Hoodwink

by Rhonda Roberts

  ‘Kay, four months ago,’ said Charmaine, ‘L.B. Mayer offered a contract to a young Mexican actress called Maria Carrera.’ The corners of her lipstick-red mouth turned down as she said the name, as though with guilt.

  This was not going to be a happy story.

  ‘I’d seen her in a film about the Virgin of Guadalupe when I was on holidays in Acapulco. I thought I was doing her a favour and got her a screen test up here when I came back. She was only eighteen years old, Kay, Catholic and had never been away from home before …’ Charmaine glanced at Eve in distress.

  Oh God … where was this going?

  Eve touched Charmaine’s shoulder and took over the story. ‘Her new agent took her on the rounds of every Hollywood nightclub and party he could get her into …’ Eve shrugged helplessly. ‘That’s what they all do … Then one night, after a high society charity ball, Maria disappeared …’

  ‘The studio kept it quiet because they thought Maria had run off with a new boyfriend,’ said Charmaine, shaking her head. ‘But a week later, her agent found her dying in a pauper’s clinic in Compton. She’d been dumped by the side of the road …’

  They exchanged a look.

  ‘She’d been gang raped and then stabbed,’ said Eve coldly.

  ‘Who did it? Did they get them?’ I snapped.

  ‘No,’ said Charmaine, her tone now flint hard. ‘Kay, she’d been drugged … and kept drugged until they were finished with her. She had needle marks up and down her poor little arms.’ She bared her own as though to show me. ‘Maria had no idea where she’d been taken or how. All she could tell us before she died was that the men wore white hoods over their heads … And that they each had an old-fashioned iron key hanging on a leather thong around their neck. She said they kept digging them into her breasts.’

  ‘That,’ said Eve, ‘and that they filmed her being raped. Those animals made a stag movie out of her torture! Kay, her poor body was covered in so many bite marks, it looked like she’d been savaged by wild beasts. Each of them had laid their own mark on her …’

  ‘That’s why we call them the Hollywood Wolves,’ said Charmaine, her face stony.

  I stared at them in silence. ‘That’s a terrible story, Eve, but just why are you telling me this now … tonight?’

  They exchanged another secretive glance.

  Charmaine nodded assent.

  ‘The studios have kept it quiet … but Maria wasn’t the first,’ Eve replied. ‘We believe there’s a pack of male …’ She paused to take care with her words. ‘Let’s call them predators … operating in Los Angeles. They prey on young actresses, starlets desperate to make it in the movies. We still have no idea who these bastards are but this has been going on for years.’

  ‘And Hollywood,’ said Charmaine, bitterness drawing her face into deep relief, ‘is their favourite hunting ground.’

  I stared at their earnest faces. If any man ever tried to do that to me …

  Or any other woman.

  I’d kill them first.

  15

  CRIMSON DAWN

  The dressing room door banged open …

  A familiar voice bellowed, ‘Charmaine, where are you? I want my evening gown altered. It’s too long and I need it tonight!’

  It was Veronica Hall.

  She was trailing one of Charmaine’s assistants. ‘I’m sorry, madam, Miss Hall just burst through …’

  Veronica Hall caught sight of me and screeched, ‘Hey … why is Earl’s secretary getting special attention when I have to sit around and wait? I think I’m gonna tell L.B. about this …’

  ‘Just wait a moment, will you two?’ Slight as she was, Charmaine managed to back the tall actress out of the dressing room.

  Eve grimaced. ‘Veronica Hall may be one of the best actresses in this town … but, darling, she’s still a great big bitch.’

  I felt like telling Eve the actress was about to blow a fuse and die in two days’ time but restrained myself.

  ‘Still, Earl drove everyone mad in Crimson Dawn …’ Eve shrugged. ‘Like he normally does.’

  ‘After what I saw him do today, I can’t understand why anyone would want to work with him.’

  Eve gave me a cynical glance. ‘I don’t like Earl … and I think he’s more than a bit mad, but he is talented …’

  She read my disbelief. ‘Darling, Earl is so good at manipulating people he could juice a performance out of a stone. All the actors want to work with him.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘They think he’ll stretch them … though more likely he’ll break ’em in two.’

