Kathryn had been around long enough to know that when a production was floundering in a sea of directorial indecision or star truculence, a tense grittiness permeated the set. People darted about, rarely looking each other in the eye or stopping to crack a joke. This was the sort of set Kathryn had expected to encounter today, but she found instead a relaxed atmosphere, busy with people focused on the work at hand, but at the same time cozy and unruffled.
“Dress mishaps aside, you look fairly happy.”
Bette ran her fingers over a glittering piece of costume jewelry pinned above her left breast. “Everything’s marvelous! And the script! It’s so goddamned witty.”
“And Gary Merrill?” Kathryn whispered. “Is he around?”
Bette put negligible effort into suppressing a smile. “I may have mussed up his tuxedo a tad. I imagine he’s still in his dressing room . . . unmussing.”
“And what about the blonde you mentioned?”
“We had an eight o’clock call, so naturally she showed up ten minutes ago. They’re stitching her into her dress as we speak.”
Joseph Mankiewicz and his ubiquitous pipe appeared to their right in a cloud of fragrant smoke, surveying the penthouse with a critical eye.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Bette said, turning away from the mirror, “I want to be sure that Mank is okay with this dress before we start.” She gave Kathryn’s hand a quick squeeze. “Just knowing you’re here, it’s settled my nerves considerably.” She marched away.
Kathryn spotted a line of paintings hanging on the wall that led to the mezzanine and headed toward it.
After the experience of finding her own photo in the Norma Desmond mansion, Kathryn had taken to inspecting props. She knew it was unlikely that she’d find another that looked like her, but she couldn’t help herself. The thought of a man she didn’t remember sitting in a prison cell was starting to haunt her.
She was inspecting a painting of an aristocratic woman on a wooden throne when a flash of glittering white caught her eye.
Standing at the bottom of the stairs in a strapless gown gathered over a hip into a fabric orchid was Gwendolyn’s customer with the big bucks.
“Hello,” the blonde said meekly. “I’m not sure if you remember me.”
“Of course!” Kathryn joined her at the bottom of the stairs. “But I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Marilyn.”
Sunset Boulevard radiated off her. “You’re wearing Gwendolyn’s perfume.”
Marilyn gurgled like a baby. “I simply adore it! People are always asking me what it is, so I send them to the Strip.”
“She’ll love hearing that.”
“But it’s Gwendolyn I talk about the most. What she’s doing is practically revolutionary!”
Gwennie? A revolutionary? “How do you mean?”
“Whenever I can’t decide between one outfit or another, she’ll ask me, ‘Who will you be wearing it for? Yourself, or some man?’ It made me realize us women dress entirely for men. We accentuate the bosom, narrow the waist, lengthen the leg, enhance the silhouette. It’s all about catching their attention.” The girl slanted her head to one side. “But now I think, ‘If there were no men left in the world, would I even wear something like this?’” She let out another baby-doll giggle. “Of course there are times when you do want to impress a casting director, or photographer, or that handsome stranger across the room. But I look at clothes differently now, and I have Gwendolyn to thank. I tell everyone about her.”
Marilyn’s tentative smile faded when Bette’s barking laugh shot across the set. “I saw you talking to Miss Davis.”
This is the blonde? “I got to know her quite well when I volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen.”
“She doesn’t particularly like me.”
“There are lots of people she doesn’t like.”
“I admire her so much that I go completely to pieces whenever I’m around her. She’s intimidating and she knows it, and uses it to her advantage.”
“I suspect you might be right.”
Marilyn fidgeted with the bracelet around her left wrist. “I want a career just like hers.”
Standing on an A-list movie set, in full costume and makeup, the girl had even more charisma than she did in Gwennie’s store. She glowed with an inner allure that Kathryn had seen in only a few women. Vivien Leigh had it, and so did Greer Garson. Ingrid Bergman, too, even if she was persona non grata in Hollywood these days. But with that angelic face and enviable bust, Kathryn doubted she was fated for a Bette-Davis type of career. Betty Grable, maybe, but Bette Davis? No.
“Who do you play in this movie?” she asked.
