He just sits in the dark and watches television. David Letterman cracks a joke about Flo and gets booed by the audience. “Okay, okay,” he says. “Guess she’s becoming a national folk hero now.”
E! Entertainment runs a special report on her life. On Larry King Live, the Cherry Sisters insist that the suicide just proves Flo killed their “ant.” One says, “We still might sue her estate, if she’s left one.”
Yet on the eleven o’clock news, Detective Philip Lee of the Los Angeles Police Department says he’s convinced Flo was innocent of murder. “My guess is her story wasn’t too far off the mark,” he says. “She’d left, gone on to start a new life, she told me. Meanwhile, the hospital made a mistake. Her neighbors mistook the dead woman for her, and she wasn’t around to prove ’em wrong. No one at the hospital thought to question the woman’s identification. So that was it. No big mystery. No scandal. I’d just chalk it all up to a bizarre set of circumstances, and let both of ’em rest in peace.”
Ben just sits there deep in the cushions of the couch, watching the news reports over and over again on CNN and MSNBC, flicking back and forth with the remote.
The images repeat themselves: Anita’s hysterical tears. “She—she was here—and then—I—I—turned around—” The caption under her face gets her name wrong: Anita Murinsky.
The black woman. “Little old lady.”
The white man in the tie with the dog. “I saw something fall.”
The old man. “It’s the third suicide this month!”
They become like family to him.
Especially the old man and his crazy eyebrows that seem to move across his forehead.
“I seen her go. Dress flyin’, arms flailing all the way down.”
Finally he stands. He has to see her again. He has to see her face. He forages in his crate of videos and pulls one out. One of the last videotaped interviews he did with Flo.
He pops it into the VCR and hits PLAY.
She’s smiling into the camera. Smoking. Her long red nails catch a glint of light. She’s wearing the scarf Jean bought her, a rainbow of color swathed around her shoulders.
He hears his own voice off camera. “So, Flo,” he’s saying, “you keep saying I never ask about what came after.”
She nods grandly. “No one does. It’s as if those second fifty years don’t count. All anyone’s interested in is drama. But what is drama except life with the dull parts cut out?”
“Yet I take it those second fifty years were far from dull?”
“They were the most satisfying of my life.”
“So tell me about them,” he says to her.
The camera moves in for a tight close-up. Her eyes are so blue, so clear. She takes a long drag on her cigarette, letting out the smoke dramatically. For a moment, it obscures the entire screen. When it dissipates, she’s smiling again.
“All right, Ben. I’ll tell you. Let’s see. January 1. My birthday. 1939. The first day of the first year of my new life ….”
January 1, 1939
Each of my stories is a season of my life. And my life was given a second chance that New Year’s Day in Doris’s diner.
Winston Pichel drove me the rest of the way up the coast, all the way up through Lompoc and Monterey and Santa Cruz. It was a dangerous road, up and down those cliffs, so close to the edge—but it was thrilling for me. Invigorating. Winnie had a sporty car. Red, real flashy. I forget what kind. A convertible though. I’ve always been partial to the wind in my hair.
“Well, Miss Florence,” he said, looking over at me with that sly grin of his. “What awaits you in the golden city by the bay?”
“The rest of my life,” I told him.
He laughed.
Oh, how I had him snared.
We became very good friends, Winnie and I. He was a tub of a man—but still, you remind me of him, Ben. Not in looks, surely. You’re far more handsome and certainly more trim. And of course, Winnie was a pansy. A flamer. That’s what he would’ve called himself. But nonetheless, the two of you have similar spirits. The same kind of entrepreneurial dreams. You’re both dreamers. That’s what it is.
I suppose that’s why I like you. Trust you. I’m a dreamer, too. Always have been. It was Florence Lawrence who couldn’t dream. Me—well, I think once you’ve stopped dreaming, you’ve stopped living. I’m a hundred and seven—or somewhere around there anyway—and I haven’t stopped dreaming yet. When I do, then it’s over. Only then.
