“So are you.”
He shrugged. “It’s the usual time for me.”
“Guess I’d forgotten.”
He hadn’t known what to say to this, and she immediately wished she had made no comment that alluded to how long she’d had lived away from home. He picked up his cup.
“I better go let the dogs out.”
“I can get dressed quick and come with you if you like,” she offered.
A look of doubt or maybe unease wavered across his face. “I’m sure you don’t want to do that, Audrey. It’s cold and dark.”
“I don’t mind.”
“They’ll be anxious for me now. I’d best get out there.”
Her father had started to move past her and Audrey reached out to stop him. “Are you really saying you won’t wait for me?”
Leon Kluge’s gaze was trained on the door. “You should go back to your bed, where it’s warm. It’s too early. Too dark.”
“But I want to come with you.”
Her father had half turned toward her. “No, I don’t think you do,” he had said gently, but there had been a pleading undertone. Just let me go.
But she hadn’t let him. “Why are you making such a big deal of this?”
He’d looked down at his shoes. “I’m not the one who is making a big deal of this.”
Anger and frustration had boiled up within in her. “What is it with you?” she had yelled. “Why can’t we talk about this?”
“What is it with me?” he shot back. “You really want me to say it?”
“Yes! Tell me!”
He’d hesitated a moment, as though he’d not expected her to answer in the affirmative. He opened his mouth and his silver-gray eyes bored into hers. “I was never good enough. Never.” He said the words slowly, as though he’d dredged them out of a dark pit and each one weighed a ton. “This farm, over which I’ve sweat and bled, was never good enough. All your mother ever wanted was to go back to the city. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be here with me.”
Audrey’s complete surprise at this revelation silenced her only momentarily. “But I’m not her!” she’d shouted.
Her father had paused for only a second before saying quietly, “Yes, you are.”
And then he’d left.
Now she sipped from her martini, willing the alcohol to numb the echoes of that morning. She wished she had said nothing to him. She wished she hadn’t gone at all. She wished she and Violet had driven to San Diego for Christmas to stay at a beach cottage and eat lobster.
Audrey took another swallow, a longer one. The new year was less than a month old; there was still plenty of time to reassess her situation and chart a plan for 1939. She didn’t have to think about home if she didn’t want to. Besides, what did anything back home have to do with Audrey Duvall? What had taken place there on Christmas didn’t matter. Not even the war in Europe mattered. All that mattered was right here, right now. This time, this place. She needed to focus on finding a way to re-create the magic like when she was eighteen. It had happened once before; it would happen again. That was her only concern.
The previous couple of years hadn’t yielded her much in the way of opportunities—a screen test here, an interview there—which meant her current approach needed updating. It was becoming clear that she had tapped out her leads at Selznick International. Mr. Selznick himself had had ample opportunities to screen test her and hadn’t, and neither had any of his assistant producers. She had taken dictation for nearly every Selznick executive with even a modicum of influence, gotten them coffee and Danishes, bought birthday presents for their wives, made excuses for them when they were late or unprepared, playfully turned down any sexual advances so that she would always remain wanted, not had.
She knew how this game worked. It was not about getting your résumé into Central Casting and becoming just another pretty girl who wanted to be discovered. It was about being in the right place at the right time.
Her hopes had been raised with all the borrowing of actors for Gone With the Wind—Clark Gable from MGM, Olivia de Havilland from Warner—as it had led to many letters of correspondence and phone calls to other studios. But obviously those connections hadn’t been enough. She had made no new inroads. And Violet’s question—“Is it working?”—on the streetcar on the night they met had been a constant niggle at the back of her mind. Perhaps she wasn’t availing herself of the opportunities in play now that MGM was getting more involved with this film. She should ask to work more shifts. Selznick was working twenty-hour days and popping Benzedrine to stay awake. She’d heard he’d been asking for a secretary to be available at all hours, and Mrs. Pope was looking for volunteers. Perhaps working more closely with Selznick would in turn get her closer to MGM and Selznick’s father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer. Selznick had not proven to have much use for her, even though he knew who she was and what she had almost been. But MGM’s needs might have changed in the four years she’d been gone. They’d likely forgotten about her.
Audrey emptied her glass, set it down on the nightstand, and rose from her chair. She reached for a box marked Photos on the bottom shelf of her closet and set it on the bed, lifted the lid, and dumped out the contents.
The publicity shots Stiles had paid for all those years ago lay somewhere near the bottom. Audrey fished through the photos of home and the farm and the ones with Aunt Jo until she found them. She pulled them away from the others, wanting only to remind herself of the name of the photographer who had taken them, but the images held her gaze. She had been so young when these were taken.
The poses were alluring and evocative. Stiles had told her that she had luminous eyes, a rosebud mouth, and a china-doll look as enchanting as that of any silent film star. Her hair, long and luxurious, had the same curl and shine, and her body had been as delicately curved as Mary Pickford’s and Lillian Gish’s. These pictures and that description were what Stiles had used to pitch Audrey to the studios.
She heard in her head Stiles telling her, “You got the part, Audrey. You’re going to be a star.”
A star. A star. A star!
