by Greg Jolley
“On Vermont in Hollywood.”
“Do you own an automobile?”
“No.”
“Have a garage?”
“Yes. Do you want my name?” I asked.
“Don’t need that. You dialed this number. Is it a carport or a garage with a door? Is it cluttered or does it have room for a vehicle?”
I thought of the detached garage at the bungalow with nothing but saw horses and yard tools in it. “It’s a garage. I need to clean it out, but—”
“Does it have a good door?”
“Yes, well, sure.”
“Can it be locked?”
“I’m sure it could be, yes. Can I speak to Mr. Nash?”
“No, you can’t. Can you start now? If not, I’ve got other applicants.”
“I can start today if needed.”
“Okay, give me your number. A man will call you at eleven. He’ll bring you up to speed.”
I wanted to ask again to be switched to Mr. Nash, but the call clicked off.
THE BIG advantage to my new job was that I could use the loaned auto for my personal needs, as long as I obeyed Rule Number One and took the car home every night and locked it up in the garage. I was paid in cash by the same man who delivered the car. We met for the first time at a donut shop a few blocks from the closed down America’s Pictures. The money was very good—twice what I had made working for Johnny John.
Pierce had a delightful Christmas. He and I and Mother’s maid were sitting on the floor before the ornate and elegant Christmas tree Mother bought and had delivered. There were toys and coloring books and new clothes. With the cash packet once again expanding, he and I resumed our idyllics to the Santa Monica Pier and the telescope Pierce was fascinated with.
Rule Number Two of the delivery business was to keep the interior of the old Chevrolet immaculate. I bought a used vacuum for the garage and ran it daily. I also cleaned the back seats and kept what I found in the creases of the seats. I started a collection using a coffee can at first until there was so much stuff that I switched to a grocery carton—lipsticks and coins and underwear and little bottles of different shapes and size.
Rule Number Three was never to wash the exterior of the Chevrolet, except the windshield. After a time, the automobile’s original color was indistinct under layers of grime and dust. The man at the donut shop told me to get a second, private telephone installed at the house which I did. He increased the cash payments to cover the expense.
WHEN THE movie studio reopened, it was called Dashing Nash Movies. The next time the donut-shop man and I met, he offered me a second job with the film crew. I was told to be ready to have my day’s work interrupted at any time to make deliveries, and I readily agreed.
By the end of the month, I was soon adding to a second packet of cash, even as Mother’s expenses increased. Things were looking up, and my new job was interesting. I was in a camera crew—the mechanical side—modifying and setting up dollies and cranes, and after another month, operating the camera rigging. Eventually, I was promoted to assisting with the cameras themselves.
Sometimes there were delivery issues. The girls I transported at night were often giddy, chatty, and nervous and had many questions I couldn’t answer. At or near dawn, as I drove them home from Mr. Nash’s mansion, or the equally large homes of his associates, I often had to assist them because they were heavily medicated. Sometimes they got sick along the way, both to and from. There were also times when I would deliver two girls, but only one required a ride home.
I delighted in learning the cameras. After two months, I was occasionally asked for my ideas on lens selection and framing which I seemed to have a knack for. Four months in, I was assigned the formal title of second assistant cameraman to a low-budget and quickly filmed title. I was responsible for the set-up and maintenance of the cameras as well as logging in and securing the film reels.
A week after Pierce’s fourth birthday party, we made another move. This time to a two-story Hollywood residence with large yards and a swimming pool and cabana. Mother had the place painted and furnished before we moved in. Like before, the house was placed in my name. I was curious but didn’t ask.
The house was what in those days was called an entertainment home with the entire first floor designed for dress-up parties. Mother had the second story to herself, which had a parlor front room, an office with telephones and nice desks for her assistants, and beyond, the locked door to her vibrant green bedroom. The detached, two-car garage was set to the back of the property past the swimming pool and cabana. Pierce and I were delighted to move into and enjoy one of the two guest cottages with a private lawn right at the water’s edge.
