by R. T. Jordan
Or, “Dear Polly. You’re such a common and down-to-earth star with lots of ex-husbands (that same wide-eyed look of unease crossing her face) and lots of Emmy Awards, too. What’s the difference between your ex-husbands and your Emmy Awards?’” Without missing a beat Polly replied, “The difference, my darling, sweet, invading-my-privacy fan, is that if my ex-husbands were all in a car that drove off a cliff, I’d feel terrible if my Emmys were in the trunk!
“Thank you, everybody,” she would declare and quickly stand up as if putting an end to the public humiliation. “Tonight we have a fabulous show for you. Don Adams is here! (Applause.) The Captain and Tenille are here! (Applause.) Jack Klugman is dropping by! (Applause.) Our regulars, Arnie Levin, Tommy Milkwood, the lovely and talented Laura Crawford! (Applause.) And of course the Polly Pepper Prancers! We’ll be right back after these messages from our sponsors and station identification. Don’t you dare go away!”
But the audiences did go away—eventually. Now, Polly’s glory days of hard work, discipline, and #1 Nielsen ratings had morphed into a star’s worst fear—looks of vague recognition and whispers between strangers who ask, “Didn’t she used to be…?”
Slowly slipping back to reality, Polly exhaled loudly as she refocused on her present life and turned the page of The Peeper. Her eyes focused on a picture of Lindsay Lohan, which set her off on another rant. “Good God,” Polly winced. “Look at those bazongas! Who did that tramp have to kill to get into all those Disney movies? Remind me to call her up and ask to recommend a hit man. Although it’s probably her mother.”
Polly noisily sucked up the last of her Bloody Mary, then impatiently wiggled the glass high above her head. “Oh, Placenta, darling,” she cooed.
Placenta dumped soggy bougainvillea petals into a trashcan and wiped her hands on her apron. She marched up to the table and snatched the glass out of Polly’s grasp. “Don’t exhaust yourself,” she sniped. “And if you’re thinking of killing off young movie stars for a role, skip Lindsay or that Duff girl. Try being age appropriate for once. Think Faye Dunaway.”
“Does anybody even remember her?” Polly scowled.
“Whatever. But you’re never getting a Nicole Kidman hand-me-down, honey, no matter how hard you cry, or how young you think prosthetic makeup can fool the gullible public into believing you are.”
Tim, finally emerging from his semi-catatonic state, looked up from the newspaper and said, “There’s only one actor on the planet who Polly Pepper wouldn’t mind being poured into an urn and sealed away forever in a vault at Forest Lawn.”
“Polly Pepper would never wish ill upon a fellow thespian,” the star said. “It says so on my official Web site. Or in that otherwise horrid unauthorized biography.”
Setting down his coffee mug, Tim prodded, “I suppose the initials Sedra Stone no longer mean anything to you?”
Polly sat perfectly still—as one who isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry is wont to do.
Placenta, dumping a can of V-8 into a tumbler and measuring in a couple of fingers of vodka, some Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, and a celery stalk, looked at Tim as if he were crazy to bring up the taboo subject of Sedra Stone. She braced herself with a surreptitious slug from Polly’s Bloody Mary before moving to the table and tentatively placing the glass before her mistress.
Polly gave Tim a cold stare, then dipped her straw into the drink and took a long pull that drained half the glass. She smacked her lips in satisfaction, and said, “Tim darling. Just because Sedra Stone stole your semi-daddy…”
“And your second pathetic excuse for a husband, too,” Placenta added before quickly walking from the patio through the open French doors leading to the kitchen.
“…doesn’t mean I hold the slightest grudge against her,” Polly continued. “We all do what we have to do to succeed and survive in this crummy town. I certainly wouldn’t trade all the combined Oscars on Hilary Swank and Meryl Streep’s mantles for Sedra’s mucky Karma.”
Sedra Stone was Polly Pepper’s biggest rival in Hollywood. Also a legend from 1980s television, she was the antithesis of Polly Pepper. Her long-running primetime soap opera “Monarchy” gave Sedra fame, fortune, and an identity that, all these years later, was still synonymous with a steely disposition, mastery at manipulation, and an acid tongue that could sizzle through an umbilical cord. On screen she usually played an emasculating CEO who would lie, cheat, embezzle, murder, and have sex with half a dozen board members from competing corporations before lunch. She would then move on to seducing hard-bodied and equally unscrupulous male office assistants who were younger by more than half her years before the Swiss weenies were served at cocktail hour.
