Keys to the house. Lock it up. Step lively to the car, retrieving the daily newspaper on the way. The Body was on. Another normal beginning of a normal day working in the Hollywood biz.
12
"The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents."
Orson Welles
Cam started out the day yelling. Before he could get his loafers on, the phone rang with the production manager's bad news. He was having trouble getting the permits to reroute traffic for one of the shoots and the scene would have to be put off for a couple of days.
"Couple of days? What do you think this is, a film bankrolled by the Shah of Iran?"
"Is there still a shah in Iran?" the PM asked facetiously.
"I ought to fire you for that." Voice and blood pressure rising. Putting off a shoot was no joke. Not in anybody's book.
"All right, I'm sorry. Listen, I'm working on it. I thought it was set, but someone at the courthouse fucked up, okay? I'll straighten it out as fast as I can. It's all I can do, Cam, don't start on me."
"Herb, I wouldn't start on you if you weren't so goddamn incompetent, you skinny-assed motherfucker!"
"I'm hanging up now, Cam. I'll see you on the set."
"To do what? Watch the crew and cast twiddle their fucking thumbs? "
A big sigh hissed through the phone line. "You can shoot around it, c'mon, stop now, already. I'm hanging up."
"You hang up on me and I'll call Strickland, see if he wants you back!"
Then there was silence. No sighing. No pleading for reasonableness.
Cam took the receiver and threw it on the floor of his bedroom. It bounced on the lush gray carpet like a ball. Then he picked it up again and threw it hard against the wall, cracking the plaster. The princess receiver set leaped up from the bedside table as if an electrical jolt had given it a pop. The third time he picked up the mouthpiece, he felt only a little better.
"Did you hang up?" he asked quietly, everything under control.
"No, I'm here." Another sigh.
Cam rubbed at his eyes with long, slim fingers. Then he reached for the crumpled pack of Camels next to the phone, shook one out and lit it. He drew in a deep puff of smoke before saying, "You're right, we can shoot around it. Get the fucker at city hall on the phone now and set it up for tomorrow. Not the next day. Tomorrow."
"Okay, Boss."
"And don't fucking try to mollify me by calling me boss!" This time Cam slammed down the phone in the cradle hoping the crash would bust the PM's eardrum.
Cam forgot to eat anything, forgot to brush his teeth, and forgot to comb his wild, crazy, and windblown hair. He arrived at the studio looking like a man about to blow a valve. As soon as the people involved with Pure and Uncut saw him, their glances fell or wandered elsewhere. Even Olivia carefully avoided looking at Cam straight on.
Catherine Rivers, as Cam's second-in-command, knew it was up to her to find out the problem and help handle it, whatever it was. She approached Cam the way a snake-handler went after a rattler. The stick and noose she used were her best traits: a cool exterior and iron constitution. She knew how to take abuse without making it personal.
"What happened?" she asked.
"We can't go to location. Fucking Herb fucking fucked up."
When Cam used three "fucks" in one sentence, it meant bad times ahead. Catherine looked out at the crew and nodded slightly to let them know the problem was going to be ironed out, just take it easy.
"How long do we have to postpone the scene?"
"I told him to get it fixed by tomorrow. I threatened him with Strickland."
"Ah." Herb used to work for another studio headed by John Strickland, a real ball-busting, back-stabbing son of a bitch nobody liked and just about everyone tolerated unless offered work elsewhere. Herb never wanted to have to go back to him. "Well, today what do you want to do?"
Catherine hadn't seen the script. She got the next scene Cam wanted shot just like everyone else. This put her at a distinct disadvantage in helping Cam over the bumps and rough spots. If she didn't know what came next in the lineup, there was no way she could help him pick a substitute scene. No day could be wasted. Sets couldn't be shut down for a day under any circumstances barring a classic, devastating, natural disaster. Hundreds of thousands of dollars couldn't be thrown away like that.
"Let me think!" Cam ran fingers through his disheveled hair. "I'm going to my office to find something. Keep everybody quiet. Don't let them get their pants twisted."
"You got it." Catherine walked off to have a conference with the actors. Next the crew. She'd tell them to sample the fresh strawberries catering had brought for breakfast snacking. Or the cantaloupe. Cantaloupe was high in vitamins C and A. Soothing food usually worked wonders on frayed nerves. Cam, for instance, needed about a truckload of the stuff.
Less than fifteen minutes passed and Cam literally burst from his closed office door. The door slammed and hit the wall, getting everyone's attention. You never knew when Cam was going to explode from his office or walk out like a regular human being. The explosions were enough to put everyone on fresh alert. Conversation stalled and the fresh fruit platters were forgotten. Cam looked like a mad locomotive as he swung his arms and barreled toward them.
"We were supposed to shoot out in the hills today, but that's been canceled until tomorrow. Here's the new scene. Keep the other one you studied last night and we'll play catch-up tomorrow. You've got forty-five minutes to study this one. Ad-lib if you have to, improvise, do a riff on the dialogue. We're getting it done today or we don't leave the lot."
He handed out the new batch of scene scripts, shooting them from his hands like throwing hot rocks. He consulted the big-faced Rolex on his wrist, clocking the readings.
