West of Sunset

by Stewart O'Nan

  “We lost Garbo,” Stromberg said. “L.B.’s letting us have Norma.”

  Meaning they were screwed. As Thalberg’s widow, Norma Shearer was a reminder of his genius. Since his death, Mayer had actively miscast her, trying to drive her from the studio. He wondered if Stromberg was in L.B.’s doghouse.

  “What happened?”

  “That’s just how it is. I’ve got something else if you’re interested. The last thing I want to do is waste your time.” He held out a script.

  Like a volunteer, Scott stepped forward to accept it: The Women, by Claire Booth Luce. It was a gossipy farce enjoying a long run on Broadway, utter fluff. He smiled to hide a grimace. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Take a look and get back to me. Miss Crawford asked for you specifically.”

  “That was kind of her.”

  “I’m pretty sure we can get Greer Garson and Claire Trevor. It’s not Garbo, but I think it’ll make a nice picture. We shelled out enough for it.”

  Scott played along, trying to be gracious. Only in the hall, on the way out, following the little Scotsman, did he let his face drop. There was no reason he should feel insulted. It was just the business. As a professional, he needed to be grateful for another chance.

  “That was fast,” Sheilah said.

  He tossed the script in her lap. “I’ve got a new job.”

  “What happened to Marie Antoinette?”

  He gave her a double take. “You didn’t hear?”

  It became a favorite saying, referenced when anyone asked an obvious question, but also shorthand for the vicissitudes of life at the studio, where so many hopes met abrupt, unhappy ends. He’d been there almost a year now, working steadily, and all he had to show for his efforts were a couple dozen pay stubs. Of the scripts he’d written, only Three Comrades had made it into production, after the most savage battles. Its fate was still in doubt. Though Dottie and Ernest had warned him, he couldn’t stop it from being sabotaged. Between Paramore, Mank and Reinecke, he feared there was nothing left of his script, and as the premiere neared, he steeled himself.

  By chance the picture was opening the same weekend as Scottie’s graduation, casting his bifurcated life in even greater relief. As he was fixing his cuff links and zipping Sheilah’s dress, Zelda and Rosalind were taking the night train up the coast to New York. The route ran through Baltimore, hard by their old house, La Paix, their very last home, the three of them together, before she set fire to it—accidentally, or so he’d told the police, when honestly he couldn’t be certain. Would she recognize the old place in the dark? And what would she think? At Pratt she begged him to take her home. He would when she was better, he said, a promise which, while true, proved empty. He didn’t expect they would ever live under the same roof again. He wasn’t sure why the idea surprised him, but caught himself making a sour face in the mirror as he tied his tie, and clenched his jaw to erase it before Sheilah walked in on him.

  The premiere was at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, a grand, pillared temple among the luncheonettes and pawnshops of Hollywood Boulevard. Crossing Wilshire, they could see searchlights sweeping the sky, as if anticipating an air raid. The mob was already there, the uninvited penned behind police barricades, shaking 8 x 10 glossies and autograph books at the chosen. He’d insisted on taking his car as a joke, and inched along as limousines dropped off the stars, each new arrival sparking a volley of flashbulbs.

  When it was their turn, he gave the car to the valet and hurried around to offer Sheilah his arm. Her dress drew wolf whistles and catcalls she acknowledged with a wave, sending up a roar.

  “They love you.”

  “They think I’m somebody,” she said, and he wondered if that was what she wanted. He was aware that the last time she was here she’d been with Leslie Howard.

  With its flickering torches and stone obelisks and staring Sphinx, the Egyptian’s courtyard had been designed for the open-air pageantry of premieres. Once they reached the red carpet they had to stand in the glare of the klieg lights, bunched with other couples waiting to process. It was like being on a set, every movement orchestrated. Among the pairs he recognized several lesser Metro stars not involved with the picture, there to add color and be seen. On both sides, packs of photographers cordoned off behind velvet ropes jostled for shots. As each party approached the gauntlet, a studio flack announced them like a butler. The man knew Sheilah, but had to ask Scott his name.

