by Jane Allen
“My God,” he ejaculates, “so it takes an actor to put a curl in your eyes and a shine in your hair!”
“You are being obnoxious,” I say, hoping to divert his thoughts but I don’t know our publicist.
“Hollywood is a small place,” he ruminates. “At least five people made it their business to inform me that you were seen last night supping with Bruce Anders, though why they should assume I had a tag on you I can’t say. However, I will confess my masculine ego has suffered a jolt. But what really wounds me is that an actor should be the cause of it all.”
He is playing for light comedy but I have an uncanny feeling that he is sounding off to cover up. I am very sad about it all—I do not know exactly why.
“Jim,” I blurt out, “I’m sorry…”
“There is nothing to be sorry about,” he says fiercely. “I am several kinds of a sap but I guess I know how to take it.”
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I’m not just another flutter in Jim’s life.
“It’s all right, Maggie,” he grins cheerfully. “We’re still friends?”
I give him my paw and experience a curious desire to reassure him. I suppose Jim is right and that every woman at heart is a polygamist.
“Now that is settled,” he says briskly, “I must reprove you for being most foolhardy. Not that I give a hoot about the ethics of the case. Privately I don’t blame you for putting Anders wise.”
I am startled.
“Yesterday,” grins Jim, “Anders is an innocent lamb amid the wolves. They are preparing to put him on the block. The knife is poised. This morning Hayworth Lord takes off on a cross-country flight to break a record—or so he says. Echo answers that a certain hot-headed young woman jeopardized her job to advise the lamb to yell for the marines. Right?”
I nod in mute tribute to his astute powers.
“It wasn’t an honorable thing to do,” I admit, “but I got so darned mad about it that I just disregarded the fine points.”
“Pooh,” says Jim. “From where I sit you behaved admirably. However, watch your step because if S. B. learns about…” Jim cuts across his throat with his finger eloquently.
“Zowie! He made it!”
It is young Bud whooping in. “Nine hours flat, Mr. Palmer. Boy, what a race and I’m in five bucks.”
The “marines” have landed.
Mr. Brand is most jubilant too when I am summoned to his office, for he has won a lot of money.
“The laugh,” says Sidney to me, “is on Hayworth. This is the first time I’ve made money off him.”
I do not disillusion him.
Thirty minutes later a whirlwind bursts into the office.
“Hello, Sidney,” it yells. “How are you? How’s the baby? I broke the record. I want a drink. What the hell do you think you’re trying to pull off with Anders?”
I am so bewildered I do not collect my impressions for several moments. Then I see a slim young man in evening clothes, with a very knowing but youthful face with a spot of gray at his temples.
Sidney is for once speechless.
“It’s a compliment to your evil genius,” grins Lord, “that I didn’t take time to change my clothes in order to get here. How about that drink?”
“Mix a drink, Madge,” says the boss mechanically.
“Better make it two,” says Lord. “You’re going to need one, Sidney.”
The boss rallies and while I am mixing the drinks, manages to pass off a casual compliment or two on Lord’s record-breaking flight.
“Save it,” says Lord as I hand him the drink. “I haven’t much time. The Mayor is giving me a reception at seven.”
“What’s wrong, Hayworth?” inquires the boss cautiously.
“A mere trifle,” says Lord. “Probably just a misunderstanding. I hear you’re putting Gable in Anders’s spot in Sinners.”
“Now look here, Hayworth,” the boss temporizes. “You know the picture business. If I can use Gable my investment is safe. If I use Anders it’s a gamble. Look at it from my viewpoint for once. You agents only think of your own angles.”
“My clients’ angles,” Lord corrects him. “I’m not quarreling about Gable. Frankly I don’t blame you for using him if you can get him. But why do you have to do the dirty to Anders? The man gives up a Broadway success to come out here and you’re trying to get him to break his contract. So what? The industry will think he flopped and I can’t sell him. Is that kind, Sidney?”
“I’m a business man, not a humanitarian,” says Sidney boldly.
