96
It is always possible to discover hints of Babe’s presence on a set, even if Babe himself is nowhere to be seen, because Babe leaves a paper trail.
Babe reads the Los Angeles Times obsessively, every day. Babe does not miss an article or skip a page. When Babe is done with the Los Angeles Times, there is the Reader’s Digest, or The New Republic; there is “Life in These United States,” or the ever present threat of Communism, with H.G. Wells failing to convert Joseph Stalin to liberalism and appearing only mildly surprised at this defeat, like one who was firmly convinced he could finish that last slice of pie. Babe sees no difficulty in reading both the Reader’s Digest and The New Republic. It is all knowledge.
Babe does not live in fear of appearing ignorant before others. This would be proof of vanity. Babe lives in fear of being ignorant, and this is proof of humility. Babe has little time for fiction. Babe’s working life is devoted to fantasy, so when Babe is not working Babe will try to understand the order of things, and quiet corners of studio lots may provide the right kind of man with time and space in which to inquire into secret creations, and wisely perfect the world.
Babe remains faithful to Myrtle because Babe retains faith in Myrtle. Or, more correctly, Babe has continued to harbor the conviction that Myrtle might yet be saved, or might be persuaded to alter her behavior, but only if Babe is willing to abet her. Neither does Babe wish to walk away from another marriage. Babe has no desire to look back on the pathways of his life and see only debris.
But Babe is tired of being afraid to return home at night.
Babe is tired of the smell of liquor and piss.
Babe is tired of being lonely.
He watches Babe remove an adhesive bandage from his hand as they prepare to shoot a scene. The wound revealed is not big, but it is deep: a gouge in the pad below Babe’s right thumb, smeared brown with iodine. Babe either does not believe the make-up lady can disguise the bandage, or does not wish to be asked the cause of the abrasion.
Babe catches him looking.
A glass, Babe says. Dropped.
A pause.
—Well, eventually it dropped. After it was thrown.
—They do that. It’s called gravy-tea.
He slips so easily into character that he surprises even himself. After a moment’s hesitation, so also does Babe change. In Babe the process is more dexterous, as with so much that Babe essays: a marginal rearrangement of features, a delicate adjustment of posture. No longer Babe, but Mr. Hardy.
—Not gravy-tea: gravity. It means that what goes up—
Mr. Hardy lifts a finger, points it skyward, and circles it in the air.
—must go down.
The finger inverts, and spirals in the direction of the floor. Mr. Hardy smiles at him, the teacher to the pupil.
—You see?
—Like a submarine.
—Yes, like a—No, not like a submarine.
Mr. Hardy considers. Gravity might possibly apply also to submarines, but Mr. Hardy would not like to commit until certain.
Anyway, it’s not important, says Mr. Hardy. What’s important is that the glass was thrown, and the glass fell, and when I tried to pick up the pieces, I cut my hand.
—But who threw the glass?
—My wife threw the glass.
Mr. Hardy emphasizes this detail with a single nod of his head, in the manner of one who is proud of the power of his wife’s throwing arm.
—She ought to play baseball.
—I will tell her that when next I see her.
—But why did she throw the glass?
Mr. Hardy grimaces, and tips his derby forward, the derby that is a size too small for the head upon which it sits, just like his own.
—She suspected me of being with another woman.
—You mean your mother?
Mr. Hardy’s shoulders hunch, toppling the derby so that Mr. Hardy is forced to juggle his headwear in order to avoid losing it entirely.
—My mother! No, not my mother. Why would my wife throw a glass at me for being with my mother?
—Maybe she’s met your mother.
Mr. Hardy scowls. Mr. Hardy flails at him with his hat. He takes a step back and blinks, conscious that he appears to have irritated Mr. Hardy, but not sure how, given that his suggestion appears entirely logical.
—Just leave my mother out of this. Look, it’s perfectly simple. I came home with make-up on my suit, smelling of perfume, and my wife assumed that I was seeing another woman. Who was not my mother.
—And were you?
