Swan Song

by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

  Act I

  THE REBELLIOUS DEBUTANTE

  IT STARTED WITH small acts of defiance.

  While crowned the unquestioned celebrant of the’ 37–’38 season, Lucy—or C.Z., as she was called by her intimates—spent the better part of the parties drinking cocktails from a smuggled flask to supplement the thimbles of champagne, counting the hours until she could return to the stables and ride again. In fact, the only young men in Boston she was interested in were the sluggers of the Red Sox, for whom she rooted religiously, and the Bruins ice hockey team. If she was perfectly frank, Jack Kennedy and that whole Harvard crowd put her to sleep with their flat vowels (not unlike her own, though less musical by far) and their flat chat (something of which she was never guilty). She knew one thing— that her ambitions lay well beyond the suffocating New England boundaries of her birthplace.

  She had started to see a handsome young man she met on the beach, stationed in Boston in the Coast Guard. He’d made a couple of pictures in California before the war. A matinee idol by the name of Victor Mature. She’d seen him in three films: as the young romantic lead in the remake of No, No, Nanette; a fur-clad cave-man in One Million B.C.; and a swashbuckling swordsman in something called Captain Caution. One night as they strolled along Ocean Pier, Victor had paused, taking her chin in his giant hand. She thought he meant to tilt her face up to his and kiss her in the moonlight, but instead he simply studied her features, turning her profile, assessing each angle. She gazed up into his heavy-lidded eyes (which she could never quite decide whether she found attractive or off-putting), at his lips as full as an ingénue’s (or those of a pouting halibut), and waited. Finally, in that deep, throaty, matinee-idol voice he said—

  ‘You know, you’ve got a face for showbiz, kid. Your jaw is just square enough and your nose short enough. You need that to avoid casting shadows with the lights. Not that you’d need light… You’re like the moon up there—lit from within.’

  It was Victor who first gave her the idea. Not becoming an actress for acting’s sake, but acting in order to sully her reputation just enough to render her ‘tainted goods’ as far as marriage to the ‘right’ men from the ‘right’ families was concerned.

  Within a month she’d recruited her sister and a handful of debs to join a cabaret on the rooftop of the Boston Ritz. She sang Irving Berlin’s ‘Blue Skies’—slightly off-key, nevertheless stunning in a pale evening dress that clung to her athletic form, a slit up to her thigh revealing what she’d always been told were a great pair of gams when spied in swimsuits and tennis shorts. It seemed all of Boston dropped in at some point to see what shenanigans the Rebel Debs of the Ritz were up to, and Lucy was enormously satisfied when the Harvard crowd treated her like a fallen woman—or at least a temporarily misguided one. She sped around Boston in Victor Mature’s Chevrolet convertible, drinking martinis from a thermos and necking in public.

  Her mother was appropriately horrified.

  To the Ritz one evening, Victor brought a guest. A lean, dark man with slick hair and a hungry look. He sat at a table at the edge of the floor, studying each of the young ladies with a connoisseur’s eye. His intensity made the other girls uneasy, they’d later tell Lucy, but she met his gaze without blinking.

  After the final song, the sirens joined their patrons. Lucy tucked a stray platinum strand behind her ear and sipped her Brandy Alexander. Victor touched her arm, prompting—

  ‘Mr. Shubert is a producer, Luce. On Broadway. He runs the Shubert Organization… ?’

  Lucy nodded and smiled, which might as well have been a shrug, from her lack of recognition.

  ‘Sweetheart, what’s your name? Your given name,’ he asked, the hint of a Slavic accent discernible over the din of chatter and swing from the band.

  ‘Lucy.’

  ‘Lucy, you wanna be an actress?’

  ‘Not pahticularly. But I would like to be something.’

  ‘Well, take it from me. You can’t sing and from what I can see you can’t dance—not that that ever stopped any of the dames in the biz. What I mean to say is that you got no talent. But what you do have is a face. I know a face from a mile away—and sweetheart, you got one. A face to die for.’

  Lucy felt her pale cheeks color, but simply took his card.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘You call me.’

  ‘I will.’

  And she did.