“In this case,” says Lord casually, “you’re going to be a humanitarian and like it.”
“What do you mean, Hayworth?”
“Just this,” says Lord, leaning across the desk, “that you can’t make Sinners unless Anders plays the lead!”
S. B. lets fly with an oath.
“I don’t know how carefully you read Anders’s contract, Sidney. Just in case your mind isn’t fresh on the thing, let me recall to you Clause C, Section B: ‘The artist shall submit without question, objection or complaint to all revisions, alterations and reformulations made, authorized or approved by the party of the first part in the adaptation of the property, Sinners in Asylum, to the screen, trusting in all instances to the superior wisdom, judgment and experience of the said party and expresses himself herein as satisfied that his full recompense shall be the salary specified in Clause B and the prestige of playing the leading role in said Sidney Brand production, which recompense is guaranteed him by the party of the first part in exchange for the sole, complete and exclusive services of the artist.’ Do you get that, Brand? The ‘full recompense shall be the salary and the prestige of playing the leading role in said production’—meaning Sinners.”
“What,” explodes the boss, “have I got a legal department for?”
“To improve your golf game, no doubt,” says Lord. “Well…it’s been pleasant seeing you, Sidney. Give my regards to Selma…and I’ll see you at the track tomorrow.”
The whirlwind whirls off and but for the mute evidence of his empty glass he might have been a dream. A bad dream, however, by the looks of Sidney, who is slumped over in his chair a trifle yellow around the gills.
Automatically I make him another drink and push it in front of him. Mechanically he lifts it and takes a long draught. He is thinking hard, I can see.
Suddenly, “Get me Blank at Metro,” he yells. “At least I can tell that son of a bitch I don’t want Gable!”
10
We Go on Location
St. Catharine’s Hotel
Catalina Island
February 18
Dear Liz:
It is three A.M. and all is still and hushed about me. Yet I cannot sleep for a mocking moon flouts my desires and fills my foolish head with fancies. All of which means that I am choked up with romance and insomnia. So as long as sleep eludes me I will instead spin my tale for your ever-willing and (sic) sympathetic ears.
The reason I have been delinquent with my letters these past weeks is that we have been actually in production, Mr. Brand neglecting all his other obligations to concentrate on Sinners as it is to be our prestige picture of the year. We were supposed to go on location in the beginning, but Mr. Brand was dissatisfied with the writing of the island sequences, so instead we started at the middle of the script, working on studio stages.
Now that we are really before the cameras I think maybe I will have a breathing spell, for, I argue, there is nothing a secretary can do that will help make a film. But I am as usual dead wrong. Sidney is determined to give this everything he has, which translated means that I cease entirely to become a human being and instead am a dynamo on a twenty-four-hour shift.
I forget what it is to have a
home. My days are divided between the office and the stages, for Mr. Brand feels that the company cannot afford to have him missing out on anything that is going on. So I develop a neat trick of being in two places at once for him. I am forever sprinting back and forth to the stages reminding Mr. Faye that S. B. wants a scene shot this way; that Miss Tarn must be lit so; that the company must hold everything until Mr. Brand can manage to get there and show our scenarists how to really write a scene. And when the day’s grind ceases we all adjourn to the projection room where we sit until dawn watching an accumulation of rushes.
Hours of looking at the rough cut of film produces in me an optic and mental insensibility. But neither time nor tide can daunt my rapacious boss for he goes merrily on determining which of thirty-nine takes will best grace the finished film. An over-ebullient newspaperman once tagged Sidney as “Sure-Hit Brand” and to fill his column credited S. B. with a genius for the perfection of atmospheric detail which together with his astute flair for casting is intrinsically responsible for the perfect Brand film. Ever since then my boss has been busy living up to the Brand myth.
