Houseman looked at a sheet of paper tucked into the front of his script. “Langley Field, for example, is now ‘Langham.’ Columbia Broadcasting Building is now simply ‘Broadcasting Building.’ United States Weather Bureau is ‘Government Weather Bureau.’ ”
“Good, good,” Welles said, hands tented now, eyes almost glowing.
“New Jersey National Guard is now ‘State Militia.’ Princeton University Observatory is now ‘Princeton Observatory.’ ”
“Fine, fine.”
Houseman closed the script cover, ominously. “There is one that you won’t like, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t shield me, Housey.”
“They won’t let us use Roosevelt as a character.”
Welles sat up, alarmed and dismayed. “But that’s vital-a message from the president in a moment of national crisis!”
“They’ll allow another official-they’re suggesting Secretary of the Interior. This one appears to be nonnegotiable.”
Welles was thinking. “I may have a way around that…”
Houseman’s eyes hardened. “Orson-you know that I don’t approve of this approach…”
“I seem to recall something to that effect.”
“…but we have to keep CBS happy. Because if this backfires in any way, we dare not take all of the responsibility on our own shoulders.”
Welles drew in a deep breath. Finally he expelled it, and said ambiguously, “I won’t compromise the Mercury.”
Houseman frowned. “Artistically? Or financially?”
Welles leaned forward and patted Houseman’s hand. “I won’t let you down, Jack.” Then he turned to Gibson and said, “We only have a few hours left, before my rehearsal at the theater. Let’s get to work!”
They left a somewhat dejected-looking Houseman, who was ordering another Bloody Mary, to return to Welles’s suite.
For the next several hours, however, the subject of their collaborative Shadow film got sidetracked. Welles, on a passing mention of Hallowe’en in reference to their “War of the Worlds” prank, came to recall that Houdini had died on that day; this launched the showman into a lengthy discussion of magic.
Since this was Gibson’s own favorite subject, he found himself unable to resist the off-the-track journey.
“You know,” Welles said, seated in a chair next to his bed, getting a shave from a hotel barber, “as a child, I received magic lessons from Houdini.”
Gibson had pulled up a chair, his position similar to that of an interviewer. “Really? I saw him for the first time when I was seventeen-he asked me up on stage to examine his Chinese Water Torture Cell!”
“Wonderful! Details, man! Details!”
And Gibson provided details of the various times he’d seen Houdini, and of his own relationship with the famous magician, starting with a meeting at Houdini’s brownstone in New York in 1920, having to do with the Society of American Magicians (of which Houdini was president at the time). The friendship developed over the years, with Gibson a frequent backstage guest at Houdini shows. (Perhaps significantly, Welles offered no details of his childhood magic lessons from the magician.)
Later, as Welles received a manicure from a lovely girl in nurse’s whites, Gibson demonstrated several tricks Houdini had taught him, including “Instanto,” which involved swiftly cutting the cards and then identifying the cut-to card before turning it.
Welles was particularly intrigued to learn that Houdini had seen Gibson perform, and had wanted the young magician to teach him a certain trick.
“The Hindu wand trick,” Gibson told the rapt Welles, who was now getting a pedicure from the same girl in white. “Houdini wanted to buy the routine, but I presented it to him as a gift…only, he died before doing it.”
“I’d love to see it!”
“It’s an apparatus I don’t have with me-two wands with tassels that get cut but magically remain attached.”
“You must show me!”
“Next time we’re together, I’ll bring it.”
“If I like it, could I use it? Could I buy it?”
“Well…certainly, Orson. I’d be glad to give it to you, as a friend and fellow magician.”
Welles’s eyes floated skyward. “Imagine-to have a trick Houdini sought to perform, but never got the chance….”
“Are you anticipating doing an act, professionally, Orson?”
The boy-man nodded vigorously. “I’m hoping to mount an elaborate vaudeville show, someday soon.”
“You do have your…goals. Your ambitions.”
“I came to this party to have a good time.” The eyes twinkled, cheeks dimpled. “Didn’t you, Walter?”
