by George Baxt
The Talking Picture Murder Case
George Baxt
ST MARTIN'S PRESS
NEW YORK
THE TALKING PICTURES MURDER CASE.
Copyright © 1990 by George Baxt.
All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the ease of brief quotations embodied In critical articles or reviews For information, address St Martins Press. 175 Fifth Avenue. New York. N Y 10010
Design by Claire Counihan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baxt, George
The talking picture murder case / George Baxt
p cm
ISBN 0-312-05043-7
I: Title
PS3552 A8478T34 1990
813'. 54—dc20 90-36897 CIP
First Edition November 1990
This book is for
MARTIN WITTMIER
“Bleepin' A, Babe!”
ONE
It sounded like one gigantic supernatural howl coming from the mob storming the church in Forest Lawn cemetery in the Hollywood Hills.
‘This ain't no funeral!” shouted one policeman to another as they tried to hold back the clamoring mob. “It's a bloody uprising!”
“Have you no respect for the dead?” a woman asked a man who had just knocked her hat off her head “Honest to Christ a body can’t get themselves decently buried in this rotten town! Poor little Dolly Lovelace!” she shouted, but went largely unheard “Let her rest in peace! The poor thing!”
“Aw, banana oil?” yelled a pickpocket as he lifted the billfold from her purse.
Fifty policemen had been assigned to Dolly Lovelace's funeral, but an hour before the service was scheduled to begin, it was obvious to the lieutenant of police in charge of the funeral force that at least another fifty would be needed to keep order A half hour later he requested an additional fifty, and his superior officer had to borrow some policemen from neighboring Beverly Hills The start of the services was postponed twice because the celebrities' limousines were moving at a snail's pace through the unruly mob
“My God,” said Norma Shearer to her husband, Irving Thalberg, “this is Nineteen twenty-nine You'd think we’d be civilized by now.”
Thalberg said, “Your voice is recording better. It's not so nasal “
“My voice is not nasal.”
He patted her knee “Like you don't have a cast in your eye.” He yelled at the chauffeur “What’s holding us up? Why can't we move any faster?”
“It's those crazies out there! They're running riot! This funeral is worse than Valentino's!”
“Oh, I loved Rudy's funeral,” said Miss Shearer. “Pola Negri was so funny sobbing her heart out draped over his coffin, and Gloria Swanson made such great wisecracks about Pola …”
In the back of his limousine, Hollywood's most powerful independent producer, Samuel Goldwyn, conferred with his hcnchwoman, Sophie Gang “You mock my words, the talkers will save Hollywood a lot of money We can get rid of all the stars who are commending a million dollars a year. Did you tell Vilma Banky's agent we're canceling her contract?”
“Yes. He's suing you “
“What's to sue? That Hungarian can hotly talk English as good as me.”
Sophie suppressed a guffaw at the infamous Goldwynisms. “Do you want to discuss some of these New York actors available at very little money?”
“My three favorite words, very little and money. So who's available that all the other bastards haven't already signed up?”
“There’s Arthur Lytell. Not bad-looking, very popular on Broadway, and he's toured a lot.”
“Is he tall or short?”
“Five foot ten.”
“Not bad. How's his health?”
“Well, he suffers from diabetes.”
“You mean sick, he suffers from diabetes. Does he inject himself with insolence?”
“You can always cancel him if insurance rejects him. Jascha Heifetz is interested in doing a talker.”
“Heifetz the fiddler? The one who's marrying Florence Vidor? Say, he's not such a bad-looking guy “ He thought for a moment 'Take a memo Think of a story for Heifetz in which maybe he's the conductor of a sympathy orchestra.”
The crowd was frighteningly out of hand. A limousine was almost overturned and actress ZaSu Pitts, emerging from her chauffcured car, had a string of pearls torn from her neck. Other hands snatched at her fox fur and a policeman on horseback struck a man over the head with his truncheon as he tried to grab the actress's handbag.