Pierce and I didn’t see much of Mother. We could rarely tell if she was home or off on her three to five-day trips. She would call the guesthouse from the main house if she needed to see either of us.
Pierce took to water well and was soon water safe and adventurous. He built wooden boats in the garage which he liked to launch and swim alongside. As long as we didn’t make much noise, we enjoyed the pool all year round.
In the fall of that year, there was some sort of labor dispute at the studio. The nameless donut-shop man directed me to ignore the pickets, and I received a bonus as well as a promotion to first assistant cameraman on Dashing Nash Movies’ next film. The film and production crews were short-staffed, and people often came or disappeared during the production.
The donut-shop man told me to improve my clothing. I called Mother from the guesthouse asking for advice. Another woman answered. That same day, her assistant came down from the big house with a shopping list. There was a personal note on the list instructing me to “continue to wear work boots as it sends a good message to the studio.”
By that night, I had three solid black suits, five white oxford shirts, and three solid green ties.
The first film I was assigned to was to be shot in 3D. The working title was Lost, and the parts of the storyboards I was assigned to were the trolley shots through shops and alleys, crowds, a zoo, and an airport terminal. As first assistant cameraman, I was occasionally allowed to operate the cameras as well as do the focus markings and lay out routes with different colors of gaffing tape. I had little sense of the overall story but overheard the assistant director, the AD, talking with the production crew.
“This one’s going to knock it out of the park.”
“How so?”
“Racy and tense and all those fools paying extra for their cardboard viewers.”
Ira Gersham was the film’s camera operator and my boss. He was a wizard with the dual 3D camera equipment, and we worked closely together. I learned a great deal. A friendship, of sorts, developed. He had a workshop where he taught me how to maintain the cameras and where he engineered experimental equipment that we put into use, refining how the dual lenses adjusted to the quick movement. The downside for 3D audiences came from when the technology wasn’t utilized properly. Nausea and headaches and eyestrain were the major complaints.
He was taken with my goggles and often tried them on. He loved a steady viewing but got queasy with a few steps. After a time, he engineered an improved pair for himself, and we walked and talked within a 3D world, except when manning the cameras during shoots.
One-third of the way through the seven-week shoot, the picketers were joined by television cameras. We started having a hard time getting to work when the union figured we were sneaking in through the backstreet access. On the set, work became unfocused and erratic. We lost a third of our crew including our director of photography, the DP, the set designers, two ADs, and half of the construction crew.
Mr. Nash came to the soundstage, shut everything down with a command, and gathered us around him.
“You are now a hearty band of pirates. We drop formal titles and roles and get creative and flexible. If you are even close to being able to fulfill a function, it’s your new job.”
By that afternoon, the prior camera department of sev
en was two—Ira and me. We also worked together on set construction and prop layouts and story continuity. Things got worse with the picketers and the press, so we spent the last twenty-three days of production living at the studio. This meant that my delivery jobs were canceled. I missed Pierce and called him every evening. He was in the care of Mrs. Hilda Beck, whom Mother had hired, and I paid.
I was able to slip out of the studio one night just after sunset when the pickets thinned for dinnertime. I put the Chevrolet in the garage and found Pierce and Hilda Beck leaving the guesthouse and walking to the swimming pool. I had talked to Hilda a couple of times when I called and had not formed an opinion. She walked stiffly in front of Pierce who carried another boat cobbled together from scraps of wood, hinges, nails, and odds and ends. Her voice was firm and crisp, and Pierce was nodding and ignoring her as they passed through the gate to the pool area. She was tall and thin and wore a formal caregiver outfit complete with matching black shoes, black dress, and a doily neckline buttoned all the way to her chin.
