The Five Acts of Diego Leon

by Alex Espinoza

  “I thought you said we’d be safe,” he asked Fiona one day as they watched two crewmembers attach a wired microphone to an actor’s lapel while on a shoot. The picture was about a nun in a convent in Brazil, and the actor was dressed as an affluent businessman. “These talking pictures are going to ruin our careers.”

  “Or make them,” she said. “A lot of the silent film stars are being canned. That means more chances for us.”

  So he followed it all, reading everything he could about this innovation. The first attempts were on wax discs, but it was hard to synchronize the sounds with the moving pictures because it had something to do, they said, with the speed at which sound traveled. Once in a while the sound engineers would get it right, would be patient enough to match the sound of the voice with the image of the singer moving his mouth on the screen. These moments, few and brief, were enough to get people curious, were hailed as landmarks, triumphs in the evolution of moving pictures. The discs took too much time, though, they soon realized, and another way to introduce sound to films was needed, and that, they concluded, would be sound on film. So there was, in 1926, Don Juan, which starred John Barrymore and featured synchronized songs and sound effects. A year later, there was The Jazz Singer, Al Jolson singing to his mother at the end of the film. That same year there came Fifi, in which Marguerite La Salle recited a whole speech in French. There was the roar of exploding cannons during the famous battle scene in A Darkened Heart, less than a year later. Movie theaters were slowly being fitted with speakers and microphones to pipe in sound, and audiences got to hear their favorite stars speak, deliver their lines, sing like angels. As a result, anyone with a thick accent, with a speech impediment or a low and unappealing voice was finding themselves out of a job. Diego could sing, but what of his accent? Would it destroy his career?

  Diego watched how, almost overnight, many of the studios underwent the change, crammed their lots and stages with sound, fired their silent film stars to make way for the new generation. Except for studios such as Frontier. It had done little to change with the growing trend. It was known that R. J. Levitt was wary of such a new invention, that he was skeptical, suspicious. Coasting more on its reputation as the first film studio in Hollywood, Frontier was still hobbling along with Levitt at the helm—stubborn, tough as nails, unflinching. He had become the underdog, the dark horse in an industry he had helped define and establish.

  The tensions playing out at Frontier between Levitt and his partner, William Cage, over the talkies were gold for the columnists covering all that was worth knowing in Hollywood. Everyone knew that the shrewd old businessman mistrusted the new technology. But his young partner, the production manager of Frontier, saw it differently. Cage understood what was happening, understood that, if they were to be successful and compete with the other studios, then they would have to follow suit and convert to sound. The rumored clashes between the two—the old lion and the young—left everyone curious to see what would happen.

  Fascinated by these developments, Diego began reading the trade columns and articles with a passion that Fiona called “admirable yet unusual.”

  “If I want to succeed in this business,” he said, “I must be well informed.”

  They were sitting in his room. Past issues of Snapshots and Cast Call were strewn across his bed. She flipped though one and stopped at a feature article on William Cage. “Is Cage the real brains behind Frontier?” a line in the article read.

  “Let me see that,” Diego said, snatching it from Fiona.

  “Hey,” she protested. “I thought you read these already. Give a girl a chance.”

  “I just picked it up this morning,” he said. His eyes fell on a photograph of Cage. He wore a suit and a tie, and his hair was combed neatly and parted down the middle. He had bright green eyes and a slight grin. He studied the picture closely. “Have you ever met him?” he asked Fiona.

  “Once,” she said.

  “What’s he like?”

  “Real swell. He’s tall. Good-looking. Commanding and confident. Really makes a girl’s knees go shaky.”

  “So you’re attracted to him?” he asked.

  She laughed. “Well. He’s a looker. But there are rumors. They say he’s funny.”

  “Funny?”

  “Yeah. Funny.” She raised her eyebrow. “They say he prefers the company of men.”

  “I see,” Diego said, studying the picture.

  “Enough of that,” Fiona said, taking the magazine from him and tossing it on the floor. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Kiss me, angel.”