—I tried to explain to my wife that as an actor, I always have make-up on my clothing. I wear make-up for the camera, and some of it gets on my jacket and my shirt.
—Do you also wear perfume as an actor?
—No, I do not, but I am sometimes in proximity to actresses who do.
—Were you in very close proximity to an actress who does?
—I was not. I was merely having lunch with her.
—And who was this actress?
—Her name is Miss June Marlowe.
Mr. Hardy blushes, and plays with his tie.
—She’s pretty.
Yes, says Mr. Hardy, she is.
—And friendly.
—Yes, she is that, too.
—Maybe your wife would like to meet her.
—Yes, that’s—No, my wife would not like to meet her. Don’t you understand? My wife thinks I’m engaged in a dalliance, when all I was doing was having lunch. Do you really think it would help the situation if I were to bring Miss June Marlowe home with me in order to introduce her to my wife?
He opens his mouth to confirm that this is indeed his opinion, before reconsidering.
Maybe not, he says.
—Definitely not. And do you know why it would not help?
—Tell me.
Mr. Hardy hesitates. Mr. Hardy looks away.
And it is Babe who speaks.
—Because my wife is a drunk.
Their names are called.
They step out of the shadows and into the light.
97
At the Oceana Apartments, he marvels at the number of pictures he and Babe made involving men mired in miserable relationships, men living in fear of their wives, men being berated by women, men being struck by women.
Hal Roach found bad marriages funny.
But only because Hal Roach was never trapped in one.
He can count his marriages, in all their various forms, on the fingers of two hands, with the thumbs left over. He should really have married a few more times, just to complete the set. He once suggests this to Ida, if only to hear what she says, and Ida tells him that he is welcome to try, assuming he can find a way to leave the apartment without her help.
He admits that relative immobility is a barrier to meeting new women.
This, and the fact that he will soon be dead.
98
Babe’s marital troubles are about to become common knowledge. The studio publicists try to smother the flames as best they can, but the brands leave smoke rising. Worse, the Los Angeles Times dispatches a reporter named Paul Moreine to cover the production of their latest picture, Our Wives, and Paul Moreine is on the lot at all times, so it is fortunate that Babe has learned to hide his emotions so well.
And, although it does not seem so at the time, Babe is doubly blessed in that Hal Roach is forced to close the studio for six weeks from March until May in order to reorganize his finances. This means that Babe is not on set, and not required to work, while the fault lines in his marriage are being exposed.
It is small solace, but Babe has become used to small solaces.
One of these solaces is his lover, Viola Morse.
Myrtle is a regular client of the Rosemead Lodge sanitarium in Temple City, although Myrtle appears to use it solely as a convenient location in which to sleep off a hangover before once again heading out to hunt for liquor. Babe finds it difficult to understand how the sanitarium
can operate an open-door policy when it comes to Myrtle, but at least Babe and the staff at the sanitarium have this much in common. Myrtle could find a way to escape from a locked and windowless room. This leads Jimmy Finlayson to suggest that Myrtle may be related to the famous Jack Sheppard, who rarely stayed in a prison cell for longer than it took to have a nap and a bite to eat, until the law grew tired of chasing Jack Sheppard and hanged him instead.
Hanging, he tells Jimmy Finlayson, may be a little extreme for Myrtle.
And Jimmy Finlayson raises the eyebrow that has made his career, and says:
—Really?
But one fine March evening, Myrtle leaves the Rosemead Lodge sanitarium in Temple City and does not return. Babe is informed, and is also advised that Myrtle is believed to have more than $100 in her change purse. Even allowing for the price of illicit liquor under Prohibition, $100 offers the promise of intoxication on a grand scale.
It takes two detectives one day to discover Myrtle, insensate, in the St. Paul Hotel.
Myrtle is sent to stay with her sister Mary Pense on Ben Lomond Drive. Myrtle requires someone to watch her constantly, and Babe is wrung out. A doctor will look in on Myrtle, prescribe whatever is necessary to keep her calm, and help her through the worst of the DTs.