A good time, certainly; but Gibson had also “come to the party” to work…and no more work was accomplished. The afternoon-between magic talk and Orson’s grooming-flew.
Just past six-thirty, darkness gathering at the windows, Welles showed Gibson to the door of the suite. “We’ll have breakfast tomorrow, and then go over to the studio together. You’ll get to see whether or not this ‘War of the Worlds’ can really fly.”
Feeling like the portable typewriter in his hand was purely decorative, Gibson asked, “What about our project?”
A hand settled on the writer’s shoulder, and his host said warmly, “A big part of what we’re doing this weekend, Walter, is getting to know one other. Establishing a bond. If you can stay over through Monday-”
“I could. I can.”
Welles patted Gibson’s shoulder, and took a step back, opening the door wider onto the waiting hall. “Well, we’ll squeeze in some work tomorrow, but Monday is yours, until rehearsal time. And we’ll be rehearsing well into the morning again, tonight…you’re welcome to drop by the Mercury and kibitz, of course.”
“Actually, I’m working on a story. I’ll be in my room, should you need me.”
“Highly unlikely. Why don’t you go out and enjoy yourself? The nightclub scene is incredible, these days.”
“I might.”
In his room, Gibson-not bothering with supper, after the huge lunch-continued punching the keys writing “Old Crime Week.” By midnight he was finished, and he lay on his bed in his high-ceilinged room, studying the chandelier, wondering if it was too late to follow Welles’s advice and go out to a club for a drink, a show and a late bite….
Again, Welles was right on cue.
The phone rang and the showman had an invitation for his writer friend. “Walter, the damn elevator has broken down again…”
“Elevator?”…
“In the tower on stage! For Danton’s Death!..Rehearsal is over, for tonight, while we turn the damn thing over to the mechanics.”
“Ah.”
“So-let’s get together. Have you ever been to the Cotton Club?”
“Not the new one.”
“This one lacks the primitive charm of the Harlem original, but there’s a twelve-thirty show with Cab Calloway. Are you up for it?”
“Sure!”
“My ride will pick you up in five minutes.”
“A cab?”
“An ambulance.”
So, sitting in the back of a screaming ambulance, next to an unused gurney, Gibson rode from the St. Regis to the Mercury, where Welles was picked up. Together, siren wailing, they took the short ride to Times Square and the Cotton Club.
Their table was off to one side, but with a fine view of the stage, and after Calloway had concluded, Welles ordered a “light” late supper: a plate of fried chicken for Gibson, and two plates of the same for Welles. Welles, still on a diet, had only a single helping of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a mere four biscuits.
The remains of this latest repast had been cleared away when Gibson risked a personal question.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “why aren’t you gun-shy about coming to this place?”
“Why should I be?”
“Well…Jack mentioned that you’ve been seeing a dancer who Owney Madden considers his private property…
.”
Welles sipped a glass of beer. “That’s possibly true.”
“Aren’t you afraid you might run into the guy? I mean, he’s no kid, but his nickname is ‘the Killer.’ Which he earned because, well…he’s a killer.”
“That is the rumor.”
“I don’t think it’s a rumor. He did time for it.”
With grandiose patience, Welles said, “Walter, since Mr. Madden got out of ‘stir,’ as his crowd calls it-on his most recent sojourn of several years-he’s been doing his best to stay out of Winchell’s newspaper column.”
“You mean-he owns the joint, but doesn’t hang around here.”
“That’s right. His cronies may pass along my having frequented his establishment, which I’m sure will give Mr. Madden a few moments of…irritation. Just as I’m enjoying a few moments of amusement, contemplating as much.”
“But you don’t think he’ll do anything about it.”
“What can he do? I’m a public figure. He lays a hand on me, threatens me in any way, and, poof…he’s back in, yes, ‘stir.’ Anyway, I haven’t been seeing Tilly in some time. Weeks. I have other interests now.”
“Like your wife, you mean?”
Welles’s head tilted to one side; he sighed, but smiled as he did. “Do my excesses offend you, Walter?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. My apologies.”
