The Silver Blonde

by Elizabeth Ross

  And like that, the morning slipped away. The correspondence was finished and Mrs. Irvine was getting ready to run to town. As she collected her things, Connie realized with a sharp pang that she had never so much as dipped a toe in the water. Her chest caved in with disappointment—it was too late.

  “I’ll be off to the post office, and then I have to see about new curtains for the guest bedrooms,” said Mrs. Irvine. “Mr. Pearce prefers to choose the material himself. I’ve been given orders to send swatches to him in Los Angeles—waste of postage, if you ask me. What man wants to pick curtains? But he’s particular, I suppose.”

  Connie was only half listening as she gazed at the slab of water glistening in the sun.

  Mrs. Irvine took the letters, and they went out the front door together and stood on the driveway to say goodbye. Connie recalled her first day at the house. The concrete driveway had looked as though it had been poured that day—Connie had feared she’d leave a footprint. And now it was her last day and there would be no trace of her in that beautiful ugly house.

  “Sure you don’t want a lift, dear?” Mrs. Irvine opened the car door.

  Connie shook her head. “I’d prefer to walk. It’s such a nice day, and my bus home isn’t until the afternoon.” She already had a plan forming as the words tumbled out.

  “Goodbye, dear. You’ve been a great help.”

  After a brisk hug, Connie set off down the driveway and onto the thick ribbon of asphalt—no sidewalks, just the desert scrub on one side and the mountains rising above her on the other. The lots were huge in that part of town—nearly a block to the next property. She waved when Mrs. Irvine drove by in her Ford station wagon, and Connie watched her car sail past the next huge home—a Spanish affair—and turn down the hill toward town. Connie slowed her walk and counted to ten before she turned around. As she hurried back toward the house, she worried that Mrs. Irvine might suddenly return. What if she had forgotten her purse or her shopping list? Connie cast a glance over her shoulder. The road remained deserted. All was still. The swimming pool was waiting for her.

  She let herself in by the side gate. She didn’t need to access the house to get to the pool. There was the bench with clean towels, rolled up like pigs in a blanket. She grabbed one, kicked off her shoes, and slipped out of her dress.

  Her delight at that first swim. The warm sun, the cool water—not having to share any of it. It was one of those moments when being alone felt euphoric. She splashed around like a kid, gleeful. She closed her eyes, and the sun turned to starbursts on the ends of her lashes. She imagined the house was all hers, no one to bother her or ask her to do something, type something, or fetch something. She didn’t have to do anything for anyone.

  She dried herself off and put a fresh towel on the sun lounger. The grounds were immaculate. She closed her eyes. She could hear the thrum of a hummingbird, then a lazy bee. Heaven. This must have been what the German actress had felt like when she’d lounged by the pool.

  Connie had been dazzled by that woman—by her glamor, by the exotic accent, the very force of her. When are passions born? Connie and movies, a flame burning in the dark. Something sparked in her when she was gazing at the actress doing laps in the pool, something covetous.

  The slam of a car door woke her. Connie started. The dream of her private swimming pool evaporated. Her heart began to pound. She heard voices. Footsteps. The jangle of keys in the front door. She grabbed her clothes, purse, and shoes. Where could she go? The side gate was on the other side of the pool. She’d have to run past the glass walls—they’d see her from inside. She’d have to hide.

  She ducked behind a bird of paradise near the fence. Her suit was still clammy. Was it Mr. Pearce? He was supposed to be halfway to Los Angeles by now. Suddenly she was a trespasser. Her heart was a fist punching its way out of her rib cage. Voices floated outside; someone had opened the patio door. With horror she noticed that she had dropped a shoe on the path. And the lounger was moved. There was an imprint on the cushion and puddles of water by the pool’s edge. Would they notice? Would they find her? Her mind whirred with excuses. She could pretend she’d forgotten something—at the bottom of the pool? She cringed. Great thinking, Connie.