  “I wrote the picture,” he explained, knowing that in a few hours he might disown it.

  “Miss Sheilah Graham and Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer.”

  They posed, holding their smiles, blinded by a galaxy of flashes. In her heels she was almost his height, and he lifted his chin and stood straighter.

  “Now if we can have some of just Miss Graham,” the flack directed, and Scott stood aside, at once jealous and admiring. She was every bit as fetching as the stars, and fresher.

  Farther on, a radio host waylaying guests for comments let them pass without a second glance, restoring their anonymity, and by the pillared entrance, as if to reinforce their unimportance, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Taylor, Robert Young and Franchot Tone were having their picture taken with the film’s poster, the ceremony documented for posterity by a Pathé News crew. Like everyone else, he and Sheilah stopped to watch.

  Franchot Tone was unhappily married to Joan Crawford. Last month Mayer had sent them off to New York on the Super Chief to squash a rumor they were breaking up. Looking around, Scott was surprised she wasn’t there.

  “I’m not,” Sheilah said.

  His first thought was craven: Would it make selling The Women easier or harder? The problems of the stars were part of their appeal. As Sheilah’s readers knew, the failures of the famous made them human in a way their successes never could. Some were forgiven, others forever condemned, depending. Between Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle stretched an unbridgeable gulf. Knowing Joan Crawford’s fans, he expected they’d blame Franchot Tone.

  Inside, the lobby was jammed and boisterous with small talk. Following custom, concessions were free, and the lines were long. He spotted the novel’s author, Erich Maria Remarque, in the midst of the crowd, laughing with Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger and several others from the German émigré contingent, while Sheilah, whispering, picked out the Mexican Spitfire, Lupe Velez, in a plunging neckline, and her husband and sparring partner Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, and Cesar Romero squiring the thyroidal Mary Astor, who was rumored to be insatiable, and brand-new item Merle Oberon and George Brent, and red-faced Wallace Beery with ghostly pale Joan Blondell, and Elvira Eichleay, the architecht’s daughter, and Tingle Barnes, the Welsh soprano—all waiting, patient as cattle, for their popcorn and candy.

  He scanned the sea of people, expecting, any second, Ernest to appear with Dietrich on his arm. Dottie and Alan were probably here somewhere, and Reinecke, checking on his handiwork. He thought if he saw Mank or Paramore he’d cut them dead, at the same time recognizing the impulse as childish and self-defeating. It was Hollywood. Just being there was a compromise.

  “Would you like something?” he asked.

  “You can get something if you want.”

  He wanted chocolate but passed, citing the line, and immediately rued the missed opportunity.

  “Is it always like this?”

  “Always,” she said. “But I’m excited for you.”

  Their seats were a fair barometer of where he stood at Metro. The center of the orchestra was reserved for the producers and stars and their guests, while the wings on both sides were packed solid with early birds, leaving them to fend for leftovers in the loge. They had to climb to find two together, high up in a corner. One of their neighbors was the dresser from wardrobe who’d helped him with Infidelity, which he thought fitting, except her job was steady, where he was being paid piece rate.

  Down front, the stars were
filing in, posing for last-minute shots before taking their seats. He thought he saw Mank in a tux, shaking hands like the father of the bride. The dumpy uncle beside him might have been Mayer; so far up it was hard to make out faces. In vain he searched the rows for the pinned-up sleeve of Eddie Knopf, the only honorable one among them. On principle Thalberg never attended premieres, another reason to admire him.

  The house lights dimmed, a signal for the stragglers.

  “Are you nervous?” Sheilah asked.

  It seemed an unfair question just then. “I’m anxious to see how badly they mangled it.”

