Famous

by Stan Charnofsky

  It was a turn-on for Harry, yet he tended to avoid excessive praise when Juliet was present. It was not a full awareness, but some subterranean energy informed him that between the two women there was a sort of unspoken tension.

  Juliet’s wondering about whose turn would be next was not long in being addressed. Again, it was professor Benjamin who supplied the lead. The Odyssey Theater, a small, two-hundred-seat venue on the edge of Santa Monica, since they had little funds to engage an established star, had consulted him about someone to play Clarence Darrow in Inherit The Wind. Scanning his class roster, the only one he could come up with was Harry, who was clearly too young for the role. But, he remembered that Harry had earlier played Freud and had been made up to look older, his performance widely praised, and with no reference to inappropriateness of age.

  He asked Harry to stop in to see him and laid it out.

  “The role of Darrow is a Herculean challenge. The play is essentially a dialogue, in a courtroom, between Darrow and Jennings-Bryant, about the right of a teacher named Scopes to present the theory of evolution to his students. They roared and bellowed at each other, two of America’s most distinguished orators, hour after hour, day after day. People fainted in the courtroom, fistfights broke out, as each man strove to destroy the other. A movie was made of it, which you ought to rent and peruse. Spencer Tracy played Darrow, and Frederick March played Bryant, though in the fictional account, the names had been changed. Both of those elegant actors are gone now, but in that movie they did themselves proud. The title comes from Proverbs 11:29: “He that troubleth his own house, Shall inherit the wind.’”

  “Professor, you think I’m ready for this, a professional company, in a truly complex role?”

  “The question is, young man, do you think you are ready?’

  “I’ve read the play. I know that it stretches an actor. I have confidence in myself, but I’m not sure if this is where I ought to start—a lead role, as a character so multifaceted.”

  “Where would you rather start?”

  “It’s not a case of rather. Of course having a lead is heady stuff. But I’m concerned I might need some gigs where I’m in a supporting role first.”

  “One can start at the bottom and work his way up, or, in rare cases where talent is plentiful, leap out and take on something tough, something that seems extreme, and even beyond. Remember the line of poetry: ‘A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’”

  “I appreciate your encouragement. What’s my next step?”

  “I’ll call. Be ready for a contact and a reading. You would still have to win the role.”

  Two days later, Brian De Genera, identifying himself as the Odyssey Theater dramaturge, called on Harry’s home phone, left a message expressing interest in meeting, and suggested a morning run-through the next day. It would be on Friday, the day Harry usually visited Juliet for their weekly frolic. He would have to tell her why he could not make it this time.

  “Well, Harry, that’s marvelous! Not counting Galen, whose film may or may not work out, you’re the second person from our classes to go pro. I have no doubt you will be fabulous.”

  “I don’t have the job yet.”

  “Oh, but you will. You-are-a-winner.”

  Juliet seemed genuinely excited for him, and, as was his pattern with her—smitten as he was—he tended to miss the slight hedge in her enthusiasm; understandably so, since his news triggered in her an emotional ambivalence. Of course she wanted Harry’s success, but then, what about her own? Why Katy? Why Harry? Why not her?

  It was ten A.M. when Harry arrived at the theater, an unassuming, small edifice in a commercial section of West Los Angeles. Palm trees lined the busy street, the only touch of nature in an otherwise synthetic locale, but the building was set in some sixty feet so that passing traffic was not oppressive. There was space in front for audiences to congregate, on evenings when performances were scheduled. There was a box-office window set next to the entrance, where a sign had been plastered: Open At Noon.

  He pulled on the handle of the bright blue door and it opened readily, so that he could pass through into the darkness of the lobby, his eyes out of focus for a moment. Instructions were to turn right and go through the actors’ door to room one. It was the first opening along a short hallway, and he turned into a parlor room, a low-ceilinged affair, with soft armchairs, a rather seedy-looking couch, a coffee carafe on a counter in the back—with a red light shining—and a low coffee-table on which sat a pile of scripts. There were no people in the room.