In the back of their limousine, Douglas Fairbanks said to his diminutive wife, Mary Pickford, “I don't like the look of this. This crowd's dangerous.”
Little Mary leaned forward and spoke sharply to the chauffeur “Get the pistol out of the glove compartment.”
“For Pete's sake, Mary, we can't go around shooting people!”
“Why not, dear, were Doug and Mary, America's sweethearts We can do anything we like.”
Annamary Darling's limousine was the longest, most sparkling, most overpopulated vehicle in the line snailing its way to the entrance of the church Pretty Annamary sat sandwiched between her athletic husband, Willis Loring, the swashbuckling hero of numerous moneymaking adventure epics, and her mother, Marie Darling, the infamous battle-ax. Spread across the two jump seats was Annamary's younger brother, Jack Darling, whose fame in country bumpkin roles was as legendary as his doping and drinking.
In a cross between a growl and a snarl, Marie Darling said, “Alexander Roland ain't dumping any of you.” She was referring to the powerful head of Diamond Films, to whom the three actors were contracted (“If it sparkles, it's a Diamond!”) “I know what all them studio bastards are up to I've been outsmarting them for years, and I’ll outsmart them into their graves.”
“My money's on you. Mama Marie,” rasped her son-in-law, with an unsubtle mockery in his voice
“It better be, smart aleck “ She folded her arms and restrained an urge to stick her massive tongue out at a youngster whose face was pressed against the car window “Beat it, sonny, before I crush your skull!” The youngster favored her with an obscene gesture Marie directed her tongue at her daughter “You've got an ironclad contract, sweetie pic, and it's good for another three years, three million per, and we ain’t moving off easy street.”
Annamary's wispy voice was now surprisingly husky. “What good is it if my voice doesn't register?”
“Your voice'll register or it'll answer to mef
“Mama, this is February. They've been making talkers at Diamond for the past four months with just about everybody under contract except us three Alex Roland is destroying us!”
“No he won’t.” The voice sounded distant and disembodied. It was fully half a minute before the others realized it was Jack Darling who had spoken. He sat up, yawned and stretched, scratched himself under the right arm, looked out the window, winked at an ugly girl who was displaying a naked breast, and asked, “Where are we?”
“Dolly's funeral,” Mama Marie told him
“My Dolly’s funeral?”
“Your Dolly's funeral.”
“My pretty witty shitty Dolly's funeral? She's really dead?”
“As dead as a glassful of acid can make you.”
“I don't have to pay her no more alimony?”
“Account closed.”
“Stop it, you two!” raged Willis Loring
“What's wrong with you?” Mama Marie was genuinely startled. Her son-in-l
aw was usually too preoccupied with the development of a new muscle to have such outbursts.
“This is so ghoulish! The poor girl's dead.” He stared at Jack. “You loved her once “
“I love her still.”
Loring was perplexed ‘Then why'd you divorce her?”
“Because Mama told me to Dolly was taking too much dope and Mama said there'll be a scandal Jack and it’ll ruin your career but I should have stayed married to her because I don't have any career. I haven't made a movie in over a year because Alexander Roland hates my insides and now there are talkers and he says I can't talk but I can talk as good as all of them, Alexander just hates my guts. I stole Dolly away from under him and he's never forgiven me. And that's when he said he'd min Dolly too be-
cause he knows something about her if it was ever made public—
“Stop it, Jack,” begged Annamary.
But there was no stopping Jack. “—it would truly ruin her And that's what started her drinking and then she graduated to cocaine and that's when I joined her because I loved her—”
“You could have stopped her,” admonished Annamary sharply
“There was no stopping Dolly, you know that She was a wild thing . dancing naked on top of grand pianos at the Cocoanut Grove, shooting out windshields driving along Sunset Boulevard, gang-banging the UCLA football team God, she was an original—and Alex Roland destroyed her “ He reached into his jacket for the ever-present flask of gin. “Dolly's secret. My poor Dolly's secret. Oh God, the look on her face when I told her I was leaving her …”
It had been a year earlier in the solarium of their home in the Pacific Palisades, with its magnificent view of the ocean a mile away. It was late one Sunday after returning from a luncheon at film star Mae Murray's mansion Jack was at the bar of the playroom mixing sidecars. Dolly sat on a bar stool aggravating a fingernail with an emery board
“What's wrong, hon?” she'd said “You ain't been yourself all week. Still mad at me for stripping down to my teddy at Carmel Myers's Passover dinner?”
