. Just her three pet dogs she’d left in her cabin, where she’d taken most of her meals. Now she stood at the railing as the huge liner plunged through the night waters toward England. Music sifted in from outside, but the whine of the wind and slosh of the waves against the hull almost muted it.

  Strangely, it felt good to be alone just to let memories of grand times wash over her, warm her. Mostly times with Cosmo, though her thoughts drifted far back to her first voyage that she, Elinor, and Mother had endured when they’d left Canada for England years ago and later on to Jersey. Elinor had always become ill with mal de mer, but she and Mother had weathered the voyage well, preferring to be on deck instead of having to listen to Mr. Kennedy’s complaining. She had even played the piano on the small ship to entertain others. Why didn’t she take the time or have a piano to play anymore?

  She recalled that dreadful, deadly night on the Titanic. But Cosmo had been there, steady and strong. He’d found them that boat and been shamed for it later, stalwart, proud, upright Cosmo. He’d saved them all, and that night she was the one who got sick on the waves.

  She began to walk fast along the rail, right into the teeth of the autumn wind. She held her hat in her hand now because the wind even ripped at her hair, her—as she liked to think of it—not graying but silver-frosted hair. Did the sea spray speckle her face or was that her tears? She had done so much, reached out to so many, but she had been a terrible mother and wife. Cosmo had promised before they wed that he understood, that he would support her designing career, and he had, but then things had just—just gone overboard somehow.

  She’d written them when and where she was coming home, but she wouldn’t hold it against them if they didn’t greet her, for Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon, felt quite the failure now.

  She’d been a wretched sister, too. Why couldn’t she and Elinor get on together, even when they were apart? Lucile had to admit she should not have written Elinor “I told
you so!” when things went so wrong for her in Hollywood at first, though she’d weathered that storm, not only working for a new director Cecil-something but mending bridges with that Lasky movie mogul too. Her letters seemed an endless list of famous names from the cinema, and she’d decided to stick it out and bragged that she was making money hand over fist. My, the common way she worded her letters now made Lucile realize that her sister was becoming Americanized. Sometimes she even sounded like the man Lucile thought of as “Shameful Shuloff.”

  She shook her head to clear it. She was terrified even now that she didn’t have it in her to make up with her family for her long absence and her fierce ambition. Her sale of the New York, Chicago, and Paris stores had been a disaster. Lucile’s wasn’t hers anymore. It was some cheapened, quick-made assembly line, like those men who made Henry Ford’s Model Ts one after the other, all the same. No more personality dresses to suit the wearer. The elegance of what they now called the Victorian or Edwardian eras was gone. The belle epoque in Europe was dead, and in her darkest moments, sometimes she wished that she was too.

  Elinor had been to many a Hollywood party, but no one staged ones more glamorous than the wealthy publisher William Randolph Hearst at his grand estate of San Simeon on the central California coast. His home here was called Hearst Castle, and she could see why. Though she’d been in some of the most magnificent castles in Europe, this quite new one screamed MONEY AND POWER! and—another American phrase again—“impressed the hell out of her.”

  Though its decor was not French, it was like an American Versailles, and how she wished Lucile could see it—and realize that her own sister was staying here for the long weekend. It stood on a rocky promontory above Hearst ranch land with a view of the azure Pacific. Grand and sprawling, a mix of Spanish Colonial and Italianate styles, its towers stretched into the sky with terraced gardens below. Pools and statues reminiscent of her beloved Versailles reflected everything from clouds to strolling guests.

  Room after room of stonework and wooden carvings, imported art inside and out, gave testimony to the genius of San Simeon’s female architect, Julia Morgan, someone who, Elinor had just been telling her friends Charlie Chaplin and Clara Bow, would have made a perfect third Sutherland sister to her and Lucile. Of course, she’d had a bit too much champagne, but that wasn’t much of a stretch, was it?

  “I see what you mean!” Clara said in that shrill, Brooklyn-accented voice of hers. Since the young woman had looks and charisma, Elinor only hoped the movies never became talkies. Clara could emote like crazy and lure one right in—if she kept her pretty mouth shut. On the silent screen, the young woman was the epitome of what she and Lucile used to call “It,” that definite but indefinable quality that acted like a magnet with men and women, too. Elinor was proud that her suggestion that Clara be publicized as “the It Girl” had really taken hold.

  “I see what you mean too, oh esteemed fellow Englishwoman,” Chaplin said to Elinor. He was British also and was putting on an upper-class accent right now. But he was also in his cups and had been ogling women right and left tonight, though he was married and had enough sense not to play fast and loose with Clara or Elinor, who had taken the younger woman under her wing.

  Elinor told him, “I’m not a ‘fellow Englishwoman,’ Charles, because you are a man.”

  “I’ve noticed that much,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “You’re always nitpicking, my dear Nellie, but I know your heart’s in the right place,” he added with a wide-eyed, comic ogle of her breast. “Admit it, you are as ding-dong impressed with this American Taj Mahal and the greenbacks behind it as the rest of us. Money, money, money! Hollywood does that to one, doesn’t it, Clara, and don’t answer that, at least out loud. Just think what you would say in that pretty head of yours.”