  VIGNETTE

  ALT: 28,000 FEET

  AIR SPEED: 460 M.P.H. (399 KNOTS)

  ETA: 2 HRS 12 MINS

  ‘YOU POOR, DIM creature… Did you really not know who the Shu-berts were?’

  ‘Hahdn’t the foggiest.’

  ‘Don’t all aspiring actresses know the Shubert Organization?’

  ‘Dahling, about the only aspiration I had as an actress was to be good enough to be bahnned from Boston.’

  ‘And did you manage it?’

  ‘I’ll say!’ She grinned, taking her drink from him and sipping. As Annie Hall wheeled the cart back the other way Truman looked to C.Z., imploringly.

  She sighed, relenting. ‘It’s cold turkey tomorrow, bustah.’

  ‘Cross my heart, sugar.’ Flagging the stewardess. ‘Miss… ?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Le même encore, s’il vous plaît.’

  The girl cut her eyes to C.Z., who nodded. The drinks were poured and deposited—C.Z. setting Truman’s before him.

  ‘Was it marvelous, darling?’

  ‘Was what mahvelous?’

  ‘Well, the Follies, of course. Treading the boards. The Great White Way. Wearing next to nothing with all those peepers gazing on you with lust and envy and absolute yearning.’

  ‘I certainly told everyone back home how terrific it was.’

  ‘And in reality… ?’ He slurped the top of his bourbon with relish.

  She paused, allowing her limbs the memory of holding up the weight of an enormous cage structure—batwings extending five feet in either direction, dripping with beads like an overladen chandelier. Balancing atop a nest of curls, an explosion of a headdress on the scale of Mount Vesuvius. Megawatt smile held in place, the muscles in one’s cheek spasming with the effort.

  ‘Actually, I was bored as hell! Bored of the costumes. Bored of the lights. Bored of standing, of walking, of holding a pose till my arms wanted to break.’

  ‘But surely you got bit—just a teensy bit—by the showbiz bug.’ ‘Not even the tiniest nip.’

  Act II

  ZIEGFELD GIRL

  HER CONTRACT WAS explicit. She was a showgirl—not a dancer.

  As Mr. Shubert had spotted, she couldn’t dance and she couldn’t sing. But she looked radiant on stage. She was billed last, her name in the smallest print. No featured roles, she was the third blonde from the left. Yet she drew eyes.

  ‘The very blonde one,’ it was said.

  ‘The society girl,’ it was whispered.

  Her costumes, as a rule, were white. White to match the platinum of her hair, so pale it gave the illusion of lacking any pigmentation beneath the stage lights. White pearls, strategically draped to cover scandalous bits, leaving little to the imagination.

  The zenith of her evening was shedding the weight of the cages. Wiping the garish red from her lips, slipping back into her comfortable second skin of Harris tweed and moccasins, joining the cast in the bar on West 45th for Brandy Alexanders. Parties were frequently on offer, peopled with far more colorful characters than a Boston Junior League do; not a strand of pearls in sight. It was at a party for the opening of something or other that the man who would stage her next act would make his entrance.

  It was high atop the city, at the Rainbow Room on the sixty-fifth floor in Rockefeller Plaza. Walking into that glass sphere in the clouds, she felt as light and fizzy as a human champagne bubble—monochrome hair and evening dress sustaining the illusion.

  She had heard all about the rotating dance floor, cleverly linked to a Wurlitzer organ, which cued lights that chang
ed colors according to the tone and mood of each song.

  The band was in full swing in the brilliant glow of a golden, syncopated foxtrot. A rosy rumba followed, and a fiery crimson cha-cha, until the tone chilled into a pale blue waltz. It was then that he made his approach. Notably handsome, with high cheek-bones, chiseled features, and a trim beige mustache. Politely cutting in, taking her in his arms. She smiled, a distant, formal smile, placing her long fingers on his broad shoulders.

  ‘Well, good evening,’ she said.

  ‘Good evening,’ he replied, his lips barely moving.

  ‘Mahvelous, isn’t it?’

  ‘What, specifically?’

  ‘This is the first dance that’s a cool color.’ And indeed they were surrounded in an ice-blue luminescence, as if bathed in moonlight. ‘I prefer them—cool colors. Don’t you?’

  ‘Why is that?’ The corners of his mouth teasing vaguely toward a smile, revealing traces of deep-set dimples beneath prominent cheek bones.