She was equally malevolent offscreen. At the height of her fame, even naïve young school kids who didn’t get the joke would giggle and repeat, “What’s the difference between Sedra Stone and the Titanic? More men went down on Sedra Stone. Tee-hee.”
Polly wagged a finger. “No, Tim darling,” she said. “When it comes to failed and scandalous Hollywood marriages, I’ve learned a lot from dear Debbie and Liz. Anyway, Sedra’s rat droppings in this town. She can’t get arrested.”
“Except for that time she took a swing at that hunky Beverly Hills traffic cop when he forced her to take a Breathalyzer,” Tim chuckled.
“Mark my words, dear heart,” Polly continued, “directors would surely come to me before they would ever think to hire Sedra. On the other hand…,” Polly thought for a moment. “This town could actually do without that Trixie Wilder and her ilk.”
“One less character actor might make way for a star to get her face back on screen,” Tim agreed.
“At this stage, I wouldn’t mind having Trixie’s career,” Polly said.
“At least she’s got one,” Tim said.
“You can have it,” Placenta said, overhearing the banter as she hurried from the house into the bright warm morning.
Tim interrupted. “Trixie Wilder? She’s not even a star,” he said. “Oh, she was fun on that Bob Newhart thing years ago, but that’s so far in the past it doesn’t even appear on ‘Nick at Nite.’ She does character bits. People recognize her from commercials and cameos, but they don’t even know her name.”
“Trixie takes anything that comes along, so she’ll never stop working,” Polly lamented.
“One day she’ll be dead and she’ll still play the role of the corpse that the coroner pulls out of a morgue refrigerator, when someone comes to identify what’s left of a serial killer’s victim,” Tim laughed.
“She’s in rehearsals,” Placenta said, panting, and trying to get a word in edgewise. “She’s got herself a toe tag.”
“Ach! Trixie’s as ancient as Lauren Bacall,” Polly said. “But let’s face it, character types last well past a star’s shelf life. Speaking of Miss Bacall,” Polly changed the subject and glared at Tim, “How did she rate a Kennedy Center Honor? And she’s not even on life support. Yet. So there goes that stupid theory about the Grim Reaper stalking old stars who finally get some renewed recognition. Back to Trixie. You think that nobody knows her? Well, she’s mentioned in The Peeper!”
“Yes, about Trixie…” Placenta said.
Polly picked up the paper again and thumbed back several pages. “Here it is,” Polly said. “‘Although it’s hardly anyone’s idea of an old-fashioned Judy and Mickey musical, Sterling Studios is banking on Dana Pointer and Missie Miller to make Detention Rules! next summer’s box office blockbuster. And despite the fact that music video director Adam Berg is no John Hughes, there’s little doubt that audiences will flock to the theater to see Dana and Missie mixing it up with sexy Jack Wesley, who plays—well, Sexy—with a capital Take-Your-Clothes-Off-Fast-And-Don’t-Open-Your-Mouth. With golden girl Trixie Wilder in the cast, too, maybe these pretty Hollywood screen teens will learn a trick(sie) or two about propriety and professionalism.’”
Placenta put her hands on her hips and said, “Poor Trixie, having to put up with that crowd in her final
hours.”
“Poor?” Polly barked. “I should be so poor! While she’s cashing in with back-to-back films, I’ve got to kill myself for eight shows a week in Kansas City this summer!”
“Trixie’s cashing in all right,” Placenta said. “She bought the farm!”
Polly and Tim both gave their maid quizzical looks.
“Trixie Wilder’s gone,” Placenta announced. “Dead. Stiff. Ready for planting. Possibly rubbed out by some maniacal diva like you, or one of your friends who were dropped off in that space ship that couldn’t rush back fast enough to whatever galaxy you all come from.”
“Murdered?” Polly gasped. There was a hint of intrigue in her voice.