“No, no, I understand. But I ask you to understand-I married too young. Before I’d sown my fair share of wild oats. And my nature is simply not monogamous. I’ve explained this to Virginia, and she must either learn to accept me, as I am, or we will, sadly, have to go our separate ways.”
Welles was intent on walking back to the Mercury, to check on the status of the stage repairs, and asked Gibson to keep him company. Glad for the chance to walk off the big meal, Gibson quickly accepted.
Now approaching two A.M., Broadway was still alive but just starting to wind down a bit. As he strolled alongside the big man in the flowing black cape and slouch hat, Gibson contemplated how successful Welles (that baby nose hidden by a false hawk beak, anyway) might truly be at bringing the Shadow to life on screen.
Of course, the Shadow persona was actually secondary: the suave, sophisticated, man-about-town millionaire who was the Shadow’s secret identity-Lamont Cranston-Welles embodied perfectly, not only physically, but in life.
As they passed a particularly dark alley, a pair of hands reached out and plucked Gibson from Welles’s side, yanking the writer into the darkness. Two other large figures emerged from the shadows and thrust Welles into the alley as well.
Suddenly the two men had their backs to a brick wall and a trio of burly thugs in overcoats and battered hats-two fedoras and a porkpie-stood before them like a tribunal as imagined by Damon Runyon.
The trio was swathed in shadow, but one thing stood out clearly: the.45 automatic in the hand of the largest of them, the fleshy one in the middle, wearing the porkpie hat.
Welles, indignant, said, “What do you want with us? You want our money? You can have it! Then go, and go to hell.”
Gibson said nothing; he was trembling-scared out of his wits.
The man with the gun said, “We don’t want your money. We want your undivided attention-get it?”
“I’ve got it,” Welles said, sneering.
“Think you’re pretty cute, lording it up at the boss’s own place. Well, you lay off that little dancer, or the next time we talk, this rod’ll do the talking.”
“Cheap patter,” Welles said, “from cheap hoods….”
“Orson,” Gibson said. “Let it go…”
The guy with the gun said to the thug at his right, “Give him something to remember us by, Louie…”
Louie raised a fist, but Welles stepped forward and slammed his own fist into the man’s belly. As Louie crumpled, the man with the gun took a step forward and Welles knocked the gun from his grasp, slapping the man’s hand as if knocking a toy from a child’s hand.
The sound of it, spinning away on the cement into the blackness, gave Gibson courage. He shoved the third hood, the one who’d grabbed him in the first place, and then the entire trio of oversized goons were tripping over themselves, as Welles pushed Louie into the fellow with the porkpie.
Then Welles ran from the alley, calling, “Taxi!”
Gibson, right behind him, sharp footsteps on the pavement echoing, followed the flapping cape of Lamont Cranston as the hailed taxi screeched to a stop, and the actor and the writer scrambled into the backseat.
“St. Regis, please,” Welles said, regally casual, but breathing hard.
“Damn!” Gibson said, looking back toward the mouth of the alley-no sign of the hoods. They’d apparently disappeared into the dark, as Welles and Gibson made their escape.
Again, a hand settled on the writer’s shoulder. “Are you all right, Walter?”
“I may need a change of underwear.” He gave his host a hard look. “That was a little reckless, wasn’t it?”
Welles snorted. “I wasn’t going to let those overgrown Dead End Kids get away with that nonsense.”
“The leader had a gun!”
The cab driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror were on them.
Welles said, “He wouldn’t have fired, not so close to Broadway, not with a dozen cops around. They were just trying to scare us.”
Gibson blew out air. “Well, where I’m concerned, it worked like a charm.”
When the taxi pulled up at the St. Regis, a doorman approaching, Welles said, “Get some rest-I’m heading back to the Mercury. We’ll have breakfast in my room, around ten, then go over to CBS together around noon. Agreeable?”
But Welles did not wait for an answer, and the taxi glided away, the moon face smiling at him, a cheerfully demented, if slightly overweight elf.
In his room, between the Egyptian-cotton sheets, Gibson lay exhausted but exhilarated-and it took him a good hour to go to sleep.