Myrtle has other plans. Myrtle sneaks out of her sister’s house, and vanishes. This time she makes it as far as the Balboa, a favorite haunt. Her room is pretty, and has a view of the ocean, although Myrtle is not enjoying it because Myrtle is trying to drink herself into oblivion. When the police eventually find her, Myrtle threatens to jump from a window, so the police call the fire department. The fire department sets up outside the hotel just in case Myrtle does decide to jump, at which point Babe—as Babe tells him the next day over the phone, when he gets in touch to see if there is anything he can do to help—feels as though the whole affair has mutated into the plot of one of their own pictures.
The police and the fire department decide that Myrtle might respond better to a woman’s entreaties, since she shows no signs of wishing to be spoken to by men, and by her husband in particular. The only policewoman available works for the juvenile department, which seems to equip her perfectly for the task of dealing with an intoxicated Myrtle, who permits the policewoman to enter the room through the door without Myrtle first exiting through a window.
At the jail, Myrtle gives her name as Myrtle Hardy, and her address as 3687 Fredonia, but declines to use her one phone call to talk to Babe. Instead, she contacts Mary Pense, while outside the reporters convene. Naturally, the police are curious as to how Myrtle came by the liquor in her possession, and pose this question to Mary Pense when she arrives to post bail. Mary Pense informs them that the alcohol was prescribed by a physician for an unspecified condition—which, the look on Mary Pense’s face makes clear, is one endured only by women, and is therefore not a subject fit for discussion in a police station.
Every newspaper in the country reports the story. The studio claims that Myrtle is suffering from melancholia and a nervous breakdown, a statement that at best contains euphemisms, and is at worst a lie, and is fatally undermined when Myrtle is subsequently charged with excessive use of liquor. Myrtle’s attorney waives arraignment in psychopathic court, and advises the judge that there is nothing wrong with his client mentally.
Myrtle is paroled, but only on condition that she will cooperate with her treatment at a private facility.
Back to the sanitarium. Back to Rosemead.
The name, for Babe, has become a joke.
But Babe is sanguine, even cheerful, when Hal Roach eventually reopens for business. Babe looks relaxed. Babe has used the opportunity offered by the studio going dark to take Myrtle on a restorative cruise to Cuba, with every bartender on land and at sea under strict orders to serve her nothing stronger than water.
Viola Morse understands Babe’s situation, or if Viola Morse does not understand, then Viola Morse maintains a pretense of understanding for Babe’s sake, just as Alyce Ardell does for his.
He, too, has just returned from a cruise, in his case Hawaii, accompanied by Lois, and his daughter, and Lois’s mother Ella. Strange, he thinks, that he and Babe should try to save their marriages in the same way, even as they both sleep with other women.
He feels sorry for Babe, but sorry for Myrtle, too. Myrtle may be a drunk, and she may be making Babe’s life a misery, but her own life is worse. Myrtle has no career, and no interests beyond drinking, but she has a memory of what was lost, which is why she drifts back to the Balboa, where she once danced and drank with the rest of the Balboa Amusement Producing Company when Long Beach, not Hollywood, was the heart and soul of the motion picture industry.
When she was pretty Myrtle Reeves.
When she might have been a star.
Now Babe has Viola Morse, but Myrtle has no one, no one but Babe.
And soon, he cannot help but feel, she will no longer even have Babe.
Getting arrested might be the best thing that could have happened to Myrtle, Babe tells him. I think she just needed to be frightened into seeking help.
It may be that Babe believes this. Perhaps by saying it aloud Babe can even make it true. Babe has bought a new house on North Alta Drive in Beverly Hills, and what man invests in a house for his wife and himself if there is no future for them?
And in their new home Myrtle now sits, fresh from Cuba, fresh from Rosemead, and wonders how she will fill her days without drinking. Babe leaves her each morning to work on pictures, and to see, whenever possible, Viola Morse. If Babe is no longer being faithful to Myrtle, then Babe is at least endeavoring to retain his sanity.
