The Camera Always Lies

by Hugh Hood

  It had been up to her to shine like a star, and she hadn’t sparkled, hadn’t glittered, hadn’t come across with star quality. She had been as nearly invisible as the moon at noon. Noon Moon, a great title for a Rose Leclair vehicle. She squirmed in self-abasement. Oh God, she prayed, just let me get that girl on my own home grounds, in a black-and-white comedy without music, and I’ll take her apart.

  But she had a terrible feeling that this wasn’t so, that Charity in black and white would be the same or worse, that Rose would still look old and tired and not very interesting.

  The slow pressure on her arm steadied her; otherwise she might have run from the theatre in tears, and you can’t do that in this business. She felt that he held her in her seat by sheer force of sympathetic will, this supposed creature of her enemies. She sat it through with his help, feeling like a boxer drunk with punishment whose reflexes and marvellously conditioned legs keep him in there and erect under the blows of a superior opponent. But she had to sit and take it; she couldn’t stick and move, bob and weave. She had to sit and take it, sniveling into a useless handkerchief and worrying about her eye makeup. Thank God it was a long picture; there was time to decide what to do. She had no previously prepared position; she’d been fool enough to absent herself trustingly while the assault was being prepared. Now she had to retreat and retrench, fall back, make new defenses. And then she remembered, as trumpets shrieked from the screen, as Peggi sat and initiated Charity in the film, and made her look stupidly adolescent with the lightest of touches, Rose remembered the party.

  From whatsisname, the publicity man Blanda, on up, there would be a hundred and fifty people coming along to see what she thought of it all, not counting the uninvited who always showed up at these affairs. They would all want to know what she thought of the picture, the dear loves, and of dear Charity and dear Seth.

  Her mind froze and she watched the screen as Peggi took the short scene in Washington Square away from Charity without the little giant’s being in the least aware of it, so smoothly and with so little apparent effort that Rose laughed, the only person in the big house to laugh at that point in the picture. Along the row of seats, Peggi caught Rose’s laugh and felt better. Peggi could handle herself in the corners. Charity had been camping it up with cute snaggle-toothed grins since the titles, and while the audience loved her body and could have swallowed her on the half shell, they might just have been beginning to feel like something tart. Max Mars was quite smart enough to work in old whisky-voiced Peggi, who with her effective lines and very sure comedy sense could grab any wandering attention and refocus it on herself. Rose saw Peggi do what she should have done, saw her friend’s moral competence move her easily out of danger. She dried her tears then, or rather let them dry on her face to avoid smudging. Tears lay stiff on her face as she waited for the lights, exposure, time to go . . .

  . . . one very seldom dared to ignore a directive from Graham Faiers, because he might lash out at you insultingly in front of anyone. He might say in silken tones, “Stay in line, Eddie,” and you would be humiliated, as you had been before, in front of secretaries. There was a limit to what one would swallow, but it was hard to tell where the limit lay; the money was good.

  So Eddie obeyed orders. When the picture began he retired to the back of the house, where he assumed the posture of a superior usher, greeting late-comers, some of them household words and some of them nobodies. He gave smiling and polite attention to all, because he now knew he wasn’t a good judge of when and how a nobody might turn into a somebody. He had had the bad luck to meet Charity Ryan when she was nobody, and had treated her as such, with mitigated contumely and contempt. He knew that she would always remember him and never forgive him, and that he could not work successfully around her again. He was glad that she was in Europe with Seth, because otherwise he couldn’t have handled the opening.

  And yet, he said to himself as he moved briskly about from one level of the theatre to another, squiring this or that pretty notability to the lavatory, and yet it was I who brought those pictures to Faiers’ attention. And then he blushed enough for an observer to notice; he had momentarily concealed from himself the plain fact that if he hadn’t noticed Charity somebody else would have. You can tell lies without thinking them; don’t kid yourself, he thought.