  He sat on the arm of the couch and waited, got impatient, poured himself a cup of black coffee, searched for cream but couldn’t find any, and returned to his perch on the couch.

  “I’m Brian,” a voice said, and Harry looked up to see a bald-headed man, casually dressed in tee shirt and jeans, sporting a broad, welcoming smile; his face was curiously elliptical in shape and a deep pink in color.

  The two men shook hands and Brian motioned for Harry to sit. “We’re rather informal around here.” He paused, and added, “You’re pretty young. Garth says you’re good.”

  Harry shrugged. Self-promotion was not his forte.

  “A couple of our regulars should be here any moment. I’d like you to read a bit from the script, cold, to kind of catch your appropriateness for the part. We don’t have a lot of time to mess around looking for a lead.”

  “When does it open?”

  “Four weeks. We already have ten sold-out nights and it’s scheduled to run for thirty performances.”

  A silence settled in, and Brian broke it with, “Do you know the play’s story?”

  “Yes sir. I’ve read it. Haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet.”

  “That’s okay. We’d rather you don’t try to copy anyone else’s interpretation. Darrow was a giant of a man. His role needs to be fleshed out with power yet with a sensitivity for his insecurities as well as his strengths.”

  A rather young woman, blonde, pert, hair tied in a pony tail that caused her short crop to take on a wild, horizontal thrust, face serious and intense, walked in with an assertive stride and said, “Let’s get going. I’ve got to be at the gym.”

  “We’re waiting for Toby. He’ll read Brady—uh, Jennings-Bryan. This is Harry. He’s here to read Drummond—Darrow in the real world. This is Nan. She’s part of our ensemble.”

  Nan stuck out her left hand, the right engaged in twirling her little ponytail. Harry extended his left as well, smiled, and said, “It’s good to meet you.”

  No sooner had they finished their greeting, when a burly man with a shock of dark hair cascading down over the left side of his face, shading one of his eyes, which were a piercing blue in color and danced as if uncertain where to rest—his long right arm thrust out in a cordial gesture of friendship—pranced into the parlor. “Hey, I’m Toby. Sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s okay, Toby, we’re just getting acquainted,” Brian said.

  All four sat abruptly, as Brian passed out scripts, Toby and Harry in the two soft armchairs at forty-five degree angles to each other, Nan and Brian on the couch. “Nan may not have any lines in our little exercise today, but I wanted her here for her insight and opinion.” He paused, then added, “How are you feeling, Harry?”

  Not sure of the context, Harry replied, “I’m healthy, thanks.”

  Nan laughed, but the two men seemed charmed by Harry’s seeming naiveté. “Glad to hear it,” Brian said. “Not nervous, are you?”

  “No,” Harry replied. “I rarely get nervous about my theater work. Other things make me plenty nervous, even anxious.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, well, like relationships in the real world. I’m afraid I’m pretty much of a novice.”

  “Glad to hear you admit it. I suspect most of us are novices but don’t own up to it.”

  “You got that,” Toby said. “My two ex-wives would sure as hell agree with you.”

  “Men,” Nan sai
d.

  “Okay, let’s get rolling here. Turn to page eighty-six in the script. There is a heated dialogue between the two central figures, Brady and Drummond. Let’s pick it up where Brady says, ‘I’ll tell you what he’s trying to do…’”

  Toby reads: “I’ll tell you what he’s trying to do! He wants to destroy everybody’s belief in the Bible, and in God!”

  Harry: “You know that’s not true. I’m trying to stop you bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States! And you know it!”

  Toby: “How dare you attack the Bible?”

  Harry: The Bible is a book. A good book. But it’s not the only book.”

  Toby: “It is the revealed word of the Almighty. God spake to the men who wrote the Bible.”

  Harry (warming to the task): “And how do you know that God didn’t ‘spake’ to Charles Darwin?”