Robyn called him over while the scripts were being read. The actors wandered to their dressing rooms. The crew went into various empty conference rooms that boasted long tables and comfortable chairs. No one mouthed a word of protest.
"Herb fucked up?" Robyn asked. "That's what Catherine told me, Herb fucked up."
"Royally. He's had months to get permits and work out all the legal stuff and now he tells me it's not done. I ought to slap the motherfucker into Sunday."
"You want some cereal? How about a slice of watermelon or some grapes?"
"What? Do I look hungry to you?" Cam twisted his mouth and frowned. He wore anger like a necklace, something big and gaudy and unmistakably expensive that lay in full view on his black hairy chest, glimpsed through the opening of his blue chambray shirt.
"You look like someone hauled you out of an alleyway. I hate to tell you this, Cam, but your hair could use a comb." She gave a small innocent smile.
Cam scowled at her, ready to blow like a volcano, but she smiled more brightly now, a fluorescent shine gleaming from her dark eyes. Then she reached out and smoothed down his ruffled black hair. When she did that, he grinned crookedly and all his anxiety fled. She was a rainbow and the storm was over.
"I been meaning to talk to you about Landry. I went to the Universe the other night hunting for you." He searched his back pockets for a comb.
"Yeah, what night was that? I'm not there every night of the week, Cam. Just most every night. Pick up a phone. They tell me the connections work real good these days."
Cam found what he was searching for in his back jeans pocket and combed his hair into a semblance of order. "Fuck what night, I didn't find you so let's move on. How do you stand that place? It's a freak show, the whole place is full of freaks. Never mind." He waved away her coming defense of the club. "See, Landry's not coming through. You know his stuff even better than I do. It was your fucking bright idea I give him the lead. If I remember right, you almost got on your knees and begged." His eyes twinkled, enjoying teasing her. But the a
nger returned, swift as sudden cloud cover. "Now how about you telling me why he ought to be doing this part instead of his lookalike, the wooden Indian back in the Old West prop room."
Robyn laughed. "Aw, he's not that bad. I think he's nervous. You're intimidating him. You intimidate everybody. Except me. I think you're a pussycat."
"Shit, I'll show him intimidation if he doesn't break out of that daze he's in. You know what he looks like in dailies? Like Alec Guinness on tranqs. I should have hired Hoffman even if I do hate that fucking egomaniacal dwarf. Or, hell, maybe I could have done something with Powers Boothe, has-been or not. I loved that guy as Jim Jones. I watch it every two years. Jesus, I don't know why I haven't used him yet, I need to write a note to myself."
"Landry's the right one for the job, Cam, and you know it. The names bring the wrong expectation for this part. We're not switching in midstream. I'll talk to him."
"You do that, okay? I've taken comedians and made them into dramatic actors, surprising not only the public, but myself. But I'm not so sure I can take a pretty-baby leading man and make him into the kind of star material I need for this. He doesn't have some cute little starlet here to hug and smooch on all day. I want him on the edge. Can you do something about putting him against a sharp razor, try to draw some blood? It's like some fucking vampire's already drained him dry."
"I said I'd try."
"No time like the present. He can't fuck this scene today because he's not in it, but he's in tomorrow's scene. Go after him now. Do what you got to do."
Robyn raised one perfect brow. "I don't think offering him a quickie would work."
"Like I say, do whatever you have to, but make him ready. Break that deadwood exterior or we're in big trouble, Robyn, I'm not kidding you now, I'm serious. I don't have to tell you how important it is for everyone to pull out the best they've got in 'em."
Robyn patted Cam's arm, an unconscious motherly gesture, and headed for Jackie Landry's dressing room. It wouldn't take sex, that wasn't called for, not now, not for this. Not that she had any aversion to trying out one of the best-looking studs in Hollywood. But no, that's not what would turn the trick. She was going to appeal to his ego in other ways. Cam had to get him performing at top notch or Pure was going down the tubes. Robyn was prepared to lie or pray or get on her back for this movie, if it came to that, if she discovered that was what it took. That's how much it meant.
Just the future, that's all. The whole goddamn future. Ending up on some street corner hawking carnations didn't appeal to Robyn, and as far as she could see, that was the alternative.
13
"The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities."
Daniel Day Lewis, Rolling Stone
"I don't have a part in this scene," Landry said as Robyn entered his dressing room after knocking. He looked confused and disappointed.
"You'll do your part tomorrow—the scene we were supposed to shoot today."
"Well, I don't know why Cam gave me this and told us all we had less than an hour to study it if I'm not in the scene."
"He didn't take time to remember who was in it and who wasn't. He's . . . a little flustered, what with the last-minute change and all." Robyn took a folding chair and dragged it over to the upholstered wing chair Jackie sat in, the script in his lap. "Look, we need to talk."
Jackie set aside the script, letting the pages fold closed. "You want something to drink?" he asked, beginning to rise from the chair. Robyn took his wrist and he sat down again.
"No, I don't want anything. I have to tell you something important."
"What is it?"
