Starstruck

by Rachel Shukert

  “Oh.” Margaret shook her head. “No.”

  “You’re not a writer. I haven’t seen many writers who look like you.”

  “Oh, no, no.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re an extra. Well, don’t worry. You’ll get noticed soon enough. Just show a little leg when the casting guys come around, but don’t believe a word they say if they promise you anything. It’s like Viola always says, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”

  “I don’t know,” Margaret said, startled by Gabby’s frank implication. “Maybe so you can slaughter it and turn it into steaks and handbags?”

  Gabby laughed with wide-eyed surprise. “Hey, that’s funny. Maybe you should be a writer after all.”

  “Actually”—Margaret leaned forward shyly—“I’ve just finished filming a screen test.”

  “What? Now? Your first one?”

  Margaret nodded. “I’ve only just come from the soundstage.”

  Gabby let out a little shriek. Her huge chocolate-colored eyes, wide with excitement, seemed to take up half of her small face. “Congratulations! That’s marvelous!”

  “I don’t know.” Margaret shook her head. “I wouldn’t congratulate me just yet.”

  “Trust me, doll, if you can still stand being around this when it’s over, it went just fine. Who’d they get to direct it?”

  “Mr. Kurtzman.”

  Gabby’s eyebrows shot up about three inches, which, in a face as small as hers, meant they practically touched the top of her head. “Raoul Kurtzman?”

  “Yes. Is that good?”

  “It’s interesting,” Gabby said. “Let’s just say usually the kind of guy they get for that sort of thing is some no-name hanging around reading comic books at Schwab’s, desperate to be picked as a runt when they’re choosing up sides for football. Not someone like Raoul Kurtzman.”

  “Well, I’d never heard of him.”

  “That’s because he’s only been out here for about a year. But before that he was one of the most famous film directors in Germany. A real artiste, so to speak.”

  “Why’d he leave, then?”

  Gabby looked at her as if she were crazy. “Why do they all leave? Hitler.” She shrugged her small shoulders. “Although I can’t for the life of me understand why so many people are so afraid of some crazy guy who looks like Charlie Chaplin. But I don’t know anything about politics. Studio politics, yes. And politically, for Raoul Kurtzman to direct a screen test, well, that’s very interesting. Very interesting indeed.”

  “Well, whatever they’re looking for, it started out horribly,” Margaret said. “The lights were so hot, and I couldn’t find my ‘mark’ or whatever it’s called …”

  “And they put you in some horrific dress and kept shouting through that ghastly megaphone,” Gabby finished. “Believe me, I know. I’ve been here six months now, but I’m still practically in the same boat as you. I mean, I’ve gotten used to the camera and the lights and all that, but still, the famous directors, the Kurtzmans and the Toynbees, they’re the worst. You miss a dance step or a music cue, or you’re so much as five minutes late for morning call because you were rehearsing until three in the morning the night before, and they look at you like you’re something they just stepped in. Because they’re the artist, you see, and you’re the one ruining their artistic perfection.” She gave a rueful giggle. “And that’s not even counting all the gorgeous glamour girls swanning all over the place, making you feel about four feet tall. Of course, I am only about four feet tall.” Gabby nodded in the direction of the scowling leprechaun at the door, swigging liberally from a flask of something before he welcomed the next party. “If I were any smaller, they’d have me dressed up like Barty. Of course,” she continued, “that won’t be a problem for you. You’re not an ugly duckling like me. You know what they say about ugly ducklings in Hollywood?”

  “What’s that?”

  Gabby grinned. “They turn into even uglier ducks.”

  “Oh come on,” Margaret said. “You’re hardly an ugly duckling.” It was true that Gabby was certainly no classical beauty, but with her huge sparkling eyes and bouncing dark curls, she was undeniably adorable. The first time Margaret had seen her picture, she’d thought Gabby looked exactly like Esmeralda Annabel, who had been Margaret’s favorite childhood porcelain doll until Emmeline knocked her off the shelf when she was cleaning and cracked her face in two.

  “Oh, I wasn’t fishing,” Gabby said matter-of-factly. “I’m cute as a bug’s ear, or so everyone keeps telling me, but around here I sometimes feel like something they dredged up from the pond. If I couldn’t sing, the closest I’d get to this place would be working as a washerwoman. Or a script girl, I suppose, although then I’d have to be able to read.”

