Tinseltown Confidential

by Martin Turnbull

  “And that’s exactly the word I used when I addressed the executive committee. I told them how horrified you’d be, and that they’d better sweeten the pie if they wanted your cooperation.”

  “Did they tell me to go take a long walk off a short plank?”

  “Not at all. They like you and are keen to keep you happy. So now for the good news.” Leo cleared his throat. “If Window on Hollywood is still on the air once the march is over, they’re willing to look at sponsoring your own television show.”

  Kathryn stared at Leo, not quite sure how to respond.

  Winchell thought he was the king of the castle with his single, solitary broadcast. When he hears I’ve got a regular TV show, he’ll spit up his last five Long Island Ducklings.

  Leo leaned forward and took Kathryn’s hands in his.

  “Business Theory 102: Think big, and think long-term. Your ratings aren’t dying because people don’t like your show. It’s because radio is dying. Everything is moving to television. That’s where the money is because that’s where the public is. We figure radio’s got a couple more fruitful years. After that? Deadsville. Both Sunbeam and Betty Crocker have benefited extraordinarily well out of our association with your radio show. So we want to ride it for as long as it’s worthwhile and then jump ship when it starts to splutter. Voss’ march will run over the summer, ending in LA sometime in August. By then, we’ll have wrung all we can from radio. And if you thought radio money was good, wait till you get a load of what television pays.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Gwendolyn paced the sidewalk outside the United Artists Theatre on Colorado Boulevard. Doris was cutting it awfully fine.

  Was she not coming? Did she get a flat tire? Did she have an accident? When did I become such a worrywart?

  The answer came to Gwendolyn instantly: Since the night of Marilyn’s birthday party.

  All that talk of Marcus and the East Coast cabal: Winchell, Hoover, McCarthy, Breen, and now this Harrison creep. Were they really going to expose all the homosexuals in Hollywood? As far as Gwendolyn knew, there weren’t that many Commies in Hollywood, and yet HUAC got huge mileage out of pursuing them. But the queers were a different story.

  “Gwendolyn! Is that you?”

  It wasn’t the voice she was hoping to hear.

  Eleanor Oboler was one of Gwendolyn’s regular customers. In fact, she was the ideal customer: a svelte figure who wore every style well, high-class taste, oodles of money, and time to shop.

  Her husband had written, directed, and produced a movie called Bwana Devil, which Eleanor described as “a Moby Dick tale set in British Equatorial Africa—wherever that is—but with lions. My husband dreams big, so I hope for his sake that it’s not quite so schlocky as it sounds. I’m recruiting people to a sneak preview. Would you consider coming and give some honest feedback?”

  Killer lions in Africa weren’t Gwendolyn’s idea of a fun night at the movies, until Eleanor added as an afterthought, “It will have the distinction of being the first feature released in 3-D.” Gwendolyn figured Marcus might enjoy the novelty but he got caught late at a taping of an I Love Lucy episode that wasn’t going well, and suggested she might ask his sister.

  Doris had jumped at the chance and said she’d meet her in Pasadena. But where was she?

  “I’m so glad you could make it,” Eleanor said. “It’s about to start. Shall we go in?”

  “I’m waiting on my friend. I told her quarter of, and she’s usually so reliable. Why don’t you go in? I’ll give her another minute or two.”

  “Don’t forget—we’ll be passing out feedback cards afterwards.”

  As Eleanor swanned into the theater, Doris came rushing up. Her hair was windswept, her coat hung off one shoulder, and in her hand was a huge tote bag. She wore a startled look.

  “I’ve got it!”

  “They’re about to start—”

  Doris pulled a folded magazine from her tote and held it up for Gwendolyn to see.

  Confidential magazine was every bit the tacky rag Gwendolyn had imagined. Across the top was a black-and-white banner: Exposed: Love in the U.N.! The rest of the cover was taken up with four tawdry photos of people Gwendolyn didn’t recognize. Beneath each one blazed a caption:

  O’Dwyer: Saint or Sinner?

  Showgirl Sells Shares in Self

  Athletes Are Lousy Lovers!