  Coming back from a ladies’ room with an incontinent starlet, showing her where to sit, treating her like royalty, he vowed never again to make the mistake he had made with Charity. He had treated her as somebody of no importance, like himself. He had asked her to eat with him the day after he showed the publicity pictures to Faiers; he had felt an obscure relationship with her and meant to tell her what he had done for her.

  She had looked at him slowly, taking him in from his heels to his crown before answering. “I can’t be bothered,” she said. He’d turned away, closed his mouth, gone on working for her. What else could he do?

  The starlet reseated, he came back to his original post, and saw with surprise that the picture was nearly finished. He left the darkened auditorium and went to the main lobby, where he found the dispatcher and some attendants. He had orders to keep the cars coming fast and to clear the sidewalks around the entrances quickly. The dispatcher had a list which identified the limousines, and a pretty good idea how to move them out of there.

  “I can get rid of them in twenty minutes,” he said earnestly.

  “Great,” said Blanda, going out onto the sidewalk. One or two curious fans still stood idly about, but most had gone. As ushers opened doors, passers-by began again to line the barricades in the hope of seeing somebody important.

  The first to straggle out were faceless nobodies who went off ignominiously in cabs, the dispatcher sparing them hardly a glance. Blanda, still relatively new to the business and eager to train himself, tried to guess from their behaviour whether the picture was a hit or not. He was supposed to concentrate on getting the crowd out, not on noting their reactions, but if he could come up with a quote that could be worked into publicity, it would be much to his credit. Or if he could spot a new reaction, something that hadn’t appeared on the preview cards, it could earn him a small raise.

  The preview cards had reflected the slant of the picture towards Charity. “Let’s see more of Charity Ryan” had been the usual comment, but there had also been a sprinkling of cards here and there asking, “What happened to Rose?” These were probably from people in their thirties and up, not the largest potential market for the picture, but one which shouldn’t be completely ignored.

  When Eddie read over this sprinkling of pro-Rose reactions, it had seemed to him that there was a kind of picture she could make and an audience she could satisfy which Goody Two-Shoes missed. When he named this obscure segment of the market to himself, he always thought of them as “decent people,” but the phrase wasn’t quite right.

  She and the French director came out first, and Eddie stared at them attentively. There had been alarm at publicity HQ (Faiers’ phrase) about Rose’s possible behaviour when she finally saw the picture. Some people thought she might leap up and shout a torrent of filth at the producers—a legitimate response in Eddie’s view—but he and Faiers and Lenehan had been of a different opinion.

  Mr. Lenehan said, “She’s been around, she knows what you do and what you don’t do. Besides, she owes us a picture. She won’t make trouble.”

  It comforted Eddie to reflect that everybody had to take it from somebody. He took it from Faiers and Lenehan and Charity. Rose took it from the producers, and they took it from God. And at that she had noticed him and asked him to the party, which gave him great pleasure.

  She and her date stood at the curb while the dispatcher called, “Limousine for Miss Leclair and . . .” He looked at his list, “. . . limousine for Miss Leclair and Mr. Four.”

  Rose took the dispatcher by the arm. “You pronounce that ‘Foray,’ like a small raid.”

  The
dispatcher called again, “MR. FORAY’s car please. Limousine for Miss Leclair and MR. FORAY.” The car rolled silently up; it was a very fine car, Blanda noted with relief, one he had seen somewhere before, maybe in a picture. It was such a fine car that it looked rented; nobody owns such a car; they are only used at the openings of eight-million-dollar movies. Rose and her companion got in and the door shut behind them with a luxurious THUNK. The car moved away.

  Blanda thought she looked out on her feet, and decided to risk Faiers’ displeasure and go across town to East Sixty-first when he was through at the theatre. He had been invited by the star herself, and maybe he could be useful. He had a sharp sense for discord among intimates. If she takes it badly, he decided, there’ll be trouble.

