20th Century Un-limited

by Felice Picano

  They all guffawed this time.

  When we paid, I was about to leave a tip on the sixty-cents-with-no-sales-tax-tab that the two meals had cost me, but I saw that no one else had left change on a table or on the counter. Remember, Christopher Hall: this is the Depression!

  Even so, I was last out the door and I dropped a quarter into the waiter’s apron, saying, “Found this on the floor. You musta dropped it.”

  He looked at me with dead eyes. “I can die happy,” he said in a tight voice. “’Cause now I seen everything!”

  There was a line waiting for the omnibus: mostly young guys; a few older men, and two or three older women.

  The bus was a clackety old thing from the 20s, I couldn’t tell what make, possibly General Motors from the worn-out badge on the hood, and with wooden slat seats and rope handholds, and we five were jammed in the back. I was in heaven. With these four I felt young again for the first time since I’d come back. It slowly chugged, climbing the narrow Cahuenga Canyon road—there was no Hollywood Freeway 170 yet in 1935, of course—at times I thought we might have to get out and push. But once we made it over the crest of the hill and a small vee of the San Fernando Valley was in sight, all the younger men gathered at the back of the bus gave a big cheer and applauded.

  The driver was a big, fattish, good-looking African-American guy of about forty, who the guys called Jungle Jim, Sid told me, because he took “bits” in every movie set in any jungle anywhere at any studio in town. J.J. waved his hat back at us.

  The Warner Bros. extras lot was where the 2010 WB easternmost parking lots of the studio were located. We took a dirt road off Barham Road to get in. The studio seemed to consist of wooden, some quite tall, Quonset huts, where the actual indoor filming took place. Behind those were these little wooden shacks that I recalled would still be there three-quarters of a century later, used as producer’s offices.

  We were let out into a big yard filled with people. As we entered, we were sorted into age groups, which kept the five of us together. My new pals knew their way around and also knew some other extras, I guess from coming here regularly. They found a spot with some shade and a bench with a couple of guys sitting around in folding chairs, and a doubled-over piece of cardboard between their knees being used as a table. They were already playing cards.

  There must have been about five hundred people there altogether, mostly standing around or hunched down, waiting. Meanwhile, men in three-piece suits and fedoras wielding megaphones would come and go out of what must have been a casting office, going around every once in a while, and calling out numbers, film titles, even names. If you’d been an extra in a film the day before and had been called back, Hank told me, you went over to that doorway, and they checked your name and then siphoned you from there onto a queue, and would then walk over to a costume set-up or to a stage inside one of the Quonset hut–like structures. That is, if you didn’t need to change.

  But everyone had to check in first. And, of course, as a new extra I had to check in and give name, residence, and even a phone number. All of which, Hank, playing my protector, supplied. The rotund middle-aged man whose eyebrows were in sore need of a clipping knew the Alsop House, of course, and its phone number and street address.

  “Any acting experience?” he drawled at me, in a bored tone of voice, around the stogie he was chewing on, and I could see his pencil poised over the “no” box.

  “Well…a little,” I said.

  He checked off “yes” and looked up at me. “Roles?”

  “You wouldn’t know it, I don’t think. It was a new play in my hometown.”

  “That being?”

  “New York City.”

  The stogie moved around a bit before he said, “Don’t tell me it was Broadway?”

  “Off Broadway.”

  It had been my own play, in fact. When I had to cover for the lead, when everyone was out with the flu. But I didn’t say that.

  Pencil poised again: “Other roles?”

  “Romeo and Juliet?” I said.

  “Role?” he asked, his curiosity even more piqued!

  I screwed up my eyes, afraid to say it: “Juliet’s father.”

  “What was it? A kindergarten production?” he asked and the stogie fell into his lap from where he quickly retrieved it.

  “Just write it down, Mack,” Hank Streit insisted behind me. When we moved on, in a lower voice, he added, “Sid’s going to have a conniption when he hears this!”

  “I told you I got around…Look, Hank, don’t tell them. Please.”

