Browning Sahib

by Peter Corris

  We'd been talking non-stop since I came out of the morphine. She'd heard about my exploit with the elephant and declared herself proud of me. That was a strange note for Louise to strike and several times I'd caught her looking at me in an odd way. I'd told her what Ranu and I had been up to with Grace, just so she wouldn't get any wrong ideas about me. She still seemed to think that I'd been brave rather than desperate and terrified. I didn't work too hard at disabusing her.

  'They didn't come to see you in the hospital,' she said. 'I thought they might at least have done that.'

  'I guess they had their own agenda. They've gone, have they?'

  'Yes. Well, I suppose it wouldn't have mattered, seeing that you were delirious most of the time.'

  'I wasn't delirious. Not ever.'

  'You were so. I've learned a lot about you, Richard Browning. You're a big softie, really.'

  I didn't like the drift of this conversation. 'What about Finch and Vivien?'

  'They've gone to Los Angeles. I understand she had hysterics and they had to knock her out to get her on the plane.'

  I shook my head. 'Like Dana Andrews said, "Not a happy person." '

  'He came in briefly, too. I quite liked him. He left you a bottle of what he called snake oil.'

  'Let's see.'

  She produced a cardboard box containing a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a few copies of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Louise saw the way I looked at the package.

  'Miss it, do you, Dick?'

  'It's an insane place, full of phonies and hustlers. But yes, I do miss it.'

  Two days later I got a notice from the British and Foreign bank in Colombo that the sum of four thousand pounds had been credited to my account. With my last payment for work on the movie plus the bonus this meant I had near enough to six thousand pounds in hand with only a few medical expenses and a hotel bill to pay. As far as I could recall, apart from very brief times in Hollywood (and that's leaving aside the debts), this was the most affluent I'd ever been. I decided to celebrate by taking my first steps. I should have waited until Louise was there but I was feeling full of confidence. I lifted my legs from the bed and placed my still heavily bandaged feet on the floor. Very gently I eased myself up until I was standing straight, or very nearly so. Not too bad.

  I took one small step and made it okay. Another. So far so good. I got bold, stepped out a bit and screamed as the pain hit me. Maybe it was the blood getting through or the skin stretching, I don't know, but it felt as if red-hot needles were being driven into my soles. I crawled back onto the bed, ripped the top from Andrews' bottle and took a long swig. I shuddered and waited for the bourbon to do some good. I was worried. They'd assured me the feet would heal up but what if they were wrong? There aren't too many movie parts for men on crutches. I took another drink and started to feel a little better. I'd just gone at it too early and without help. Louise would know the tricks.

  The phone rang. Speak of the devil, I thought as I snatched it up. 'Hello, honey.'

  'Honey? What's with this honey. You turning fag these days, Dick?'

  'Bobby! Jesus, I didn't expect . . . Oww!' I yelled as I bumped my right foot against the bed end.

  'The hell you screaming for? You okay?'

  'I've burned my feet. It's a long story.'

  'While you were working on the movie?'

  'No. After it finished.'

  'Pity. Can't do anything on the insurance. So, you're not busy planting tea or anything like that?'

  'What is this, Bobby? You don't pay for a long distance call just to chat. Don't worry, you'll get your commission. It won't be much, I was just a sort of technical assistant.'

  'We can talk about that when you get here. When can you leave?'

  He explained that Vivien had had a breakdown on arriving in Hollywood and that she'd been unable to complete her work on the film. It was a big budget picture for the time and the studio had invested too much in it to allow it to die, so they were going to cast another actress and do a lot of reshooting.

  'Who?' I asked.

  'You'll never guess. Liz Taylor.'

  'Jesus. She's too young and too . . .'

  'Sexy? Come on, Dick. This is Hollywood. How can a broad be too young and too sexy?'

  I knew Bobby Silk wouldn't have read the script because he never read anything except the trade papers and contracts. I told him that in the movie Finch got drunk and played bicycle polo rather than go upstairs to fuck his wife.38

  'So, they got a problem there. Point is, they want you back to help them get it right. This guy Finch says he needs you and he's calling some of the shots. I can negotiate you some good bucks, Dick, and they'll pay for your ticket out. Whaddya say?'

  This was obviously Finch's way of doing something for me and I was touched. It was never wise to take Bobby Silk at his word, though, and I pressured him for more details.

  'Seems they got some elephant work they think you can help with.'

  'They've done all that.'

  'Like I say, they gotta do it again. Hey, this is costing me, Dick. Are you in or out?'

  Elephants or not, there was no good pretending, not with the bourbon warm in my veins and the Hollywood Reporters sitting there with a picture of Rita Hayworth on the front page. Although I was surprised to find that she wasn't really better-looking than Louise. 'I guess I'm in.'

  'Great. Make it as quick as you can, baby. Liz Taylor. You play your cards right, this could lead to something big for you.'