  Toby: “I know, because God tells me to oppose the evil teachings of that man.”

  Harry: “Oh, God speaks to you.”

  Toby: “Yes.”

  Harry (heatedly): “He tells you what’s right and what’s wrong?”

  Toby: “Yes.”

  Harry: “And you act accordingly?”

  Toby: “Yes.”

  Harry (now in full swing, the role his, the character absorbed): “So you, Matthew Harrison Brady, through oratory, legislation, or whatever, pass along God’s orders to the rest of the world! Gentlemen, meet the ‘Prophet from Nebraska!”

  Toby: “I—Please--!”

  Harry (sensing the vulnerability, closing in): “Is that the way of things? God tells Brady what is good! To be against Brady is to be against God!”

  Toby (confused): “No, no! Each man is a free agent—”

  Harry: “Then what is Bertram Cates doing in Hillsboro jail? Suppose Mr. Cates had enough influence and lung power to railroad through the State Legislature a law that only Darwin should be taught in the schools!”

  Toby: “Ridiculous, ridiculous! There is only one great Truth in the world—“

  Harry (now vicious, attacking, standing, hands holding the script, trembling): “The Gospel according to Brady! God speaks to Brady, and Brady tells the world! Brady, Brady, Brady, Almighty!” (He bows as he says these lines.)

  “Okay, cut,” Brian says, a wide smile stretching across his oval face, his bald head seeming to glow from the reflected light of a floor lamp behind the couch. “Bravo! I liked it, Harry. You lost yourself in the persona of Drummond. I got goose-bumps.” He turned to Nan. “What do you think?”

  “Got to get to the gym.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “Can we put lines in the face? Can we whiten the hair? Can we make him look a bit less athletic?” She twirled her slip of a ponytail and tilted her head.

  “And if we can?”

  “Give him the part.”

  The next day, there was a voice mail on Harry’s home phone from Nan Bartell: “Nan here. Do you have representation? Let me know.” She dictated her phone number and hung up.

  SIX

  H e had no compulsion to let his parents in on the good news. Oh, he would tell them, but it wasn’t a priority. Juliet had to know. Katy had to know. Certainly Mr. Benjamin would have to.

  The financial understanding took only five minutes, Harry not sensing any position of power; he knew that the company was desperate to get into rehearsal. They offered him a run-of-the-show contract for six-hundred dollars a week, told him they could figure out a way to get around the equity requirements—a waiver of some kind—and also assured him they would provide pre or post show meals, depending on whether it was a matinee or evening performance.

  The money was not an issue for Harry. He was ecstatic. It was an opening and a remarkable part, in one of the great plays in American stage history.

  While Harry had no lack of confidence about his acting skills, from his teens on he doubted that he had the looks of a leading man. He was five feet ten, taller than Tom Cruise, but nowhere near as tall as he would like. His hair curled too much, like one of the Marx brothers, the one, he thought, who couldn’t (or didn’t) speak—it did not seem manly to have a bird’s nest of little ringlets crowning his head. His eyebrows were thick, too thick, like a couple of dark caterpillars shading his eyes. He liked his posture, straight and linear, with no scoliosis or humps in his back, but he longed for the kind of butt the girls gossiped about—his was flat, which made his jeans appear too baggy. An appealing aspect, which he failed to acknowledge, was the remnant of freckles on his nose and cheeks, left over from childhood—nothing like the overall dotting of the teenaged Lindsay Lohan, but nonetheless a notable trait.

  All in all, he was modest enough not to realize his more than adequate physical appeal. Juliet, unwilling as she was to give him too much come-on, never spoke of his looks, though he had to know from their regular liaisons that she was attracted to him. When Katy said, on more than one occasion, “You’re a fox, Harry Schiff,” he either couldn’t hear it or dismissed it as friendship flattery.

  He wore on his face a constant apologetic look, of which he was unaware, which disarmed those he met, or the fans at one of his performances; he seemed, without knowing it, eminently trustworthy.

