Platinum Doll

by Anne Girard

  She rose from the edge of the bed and went to him. “Oh, Chuck, it’s beautiful.”

  “Nothing but the best for my doll.”

  He could be so wonderful when he wanted to be, she thought.

  “I need all the luck I can get today so I’m wearing it, no matter what,” she declared and let him kiss her cheek.

  She had no idea why he was being so nice to her right now about today when he had been so set against this endeavor of hers in the beginning. But Harlean wasn’t going to question it—she didn’t want anything to get in the way of the day she had ahead of her. The only thing she wanted to think about now, what she must focus completely on, was making a spectacular impression on film somehow, since she would have only a brief moment to do it.

  * * *

  She tried not to stare too obviously at Jeanette MacDonald’s handsome costar but the crystal-blue eyes and French accent made that almost impossible. He seemed to Harlean the quintessential example of dashing. As if he could feel her eyes on him, Maurice Chevalier glanced up from his chair on the set and lowered the script into his lap.

  “Well, bonjour, cherie, who might you be?” he asked flirtatiously.

  “Jean Harlow, sir,” she sputtered in reply, embarrassed that he had clearly caught her staring.

  He was wearing a white military uniform with huge epaulets and a wide sash. The costume also had red cuffs above his white gloves. Together, all of it made quite a statement on such a handsome man.

  “Do call me Maurice.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jeanette MacDonald groaned. She sat next to him in her own costume: a gown, white gloves and a large feather boa. She was playing a queen opposite his role as a count. “She’s an extra, Maurice. Put your eyes back in your head before I tell your girlfriend.”

  “Haven’t got one just now,” he said with a wink directed at Harlean.

  This moment seemed surreal. To have an opportunity to meet, even for a moment, an actress, and soprano, she’d read about who had actually been on Broadway, and to do so now while the gorgeous leading man flirted with her, was almost too good to be true.

  She glanced down at the gown she had been given to wear for the scene. Unlike the one she’d brought from home for her first film, this one, a pretty cobalt-blue satin, had come from the studio’s costume department. She loved how it set off her blue eyes and complimented her newly lightened white-blond hair. Even though that element wouldn’t register on black-and-white film she felt beautiful, and unique, in it. Harlean’s heart was pounding so furiously that, for a moment, she thought she might faint. The lights were bright and hot. They felt like the sun, and she could feel beads of perspiration beginning to collect and drip onto her cleavage.

  She knew this was her moment to seize, a chance to shine, but she knew also that it would be over in a blink. As she prepared for her scene, Harlean took the corsage from her bag and pinned it onto the jacket with which they had accessorized her gown. She wanted Chuck with her now, for luck. Her complex emotions about him lately returned just then to pure love.

  Finally, the young actress herself hurried onto the set—a makeshift opera box. She stepped between Harlean and the other girl, her irritation showing.

  “God, this thing is itchy,” she murmured. “I’d kill for a cigarette but they’re afraid I’ll set the damn thing on fire.”

  She seemed nice enough but she slipped ever so slightly in Harlean’s esteem. The way she spoke didn’t quite match her regal costume, or the reputation she had built. But then she reminded herself that this was a musical with high comedy and everyone was on edge with the unknown commodity of sound, so surely there was leeway for that.

  “Quiet on the set! Places, everybody!”

  Harlean was starting to grow accustomed to that particular cry, and even to like it. She found it as exciting as everything else about the process of movie making.

  Suddenly a production assistant rushed forward.

  “Miss MacDonald, you won’t need the boa in this scene. And we need to change your necklace.”

  “Why the devil didn’t you do that in Wardrobe?” she snapped.

  The young assistant looked absolutely stricken. Harlean watched his hands tremble as he unfastened the necklace. He was new at his job. She knew the look because she was sure she’d had it not that long ago, so she offered up a smile and a compassionate shrug.

  “All right, everybody quiet!”

  The assistant backed away with a grateful half smile in return. Harlean’s moment was coming. She could feel it sizzling, growing, making her heart race. Ideas swam wildly in her mind. She just wasn’t certain she would have the nerve to do anything, especially when she knew what the director expected.

  Show them your sparkle! she thought frantically, remembering the word and repeating it in her mind until it was like a silent chant. You’ve only got a blink to sparkle! It certainly was now or never.

  “Scene five, take one.”

  The clapboard snapped and her heart skipped a beat. She heard the camera begin to roll. She was glad this wasn’t a speaking part, since her throat was suddenly dry as desert sand.

  Gradually, the crowd of extras just off camera began to applaud, creating an audience sound, which would be enhanced later in editing. There was no turning back. The girls were meant to give a standing ovation. It was then that something powerful took her completely over. That quiet spark of ambition reared up inside of her again and in spite of her fear it was beyond her power to ignore it.

  As she stood in her satiny gown and newly distinctive white-blond hair, Harlean shifted her gaze. It was just a tick—but enough, for an instant, to meet the camera lens head-on. It was like making eye contact, ever so briefly but distinctively with someone across a crowded room.