  “Okay. But I’m sticking close, kid. Who knows what’ll come up next.”

  An hour later I was admitted to the poker game when two guys playing were called away to extra on the set of Charlie Chan in Paris.

  Of course the game was the kind we played as kids, but I still couldn’t recall if four of a kind beat or was beaten by a straight, when the megaphone announced, “All you on Fondly Yours.”

  The other four got up and so did I, but as I approached the doorway where the group were being collected and sent out via the open doorway, my interviewer with the stogie from before came up to me, along with a woman in her fifties with close-cropped gray hair under a cloche hat and big glasses and a leather satchel slung over one bony shoulder.

  Stogie guy pulled me out of the line and held on to me tight.

  “Here he is.”

  She looked me over, head to toe.

  Ducky and Jonah had gone through the door. Now Hank was being let through. Sid was looking back at me. Watching what was going on.

  “I’ve got to go with my friends,” I told her, pointing to the doorway.

  “He’ll do fine,” she said to the stogie chewer. “You’re coming with us!” she said, and grabbed my other arm.

  “Sid!” I called out.

  He had just gone through the doorway, and he turned and yelled, “Where are they taking you?”

  “He’s a juvenile,” the woman spat back at him. “He’s coming with me.”

  Sid’s face opened up in a huge grin and he threw his cap in the air and caught it, then spun around and ran to tell the other guys with glee that I’d been busted.

  All four of them were gone now.

  “Stop pulling, young man!” she insisted.

  “But what did I do? Why are you throwing me out?”

  “Throwing you out? I’m not throwing you out! I’m taking you to MGM in Culver City. We’re short two juveniles in a film being cast today.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?” she asked, and her eyes resembled hard little pebbles.

  The stogie chewer said, “He didn’t even want to tell me he’d acted before, with his friends around. I had to pry it out of him,” he lied.

  “Boys!” she expostulated, as if we were a breed known for every possible excess. “Here!” she mumbled and I saw her hand him a green bill. He looked around, I guess to see if anyone was observing, and then quickly put it into his pants pocket. Evidently he was her point man, on the lookout for unsuspecting juveniles.

  They marched me out through the fence we’d first come in through, where a big black limousine was parked. A uniformed and capped chauffeur opened the third door and the woman all but pushed me into the back. There was a pretty young lady at the far end of the big backseat who smiled at me. So I got in. The doors snapped locked. The chauffeur got in one door and the woman in the cloche got in the other, up in front, separated from us by a glass partition with closed, pleated blue curtains.

  “I see they nabbed you too!” I said, still a little breathless.

  “I hope so!” she said in a lovely voice. “It’s only an audition, but I understand they’re suddenly short because a couple dropped out and they’re beginning initial shooting tomorrow. You’re very nice-looking,” she added, “so I’m sure they’ll take you.”

  “Well, you’re very pretty, so they’ll probably take you,” I replied.

  Good God, I
thought. I’m in the middle of some inane Andy Hardy script. “What film is it, anyway?” I had the sense to ask.

  “I don’t know the title. But the trades said it would star Billy Bartlett. From the Mickey McGuire movies. I just love those!”

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Don’t you?” she prodded.

  “I’m not really that familiar…” I began.

  She jumped right in, animated and enthused: “Well, Mickey Rooney plays this kid named Mickey McGuire, and he’s just gotten a gang of pals together and…”

  As she went on, I thought, wait, I’ve met Mickey Rooney. But he was about ninety at the time and actually that meeting hasn’t even happened yet, so he’ll never recognize me if he’s there in the studio. So—no problema!

  She was just finishing saying, “I’ve been waiting for so long for a part like this. My agent says it could make me.”

  “Waiting for how long?” I asked.

  “Over three years. Since I was sixteen.”

  “You look sixteen now.”

  “Thank the Lord,” she said. “I’ve done bits. But this is the real deal.”

  “It’s not like…singing and dancing? Is it?”

