In order to earn a living, I’d gone back to what I knew best—acting. Of course, I was eight years older and the parts for women in their early forties were few and usually lousy. And to be honest, if I had not been the daughter of Nora Poole my name would have been forgotten. Hollywood has all the attention span of a coked-up executive producer.
The bold-striped awning of the Formosa Bar came into view. It was one of the few great watering holes from the Golden Age of Hollywood that was still standing. The others had become photographs in coffee-table books reminding us of how great movie life had been and would never be again.
I turned right and pulled up to the gate of the studio. Recognizing me, the guard waved me through, and I drove slowly past the enormous, gray stucco soundstages that looked like vast warehouses where all the Hollywood dreams and nightmares were stored. I parked in front of the makeup and wardrobe building and stared up at its benign facade. I would go in there looking like myself, a little bedraggled, and come out looking like the role I was playing: a mother who was a drunken slut.
Mother Shadow Page 29