  Her heart was still racing when the director yelled, “Cut!”

  As the three actresses filed off the makeshift opera box set, the same production assistant approached her. “Mr. Lubitsch wants a word with you, Miss Harlow,” he said.

  Dammit. She had overplayed her hand. A director like Ernst Lubitsch would not take kindly to having to repeat a scene because of the audacity of an extra with stars in her eyes. She had gambled and lost.

  Harlean walked slowly over to the director’s chair. There was a collection of assistants gathered around him, and another man in a gray suit and tie who she had not seen before. He was a stocky, middle-aged man with a dark receding hairline and heavy, black-beetle eyebrows.

  Harlean steeled herself for the lashing that was about to come. Hopefully, he would excuse these people and do it privately. Under the circumstances, that was probably the best she could hope for. Lubitsch was not known as a director with an overabundance of tact.

  “Miss Harlow, this is Hal Roach,” Lubitsch said.

  The Hal Roach? she thought. Everyone across the country had heard the name. He was the director of the wildly popular Our Gang comedy series of films. She had loved them so much and they always made her peal with laughter.

  “You’ve got quite a presence, young lady,” Roach genially remarked as he extended his hand. “I watched your scene just now and you didn’t need to say a word. You just stand out.”

  She felt her cheeks warm with shock as she met his handshake with a firm grip of her own.

  Roach had a deep voice, and a thick New York accent, but there was a kindness in his eyes, and that helped her racing heart slow. She could feel her expression soften.

  “Mr. Lubitsch warned me that my face would only be in a couple of frames.”

  “But what a face it is, little lady. Are you funny?”

  “Hysterical,” she replied without missing a beat.

  She saw a smile touch his lips then disappear. He seemed pleased with her response. “I actually believe you could be.”

  “Thank yo
u,” she replied, with only a slight crack in her voice.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen, sir.”

  “Underage. That’s a complication,” he said with a frown. “Got anyone who can cosign a deal with you? A mother, or maybe a father here in town? I’d like to hire you for a couple of shorts we’re shooting next week out at my studio in Culver City, see how you do in those.”

  This was going so much differently than Harlean had expected.

  “That would be wonderful, sir. I’d be grateful for the opportunity.”

  “Don’t get too excited yet. These are just bit parts. That way we can see what you’ve got.”

  “Of course, but I’m just excited for the opportunity to come out to Culver City to work with you.”

  Culver City seemed so far away, out in that vast, bare area of Los Angeles. But this picture with Jeanette MacDonald had whetted her appetite to see how real comedies were made and to take on more challenges wherever she had to go to find them.

  “You can take the Red Car line all the way out there, you know.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Roach, but I have my own car.”

  He arched a brow now in surprise. “Do you? Not usual for starlets.”

  “Well, my husband has a car. I mean, we do. We have one. What I mean is, he bought it but that makes it ours and—” She was babbling and she knew it.

  He smiled indulgently as he held up a hand. “Less is more, my dear, even sometimes in comedy.”

  Of course he didn’t care about her source of transportation, or her marriage. Embarrassment colored her cheeks, and she could feel them burn.

  “Glad to see you’re a quick study,” he said of her sudden silence. “Are you done with her here, Ernst?”

  “Yes, all finished.”

  “Splendid. You start first thing Monday morning on The Unkissed Man. Sound okay to you?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Roach,” she said as they shook hands again. “You won’t be sorry.”

  “Oh, I never am, my dear. What was that name again?”

  “Jean, Mr. Roach. It’s Jean Harlow.”

  * * *

  Since the next day was Saturday, Harlean and Chuck decided to hike up into the Hollywood Hills. They had not spent enough time alone together lately and that, among the other things, was taking its toll on them both. The thoughtfulness of the corsage had helped mend the worst of the tension, and she allowed herself to admit that she had missed him. It had been difficult to forgive him entirely for ending up passed out in the bushes, however, or for making such a scene at the speakeasy.

  Those images were still proving difficult to shake off.

  But this was a new day, she told herself, the late-summer air was warm and inviting. They had always adored being outdoors, just taking long walks and talking. Harlean had long marveled at the way the two of them could talk for hours, even about little things: what books she was reading, perhaps a new recipe she wanted to try, or what they thought of the world. That sense of being truly heard was one of the first things that had attracted her to him.

  How much richness they found in one another’s company, beyond physical attraction, was a thing they seemed to have forgotten these past few whirlwind weeks. They were both guilty of letting it slip away, particularly since her mother and Marino had arrived in town.

  “Come on, slowpoke,” she teased, a few feet ahead of him on the inclining dirt trail.

  “Hey, slow down, will you? It’s not a damn race.”

  “If it were, I’d win,” she lightly taunted him, unable to keep the sharp tone from her voice because a part of her was angry with him. “That’s what you get for drinking so much lately.”

  “Don’t you worry about me, doll!” he exclaimed, bursting forward in a sprint until he caught up to her at the top of the ridge. “I’ll always be able to keep up with you.”

  He pulled her to his chest, kissed her and then brushed her hair back from her face with both of his hands.

