Dead Stars

by Bruce Wagner

  On his way to execute the tricky Double Void gambit, Bud was intercepted by Michael Tolkin.

  They were high school chums who hadn’t seen each other in years. Tolkin wrote movie scripts for seven figures (& dabbled in cable), and was an acclaimed novelist to boot. He had the sort of career Bud wanted—the respect and acclaim of the Industry and the book critics as well. Bud had long felt a rivalry there, which of course his old friend would have known nothing about.

  Michael was also the ostensible instigator behind the still vague David Simon affair.

  Bud embraced him, but Michael was in a hurry; a handshake probably would have been better.

  “I’m right in the middle of the David Simon meeting! Hey, thank you for that—I was going to get your number from CAA, so I could take you to dinner.”

  “I’m late, Bud, so I don’t have time to talk, we can talk later. But here’s what’s happening: David’s doing a show about Hollywood, I may or may not be involved. It’s scripted improv. He wants it to feel like The Wire, whatever that means, I hate it when people start talking about what shit should feel like, you know? I remembered those great short stories you wrote, and I was telling him about them, how funny and moving they were, & he just jumped on it. David wants there to be a protagonist like—like the one you wrote about in your book. A down & out screenwriter, maybe addicted to narcotics or porn. I don’t know what David’s thinking—nobody does!—we didn’t talk all that much. My deal isn’t even in place. I’m only telling you this because, & I love the guy, but David’s a writer, what more can I say, that’s what writers do, we steal from the best. And I do think he’s genuinely interested in listening, you know, hearing stories about the bottomfeeders in the business. I only brought your name up as an example of someone who really captured, who knew those kind—that kind of character down to his soul. But I’m not so sure, I don’t think he’d ever, I shouldn’t say ever, I just don’t think he’s looking for you to write something for him for his show, to be in on the ground floor. And I’m telling you this because I don’t think you should—Bud, you do what you want, you’re a big boy—I just don’t think you should be giving your stories away.”

  “That’s fine, Michael. It’s fine. It’s all good.”

  “Well, I’m not so happy about it. Is he in there?”

  “No. His development gal.”

  “Do not tell her any stories about Hollywood. You know, I said to him, either talk to Bud as a peer & potential writer on the show or don’t talk to him at all. Jesus, David! ‘The art of storytelling is reaching its end because truth and wisdom are dying’—Walter Benjamin said it, I didn’t! He also said that every work of art is an uncommitted crime. Maybe that was Adorno.”

  “Don’t even worry about it, I can handle myself.”

  “Bud, I gotta go.”

  “Hey, remember when you lived in that apt on Fountain? Where Carl Gottlieb & Sela Ward used to live?”

  “The La Fontaine! That was 30 years ago.”

  “Where are you living now?”

  “Wendy and I have a house in Laughlin Park, but we spend most of our time in Carpenteria. And I never gave up my seedy little office in Malibu. We need to downsize—our girls are in college. You? Got any kids?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re living . . .”

  Bud said “Hancock Park” instead of “with my mother.”

  Tolkin broke away. “I’ll call the end of the week, I want to put you in touch with someone.”

  “Great! Hey, who ya meetin’ in there?”

  What’s a little gauche between old friends?

  “Michael Douglas. I wrote the movie he’s about to shoot, & he’s got ‘actor questions.’ Ugh. Good guy, though. See you, Bud.”

  . . .

  Tolkin called like he said he would. He felt bad about being inadvertently involved in Bud’s “set up,” & gave him a hot tip.

  He told Bud that the company producing the Michael Douglas movie was relatively new, but already had a few hits under its belt. It was run by a kid named Brando—nice kid—the son of a billionaire. Michael said that Ooh Baby Baby* was practically “giving away” blind script deals, “which in this climate is unusual, to say the least.” He told Bud that he’d already spoken to Brando about him.

  “They should be calling you soon. I know you take jobs to make your monthly nut,” he added thoughtfully.

  Tolkin was a mensch. He would certainly have been aware of what terrible straits Bud was in—for years now—yet was handling the situation, such as it was, with enormous sensitivity. Bud felt awful for having had a moment’s resentment toward the man who’d floated back into his life in the form of a fairy godfather, spirit guide and overall ministering angel.