  'Sure. Bobby, ah, is Johnny Stompanato around these days?'

  'Nah. I hear he's in Vegas working for Mickey39 and the boys. Why?'

  'Never mind. I'll be there as quick as I can.'

  'Ciao.'

  I was in a thoughtful mood when Louise got back. She was still wearing her nurse's outfit, which has never been a particular interest of mine, but Louise looked good in everything. The ceiling fan wasn't keeping the room very cool and she stripped off her dress, causing my interest to mount considerably. She noticed.

  'You're well and truly on the mend, I see.'

  'Tried to walk,' I grunted. 'Screamed and fell over.'

  'Huh.' She was down to her bra and panties now and fanning herself with a copy of the Colombo Times. 'I suppose you went about it all the wrong way. Just tried to walk, did you?'

  'Sure.'

  'Idiot. You have to test out the foot bit by bit, heel, sole and toe. No wonder it hurt like hell. I'll show you later. Let's have a look at them.'

  She removed the bandages. She would have made a great safe-cracker, Louise, or a bomb-defuser. She had the gentlest of touches. 'Hmm. Looking good. You'll be all right to hobble about soon.'

  'When?'

  I must have spoken sharply because she shot me a funny look. 'Couple of days. Why?'

  Suddenly, I didn't want to pack up and go back to LA on my own with all that money in my pocket. Back to more money and perhaps some real success at last. To do what? Chase starlets, console divorcees? What was the point? I reached out and took Louise's hand. It was firm and strong from all that hard nursing work and tennis. I had a powerful need to hang on to her.

  'I'm going back to Hollywood. I've got a job there and I've got a fair bit of money in hand. It's a hell of a place to be with no dough.'

  'Yes?'

  'How would you like to come with me?'

  She stopped fanning and put the paper on the bed. 'To do what?'

  'Whatever you like. Travel around. Live together. Get married.'

  She stared at me. 'You're serious?'

  'I am. We get on well together and I've got very sore feet.'

  She laughed, leaned forward and kissed me. The touch and feel and smell of her got me right back in the mood. She took off her underwear and I slid down on the bed and she moved on top of me, being careful to keep well clear of my feet. We managed, did pretty well in fact. Afterwards, she accepted an inch of Jack Daniel's with water.

  'Is this what we'll be drinking?'

  'You'll
come?'

  'Do you think much about the future, Dick?'

  If I'd been honest I would have admitted that I thought more about the past, but that would have made me sound middle-aged, or worse. 'Not much.'

  'I do, especially lately. Take a look at this.' She folded the paper so I could read an item about the Americans testing a hydrogen bomb. 'Those bastards are going to blow us all up. I'm sure of it. If not them, then the Russians. I don't want to go back to Sydney to marry Doctor James Talbot and have three kids and live on the north shore. I want to have some fun!'

  So that's what we did.

  NOTES

  1.Crossfire, RKO, 1947; King Solomon's Mines, MGM, 1950; Quo Vadis, MGM, 1951; Viva Zapata! C20th Fox, 1952; The Winslow Boy, Eagle Lion, 1950; The Wooden Horse, Wessex, 1950; The Lavender Hill Mob, Ealing, 1951.

  2.See 'Box Office' Browning.

  3.An Australian expression referring to an unbranded or semi-wild bull difficult to control. Mallee scrub is rough country in the north-west of Victoria.

  4.See Browning Battles On.

  5.Browning seems to have forgotten that it was his decision to work with Flynn in Sante Fe Trail rather than pursue a role in the David O. Selznick epic. At the time his friendship with Flynn looked likely to advance his career. See Browning in Buckskin, p. 196 and Browning PI, pp. 1-4.

  6.The hero of a series of novels by 'Sapper' (H. C. MacNeile and later G. T. Fairlie) about Captain Hugh Drummond, an imperialist vigilante.

  7.Browning refers, somewhat uncharitably, to Leslie Howard Stainer, who was born in London to immigrant Hungarian parents and, more accurately, to Larushka Skikne, born in Lithuania and raised in South Africa, both of whom achieved success in films as poised English types.

  8.When performing in radio plays in Sydney, Finch would have followed the then standard practice of wearing evening dress. Usually, but not always, a studio audience was present. The actors wore formal attire in either case.

  9.Johnny Stompanato was the bodyguard of Los Angeles gangster Mickey Cohen and the lover of film star Lana Turner. In 1958 he was stabbed to death in mysterious circumstances by Cheryll Crane, Lana Turner's daughter. It sounds as if Browning was keeping dangerous company, and his departure from Hollywood in 1952 might have been due to more pressing problems than unpaid rent.

  10.According to his biographer, Olivier stood five feet ten inches. See Donald Spotto, Laurence Olivier, HarperCollins, London, 1991, p. 26. Spotto also confirms Olivier's bisexuality, see pp. 196-8.

