“Clark,” she said, “don’t you think this woman looks just like Vivien Leigh?”
He was taller than I imagined. He smiled that famous smile—his teeth did not look like dentures, thank God!—and enclosed my hands in his huge, warm grasp. I nearly melted on the spot, but tried to compose myself. This was my moment, the moment every woman in the city had hoped for, and I intended to enjoy it.
“Yes,” Clark said, “I do believe she does. Yes, indeed.”
“Her name is Ariel. Ariel Richards.”
“My pleasure,” Clark said, still engulfing my hands.
“Likewise,” I responded. I may have even curtsied, though I can’t recall.
All around, women gawked at him, at me, at us. I could not take my eyes off the man, but I doubted he would remember me five minutes from now.
Clark leaned in toward Margaret. “I want to talk to you. Let’s go somewhere we can speak in private.” Taking her by the arm, he dragged her into the ladies’ room, of all places.
To this day, no one knows what he or she said to one another.
I wondered, even in that instant, what a woman needing to relieve herself would think if she ran into Clark Gable in the ladies’ room—although it’s possible every woman in that theater would have risked bursting her bladder rather than missing even one moment of the premiere. Myself included.
I scrambled to find my seat. The movie started. For the first few minutes, neither Margaret nor Clark were anywhere to be seen. When at last the famed author did take her place in the theater, she was seated next to me.
“Oh, it’s you, Ariel. How nice.”
I noticed she had alcohol on her breath.
Gone with the Wind swept the screen in a way never before witnessed, an awe-inspiring event. Mr. Gable became even more the man of my dreams, as he did for every other woman in the theatre that night. Already adored, from this point on he would be immortalized in the eyes of the American public.
Hundreds of people still lined the streets as we spilled from the theater.
“Say …” Margaret turned to me. “Want to go to a party?”
“I don’t know if—”
“Come on.” She was pulling me along, leading the way to a large limousine where a chauffeur stood stiffly at the door. “Compliments of Louis B. Mayer,” she explained, “the head of MGM studios. It’s so awfully embarrassing on my own, Ariel. It’s good to have someone with me.”
Who was I to complain?
She fished a tiny silver flask from her purse and took a swig. “Clark gave this to me. I told him I was nervous, and he said this would help. Want a sip?”
“Sure,” I answered. Taking a gulp, I winced as it burned a path down my throat. “Good God! What is this stuff?”
“It’s whiskey. A special one that Clark gets.”
“It’s terrible.”
Margaret looked startled by my honesty, then chuckled. “I like you. I think we might just get along.”
We both took another sip.
***
I had no idea where any of this was leading, but by the time we reached the MGM gala, we were feeling no pain. The chauffeur opened my door, and I spent a good bit of energy planting my foot and wobbling into the cold air. Inside, champagne was flowing, and we drank a lot of it. Waiters replenished glasses before they were empty—instructions from his highness, Louis B. Mayer.
Margaret and I headed through the crowd for the ladies’ room. A man laughing uncontrollably and obviously drunk bumped into me and spilled his drink down the front of my dress. I gaped at the damage, where red wine ran like blood along my cleavage.
“Oops … Excuse me, miss. I am so sorry.” Noticing that my face was as red as his wine, the man was no longer laughing. “Let me get some club soda.” He asked the bartender for a few napkins, then dabbed annoyingly—and futilely—at my chest.
“Uh, that’s okay,” I murmured, trying to get rid of him. Against the white and green taffeta, the red stain adorning the middle of my dress looked no smaller than the state of Texas.
As the man sputtered more apologies, I noticed Mr. Gable smoking and laughing with a few men nearby. He turned toward the ruckus, and spotted Margaret and me.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said, with that fabulous smirk I’d just seen on the screen. Squinting, he looked me up and down.
I blushed, feeling naked.
“It looks like someone had a run-in with someone else who was having a little too much fun.” He laughed. “Here, let me have a look at it. My wife, Carole—see her way over there?—she taught me a neat little trick. Bartender, would you give me a glass of ice cubes, please?” Taking several cubes in hand, he rubbed them on the stain.
I shivered. From the cold, I’m sure.
“My, isn’t that a beautiful pendant,” Clark said, staring at my crystal heart. He weighed it in his palm, his breath caressing my breasts. “Is this a diamond?”
“A quartz crystal,” I said.
“Looks almost magical.”
Little do you know, mister. I’m beginning to figure that out myself.
“See, this will keep the wine from setting in the material,” Clark said, returning to the job at hand. “It’s a far-too-pretty dress and you’re a far-too-pretty girl to have your night ruined.”
The dark burgundy stain had faded to a light pink.
He grinned. “Pretty good, huh? There, that should help.”
“Thank you, Mr.—”
“Call me Clark.”
“Thanks, Clark.”
With a twinkle in his eye, he looked me up and down as though I were a rare tasty morsel he was about to devour. “Now go have fun, Ariel. And I don’t want to see you getting into any more trouble tonight.” He gave another laugh and swatted me lightly on the behind.
“I guess it’s true then, what they say,” Margaret noted, once he was out of earshot. “His two great passions are booze and women!”