  Hmm. Earl either had, or was about to have, that jaguar protection tattoo chiselled into his torso. Surely Crimson Dawn had to have something to do with that specific choice.

  But how did it fit in?

  Had he driven an actor from that movie to stalk him?

  ‘Veronica Hall got her start playing the high priestess in Crimson Dawn, didn’t she, Eve?’

  ‘Oh yes, darling, that film launched more careers than just Curtis’. Earl can smell talent like a Mississippi bloodhound chasing a convict up a swamp tree.’

  I remembered the florid poster up on the wall in Earl’s bungalow. A darkly handsome man standing over a beautiful woman lying across a stone altar, with Veronica Hall, the evil priestess, sharpening the sacrificial knife at his side.

  ‘Are many of the cast of Crimson Dawn still around here?’

  ‘Yes, darling, L.B. hired most of them.’

  Damn. ‘So who did Earl drive the craziest in Crimson Dawn?’

  ‘Oh, darling, the three leads without a doubt. The poor kids were all teenagers and new to Hollywood …’ Eve counted off on her fingers. ‘Let me see, Hall played the high priestess, of course. Tyrone Power played the male lead, Obsidian Shield, and Hedy Lamarr played his love-interest, Orchid Rain …’

  Eve snorted. ‘And Earl did everything he could to break them down too! No wonder Hall is the way she is. Earl insisted she take practical lessons from a local madam for the duration of filming … He said it would get her in the right frame of mind. Well, darling … when you see that seduction scene Hall looks like a professional, all right. There isn’t a great deal left to the imagination.’

  Hmm. But Hall was about to die of a heart attack …

  ‘What about Tyrone Power? What did he do to him?’

  ‘Earl was a little more subtle there but in the end it was much worse. He used the death of Ty’s father against him … Ty’s dad was a famous Shakespearean actor who divorced his wife and abandoned his children when they were very young. Ty spent the rest of his childhood waiting for his father to come back …’

  ‘But he never did.’

  ‘That’s right, darling, but as Ty got older he became obsessed with beating his father … with becoming a greater actor. Finally, when he came to Hollywood in 1931, he managed to reunite with his dad. Then his dad dropped dead of a heart attack six months later … just when Ty was making Crimson Dawn.’

  ‘That must’ve been hard going? Isn’t Crimson Dawn about a prince who kills his father?’

  ‘Exactly, darling. And that bastard, Earl, rescheduled the shoot so that Ty had to play the piece where Obsidian Shield kills his own father the day after the funeral.’ Eve shook her head. ‘That scene won Ty an Academy Award … and a serious drinking problem. He spent the next three months in an East Coast sanatorium that Susan Curtis found for him.’

  ‘Poor guy.’ I’d never really thought about what acting did to the players. ‘What about the lead actress? She won an Oscar too, didn’t she?’

  ‘Actually, I think Susan found Hedy Lamarr, not Earl,’ said Eve, tapping her chin. ‘Hedy came to America through one of Susan’s charities, I think?’

  Eve nodded to herself. ‘Yes, that’s right, she did. Hedy’s Austrian … and Jewish. She’d been acting in German films since she was a young girl, then a Nazi arms manufacturer tried to force her to marry him. Hedy just managed to escape Germany with the help of Susan’s charity, but by th
e time she reached Hollywood she was destitute.’ Eve snorted. ‘So Earl knew Hedy had to make her role in Crimson Dawn work because she certainly couldn’t go back to Europe.’

  ‘And Earl took full advantage of her vulnerability to juice a convincing performance out of her.’

  ‘He did everything short of poking her with a sharp stick, darling. Earl threatened to have her deported just before they shot the scene where Hedy’s being sacrificed. In the film you can almost smell her fear.’

  I kept my face neutral. Earl threatened to deport a Jewish girl back to Nazi Germany?

  Yes, I could see why he will be murdered …

  Hmm. But still … why did Earl get that jaguar tattoo?

  ‘So where was Crimson Dawn shot? South of the border?’