Audrey closed her eyes. For several moments she stood still, waiting for the past to recede to its shadows, for the voice to be stilled. But it lingered.
She snapped her eyes open. She needed air in her lungs, air that belonged to the here and now, not yesterday. She turned from the room, went into the kitchen, and then threw open the back door to the patio. The cool blast of a night breeze met her, bracing and welcoming. She breathed it in and then stepped outside to indulge in it. She grabbed a tablecloth from the clothesline that Violet had pinned up earlier that day and wrapped herself in it as she stood on the cold patio stones.
Audrey sat down in a rattan chair, not wanting to go back inside, even though her feet were at once freezing. Valentino jumped onto her lap and she pulled him close for warmth.
She had lost her edge—that was what it was—and the trip home at Christmas had just made it worse. She had lost sight of her goal. And it had taken Violet’s “Is it working?” question and the Christmas-morning encounter to wake her up.
Making it as an actress in Hollywood was about the people she met. She’d been putting in her time at Selznick International and getting zero results. She hadn’t met the right people, and she had gotten lazy trying to find them. She would not keep making that mistake.
Audrey lifted the cat and held him in her arms as she walked back inside. She tossed the tablecloth onto the back of a kitchen chair and then went into the living room to get a cigarette from her purse. Her shoes, which she had kicked off and left in the middle of the floor, were now nowhere in sight, nor was the coat she had thrown onto the couch.
Violet was home.
Audrey set the cat down. She headed for Violet’s room, eager for her roommate’s company. But Violet wasn’t in her own bedroom. She was in
Audrey’s, standing beside the bed, looking at the photographs. Audrey’s shoes stood side by side, toes pointing toward the closet, on the floor by Violet’s feet. The coat was draped neatly on the back of the armchair.
Violet turned suddenly at Audrey’s approach and the photo in her hand fluttered to the bed. “Audrey! I didn’t know you were home! I thought maybe you were at one of the neighbors’.”
“I was out on the patio with the cat.”
“I’m . . . I didn’t mean to pry. I just brought in your shoes and coat and I saw these pictures on your bed. I wasn’t—”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t care that you’re looking at my photos.” She moved to stand next to Violet.
“They’re beautiful,” Violet said, attempting a more casual tone. “These were your professional ones?” She held up one of the studio glossies.
Audrey nodded and took the photo. “It’s a shame I can’t use them anymore. They cost a fortune.”
“I can see why that talent scout thought you looked like Lillian Gish.”
“I guess the world only needs one Lillian Gish.” She tossed the photo lightly to the bed. “I was thinking I might have some new ones made. That’s why I got these out.”
Violet lifted another photograph from the pile, one of a ten-year-old Audrey with pigtails. Her slender mother stood next to her. They were squinting in the sun. Her mother looked thin and weary.
“That picture was taken just a few months before she died.”
“Was your mother already sick then?” Violet asked carefully.
“I think she must have been, but I didn’t know it yet.” Audrey extended her hand and Violet placed the photo in it.
“What disease did she have? Did the doctors know?”
“I don’t know if they knew. Aunt Jo told me it must have been some kind of wasting disease. It was like she just started disappearing. A little more of her each day would vanish until there was nothing left. I remember her being so weightless at the end. She didn’t even have the strength to put her arms around me.”
“I am so very sorry, Audrey,” Violet said, after a moment’s pause. “I can’t imagine losing a mother so young. A child’s mother is everything.”
They were both quiet for a few seconds.
Audrey placed the photo back in the box and then began to gather the rest. “So, I hear filming began today. I barely saw you at all.”
Violet reached for a few of the photos as well. “Mr. Cukor shot the scene on the porch at Tara when the Tarleton twins are talking about war. It was very exciting. But tedious, too. Those two actors aren’t twins and neither one is redheaded, so their hair has been dyed and it looks very orange. I guess Mr. Selznick isn’t happy with the dye job, and he’s thinking of scrapping the porch scene altogether. But they shot it anyway, several times. And then the camera broke down for a while, so we had to wait for that, and then Mr. Cukor wanted to shoot a scene where Scarlett runs out to meet her pa coming home from Twelve Oaks.”
Audrey sensed a hunger within her that she had not felt in a while. It had been a long time since she had been on a movie set. Secretaries usually weren’t needed there. “Tell me all about it.” She sat on the bed and patted the mattress. Violet sat down beside her.
“Every action or bit of dialogue was done at least three times, sometimes more,” Violet said. “You wonder how these actors and actresses can keep repeating themselves over and over.”
“They’re used to it. All the best takes are stitched together in production. The audience never sees the extra ones. What do you think of Mr. Cukor?”
“He was amazing,” Violet replied. “At least I was amazed. He took aside the actor who is playing Gerald O’Hara and told him to reach into the soul of his lines when Scarlett confesses to her pa that she wants to marry Ashley, and Pa has to tell her she would never be happy with a man like that. Pa tells Scarlett that she is so young, and Mr. Cukor said the unspoken truth here is that Pa has protected her all this time from the ache of loss. She doesn’t know what it is to suffer. She doesn’t know that most things do not last, and he tells her that she will learn this in time. Because everybody does.”