  As Fiona pressed her lips against his own, he couldn’t stop thinking of William Cage. He was funny, Diego repeated to himself. Funny. Funny.

  He envied the bigger stars, the ones with clout and success and glamour, the ones keeping the studio afloat. He didn’t want to be stuck working on such films—poorly written and acted and produced—nor always be needed to fill ethnic roles—an Indian brave, a Gypsy, a Chinaman, an Arab in the Sahara.

  “Is that all I’ll ever be?” he asked Fiona one Saturday morning. “Is this all I’ll ever be? Some schlub? An ethnic actor?” He sighed and she gripped his arm.

  “You’re a contracted star,” Fiona reminded him. “You landed one after being here only a short time. You’re lucky! What more do you want?”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  Still, he thought, to star in a picture. To receive top billing. And though Fiona liked reminding him to be patient, Diego was having a hard time with the waiting, all the sacrificing. How long would it be? If he was to return to Mexico, he would not do so as a failure or, worse, someone who had gotten so close to success yet never achieved it. He had been reading the trade columns, following any advice to the letter when there was anything written about making it. He frequented places—cafés, parks, hotel swimming pools where stars and directors went on weekends to relax—where others had been discovered. What little money he had, after rent and necessities, went to buying more clothing. “If you want to get the part,” one magazine told, “you have to dress the part. You must surround yourself with like-minded individuals whose goals are your own.” He had done so by striking up conversations with the leads on productions he was assigned to, asking them questions when he could, gleaning as much as he could from them. Since he quit working at Joe’s four months ago, he stopped going there altogether. That Saturday morning, however, Fiona was hungry and suggested they stop there.

  “The magazines say you should frequent establishments where people in the industry go,” he explained.

  “You used to be real keen on the place,” she said as they strolled down Hollywood Boulevard toward the diner.

  “It’s full of a bunch of know-nothings and nobodies,” he said. “Why, if we want this racket to consider us serious stars, we gotta go to the places where they go like the Brown Derby or Romanoff’s. Not some crummy diner with busted lights and bad food in a seedy part of town.”

  “The Brown Derby? Romanoff’s?” Fiona adjusted her cloche, closed her eyes, and laughed a little laugh. “Why, we can’t ever afford such places. Not on our salaries.”

  “And we never will as long as we continue coming to this hole in the wall, I’ll tell you that.” They stood in front of Joe’s, and Diego peered inside. Through the glass, past the blurred reflection, he saw Charlie sitting at the counter, near the front door, his back slightly turned. Diego stopped, hesitating as Fiona stood there with the door opened.

  “Why are you all twisty?” Fiona asked. “Come on, now. The smell of bacon’s making me hungry.” She tugged on his arm.

  “Let’s go somewhere else. Please, Fi.”

  “No,” protested Fiona. “We’re here now. Just a quick bite. And we can still catch the Big Red to Santa Monica.” She pointed to the trolley stop. “You promised you’d take me today. I want to ride the carousel and listen to the calliope play. That sound makes me happy.”

  Diego sighed. So what, he thought? So what if Charli
e sees him? What was he going to do anyway?

  “Fine. Let’s skedaddle.” He grabbed Fiona by the arm and they rushed in, past the counter, toward a booth at the very back of the restaurant.

  “Why the rush?” Fiona asked. “Boy, you’re sure acting funny. What’s with you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  It wasn’t Jean who served them. It was an older lady with thinning hair and a hunched back. She must be new, Diego thought. Stitched to the lapel of her uniform was the name Zadie. He wondered what happened to Jean. He still felt bad over the way he quit. She had done so much to help him. “Where’s Jean?” he asked Zadie.

  The woman looked at him and said, “Who? What now?”

  “Jean.”

  “Don’t know a Eugene, mister. Just me. Now, what’ll it be for you and the little lady?”

  Diego ordered a cup of coffee and a donut. Fiona ordered a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and a glass of warm milk.

  “Is that all you’re eating?” Fiona asked when Zadie returned with their food. “A plain donut and a cup of coffee?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

  “You need something heartier.”

