by Mario Puzo
Because we were working so closely on the script, Malomar and I spent a lot of time together, sometimes late at night in his movie mogul home where I felt uncomfortable. It was too much for one person, I thought. The huge, heavily furnished rooms, the tennis court, the swimming pool and the separate house that held the screening room. One night he offered to screen a new movie, and I told him I wasn’t that crazy about movies. I guess my snottiness showed because he got a little pissed off.
“You know we’d be doing a lot better on this script if you didn’t have such contempt for the movie business,” he said.
That stung me a little. For one thing I prided myself that my manners were too good to show such a thing. For another I had a professional pride in my work and he was telling me I was fucking off. For still another I had come to respect Malomar. He was the producer-director and he could have ridden right over me while we were working together, but he never did. And when he made a suggestion to change the script, he was usually right. When he was wrong and I could prove it by argument, he deferred to me. In short, he did not fit all my preconceived notions of the Land of Empidae.
So instead of watching the movie or working on the script, we fought that night. I told him how I felt about the movie business and the people in it. The more I talked, the less angry Malomar became, and finally he was smiling.
“You talk like some cunt who can’t get guys anymore,” Malomar said. “Movies are the new art form, you worry your racket is becoming obsolete. You’re just jealous.”
“Movies can’t compare with novels,” I said. “Movies can never do what books do.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Malomar said. “Movies are what people want now and in the future. And all your bullshit about producers and the empid fly. You came here for a few months and you pass judgment on everybody. You put us all down. But every business is the same, they all wave that carrot on a stick. Sure, movie people are fucking crazy, sure, they hustle, sure, they use sex like barter beads, but so what? What you ignore is, all of them, producers and writers, directors and actors, go through a lot of pain. They study their trade or craft for years and work harder than any people I know. They are truly dedicated, and no matter what you say, it takes talent and even genius to make a good movie. Those actors and actresses are like the fucking infantry. They get killed. And they don’t get the important roles by fucking. They have to be proven artists, they have to know their craft. Sure there are assholes and maniacs in this business that ruin a five-million-dollar picture by casting their boyfriend or girlfriend. But they don’t last long. And then you go on about producers and directors. Well, directors I don’t have to defend. It’s the toughest job in the business. But producers have a function too. They’re like lion tamers in a zoo. You know what it is to make a picture? First you have to kiss ten asses on the financial board of a studio. Then you have to be mother and father to some crazy fucking stars. You have to keep the crews happy or they murder you with malingering and overtime. And then you have to keep them all from murdering each other. Look, I hate Moses Wartberg, but I recognize that he has a financial genius that helps keep the movie business going. I respect that genius as much as I despise his artistic taste. And I have to fight him all the time as a producer and a director. And I think even you will admit that a couple of my movies could be called art.”
“That’s at least half bullshit,” I said.
Malomar said, “You keep putting down producers. Well, they are the guys who get pictures together. And they do it by spending two years kissing a hundred different babies, financial babies, actor babies, director babies, writer babies. And producers have to change their diapers, get tons of shit up their nose into their brain. Maybe that’s why they usually have such lousy taste. And yet a lot of them believe in art more than the talent. Or in its fantasy. You never see a producer not appear at the Academy Awards to pick up his Oscar.”
“That’s just ego,” I said, “not a belief in art.”
“You and your fucking art,” Malomar said. “Sure, only one movie out of a hundred is worth something, but what about books?”
“Books have a different function,” I said defensively. “Movies can only show the outside.”
Malomar shrugged. “You really are a pain in the ass.”
“Movies are not art,” I said. “It’s magic tricks for kids.” I only half believed that.
Malomar sighed. “Maybe you have the right idea. In every form, it’s all magic, not art. It’s a fake-out so that people forget about dying.”
That wasn’t true, but I didn’t argue. I knew Malomar had trouble since his heart attack and I didn’t want to say that this was what influenced him. For my money it was art that made you understand how to live.
Well, OK, he didn’t convince me, but after that I did look around me in a less prejudiced way. But he was right in one thing. I was jealous of the movies. The work was so easy, the rewards so rich, the fame dizzying. I hated the idea of going back to writing novels alone in a room. Underneath all my contempt was a childish envy. It was something I could never really be a part of; I didn’t have the talent or the temperament. I would always in some way despise it but for reasons more snobbish than moral.
I had read all about Hollywood, and by Hollywood I really mean the movie business. I had heard writers, especially Osano, come back East and curse the studios, call the producers the worst cocksucking meddlers in the world, the studio chiefs the crudest, rudest men this side of the apes, the studios so crooked, overbearing and criminal that they made the Black Hand look like the Sweet Sisters of Charity. Well, how they came back from Hollywood, that’s how I went in.
I had all the confidence in the world that I could handle it When Doran took me into my first meeting with Malomar and Houlinan, I spotted them right away. Houlinan was easy. But Malomar was more complicated than I expected. Doran, of course, was a caricature. But to tell the truth I liked Doran and Malomar. I detested Houlinan on sight. And when Houlinan told me to have my picture taken with Kellino, I almost told him to go fuck himself. When Kellino didn’t show up on time, I had my out. I hate waiting for anybody. I don’t get mad at them for being late, so why should they get mad at me for not waiting?