  The lights went down, quieting the crowd. Finally the curtain parted. Before the show could start, a spotlight followed Mank across the stage to a microphone where he thanked everyone for coming and everyone involved in this important international production, fawning, calling on each of his great stars to stand and take a bow, and his incredibly talented director, Frank Borzage, and the brilliant author of the bestselling novel, Erich Maria Remarque, a gush of self-congratulation repeated minutes later during the opening credits. Leo the Lion roared—ARS GRATIA ARTIS, an outright lie—and as their names flashed, thirty feet high, the crowd applauded wildly for their favorites and politely for the rest, as at a graduation. Scott thought of Zelda and Rosalind pulling into Grand Central, the vast marble hall teeming with people at midnight.

  Beside him, Sheilah squeezed his hand. It was his turn. For a few seconds, to a lukewarm ovation, he and Paramore shared the screen. Even if the billing was strictly alphabetical, he was relieved to see he was on top.

  She kissed his cheek. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was what he’d come here to do, and while the picture itself wasn’t his vision, was likely a mockery and a flop, he was still proud to have earned his first credit.

  After all the back-and-forth with Paramore, all the niggling memos and tone-deaf corrections, he was prepared to find only the faintest traces of his script left, so he was surprised to see they’d kept his opening, a squadron of German aviators celebrating the Armistice in the airfield mess. The introduction of the three friends was right, but Mank had gummed up the toasts with a speech about Peace and Home.

  “He couldn’t just leave it alone,” Scott said, and Sheilah patted his knee.

  The dialogue was all wrong—too slick and punchy, as if it was a comedy.

  The scene where Franchot Tone tossed a grenade into his plane and walked away was still there, and the road race was largely intact, the comrades and Margaret Sullavan meeting cute. It all played, but they’d changed the café debate between Robert Young and Franchot Tone to avoid any mention of the Nazis, and the Jewish shopkeeper’s plea after the riot was gone altogether.

  Also missing was the rally where the brownshirts burned All Quiet on the Western Front.

  “Gutless,” he said, and a man in the row ahead turned and glared at him.

  Margaret Sullavan was supposed to be dying of TB, but in her close-ups she was rosy, her eyelashes spidery with mascara.

  Franchot Tone couldn’t turn off the radio in the garage when Hitler was making a speech because apparently in this Germany there was no Hitler.

  In the dailies he and Dottie had seen, he would have sworn the bass drums the marchers played had swastikas on them. Here they were solid black. He shook his head. It looked like some scenes had actually been reshot.

  “It’s possible,” Sheilah admitted.

  He wasn’t mistaken. In the background at the train station there were no flags, no heroic pictures of Hitler. It was a total whitewash. Reinecke would be pleased.

  He couldn’t watch any longer. “Excuse me,” he told Sheilah, sidled past their neighbors and strode up the aisle, the picture nattering at his back.

  The lobby was bright and surprisingly busy. There were still lines at the concession stands, and the doors were open to the courtyard, where people had gathered in circles, smoking in the glow of the torches. He didn’t recognize any of them, which he considered a mercy. The Cecil B. DeMille pillars made him think of the ruined Samson, pulling the temple down on the Philistines with the last of his strength. It was just a silly movie. How much of his self-righteousness, like Samson’s, was injured vanity? Above, the night was cool and clear, a lone searchlight sweeping the sky. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew out a cloud like a sigh, just as Sheilah appeared in the doorway.

  She took the cigarette from him, took a puff and handed it back. “She’s very good.”

  “It’s hard to tell with all that makeup.”

  “You knew you weren’t going to like it.”

  “I don’t know why I thought they’d play fair.”

  “The Nazis.”

  “What Nazis?” he said. “I don’t see any Nazis.”

  “We don’t have to stay.”

  It was tempting. All he had to do was give the valet his claim check.

  “There’s not much more,” he said.

  “You want to see how it turns out.”

  “Happily ever after. Just like Germany.”

  “I’m sorry they ruined it.”

  “I can’t say nobody warned me.”

  “No, you can’t,” she agreed.

  On the way back to their seats they stopped for some Hershey bars, only to be told the concession had sold out.

  “This is not my night,” he said.

