Nine Deadly Lives

by Livia J. Washburn

  Everyone had heard how she had collapsed over his coffin at the funeral home and had to be helped to her car by one of the four men in black uniforms, supposedly sent as a guard of honor by Benito Mussolini, the prime minister of Italy, his land of birth. And then, on seeing his coffin at the actual mass in church, she had fainted again.

  Kay watched the fuss being made of her this time, and felt a wave of nausea almost overcome her. Her heart started to race, and she reached out and clutched her husband’s arm. He responded by patting the back of her hand and giving her one of his sympathetic smiles. He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  “I am fine,” she whispered. “I just…just feel a little queasy.”

  He nodded, sure that it was simply the emotion of the event.

  Fighting back the sickness, Kay pursed her lips in scorn. Pola’s faints could not have been any more melodramatic if Cecil B. DeMille or George Melford had been shooting a scene with her.

  “She’s sticking to her story,” Blanche whispered at her side.

  “What story?” Fenton asked, craning his head slightly toward his sister-in-law.

  “I told you, darling,” Kay said, wafting her face with the collar of her lynx fur coat. She was aware that fur in August would be hot, but she felt she had to wear it that day. “She’s telling everyone that not only had they made up, but Rudolph proposed to her last week.”

  “She’s staking her claim on his fortune,” agreed Blanche, looking directly at him with her good eye, as she adjusted the jewel-encrusted eye patch that she famously wore over her right eye. “She has told the press that she was going to be the third Mrs. Valentino.”

  Fenton’s moustache bristled. “Humph! When I was in Africa, I read an article in a week-old copy of the Chicago Tribune about Pink Powder Puffs. All that make-up he wore—they say it’s making men effeminate. Apparently, some public men’s room had a face-powder dispenser installed, because chaps want to look like him. And I read another article that said his two marriages were ‘lavender marriages’, meaning he was covering stuff up. Apparently, he loved cats and let them run free in his apartments.”

  Kay unconsciously stroked her lynx fur and felt another wave of nausea.

  “Are you sure you are all right, darling?” Fenton asked. “You look flustered. Do you want to take that cat fur off?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine, really.”

  Blanche leaned toward Fenton. “And did you read that he challenged the reporter, who hadn’t the courage to name himself, to a boxing match?” she whispered.

  “That’s right, darling,” Kay added, forcing the nausea down. “He was having boxing lessons from Jack Dempsey, the world heavyweight champion.”

  Fenton shook his head. “I never heard about that. You don’t always get the American newspapers in Kenya.”

  “Well, he didn’t fight the reporter,” Kay went on, “but he did fight Buck O’Neil, the sportswriter, on top of the Ambassador Hotel. He knocked him down and O’Neil apologized for an article he had written.”

  Fenton clicked his tongue. “So, maybe Pola Negri wasn’t going to be just another lavender wife.”

  They saw the actress in question sobbing loudly, her shoulders heaving up and down theatrically. Doug Fairbanks laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Kay hated Pola Negri more than anything at that moment. There she was, playing the role of the tragic widow—or the tragic nearly widow. She had no doubt that Pola would capitalize on Rudolph’s death to further her career, just as she had used her first marriage to a Polish count to boost her pedigree.

  Pola was famously allergic to cats, so if she had her way and somehow inherited Rudolph’s fortune, his beautiful cats would go; which meant that Kay wouldn’t see them or his apartment again.

  She thought of Alfonso the Persian beauty that Rudolph had secretly given her just three months ago, when Fenton was off on one of his big game hunts in Africa. And a week later, he had given her the lynx fur coat. Both were tokens of their very secret love affair. A love affair that no one could ever know about.

  Her heart ached for him, but at least she would always have those links with him.

  The noise of the wailing crowds of mourners outside the church filtered through, threatening to drown the voices of the choristers.

  “Well, he certainly seems to have had his fan club,” Fenton remarked.

  “Everyone loved him, Fenton,” Kay whispered, aware of the quaking of her voice.

