Platinum Doll

by Anne Girard

  His round cheeks colored at the compliment. “Our final picture with you in it turned out to be quite a success at the box office. Although Stan wasn’t as happy with it as I was.”

  “Neither was my grandfather. Double Whoopee made him angry, but Bacon Grabbers sent him over the edge.”

  He had stopped sending her money after he’d seen her first Laurel and Hardy picture, and he had never softened about it, but she didn’t see a reason to add that to the conversation now. No one really cared about what people privately struggled through. Everyone—even stars—had their problems. Besides, she was certain most everyone in Hollywood assumed that Hell’s Angels had made her wealthy as well as famous, and Harlean had no desire to whine and complain, particularly not to a man who had worked so hard for his own success. The only thing that was going to grow her bank account was ingenuity and dogged hard work, and she was now fully and quite stubbornly committed to summoning both.

  If Hughes wasn’t going to find another film role for her, Paul and her mother would have to gang up to have to persuade him to loan her out to another studio. There would be no other way to keep up with her mother and Marino’s increasingly lavish lifestyle.

  “So, how are things with that young fella of yours?” Babe asked her with that rich sincerity she so loved about him.

  “We’re divorced, I’m afraid. Or we will be by the time I get back to Los Angeles.”

  “Oh, Sunshine, I’m so sorry. You seemed so in love with him.”

  “I probably always will be, Babe. But some stories just aren’t meant to have a happy ending.”

  “Speaking of stories,” he said, seemingly glad to change the subject. “Are you still writing that novel you were always musing with us about on set?”

  Harlean felt herself smile and the sudden feeling of tension ease. “I am actually, trying to, anyway. I don’t know yet if it’s any good, though. I haven’t gotten very far with it, but it’s such fun to lose myself in another world.”

  “A world you have total control over.”

  “Exactly.”

  As she settled into her seat, she caught a glimpse then of the dark-haired, mustachioed man in an expensive pin-striped gray suit and fedora who had just taken the seat across the aisle from them. Harlean stifled a gasp when she realized that it was the handsome actor, William Powell, who she’d seen at the Brown Derby, before she’d ever even gotten so much as a walk-on role.

  She wondered with the delight of a die-hard fan if Powell had any idea who she was now. She could not stop staring at him, shamelessly hoping to draw his gaze. Blanche and her mother were still reading their books and didn’t seem to notice. Babe however did.

  “Don’t even think about Bill Powell, Sunshine. He’s madly in love with Carole Lombard. They might even be engaged by now. Haven’t you been reading your magazines?”

  Her heart sank. Lombard was the stunning blonde actress who, as luck would have it, Harlean often thought she resembled. But of course she knew she flattered herself. Lombard’s performances always had that wonderful spark of comedy which Harlean could only dream of having one day.

  “I was just about to ask you to introduce us,” she said bravely.

  “Sorry. Ol’ Babe here doesn’t know him personally.”

  “I’m sure he knows you. Everyone knows Laurel and Hardy.”

  “Let’s just say Bill Powell and I don’t run in the same circles. He’s a leading man who women swoon over, and I’m a fat man who makes my living doing odd faces and pratfalls,” he said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

  “Have it your own way. No introduction,” Harlean relented with an expression that was half pout, half clever smile, as she opened a novel by Willa Cather she was halfway through.

  But even as she said it, she knew she would meet William Powell one day, whether he was married to Miss Lombard or not. After all, a girl could dream—and hadn’t her dreams gotten her this far already?

  * * *

  The anticipation of getting to the last stop on her tour had been on her mind since the day she had embarked on it. Her final appearance would be in Kansas City, and she had agreed to have dinner with her father and his new wife while she was there.

  As glad as she was that her father had finally found happiness, Harlean had never actually had to share his love and devotion with anyone else before. Because there had been the physical distance between them, their relationship had taken on a mythical status in her mind. Because they hadn’t seen one another since she was a child, he had remained the handsome man in brown-and-white photographs she cherished. Although she desperately wanted this reunion, the prospect of having to meet this woman at the same time she saw her father for the first time in many years brought with it a spark of jealousy.

  Jean chose to remain at the hotel and make phone calls while Harlean took a car and driver to the Italian restaurant on a quiet tree-lined street on the outskirts of the city. Blanche had offered to join her for moral support, but this was something Harlean knew she needed to do alone no matter how awkward it was.

  The driver would remain outside while they dined and could whisk her away at a moment’s notice if there were any problems—with either fans or the unknown Mrs. Mont Clair Carpenter.

  Harlean was wearing a sedate navy blue suit with pearl buttons, sleek pumps and an oversize hat, in an attempt to draw attention away from her increasingly recognizable face and hair.

  She entered the crowded, candlelit restaurant and glanced around to take it in. The ceilings were low and the walls were a rich red. The tables were covered with red-and-white-checkered cloths and topped with flickering candles, which cast the entire place in a deep crimson glow and gave it an inviting feel.

  She was shown by a host to a table near the back of the restaurant where her father and a woman were already seated. Her heart was racing. Harlean could see them sitting closely and talking as she approached. The moment Mont Clair glanced up and saw her he sprang to his feet and a broad, happy smile took over his face.