  ‘Well, I suppose it suits my temperament. After all, there’s only so much heat a girl can take before she wants a tall glass of wahter.’

  It was then that he smiled in earnest and she saw what his severe expression had been hiding. Amidst those strong, fine features, a pair of buck teeth, like a cartoon rabbit. Instantly the mystery was replaced with a sweetness. Affability.

  ‘I can believe that. There’s something about you… even from a distance. I suppose it is a chill. An aloofness…’

  ‘Heavens, as bad as that?’

  His grin spread broadly, on either side of his buck teeth.

  ‘No, no. There’s something else… Warm shades, simmering just beneath. It’s good. Good to have a bit of intrigue.’ The waltz reached its conclusion, and the band transitioned into a rendition of ‘Mood Indigo.’ As she stepped back, he offered his arms again. ‘May I… ?’ She smiled and accepted them. She liked his rabbit grin. It was disarming. After they’d swayed through the clarinet’s plaintive solo he said, ‘Name’s Darryl, by the way.’

  ‘A pleasure. Lucy.’

  ‘May I be so bold, Lucy, to ask what you do?’

  Affecting her best Brahmin accent, ‘Now it’s a very rude question to inquire about a lady’s ahhcupation. That’s as bad as asking my age, or if I’m divorced or with child.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘No. No. Twenty-four. Undetermined. In reverse order.’

  ‘At the risk of sounding banal, has anyone ever told you you have a face for pictures?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He laughed at her indifference. ‘And who told you that, if I might ask? A teacher? Father? A fella… ?’

  ‘Victor Mature.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ Bucks bared in the now-lilac glow. ‘We bought the four years left on his contract with Hal Roach. Paid eighty grand for him. The minute this war is over I—’

  ‘You bought Victor’s contract? But I thought a studio—’

  ‘Exactly. Twentieth Century Fox.’

  ‘You’re Fox?’

  ‘No, Lucy dear. But I may as well be. I’m Zanuck.’

  ‘Ohhh, I see. Yes, I’ve heard about you. From Victor.’

  ‘I’ve always said that kid’s got the Midas touch. The public loves him—everything he’s in turns to gold. But directors don’t see it—not yet. Can’t get past those looks of his. All brawn no brain, they assume. But I’ve got plans for him.’

  ‘That’s lovely, Mr. Zanuck.’

  ‘Darryl.’

  ‘Darryl.’

  ‘I can spot a star a mile away. Or at least star potential.’

  ‘I suppose that takes a particular talent.’

  ‘Yes, it does, Lucy, and right now, I’ve gotta be honest, I’m spotting it in you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nonplussed.

  ‘Yep. How would you like for me to arrange a screen test?’ ‘Ha.’

  ‘What do you mean, “ha”?’

  ‘Well, to begin with, I have absolutely no talent. Whatsoever.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘I can’t sing and I can’t dance—pretty good odds I can’t act either.’

  ‘And who told you this?’

  ‘Mr. Shubert. Of the Shubert Organization.’

  ‘I see. Which Shubert?’

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘Well, how about this, Lucy… Lucy what?’

  ‘Cochrane.’

  ‘Well, how’ bout this, Miss Lucy Cochrane. You fly out to California, take my little test, then we’ll see whose instincts are right. I can arrange for Victor to be there, so you’ll feel comfortable. Whaddaya say? Doesn’t every girl want to be in pictures?’

  She shrugged a pale shoulder.

  ‘Next Friday too soon?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t possibly. I have a show, you see.’

  ‘A show? But you said you weren’t in the business.’

  ‘I said I was undetermined.’

  ‘What show?’

  ‘The Ziegfeld Follies.’

  ‘Featured player?’

  ‘Third blonde from the left.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, chuckling at her honesty as he whirled her off the floor and toward the bar. ‘It really isn’t a question, is it? You’re coming to Hollywood, where I suspect I’ll make you a star. Just like your friend Victor.’ And with that he lifted two flutes of champagne from a tray, passing one to Lucy. ‘To our future.’

  ‘Well, it’s a very tempting offer, Darryl, but as I say, I do have a prior commitment. Perhaps I’ll think on it. May I have your card?’