  And he was off again to the bar set up nearby the Neptune Pool. He even did that funny, little tipsy walk of his, though Elinor knew well he wasn’t that intoxicated yet. Always the entertainer. But she was upset that he had implied Clara had bats in the belfry, which she did not. She was just new, naive, and overwhelmed, and Elinor spotted that well enough from the old days.

  But what bothered her the most was that he insisted on calling her Nellie, which no one else did anymore. It made her miss Lucile and Mother. She also disliked his implication that she was as money hungry as the rest of them here in boomtown Hollywood, riding the waves of America’s passion for the movies and its stars. Why, women sobbed and screamed when young Valentino came on the screen, so Elinor felt proud to have spotted him first.

  Of course, with her past need to support Clayton and the girls for years and then herself since, Elinor admitted she was conscious of her finances. Lucile had become that way too, finally facing hard times, when she used to just roll her eyes at her younger sister and pooh-pooh Cosmo’s firm foot on the budget.

  A rush of emotion hit her hard, and she sank onto the wide lip of the Neptune Pool under the tall temple façade. The evening breeze from the Santa Lucia mountains blew fine fountain mist in her face as if she were at sea.

  Lucile was headed back to England, maybe was there already. Elinor regretted telling her how much money each script was making for her when she knew full well Lucile’s fashion shops had hit hard times. But she’d wanted to make the point that her writing had done well, done as well as Lucile’s designs. Not only that, but she had lasted into the future, and she’d rubbed that in, when she knew Lucile’s romantic designs were under assault for being old-fashioned and impractical. Oh, she hated herself for her smallness sometimes!

  “Are you all right?” Clara’s voice pierced her agonizing as she leaned closer. “I mean, you look kind of funny, not funny like Mr. Chaplin. Elinor, I want to thank you for being so sweet to me and convincing everyone to call me the ‘It Girl,’ ’cause no one knows exactly what that means—like maybe sexy or not—so it makes me kind of mysterious.”

  Elinor just nodded. “Would you get me another drink, Clara?” she asked. “Just tonic or soda water this time.”

  “Oh sure. Be right back with ‘It’—get it?” she asked and patted Elinor’s shoulder before she hurried off.

  As darkness fell, Elinor stared down into the aquamarine depths of the pool with its shifting waters, lit by torches. She saw her image in the water, lost in its wavy lines and broken swirls.

  But she was thinking that, after all their differences and years apart, she and dear Lucile had been the original “It Girls.”

  CHAPTER Thirty-Four

  Not even one of Lucile’s mannequin parades with London’s royal and noble in the front row or opening a new shop in the most famous cities in the world had set her so on edge as when her ship came into Southampton. After these five years away, after the mistakes she’d made, would Esme or Cosmo come to meet her? Could she resurrect any of her old professional or personal life again, and if so, on what terms?

  She stood shoulder to shoulder with other passengers at the rail as the ship edged closer to the waiting, waving crowd on the pier. Leaning over, she squinted to skim faces but saw no one she knew. She bit her lower lip hard and blinked back tears.

  It hurt her to see some arrivals being greeted with cheers and huzzahs, perhaps just a fortunate, normal person whose family was elated to have him back. Though she used to be such a social butterfly, she’d kept to herself so much on this voyage that she hadn’t heard whether any personalities were aboard. Some sort of confetti dusted the air, and people hugged each other on the gangway below.

  Well, she thought, she’d made her bed and she must lie in it. She would work to win Esme back and play with her grandchildren and design dress-up clothes for them. As for her life with Cosmo, that remained to be seen. Now here she was alone with no one she knew waiting below.

  She disembarked and made arrangements at the porter counter for her pile of luggage to be handled clear to the taxi stand on a rolling cart. Now she’d have to get herself and that to the Ritz Hotel in London. Not for years had s
he been forced to fend for herself dockside like this. She knew she couldn’t afford the Ritz for long, but she’d find a small house to let or buy outside of London. She wouldn’t have a motorcar anymore, but there were always cabs or trains. The Ritz had been her sister’s “hangout” once, as the Americans would put it, so she’d write her next time on Ritz stationery. She couldn’t bear for Elinor, or anyone, to know the real state of her financial affairs.

  It annoyed her that, with the rolling stack of luggage behind her, she would have to stand in the queue for hired motorcars. But then as she walked that way through the thinning crowd toward the line of people . . .

  “Mother! Over here!” came a familiar voice, and Esme broke from the stragglers, waving like mad and tugging her little daughter, Flavia, along. Her husband, Anthony, Viscount Tiverton, was just behind her with their son, Tiverton, in his arms.

  “Wait,” Lucile told her porter. “Wait right here.”

  But she wasn’t waiting. She threw her arms wide, and Esme hugged her. No Cosmo, but kisses from her dear grandchildren who had grown so much she didn’t know them. But neither did they know her, and Flavia cowered when she kissed her.

  Esme was still talking. “We had a tire puncture on the way, and the men had to fix it, and once we got here, they had to wash up. Sorry we weren’t here when your ship came in, because I wanted the children to see that.”

  “The men fixed it?” Lucile asked. “Did someone stop to help?”

  “Oh, no, it was Cosmo’s motorcar, and he can fix anything.”

  “Almost anything,” came the deep voice from behind her she had so longed to hear.