  “If they take us both, we’ll be a new couple,” she said. “We’ll work on lines together and I’ll show you the dance steps. They’re usually pretty simple. Don’t worry about singing. Unless you’re a star, they can dub in the voice on the soundtrack,” she added knowledgably. Then, “Maybe you should say you’re agented by Frances Wannamaker too, when they ask. Otherwise you could end up with a bad contract. She’s my agent.”

  “Okay. But you’ll have to back me up.”

  Eventually we pulled into the famous gate at MGM when it still was that, and not Sony Inc., and she got excited again.

  We were far more ceremoniously treated by the woman—Pamela Cullen, she now revealed her name—once the chauffeur had opened the door and let us out onto the studio street.

  We headed into the building, side by side, through what looked like a big lobby and I could see my companion’s excitement growing, so I took her hand, which had begun shaking, and I mimed taking deep breaths. She looked at me with a “thank you” look and regained her composure with a few deep breaths as we entered a big casting office through open double doors. I thought, no way this is happening.

  Three people got up to meet us, and Pamela went to the back of the room, her job done for the moment.

  The taller and balder of the two men, with a good-sized mustache, greeted us, taking both of our hands and having us come over to the other side of his desk, which opened to a little garden area. It had two medium-sized winged chairs that he had us sit in while he gazed at us. I thought he smelled of lilac and wondered if that was an aftershave lotion of the era.

  “Sue-Ann Schiller,” my companion introduced herself.

  “Christopher Hall,” I said.

  “I’m Dominick La Cosse, casting director. You’re both very attractive. Do you know the Mickey McGuire movies?”

  I let Sue-Anne gush about them for a while and I smiled at what I hoped were appropriate points.

  “Well, this movie is somewhat different,” La Cosse began. “It’s older kids. Boys and girls. And…you’ve acted onstage, correct, young Mr. Hall? Even so, there probably won’t be many lines.”

  “I learn lines easy,” I said casually. “We both do. Sue-Ann and I will coach each other.”

  “Well!” La Cosse said. “We’ve got two little professionals here!” And all the adults laughed politely. “How unexpected!” He turned around and said, “Thank you, Pamela. You’ve come through at this difficult moment for us very nicely. Very nicely indeed! This will be noticed upstairs.”

  She simpered thanks and left the room.

  “And of course you’re not represented…?” La Cosse began.

  “But we are!” Sue-Ann said. “Frances Wannamaker!” we added in one voice, then looked at each other and smiled.

  “Okay. Of course we know Mrs. Wannamaker. You kids look great together, you know. Schiller and Hall, huh? I’ve got no problem with your names either. Melv? What do you think?” He looked at someone behind us and concluded, “Yes, the names are fine. So we’ll send over contracts for you to Frances, by messenger. But first we’ll have to meet Mr. Seiter,.He’s the director. Have you ever been on a film stage before?”

  We both pretended we hadn’t. La Cosse took us gingerly by the hand as though we were breakable and his underlings silently followed us out into the studio street and then up into the first of two motorized open autos waiting to take us to the soundstage.

  A half hour later, we were learning dance steps from the choreographer, and Sue-Anne had been right. They weren’t that difficult.

  Frances Wannamaker herself came to pick us up after the first rehearsal and the preparatory “lighting shoot” that afternoon, at five.

  She’d driven her sky-blue Terraplane station wagon with real, two-toned, painted wooden siding, and matte-black running boards and roof, a car that I looked over carefully. I’d only seen photos of this Hudson model before.

  Frances wore her long blond hair in back in a style I knew to be called a French log. She’d been attractive not too long ago, but she also looked like she’d been around the block a few times. No wedding ring but a tan line where one had been recently.

  “Are you hungry? I assume the studio fed you lunch at the commissary. Right?” she asked.

  During the lunch break we’d eaten in the studio’s lunchroom, along with the other seven young dancer couples but not with the star: excellent club sandwiches with a side of coleslaw, and lemonade.

  The front seat was big enough, so first Sue-Anne, then I got in, while Frances spoke to someone she knew.

