The Boy Who Never Grew Up

by David Handler

  “Sarge?”

  “She’s his assistant. Matthew’d be totally lost without her. We’ve all made sure he could keep on telling those sweet, wonderful stories that make so many millions of people around the world feel so good. All along, I’ve felt I was doing the right thing. He was so happy, so productive …” He sat back down heavily. “Now, I’m not so sure. Because I’ve left him totally unprepared for all of this shit. He can’t deal with any of it. What she’s doing to him. What the industry is doing to him. He honestly doesn’t understand what’s happening to him.”

  “Everyone has to grow up some time,” I pointed out.

  “That they do,” he acknowledged readily. “Matthew is finally going through puberty. And it’s not pretty.”

  “It seldom is. I take it he’s working?”

  Up went the shield. “That’s correct,” Shelley Selden replied briskly. “He just finished writing the script for Badger Four last week. He’s casting it now, scouting locations. Goes into production in a few weeks.”

  “How’s the script?”

  “Great!” he exclaimed.

  I tugged at my ear. “Let’s try that again—how is the script?”

  “I try to stay out of the creative end,” he replied tactfully. “I know my limitations. I’m just the numbers man. So I’m really the wrong person to ask.”

  “I’m asking.”

  He hesitated. “Okay, sure … My feeling is he needs to do a big, noisy, fun, Matthew Wax kind of picture right now. Something with maybe some nice, fuzzy aliens in it …” He trailed off. And, slowly, began to deflate before my eyes. I could almost hear the air hissing out of him. “Instead, he wants to do an adult drama—in black and white. It’s a Badger, only this one’s darker and much more personal than anything he’s ever done before. I—I think the script still needs a little work. I don’t think it hangs together yet. But it’s what Matthew wants to do next. He keeps saying he wants to be taken … seriously.”

  “Tell him to start wearing glasses. That’s what Daryl Hannah did.”

  “He already wears glasses,” Shelley said miserably.

  There, he was good and deflated now, like a beanbag chair. I could have lounged atop the man if I cared to.

  “Does he know how you feel?” I asked.

  “Not totally.”

  “Is he happy with the script?”

  “Not totally.” He brightened a little. “That’s why he wants you.”

  “I’m not a screenwriter.”

  “He knows. But, see, this is the first movie that Matthew’s ever done that’s about him. He’s not used to introspection. In fact, he’s avoided it his whole life. Writing this book, he hopes, will help him to examine his life. Which will in turn help the script. This is a major step for Matthew, Hoagy. For him, it’s like going into therapy.”

  “I’m not a therapist.”

  “But you do possess a certain …”

  “Effortless style?”

  “Knack,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Everybody ought to be good at something.”

  “Go to work on him, Hoagy. Draw him out. He’ll give you as much of his time as you need. This isn’t just a book to him. Or a movie. This is him becoming a man.”

  I sampled a Danish. There was only one left, and I didn’t think he’d leave it there for long. “Exactly how much of this is because of Pennyroyal?”

  “It has everything to do with Pennyroyal, and it has nothing to do with Pennyroyal,” he replied. “It has to do with real life. He’s face to face with it for the first time, and he’s finding it pretty ugly.”

  “Only because it is. Are you actually trying to tell me the man’s never been fucked over before? Not once?”

  “Oh, he has been,” Shelley conceded. “Sure he has. Schlom’s done it to him in every imaginable way, and then some.” That would be Norbert Schlom, the president of Panorama City Studios. “He’s the one who discovered Matthew, and first put him to work. Became like a father to him. And cheated him every single step of the way. Cheated him out of millions. This is a man with no sense of morality, Hoagy. A man who lies on spec. You know he actually claims that Yeti, which only happens to be the fourth highest grossing movie in Hollywood history, still hasn’t netted a profit? Matthew only made his salary on that picture. Not a penny more on the back end. It wasn’t until he did the sequel that he had enough clout to demand, and get, gross points. And then when he did Dennis the Dinosaur I made sure he retained all of the licensing rights to his characters. That’s where the gold was. Schlom knew it, too, but I said take it or leave it. So he took it.”