“Miss Caswell, the girlfriend of George Sanders.”
Sanders had third billing in this movie. “Eve Caswell? As in All About Eve?”
Marilyn shook her head in alarm. “Oh, heavens no! I’m a long way from being able to pull off a role like that!”
“Why?”
“Eve Harrington is so devious, so treacherous, so—so—Machiavellian!”
Kathryn hadn’t expected a word like that to come out of a girl so amply endowed with such physical charms. She went to ask what made Eve Harrington so Machiavellian but an assistant director called for the set to be cleared.
The key lights came on, drenching the penthouse. Kathryn positioned herself next to the full-length mirror and watched Bette stand with Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, and Hugh Marlowe. The two women held martinis and stood in place until Mank called, “Action!”
Celeste twirled the olive in her martini. “We know you. We’ve seen you like this before. Is it over, or is it just beginning?”
Stone-faced, Bette drained her glass in one gulp, handed it to Merrill, then swanned to the foot of the stairs. She ascended to the first step and swung around to survey the crowd. “Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
Mankiewicz got her to do it several times more until he felt she’d delivered the line with the level of blithe menace he was looking for. The blazing lights were switched off as the crew got to work setting up the next shot. Bette beckoned Kathryn to join her at the bottom of the steps.
“What do you think of our Little Miss Bombshell?”
“You must admit, she’s very pretty.”
“I overheard someone in makeup say she could play Helen of Troy.” Bette curled a lip. “The face that launched a thousands shits—and all of them mine! I suppose she bitched about how rude to her I’ve been.”
Kathryn skipped over Marilyn’s comment about Bette’s intimidating presence, and told her that the younger actress admired her very much. It provoked a So what? raise of the eyebrow. Then Kathryn asked, “This Eve Harrington character, what makes her so Machiavellian?”
“Didn’t I tell you what this movie’s about?”
“I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“I’m playing a—well, let’s call Margo a seasoned actress who’s approaching the upper limits of credibility for romantic parts. And then in creeps mousy little Eve Harrington, who’s all ‘I’m not worthy to be in your presence, Miss Channing.’ She insinuates herself into Margo’s life so cunningly that nobody realizes until it’s far too late that Eve’s intention all along was to replace Margo completely.”
Kathryn felt heat prickle her scalp.
Bette grabbed Kathryn by the hand. “My dear! Do we need to find you a chair?”
“How does Margo dispense with Eve?”
“She doesn’t! Eve gets everything she wants: starring roles, her own dressing room, acting awards. Meanwhile, all poor old Margo gets is older and wiser.”
“But surely Eve gets her comeuppance?”
Bette snickered. “I suppose she does, in a way. Right at the end, Eve gets an Eve of her own, but doesn’t recognize it.” The assistant director called the cast back to the set. “Really, Kathryn, you should take that seat near the prop table. I wish I could join you but I have to deal with Miss Copacabana School of Dramatic Art
.”
Bette took her place on the set with Baxter, Sanders, and Marilyn. Mankiewicz asked for quiet. Marilyn looked like she was about to face a firing squad. Kathryn winked. She mouthed the words “You can do this!” and showed her a discreet thumbs-up.
Maybe Margo doesn’t drop Eve through a trapdoor, but life doesn’t have to imitate art. Not my life, anyway.
“And—” Mankiewicz paused for a moment “—ACTION!”
CHAPTER 37
Gwendolyn held open the door of a second-string theater down on the fleapit end of Hollywood Boulevard for Kathryn and Doris. “What a stinker!”
The three of them stopped in front of the poster of Ingrid Bergman pressing against her dark-haired costar above an exploding volcano. Below it: This is it! The place: STROMBOLI. The star: BERGMAN. Under the inspired direction of ROSSELLINI.
“Hughes tried his best before word got out,” Kathryn said.
Doris pretended to gag. “Dressed-up mutton by any other name.”
They turned away from the poster and headed down the sidewalk.
“It’s Ingrid I feel bad for,” Gwendolyn said. “She’s completely thrown away her career. It might’ve been okay if a decent movie came out of it.”