  He produced a card from a silver case in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Here you are, Lucy Cochrane. You’ll call me… sooner than later.’

  She sipped her champagne, keeping her thoughts hidden beneath that well-chilled politeness. But after two more weeks of heaving the bead-laden birdcages across the stage of the Imperial, a new test of any sort seemed a welcome challenge.

  When she picked up the phone in her room at the Ritz and dialed Zanuck’s offices, he answered the call with six short words.

  ‘Lucy Cochrane… I knew you’d call.’

  Act III

  ZANUCK’S STARLET

  ‘OKAY, LUCY, LET’S try this again,’ she could hear Zanuck’s voice, off camera.

  She stood awkwardly, staring into a void. Nothingness. She could hear rustling behind the camera, could hear the occasional cough. Certainly the whispers, which she felt all but certain were criticizing her performance (if one could call it that—she had her doubts).

  They were testing her for a specific role in a specific picture, as they had nineteen times before in the eight months she had been there. Nineteen times she had failed.

  The early screen test she’d passed (on her looks). She’d been signed on the spot to a seven-year contract, the very length of Victor Mature’s—who she’d since learned half the contract players referred to as ‘Manure.’ And so began the weeks of lessons. Speech and elocution. Movement. Scene study. She joined the throngs of girls walking with books on heads, they taking the whole process terribly seriously. She’d appeal to Zanuck about that, submitting a photograph of herself balancing a five-foot Ziegfeld headdress, with a note attached: BEYOND BOOKS… ! She was invited to all the parties and premieres, had her photograph taken by the publicity department, who played up the Rebel Debutante angle and chronicled her arranged dates with strapping young contract players who took her to dinners at Musso & Frank’s.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time—the right thwcript,’ Zanuck assured her, the word getting caught in his rabbit teeth. ‘It’ll happen. I know a star when I see one. Patience, my dear.’

  But Lucy could see that it was hopeless. She could hear her voice—so wooden. Lacking the sweet languor it possessed in its natural state. She could feel her muscles stiffen, forming a protective armor around her when asked to walk this way or that. Felt the disconnected actions as she lifted a phone and pretended to say hello. She began to dread the calls for a screen test. To dread reading the dull scrip
t in the first place, much less learning the lines. She could hardly be bothered choosing her clothes, putting them on, and turning up, that ridiculous clapperboard with its zebra arm clacked in front of her face, then her four minutes—if that—to perform on cue, like some sort of deaf seal?

  She preferred to be reading books, not scripts—or, more accurately, she longed to be outdoors. To be galloping through an open field on the back of a thoroughbred, as she had done all her life in Boston. After nine months of failure, Lucy had had enough.

  One morning in August, when the heat was so thick one could slice it with a butter knife, Lucy Cochrane failed to arrive at the studio for her elocution class. Her absence was again noted at scene study, where a craggy young man—a poor man’s Victor Mature—was left without a partner. Mr. Zanuck was alerted by lunchtime, and—Lucy being something of a pet cause of his—had taken the matter into his own hands. He left four messages with her service, all of which went unanswered. He called her bunga-low on Doheny Drive, where the phone rang and rang, for there was no one left to answer it.

  She’d awoken that day with a sense of purpose. The stillness in the air carried clarity in its stagnancy. It was as if she knew there was no life in this strange place—this temple of plastic dreams. It was tolerable enough, she supposed, for those who wanted it badly. They could afford patience. They could sit another seven years, watching their potential wither in that lifeless air. But what came to her in the stillness was that this was a hot place—a place of burnings and longings in crimsons and charred orange hues. She was an ice-blue thing. Removed. She never wanted this. It was never her dream, so why waste another moment of life in this place? Contract or no, she wasn’t a slave and could not be kept here. As if it was the simplest choice in the world she rose, removed her stacks of twinsets and skirts and short suits from drawers, which she neatly placed in the open suitcase on the guest bed. She walked from the house out into the blazing light and never looked back.

  ‘What do you mean, you’re going?’ Zanuck had bellowed on the phone when she called that afternoon from a booth in Union Station. ‘You’re going where?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘What do you mean, you’re not sure?’

  ‘I haven’t decided where I’d like to be next.’