  She heard the patio door slide open wider, and the voices came outside. They were clearer now. She recognized them—it was Mr. Brackett and the German actress. Connie crouched deeper into her hiding spot behind the bright green fronds of the bird of paradise, a sharp beak of a flower poking at her. She dared to peek between leaves and she watched them set up two loungers side by side in the sun. They grabbed fresh towels and ignored the ones she had used.

  Connie stared at her shoe. Would it give her away? Her heart felt like a trapped bird, wings beating against her rib cage. Her throat was dry, and her eyes still stung from the chlorine in the pool. Minutes went by. Finally Mr. Brackett and the German woman relaxed onto their sun loungers, facing away from the house. Connie took her chance. She ducked down, grabbed her shoe, and darted in the open patio doors and through the house to the front door. As she slipped past Mr. Brackett’s car in the driveway, she heard a splash. Their pool now.

  She yanked her dress over her head and carried her shoes, her feet filthy from hiding in the bushes. The road was as deserted, as dead, as a Sunday morning. She walked briskly but not in a panic. Once she reached the next house, she risked a look back. Mr. Pearce’s house sat as it always had, boxy and lined with glass that reflected the desert. There was no one in the drive shaking a fist at her; there was no one chasing her down the street. She exhaled a laugh. It was a lucky escape.

  Clara had closed the diary and sat for a time. Her mind’s eye a film camera, this was the infinite image of Connie that she would replay: the seventeen-year-old girl in bare feet and wet hair, walking along a desert road swinging her shoes, the sky a brilliant shade of blue.

  Epilogue

  Late Show

  October 1946

  THE VISTA MOVIE THEATER was quiet. It was midweek, and the rain had started that afternoon and hadn’t let up. Gil and Clara arrived under the marquee, shaking off the downpour, laughing and out of breath. At the kiosk they bought tickets for the late show and entered the lobby; a comforting fug of cigarette smoke, wet umbrellas, and popcorn enveloped them as the rain continued to lash down outside.

  Clara had the letter from Bonn in her purse. She had read it over twice on her lunch break. Her parents were bracing for their first German winter. Her mother was writing to ask if she wanted anything special sent to Los Angeles for Christmas, and what about Max, didn’t he love those ginger cookies from the Christmas markets? Clara shook her head. It was only October. She had struck a deal with her parents. If she lived in the same apartment building as Max, she could stay in LA—apparently he would keep an eye on her. It was a third-floor bachelor in the Los Feliz Manor right on the boulevard, and they rode the streetcar to work together.

  At the concessions stand Clara got popcorn and Gil picked up the latest issue of Variety. barbara bannon signs with warner bros. He nodded to the front cover.

  “No surprise,” said Clara. The fallout from the murder had given her the leverage she needed. Pearce hadn’t put up a fight. Connie had helped her after all, Clara thought sadly. “Is the review in yet?”

  Gil flicked through the pages until he found it.

  Letter from Argentan, a psychological thriller starring Barbara Bannon and Randall Ford, is the latest release from Silver Pacific. The publicity campaign appears to be making the most of Bannon’s return to the big screen, her image transformed from Gregory Quinn’s lover (on- and off-screen) to a first-rate actress in her own right. A compelling performance and tight direction from Howard Hawks proves Bannon can carry a picture without a leading man on the marquee. The film should appeal to the femme trade, as it relies heavily on the woman’s picture but with a good dose of suspense. No wonder that Silver Pacific’s
publicity campaign is exploiting the drama of “The Silver Blonde” murder, which took place on the lot during filming.

  Gil let out a harsh laugh. “ ‘The Silver Blonde.’ They can’t help themselves. No mention of Brackett—I guess they removed his name from the credits.”

  “Why should he get a credit?” She offered him popcorn, and he tossed a few buds into his mouth. “Come on, it was your rewrites and Sam’s cutting that saved the picture.” Clara nudged him. “Everyone knows it.”

  He shook his head a little. “There’d be no picture, really, without you,” he added. His gaze lingered on her, and she smiled.