What made Hollywood fascinating was all the different species of empid fly.
Young guys with vasectomy cards, cans of film under their arms, scripts and cocaine in their studio apartments, hoping to make movies, searching for talented young girls and guys to read for parts and fuck to pass time. Then there were the bona fide producers with offices on the studio lots and a secretary, plus a hundred thousand dollars in development money. They called agents and casting agencies to send people over. These producers had at least one picture to their credit. Usually a low-budget dumb picture that never made back the cost of the negative and wound up being shown on airplanes or at drive-ins. These producers paid off a California weekly for a quote that called their film one of the ten best pictures of the year. Or a planted Variety report that the picture had outgrossed Gone with the Wind in Uganda, which really meant Gone with the Wind had never played there. These producers usually had signed pictures of big stars on their desks inscribed with “LOVE.” They spent the day interviewing beautiful, struggling actresses who were deadly serious about their work and had no idea that for the producers it was just a way to kill an afternoon and maybe get lucky with a blow job that would give them a better appetite for dinner. If they were really hot for a particular actress, they would take her for lunch in the studio commissary and introduce her to the heavyweights who went by. The heavyweights, having gone through the same routine in their salad days, stood still for this if you didn’t push it too far. The heavyweights had outgrown this kid stuff. They were too busy unless the girl was something special. Then she might get a shot.
The girls and boys knew the game, knew it was partly a fixed wheel, but they also knew that you could get lucky. So they took their chances with a producer, a director, a star, but if they really
knew their stuff and had some brains, they would never pin their hopes on a writer. I realized now how Osano must have felt.
But again I always understood this was part of the trap. Along with the money and the plush suites and the flattery and heady atmosphere of studio conferences and the feeling of importance in making a big film. So I never really got hooked. If I got a little horny, I flew to Vegas and gambled it cold. Cully would always try to send a class hooker to my room. But I always refused. Not that I was priggish, and of course, I was tempted. But I liked gambling more and had too much guilt.
I spent two weeks in Hollywood playing tennis, going out to dinner with Doran and Malomar, going to parties. The parties were interesting. At one I met a faded star who had been my masturbation fantasy when I was a teenager. She must have been fifty, but she still looked pretty good with face-lifts and all kinds of beauty aids. But she was just a little fat and her face was puffy with alcohol. She got drunk and tried to fuck every male and female at the party but couldn’t find a taker. And this was a girl that millions of young red-blooded Americans had fantasized about. I found that sort of interesting. I guess the truth is that it depressed me too. The parties were OK. Familiar faces of actors and actresses. Agents brimming over with confidence. Charming producers, forceful directors. I have to say they were a hell of a lot more charming and interesting than I ever was at a party.
And then I loved the balmy climate. I loved the palm tree streets of Beverly Hills, and I loved goofing around Westwood with all its movie theaters and young college kids who were film afficionados with really great-looking girls. I understood why all those 1930 novelists had “sold out.” Why spend five years writing a novel that made two grand when you could live this life and make the same money in a week?
During the day I would work in my office, have conferences on the script with Malomar, lunch in the commissary, wander over to a set and watch a picture being shot. On the set the intensity of the actors and actresses always fascinated me. One time I was really awed. A young couple played a scene in which the boy murdered his girlfriend while they made love. After the scene the two of them fell into each other’s arms and wept as if they had been part of a real tragedy. They walked off the set hugging each other.
Lunch at the commissary was fun. You met all the people acting in films, and it seemed as if everybody had read my book, at least they said they did. I was surprised that actors and actresses really didn’t talk much. They were good listeners. Producers talked a lot. Directors were preoccupied, usually accompanied by three or four assistants. The crew seemed to have the best time. But to watch the shooting of a picture was boring. It wasn’t a bad life, but I missed New York. I missed Valerie and the kids, and I missed my dinners with Osano. Those were nights I’d hop a plane to Vegas for the evening, sleep over and come back in the early morning.
Then one day at the studio, after I had been back and forth a few times, NY to LA, LA to NY, Doran asked me to come to a party at his rented house in Malibu. A goodwill party where movie critics, scriptwriters and production people mixed it up with actors and actresses and directors. I didn’t have anything better to do, I didn’t feel like going to Vegas, so I went to Doran’s party, and there I met Janelle for the first time.
Chapter 29
It was one of those Sunday informal gatherings thrown in a Malibu house that had a tennis court plus a big pool, with steaming hot water. The house was divided from the ocean by only a thin strip of sand. Everybody was dressed casually. I noticed that most of the men threw their car keys on the table in the~ first receiving room, and when I asked Eddie Lancer about that, he told me that in Los Angeles male trousers were tailored so perfectly that you couldn’t put anything into your pockets.