“I thought the eruption scene was pretty good,” Kathryn said wistfully.
“You didn’t actually like that movie, did you?” Gwendolyn asked.
Kathryn jolted herself out of her revelry. “God, no! I was ready to leave after the first fifteen minutes.”
“Penny for your thoughts, then? Or a root beer float? I’ve got some Wil Wright’s ice cream at home.”
“In a funny sort of way, I almost identified with Ingrid’s character—living in the shadow of a volcano that’s likely to erupt at any moment.”
The previous week, Gwendolyn had been at home finishing up a capriciously tricky suit of mustard crêpe de chine when Kathryn came knocking, straight from the set of All About Eve. “I assume your volcano is named Ruby?”
They were at Kathryn’s Oldsmobile now. She unlocked it and the three of them climbed inside. Kathryn dropped her hands into her lap and stared out the windshield. “I feel like I’m sitting next to a powder keg.”
Doris tsked from the back seat. “You can’t let Ruby worm her way any more deeply into your life.”
“But how do I stop her?” Kathryn pulled into the traffic heading west.
“By figuring out what she wants.”
“She wants to replace me!”
They fell silent until they were passing the Egyptian Theatre. Kathryn said, “Last night, I found out for sure that she was behind Max Factor dropping me.”
“How did that happen?”
“Leo and I were at the Vine Street Derby. Max Factor’s head of PR came in. He was by himself, and headed straight for the bar. He looked like he was waiting for someone, so I handed Leo some excuse and went straight up to him. I told him he’d do me the biggest favor by being straight about what happened.”
“So it really was her?”
“He didn’t know her by name, but he described the person who told him.”
“And what did she tell him?”
“All about my father and Sing Sing. He assured me he’d keep it to himself, but with a scandal like that, they felt they could no longer put themselves at risk.”
“But how could Ruby know?” Gwendolyn asked. “You’d only just learned that yourself.”
Kathryn strummed her fingernails along the top of her steering wheel. “All I know is she and Winchell are both socially prominent New Yorkers.”
“You think they’re in cahoots?” Gwendolyn began to feel nauseous. “But that means Winchell knows about your father. So . . . you think Winchell and Leilah and Ruby are all in cahoots together? I don’t know, Kathryn, that sounds a bit far-fetched, if you ask me.”
They’d had a straight run down Hollywood Boulevard to the Garden of Allah without much traffic. Kathryn pulled into the residents’ parking lot.
“I don’t believe in coincidences.” Kathryn started counting off with her fingers as they walked down the gravel path. “I’ve got some debutante upstart trying to worm her way into my life. Meanwhile, from out of the blue, I’ve got Walter Winchell inviting me to the Polo Lounge because he’s been coerced by Leilah, who’s hell-bent on getting her client cards back from you. These are not random events.”
A party was in full swing at Lucius Beebe’s villa. He and Charles were in town, finalizing their permanent move to Nevada. Prohibition-era jazz music floated across the courtyard. “Everything Is Hotsy-Totsy Now” blasted through the open door as they walked past. Gwendolyn was pleased to see Marcus dancing with Natalie Schafer, an actress who’d been floating in and out of the Garden for years.
“Shall we go in?” Gwendolyn asked the girls.
Kathryn shook her head. “You promised me a root beer float.”
They were inside Gwendolyn’s villa, pulling off hats and gloves and raiding Gwendolyn’s icebox when Doris said, “Let’s be logical about this. Winchell and Leilah know each other. Also, Winchell and Ruby know each other.”
“All Winchell said was that Ruby’s reputation preceded her.”
“But there is a possible connection,” Gwendolyn pointed out. “So if Ruby and Winchell know each other, it’s possible he told her where Leilah’s cards are.”
“I told Winchell that Gwennie burned them,” Kathryn said, “so even if he did, as far as she’s aware, they don’t exist anymore.”
Gwendolyn scooped out a ball of vanilla ice cream and let it plop into a tall glass. “But I didn’t burn them.”
“Nobody knows that except us,” Kathryn said.