Oh, how I remember driving into the city that bright and chilly January day. We had to put the top up as we got farther north because it got cold, and I pulled on a sweater Doris had given me. But there it was: my city on a hill. I hadn’t seen it since my days with Linda, so long ago. In the interim, the earthquake had destroyed it all—but there it still was, nonetheless. Rebuilt, risen from its ashes. Nearly as beautiful as before. Still with the same vistas of land and sky and sea. I felt a kinship with the city. We were both phoenixes, after all. Both had died and come back.
Winnie drove me for a tour. Down past Mission Dolores and through Fisherman’s Wharf and past the Presidio. And then—up ahead of us—a wonder to see: the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the true marvels of this century. I remember it sparkling in the sun. I had Winnie stop the car, and I walked up its side. Once, long before, Ducks and I had walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Now I stared out into San Francisco Bay. They were building an island out there for yet another world’s fair.
“Life keeps finding its way back,” I told Winnie. “It keeps doubling back on itself.”
I’m sure he didn’t catch my drift. But when you’ve lived as long as I have, Ben, you begin to see things. Like watching a garden grow. I remember when I was confined to my bed at my farm in New Jersey, in those long, sad months after I lost Annie Laurie. I’d just lie there in my bed, looking out the window into the gardens, into the woods. Every morning, it was the same thing. The birds arrived on schedule, went about their business. The flowers opened when the sun was high enough, then closed when it went behind the trees. There was a stray cat that came by at the same time every day—the same time, to the minute—to drink water from the birdbath.
I watched as if my window were a movie screen. I saw the seasons change, then change again. I saw the frost, and I saw the bloom of the spring. Life keeps coming back. You watch it long enough, as long as I have, and you’ll see.
Oh, but I’m sounding like a sentimental old fool, aren’t I? And I hate sentimental old fools. Still, when I think of those first few days in San Francisco with Winnie—oh, I was so full of celebration. I used the money Winnie had given me for the pocketwatch to buy a new hat. The first purchase of my new life. A black beaded cloche—I still have it. Maybe I’ll wear it for you sometime.
He got me a room with a friend of his. Her name was Ginger. She was a dancer and singer, performing in some of the city’s clubs. She was getting up there in years, but my goodness—what legs she still had. What a voice. Gentlemen were always tucking tens and twenties in her stockings.
Ginger and I were friends and roommates for seventeen years. Jeannie reminds me of her. Oh, they’re nothing alike really—Jeannie’s a damn nun, for heaven’s sake. But it’s their spirit—again, it’s the spirit that’s similar.
Ginger was fiercely loyal. Like Jean. Like a tiger sometimes—until the day she died. I took care of her at the end. Cancer, like my mother. Funny. No one’s asked me about Ginger. I was closer to her than almost anyone we’ve talked about. Knew her years longer than I knew Molly or Lester or Linda, but no one’s asked me about Ginger. Winnie either—and he and I were friends up until 1959, when a heart attack took him. We were always after him to take better care of himself—Ginger and I, and Hank and Jose and Myra and all the rest of the gang. How we missed him. His fidgety manner. His fluttery ways.
How I miss them all.
And isn’t it peculiar? All these interviews, and I haven’t told you about any of them. You know, no one part of a long life matters
more than another, Ben. Wherever we are, that’s where we’re supposed to be. Oh, there are times you’ve got to be somewhere else—and you’ve got to have the sense to get up and go there. But you start from somewhere, and wherever that somewhere is, that’s the place you’re supposed to be at the time.
Do you understand, Ben? I had good, good friends in San Francisco. No, not just friends—family. I’ve never counted family by blood, you know. My family brought Florence Bridgewood back to life. They allowed her to be.
It was through Winnie that I met most of them. He got me my first job. I was a waitress at a nightclub in the bohemian North Beach neighborhood. It was across the street from the old Hall of Justice, which was a little bit of irony, because the place was often getting raided. After a while, I became something like the hostess, who greeted the customers and made sure they were happy. I remember serving John Steinbeck once and Allen Ginsberg many times. It was a place where no one asked anyone too many questions—me included—which was good. Especially in the beginning. The place was called The Black Cat. I used to wear my cloche hat and black fishnet stockings. Oh, what a hoot we all were! There was Hazel the piano player and Jose—darling Jose, he reminds me so much of Rex—in his sequined gowns and red pumps singing, “God save us queens!”