  “That’s right,” said Blanche, closely watching her sister. “We all loved Rudolph.”

  o0o

  Kay du Maurier and her sister, Blanche Fleming, were born in Massachusetts to Scottish immigrant mill-workers, called Finlay and Flora McDonald. Morag, who would, in later years, change her name to Blanche, was the eldest by two years and was always the practical one. Their father died from lung disease when Blanche was ten, only to be followed six months later by their mother, from a broken heart. From that moment, Blanche became the mother hen to little sister Isabel, who would also later have her name changed to Kay.

  The girls worked in the mills and dreamed of escaping from the life of drudgery to become actresses. It was only when Blanche reached the age of seventeen and tragically lost the vision in her right eye in an accident at the mill that she seriously planned to change their lives.

  Once her eye healed, they used their meager inheritance and all that they had managed to scrimp together over the years and boarded a train for New York. There, both being strikingly good-looking despite the eye patch that Blanche took to wearing, they managed to get jobs in vaudeville, first as background dancers, then as a song and dance duo, the McDonald Sisters.

  Fortune smiled on them when they were spotted by Florenz Ziegfeld who hired them to become Ziegfeld girls in his famous Ziegfeld Follies. Under the tutelage of Anna Held, Florenz’s Polish-French wife, they became skilled and admired showgirls. Both could dance well, but Kay with her copper locks and green cat-like eyes had that extra something—timing. Blanche also stood out, on account of her pirate’s eye patch and her blonde hair, but it was her sister who attracted the most attention.

  The break came for Kay when Edwin Thanhouser saw her at a performance and gave her a screen test for a part in a western movie his company was shooting at Scott’s Movie Ranch in Staten Island, New York. Her name of ‘McDonald’ had to be changed, however, since Thanhouser felt a leading lady needed a name that sounded vaguely exotic. One of the camera crew was a Frenchman by the last name of du Maurier, so Thanhouser suggested adopting the name, and Kay readily acquiesced.

  Within three more one-reelers, he had made her a rising star of western motion pictures, and before long, she was able to diversify and became the much sought after romantic interest in comedies, melodramas and swashbucklers.

  As Kay’s star rose, Blanche gave up her own aspirations and became her assistant, her housekeeper and manager. And she travelled with her when she signed with Mack Sennett at his Keystone Studios in Edendale, California.

  It was on the set of Tarzan and the Lost Treasures of Opar, playing Jane alongside Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan, that she met Colonel Fenton Carlyle. The famous English adventurer, big game hunter, and animal trainer had been commissioned to procure and train the two lions used in the movie. No one, it seemed, had such an affinity with large cats as did he. He showed her how to treat them to make them do her will. Because of her athleticism and daredevil attitude to execute whatever stunt was asked of her, she became the star of a series of adventure films about Diana the Lion Queen.

  Throughout it all Fenton was there, watching every scene, just in case he was needed. Their closeness made it inevitable that he would pay her court. It was a whirlwind romance that resulted in their marriage a mere four weeks later at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.

  Blanche, by this time, had married, but separated from a movie producer, after finding him canoodling on a studio couch in his office with a would-be starlet. Yet she
kept the name Fleming, which she too felt suited Hollywood more than the rustic name of McDonald. And so the newspapers announced to the world that Blanche Fleming, Kay du Maurier’s inseparable sister, was the matron of honor at the wedding.

  Ironically, it was the same church where Rudolph Valentino’s second funeral would be held two years later, prior to his interment in the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery.