It wasn’t that he was disturbed, and certainly his fear had passed: but story ideas were humming through his mind. Soon he had an image of himself at the antique writing desk, starting another story, not realizing he was only dreaming….
SUNDAY
OCTOBER 30, 1938
W alter G ibson’s famous creation was not the only Shadow cast by radio in 1938-the shadow of war also served to keep listeners on edge, and in a far more disturbing fashion….
For several months prior to The Mercury Theatre on the Air’s broadcast of a certain H.G. Wells science-fiction yarn, listeners had been alerted to the troublesome state of the world, homes all across the nation taken hostage by talking boxes in their living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and automobiles. The same gizmo that was sharing household hints and fudge recipes, cowboy adventures and comedy shows, weather reports and advertisements for corn plasters, popular tunes and classical music, was also bombarding America with the latest disasters, subjecting them to an endless parade of ominous international events. At no other time since the beginning of broadcasting had the collective audience been held in such a rapt, fearful grip, with listeners quite accustomed to their favorite programs being interrupted for news updates…and the news was never good….
In his September address to the annual Nazi party congress in Nuremberg, German dictator Adolf Hitler demanded autonomy over an area on the Czech border known as Sudetenland. It seemed over three million “Sudeten Germans,” as the Fuhrer called them, were “tortured souls” who could not “obtain rights and help themselves,” so the Nazis had to do it for them. (The translation Americans heard was provided by the dean of radio commentators, H.V. Kaltenborn, who just months before had been chosen by Orson Welles to narrate the Mercury radio broadcast of “Julius Caesar,” to add “a dimension of realism and immediacy.”) On October 3, Germany made its triumphant drive into the town of Asch, and a week later, Hitler’s troops occupied the Sudetenland.
Hearing of such an ill-boding event firsthand was already old hat to American radio listene
rs. Hitler’s conquests became a kind of serial for grown-ups, the Czech crisis playing out over three tense weeks-listeners hearing firsthand the march step of Nazi boots, the accusations and the threats, the rumblings of war that included the Far Eastern menace of the Japanese. At the height of the European crisis, about a month before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, a presentation of “Sherlock Holmes” by The Mercury Theatre on the Air had been interrupted by a news bulletin, irritating (but also making an impression on) Orson Welles.
Most Americans felt the inevitability of involvement of the U.S.A. in a world conflict in which its allies were either threatened or already embroiled: as the Germans marched into Austria, the English people were issued gas masks, and all of Europe noted with alarm Hitler calling up to active duty one million weekend soldiers from the German army reserve.
Radio statistics indicated that the medium’s audience had never been larger; what the numbers didn’t spell out was that these masses of listeners had never been more worried. Days before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, Leni Riefenstahl-German filmmaker and rumored mistress of the Fuhrer-was in Manhattan promoting her documentary about the 1936 Olympics, finding critical acceptance and public hostility. Meanwhile in Rome, the voice of fascism-the newspaper II Tevere-ordered the boycott of the films of Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers, the humor of these Jewish filmmakers condemned as “not Aryan.”
And the looming war was not the sole source of American jitters-earlier in 1938, a hurricane had hit the East Coast with devastating power; and, the year previous, the first disaster ever to be broadcast live exposed thousands to the explosion of the Hindenburg. When the German zeppelin caught fire at its mooring in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the announcer had been in the midst of describing the huge craft’s grandeur, only to witness…and report in “on the spot” fashion…the bursting flames and the dying people and all the ensuing chaos. His sobs-even his retching-had gone out over the air waves, “live”….
Just four days before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, CBS’s prestigious (if little-listened-to) Columbia Workshop aired a verse play by Archibald MacLeish: “Air Raid.” Orson Welles listened to the production on a break rehearsing Danton’s Death, because he had loaned his friend and Mercury regular, Ray Collins, to the production to be its narrator, a mock announcer reporting an air raid from a European tenement rooftop-the whine of attacking planes could be heard, the explosions of their dropped bombs, the sounds of a confused populace running for shelter, machine-gun fire, the screams of victims, including a young boy….
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