We went through the war together, rationing our gasoline and batteries and hosting fund-raisers. So many of the fine young men who used to come to our bar never returned. I’d been through a world war before; I knew what to expect. It’s so futile, war. I don’t know if it’s ever done much good. When it was over, we all danced in the streets and I stood out on the Golden Gate Bridge, singing the national anthem with a thousand others. Oh, it was a glorious day.
And do you know? All those years of being sick? Weak? Fragile and high-strung? Never again. The pain never did come back. Molly was right. Ginger and I often went scuba diving off Big Sur. I rode horses until I was seventy-eight. I even jumped out of an aeroplane with a parachute once—for my sixtieth birthday! I landed amid the hoots and hollers of my family. “You do it, girl!” Jose shrilled. “Flo, you are the queen!” Myra shouted. Winnie just trembled and handed me a shot of brandy, pinky extended as always. Ginger stood there with her arms folded across her chest. “Woman, you get down and kiss this here earth,” she told me.
I did as I was told.
It makes me smile just to think of it all. Oh, they tried to close down The Black Cat more than once. Paddy wagons would roll up to the doors and any man dressed as a woman was carted away. How silly. The bar owner was a good family man. He had a wife and children, and he’d bring the kids by. We’d all eat spaghetti dinners that I’d make out in the kitchen in back. There was nothing unsavory about the place. Nothing. But finally, he had to close it down. After some twenty years, The Black Cat ceased to be. It just got to be too much. All the raids. All the publicity. Halloween, 1963. That was the end.
Well, for me, too. Ginger and Winnie were gone. I visited their graves every day, placed freshly picked daisies and daffodils on the spot. But I decided it was time. I needed to go. As much as I loved them all, as much as I loved San Francisco, there was still one thing more I needed to do for Flo Bridgewood. I had to go back to Buffalo.
So I bought the Bel-Air, packed up my belongings, and headed east.
I get my kicks … on Route 66….
So that’s all. That’s all I have to say.
The Present
A skinny blonde in a microminiskirt—no more than ninety pounds and most of that hair—is having a supremely difficult time maneuvering across the icy main street of Park City, Utah. She wobbles on her spiked heels, her long legs threatening to slide out in opposite directions. She clutches on to her companion, an older man with slicked-back gray hair and wearing a long black leather jacket. They don’t speak as they try desperately to appear confident and aloof.
“Don’t worry,” says the maitre d’, who’s watching them through the large plate-glass window. “Before the week’s over, she’ll fall flat on her ass.”
Ben can’t help but laugh. The little street with its quaint shops and trendy cafes is packed with cars, mostly Beemers and Jags and the occasional Porsche. People are crossing back and forth in both directions, causing the traffic to back up even more. The locals are dressed in parkas and down vests, the movie people in miniskirts and unlined leather jackets.
“It’s getting crazier and crazier,” the maitre d’ tells Ben. “Every year it gets bigger. They’re estimating sixty thousand this time. The rest of the year, we barely break six.”
“Hey, it’s an honor to be showing at Sundance,” Ben says, buttoning up his coat and wrapping his scarf around his neck.
Carla Ortiz is pulling on her suede gloves. “You do realize you’re looking at the next winner for Best Documentary,” she tells the maitre d’.
“I’ve looked at a lot of ’em,” he says, supremely unimpressed.
Ben puts his arm around Carla. “Did you know this was the very restaurant that Harvey Weinstein infamously shouted down a sales rep over the rights to Shine a few years ago?”
Carla gives him an eyebrow. Hollywood lore holds no fascination for her. “Oh, I have chills,” she says dryly.
“I assume your lunch was satisfactory?” the maitre d’ asks.
“Very good,” Ben assures him.
“Well, then, I hope to see you again,” he says.
“You’ll be seeing a lot of him,” Carla promises.