I followed them with my eyes. From what I was seeing and hearing, I was not pleased. Or at least not until they were at the water’s edge where Pierce climbed the steps down into the pool and gently cast the boat out. Hilda surprised me by removing her shoes and sitting down on the poolside placing her long stockinged legs in the water. I watched Pierce reach back for her hand, and she took it, and the two of them smiled warmly to one another. They looked excited and pleased with the sturdiness of the boat, and both were chatting and pointing.
I remained at the gate, and while I wanted to join in on the fun, I stayed put. I watched Hilda look once to the big house before she slid into the pool and waded to Pierce’s side, still in her black dress. The two of them pushed at the water and laughed as the boat took to the waves. I watched Pierce submerge and swim underwater to the little boat which he turned and nudged in her direction. She clapped her hands and laughed in delight while lowering her shoulders under the surface.
He was happy. She was happy. I went to the garage, unlocked it, and drove the Chevrolet back to the studio.
MORE OFTEN, my storyboard ideas were taken up. The remaining bigwigs began to rely on me for story action ideas and solutions. I helped with transitions that propelled the film forward. I was good with suggestions that maintained momentum, which in Hollywood was more of a priority than plot continuity or logic.
During postproduction, titles were assigned for the credits. I received my first, “screenplay by.” My name was third at the bottom with Mr. Nash’s at the top.
The strike ended during the last week of postproduction. By that time, our hearty band of pirates was working well together, and we were allowed to finish the film without the involvement of the returning employees.
Lost was a success, at least on the scale of the B pictures that Dashing Nash Movies made. The critics berated it, but Mr. Nash couldn’t care less. The film began turning a solid profit and was popular with audiences. The daring use of fast action and 3D ran nicely against the grain of current cinematic trends. While Lost was referred to as a dual gimmick, Mr. Nash was often smiling and laughing when he left the studio for the bank with the weekly proceeds.
The European press had a love affair for Lost, seeing in it a serious and meaningful importance that was lost—pun intended—on all of us at Dashing Nash Movies.
OUR PRESTRIKE roles and lives returned, and four days later, I was back in the nighttime delivery business. I continued paying Hilda and the rest of Mother’s staff and all the household expenses and was still able to save some cash which I banded and stowed with the original packet.
At the studio, the joke was that I had pretty good story vision—never mind the goggles. The next film I was assigned to was Runner, a chase and escape story set in a war-torn residential neighborhood not unlike those on the far outskirts of Los Angeles. The format was to be 3D again but in Technicolor this time. Ira and I were the only two proponents of the use of 3D. Mr. Nash was won over slowly as he and his producers were wary of the additional production and distribution costs of the format.
“3D’s a fad with short legs, but let’s roll the dice again,” Mr. Nash announced.
The delivery business was steady and profitable. I was escorting young women to and from the palatial homes of Mr. Nash’s constantly newfound friends and to his place as well. I was stopped and briefly arrested four times during the next year. When this happened, the young ladies were whisked away after telephone calls and cash payments were made by Mr. Nash’s studio assistants. After the fourth stop, the Chevrolet was stocked with cash in paper bags in the trunk. From then on, when I was pulled over, I was let go after an exchange at the rear of the automobile.
At the studio, Runner came out of preproduction with me on a trial basis as both first assistant cameraman and script supervisor. This was a fast rise through the ranks and surely a benefit of being an original member of the strike-breaking band of pirates.
During that same year, Pierce started school, escorted to and from by Hilda. He was taken with the cameras I would bring home—the smaller units that had been cast aside and were in need of repair. He, like me, was happiest when within a viewfinder. Ira came by often, and we three boys tinkered with standard and 3D movie equipment.
Eventually, a lab of sorts came together in the garage beside the guesthouse. As time allowed, we made six short movies. For locations, we used the garage, the swimming pool, and our little house. The yard and guesthouse began to look like a movie set as we added lighting and props. Pierce’s biggest hit was The Sinking of the Big Boat filmed poolside and in the water. Hilda would often take a patio chair from the umbrella table and sit to our side. She and Ira had developed a conversational bond, perhaps a romance. In the fall of that year, the filming of Runner was completed, and we moved quickly into postproduction.