From my perspective, he was sensitive and considerate, and not as full of himself as one might expect from a superstar.
Margaret said, “We have one more party to attend before my own at the Georgian Terrace Hotel. I do hope you’ll join me.”
I jumped at the chance.
She chuckled. “You’re with me tonight, kid.”
“And believe me, I’m loving every minute. But why don’t you have a date, Margaret?”
Her chuckle dissipated. “My boyfriend and I broke up a few days ago.”
I offered my condolences, and she waved them off.
When we arrived at the next party, I immediately spotted Clarke and Carole Lombard. Neither of them looked happy. I maneuvered through the crowd, and found myself eavesdropping on their conversation.
“No, I was not,” Clark said, slurring his words.
“Yes, I think you were. In fact, I know you were,” Carole retorted.
Catching my eye, he excused himself and meandered my direction. His wife’s gaze followed him with as much disdain as jealousy, and I feared the worst for their young relationship. Hollywood marriages were notoriously fragile.
“That dress looks much better now, young lady.” He winked at me, then continued past and mingled in with some other partygoers.
Shortly after ten o’clock, Margaret and I headed to the Georgian Terrace Hotel to prepare for the party she was giving in the ballroom. We freshened up in her bathroom, smoothing our dresses, and touching up lipstick and mascara.
“So,” I asked, “what were you and Clark talking about during the movie, if I’m not being too nosey?”
“Well, for one thing, he wanted to know what all those reporters and journalists wanted to know—if I wrote my story with him in mind.”
“And? Did you?”
She reapplied more red to her lips, then blotted her mouth. “I can’t really say I wrote the whole character with him in mind. I usually create a character from a composite of people I know. Maybe I did use him, in part, because when I see a movie or read about someone,
I tend to think about them. And he’s one of my favorite actors. But believe it or not, my Grandpa Mitchell is the one I really had in mind while developing the Rhett character. He was so dashing, a real charmer—a definite ladies’ man.”
“Did you tell Clark about him?”
“Heavens, no! I could never be a party-pooper on his big night. Why not let him think I modeled Rhett after him? Oh, I know it’s a little white lie. But he’s a star, and you just can’t tell a star the whole truth sometimes.”
I smiled, thinking she was as smitten as I was with him.
“The other thing he went on about was Louis B. Mayer.”
“The head of MGM?”
“Clark despises the man,” Margaret said. “He called him a ‘miserable little maggot,’ and must have ranted on about him for at least twenty minutes. He’s not too crazy about David O. Selznick either. You know who he is, I’m sure. One of the movie’s producers. Clark called him a horse’s ass.”
My eyes met hers in the vanity mirror. “I promise not to tell.”
***
By the time we entered the ballroom, many people were milling about and more were arriving. The chatter grew in volume as the attendance rose and alcohol ran freely. I kept looking for Clark, and when he finally showed up he was without Carole. He headed, first thing, to the bar. It looked like he needed more to drink, like a hole in the head; but then again, same for Margaret and I.
That did not stop any of us.
A blonde woman stood by the door, dressed in a long black gown with white ermine fur around her neck. Clark ambled over to her with a glass of champagne. She draped herself on his arm, and they began whispering in each other’s ears, laughing and smiling.
Within moments another man appeared and yanked the woman away from Clark. His voice carried to where I was standing. “Come here, you little whore. You’re embarrassing the hell out of yourself—and me!”
“Who are they?” I asked Margaret.
“I don’t know who the woman is, but that man is David Selznick. And I don’t believe his wife is a blonde.”
The blonde woman threw her champagne in Selznick’s face. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she snarled. “You don’t own me!”
“You will never work in this town again, you little slut.” He wiped his face with his handkerchief.
“Oh, in this town, David? You mean Atlanta? No problem, you jerk. They don’t even make movies here.”
“In Hollywood, you bubblehead!”
Clark intervened. “Look, David, you have this all wrong. We were just talking. Nothing more.”
Selznick glared at his debonair star. “If you weren’t who you are, and we weren’t where we are, I’d really let you have it. Oh, and by the way,” he sneered, “where is your wife? Maybe you should be worrying about her.”
Clark stepped closer, getting in the producer’s face. “It’s none of your goddamn business where my wife is. It looks to me like we have all had a little too much to drink, so before anybody says anything else they will regret, let’s drop it. Okay?”
Selznick dragged the woman off, and slammed the door behind them.
Clark, seeing Margaret and me, walked over. “I’m sorry the two of you had to witness that spectacle. He is a conceited little SOB. He drove everybody on the set crazy, the insufferable little maggot. We all wanted to strangle him, and he’s lucky I did not deck him just now.”
Margaret fidgeted. Her party was not going as hoped.
Clark placed an arm over her shoulder. “But let’s not allow him to spoil our evening. What’re you ladies drinking? I’m having a strawberry daiquiri. Would you like one too, or some more champagne?” His grin brightened the room, breaking the pall ushered in by the conflict.
“Some champagne,” I piped in, sure that my taste for daiquiris had been squelched permanently by Hemingway. I still could not believe I was in the same room with the Clark Gable.
Too bad he was married.
As if reading my mind, Margaret asked Clark, “Where’s Carole? Isn’t she coming?”