  Sure enough, right there on the car’s steering column was the Bendix “Electric Hand” I’d read about as a vintage car enthusiast. This was an early precursor of the automatic transmission that Hudson had introduced the year before on this model only, and had four preset buttons. I looked on the floor, and there was a clutch pedal, but I knew this Terraplane also had an automatic clutch.

  When Frances got in, I pointed to the “Electric Hand” and asked how it worked.

  “I start up the ignition.” She illustrated, and then she tapped the clutch once and hit the Electric Hand button #1, for first gear. “That disables the clutch and I don’t have to keep pumping it every time after I brake.”

  “So you just hit second and then third buttons when you want more speed?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What happens if the Hand here fails? It’s some kind of electrical and levered pump, right?”

  “I don’t recall all the details,” she admitted. “But that sounds right. If the Hand doesn’t engage, I have these buttons here!” She showed me where they were, under the dashboard radio. “These work as gears. You sound like you drive.”

  “I have for a few years now. But I never drove one of these.”

  In those three weeks between Mr. Morgan’s offer and my jump back in time, I’d gone out of my way to learn how to use a manual transmission, a talent I’d long forgotten. “I’d like to try it out some time.”

  “For years? You’re some kid, Christopher.”

  “I’m not a kid. I’m an adult, Mrs. Wannamaker. Eighteen,” I told her.

  “Chris has already been in the Merchant Marines,” Sue-Anne offered.

  “Is that right? Well, then, Mr. Hall, I’m very glad to hear it. It’ll make life a lot easier for me. Dealing with child actors can be dreadfully exhausting!” She laughed. “That said, like Sue-Anne here, you look years younger than your age. That fellow I was speaking to? Thom Rafferty? He said they like you two already. He’s big in future development at the studio, and he told me that the Lion is banking on teen movies as the next big thing for the next five years! So, Mr. Hall and Miss Schiller, if you behave yourselves, and don’t hit the hooch and white powder too hard, I can probably get you b
oth all the work you want.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Wannamaker,” Sue-Anne assured her. Then in a dreamy voice added, “Oh, Chris! Think of it! We’re in the movies!”

  “Terrific!” I replied. “Where do I sign?”

  Frances looked at me suddenly. Oops. Had I been a little too ironic?

  “At my office, naturally. That’s where the contracts are.”

  5

  “That’s wonderful news, Hank,” I was saying. We were leaning up against the side wall of the Anderson Diner blocking most of the Dugan Auto Body Shop mural-advertisement, waiting for the other guys to show up. “So all of you got bit parts?” I.e., more than extras, they would do or say something on film, and be paid more.

  “Just Sid and me. It’s good. But nothing like your news.”

  “When do they pay you? End of the week?”

  “Sure. A buck a day. Why?”

  “How about I front you a loan until then?” I asked.

  “What if it’s only one day’s work?” Hank argued.

  The sixty-five-year-old me wanted to say, don’t worry. I’ll take it out in trade. The eighteen-year-old me said aloud, “I’m making twenty dollars a week, Hank. I think I can afford it. And don’t say no, because you’ll make me angry and you don’t ever want to see me angry,” I added.

  “I don’t?” Hank asked with an indulgent smile. In this light he reminded me of the young Don Murray, with that square jaw and that really kissable thin-lipped mouth.

  “No, you don’t. I’m a terror.”

  “Yeah! But you’re a juvenile terror,” he said, and laughed. “Wait’ll Sid hears what happened. He’ll blow a gasket.”

  I handed him the five dollars, my older self tempted to say, “Same time, next week?” loud enough for two passersby to hear. But I restrained myself.

  Ducky and Jonah showed up first, and as it was beginning to rain, we all went in and found a table. The waiter was the same one from the day before and he gave us what Jonah Wolff called a “fish-eye”: he probably thought I was going to ask for my quarter back.

  Hank told them my news and Ducky clapped me on the shoulder. Jonah said in his flat voice, “I know your type.”