  They headed for the theater and showed their tickets to the usherette. As they took their seats, the previews were playing. A few more patrons trickled in, and Clara observed the usherette in the dim light and imagined Connie when she’d first came to LA—all her dreams and plans for the future when she’d passed through the gates of Silver Pacific studios.

  Eventually the portrait lights of the Vista theater dimmed. The usherette turned off her flashlight and leaned against the wall, gazing up at the screen. Clara wondered how many times she had seen the picture: Hitchcock’s Notorious, starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.

  The trumpeting of the RKO logo, and Clara’s attention was pulled to the screen and she let Connie go. She felt that familiar thrill, those electric seconds of anticipation before a movie begins. She reached for Gil’s hand; just the right amount of strength in his grip, a perfect fit around hers. The credits played over a swelling score. As Clara watched the opening scene, she had a flash of what it would have looked like on the shoot day: Ingrid Bergman leaving a courtroom, hounded by reporters. Watching actors perform in person can be underwhelming and repetitive, nothing like the end result on-screen. Film has an almost magic capacity to transform. There is a weight and dazzle to it; something to do with the chemical layers, the silver halide crystals add a physical element, a glitter that augments real life into something else, something wonderful. The spell of cinema. The grandeur and scope of a wide shot; or the breath and intimacy of the close-up. You watch the actors as you would your own reflection. The film is happening to you, not just the character. You are not a bystander simply watching. You feel: you are.

  For a couple of hours Clara and Gil lost themselves in the movie, inhabiting the cares of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, and forgot—they let go of the past and the present and even themselves. From that infinite darkness, the silver screen was all that existed.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When this novel existed as no more than a spark of an idea, I set out to write a mystery inspired by film noir. The style of filmmaking prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s, characterized by its striking black-and-white photography, pessimistic antiheroes, jaded detectives, and femmes fatales. As a teenager, I devoured these films—they felt adult and dangerous. In these stories the women were powerful and cunning, the men simmered with barely contained emotion, and the final scene usually brought destruction, not a happy ending.

  Once I delved into research for the book, the shadow of World War II loomed over sunny Los Angeles. Film noir wouldn’t exist without that conflict. Indeed, many noir directors, like Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger, were Jewish immigrants from Europe who had arrived in the United States after fleeing Nazism in the 1930s. The idea of a young German American protagonist in a postwar setting intrigued me, and I realized that recurring noir themes—alienation, guilt, and deceit—were a perfect fit for such a character. Someone torn between her past and her present. The murder in my novel takes place in 1946, but I knew that the key to the mystery had to be buried in the past.

  The Silver Blonde is a work of fiction; however, Hitler’s filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl did indeed come to Hollywood before the war. Given that my mystery hinges on her time in California, I’d like to separate fact from fiction and give readers some context for her visit and what happened after.

  As in the novel, Riefenstahl sailed to New York on the Europa, arriving in November 1938, just as news of Kristallnacht broke. Her visit created a great deal of publicity, and she was touted as the Nazi film queen and Hitler’s girlfriend. All the newspaper quotes in the novel—from Hedda Hopper in the Los Angeles Times to excerpts from the Saturday Evening Post—are faithful. The boycott organized by the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League worked, for the most part: Leni failed to sell US rights to Olympia; she was denied entry to the studios (with the exception of a visit to Disney); and she was publicly given the cold shoulder by the film community. She fared slightly better with her Olympic connections, who organized a screening of her movie and a reception in her honor. But ultimately, she was run out of town. She made several trips to Palm Springs, California, where, according to Steven Bach’s excellent biography Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl, “She had taken a new lover of unknown identity.”

  As a writer, my “what if?” reflex kicked in. What if one of the studios had been receptive to her? What if, in the historical climate of 1938, with the United States trying to stay out of Europe’s conflicts, someone took a gamble on Fräulein Riefenstahl?