  “Ah, here she is!”

  His hair was spotted with early gray now, Harlean thought with surprise, and he was wearing round spectacles with thick lenses. He wasn’t at all the young, handsome father of her girlhood memories, but an ordinary-looking middle-aged man.

  “Here’s my girl, at last,” he exclaimed and drew her into a tight embrace.

  The moment was more awkward than she wanted it to be because, in spite of her fantasy about her father, he was still a man she hardly knew.

  “It’s so good to see you, Daddy.”

  As she finally stepped back, her gaze landed on the petite woman with dark, tightly curled hair who had remained seated, but who looked up at her now with a tentative pencil-thin smile and warm, hazel eyes.

  “Baby, this is Maude, my wife,” he said proudly.

  Maude Carpenter extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Mont talks about you nonstop. Do you prefer to be called Jean or Harlean?”

  “Anything you like, really. These days, I’m not entirely sure who I am, to tell you the truth,” she replied as her father held out her chair for her, then pushed it in.

  Harlean tried not to stare, but Maude looked so entirely different from her mother that it was difficult not to be taken a little aback. Maude had sallow skin, slightly sunken eyes and there was gray in the temples of her hair, like her father’s. She looked much older than Jean Bello, Harlean thought.

  “Gosh, what a beauty my baby has turned into. You’re much prettier than any of your pictures in those magazines,” Mont Clair said proudly as his wife smiled and nodded in agreement.

  They sat in awkward silence for a moment after that as waiters dashed past with loaded plates of spaghetti and aromatic platters of roasted meat.

  “So, Maude, are you enjoying married life?” Harlean forced hers
elf to ask in a bright tone she summoned up.

  “Oh, yes indeed! Your father is a wonderful husband.”

  “I’m so happy for you both,” she said, and to her surprise, she found she suddenly meant it. Seeing him happy was so nice after how badly she knew her mother had treated him.

  Harlean also knew now what it took to make a happy marriage—and to lose it.

  “I was sorry to hear about things with you and Chuck,” Mont Clair said as he fingered his water glass. “He always seemed such a nice young fella.”

  “He still is, Daddy.”

  Maude dotted her mouth with her white linen napkin then and stood. Her husband rose in response and dutifully drew back her chair. “Would you two excuse me for a moment while I go powder my nose?”

  Harlean was still smiling as her father sat back down, then leaned forward and took both of her hands, linking them with his own on the tabletop. He squeezed them tightly.

  “I think she wanted to give us a moment alone. My Maude is a real terrific gal. I gave up thinking I’d ever find someone again,” he said, and there was what sounded like a note of apology in his tone.

  “You look good, Daddy, different from the photos you sent, but real good.”

  “Well, I’m sure happy, I can say that much.”

  “You always knew I hoped you and my mother would reconcile. But I know now that those were just foolish dreams.”

  “They were dreams you and I shared for a long time, Baby, believe me—a lot longer than I should have had them. How is your mother?” he asked, and she saw the sadness in his eyes.

  “Same as always. Ruling Hollywood like she owns the place.”

  “So long as she’s not ruling you. I do remember how she can be, after all.”

  “She loves me, Daddy, and a lot of my success is due to her refusing to let me give up. I really do owe her everything.”

  “And that’s just the way she likes it.”

  Harlean was happy at that moment to have Maude return to the table with freshly brightened lipstick and an engaging smile. There would be no further talk of her mother now, she felt quite certain, as Maude settled back in their midst.

  “How lovely it is to see the two of you together,” she exclaimed. “This means so much to him that you could meet us for dinner like this.”

  “I only wish it could be for a longer visit. But my train leaves tonight.”

  “Oh, dear. Tonight? Won’t that be rather late?” Maude asked.

  “It’s a sleeper car. I need to get back to Hollywood.”

  “I’m sure the studio is keeping you mighty busy these days,” her father said.

  “I’d like to be a lot busier but Mr. Hughes doesn’t seem too keen on letting me make a new picture just now. I think he wants to get his money’s worth out of this one first. I’d love to do a comedy next, though, something where I can really stretch myself. Did you see Safety in Numbers?”

  “The Buddy Rogers picture, why sure.” Maude smiled. “That’s the kind of thing you want to make?”

  “I’d give my eyeteeth to play a part like Carole Lombard did in that one,” Harlean crooned. “And I’m gonna get the chance, you just wait and see if I don’t!”

  “I just believe you will,” Maude said.

  The evening was over before she knew it, gone in a whirl of reminiscing and too much food. Just past ten o’clock, Mont Clair pulled his daughter close against his chest out on the sidewalk beside her waiting car.

  “Be happy, Baby,” he said in a tender tone. “There’s more to life than work, you know. Do you have a new fella to keep that pretty smile of yours bright?”

  “Not really like you mean. There’s someone I keep company with now and then, but we’re just friends. He works for MGM and he’s trying to get me that comedy role to play,” she said of Paul Bern.