“She wasn’t feeling well and went up to the room. She might be coming down with a bug or something.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We were hoping she would be here.”
Really, Margaret? Listen, lady, speak for yourself.
My thoughts were interrupted by the reappearance of Mr. Selznick. “You son of a bitch,” he screeched in Clark’s face. “She told me all about you two! Listen, you—I have been working with her, grooming her for six months now, and that is the best little piece of ass I’ve ever had. With all the other starlets falling all over you, you could have anyone. But no, you had to have her, didn’t you?”
“Hey now,” Clark said, backing up.
Selznick took a swing at his face, catching him on the chin and knocking him backward. He did not fall, but blood seeped between his fingers when he covered his mouth. He scanned the polished marble, then bent for an object he had dropped.
I could not believe my eyes.
False teeth?
I’d heard rumors like everyone else, but here on the floor was irrefutable proof. For the second time in five minutes, the room fell silent.
Clark’s face reddened as he popped the teeth back in his mouth. All eyes looked away. “Well,” he said, not missing a beat, “I guess he took the words right out of my mouth … along with everything else.”
That was smooth. Real smooth.
With the tension relieved by his self-deprecating humor, the party resumed, the angry producer retreated, and I offered my handkerchief to Mr. Gable, coming to his rescue like he had come to mine earlier. He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his left hand and thanked me. With his right hand, he swiped another glass of champagne from a server’s tray—as easy as could be, as if nothing had happened at all.
Smooth, like I said.
***
It was past one in the morning by the time all the guests had left.
Tired and ready to call it a night, I heard some people planning to continue the party elsewhere. I headed up to Margaret’s suite instead, where we spent the next hour trading gossip about who was the prettiest of the women and handsomest of the men. I told her that I too was a writer, at work on my first book, and she showed genuine interest.
My dress had grown uncomfortable, and my corset beneath it even more so. I longed for sleep, and when I saw that it was 2:30 a.m., I wondered aloud where I was supposed to spend the night.
“In your room,” Margaret said. “I know you’ve had a bit to drink, but surely you wouldn’t misplace your key. Check your purse. That would be the natural place to put it.”
“My key? Oh, of course.” I stared at my closed purse.
“Well, go on.”
I ventured a peek inside, startled to find a key with the number 601 on it. That would be the room directly one floor below this one. I lifted the key into view, and Margaret flashed a mischievous grin. I figured there was no need to argue.
And that’s when Fate marched in.
***
Since the elevator was at the far end of the corridor, I decided to take the stairs down instead. As I tiptoed toward my room, a “Psst, psst” caused me to turn, and I found Clark Gable himself in the doorway of the room across the hall—naked, except for a towel around his waist and a half-empty glass in hand.
“Look,” he said in a hushed voice.
I was looking, all right.
“I’m in kind of a jam here,” he went on. “Can you help me out? See, Carol and I had a little fight. Actually, we’ve been fighting all evening, and she decided to go get her own room. She ran out, and when I tried to follow her … well, the door closed behind me, and now I’m locked out.”
“You don’t have your key on you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you see it anywhere?”
“Maybe you or Carole dropped it on the floor. Take a look around.”
He did so, the towel twirling and providing a clear view of his firm, fam
ous, well-rounded butt.
“Nope,” he said. “Don’t see it.”
Well I saw it, alright. But it was not any key.
“Ariel, I can’t go downstairs like this, not with the photographers and reporters still lurking about. So …” He paused. “Would you be a lamb, and allow me into your room to call the front desk for an extra key?”
This, I thought, explained why Carole never made it to Margaret’s party.
“Of course,” I said. “My room’s right here.” What else could I say? Who was I to deny helping a gorgeous film icon in his hour of need?
He followed me in, plopped down in his towel on a large club chair. He poured himself a drink from the tray on the lamp stand. While he seemed comfortable enough, I was decidedly uncomfortable. He was turning me on, and I could hardly look at him.
“Mr. Gable—”
“Ariel, please. I’m alone with you in your room. I’m wearing barely anything. We really don’t need to be so formal, do we?”
“Clark,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I loved the movie. You must be happy about all your success, huh?”
He sipped the golden liquid from his glass. “Look, you wanna know the truth? A lot of the stuff that’s happened to me has been nothing but blind luck. There’s no special light shining inside me that makes me a star. I’m just a lucky slob from Ohio, who happened to be in the right place at the right time, with a lot of smart guys helping me along the way. That’s all.” Another sip. “And it was the same with Gone with the Wind. None of us thought it would amount to a hill of beans. Hell, I didn’t even want to do the damn thing.”
He had entered my room to call the front desk, and hadn’t done so yet. As far as I was concerned, though, this scenario was too interesting to interrupt.
Was I staring? I straightened an imaginary wrinkle in my bed.
He was wearing that smirk again. He lit a cigarette. “You want one?”
“Oh, thank you,” I said, forgetting I didn’t even smoke. When he leaned in and touched the lighter to the tip, I found a billow of smoke filling my mouth and burning my throat. I broke into a coughing fit.
Hillary Kanter - Dead Men Are Easy To Love Page 11