  ‘Yes, darling, that was a big part of its appeal. The exteriors were all done on location in Mexico. They even used the real temple at Palenque. The artwork, the costumes … they were all authentic.’

  ‘Did they employ many locals?’

  ‘Oh, darling, it was very Cecile B. DeMille. They had a cast of thousands — many were real Mayans.’

  Hmm. That was interesting.

  ‘What did Earl get up to on location? Did he get into the Mayan side of things?’

  Eve chortled. ‘Darling, Earl never ever goes on location. It’s too far from his masseur and the tennis club. Ada does all the exterior shots …’

  Charmaine returned, exasperated. ‘Sorry about that. We took Hall’s gown up a whole quarter of an inch!’

  My eyes went straight to Charmaine’s chest. She’d taken her black suit coat off and there was a fine silver cross hanging on a delicate silver chain around her neck. It jarred with her severe style.

  I looked closer … it wasn’t Christian. There were two bars across the vertical.

  Charmaine lifted it so I could see better.

  Little feathers, or possibly leaves, were growing out of the ends of the two horizontal bars …

  ‘I bought this last year in Acapulco,’ said Charmaine. ‘The old woman that sold it to me said it’s an ancient symbol of protection.’

  She took it off. ‘I think you should have it, Kay.’

  Charmaine slipped it over my head.

  Charmaine saw us out to Eve’s car and with just a few minutes to spare we raced back down Washington Boulevard.

  Eve insisted on sitting with me on the front porch of the Administration Building. There was a white wrought-iron set of chairs and a table in one corner. We sat there so we could watch the semi-circular drive that curved through the front lawn and onto Washington Boulevard.

  There were two chauffeured limousines parked in the driveway. Eve said one of them was Earl’s.

  She offered me a cigarette.

  I refused.

  She lit her own and took a long, satisfying drag. Everyone smoked here.

  ‘You do realise Earl’s probably going to be late, darling? He’s at a meeting in Selznick’s office over there,’ she said, pointing to the white one-storey building just off the far end of the porch. ‘In fact, he might not even show up at all.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve already realised what an almighty …’ I groped for a word in keeping with this era. I presumed asshole wasn’t one of them.

  ‘Oh, darling, there isn’t a man, woman or horse on this lot who wouldn’t do him in just for the sheer pleasure of it. If you’re not a stepping-stone you’re nothing to him. But if he wants to win you over …’ Eve chuckled. ‘Then he’ll put on an Oscar-winning performance.’

  She inhaled and blew out a white cloud. ‘Though from what I hear, he never fooled his father.’

  ‘I thought his father disowned him because Earl became an actor?’

  ‘Oh, that old story? No … when Earl refused to either get his law degree or work for a living, his father threw him out. Earl’s answer was to use his trust fund to move to New York and set himself up in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. That’s when he decided he was an Actor.’ The last word was pronounced in an upper crust British accent.

  This was too different from Susan’s version to let drop. ‘How do you know all this, Eve?’

  ‘A lot of the actors and writers here started out on the East Coast … around the New York theatre scene.’

  ‘But didn’t Earl end up living on the streets after the stock market crashed in 1929?’

  ‘Who told you that, darling? You need to check your sources.’ Eve snorted. ‘Earl did lose his trust fund but he just moved into his maiden aunt’s Park Avenue apartment.’ She clutched her breast in mock sympathy. ‘Oh how the poor darling must’ve suffered there.’

  ‘But I thought Susan met Earl when he was destitute, on the streets … through one of her charities?’

  Eve gave me an arched eyebrow. ‘The story I’ve heard, darling, was that Earl realised he had to marry money and started trawling his old Long Island set for a bride.’

  I didn’t like the picture Eve was painting. It created too many conflicts with Susan’s story.

  ‘When Earl found out that the heiress Susan Mandrell was running a soup kitchen in some slum in New York City he persuaded a couple of down-and-out actors to let him pretend to share their dirty little hovel. Then, dressed in rags, Earl went round to the soup kitchen and let Susan discover him …’

  Eve sucked in another lungful of smoke and exhaled. ‘Talk about a bleeding heart … Susan was married to Earl in less than a month.’

  I let that sink in. How on earth could Earl have fooled Susan so completely?