They step out onto the sidewalk. It’s begun to snow lightly. Ben sticks out his tongue, catches a few snowflakes and licks his lips. “Can’t do that in New York,” he tells Carla. “By the time they get down to our level they’re pretty nasty.”
She pays no attention to him. “Remember, you have an interview with Kevin Thomas from the L.A. Times at five. You are going to shave, aren’t you? And wear the blue shirt with the blue tie. It’s a good look.”
He grins. “I wasn’t aware when I hired you as my agent I was getting a fashion consultant as well.”
“A good agent provides many services. Too bad your last one didn’t understand that.” They share a quick kiss as her cell phone chirps. She extracts it from her coat pocket and answers it. “Ah,” she says. “All right, I’ll be right there.”
She snaps the phone shut. “Sam Glick has finally agreed to have a drink with me. I’m going to meet him at the Riverhorse.”
“So maybe he’s not pissed at me anymore?” Ben ventures.
“We’ll see. I’m sure he’ll act the wounded diva. After all, you did break a contract with him.”
“Yeah,” Ben says, “but now I’ve got the indie documentary of the year.”
She smiles at him. A good smile. “Yes, Ben,” she says. “You do.”
He watches her head off down the sidewalk. The snow is coming down harder now, collecting on top of people’s moussed-up hair the way it caps the peaks of the mountains around him. It’s a beautiful snow, light and airy and just cold enough—not icy or sticky, just soft and cool. Refreshing.
He walks through it, his hands pushed deep down into the pockets of his old corduroy jacket, nodding to harried passersby as if he hadn’t a care in the world. His hair’s grown back in, and he’s tied it back in his old ponytail with an elastic band. The profile in Entertainment Weekly had called him “unassuming.” He liked that.
He stops in front of the Eccles Theater. It’s an enormous venue, seating capacity 1,300. He stands in front of the poster for his film.
LIVING PICTURES:
A FILM BY
BENJAMIN CARTWRIGHT SHEEHAN
The buzz around town was that it stood a good chance of winning the Best Documentary prize. He had some tough competition, but a couple of reviewers had already made the prediction. And if he won at Sundance …
Hey, just being here was achievement enough. He’d had no connections, no clout—just a good film, and the judges saw that. Sure, the name Florence Lawrence helped, and the fact that even now, nine months aft
er her death, the public was still curious about the mystery of her life.
“I don’t attempt to explain it,” Ben told the interviewer from EW. “I don’t think you can explain magic. This isn’t really about The Biograph Girl anyway. It’s about an extraordinary woman who lived a long, long life—a walk through the twentieth century by someone who lived through all of it. It’s about friendship and commitments. It’s about family. It’s about being where you’re supposed to be. I think we can all learn a lot from Flo Bridgewood.”
He traces his finger around the photo of Flo on the poster. She’s got a big red bow in her hair and a cigarette in her hand. The “Dare to Be 100” people didn’t like that very much. But that’s her there, not Florence Lawrence.
That’s the way she would have wanted it.
So Silent Shadows became Living Pictures. The first was about one woman; the second was about another.
On the elevator going back up to his room, Ben closes his eyes. And as often happens in those moments, when he blocks out the world even for just a few scattered seconds, the face he sees is Jean’s.
Has she read the interviews? Would she see the film?
Ben hopes so: It was for her, after all. Her even more than him.
He’d tried finding her, but no one knew where she had gone. St. Mary’s had no clue, and with the proceeds from Flo’s contracts going all to them, they didn’t much feel compelled to track her down. He called St. Vincent’s, but they hadn’t heard from her either. He read a piece that Richard had written about Flo for the New York Times Magazine. It was similar to Ben’s film in spirit—a tribute to the woman they’d met in the dayroom, a woman he said now becomes a myth for the ages. In the article, Richard quoted Jean as saying she needed some time alone to grieve for Flo. Richard apparently knew where Jean was, but Ben hadn’t spoken with Richard since the day on the bridge.
The elevator doors open. He steps out onto his floor, fumbles in his pocket for his room key, swipes it through the electronic slot, and enters.
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