  In between bites of his donut and sips of his coffee, he took quick glances toward Charlie. He sat at the counter, eating cold cereal and reading the paper. Surprisingly, he looked rather nice. He wore a new suit and shoes that were polished and glossy. His hair was combed back, and a handkerchief poked out from his front jacket pocket. Diego was quite shocked. No longer frumpy and disheveled, Charlie seemed composed and at ease. He joked with the waitress, and his smile was warm and genuine.

  “You know that fella?” asked Fiona, putting her bonnet back on as they gathered their things to go.

  “Who?”

  “That guy there. The one in the blue suit. You’ve been staring at him since we walked in.”

  “No,” Diego said. “I don’t.”

  Charlie gathered his things, rose from his chair, and headed for the door. Diego stalled, giving him enough time to walk out before they did.

  “Let’s get going now,” said Fiona. “It’ll get hot once the sun’s out.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said. He rose and, as they went for the door, he noticed Charlie left something on the counter. It was a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Diego stopped, took them, and looked over at the waitress who was wiping down a table.

  “Say,” he said. “The man sitting here left his glasses.”

  “What?” She came closer. She held a wet rag.

  “The man sitting here left these glasses.”

  “Oh? Imagine that.” She looked around. “It’s Charlie. Give them here. I’ll hold on until he comes back in.”

  Diego held the glasses, let his fingers run over the thick lenses. He felt the wire rims, imagined Charlie wearing them as he read. In a room. A drab place. Charlie. They left and waited on the trolley landing. As the car approached, Fiona turned to him and said, “Are you all right, dear?”

  He smiled. “Yes. I’m fine. Perfectly fine.” Diego gave her a peck on the cheek, and they boarded the trolley.

  That night, after a modest dinner at a restaurant popular with some movie directors, they ran into Fiona’s friend Georgie. Georgie worked as a seamstress in the costume department at Frontier and had gotten Fiona in at the studio years before. Georgie was a buxom girl with full and swollen lips painted a soft plum color. She wore an elegant black dress with a deep plunge neckline and a sheer wrap that she gripped with gloved hands. Her boyfriend, Nick, shook Diego’s hand rather forcefully. His face was bright red; he appeared to be inebriated. Nick was the son of an influential Los Angeles attorney named Simon Wexler, Fiona told him, who had become popular for representing many of the powerful movie moguls in Hollywood. Nick was rich, well connected, and known for his wild antics and behavior. He called Diego “partner.”

  “Where you two kids headed?” Georgie asked, leaning into Nick outside the restaurant.

  “Who knows,” said Fiona. “Night’s still young.”

  “Come with us,” Nick said, reaching out and placing his arm around Diego’s shoulder. “We got ourselves an interesting night in store.”

  “A real gas,” said Georgie. She lowered her voice. “We’re going to the Babylon.”

  “What’s the Babylon?” asked Fiona.

  “A restaurant run by an old queer,” said Nick. “After ten o’clock they put on a swell cabaret show. Men in women’s clothing. A real sight.”

  “Maybe we should get—” Fiona started to say when Diego interrupted.

  “Is there booze?” Diego asked. He couldn’t remember the last time he had tasted alcohol.

  “You bet,” said Nick. “You bet, my friend.”

  Diego looked at Fiona. “Oh, let’s have a go at it.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Trust me,” Georgie said to Fiona. “The Babylon’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Hollywood’s best-kept secret.”

  The Babylon was down a quiet and narrow street lined on either side with storefronts and restaurants that were closed for the evening, their windows and doors darkened. Men stood on street corners, smoking cigarettes under the dull, yellowing light of a street lamp. They watched as the cab drove past.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going, Nicky?” asked Georgie.

  “There!” he exclaimed, pointing to a dark building at the end of the block. It was an unassuming, rather drab place with a torn red awning and burned-out lights.

  “This is it?” whispered Georgie as they stumbled out of the cab. “Looks rather questionable.”

  “Oh, this is it, baby,” Nick said.