  There was no doubt that the picture was a hit. The audience was one big smile as it poured out the opened doors, and there was plenty of agreeable high-pitched chatter and genuine laughter.

  “. . . ever seen anything like the dancing?”

  “. . . that little Ryan girl, well, my dear, Edward couldn’t take his eyes off her, could you, darling?”

  “I just love him, he’s so suave, and he never smokes his cigarette all the way down.”

  “Just divorced, yes, a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

  “She’s a little bit passée of course . . .”

  “It’ll gross twenty million easy.”

  “Whatever happened to Rose Leclair?”

  Finally the theatre was empty and the crowd dispersed, the sidewalks around the theatre as clear as they ever are. The cleaning staff came out and dusted off the sidewalks; inside the lights went out, the velvet ropes were rearranged in the lobby, and the theatre prepared for a long run. Blanda looked at his, watch, knew that he would have a job tomorrow, the picture was home free. He would never have to sit through it again. He started for the party, wandering along, taking his time, over to Madison and up. He whistled “All I Do” as he strolled; he considered it the hit song of the picture, and suddenly remembered Charity’s pop single. When he thought of her he felt that he was in a servile and inhumane peonage, and he blushed and distrusted himself as he assessed the sexual quotient Charity’s image stirred in him, a wish to power, and a wish to be scorned and humiliated, very mixed.

  He turned onto East Sixty-first, feeling as though the turn signaled a switch in allegiance. Soon he saw the paparazzi at a distance, or what one would have called paparazzi in Rome, not many of them and nothing like the Continental type. Just a group of half a dozen freelance photographers who hoped to come in range, by good luck, of some celebrity in a compromising or at least titillating attitude, drunk perhaps, or with somebody else’s wife or mistress, anything that was potential trouble. It was never officially understood how these poor men knew, say, that Rose Leclair was giving a small party for the hundred and fifty most prestigious people at the premiere.

  Eddie had handled the “leak” himself, simply calling some people known to the New York office and passing on the information. Those who were interested got the message and showed up, looking especially for gag shots of Tommy Dewar and his new girl. Everybody knew all about Tommy, his very considerable age, his tastes and habits, and the “Tommy Dewar’s new girl” story (no, really, Mr. Dewar and I are friends, no there’s no engagement) had become over the years a columnists’ in-joke. A shot of Tommy with his tie up under his ear, with some careerist of seventeen, would always sell to the European agencies. Charity would have been hot copy too, especially if she had been there with Seth. But they were safely installed on the Avenue Kléber, apparently for good.

  Three of these freelancers knew Eddie from before he went to the Coast. They aimed their lenses at him, then chanted, “Not him, guys, he’s nobody.”

  “I am not,” he said, “I’m somebody.”

  “No, no,” said a special buddy, a name in his field, “you are a nothing, a little faceless man struggling to hang on.”

  “I’m Eddie Blanda,” he said emphatically.

  They were standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, with a uniformed security guard lounging by the entrance. He was supposed to keep the photographers in line, but did nothing except bum cigarettes off them. To enter the house you went down some steps into a small court where you faced a solid, heavy black door with brass fittings, such as you might see in Mayfair or Westminster. Inside on the ground floor were the hall, a small conservatory, the housekeeper’s office, the kitchen and other domestic arrangements.

  From the hall you ascended a broad straight staircase to the first floor, which comprised a hall and two enormous rooms that could be made one by folding back the doors between. Seth’s decision to give almost all the space on this floor to a single main enclosure had been a handsome and just choice; it allowed what you hardly ever got in midtown Manhattan, a feeling of space and freedom of movement.

  As Eddie stood outside the front door, it swung suddenly open before him. He lost his balance reaching for the handle and almost collapsed into the arms of his boss, Graham Faiers, who stood just inside with blood on his dinner jacket. He reeled slightly as Eddie came in.