  This was the package he brought to auditions to augment his acknowledged talent and very likely what Brian De Genera saw. It gave him, once he was on scene, a warm and magnetic presence.

  “Oh, Harry, I’m totally thrilled for you!” Katy said. “Mine was a one-time shot, but yours is a real job, a wonderful opportunity.” She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and hug him passionately, and…whatever else seemed reasonable. Instead she offered a friendly embrace, which she knew was reasonable, and which he returned amiably, with a beatific grin.

  “I just left there two hours ago. It’s going to be hard work. Four weeks to get the whole thing down. I really like the people, and they seem to respect me, inexperienced as I am.”

  “But, you’re not. You’ve probably had more leads than any amateur in LA. You are a youthful veteran! How does that sound?”

  “Sounds good to me.” He stopped, twirled around like a danseur and said, “Sometimes I don’t know how to celebrate. Things happen that overwhelm me, but I tend to absorb them soberly, without showing any emotion. I wonder if that’s a parental legacy. They were always under-whelmed.”

  The two were strolling on campus—the campus that in a few weeks would become Harry’s alma mater. An April, late afternoon sun was highlighting the foliage along their path, the university gardeners’ constant pride, delicately manicured flora with an exquisite blend of soft green and the vibrant colors of yellow African daisies, bright blue tulips, purple lilies, magenta shooting stars, and the ocean blue fiesta flowers.

  “You’re not like your parents. You’re you. Unique. One-of-a-kind.” She took a risk and added, “I love who you are.”

  “Thanks,” he replied, appreciatively, without awareness of the yearning in her voice.

  “We ought to celebrate. Could you take off enough time for that?”

  “Well, let me try to figure out my schedule. They want me to get started tomorrow, Saturday.”

  It was not a rebuff, but Katy knew him well enough to realize he would file away her invitation and forget about it as a low priority.

  “Let me know. Doesn’t have to be a big party. Just a little chance to fete you for landing the role.”

  “Well, well, well, Harry. You got it. I can’t wait for opening night. Once you’re a star, let’s hope you won’t forget your college mates, and especially one you’ve been sleeping with.”

  “Shh!” Harry said.

  No one could hear her, but Harry wasn’t sure. They were in an alcove of the university library, a room lined with wall portraits of dead benefactors, most likely academics and donors honored by the college administration.

  “I can always say I knew him—and slept with him—before he was famous.”

  Trying to think fast, Harry replie
d, “And it won’t end there.” He hesitated and asked, “Will it?”

  “That depends on you, not me. When you’re on your rocket to the stars, will you tote me along? Will I be excess baggage once you’re an established icon?”

  “Come on, Juliet, that doesn’t make sense. A relationship between you and me has nothing to do with success as an actor.”

  “I would hope.” She kissed him on the cheek and said, “What does it have to do with?”

  “Uh, whether we match, whether we click together.”

  “In bed?”

  “We already do that. I mean the other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Pacing, emotional matching, the way we think about the world, the way we treat people….”

  “So wise for a guy in his early twenties.”

  “Not really. I’m just spilling out some thoughts. You know more about men-women stuff than I do.”

  “Also modest.”

  “Give me a break. I’m getting an opportunity, that’s all, and I hope I can make the best of it. Anyway, your break will come. You’ve got a lot of talent, and you’re beautiful, besides.”

  “Also a charmer. Like Galen.”

  There was a pause. “I worry about him. The business between his father and mine is nasty. He’s sort of caught in the middle.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, he kind of spit out something a week ago—not sure I ought to pass it on.”

  “You brought it up.”

  “I did. It’s…well, it’s that he learned some ugly things about his father’s life. A two-faced life of deceit he didn’t know anything about. In fact, nobody in his family did.”

  “You mean more than a shyster barrister?”

  It seemed difficult for Juliet to put words to her information. Harry looked at her curiously. At last she said, “Galen saw pictures some guy took, showing his father in a compromising situation with another man.”