“Katie Couric said maybe,” Placenta reported. “If you’d listen to real news instead of reading that Peeper trash…. Katie explained that Trixie was found last night, dead in her trailer on the location of that movie you were just reading about. Katie said something about a trauma to the head and that the police are investigating and can’t rule out foul play.”
For a fraction of an instant, Polly’s showbiz survival instincts surfaced as she thought, “Have they recast her role?”
“Make a donation in Trixie’s name to the Motion Picture Retirement Home,” Tim suggested.
“To absolve you of your self-centered thoughts that Trixie’s misfortune is an opportunity for you,” Placenta said.
Polly upbraided her servant with her eyes.
“Don’t play innocent with me, Your Highness,” Placenta said. “I see through you as plainly as all those mediums on TV see dead folk.”
Chapter 2
Happy Hour (otherwise known as Lush Hour) began at five o’clock at Pepper Plantation. As usual, Polly, Tim, and Placenta were lounging in the Great Room of the mansion, dividing their time and attention between killing off another bottle of Verve, and nibbling on Placenta’s salmon tortilla appetizers. But tonight was different. Instead of their ritual of ferreting out killers on The Mystery Channel, they were surfing through “Larry King Live,” “Access Hollywood,” and the “ABC Nightly News.” Trixie Wilder, a minor acquaintance of Polly’s, was the lead story on every local and national network news broadcast. She had become a teaser to lure viewers away from the ubiquitous reruns of “Friends.”
Although the coroner had yet to determine the specific cause of Trixie’s demise, journalists were playing up the angle of possible foul play—mainly because Hollywood hadn’t enjoyed a celebrity murder scandal in at least a week. If there was an upside to Trixie’s death, it was that she had an actor’s perfect timing. Her final bow took place during a slow cycle when movie and recording stars’ DUIs, rapes, drug charges, child molestations, shoplifting arrests, and other sure-fire attention-grabbing debaucheries were temporarily off the court dockets. For the first time in her long if unremarkable career, Trixie was a household name.
A lot more people than Tim had originally imagined knew who Trixie Wilder was. After a day of being bombarded with biographical highlights on CNN and “Anderson Cooper 360,” Tim could recite the ups and downs of Trixie’s entire life story. As a noncontract day player at all of the Hollywood studios during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, she had appeared in dozens of feature films and shorts. Her stock in trade was playing a wiseacre nurse to Ray Miland, or the tough-as-nails housekeeper for Doris Day, or a spinster librarian dispensing one line of life-altering advice to a depressed Bette Davis. Although she never came close to playing a leading role, zealous film buffs today could tick off Trixie’s list of credits in an instant.
Now that Trixie Wilder was suddenly a name worth talking about, the world tuned in to what the producers at “Larry King Live” had hastily pasted together as a special edition of the program.
With Jayne Meadows and Nanette Fabray as guests, they sat opposite their host’s suspenders and chattered about the almost maniacal dedication to the craft of acting that Trixie had always displayed. According to the two magpies, whose recall of facts was dubious at best, Trixie’s work ethic was so sacred to her that she never married or had children who might have interfered with her vocation. Instead, they claimed, she devoted her time and energy to the masochistic endeavor of auditioning, and accepting whatever minor film or stage roles she could find. She was often nothing more than atmosphere on the platform of a train station. Her image personified the idea of the true artist, alone in her room, with only a cat for company. (Although Trixie actually lived comfortably in a high-rise condo in Century City.)
With little relevant information to offer in the way of personal anecdotes about Trixie, Jayne and Nanette instead tried to recall what the really big stars of their day had said about the character actress. That she was “special.” That her comedy was “unique.” That she “had an unusual face that transfixed audiences.” It was obvious to Larry King (and his audience) that neither guest really knew their subject very well—if at all—but they wouldn’t miss the opportunity to be seen on national television and remind viewers that they themselves were still breathing—if through badly reconstructed noses.