Life in a projection room is altogether intime, just Sidney, the cutter, the cutter’s assistant and I. Being marooned for the night before a silver screen makes for a feverish camaraderie in which S. B. for one indulges with great vim. Here he can make a big display of his democracy before a small and discreet audience. He borrows cigarets and cigars indiscriminately; even going so far as to offer his own when and if he has them. In between stretches of film, he takes time out for paternalistic inquiries into our private lives, never recognizing the fact that he has deprived us of civil rights. He approaches all points with boyish zest and humor calculated to be irresistible. I learn to laugh at his quips as the simplest course. He hounds the cutters with the most impossible requests but they who have renounced home, wife and country are men of great tact and patience and never once give in to the desire to glance a blow off the Brandian proboscis, but bow and scrape and do their parts like the good little soldiers they are.
My sole pleasure in this trying nocturnal session is a purely private one for I am interested in Mr. Anders’s progress and am pleased mightily with the way he acquits himself on the screen. I comment on this to the head cutter who agrees with me. We both look to S. B. for approbation but are squelched by his indifference.
“Every time I look at Anders,” he mourns, “I think of how perfect Gable would have been.”
Please don’t think this ungenerous of Sidney for he is like an elephant who can’t forget and Mr. Anders, unwittingly, has provided him with some unforgettable moments.
When dawn breaks we are still hard at it and it isn’t until normal citizens are rising that Mr. Brand is satisfied we have done a “day’s” work. We then lift up our weary frames from the chairs and emerge like so many zombies making their entrance into the earth world.
For Sidney this is a signal for home and bed. For us it is merely a chance to get a change of clothes, some coffee and back to the studio. I didn’t get a full night’s sleep until we came to Catalina. The respite here I owe to Sarya, for which bless her despite her many sins.
Our jungle sequences receiving the final sanction of the boss, we rush our location crew to Catalina. Miss Tarn and a few of the chosen bounce over luxuriously on Mr. Faye’s palatial yacht. The proletariat, including grips, electricians, laborers, transportation men, assistant cameramen, assistant director, and a hundred or so Ethiopian extras, travel on the regular steamboat.
We have erected a tent city for the small fry on the Isthmus which is over on the far side of the island where our scenes will be made. Here Super Films improved upon nature by planting its own tropical foliage and making a little island off the coast of Africa, even to changing the color of the coast line by spraying the pebbled beach with specially imported sand.
I feel abused when the company departs, brooding over the unkind cut of Fate which keeps me chained to the studio when I would give my immortal soul to roast myself on the beach for a day or two. Sidney and I however are giving of our genius to some of the other pictures in operation at Super Films.
We operate this way without any unusual break or variation until one night late at the studio when Sidney and I are working. Then Catalina calls. There is nothing unusual about this as we talk to Catalina every night. I pick up my phone and listen in for I have to make notes of new schedule and possible changes.
It is Sarya’s maid and she is sobbing violently in a meaningless jumble of words. I hear Sidney on his phone shouting to her to be distinct. “Oh! oh!” wails the maddening girl; then I hear a sickening thud followed by silence. Maybe Sarya has killed her. Certainly she has felled her.
S. B. jiggles the phone energetically. After a pause, operator informs us nasally that we are still connected. A new voice comes over the phone. It is Sarya’s secretary. All she will say is that Sarya is ill and unhappy and nothing will content her but that Mr. Brand come to Catalina immediately.
By this time the boss is yelling murder. He insists on speaking to Sarya herself. I hear scrappy sounds of negotiation at Catalina and then Sarya arrives at the phone. Her voice is honeyed and even and if I am any judge she is quite healthy.
“Oh, Sidney,” she coos. “I am triste….I am heartbroken….I can no longer work in your picture.”
“Is that all?” Sidney breaks in relievedly. “Now be a good girl and take a pill and go to sleep. You’ll feel differently in the morning.”
“I will not take a pill and do not treat me like a child,” says Sarya sharply. “Conditions are intolerable for me and I will not stand by idly while that man ruins my picture. He is a drunken brute. Today he orders me off the set. I do not go back!”
“Hey, wait a minute!” yells Sidney. “Who’s drunk and what’s it all about?”