  “What the hell,” said Eddie. He leaped forward and slammed the door shut behind him, nearly severing a photographer’s leg. An attendant came over to help and together they leaned on the door and bolted it; voices outside indicated great displeasure. They had seen the blood. “What goes on?” he said to Faiers, who seemed about to faint, putting his arms around him and helping him to a low bench which stood beneath a large and beautiful abstract oil. Faiers moved uncertainly on the bench.

  “Max Mars hit me,” he said, keeping his hands to his face. Eddie looked for the attendant, but he had disappeared. There were a couple of other people on the stairs and in a room off to his left, but for a moment he couldn’t spot a servant. Ah, there she came, silently and efficiently, a dark young woman with a damp white kitchen towel padded in her hand. She proffered this and Faiers took it with a low curse and dabbed at his eye and forehead. A mouse was forming below the left eye. He pressed the towel to the bruise and removed it, wiping off most of the blood. He was going to have a black eye, and there was a superficial cut above the cheekbone.

  “I think he must have been wearing a ring,” said Eddie.

  “Quite right,” said Faiers, and then in a lower tone, “I disapprove of jewelry on men.” He laughed surprisingly. “Especially when they hit you with it.” He handed the towel to the silently waiting girl and stood up, drawing Eddie confidentially towards him. “Who’s outside?”

  “About six of them, Lisle, Gelinas . . .”

  “They know me?”

  “Yeah, but Mr. Faiers, apart from the cut there’s no story. If you put a Band-Aid on that, or even a little piece of toilet paper, and go out as if nothing had happened, they won’t pay any attention to you. Don’t wait around till your eye comes up black and blue.”

  “You’re right,” said Faiers. He asked the girl for a Band-Aid and a fresh damp towel. These applied, he felt ready to chance controversy.

  “Could I ask what happened?”

  “Nothing really. All I said was that Rose would have to get rid of this place when people noticed she was slipping. For some reason Max got very upset; then he hit me.”

  “Did you hit him back?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, he’s a famous director. In our business you can’t go around hitting famous directors.”

  “I guess not.”

  Faiers said, “You’re young and you’ve got a lot to learn, but thanks for the moral support. And keep an eye on things for me.”

  Eddie felt that he had made an impression. “Yes, sir,” he said in clipped accents as he walked Faiers to the door. As it swung shut behind him, Eddie heard him fending off the freelancers with practiced deftness.

  He climbed to the top of the stairs, where there was a dense crowd and much laughter and gossip. Eddie was fai
rly tall and could see over the heads of most of the people in his way. Rose was standing down the hall with a fixed, determined expression on her face; she was pale and seemed tired and nervous.

  Peggi Starr and that French director stood beside her, and the three were chattering to each other, and to people who came and went around them. Eddie recognized many of them, and in particular Kate Dixon, whose show had been running for eight months with no sign of a drop-off at the box office. Kate was that rarity, a real star of stage and screen, with equal facility and star appeal in both media. She had once costarred with Lincoln, which was probably why she knew Rose.

  Rose had no stage experience, Eddie remembered. Thinking of Faiers’ conviction that she was slipping or had slipped, he decided that she would probably have a try at the stage this summer, a standard gambit of movie stars whose careers are in the doldrums. Maybe she would take a new play around the summer-theatre circuit, and bring it to New York in the fall. But he couldn’t see her for the stage: not enough presence.

  Kate Dixon was standing close beside Rose, talking to her very earnestly. It was interesting to see them together, because Kate had the gestures and voice of somebody long accustomed to projecting without electronic aids, and she made poor Rose seem even paler. Blanda averted his eyes the way you cover your head at the end of some Greek tragedy or other, as a ritual act of pity. He passed from the crowded hall into the salon. At the other end of this big room there stood an elaborate bar, at which an associate of Eddie’s presided, brought in specially for the occasion by the producers, a highly skilled golfer and bartender whom the producers retained to entertain bankers and distributors. He had white-jacketed helpers who obeyed his barked commands. You expected him to cry “Fore” as he launched the olive or the onion.