  “Do I need to come in with a pitch?” said Bud.

  That hollow feeling began taking over, just like it used to. The despair of knowing that you didn’t have what it took, that a beggar could never be a nobleman.

  “No! Less is definitely more. Brando listens to me, & I said you were Charlie Kaufman before Charlie was Charlie Kaufman. He’s excited. Just take a general meeting. Brando will pitch to you.”

  EXPLICIT

  [Michael]

  The Oaks

  He

  came to see her because he loved her. He wanted to talk about the project, of course, & about the flopsweat that seized hold of him in the last few weeks. The fear that he might be calling dark energy. He didn’t like the witchy feeling of superstition that of a sudden descended upon him in regards to directing & starring in a film about the death of a maverick. A maverick like him . . .

  Though he hadn’t fully discussed it with his wife, Michael was certain he wanted her to play the Angel of Death. Still, he couldn’t put his finger on it. There was something tawdry & graspy about this posthumous-feeling, pet project of his. An element of morbid kitsch . . . was he jumping headlong into a lot of meretricious nonsense? He aimed to cross Fosse with Cocteau, but was he really up for that? (Was anyone?) Because whenever he had that “genius” conversation with himself, he sure as hell came out on the losing end. Would he—could he—make some kind of wild theatrical poem, some messy, perfectly imperfect masterpiece? All he had to do was close his eyes & he could hear the jangle of a critical & financial fiasco, a lampoonable death rattle.

  Whatever he was going to make, he sure the fuck didn’t feel like falling on his ass. (Never did.) This wasn’t a midlife gambol, it was an act of love, or was meant to be, as much as it was a cri de coeur. But the virus of doubt had infected him, and experience had shown that was a tough bug to kill. He’d awaken in the night, at that time Dr. Calliope always called the hour of the wolf, from a dream that he was walking alongside the catafalque bearing his body; the pallbearers looked at him sideways with contempt & he felt shame that he didn’t have the courage to climb in the box. That quality of nightmare hadn’t occurred since radiation.

  With each passing hour, he saw himself engineering what the Internet called an epic FAIL, a professional, personal, spiritual blunder. But there he was, taking the meetings, there he was, already out there, making plans. Producing—he’d even hired someone to do a budget. Yes, yes, it was way preliminary, but still . . . he was doing the act as if that All That Jazz was going to happen, that it had to. That it must. Maybe he shouldn’t be moving so fast. Maybe he should just sit with it for 6 months, even a year. He didn’t want to be like Warren either. Warren had been talking about the Howard Hughes movie since Precambrian time. I don’t have the luxury. I may not have three years. He needed a reality check. Could be he was just chickenshit, a classic case of the jitters. The trouble was, he couldn’t sort out old fears (the ones long before his cancer, childhood ones mixed up with his father) from the new. If anyone could get to the bottom of it, Dr. Calliope could. She was a deepsea diver that way, deepsea diver extraordinaire.

  He was her analysand in the early 70s, during Streets. Calliope Krohn was the shrink to the stars; she knew how to navigate the celeb
mindset. No one intimidated her. The celebs appreciated that, it was a special gift.

  Her old patients kept in touch by phone, some just to chat and check in, others to seek informal counsel. Former clients—what they used to call marquee names—were an aging tribe of legends, & the old Krohn was their Yodagirl. They’d all been through the wars together—in one-on-ones & weekly groups that she ran out of her office in Beverly Hills—their private, deeply personal melodramas often played out for the insatiable public, a public that, with the advent of the Internet, became a rapist, a rampaging, murderous home-invader. A remarkably high percentage of the Tribe had endured, managing to hold onto their seats at the cultural table, still rich, famous and recognizable by the dullwitted man-on-the-street of China, Finland, Capetown, where have you, & for that they credited the doctor’s governance.