  2

  Beverly Hills, California

  August 9, 1927

  Alfonso the Persian cat with eyes of pure sapphire blue sprawled languidly on the bank of silken cushions decked across the chaise longue that had been gifted to Kay on completion of the biblical epic Salome, the last film that she appeared in before her pregnancy became obvious to everyone. The drawing room, which overlooked the tennis court, swimming pool, and the carefully tended lawns and herbaceous borders, was vast, with chandeliers, curtains, drapes and furniture in the art deco style. The whole mansion was not as ostentatious as Charles Chaplin’s sprawling Breakaway House next door, yet with its décor and trappings, including the framed publicity posters from Kay’s movies, the Chinese screen that concealed the marble-topped cocktail bar that Fenton kept stocked with malt whisky and the mixers and spirits needed for any cocktail imaginable, and the odd trophy head on the walls from Fenton’s big game expeditions, it oozed money and Hollywood glamour on the grand scale.

  “Shoo, cat!” Blanche snapped, as she clapped her hands upon entering the room.

  Alfonso rolled over, stared at her for a moment, before standing and stretching. Then he jumped down and disdainfully pattered past Blanche to exit the room.

  “That darned cat shouldn’t be allowed in here,” she said as her sister followed, cradling her baby, young Finlay, in her arms. “It’s not–hygienic having cats near babies.“

  She flounced down on the chaise longue and swept cat hairs from the cushions. “Or safe!” she added. “They have claws, remember.”

  Kay laughed. “Oh, don’t be such a worrier, Blanche. Finlay is just fine, and besides, Alfonso is the most perfect of cats. He loves my little Finlay.”

  The baby started to cough.

  “You see, Kay? He’s been coughing all morning. I’m sure it must be something he caught from that cat. What will Fenton say about it if we just ignore it?”

  “Fenton is away in Europe until next week.”

  “Exactly! Which is why I’m going to call Doctor Kennedy to come and check him over.”

  Kay shrugged her shoulders resignedly as her sister left the room, her high-heeled shoes beating a rapid retreating staccato on the Italian tiled floor of the huge two-story tall hallway. She heard her pick up the phone in the recess and place the call. Almost immediately, Alfonso reappeared and leapt up onto his favorite place on the silk cushions.

  The actress smiled down at Finlay and as his little face looked up at her with those beautiful eyes of his, her heart quickened as it usually did when she looked at him. With his beautiful olive skin, he was going to be the image of his father; of that, she was sure.

  “Your daddy loves you, Finlay, I just know he does.”

  Oh, how she would have loved to name him after him! But that would have been impossible. The second best option, she had decided was to name him after their father. That had satisfied Blanche. Fenton had seemed ambivalent, but agreed.

  And as she thought about it, she started to sob.

  From the chaise longue, Alfonso began to purr.

  She looked over at him and smiled into his deep blue eyes. At least, she had been able to name the cat after Finlay’s father’s second name.

  o0o

  Doctor Roger Kennedy was considered the best and most exclusive doctor in Beverly Hills. He was probably also the most expensive. He had only a small practice, which effectively included only the major stars, directors and producers in Hollywood. He was tall, dark and handsome, and would have looked good on the silver screen had he chosen a different profession. Many had thought he had the look of John Gilbert in The Big Parade. Apart from his medical skills, his personal charm mattered to the cognoscenti of the motion picture industry, for they knew the power of panache, veneer and charisma.

  He had looked after Kay during her pregnancy, and treated her for depression after Finlay’s birth. Her low mood in the last trimester of her pregnancy he had attributed to the stress of her work in the motion picture business.

  He was used to dealing with the egos and nervous dispositions of the rich and famous of the silver screen.

  “Is…is Finlay ill, Doctor?” she asked as he straightened up from her son’s cot after having examined him, The cot had been set up in the bay window of the drawing room.

  He wound his stethoscope up and replaced it in his black bag. He shook his head with a reassuring smile. “He is quite well, Kay. He has a virus, nothing more.”

  “It isn’t the influenza virus, is it, Roger?” Blanche asked, inserting a green cocktail cigarette into her amber cigarette holder.

  The doctor was well aware of the anxieties that people had about influenza, ever since the pandemic of 1918. So many families had lost relatives from it.

  “It is a common cold virus, that’s all, Blanche. But I understand the concern, and I will prescribe a good cough mixture for him.”