  Hoodlums Paradise.

  Gwendolyn took the magazine from Doris. “It’s out already?”

  “Not for another week. This is an advance copy.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A guy I work with at Columbia, his brother works for Fred Otash.”

  “That slimy private eye is connected with this?” Gwendolyn handed the magazine back.

  The two of them took cardboard glasses from the usher at the door and dashed inside. They grabbed the first pair of empty seats, put on their specs and settled in.

  The movie was as good as something called Bwana Devil could hope to be. The 3-D effects kinda-sorta worked, which made it kinda-sorta interesting, but not enough to redeem the wooden acting and woeful plot. Gwendolyn’s attention started to wander. She saw now that the assassin in Doris’ tote, with its stink of desperation and attempt to rake muck where there was none, seemed inconsequential.

  And yet . . . and yet . . .

  Fred Otash.

  Otash was a former policeman turned private eye who’d been lurking around long enough to earn a reputation for having a conveniently pliable respect for privacy.

  You want dirt on your cheating spouse so you won’t have to pay alimony? Go see Otash. You suspect your accountant is embezzling your dough and gambling it away at Santa Anita? Otash is your man. Some bastard is trying to blackmail you because you ran over someone while driving home drunk from Robert Mitchum’s? Otash will fix it for you.

  He wasn’t just any Hollywood private eye; he was the Hollywood private eye because he wasn’t afraid to skirt the blurry edges of the law to deliver results. If Confidential was using Otash to exhume deeply buried humiliations, it wasn’t above publishing anything about anyone.

  The lights came up and the audience took off their cardboard glasses. As they walked into the foyer, the same usher handed them comment cards. Gwendolyn spotted Eleanor hovering near the front door, a look of hopeful expectation filling her face. Gwendolyn grabbed Doris and steered her into the ladies’ room.

  The bathroom was tiled in seafoam green with lavender trim. A colored attendant in a starched black uniform had just finished cleaning the six mirrors. Gwendolyn and Doris took the last two seats.

  “The wife of the producer is a customer of mine,” Gwendolyn told Doris. “She’s the loyal-wife type so I don’t want to be too harsh, but my mind wandered in and out. What did you think?”

  “Put it this way,” Doris said. “We’ve got a new Johnny Weissmuller-Jungle Jim picture coming out next week called Voodoo Tiger.”

  “Which one’s better?”

  “Believe it or not, the hour and a half of hooey we just sat through. At least the 3-D effect worked—to a degree.”

  “So I’ll say, ‘It’s better than Voodoo Tiger.’”

  “Oh, Gwendolyn!” Doris laughed. “We can’t write that!”

  An approaching figure caught Gwendolyn’s eye in the mirror.

  “Ma’am?” The attendant was very dark-skinned with bright pink fingernails and a hesitant smile. Her nametag read Suzannah.

  “Yes?”

  “S’kuze me for asking, but I was wondering if you were the lady who runs that boutique up on the Sunset Strip?”

  “Why, yes, I do have a boutique on the Strip.”

  “It’s just that I know the owners of the Dunbar. We go to the same church. They give me extra work from time to time, and the other week, Lena Horne performed there. She needed a dresser and whatnot, and they asked if I would step in. Of course I said yes. And when I helped her into her dress—it was the prettiest thing I ever saw. Blue like juni
per berries, but with sparkles. When I helped her into it, I saw a label what said ‘Chez Gwendolyn.’”

  Lena had ordered that dress the day Zanuck told Gwendolyn she couldn’t cater to “people like that.” After Zanuck roared away in his limo, the mood inside the store chilled, but Gwendolyn ignored it and continued with Lena’s instructions about the blue dress. After Gwendolyn took her measurements, Lena paid in full and wrote out a delivery address, insisting that returning to the store for a fitting wouldn’t be necessary as long as she stuck to the exact measurements, and she hustled Ella out before Gwendolyn had a chance to thank her.

  Gwendolyn pushed her comment card aside. “But how did you know it was me?” she asked Suzannah.