  “Don’t be so sure about that. I’m a challenge, remember?” she asked.

  “It was the first thing I liked about you, actually. Nobody ever challenged me like you. Right from the first I knew you were different.”

  “Nobody gives you a rougher time, either, I suppose, right?” she asked as she twined her arms around his neck for a moment and then let him kiss her.

  “Well, that’s true. So, you ever gonna tell me how your big scene with Jeanette MacDonald turned out, or will I be doomed to wonder forever?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t be interested.”

  “I’m interested in every single thing about you, doll. If it’s important to you, then it’s important to me. Look, I’m trying here, I really am.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a big scene, Chuck. I’m sure if folks blink when they watch the movie they’ll miss it.”

  “I’d still like to hear about it anyway.” They began to walk more slowly together, holding hands as they spoke back and forth. “For instance, how did it feel when the camera was on you?”

  His tone held a sincerity that suddenly made her want to risk being truthful with him about it. “Exhilarating, terrifying and wonderful, all at the same time. Kind of like being touched with a magic wand or something, I’m not really sure how to explain it, but it all happened so fast, when it was over I felt like I had imagined it.”

  “Sounds great. And kind of unsettling, truthfully.”

  “It is both of those things. I mean, it was. I have no idea if I’ll ever get a chance like that again, though.”

  “Sure you will. Hal Roach hired you, didn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t make too much of that. He’s only trying me out in a couple of small comedies, like an audition. Who knows if I can even be funny on film.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s much of anything you can’t do when you set your mind to it, doll.”

  “Thanks, Chuck,” she said as they walked on, and birds trilled in the trees around them. “And thank you for being interested, at least for pretending really well.”

  He gave her hand a squeeze. “No pretending at all. I promise.”

  “Since we’re being truthful, tell me what you think of living in California now that we’ve been here awhile.”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “No?” she pressed.

  “All right, honestly I miss the Midwest sometimes, I do, and I miss my grandparents. But there’s always the telephone, right?”

  Harlean thought how phone calls had been such a poor replacement for being with her mother and spending time with her when they were apart. Chuck kept everything so deeply inside himself but she knew it must feel something like that for him. She wanted his honesty, but she didn’t want to bring up things that would hurt him, either. At least not too much all at once.

  “How ’bout the rest of it? Do you have enough to do with Ivor and the boys?”

  She couldn’t bear thinking that he was drinking so much lately because he was bored here, or unhappy.

  He gave a little grunt and a shrug. “Sure, they’re swell. Don’t worry about me, doll, that’s my job—to worry about my gorgeous wife, and see that you’re happy.”

  She pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “Well, I’m happy. And right now, all this walking has given me an appetite, I’m starved.”

  “Me, too. What do you say, shall we cook something or would you rather go out?” he asked as they finally reached the car. “Whatever your heart desires.”

  “Let’s make that pot roast you like. We have the house to ourselves now so we can do it together.”

  “Music to my ears, Mrs. McGrew,” he said as he closed her car door for her.

  * * *

  After they’d had dinner, with music and candlelight, and read together on the sofa before the
fireplace, they lay in their bed in the bedroom reclaimed after Mother and Marino, three days earlier, had moved a few blocks away.

  “So, tell me what you’re thinking,” she bid him as she touched his cheek. She was eager to keep the tender connection from earlier that day and this romantic evening between them.

  “I’m thinking we just found one of those ways to set our hearts racing.”

  “Be serious, Chuck.”

  “All right, seriously then, in a few weeks your ole man here will be turning twenty-two. What I’m thinking is I’d like to take that trip we keep talking about, up the coast for an early celebration, just the two of us—get away from everything and everyone for a while. Unless, of course, you forgot my birthday.”

  She had forgotten, completely, and it wasn’t actually all that soon. She knew he was just looking for a reason to take a trip. There had just been so much happening lately with her parents, and the increasing number of jobs. “Of course I didn’t forget,” she fibbed. “And I’d love to do that with you, but I have work.”

  “You have your hobby, you mean.”

  “It’s not just a hobby, Chuck, it’s real work, you said you understood.”

  “I do understand. When we got to California, away from everything, I just thought I—not some part-time job—would be your first priority.”

  “Of course you are, you always will be my priority,” she said in an urgent tone. “But I’m proud of myself, and you know that right now I have this commitment to Mr. Roach. I’m earning enough to put a bit of money aside for our plot of land and help out Mommie and Marino with their rent and not come to you for it. At least that’s something, isn’t it?”

  Chuck rolled away from her and swung his legs over the side of the bed, then sat up. The tenderness between them was suddenly extinguished.

  “That lazy creep could get his own job and not take your money, Harlean. It really burns me the way he boasts about being a man of leisure when he’s perfectly fit to work.”

  “Oh, now,” she countered as she sat up beside him. He really could become petulant so quickly, and she had wanted to savor the newly rekindled calm of their wonderful day after that upsetting night at the speakeasy. “I don’t really need most of my checks, and if it helps them until Marino can find a job out here that he’s qualified for, I feel good about that.”