The rain in Los Angeles fell hard, and there was flooding on the Thursday Hilda came down from Mother’s stately and prim mansion and interrupted us. Pierce and I were testing our first waterproof camera casing, and he was describing the next shot. Seeing Hilda’s worried expression, I climbed out of the pool and joined her at the umbrella table.
“Your wife is in trouble. I had to talk to two detectives.”
I drove downtown and paid her bond from the cash in the Chevrolet’s trunk which I later replenished from my own packets. I offered Mother a ride and was waved off. Her assistant, the focused and effective Danielle, was at the ready at the police station driveway. I stood in the rain as Mother was assisted into her long, pink Lincoln. Her face was bruised and cut, and she walked as though her hips or lower back were injured. Danielle handed her a pair of dark glasses and a scarf.
After this incident, things inside Mother’s mansion changed—a telephone switchboard was installed with more phones and desks added to her upstairs office. Hilda became my eyes and conduit as Mother was no longer talking to me. Hilda told me about the staffing of the telephones and Mother’s living exclusively behind the double doors to her bedroom suite, except to attend the parties of mostly elderly rich women and barely dressed young men.
Following her arrest, I didn’t see Mother for the rest of 1955 and for several years after that.
On a Friday, the phone in the guesthouse rang at 4:00 a.m. It was the normal—a transport was requested from Mr. Nash’s residence. Pierce was asleep in his little bed when I left to make the predawn trip.
The gates to Mr. Nash’s residence opened as I turned in onto the steep driveway. I drove to the back of the house to the staff entrance under an ivy-draped atrium. All was still, and the dark morning was cold. A single light bulb shined over the back steps and door.
When the door opened, two young ladies were assisted to the Chevrolet. Both of them were disheveled, their clothing askance, their makeup rubbed away, and their movements sedated. I hadn’t delivered these two ladies to Mr. Nash’s the evening before, but I recognized one of them as Father’s one-time companion, Heidi Ho. Heidi sat besi
de the other who went limp in the back seat, bent over forward so that her gold hair was splashed over her knees, and her arms hung to the floorboard.
Heidi pulled on a pair of sunglasses with trembling hands. She dabbed at the corner of the swollen lips of her familiar face with a piece of cloth that was red with her own blood. I watched her aim her sunglasses at the roof of the back seat and spill against her door, making incoherent, but insistent sounds. The porch light was extinguished, and I steered the Chevrolet down into the Hollywood streets without a word. If she recognized me, she didn’t say so. But I had known her pregoggles, and besides, it had been a few years.
At a well-lighted boulevard intersection, I braved, “Heidi?”
“Huh? Wha…” she replied in a pained lisp.
“Heidi. Heidi Ho. Do you remember me? IM’s son. BB?”
“Just drive the car, moron.” Her voice was hostile, and she kept her sunglasses aimed at the roof not lowering to my mirror.
“Right. Yes.”
At the next intersection, I spoke up again. “Is there anything I can do for you? Help you?”
She laughed, her voice soggy. “Gonna rescue me?” She laughed some more.
I had their addresses written on notepaper that one of the house staff had given me.
At the first stop, a tall and thin apartment building, a man came out and carried the girl with the splashing gold hair from the car. We didn’t speak.
We were pulled over four blocks down Vine Street, and at first, it looked like the normal kind of stop. The police car parked behind us, washing the rear window with hot light. I waited with my hands-on display on the steering wheel. The officer didn’t approach at first. He waited until three more police cars arrived which had never happened before.
When I was told to get out of the car, I went to the trunk and offered each of the officers a paper bag of cash. A pair of aviator sunglasses shook side to side in the predawn light while the bags were handed out. The voice under the shades said to me, “This don’t cut it. Your Mr. Nash has been delinquent.”