  “And it isn’t anything that Finlay could have caught from Alfonso, is it?” Kay asked.

  “Alfonso? Who—”

  “Her cat!” Blanche explained. “I have told her again and again that they are not good animals to have around babies.”

  Doctor Kennedy placed a reassuring hand on Blanche’s shoulder and his face crinkled into one of those smiles that his patients felt was worth every cent of his considerable fees. “The common cold has nothing to do with the cat, Blanche. If Alfonso is that elegant Persian cat that I’ve seen sauntering around the house on past visits, then I wouldn’t worry. Cats are the cleanest of animals. They spend half their lives grooming and cleaning themselves.”

  He smiled at Kay as he snapped his bag closed. “I hope that settles your mind. I’ll make up this prescription and I’ll drop it round in a couple of hours.”

  Blanche lit her cigarette and let out a ribbon of pale blue smoke.

  “Well, that is all a relief,” she said. “But, I was also concerned about stories I heard of cats sitting on babies faces and smothering them.”

  “Nothing but a myth, Blanche. I have never come across that in all my years of practice.”

  Blanche’s hand went up to adjust her jeweled eye patch and she seemed about to ask something, then simply shrugged her shoulders.

  “I guess that settles it, then. Thank you, Roger. I will show you out.”

  When they had gone, Kay picked Finlay up and sat down on the chaise longue. She was joined a moment later by Alfonso. He rubbed his head against her hand and then against the bundle that surrounded Finlay. Then, he purred before settling down on the silk cushions.

  “You are such an exotic thing, aren’t you Alfonso. And here you are protecting little Finlay. Just like–”

  She stopped herself from talking out loud, just in case one of the maids was within earshot.

  She liked that word, exotic. It summed up everything about Rudolph. Like virtually every woman who saw him in The Sheik, she had been attracted to him. Yet, as an actress herself, she was all too aware of the magic of the silver screen. The camera could make anyone look glamorous. But seeing him in the flesh for the first time at one of Doug Fairbanks’s opulent parties had been different. He was better looking without the makeup; more alluring as he walked and danced without the emphatic movements and strutting that were required by the camera to create those moving pictures on the silver screen. And that voice of his, with the Continental accent, was a revelation. Not only that, but he was intelligent, witty, and full of fun.

  Yet, she learned that there was a softer side to him that few knew about. He had a degree from agricultural school in Genoa, and prided himself on his horticultural skills. His
apartments were bedecked with exotic houseplants that he personally tended to.

  She had never meant to have an affair with him, for she was a married woman. He had been married twice and was in an on-off relationship with Pola Negri. But it had been so exciting, so exhilarating—and so unexpected.

  While thousands of women had fallen in love with his screen image, she had fallen in love with the man.

  o0o

  That evening after dinner, with Finlay settled down for the night, Kay and Blanche sat in the orangery sipping mint julep cocktails. As usual, Blanche was smoking one of her green cocktail cigarettes as she leafed through a file of correspondence and business papers that she had arranged for Kay to sign.

  “And I have a whole sack of fan letters that arrived this week. I have arranged them into three groups; the ones you need to see and send a signed photograph to, the ones you might be interested to read, and the ones that I can attend to on your behalf.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Blanche. Or rather, what we would all do without my big sister to take care of us.”

  Blanche sighed. “Well, actually, my darling, that was one of the things I need to talk to you about. It’s about Fitzroy–he wants us to try again. He promises that he has finished with his philandering and wants me to take him back.”

  “Oh, Blanche, that’s…that’s good news.”

  “But, it will mean us going back to the East Coast.”

  Kay gasped and sat forward, spilling her drink in the process. “But—you can’t!”

  Blanche stubbed out her cigarette and laid the holder beside the tortoiseshell ashtray. “But I think I must, Kay. There is nothing for me here. You have Finlay and Fenton. And you know it is no secret that Fenton thinks I have outstayed my welcome.”

  “But we need you! If it is security you need, well, you need never worry about money, I’ve taken care of that, even if–”