For a second Audrey could not find her voice. “He said that?” she finally murmured.
Violet nodded. “Miss Myrick heard him say this, too, and she told me that’s why he’s the highest-paid director there is.”
Again there was silence between them.
The phone in the living room jangled.
“I’ll get it,” Violet offered. She left the room, and Audrey gathered the snippets of a past that had been full of promise and returned them to the box, her mind spinning with a messy weave of thoughts. Then Violet called to her.
She walked into the living room and Violet extended the phone. “It’s for you. It’s Bert.”
Audrey put the receiver to her ear. “Hello, Bert.”
“Say, I was thinking maybe we could grab a bite on Sunset and then look for the nightingale,” he said. “What do you say?”
“Tonight?” After all her revelations that evening, Audrey was looking forward to another martini and her pajamas.
“Unless you have other plans . . . ?”
The mild disappointment in his voice was endearing, but she could not see herself heading back out into the city now. She needed this evening to come up with a new strategy. And to get Mr. Cukor’s words out of her head. Maybe she would give her friend Vince a call. It had been a while since she’d talked with him, probably not since his engagement party in October. She’d heard he had gotten the new job in publicity at Paramount that she had told him about. He owed her one.
“Can we do it another time, Bert? I’ve had a long day. I’d be terrible company and would no doubt scare all the birds away.” She closed her eyes and tipped her head back a bit; swiveled her neck first one way and then another.
“Oh. Of course. We can go another night.”
“You’re a peach, Bert. Good night.”
After he said good-bye, she set the receiver on its cradle and then turned around. Violet stood just a few feet behind her, staring at the phone.
“Do you know how to make pancakes?” Audrey asked, famished now. “I’d love some pancakes.”
Violet slowly raised her gaze from the little table where the phone rested. “Sure,” she replied.
SEVEN
February 1939
The women and men costumed in antebellum dresses and period suits crowded the soundstage, simulating a festive mood despite the fact that the dancing sequences for the Atlanta Bazaar scene had been shot more than a dozen times already. The actresses’ gowns looked pretty enough to Violet, but only moments earlier she had overheard a wardrobe assistant tell Miss Myrick that Mr. Selznick wasn’t happy with them. The dresses were, in his words, “ordinary and cheap-looking.” She had gone to tell Mr. Lambert that the gowns in question were actually historically correct. But Mr. Selznick wanted vibrant colors and stunning gowns to stand in stark contrast in the upcoming scenes of war and deprivation. A heated conversation was taking place in the far corner of the building about what was beautiful and what was accurate.
Violet hadn’t sat through all of the takes that afternoon, but the long day was beginning to wear on all the hired talent Central Casting had sent. A handful of female extras stood a few yards away from her, rubbing their toes and complaining that the gowns made them hot and that MGM served better refreshments. Violet seriously doubted Audrey would behave like that on any set. Miss Leigh and Mr. Gable, in another corner of the building during the break, were going over dance steps and lines of dialogue with the assistant producer, like the two professionals they were. After five days of filming, Violet had yet to meet either movie star in person, but Miss Leigh had smiled at her earlier that day and Mr. Gable had said, “Good morning,” to her the day before.
Violet peered at the nam
eless actresses fanning themselves with call sheets. Audrey was prettier than any of these women, could dance far better, and would make any one of these so-called ordinary dresses look enchanting merely by putting it on. Audrey should’ve been in this scene.
Audrey could’ve been in this scene. . . .
Violet frowned as the obvious suddenly assailed her. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? She could have suggested that Audrey be fitted for a costume and made a part of the Atlanta Bazaar scene. She had Miss Myrick’s ear all day long, and George Cukor listened intently to everything Miss Myrick said.
It was too late now for the Atlanta Bazaar scene, but the barbecue at Twelve Oaks was coming up in a few weeks and even more extras would be needed for that. She could easily put in a word with Miss Myrick, who could then put in a word with George Cukor.
Audrey had seemed distracted since she’d begun working longer days at the instruction of Mr. Selznick, who wanted a stenographer on duty at all hours. She had arrived home after ten the past two workdays and then spent a long while on the phone both nights with someone named Vince, after Violet had gone to bed. They couldn’t have been business calls at that hour, although Violet couldn’t be sure. Audrey spoke softly, so as not to keep Violet awake, and her deep voice made every indecipherable word sound provocative and yet anxious.
A chance to be in the most-anticipated film in years would be just the thing to lighten Audrey’s mood. It might even lead to the rediscovery Audrey had so long been yearning for.
Violet wanted to ask Miss Myrick about it right then and she turned to see if the advisor was on her way back to her, when Bert was suddenly at her side. Violet had seen him on the set on and off that afternoon but with dozens of extras all in costume, he had been too busy to speak to her. She had hoped she might see him. Violet wanted him to know that if he ever wanted to go looking for that nightingale again, she’d be happy to go with him.
“Do you have a minute?” he asked.
Violet glanced in the direction that Miss Myrick had gone. The woman was now nowhere in sight. She turned back to him and smiled. “It looks like I do.”
Stars Over Sunset Boulevard Page 7