“Just this,” hisses Sarya venomously. “Everyone is in a conspiracy to ruin me. The cameraman is deliberately spoiling my shots; Anders plays his scenes with me as though I am a load of hay; the electricians do not light me properly; the hairdresser is insolent; and Mr. Faye is drunk. Yes, drunk…disgustingly drunk, and ordered me off the set….”
I can tell by Sidney’s stunned silence that he is impressed.
“That son of a bitch!” he roars. “I’ll show him if he can get drunk on my picture. He can’t do this to me. I’ll get another director. I’ll ruin him. I’ll blackball him in Hollywood….”
“Oh, Sidney.” Sarya is cooing again. “I knew you would understand….”
“I’ll be there in the morning,” Sidney yells.
By courtesy of a special plane which adds several hundreds to production costs we arrive early. S. B., Roy Tyson, Jim, the writers and I. We are prepared for all contingencies, but particularly is the boss anxious that no unpleasant publicity escape from location. I, Madge, cease being studio-minded the moment I climb into the plane. I have a new bathing suit stuffed into my portable typewriter case together with a toothbrush and am prepared for a long vacation.
A studio car meets us at the landing field and we drive along the coast toward the St. Catharine’s Hotel. Though the harbor is jammed with pleasure craft of every description, they do not obscure the deep, thrilling blue of the bay. To the right of us rise scraggy hills upon which are nestled picturesque little cottages which remind me of my careless New England summers and put me altogether in a holiday mood.
However, we are not on a holiday, for we have no sooner arrived at the hotel when the boss is ordering suites indiscriminately and shouting a list of instructions to me. Mr. Faye is not in his room, but Miss Tarn will be delighted if Sidney will have breakfast with her in her suite. Sidney is agreeable to the idea but first wishes to ascertain Mr. Faye’s whereabouts. I phone the Isthmus and learn that Mr. Faye slept on his yacht the night before and has not yet appeared. S. B. advises me to leave word for Monk to phone h
im as soon as he shows up.
This allows for a delightful pause in events so that Sidney can breakfast in leisure with Sarya and the boys and I are actually on the loose for the time being. I gulp a hasty breakfast and bounce out on the sands in my new aquamarine suit, Jim having generously offered to stand by and hail me if there is an emergency call from the boss.
Picture me a gay carefree sprite tripping along the sands enjoying for the nonce the sun-kissed blessings of Catalina as made possible by the chewing-gum king to the masses of America. It is not, I decide, unlike Coney Island in feeling and spirit even if it does try to wear a rakish, Latin air, for all the officials and workers on the island are tricked out in gay Spanish effects. It is, however, a really enchanted spot completely tropical in foliage and scrubby little hills and rocks, even if American enterprise has managed to obscure that fact with its candy and food concessions.
“Yoo—hoo, Miss Law—rence! Yoo—hoo!”
I am stopped by a petite and fair little damsel who pants up to me on the run.
“I just heard,” she gasps, “Mr. Brand is here. You remember me, don’t you? I’m Myrtle Standish and I’m in the picture. We’ve had a terrible time. Oh, my, it’s been awful….”
I then have a dim recollection of an altercation over a soubrette to play a bit as a giddy chit who with Bruce and some others is shipwrecked on the island off the coast of Africa. If memory serves me Myrtle got the job because she was a friend of the head cameraman, Tom Dillon.
“Honestly, Miss Lawrence, I know I can talk to you frankly but everything is simply too haywire. I’ve been on location before—I’ve been in the business since I was five—but I tell you this is the limit. That woman is a creature…”
I have no mind to listen to gossip but a vague idea forms in the back of my mind that what Myrtle has to say might light up a murky situation.
“She’s a she-wolf, Miss Lawrence, an absolute she-wolf. I’ve met up with a lot of he-wolves in the studios in my times,” and here Myrtle rolls her china-blue eyes expressively, “but this is the first time I have known a she-wolf. The way she chases men would simply put you away! Why nothing will satisfy her but she must have them all. Why she even tried to get Tom and when he balked she behaved like a—uh—she-wolf.”