  “You mean … you can’t …” Margaret tried not to look shocked, but she was unaccustomed to anyone revealing such personal information so early in an acquaintance.

  “Oh, I’m exaggerating. Of course I can, a little. But everything I know my sister Frankie taught me. You see, there just wasn’t any time for proper school. Traipsing all over creation doing vaudeville from the time you can walk doesn’t exactly turn you into a scholar.” She slumped her head dramatically down on the table and sprang back up with a start. “Ow! I forgot I was wearing these stupid curlers! My poor head.”

  A green-jacketed waiter, of normal height but with an enormous shamrock in his buttonhole, approached the table. “Are you ladies ready to order?”

  “I … I haven’t even seen a menu,” Margaret said.

  “There isn’t one,” Gabby said. “And if there were, no one would order off it. Everyone in Hollywood is always on some crazy diet. Just order whatever you want to eat, and they’ll make it. This is the Dream Factory, after all.”

  “Oh, I see. Um … do you have egg salad?”

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “Margo, I told you, they have everything. Just go ahead and order. Be as big a pain as you can be.”

  Margaret took a deep breath. Her mother had always told her it was unladylike for a lady to be too particular about her food in public; actually, in public, a lady was scarcely meant to eat at all. But as long as they were offering, why not go for it? “In that case, I’ll have an egg salad sandwich on rye toast. Don’t make the toast too dark, please. Iceberg lettuce on the sandwich, no tomato. The tomato I want on the side, with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper. And to drink, I’ll have a Coca-Cola … no, wait, a seltzer water, with lime. But the lime cut crosswise, not lengthwise. If you don’t mind.”

  Gabby nodded approvingly. “You’re a natural. The crosswise-cut lime is an especially nice touch.” She turned to the waiter. “For me, Tony, I’d like a cheeseburger, please. And a dish of french fries, with lots of ketchup. And two—no, make it three pieces of fried chicken, and some mashed potatoes with gravy. Give me a pork chop too, if you have one, with applesauce. Oh, and a hot fudge sundae, with chopped nuts and two cherries on top, please. You can bring it all out at once.”

  It was an outlandish lunch order for a girl who had just given a long interview in Picture Palace about her latest slimming regime, Margaret thought, but it would obviously be the height of rudeness to point it out. She changed the subject. “My friend Doris bought the recording of you singing ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart.’ We listened to it again and again. We couldn’t believe how it sounded exactly like it did in No Time but Swing Time.”

  Gabby laughed. “That’s because it was exactly the same recording.”

  “You mean—that wasn’t …”

  “Me singing live? God, no. You go in and record the song in a booth, with the orchestra, and then they play it back when they shoot the scene and you just mouth along. Otherwise, you’d have to pay the musicians a fortune to sit there while they fuss around with the lights and the set and powdering all the actors every five seconds like we’re babies with diaper rash. Honestly, isn’t making pictures just the absolute dullest? Give me a live audience any day. But vaudev
ille’s dead, and Viola doesn’t fancy me doing eight shows a week for pin money and Broadway, and anyway, she says the cold bothers her sciatica.”

  “Who is Viola?” Margaret asked.

  “My old lady. The old ball and chain.”

  “Your … your wife?” Margaret asked, confused.

  Gabby hooted. “My mother.”

  “You call your mother by her first name?”

  “What else am I supposed to call her? Darling Mama? She’s not exactly the type. Although she turns it on for Karp. We both do.”

  “Leo Karp? You mean the head of the studio?”

  “The very same. He’s a hard-nosed businessman, but there are two things that get him right in the gut: patriotism and motherhood. Listen, kid, you ever run afoul of old Karp, you just get a tear in your eye and talk about how much you love your mother and your country, and he’ll turn to mush so fast you can eat him with a spoon. But I’ll tell you what, Viola doesn’t exactly inspire sonnets. Ugh. Mothers. Am I right or am I right?” The arrival of Tony the waiter with her egg salad and seltzer, prepared exactly as requested, saved Margaret from having to respond. In front of Gabby, he unceremoniously plunked down a bowl of unadorned chicken broth. Not a French fry or an ice cream sundae in sight.