  So they called & they called & they worried, & sent care packages: deli from Factor’s, pasta from Dante’s, takeaway from Spago’s (a nostalgic nod to a man called Swifty), platters from Bristol Farms (nostalgia again, because it sat on the land where Chasen’s used to be), cupcakes from Sprinkles, yogurt from Yogurtland, flowers from The Empty Vase. Because most were in the Academy, they sent DVDs of whatever films were up for awards that year, sometimes their own. They sent personal assistants to check up on her when they weren’t checking up on her themselves because after all she was almost 90 & steadfastly refused to employ caregivers, she barely let in the twice-a-month housekeeper, & her Tribespeople (justifiably) worried she would fall, that when she didn’t answer the phone she was in trouble, she’d fallen & couldn’t get up, or was dead. Only a month ago, two Oscar-winning actresses & a Tony/Grammy doubleheader descended upon her Trousdale home at the same time, unbeknownst to each other, because they kept getting a busy signal, keystone kopping into the house through the sliding glass backdoor that was forever unlocked, startling her in her usual plunked-down spot, half-dozing/watching TV, always one of said hundreds of DVDs, starred in, produced, directed or written by her minions (in-home festival that revolved year-round), the phone hadn’t been properly put back in its cradle, that’s all, everyone had a laugh, perfect anecdote to be neatly folded & put away until employed on the day of the eulogies.

  Dr. Calliope was in excellent health for her age, sharp as a tack as they say, still cutting to the heart of a problem with unsettling speed. She was always there for him, had helped him through so many dark times . . . those early years when his ability to dream froze in his father’s formidable shadow; through the Oedipal crisis of Cuckoo’s Nest & Dad’s towering rage; the addictions and divorce & of late not just the cancer of course but the prison ordeal with his son . . . there for him in that hallucinatory time when he became Michael Douglas, walking/leading/guiding him through that obverse world of acclaim and peril. Because for an actor, sudden fame was a crucible, perilous as a slow fade to obscurity. The only fates possible for a supernova were joining a constellation or falling out of the sky.

  He remembered talking to her just after the diagnosis. He was so angry at the doctors who missed it, angry that Catherine had to be so angry, for months they said it was something else, how could they miss a tumor the size of a walnut, then he was angry at God & so fatigued during the treatment, his anger turned inward and he grew depressed. Dr. Calliope had lost a son herself to cancer, Jesus, that must have been 40 years ago, she never discussed it until their recent phone calls, so poignant, moving, germane. (CK always sent lovely notes on the birthdays of the children Catherine had given him.) She was the first to tell him to divorce Diandra, years before the event finally happened. She rarely made any sort of pronouncement, not her style, not what therapy was about, never gave advice, not in that sense, in the concrete sense, she wasn’t a codependent shrink & wasn’t invasive, not too invested in the mechanics of her clients’ daily lives (not really) so when she said he should divorce her, he thought she was being dramatic (she was, but that shouldn’t have diluted the message), and in-trouble as the marriage was, that irritated him because no one, not even Dr. Calliope Krohn, told Michael Douglas what to do, or how to live his life. He was caught in a conundrum, because that’s why he was seeing her, wasn’t it? Not necessarily to be told what to do but to show him how to live, how to love, how to love himself, & how to live through things that might destroy him.

  Not listening to her about Diandra became one of the larger regrets of his life.

  When he was at St. Ambrose for his check-up, he made the mistake of leafing through one of those embalmed vanity magazines for the local rich, Santa Barbara Living (he thought Santa Barbara Dying was more apt), & there she was—his ex, barefoot, sitting on a horse under one of the huge oak trees on the estate they once shared. He really missed his beloved oaks, more than he did the property itself, once the magical backdrop of so many important events in his life. But the oaks! He used to talk to them at night, he sought their counsel during the day too, right in front of the gardeners, he didn’t give a shit, they were potent spiritual beings, & he carried them in his heart, proud to be a tree hugger to the end.

  There she was: an absurd photograph, like one of those sad Town & Country portraits of latefiftysomething socialites decked out in rich hippie couture. They made sure their picture was always taken at the optimal distance required for the photographic facelift . . . plus there was something creepy/sexual about the pic, the old come hither, her pre-Raphaelite hair still rich-hippie-shower-wet, barefoot, bare legged slice of thigh, a little riding crop in her hand, submissive horse head down, her orchestrated control/domination of mise-en-scène.