  At the time, public opinion favored nonintervention in global conflict. Charles Lindbergh, America’s favorite aviator, was a noted white supremacist and became the spokesman of the America First Committee, a political group pushing for American isolationism. This movement would gain popularity until the attack on Pearl Harbor. And just like Lindbergh, many prominent Americans were fans of Adolf Hitler, including Henry Ford, whom Leni visited in Detroit before she went to California. Silver Pacific studios is fictional, but I imagine the Pearces as old-money types, a family in which the patriarch would have been a supporter of Lindbergh and his ilk.

  The other key to imagining a Hollywood career for Riefenstahl was the woman herself. She was talented and “ferociously ambitious.” She had Hitler—if not her lover, certainly her career champion—wrapped around her finger. Before her arrival in the United States, Olympia had just won the Mussolini Cup at the Venice Film Festival, beating Disney’s Snow White. Leni had been fêted across continental Europe with lavish premieres attended by royalty including the kings of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Belgium. With Europe at her feet, it seems inevitable that Leni’s gaze would turn to Hollywood. And with her considerable ego, ruthlessness, and drive, why wouldn’t she expect the red-carpet treatment?

  The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League were vocal in their campaign against Leni, but in general, the studios at that time were careful not to offend the Nazi regime. Remember: At this point, war with Germany was years away. Hollywood studios had to tread carefully. Alienating the lucrative German market was risky, and for the most part (with the exception of Warner Bros., who closed their Berlin office in 1934), the studios tried to stay out of politics—there is rarely a mention of Nazis in Hollywood films until the 1940s. Of course, by the time the United States entered the war, the studios had rallied and were making their own propaganda films, like Mrs. Miniver and Casablanca (see the filmography on page 383).

  The best historical fiction has a connection to the present. It allows us to examine our world through the lens of the past. As my story took shape, events that should have been relegated to the history books came roaring onto the front page: the rise of far-right groups in Europe and the United States; Nazis marching on American streets; the rise of the America First movement, along with the darkest elements of populism—xenophobia, racism, nativism. Propaganda and conspiracy theories spread on social media, and narratives were shaped and skewed on cable news. Suddenly my story took on a greater relevance as I found myself seeing the worst elements of our world through the lens of 1930s Germany. Had history been forgotten?

  At this time I attended a screening of Triumph of the Will and a panel discussion hosted by the USC Shoah Foundation. It is remarkable that Riefenstahl’s film endures to this day. Its imagery has influenced many contemporary classics—including Star Wa
rs and Lord of the Rings. Watching the opening scenes, it was the wall of sound that hit me first—a deafening cacophony of Sieg Heils and a sustained euphoria of screaming crowds at Hitler’s arrival in the town of Nuremberg. It was truly chilling. From that opening shot of his airplane in the clouds, Hitler was portrayed as a god descending to the mortal world. I was watching this infamous propaganda film with the benefit of hindsight, but I couldn’t help imagining what it must have been like for a German audience in the 1930s. How could they not be mesmerized by these images and the rabid cheering of fellow Germans? In that darkened screening room, I felt as though I had time-traveled. Just watching, I felt complicit. I drove home in lashing rain—a very noir type of night—and I thought about my novel. I had set out to write a love letter to classic Hollywood and it had led me to explore film’s darkest corners. Watching Triumph of the Will on the eve of the 2017 US inauguration made me realize that the tools of propaganda and manipulation will always be used by those in power and by those who crave it, and that every generation has to fight for democracy, decency, and truth.

  When we consider the horrors of the Nazi regime, it is hard to imagine how a whole country could be complicit, could turn a blind eye and participate in cruelty, in mass murder. In my research I came across Melita Maschmann, a high-ranking official in the Hitler Youth movement. Years after the war, she reckoned with her Nazi past in a frank and detailed memoir, Account Rendered: A Dossier on My Former Self. In it, she remarked, “The ghastly thing was just the fact that it was not gangsters and roughnecks, but decent, intelligent and moral people who allowed themselves to be induced to acquiesce [to] something deeply evil and to serve it….What I learned about myself and what we all should learn, even those of us who are not forced to such self discovery, is that the frontier between good and evil can run straight through the middle of us without our being aware of this.”