  “She’s developing expensive tastes out here too,” Gabby continued rapidly, seemingly oblivious to the food. “Just the other day, she shows up at my dance rehearsal wearing yet another new mink stole she bought for three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars! For her trip to Palm Springs, she says, also undoubtedly paid for by the sweat of my little brow. You look shocked. You should be shocked! Who the hell wears fur in the desert?”

  “No …,” Margaret began, although the truth was she was shocked by so many things about Gabby that she hardly knew how to separate them. “I think they brought you the wrong meal.”

  Gabby finally glanced down at her soup. “Oh, that!” She laughed. “Don’t mind that. You see, Tully Toynbee—you know, the director?—got Mr. Karp to tell the commissary to serve me nothing—and I mean nothing—but chicken soup until I lose twenty pounds.”

  “Twenty pounds?” Margaret’s mouth fell open. Even with the bulk added by her oversized bathrobe, Gabby looked like the kind of delicate fairy you’d see tiptoeing over the petals of a flower in a Victorian picture book, with a snail shell for a hat and a needle for a sword. “From where? Are you supposed to cut off your head?”

  “Spoken like one of the naturally slender,” Gabby muttered. “I know it sounds like a lot, but it isn’t really. The cameras put on at least ten, and I was at least ten too big to begin with. Anyway, it’s fun to order the most outrageous things I can think of, just to get a rise out of the waiters. Yesterday, I asked the fellow for an entire roast beef, two dozen scrambled eggs, and a New York cheesecake with strawberry sauce on top. And then I asked him if he would bring me the bucket of fat drippings out of the kitchen to wash it all down with.”

  “And they don’t say anything?”

  Gabby’s eyes twinkled. “Not a word. It’s company policy. They’re not supposed to ask any questions, or even so much as crack a smile. I heard that Garbo got a waiter fired for asking if she wanted him to leave the dressing off her salad, and frankly, I think he got off easy. I mean, really, offending Greta Garbo? At MGM? Mayer could have had him executed for that. No, go ahead, don’t wait for me! Eat! You must be starving.”

  Reluctantly, Margaret picked up her sandwich. “Don’t you get hungry?”

  “Not a bit. Not with these marvelous little pills Dr. Lipkin gave me.”

  “Dr. Lipkin?”

  “The studio doctor. Absolutely the nicest, cleverest man in the whole wide world. All you do is go into his office and tell him you need to lose some weight. First he gives you a shot, just to kick-start the process, and then he gives you these darling little pills. You swallow one down whenever you get the teensiest bit hungry, and presto, not hungry anymore! I’ve lost six pounds already and it’s only been a week.”

  Margaret frowned. It sounded awfully dangerous. “What does your mother think?”

  “Did you not listen to anything I told you about Viola? She’s thrilled. She says her only regret is that I didn’t start taking them three months ago, when I lost that big part at MGM to Deanna Durbin.” Gabby snorted. “They said they were ‘going in a different musical direction,’ but really it’s because they thought I was a big fat pig. Now Viola’s practically shoving the pills down my throat. And the best part about them is not only are you not hungry, you’ve suddenly got gobs of energy, like you could practically take on the world. The only teensy tiny problem is that sometimes they make it a little hard to sleep, but Dr. Lipkin has some pills for that too, not that I have much time for sleeping. Honestly, it all works a treat. Dr. Lipkin told me that Diana Chesterfield was practically the size of a garage when she first came to him.…”

  “And now she’s disappeared altogether.” The words were out before Margaret could stop them.

  Gabby’s eyes flew open as she lunged across the table “Why? What have you heard? Did Kurtzman say something?”

  “Oh, no!” Margaret backpedaled furiously. She couldn’t help feeling as though she’d spoken out of turn. “Nothing like that. It’s just that—”

  “Because he’s supposed to be directing her new picture, you know. The Nine Days’ Queen. Big costume drama. It was supposed to be his first big project since Europe. The studio spent a fortune on it, and now it’s on hold, and nobody … Oh God.” Gabby’s gaze drifted suddenly across the room. “Not her. Just look at her.”