  “I’m surprised you stayed at all.”

  “Don’t be. You know what they call the Disney Studio under Jeff Katzenberg’s rule? Mouschwitz. Better the devil you know. Fewer surprises that way.” Shelley shook his head, disgusted. “Schlom’s clever though. He still figured a way to force Matthew into that Three Stooges disaster. Matthew, he was deeply, deeply hurt by that experience. But it didn’t set him straight about the business. No way. See, Matthew had a real shitty relationship with his father, who was a major scumbag. To Matthew, Schlom was simply his father being shitty to him all over again. That’s the only way he was able to comprehend it. I had to get him out of there after that. That’s what Bedford Falls is about. It’s a home. A safe environment where he can feel comfortable and not have to associate with the Schloms of the world. He named it after the town Jimmy Stewart lived in in It’s a Wonderful Life, the Frank Capra movie. Matthew’s favorite. He watches it at least once a week. That’s where the name Georgie came from, too—Stewart’s name in the movie was George Bailey. He even owns the ‘George Lassos the Moon’ needlepoint that Donna Reed made for Stewart in the movie. Bedford Falls is a dream come true, Hoagy. An old-fashioned Hollywood studio, like out of the thirties. Eight soundstages, a back lot, office buildings—all ours. We’ve created an alternative to the madness. A place where talented young people can come and do good work and know we’re not out to screw them. We won’t tack on millions in bogus overhead. We won’t cheat them out of their back end. We’re nice. They can’t get over it. Coppola tried doing it years ago with American Zoetrope, only he fell on his face because he wasn’t a sound businessman. The major studios, they want us to fail, too. We’re a threat to them. But we won’t. We’re bottom-line oriented and we’re realistic. We make a small, select slate of maybe eight Bedford Falls films a year. Romances, family comedies, the kind of movies Matthew likes. A lot of them are directed by kids who used to work for him. Strictly moderate budgets. We draw the line at twenty million and we won’t go over it. We won’t work with crazed stars who demand ten million and gross points and then disappear in their trailer all day because somebody looks at ’em funny. We won’t work with egomaniacal directors who demand we take out a full-page ad in Variety calling them geniuses. We won’t work with coked-up producers who demand we build them their own three-million-dollar kingdom out in our parking lot. We work with decent, enthusiastic, hardworking professionals who enjoy their work.” He paused, glancing hungrily at the empty Danish plate. He’d really wanted that last one. “We also have something else Coppola didn’t have. We have Matthew Wax. He’s an industry unto himself.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” I observed.

  “It is wonderful,” he enthused.

  “So what’s your problem?”

  He stared at me. I stared back at him. That’s one of the things I am best at. He sipped his coffee. He cleared his throat. “If Pennyroyal gets half of Bedford Falls in her divorce settlement, she’s made it clear she intends to sell out immediately—to Panorama City. Schlom again. I hear he’s offering her $150 million. A sweetheart deal—she’ll get her own unit there and everything. And Schlom will own half of our studio.”

  “Making him your partner.”

  “Not for long, if he can help it. Once Schlom gets half of Bedford Falls he’ll stop at nothing to get the other half. He wants to gobble us up. Desperately.”

 
; “Does Pennyroyal realize this?”

  “I’ve tried to explain it to her, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. She’s in over her head.”

  “You can’t convince her to accept cash in lieu of half the studio?”

  “There is no cash, Hoagy. At least not that kind. Matthew sank his entire fortune into Bedford Falls. Other than his house, it’s all he owns. He and the bank. And the overhead is huge. The bank loan, the payroll, insurance, taxes. We rent out the sound stages, but that barely dents it. Matthew keeps it afloat himself. He’s our cash flow machine. Channels all of the profits from his movies and merchandising back into the studio. Twenty-eight million last year alone.”

  “And this year?”

  “This year he didn’t do quite so well,” Shelley replied tactfully.

  “I see.” Now I understood why he wanted Matthew to make a movie with fuzzy aliens.