“I'm getting a divorce.” She'd stared at him. He might have been telling her he was buying a new automobile or thinking of a game of tennis while there was still daylight
“You want to leave me?”
“You know why “
“My God, we only been married a couple of months! Don't you love me no more?”
He was fighting tears as he poured the drinks. “I’ll never love anybody else.”
She was at his side, clutching at his arm, causing him to spill the drinks. ‘Then why are you doing this? Why? Why, baby, why/
“You know why! Mama says I have to because Alex Roland's going to ruin your career with a scandal and if I stay married to you it could ruin me too.”
“That old fucker.”
“Yeah, Alex is an old fucker.”
“I mean your mother.”
“Don't you say nothing bad about my mama “
“Of course not. Nothing bad about your mama. But anything bad about me. Sure, sure. Roland can’t ruin me! I'm in the top ten at the box office along with you and Annamary and Willis and Mary and Doug and goddamn it, I ain't giving you no divorce. I mean that. I’ll fight you into the grave.”
In the limousine. Jack's voice was ghostly. “I’ll fight you into the grave. Little did I know how prophetic she was. Well, a fat lot of good divorcing her did me. I haven't worked since, damn Alex Roland!” He ran a hand through his handsome mop of hair. “I should never have divorced her. I should have stuck by her “
“It's no use crying over spilled milk,” said Mama Marie.
“I wish I could hold her in my arms just once more. Beg her to forgive me. I should have taken us both to Europe. There they wouldn't give a damn. We could be making pictures together in Europe. I shouldn't have listened to you, Mama. Who gives a shit her grandfather was a nigger?”
The chauffeur's eyes flew open,- a small trace of a smile played on his lips. This little tidbit ought to be worth a nice chunk of cash from a newspaper. He was too involved with greed to feel the intense power of Marie Darling's eyes boring into the back of his head.
Still more police reinforcements converged at the funeral. The cops were ferociously fighting back the mob, forming flying wedges to assist the celebrities into the church
“Wheeee! Ain't this fun!” yelled redheaded “It” girl Clara Bow as she and Gary Cooper hurried up the steps to the church. “I hope the show ain't started yet. I don't like to miss the beginning of a pitcher.”
Cooper punched a man who had broken through the cordon and attempted to kiss the actress. “Son of a bitch,” muttered Cooper as the man fell back and flashbulbs popped like a Fourth of July celebration
“Gee whillikers, Gary. Papa Zukor ain't gonna like them pitchers of you bopping one of our fans.”
Cooper grabbed her arm and hurried her inside. “Didn’t you care the way he was going for you?”
“I only care when they stop going for me, you big lug “
He-man movie star Milton Sills sat with his actress wife, the blond and strikingly beautiful Doris Kenyon, at the far end of a pew. Above them was a stained-glass window donated by Adolph Zukor, the head of Paramount Pictures, in whose hands lay the futures of Bow and Cooper. “Look at this turnout,” Sills said, in the voice that had registered magnificently when tested for sound. “I didn't think Hollywood cared .”
“This isn't caring, darling,” said Miss Kenyon, who didn't give a damn if she succeeded in talkers as long as her husband’s career would continue to thrive, “this is publicity at the expense of poor Dolly. I hope she’s happy where she is. If there's an afterlife, I hope she's truly happy.“
“If there's an afterlife, I hope she's got herself a good agent “ Doug and Mary were followed down the center aisle by the Thalbergs, their usher displaying his best profile in hopes of an offer of a screen test. At the head of the aisle. Mama Marie stopped her group until the others in front of them were seated As if by mass instinct, everyone in the church turned to stare at them And then the whispering began Mama Marie sensed the whispering was too intense,- someone else must have joined them She turned and saw Alexander Roland, czar of the most powerful studio of all, Diamond Films.