  “Who?”

  “Her.” Gabby pointed a finger toward the entrance. Snaking a path through the commissary floor, leaving in her wake a trail of tables full of awestruck men with half-chewed food visible in their open mouths, was the most extravagantly beautiful girl Margaret had ever seen. Her hair was a radiant shade of red, like that of a nymph in a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and cascaded luxuriously down her shoulders in glossy, sensuous waves. Even from across the room, her large hazel eyes emitted a vivid glow. Her magnificent figure was encased in a tight black bombazine suit that hugged her in all the right places and set off her pale skin and fiery hair to glorious effect. Only when she had finally reached her table—the absolute farthest from the commissary door, clearly selected solely for its ability to afford her the longest possible procession—where she was partially hidden by an enormous bunch of emerald balloons, did the hush lift from the room and the diners return to their previously scheduled activities of eating, gossiping, and complaining.

  Gabby shook her head in disgust. “Honestly. Who the hell does she think she is?”

  “I don’t know. Who is she?”

  “She calls herself Amanda Farraday,” Gabby sneered. “I suppose she’s some kind of actress, although I’ve yet to see her do much acting—that is, in the traditional sense. All I know is that no one had ever heard of her, and then all of a sudden she shows up on the lot with a private dressing room and an umpteen-dollar Packard convertible and a bunch of clothes straight from Paris. All black, for some ridiculous reason.”

  “Maybe she’s in mourning.”

  “Yeah, for her virtue.”

  “Gabby!” Margaret was startled by the visible change in her new friend. The bubbly, mischievous Gabby of just a few minutes earlier had transformed into a hard-eyed girl with an unnerving edge of bitterness in her voice.

  “Oh, come on. Not a single credit to her belt, and she waltzes in with all that?”

  It hit Margaret like a flash. “I’ve seen her before. I mean, I saw her. Early this morning. Going into the office of a young man, a writer, I think. I only saw her from the back, but I’m sure it was her.”

  Gabby nodded smugly. “There you go. Covering all the bases. It takes an awful lot of guys to keep a girl like that.”

  “You mean there are others?” Margaret whispered.

  “I’d bet my bottom dollar on it. Agents, producers. Maybe Mr. Karp; wouldn’t
surprise me. Sure, he puts on that whole kindly grandpa act, but he’s a man, just like any of them. Maybe even Hunter Payne.”

  “Hunter Payne?”

  “The big moneyman in New York,” Gabby said. “He runs the corporation that owns Olympus. Put it this way, if Karp’s the king, Payne’s the Pope. They say the only thing he cares about is the box office, but believe me, he has other interests. And I guarantee you that Amanda Farraday knows all about ’em.”

  She held up her tiny hand before Margaret could interrupt. “Listen, Margo, there’s no point in defending her. Girls like that just make things harder for the rest of us. You think it doesn’t happen? Listen, when I was ten years old, playing the Palace Theater, some pervert producer told my mother he’d make me the headliner if she’d let him have a couple of hours alone in a room with me. To my continuing surprise, Viola was actually horrified. Even she has her limits, I guess. But the next thing I know, I’m off the bill, and another girl, even younger than me, is at the top of the marquee. I guess her mother wasn’t so easily shocked.”

  Margaret suddenly felt desperate to change the subject. She didn’t want to hear about this. Hollywood was supposed to be a fairyland. The Dream Factory. Gabby made it sound more like a nightmare. “Tell me more about ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart.’ ”

  Gabby looked at her incredulously. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well …” Margaret thought frantically. “What do you think made it … so … so good?”

  “Well,” Gabby said, sitting back in her chair with a satisfied look, “with a song like that, you have to act it. You have to think about how it relates to your life and put that emotion behind the words.” Just like Dane said about Lady Olivia, Margaret thought. “You’ve got to think about the person your heart goes ‘zing’ for.” She leaned forward mischievously. “So I thought about Jimmy.”

  “You? And Jimmy?” For a moment, Margaret forgot all about Amanda Farraday. Wait till Doris heard about this. “Are the two of you … going together?”

  Gabby smiled mysteriously. “Not technically. But I imagine it’s only a matter of time until we’re allowed to announce.”