“And Zap,” Doris added. “But he wouldn’t have blabbed, would he?”
“I don’t think so.”
Gwendolyn knew it was time to confess what she’d discovered a few nights ago after the first going-away party at Lucius and Charles’ villa. It’d started as “just a few quiet drinks” but of course went the way of every “just a few quiet drinks” at the Garden. Before she knew it, two dozen people had appeared, champagne was flowing like the Colorado River, and someone nearly broke their dentures on the diving board.
Gwendolyn stumbled home sometime around midnight, but she didn’t feel sleepy. Instead, curiosity rose inside her. She hadn’t looked at Leilah’s cards since the day Doris produced them. It all seemed so sordid and she didn’t want to know whose names appeared there. But sitting on her sofa, lightheaded from French champagne, she sensed an overwhelming tug pulling at her.
She opened up Magnificent Obsession and flipped through the cards, one by one.
Virtually every name was familiar. If she hadn’t served them as the Cocoanut Grove’s cigarette girl, she’d encountered them at Mocambo or the Trocadero, or volunteered alongside them at the Hollywood Canteen.
Every studio head was there, and their second-in-command, and often their heads of publicity, casting, and distribution. And their lawyers. And their bankers. And even their former bootleggers-turned-restaurateurs.
But it was the movie stars that shocked Gwendolyn. Any of them could snap their fingers, and women would come running with their skirts flapping over their heads.
And then she came to the card at the very bottom of the pile, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t.
ARTURO ZAPARELLI
She pictured Mr. Zaparelli’s well-fed face and laughing eyes, and couldn’t imagine him in the sort of place Marcus had described.
“What do you mean, you don’t think Zap would blab?” Kathryn asked.
Gwendolyn hollowed out two more scoops and returned the ice cream to the Frigidaire. She told the girls to wait as she went to her bedroom and pulled Leilah’s cards from behind her headboard. “Until the other night, I’d never looked through them.” She picked up the floats and led the other two into her living room.
“Never?” Doris asked. “I’ve been dying to take a gander at those things!”
“I was worried tha
t I might not be able to look any of these guys in the eye again.”
“Is my revered boss there?” Doris asked.
Harry Cohn was a rough-talking risk-taker who ran his domain as a dictatorship Mussolini would have admired. Gwendolyn flipped to the Cs and held up Cohn’s card. She laid the pack in front of Kathryn and told her to look at the last card.
Kathryn’s mouth formed a perfect O when she read the name written across the top. “Does Zap know this?”
“Not that I know of. Jump back to the Ws.”
Doris peered over Kathryn’s shoulder and then giggled when Kathryn arrived at Wilkerson’s card.
Kathryn skimmed the information listed below his name. “I’m surprised he didn’t go more often.”
“Look at the next one,” Gwendolyn told her.
Kathryn stared at the card for a moment. “Winchell, huh? These men would die if someone made them public.”
“Someone like Leilah?”
“Or Ruby.”
Gwendolyn had barely slept the night she went through Leilah’s cards. Now that she knew who was involved, she could see how revealing them could cause a scandal as big as the Fatty Arbuckle trial or the William Desmond Taylor murder. Those incidents had outraged the moralists and led to the Hays Code, which most film industry folk considered another word for censorship.
“And get a load of this.” Gwendolyn took the cards from Kathryn and flicked back to the Cs. She withdrew one from the pack and held it up: Mickey Cohen.
Kathryn flopped back onto the sofa. “No wonder Leilah’s so desperate.”
“Can you imagine what Ruby would do with them?”
Gwendolyn took the cards from Kathryn. “Which is why I think we should burn the whole lot. Tonight.”
“That’s a drastic move, Gwennie,” Doris warned.
“You really need to think about this,” Kathryn added.
Gwendolyn pulled out Wilkerson’s card and waved it in the air. “Depending on which way things play out, it could also spell the end of the Hollywood Reporter.”
Kathryn nodded soberly. “Arlene made a valid point about destroying evidence, especially with Leilah’s trial coming up, but so many lives could be damaged should this come out.”
Twisted Boulevard: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 6) Page 25