  “Someday soon, we’ll be able to stand on our own,” Shelley vowed bravely. “I’m sure of it. We’ll make it. But right now he’s personally keeping us afloat.”

  “You don’t own a piece of the studio yourself?”

  “It belongs to him,” he said, with no trace of bitterness. “I earn a nice salary, and I’ve already made all the money my family will ever need. We’re also taken care of in case anything should happen to him. Half of Bedford Falls goes to Shelley and me, half to Georgie. Pennyroyal was to control Georgie’s half until he turned twenty-one, but I changed Matthew’s will the day she walked out. Shelley and I control it now.”

  “Why is Schlom so interested in Bedford Falls? Because you pose a threat to him?”

  “Because we’re an asset. If he takes us over, he makes Panorama City Communications even more attractive than it already is.”

  “To whom?”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Who do you think?”

  I poured myself more coffee and sat back in my chair. “Are we talking foreign investors, here? Pacific Rim, perhaps?”

  “We are,” he informed me, gravely.

  The selling of America. The business pages had been full of little else lately. One of the news magazines had gone so far as to run a picture of the Statue of Liberty on its cover adorned with a For Sale sign. This was no mere gossip column war I was walking into. This was bigger. Much bigger.

  I said, “You’d better tell me the rest.”

  “It’s getting harder and harder to make a movie,” he began. “The average cost has tripled in the last ten years—up to thirty million. That’s the average. Pictures like Dick Tracy and Terminator 2 actually ended up costing a hundred mil by the time they finished marketing them. Revenues, meanwhile, have flattened out. All of the studios, no matter how big they are, are in desperate need of fresh capital. That means globalization. Four of the seven majors have already been bought up by foreign corporations. They’re suckers for the Hollywood mystique. They love it. Rupert Murdoch, who’s Australian, has bought Fox. Pathé, an Italian company, has bought MGM-UA. And the Japanese electronics giants are squabbling among themselves over the rest. Sony buys Columbia for $5 billion, so Matsushita turns right around and buys MCA for $6.6. And now their third biggest hardware empire, Murakami, wants to take over Panorama for who knows how much—that means Panorama City Studios and their theme park in Orlando, their TV production company, record company, cable system, publishing house … If Schlom can deliver them Bedford Falls on top of all that—even better. They’ll own the rights to all of Matthew’s movies then. They love Matthew in Japan. I hear Murakami wants to build a Yeti theme park in Osaka. It’ll be a major draw for them. Big time.”

  “What’s Schlom’s stake in this?”

  “He’s Panorama’s single largest shareholder. He personally stands to pull down $350 million on the deal in stock. Plus get a megacontract to keep on running the studio. He’ll swing the biggest dick in town, no question. So will the guy who’s brokering the deal. And guess who that is? Guess who is serving as the go-between?”

  “Abel Zorch?”

  “Doink—Penny’s lawyer. Who happens to be very tight with Schlom. And also happens to speak fluent Japanese. See how all the pieces fit together now?”

  “Neatly.”

  “So you can appreciate the position we’re in.”

  “I can—you’re fucked.”

  He puffed out his cheeks again. “It’s true. We are. Unless …”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless Matthew and Pennyroyal somehow get back together.” He looked across the table at me pleadingly. “They have to patch things up, Hoagy. They just have to.”

  “You’re not asking me to write his book for him. You’re asking me to save his marriage.”

  “And his studio,” he admitted. “And all of the people who depend on it.” He sighed and ran a chubby hand over his face. “Maybe I’m asking too much.”

  “You can drop the maybe.”

  “It’s just that … there are no secrets in the film business. Everyone in town knows exactly what’s happening to us. No one’s bringing us any new projects—their agents are advising them not to. And the banks won’t finance any of our go projects. Not until this thing is settled. Matthew’s new movie is the only thing we’ve got going, and that’s coming out of his own pocket. All I can do is sit around, waiting for the ax to fall. I feel so totally helpless.” His eyes welled up. Again with the waterworks. He swiped at them with his napkin. “Maybe … maybe it is too late for us. Maybe we’re history. Whatever happens, it’s not your problem. I didn’t mean to lay it on you. I’m sorry. Really, I am. You write books. Good books. Write Matthew one. That’s all I ask.” He wadded up the napkin and laid it in the ashtray. “Will you do it? Please?”