  The article was called “My Santa Barbara Dream.”

  LOL!

  Diandra was selling the house.

  She had lots of bad press during those first cancer months when she sued for Wall St. sequel profits; whatever she had of a pathetic image needed heavy rehabbing. Someone was advising her, someone must have told her to take the bull by the horns, like they tell the CEOs to just be open with the public after their products kill a bunch of people—so she gave interviews saying she wanted the world to know that she wasn’t a greedy person by nature. But the quote Michael liked the best was the one about the lawsuit she filed while he was in treatment: “I asked myself every night if I should walk away.” O man, the fuckin agonies! Nobody knows the trouble this bitch has seen! Upon the advice of whomever, she continued to dig a tidy little grave for herself by clarifying to all who’d listen that the reason she was suing—suing again, in the midst of his treatment—she kept flogging that litigious dead horse (not the one so MILF-ily straddled in Santa Barbara Walking Dead) was because none other than Bernie Madoff had cleaned her clock. Blame it on Rio.

  Blame it on the bossa nova . . .

  Morbidly curious, he skimmed the text. She talked about her Japanese garden, the one “never photographed” because she considered it a “sacred space.” She said she hired—hired!—a Japanese priest to come have sake ceremonies and move rocks. He laughed out loud and one of the passing nurses said, Hope it’s a good one. O yeah, O yeah, it’s really really good.

  “Already back then,” she shared with her interviewer, “my interest was to grow organic vegetables & fruits. On the weekends, we used to go in the garden in our pjs & pick strawberries, for healthy shakes”———o ha! o ho!

  He recounted the story to Dr. CK but what once was funny, turned. He could taste the bile rising.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about my former wife.”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job.”

  “Ha!”

  “Talk about anything. No restrictions. Better yet, you won’t even be billed. Though that may depend on how long you stay.”

  “I’ll put you in touch with my business manager. I don’t think your files are current.”

  “Talk about the oak trees. Or we can just sit & navel gaze.”

  “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”

  “I don’t think mine is particularly alluring. I’m not so sure
it ever was.”

  Time to get into it.

  “Bob Fosse was a patient of yours, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh yes—back when I was still in New York. And after I moved my practice, but not so much. He did thank me from the podium when he won the Oscar.”

  “Really?”

  “For Cabaret.”

  “I didn’t know that. That he thanked you. Nice.”

  “Oh yes. You know that he beat out Francis for The Godfather. Bob beat him, can you imagine? & Francis was my client as well . . . awkward. His daughter called not long ago. Sofia. She invited me to a Hollywood screening of her movie. I thought that was darling. She’s a brilliant girl. A darling.”

  “I’m thinking about doing a remake of one of his films.”

  “Oh?”

  “Fosse’s.”

  “Yes, I gathered that. Which one?”

  “All That Jazz.”

  “To produce? To act in?”

  “Both. But this one, I think I’d direct.”

  There. Got it out.

  “Good for you! That movie could use a director.”

  He laughed. He’d forgotten about her right-on critical eye.

  “Do you know my favorite of his? Star 80. It’s a terribly hopeless film—his best too I think, by a longshot. It took extreme courage, & a lot of therapy to get him there. To that place where he could strip away all those extras, those bells & whistles he used, to dazzle. What’s his name, Eric Roberts, Julia’s brother. My God, what a performance! Then he disappeared, didn’t he? I saw him on one of those awful celebrity rehab shows. He was marvelous, & so was the Hemingway girl. My God, what Bob teased out of her! She’s no Meryl Streep, you know. Quite an amazing work. Bob stripped everything away. Only emptiness & savagery were left.”

  It was a pleasure listening, as long as she was talking about someone else. For the Tribe, debriefing Dr. Calliope after a private screening of their latest was far more stressful than waiting for reviews in Variety or the Times.

  “All right. So. You want to do All That Jazz. To play the part Roy Scheider took—I’m assuming! And you plan to direct.”