  “That night, Ella Fitzgerald came backstage to say hello, and Dorothy Dandridge was with her. They all got to chatting and Miss Lena’s dress came up, and so they were talking about you, too. Admiring your work and the way you welcomed colored folk in your store. So when I heard your friend here say your name, I just wondered, on account of I figure there can’t be many Gwendolyns around. Leastways, I never heard of none. And now that you’re here in my powder room, I wanted to say thank you.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “For doing right by Miss Ella and Miss Lena and the others. It took guts for them to venture up to the Strip. Miss Ella talked about how she came to the back door of your store but you insisted she use the front.” She cocked her head to one side. “Did that really happen?”

  “Sure it did.”

  “That right there says to me and everyone else that you is the sort of white folk we don’t often come across.”

  “Has Miss Ella told many people about the back door-front door thing?” Doris asked.

  “Oh, yes, ma’am! She done told pert-near everybody, so far as I can tell.”

  A gaggle of women burst into the ladies’ room, one of whom was Eleanor Oboler. Suzannah withdrew to attend to them, leaving Gwendolyn and Doris to scribble honest but encouraging comments. They pressed the cards into Eleanor’s hands and fled for the front doors, right into the path of Herman Dewberry.

  “My goodness!” Gwendolyn exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  “My friend Russell did the special effects on this turkey.”

  Gwendolyn spotted a discarded feedback card on the floor. “I’m glad I’ve bumped into you. I wanted to get a sense of how my perfume is doing.”

  “Are you not getting your checks?”

  Not only had royalty checks been coming in regular as a Swiss clock, but they had been gradually increasing.

  “I just wondered what sort of responses you’re getting. People still like it, right?”

  “Oh, yes!” Herman said. “Why would you think otherwise?”

  “What would you say to extending the line?” she asked. Herman tried to keep a poker face but his eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Specifically, eau de toilette, cold cream, face powder, and eye shadow. And perhaps lipsticks?”

  When Gwendolyn first produced her perfume, it was a seat-of-the-pants operation. If it hadn’t worked, Chez Gwendolyn might have gone under. But its success had provided a comfortable cushion to help her through slow months. Now that the couture side of her business was on shaky ground, it occurred to her that, handled right, an expanded line could give her the financial freedom to run Chez Gwendolyn exactly how she wished.

  “That’s a capital idea!” Herman gushed. “I have a cosmetics manufacturer in Pomona we can use.”

  “So what’s the next step? What do I need to do?”

  “If you’re serious about this, I can work on a formal agreement next week.”

  Over Herman’s shoulder, Gwendolyn spotted Suzannah emerging from the ladies room in a fraying cloth coat.

  “Excuse me a moment, will you, Herman?”

  Gwendolyn stepped to one side and stopped Suzannah. “The next time you see Lena, will you tell her that I just got in a bolt of exquisite apricot chiffon that will look great on her? And I’ve got a design that will suit her every bit as spectacularly as the juniper dress.”

  Suzannah thanked her and said that she didn’t know when she’d next see Miss Lena, but if she did, she’d surely pass on the message.

  Gwendolyn turned back to Herman, but he was a different man. Gone was the gracious little Mr. Dewberry, grateful that she’d never blabbed about his preference for floral prints.

  “I—I—must be—going,” he stammered, backing away from her.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No—I—it’s just that it’s gotten so—so very late, and—” He whipped around and disappeared through the doors.

  “I’m glad you’re still here.” It was Eleanor Oboler. “I just realized I’m going to need a new outfit for next month. We’ve got tickets to that industry preview of This is Cinerama. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure.”

  This is Cinerama was the great white hope of the film industry: A super-widescreen format developed to counter the inroads made by that pint-sized upstart in everybody’s living room. It required three projectors, which meant extensive theater remodeling, and that cost money. But money was in short supply because the moviegoing public was staying home. If the movies were going to lure people back into theaters, the vicious cycle needed to be broken. The novelty of 3-D wasn’t going to do it—not if they only used it on crummy pictures like Bwana Devil.