  I got to my feet, rousing Lulu. “Anything else I should know?”

  His whole face lit up. He looked like Benjamin when it did. “Yeah. It was a hundred and seven in L.A. yesterday. The Santa Ana winds are blowing.”

  “How nice of them.” I picked up my trench coat and hat and started inside.

  “One other thing, Hoagy,” Shelley said nervously.

  I stopped. There was always one other thing. I waited.

  “Do you know how to duck?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because you may get caught in the cross fire.”

  “Oh, that.” I put on my hat and grinned at him. “Not to worry. I can see them just fine, but they can’t see me at all. I’m a ghost, remember?”

  Not that I ever thought I would be.

  Then again, I don’t suppose anyone purposely sets out to become an invisible man. Let’s face it—on the human dignity scale, ghosting ranks somewhere between mud wrestling and writing speeches for Dan Quayle. But it does finance my fiction, which is how I get my true, unbridaled jollies. And I am ideally suited for it. In fact, I happen to be the best. Three bestselling celebrity memoirs to my noncredit, as well as someone else’s bestselling novel. Not that the three memoirs weren’t what you’d call fiction, too. A memoir, after all, is an exercise in self-deception and self-glorification. People remember things the way they want to remember them. And celebrities are by nature fictitious creations. “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant,” the great star once acknowledged. “I want to be Cary Grant.” My background as a world-class novelist comes in real handy. So does my own former celebrity. I know how to handle stars. The lunch pail ghosts don’t. They treat them like rational, intelligent human beings. I know better.

  There is, however, a pitfall to my second career. Pretty big one, too. As a novelist, the greatest hazard I face is being called a no-talent bozo in the New York Times Book Review. Ghosting is a good deal scarier. Memoirs are about secrets, past and present. My job is to dig them up. The problem is there’s usually someone around who wants those dirty little secrets to stay buried, and will go to great lengths to see that they do. As a consequence, I’ve been shot at a number of times, punched, kicked, drugged, and suffocated—almost. And I can’t even begin to tell you what’s happened to Lulu. I haven’t bee
n killed yet, but a lot of people around me have. This part of the job I’m not suited for. But I can’t seem to avoid it. Trouble has this way of following me around. I think it’s my personality. I figured I should warn you about it in case you’re an aging film star who is thinking of hiring me. Think again. Or in case you’re a young, ambitious writer who figures ghosting might be an easy way to make a shitload of money. It isn’t. Not even maybe.

  I also don’t need the competition. So back off. I mean it.

  Chapter 2

  I FLEW OUT TWO DAYS LATER ON BEDFORD FALLS’ own Boeing 727 jet. Most studios have their own. Part of the image. The most important thing to remember about the movie business, an old-time director once told me, is that superficiality is everything. The family Selden wasn’t with me. Mr. Shelley still had more business in New York. But I was not alone. Several others had booked seats on the flight. The usual collection you get on a studio jet. A couple of record company executives. A VJ from MTV, who had just gotten her own sitcom, and who wore very little clothing. Peter Weller, the actor. Ed Bradley from 60 Minutes. The agent who represents three-fifths of the Lakers’ starting lineup, and who spent four-fifths of the flight on the phone. I seemed to be the only one on board who wasn’t wearing cowboy boots, and that included our stewardess, Jennifer. I had on my white-and-brown spectator balmorals with my unlined suit of blue-and-cream cotton seersucker and my white straw boater. Lulu stuck with her shades.

  Jennifer was very friendly and helpful, and she made an enemy of me for life before we’d even taken off. Just as soon as she got done fussing over Lulu. “Are you her trainer?” she asked me.

  I stiffened. “Her what?”

  “Isn’t she a movie dog? What did I see her in?”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

  Nonetheless, Lulu snuffled with glee and was a giant pain in the ass from that moment on. Even more so than usual. She has this problem with her head, you see. It swells even more easily than mine does.