  The usher pulled back the curtain and led them in. Their neighbors seemed annoyed at being interrupted again. Instead of the picture he watched the beam of light from the projector, gray as smoke, flickering above their heads. Franchot Tone was stalking Robert Young’s killer outside a snowy church, gunning him down as the Hallelujah chorus reached its bombastic climax. The camera lingered on Franchot Tone’s shadow, centered in a rosette window like a bull’s-eye.

  “It wasn’t me,” Scott said.

  All that was left of the love story was Margaret Sullavan’s operation and then her death scene, shot in gauzy close-up, her face radiant. Dottie was right. In the end, it was all about the girl.

  The final scene showed Robert Taylor and Franchot Tone leaving the cemetery, flanked by the spirits of the departed. The image was his, but Mank had added a flimsy exchange so that instead of heading back into town to rejoin the fight, they were off to South America to seek adventure. Not knowing any better, the audience applauded.

  “I wouldn’t call that happily ever after, exactly,” Sheilah said.

  “It’s just a mess. Too many cooks. Two, specifically.”

  They were close enough to the exit to beat most of the crowd outside, and hand in hand made a beeline for the valet stand. Again, his obscurity protected him. No one stopped him to offer congratulations or ask what picture he was working on now. He thought he should wait and find the author so he could apologize, but feared what he might do if he ran into Mank or Paramore. Discretion, in this case, was the better part of valor, or cowardice, depending on where one stood. The valet brought his car, now an unfunny joke, and they escaped, tooling down Hollywood Boulevard, chased by the searchlights.

  They were safe in Malibu, staying in all weekend. Saturday it rained and they slept late, wasted the gray afternoon reading by the fire and listening to Schubert’s last sonatas. She made tea and waited on him as if he were sick. Normally he would have protested, saying he was perfectly capable of serving himself, but after last night he felt depleted, and for the sake of peace let her nurse him.

  Sunday Scottie graduated. Fog sat on the water, mirroring his mood. He’d arranged for a bouquet and a card, a poor substitute for being there. As the hour neared, he distracted himself with chores, sweeping the patio and gathering driftwood for kindling. To cheer him, Sheilah baked cookies and packed a picnic basket with Flora’s leftover fried chicken and deviled eggs. They trekked all the way to the lagoon, where the creek emptied into the se
a and greedy seals surfed the breakers. She brought a blanket, and after eating, they lazed, reading Keats to each other.

  Introducing her to the classics had become a project ever since she confessed she’d never read them. He was dumbstruck. He just assumed that as a British subject poetry was her birthright. She was so polished it was easy to forget she was a child of the slums. She’d never read Milton before, or Keats, or Joyce, and was sick of feeling lost every time Scott and his friends mentioned Proust. Her eagerness to learn appealed to the professor in him, and he took pleasure in lending her books and then quizzing her like Scottie with her Latin. It was partly a joke—that she was Fitzgerald University’s sole student—but she knew there was no surer way to lift his spirits.

  Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold

  And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

  Round many western isles have I been

  Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

  They lay there, trading stanzas, declaiming to the seals and the fishermen lining the pier. The fog burned off to reveal a blue day, Catalina rising like Ithaca in the distance. They explored the reedy shore where the ducks nested and dared the muddy sandbar to hunt for clams, and by the time they shook out the blanket and hiked back to the cottage, he trusted the ceremony was safely over, the proud families grouped outside the chapel, snapping photos.

  He wondered how Zelda had done, and hoped Scottie was happy. Farewell, dear Newman, farewell, he’d sung at his. We’ll return to you al-ways! Somewhere he still had his cap and gown. He wished he’d been there, and then felt guilty toward Sheilah.

  She left the next morning before Flora arrived, sending him back to his desk to wrestle Joan Crawford. He was scattered and couldn’t make any headway, and was grateful, just before lunch, for the rare distraction of a car turning into the drive. The bell rang. He waited, an ear cocked toward the stairs, as Flora answered the door.