  Inside, people sat around small tables along the outer perimeter of a narrow dance floor with a large chandelier hanging high above from the ceiling. It was crowded, and patrons milled about, chatting and smoking cigarettes and dancing. He noticed a few women dressed in suits and ties, thin mustaches drawn in pencil above their lips. They stood at the bar, holding hands and kissing the women accompanying them. A handful of other couples, all men, danced with one another. Everything was dimly lit, the air thick with smoke.

  They took a table near the front, right by the dance floor. Nick stood, peering out, whistled, and got the attention of a little black man who weaved through the crowd and darted over, holding a round tray. “Ah,” he said, smiling. “Mister Nick. How are you?”

  “Good, Jo Jo. Thank you for asking.” Nick lit a cigarette.

  “Now,” Jo Jo said, “let me get you and your friends some drinks before the show starts. Promises to be a real swing.”

  Fiona and Georgie ordered vodka and soda, Diego a whiskey on the rocks with a splash of water, and Nick rum with milk. After Jo Jo returned with their drinks, they sat there watching the people. By the time they finished their second round, Diego asked Fiona to dance with him.

  “Why, it’s about time,” she said. “I’d love to.”

  The song was something soft, and they stood, swaying among the other dancers. “This is a little strange,” she said, glancing about.

  “What is?” he asked.

  “Us. The only boy and girl dancing.” She giggled.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I do.” She was quiet for a while and hummed along with the song. “I like you.”

  “I like you, too,” he said, kissing her.

  “I still can’t get over what a good dancer you are,” Fiona said and placed her head on his shoulder.

  “Practice, practice, practice. As a boy I thought of nothing but singing and dancing.”

  “I bet you were adorable.”

  When they made their way back to the table, Nick and Georgie were nowhere to be found. Diego looked around and said, “There,” to Fiona when he spotted them. In a dark corner, at a booth tucked in the very back of the room, near a service entrance, Nick and Georgie stood talking with two men whose faces Diego could not make out. He led Fiona through the crowd, and w
hen Nick saw them approach, he smiled and patted Diego on the back.

  “These are my friends,” Nick said, and both men nodded.

  Diego reached over and shook their hands. “How do you do?” It wasn’t until he pulled his arm back that he realized that one of the men bore a striking resemblance to none other than William Cage.

  He rose now. “Where are my manners?” the man asked. “Bill,” he said, shaking their hands. He pointed to his partner. “This is my friend, Stephen.”

  “Pleasure,” said Stephen, his tone indifferent. He shook their hands and placed his elbows on the table.

  “Come. Join us,” said Bill.

  “We should really—” Stephen began just as Fiona and Georgie squeezed in, sitting on either side of him. Nick followed, leaving Diego and Bill to occupy the opposite ends of the table. While they all chatted idly about the weather, politics, and the crowd on the dance floor, Stephen stirred the ice in his drink and sighed repeatedly.

  “I can call you a cab,” Bill shouted to him.

  “It’s quite all right,” he said. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you here alone.”

  Bill ordered a round of drinks, and then another. By the time the table was on its fourth round, it was well past one in the morning. The club was even more crowded by now, and a female impersonator named Starla stood on a small stage at the end of the dance floor, performing a song that made everyone cheer. Starla wore a green dress and a bright red wig and strutted around, singing and flirting playfully with the crowd. The place was really swinging, and Diego was feeling rather drunk. Bill kept smiling at him from across the table.

  “Do you dance?” asked Bill, leaning in.

  “Does he dance?” shouted Fiona, giggling. “Like an angel.”

  “Heavenly,” said Nick, sipping his cocktail. He and Georgie kissed while Fiona talked to Stephen about the latest picture she was working on, about a Southern belle who tries saving a runaway black slave named Mokata, and, geez, you wouldn’t believe just how awkward and cumbersome those hoop dresses they wore back then were. Stephen was obviously bored, but Bill ignored him. The angrier Stephen appeared to be, the more Bill seemed to flirt with Diego, smiling and nodding, leaning in and whispering in his ear from across the table.