“Is it true that Trixie was alone in the world? That her only living relative is a grand niece who’s shackled to a cinder-block cell wall somewhere in a Costa Rica prison for smuggling drugs?” Larry asked Jayne and Nanette. Both women shrugged their shoulders. Then, raising her voice to be heard over Nanette, who was saying, “When I was starring in The Bandwagon with Fred Astaire…” Jayne plowed ahead and said, “When Steve and I were playing Vegas, this ghastly thing happened when…”
“Let’s take a call,” Larry interrupted, his voice pleading to be rescued by anyone in Chillicothe.
Polly switched the channel to “Access Hollywood,” and marveled that anyone could be as unctuous as Billy Bush. “There must be millions of vacuous viewers who consider him inordinately sexy,” she said, mainly for Tim’s benefit. “I mean I can understand the reaction. But I for one certainly do not get the message of his being.”
“We’re on the same page,” Tim said, evading his mother’s bait for an argument about who was hot and who was not. It was an ongoing game between the two. Most of the time they agreed. Yes, for Hugh Jackman. Yes, for Colin Firth. Yes, for Mark Harmon. No, for Vin Diesel. Yes for Jon Stewart.
Placenta said, “Billy reminds me of the first ex–Mr. Polly Pepper. From whom Timmy gets his best genes.”
“Sure, slurp down my expensive champagne and cleave this loveless, thrice-divorced legend down to the marrow in her bones by mentioning that louse,” Polly whined. After a moment and several more sips from her own glass of bubbly she conceded, “You’re right, of course, and that’s precisely why I loathe BB. Every man I’ve ever loved—except Timmy here—has been as artificial as that plastic fichus you never dust in the breakfast nook,” she said. “But Mr. Number One was a hottie, all right. He was definitely catnip to me. Still, I can’t bear Bush.”
On television, peacock Billy continued with his gleaming if insincere smile. “It was precisely Trixie’s lack of glamour that made her popular with movie-going audiences of all ages,” he said, trying to appear like an analytical film historian, as if the thoughts and words he was speaking were his own. “She was common, and one of the few women in Hollywood who never dated Howard Hughes, Clarke Gable, or Bogey,” he said. “However, we did uncover this snapshot. It’s Trixie on a night out with Regis Philbin.”
A faded photograph from the 1970s appeared on the television screen. In the image, Trixie was apparently seated in a restaurant’s red leather banquette. She was wearing a plaid sweater accented with a string of pearls around her neck. Holding a glass of red wine in one hand, the look she was blasting at Regis was one of utter boredom.
“I know how she feels,” Polly said, reading Trixie’s body language. “Regis tried to date me once, and…”
“…And if you’d only known how stinking rich he was going to be, you’d have said, yes…” Tim completed her thought. It was a story he and Placenta had heard as far back as they could remem
ber.
When the television camera returned to Billy’s smirking face, he said, “That’s an exclusive, folks. It proves that Trixie did have a life outside of a soundstage.”
For the remainder of the program, “Access Hollywood” was stuck making do with showing archival film footage as filler between commercials for Clairol hair-coloring products, and repeated showings of a video taken earlier in the day of Liza Minnelli wiping away a tear and sniveling, “I’m just glad that Mama’s not here. This would kill her!”
As the champagne loosened Tim’s tongue, and after watching so many black and white clips from Trixie’s early films, he stated the obvious. “God, she looked as old in the 1940s as she did in the twenty-first century,” he said.
Polly, comfortably seated in a leather wingback chair, her feet resting on an ottoman and facing the large television screen, agreed. “That’s the beauty of being a homely girl,” she said, taking another sip of champagne. “We never fade.”
“We,” was the well-placed cue for Tim to contradict his mother’s self-deprecation. He’d been through this a million times and had learned how to assuage her self-conscious fears—real or imagined. “You’d never have gotten a guy like Dad if you were unattractive,” Tim said with all the warmth and sincerity of an automated voice menu. “He chose you when he could have had a whole stable of starlets,” Tim allowed.
“And did. Which is why we divorced,” Polly reminded him, pulling an accent pillow out from behind her back and tossing it at Tim. “Trixie may have been a grinning walrus from day one,” she said, “but she made lemonade out of her life. That’s what we actors do, dear. I mean look at Owen Wilson’s broken nose and tiny pouting mouth and wrinkled lips, but by sheer force of personality he became a leading man.” She then switched the channel again.