  11.Olivier, in fact, was forty-four, twelve years younger than Browning. Photographs, however, confirm Browning's observation. Olivier was grey at the temples and frequently wore half glasses; snapshots of Browning show him to have had a full head of dark hair, a trim figure and a remarkably, given his manner of life, unlined, clean-shaven face.

  12.Another example of Browning's remarkable memory. Agatha Christie's novel, featuring her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, Mrs McGinty's Dead, was indeed published by Collins in 1952.

  13.For more accurate information on Browning's military service in the two world wars, see 'Box Office' Browning, and Browning PI.

  14.See 'Beverly Hills' Browning, p. 217 and Browning Takes Off, pp. 1-5.

  15.Presumably, Browning means Restoration plays. His knowledge of the history of the theatre was far from good, but his description appears to fit the works of Sheridan, Congreve, Wycherley, etc.

  16.Niven makes the remark in his memoir Bring on the Empty Horses, London, 1975. Peter Finch died of a massive heart attack in 1977, which helps to fix the date of Browning's recording of this passage of his chequered career.

  17.See especially Browning PI.

  18.See 'Box Office 'Browning.

  19.In the final version of the film there is no European nurse, nor is there a policeman. It is likely that these characters appeared in the draft Grace Drewe and Browning read but not in the shooting script.

  20.Another indication that Browning had been involved in some trouble back in Hollywood. Gambling was the most likely cause.

  21.In fact, The Best Years Of Our Lives won five Academy awards. It is generally accepted that the heavy promotion schedule Finch embarked on to promote the film Network and his own Oscar prospects, contributed to his death. He was awarded the Oscar posthumously.

  22.The once-popular theory that the Vedda, dark-skinned hunter-gatherers who used bows and arrows and throwing sticks, were the progenitors of the Australian Aborigines has long since been discounted. South-East Asia is now thought to be the source of the migration of the Aborigines, at least 50,000 years ago.

  23.See 'Beverly Hills' Browning, pp. 39-96.

  24.To date, no record of Browning's activities in the Caribbean has emerged. As noted in earlier volumes of his memoirs, his recording methods were inaccurate and it is possible that when more cassettes are transcribed this reference will become clear.

  25.It was some years after Browning's death before a militant part of the Tamil protest movement in Sri Lanka adopted this name. Browning's choice of it here must be a complete coincidence.

  26.For Browning's lifelong enmity towards Hughes see 'Box Office' Browning.

  27.Browning reveals here his very shaky literary grasp. Sherlock Holmes was, of course, the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle. Dr John Watson is the fictional narrator of the stories.

  28.Browning refers, presumably, to Trader Faulkner and Elaine Dundey, authors respectively of Peter Finch: A Biography Angus & Robertson, London, 1979 and Finch, Bloody Finch, Michael Joseph, London, 1980.

  29.Dieterle (1897-1973) spanned the silent and talking picture era and was still working in Hollywood in the late 1950s when colour and stereophonic sound arrived. His best-known films are the rather dull 'biopics' Zola and Pasteur, as well as Rope of Sand, Peking Express and The Turning Point.

  30.In fact, Browning was fifty-seven years of age when these events occurred. He was so given to concealing how old he was that he may have actually forgotten that he was exactly three times Ranu Pelham-Smith's age.

  31.No such dialogue occurs in the released version of the film, but it was subject to so much editing and reshooting that the scene Browning describes is likely to have been omitted.

  32.Browning was partly right. The Three Musketeers (1974) and The Four Musketeers (1975), directed by Richard Lester, were shot simultaneously. The position with regard to the Superman movies is less clear. TV versions of the various films include footage from the others and out-takes.

  33.Browning has his chronology somewhat confused. The Nun's Story was not made until some years after Elephant Walk, but it bore the similarity of Finch, cast as a doctor, combating an epidemic.

  34.Presumably Duel in the Jungle (1954), a US/UK co-production that starred Jeanne Craine and Wilfred Hyde-White with Andrews.

  35.A film about the exploits and death of General Gordon entitled Khartoum was made in 1966 with Charlton Heston in the title role. Browning's name does not appear in the credits. Burke and Wills, a Hoyts-Edgley production of 1985, starred Jack Thompson in the role Browning would have thought of for himself—the doomed explorer Charles O'Hara Burke. Browning's remark is interesting as it reflects his continued attachment to the country of his birth.

  36.See 'Box Office' Browning, pp. 130-5.

  37.In fact, Caine says, 'A little bit of God goes a very long way with me.'

  38.Film cities agree that the casting of the young and beautiful Elizabeth Taylor doomed Elephant Walk. It was impossible to believe that a virile man of Finch's stamp could resist her under the spell of his father and his obligation to his 'guests'.

  39.Presumably Mickey Cohen, Hollywood gangster and associate of major organised crime figures.

 

 

 
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