  “Romance can grow even from an unlikely friendship if you have enough in common. Just ask my Maude,” he said proudly.

  She thought right then how her father seemed like the happiest man in the world. She hadn’t expected to like Maude but she did. She’d had no idea how content that would actually make her but when she boarded the train that night, Harlean was smiling. It had been such a healing dinner, important for them all.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A week after she returned from the publicity tour, Howard Hughes relented to the tag team pressure of Jean Bello and then Paul Bern, who were urging him to loan Harlean to MGM Studios for The Secret Six, a film about the underworld.

  Harlean would play the femme fatale role.

  While the Bellos were irritatingly persistent in their phone calls and appearances at Hughes’s office on Harlean’s behalf, it was Paul who had been savvy enough to show him how the film was the perfect vehicle for her. It would continue the momentum that had begun for his studio-crafted image for her, without more major investment on his part. There was nothing to risk and everything to gain, but a comedy role would have to wait.

  “It’s just not right, his loaning her to MGM for thousands of dollars a week, and still only paying her pennies,” Jean raged, and the cocktail in her hand sloshed onto the living room carpet.

  Even now, in spite of her daughter’s growing success, Jean had that way of talking to Marino about Harlean at times as if she weren’t even in the room. While tension between Marino and Jean flared from time to time after their nasty divorce confrontation, for the most part it had blown over, and the rancor ceased. More often than not, they found common ground and a united front pushing Harlean ever closer toward that massive stardom that seemed nearer than ever to them all.

  Tonight in response, Harlean took a sip of her own strong gin and tonic as Marino tried to calm the situation his wife seemed intent on making worse. It was the night before filming was to begin and tension at home was the last thing she wanted. During these last challenging months, she knew alcohol had become far more of a friend than it should, especially in light of what had happened with Chuck because of it, but for now it was the only thing that quieted the frustration and eased the loneliness.

  “I’ve been telling you all along that Landau character is absolutely useless for the Baby. She needs a sharp agent, someone who will be an absolute shark for her.”

  “Someone like you, my dear,” Marino said from his place on the sofa as he took a long drag on his cigarette.

  He crossed his legs as his wife paced back and forth.

  Harlean cast a glance at Paul, who seemed at the moment exceedingly uncomfortable in the midst of their conversation. In the past few weeks, Harlean’s heart had softened toward him, thanks to his growing devotion to her and her career.

  He seemed to take seriously everything she said and did, which only served to cement her own belief in herself. She still did not feel the faintest physical attraction to him, but as she sat there silently, listening to her mother rage on, she thought how perhaps now, with the wound on her heart from Chuck still not fully healed, that a platonic male friend—a dear one—was for the best.

  “It’s still a man’s world, and a man’s business,” Paul quietly observed, drawing Harlean’s attention back to him. “But perhaps the two of you together might think of taking on the task permanently rather than hiring someone when you know her best of all.”

  Jean and Marino looked at him as if he had uttered words in a foreign language. Then Harlean saw the familiar spark of ambition brightly light her mother’s eyes. A smile broke across Marino’s face a moment later.

  “Well, I suppose we could,” said her mother, as if it had never crossed her mind.

  But everything crossed her mind.

  “Hughes won’t like it,” Marino warned.

  “Since when has anyone’s opinion ever stopped her?” Harlean asked, and everyone began to laugh because they all knew that it was tru
e.

  * * *

  Harlean continued to loathe the image of Jean Harlow as a vamp, but it had taken on a powerful life of its own so swiftly that there seemed no doing battle with it. Even when she intentionally wore wide leg trousers, bobby socks and lace-up shoes onto the set the next day, she was received with catcalls and whistles. Few cared that she had a generous heart, was well-read and incredibly smart about the business she had been studying since the first day. But they would not be able to underestimate Jean Harlow forever.

  “Don’t mind that,” Blanche told her as they walked together, casting scowls at the crew. “Like my friend Mae West said a couple of years ago, ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity.’ You remember that.”

  “I didn’t know you knew Mae West.”

  “I worked for her for a while. There are a lot of things like that you don’t know about me,” Blanche said as she gave just a hint of a smile.

  “One of the many reasons I like you,” Harlean chuckled. “You don’t let people know everything about you right at first. You make them earn that. It’s just how I am, too.”

  As she approached her place on set, there were three chairs. One was for the director, George Hill, and the two beside it were marked for Jean Harlow and someone named Clark Gable. Another chair for the star of the film, Wallace Beery, was separated from the others off to the side.

  “I wonder who the heck this Gable character is. Paul didn’t tell me much about him, other than he’s some New York stage actor trying to make it in Hollywood now, and that he has quite a reputation with the ladies.”

  These past two years she’d met enough handsome young actors to be fairly certain she wasn’t going to like this one any more than she had liked them. With the exception of Ben and Jimmy, who she loved, most were far too vapid and egocentric for her taste. Even gorgeous William Powell had seemed a bit sullen on that train ride they had shared.

  Since Wallace Beery’s reputation for belligerent behavior with his female costars was well-known, Harlean decided to meet this Gable fellow before she decided not to like him.