As I moved through the different rooms, I heard interesting conversations. A tall, thin, aggressive-looking dark woman was falling all over a handsome producer type wearing a yachting cap. A very short little blonde rushed up to them and said to the woman, “Lay another hand on my husband and I’ll punch you right in the cunt.” The man in the yachting cap had a stutter and very deadpan said, “Th-th-that’s OK. She doesn’t use it mu-u-u-ch anyway.”
Going through a bedroom, I saw a couple head to toe and I heard a woman’s very schoolmarm voice say, “Get up here.”
I heard a guy I recognized as a New York novelist saying, “The movie business. If you make a reputation as a great dentist, they’ll let you do brain surgery.” And I thought, another pissed-off writer.
I wandered out into the parking area near the Pacific Coast Highway and I saw Doran with a group of friends admiring a Stutz Bearcat. Somebody had just told Doran the car cost sixty thousand dollars. Doran said, “For that kind of money it should be able to give head.” And everybody laughed. Then Doran said, “How do you get the nerve to just park it? It’s like having a night job while being married to Marilyn Monroe.”
I really went to the party just to meet Clara Ford, for my money the best American film reviewer who ever lived. She was smart as hell, wrote great sentences, read a lot of books, saw every movie and agreed with me on ninety-nine films out of a hundred. When she praised a film, I knew I could go see it and probably love it, or at the very least would be able to sit through the damn thing. Her reviews were the closest a critic could come to being an artist, and I liked the fact that she never claimed to be creative. She was content to be a critic.
At the party I didn’t get much chance to talk to her, which was OK with me. I just wanted to see what kind of lady she really was. She came with Kellino, and he kept her busy. And since most of the people clustered around Kellino, Clara Ford got a lot of attention. So I sat in the corner and just watched.
Clara Ford was one of those small, sweet-looking women who are usually called plain, but her face was so alive with intelligence that, in my eyes anyway, she was beautiful. What made her fascinating was that she could be both tough and innocent at the same time. She was tough enough to take on all the other major movie critics in New York and show them up as top-notch assholes. She did it A-B-C, like a prosecuting DA with an airtight case. She showed up as an idiot one guy whose humorous Sunday columns on movies were embarrassing. She took on the voice of the Greenwich Village avant-garde movie buffs and showed him for the dull bastard he was, yet she was smart enough to see him as an idiot savant, the dumbest guy who ever put words on paper, with a real feeling for certain movies. By the time she was through she had all their balls in her unfashionable J. C. Penny handbag.
I could see she was having a good time at the party. And that she was aware that Kellino was conning her with his romancing. Through the uproar I could hear Kellino say, “An agent is an idiot savant manque.” That was an old trick of his with critics, male and female. In fact, he had scored a great success with an astringent male critic by calling another critic a fag manque.
Now Kellino was being so fucking charming with Clara Ford that it was a scene in a movie. Kellino showed his dimples like muscles and Clara Ford, for all her intelligence, was beginning to wilt and hang on to him a little.
Suddenly a voice next to me said, “Do you think Kellino will let her fuck him on the first date?”
The voice came from a really good-looking blond girl, or rather a woman because she wasn’t a kid. I guessed she was about thirty. Like Clara Ford, what gave her face some of its beauty was its intelligence.
She had great sharp-planed bones in her face with lovely white skin over those bones, you couldn’t notice the skin owed something to makeup. She had vulnerable brown eyes that could be delighted as a child’s and tragic as a Dumas heroine. If this sounds like a lover’s description out of Dumas, that’s OK. Maybe I didn’t feel this way when I first saw her. That came later. Right now the brown eyes looked mischievous. She was having a good time standing outside the party storm center. What she had, which was unusual in beautiful women, was the delighted, happy air that children have when they are being left alone, doing what is to them amusing. I introduced myself and
she said her name was Janelle Lambert.
I recognized her now. I’d seen her in small parts in different movies and she’d always been good. She gave her part second effort. You always liked her on screen, but you never thought of her as great. I could see she admired Clara Ford and had hoped the critic would say something to her. She hadn’t, so now Janelle was being funny malicious. In another woman it would have been a catty remark about Ford, but with her it was OK.
She knew who I was and said the usual things about the book that people say. And I put on my usual absentminded act as if I had barely heard the compliment. I liked the way she dressed, modest, yet stylish as hell without being high fashion.
“Let’s go over,” she said. I thought she wanted to meet Kellino, but when we got there, I saw her trying to get Clara Ford into a conversation. She said intelligent things, but you could see Ford putting the ice on because she was so beautiful, or so I thought then.
Suddenly Janelle turned and walked away from the group. I followed her. She had her back to me, but when I caught her at the door, I found that she was crying.
Her eyes were magnificent with tears in them. They were golden brown flecked with black dots that were maybe just darker brown (later I found out they were contact lenses), and the tears made the eyes bigger, with more gold. They also betrayed the fact that she’d given the eyes a little help with makeup that was now running.
“You’re beautiful when you cry,” I said. I was imitating Kellino in one of his charming roles.
“Oh, fuck you, Kellino,” she said.