When he was puzzled his eyebrows drew together. He really was gorgeous. Redford as a young man had nothing on Jackie Landry. Robyn felt a sexual spin rush over her. Maybe she should . . . ask him out. She blinked away the thought for later. Stop this, she admonished herself. He looks nothing like Karl. He acts nothing like Karl. You won't like him in bed, you know you won't. And he's too young for you, at least too young for a serious relationship to develop. Get a grip, kiddo.
"I'm the one got you hired for the part," she said.
"You? Well, gee . . ." He smiled, his white teeth lighting up his face. Then the smile faded when she didn't return it. "Cam probably didn't want me. What's wrong? I'm fucking up, that's it, isn't it?" He hung his head, a little boy about to receive his punishment.
"Jackie, listen to me. What you've done in pictures is good work, you know that. People envy you and you're offered some of the best parts, you make big money. But until now you haven't been given a chance to really act. The closest you got to it was in that remake where you played the cheap hood—and even that was more romance than drama."
"I would have been better than Gere in Breathless. That's the cheap hood I should have gotten to play."
Robyn reached out and took his chin, lifting his broad, handsome face. "You would have been perfect in Breathless. But even in that you couldn't do what you can do in the picture we're filming now. Do you understand me? This is your shot, Jackie. You keep dancing around with Cam and missing the inflections and getting off mark and tightening up on camera, you're going to blow the one chance you've got to show the world what you're made of."
He jerked away his face from her hand and looked at the door as if he wanted to get up and run out of it. "I'm trying. Cam's pushing. He won't stop pushing me. If he'd slack . . ."
"Cam's not going to slack up. He's going to get harder, he's going to get so hard you'll think you have a hundred-pound anvil on the back of your neck. I think you can take it, Jackie. I'm the one who begged for your chance. I'm the one Cam's going to turn on if you don't come through on this. Not to mention what's going to happen to me if this picture takes a dive or it gets canned. I've never been involved in a film that got shelved, but things happen. Bad things. Don't let that happen to me, Jackie."
"I'm not deliberately letting anyone down."
He still wouldn't look at her. Her tone had been scolding. Now she rolled her head around on her shoulders to loosen up the muscles tensed and bunched there like gnarled tree roots. "Jackie?"
"What?" Sullen. She had to change it all around. Actors were all kids. More truth than lie. With a kid you reinforced with sincere flattery. Nine of out ten times it worked. She had nothing to lose because she was sincere in what she was going to say to him. It was always easier to be genuine.
"You're the only actor on this picture who has the least chance of being a star when the audiences flock to see it. Did you know that? If you go tell this to Olivia or any of the others, I'll deny I said it, I'll call you a goddamn liar to your face, but I'll tell you the truth in private. You can be bigger than Tom Cruise. You can be more sensitive and brilliant than Val Kilmer, more dynamic than Travolta was in Pulp Fiction, more sexually dangerous and attractive than Pacino in his early films, more moving and believable than DeNiro. You can reach the top with this one film. Only you."
His head came up slowly. He had recognized the honesty in her voice. It had touched him where he needed it most, she saw that in his eyes. He opened like a night-blooming flower, the understanding in his eyes widening slowly, circling his brain, settling into a comfortable place in his soul. Had no one ever told him this before? Didn't he know it? How could someone with such potential not know it?
There lay Jackie Landry's true innocence and his real strength. He had not bought into the Hollywood dream fully. He had not fallen for self-delusion. He had not inflated his worth until it was so large it engulfed a minor talent and rode it into the ground.
"You mean it," he said.
She nodded, biting her lip. She waited until the dawning of his understanding became full day. "You have to do this for me," she said, almost in a whisper as if this were a secret between them. "You have to do this for yourself."
She waited again while he stared at her, stared at her lips as if she might say mo
re.
"I can't keep trying," he said, stating the truth he knew finally. "I can't try, I have to be what it is Cam wants. That's what you mean."
"Yes." Her heart leaped, rejoicing.
"I should have no fear, not of Cam, not of Olivia, not of myself."
"Yes, yes!"
"I have to be Perry Johns and no one else but Perry Johns. I have to be him more than I'm me. I have to let his suffering in.”
"See? I knew you'd understand!"
He stood with her and they embraced, happy children, children who have forgiven one another past grievances and are willing to love again.
He said against her ear, "Thank you, Robyn. Even if you've lied to me, thank you. Don't worry any more, you don't have to worry about me."
She closed her eyes, basking in his maleness, secure in the circle of his strong young arms. She whispered back to him, unable to stop herself, "Meet me at the Universe tonight. Dance with me then. Just one dance."
"All right," he said, releasing her and smiling down into her face.
He was radiant, an angel, and at that moment, God, how she loved him; every inch of him, every hair, every last masculine beautiful bit of him.
14
"Just like those other black holes from outer space, Hollywood is postmodern to this extent: it has no center, only a spreading dead zone of exhaustion, inertia, and brilliant decay."
Arthur Kroker, Panic Hollywood
Robyn melted in Jackie's arms during a slow dance in Heaven. The band sang old blues tunes made famous in the forties by Robert Johnson. The singer doing the cover version was black, male, and exceptionally talented, although not a rival for the throne of bluesman Johnson.
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