Roland was a little man, just an inch or two above five feet, but by the imposing way he carried himself, he seemed taller Actually, he thought taller He was dressed in his usual Bond Street uniform of navy blue suit, gray vest, Asser and Turnbull shirt, and Countess Mara tie. His diamond stickpin was the only thing about him that sparkled The flunky behind him carried his fedora and walking stick and cache of Cuban cigars with his initials printed on the bands.
The others were also staring at Alexander Roland Willis Loring spoke first “Why, Alex, how nice to see you, but how sad under this tragic circumstance.”
Annamary was next. “Why, Alex, it's been so long since I've heard from you, I was wondering if you'd returned to the smoked salmon business”.
Roland's face betrayed nothing.
Mama Marie was next up at bat. “We need to have a long talk, you gonif. and when I say long talk you goddamn well know I mean a long talk.”
Mr. Roland anticipated Jack Darling and had him in focus.
“Hypocrite,” said Jack with a very old-fashioned sneer, “you helped put her in her coffin.”
The czar finally spoke “And I shall help carry it to her grave. I'm a pallbearer. Shall we proceed down the aisle? Sam Goldwyn's behind us and he's famous for his lack of patience.”
Willis Loring signaled their usher to lead them down the aisle. Behind them they heard Goldwyn insisting to Sophie Gang, “We have to change the scene. They would never fire the housekeeper, after all, she's an old family container.”
They could hear screaming and the yelling outside. The police had linked arms to form a human chain to prevent the mob from storming through the entrance. Dolly Lovelace's priestly confessor, Father Justin, was in the pulpit and speaking in his soft, mellifluous voice, wh
ich was slightly marinated with sacramental wine
“What really killed our darling Dolly Lovelace?” He stared down at the sea of celebrities before him, his eyes sweeping the interior like a klieg light, stopping for a few seconds to focus on a couple in the last pew on the right who were practically fornicating while chewing gum, and then, as his face reddened with envy, he stared at the ceiling “What really killed you, Dolly? Was it the drugs? The alcohol? The rumor of advanced syphilis? Or was it bad scripts?”
The screaming mob broke through the human chain and went tearing into the church at full cry. The ushers were the first to flee for their lives. Marie shrieked at Annamary, “Hide your jewels! Willis, lift Annamary above the crowd, I’ll take care of Jack.'“ The police came racing in after the mob, using their truncheons and cracking skulls and breaking limbs and poking out eyes as the crush reached the coffin, which began to teeter precariously.
Jack's agonized cry sounded as if it had been wrenched from the bowels of hell. People scratched and clawed at each other. Actors punched actors and actresses had an excuse to settle old debts with hair-pulling matches.
“Jack! Jack! Come back!” yelled Mama Marie.
Jack rushed to the coffin in an attempt to steady it, but a hoodlum tripped Father Justin, who fell against the coffin and sent it crashing to the floor with an ugly thud. The lid flew open Jack reached the coffin as Dolly Lovelace's corpse came flying out and landed in his arms.
“Oh my Dolly,” wept the gin-soaked actor, “oh my lovely Dolly You forgive me. You've come back to me!” He peppered the face with kisses while Father Justin upchucked and Mama Marie screamed, “Let go of the cadaver, Jack—the photographers!”
But she was too late. Flashbulbs popped, eyes popped, and another bizarre event found its permanent niche in Hollywood history.
TWO
It took four members of the Los Angeles riot squad to subdue Jack Darling after separating him from Dolly Lovelace's corpse Another four were needed to help get the family out of the church, into their limousine, and safely out of Forest Lawn. In the wake of the lawlessness they saw tombstones overturned and private chapels vandalized. They heard a woman scream at no one in particular, “Where's the Tomb of the Unknown Extra?” People attempted unsuccessfully to jump on the limousine's running boards.