  Gwendolyn watched Herman’s silhouette dissolve into the dark of night. “Yes, I have heard of it,” she told Eleanor.

  “I suspect the preview will be one of those I-was-there-when nights. I’ve got a Native Daughters of the Golden West meeting not far from your store next Friday. Shall we say around three-ish?”

  “I’ll be there.” Gwendolyn bid her good night, but didn’t follow Eleanor out of the theater.

  “Are you all right?” Doris asked.

  “I didn’t like the look on Herman’s face.”

  “It was a bit odd.”

  “Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Marcus tapped Gwendolyn’s shoulder with his This is Cinerama program. “Bwana Devil Lady was right. All the big cheeses showed up.”

  He pointed across the foyer of the Warner Hollywood Theatre, where Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly were huddled at the foot of the stairs with John Ford. Not far from him, Louis B. Mayer was tête-à-tête-ing with Cary Grant, Cecil B. DeMille, and Vincente Minnelli.

  “If the Big One hit right now, it’d take out half of Hollywood.”

  Gwendolyn slapped him back. “Don’t even say it!”

  Kathryn appeared with Leo. “What are we talking about?”

  “Earthquakes.”

  “Pretty much the only thing they didn’t throw at us,” Leo said. “That sure was one heck of an experience. I liked the Cypress Gardens sequences well enough, but that rollercoaster was something else.”

  When Marcus first heard Mayer’s ambitious plan for a triple-projector screen format, he thought it smacked of desperation. His experience on I Love Lucy had shown him the best defense against television was to embrace it, especially now that Lucille Ball was pregnant. The hullabaloo over whether or not anyone could say the word “pregnant” on the air had cannonballed the show to saturation-point popularity. They’d already shot the episode where Lucy goes to the hospital, and the network hoped to air it the day Lucille gave birth.

  Better to join it, he thought.

  But then Bette Davis sent him two tickets that she couldn’t use to the special industry preview of This is Cinerama. Kathryn and Leo already had tickets, so he brought Gwendolyn. As he watched the film unspool, a pyrotechnic montage of possibilities pinwheeled through his imagination: pirate battles in the Caribbean; the explosion of Krakatoa; the London Blitz; wildebeest stampedes in Africa; gladiator tournaments in the Colosseum. And that was just off the top of his head.

  “The whole movie was a rollercoaster,” Marcus said. “But they’ll need more than travelogues.”

  He cr
aned his neck to see past Joseph Cotton and watched Mayer’s hands blur as he and Zanuck tried to persuade DeMille, whose arms were crossed over his chest and mouth was pressed in a hard line. Finally, Zanuck threw his hands into the air and broke away.

  Marcus stepped forward to flag him down but Zanuck took an abrupt right turn toward the men’s room—hardly the place to buttonhole a heavy-hitter about the Lavender Scare.

  As he waited for Zanuck to emerge, it occurred to Marcus that in a lobby full of A-listers, at least one or two others would want to bend Zanuck’s ear. He shouldered the swinging door just as Zanuck was zipping up and heading toward the line of basins.

  “Mr. Zanuck.” The mogul didn’t even look up. “My name is Marcus Adler, and I’ve recently heard some information that I think you need to know.”

  Zanuck held his hand out for the restroom attendant to place a towel in his grasp. He arched an eyebrow. “So you’re the photographer my PR guy’s been raving about.”

  “He has?”

  “I’ve seen the photos you took on The Star, and let me tell you, they were exactly the sort of production shots I’ve always wanted. There was one where Bette’s sitting on that sofa, with those Venetian blinds behind her.”

  “And the Oscar?”

  “Yeah! You positioned it over her shoulder, like her best work is behind her, and she’s got that wild-eyed look only Bette Davis can get. Now, that was a thousand-word photo.” He pulled a fat cigar from his jacket and threaded it through his fingers, but didn’t light it. “Can you come to the studio tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ve got a real big picture in production.”

  “Titanic?”

  “That’s the one. The production photographer has done a god-awful job. I’ll leave your name with security at the main gate.”

  He walked out, leaving Marcus to stare at the attendant. What just happened?

  * * *