  ‘So why did they end up in Los Angeles … if Earl was rich again?’

  ‘Darling, the newspapers recorded his wedding as “Stage Actor Finally Finds Permanent Backer”. Earl had to get out of New York … so he decided that he was really a Great Director instead.’

  Eve caught my disbelief. ‘Darling, Earl made a very big mistake when he asked those two down-and-out actors for help. They didn’t know what he was doing at the time but pieced it all together later. They may’ve been down-and-out back then but now Henry Fonda and James Stewart are big stars …’

  She laughed. ‘They tell the story every chance they get … they loathe him.’

  Damnation!

  If Eve was telling the truth what did I really know about this man?

  ‘Eve, has Earl made any real enemies here … I mean, people who would seriously consider getting rid of him?’

  ‘Oh, darling, you just walk around this studio … MGM too … and nearly everyone you meet will have an Earl Curtis story to tell you. Like I said, darling, Earl has a talent for making enemies.’

  Something very strange was going on here.

  Why had the police jumped straight to a conclusion of suicide when this man was so widely hated?

  ‘So what happened when Susan and Earl came out here?’

  ‘Susan ended up setting him up in his own tiny studio. The problem was Earl didn’t know the business. He made a fifteen-hour-long movie about a one-legged war hero who swam the English Channel.’

  ‘What? Was it fifteen hours of swimming?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘No, darling, the actor had to be revived twice … Earl kept throwing him back in.’

  ‘So how the hell did Earl get MGM to employ him?’

  ‘Earl got very, very lucky. Ada Bronstein walked into his office desperate for someone to finance her movie Crimson Dawn.’

  I strove to keep my voice down to a shout. ‘Crimson Dawn was Ada Bronstein’s movie?’

  Was absolutely nothing I’d been told before I got in the portal true?

  ‘Certainly was, darling. By the time she got to Earl, she’d tried every studio in town and couldn’t even get past the front gate. Ada spent the best part of two years doing the research and writing the script but then couldn’t sell it.’

  ‘Ada even wrote the script?’

  ‘The original one, yes … Of course, as soon as Earl read it he realised it was pure gold. In the end
Ada was screwed. Earl’s studio owned the film and he was listed as the director. Ada just became his personal assistant.’

  ‘But why would Ada put up with that? She’s no idiot.’

  ‘Yes, but Ada thought that if she could just get the film made she could use it to get her directing career going. Kay, there are a lot of actresses and female writers in Hollywood, but it’s almost impossible for women to break into directing.’

  Hmm … ‘So Ada must hate Earl with a passion because he stole Crimson Dawn?’

  ‘Well … it’s not that simple, Kay. Earl actually rewrote Ada’s script while she was down in Mexico doing the exteriors. He decided it needed a lot more sex … He wrote this scene where the evil priestess does an erotic dance to seduce Obsidian Shield. And it was steamy all right, darling. If they’d made the film two years later they’d have never got it past the Production Code.’

  ‘How sexy are we talking here, Eve?’

  ‘Veronica ends up completely nude with Tyrone Power’s face in her …’ Eve delicately fluttered her eyelashes, ‘lap.’

  ‘I must have a look at this movie,’ I said with interest. ‘Earl might have some talent after all.’

  ‘You’re right, darling, he does … it’s just he’s such a mad bastard. The extra scenes really worked well and the combination of realistic sex and violence enabled Crimson Dawn to win nearly every Academy Award in sight.’

  ‘Except Best Director.’ Bloom said that had always rankled.

  ‘Darling!’ Eve rolled her eyes. ‘Earl was so furious, everyone thought he would self-combust! And, of course, he’s been gagging to find a way to win it ever since.’

  ‘Is that what he’s trying to do here? The scene I watched him shoot today was ridiculous.’

  ‘Yes, I know, darling. But then Earl’s been bizarre ever since that trip he made in March … when he went to Paris. He’s so paranoid, he’s even hired a bodyguard.’

  Why did everything keep leading back to Paris?

  ‘What exactly was Earl doing in Paris?’

  ‘Trying to pick up an Oscar the easy way, darling.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was an easy way?’