I hope you’re right, he tells Babe.
Jimmy Finlayson, standing within earshot, eyes hidden behind tinted glasses, ears picking up every word, raises again the eyebrow that has made his career, but this time says nothing at all.
99
Hal Roach: currently less a man smoking a cigar than a smoking cigar in possession of a man, great clouds of white forming above his head like empty thought balloons waiting to be filled; an admirer of Benito Mussolini, to whom Hal Roach bears a passing facial resemblance if seen, as now, through fumes.
He shifts in his chair. He knows that he is being unfair to Hal Roach. Except for the part about Benito Mussolini. This part is true. Down the line, Hal Roach will even get into bed with Vittorio Mussolini, the dictator’s son, to form a film company, until MGM advises Hal Roach that consorting with the scion of a fascist while doing business in a town run by Jews may not be the wisest move.
Until recently, Hal Roach has been content to let Babe and him do as they wish. Hal Roach allows them to build an entire house for Helpmates and then torch it, which is about as extravagant as a man can run for a gag, short of setting fire to his own home and laughing while it burns.
Lately, though, the money has not been accumulating in quite the same quantities as before, and the studio may be forced to go dark again. Edgar Kennedy is gone. George Stevens is gone. Bank of America is circling because Hal Roach owes $75,000, and shows no signs of being able to pay the debt. As a result, Bank of America has forced a man named Henry Ginsberg on the studio as general manager.
Nobody likes Henry Ginsberg. Henry Ginsberg does not believe in spending more time and money to make better pictures. Above all else, Henry Ginsberg prizes speed and parsimony. If Henry Ginsberg sees a corpse, Henry Ginsberg will order it to rot quicker before deducting one of the pennies from its eyes.
Even he and Babe are not immune. For the first time, their pictures have resulted in a loss to Hal Roach. It is the Depression, and only hoodlums and bootleggers are turning a profit. Hal Roach acknowledges this. Nevertheless, everyone must scrimp, which is why Hal Roach has invited him into his office to discuss the next picture.
Hal Roach’s office is a sight to see. It is wood-paneled, and lit by chandeliers. Hal Roach’s desk stands before a small window, with a fireplace to one side, the mantel above displaying pictures of
Hal Roach’s family. It could be the suite of a banker, except that the floor is covered with animal skins, including a bear hunted down and shot by Hal Roach.
Hal Roach offers him a drink, but he declines. He has work to do and prefers to keep a clear head, for now. Hal Roach makes himself a vodka and ginger. Hal Roach tells him that funds are limited. He usually hears this when his contract is up for renewal. It is a familiar refrain. If it were set to music, Hal Roach could sing it.
Hal Roach shows him the bill for Helpmates. He wonders if Hal Roach is about to demand a refund, or put a lien on his home.
We can’t be doing this kind of stunt no more, says Hal Roach.
He reminds Hal Roach that Hal Roach himself signed off on the budget. It is not as if he forged Hal Roach’s signature on a check, used the proceeds to build a house, burned it down, and then sent Hal Roach the ashes.
I know I signed off on it, says Hal Roach. What I’m saying is that we can’t be burning down no more houses.
He tells Hal Roach that he has no intention of burning down any more houses. He is not an arsonist.
—Good. Just so we’re clear. Tell me about this new picture.
—It’s called Top Heavy. It’s about a piano.
—I know what it’s called. I also know it’s about a piano. Currier informed me. What I want to know is the story.
—The piano is the story.
A piano is not a story, says Hal Roach. A piano is just a piano.
Hal Roach fears metaphor. If Hal Roach has never yet met a fascist Hal Roach does not like, neither has Hal Roach ever met a metaphor that Hal Roach does. Hal Roach is obsessed with refinement, and the risqué lurks in symbols.
Hal Roach is growing increasingly obsessive about plot. Hal Roach yearns to perceive a pattern in all matters. Perhaps, he thinks, it is to do with Hal Roach’s Catholic heritage, even though Hal Roach was thrown out of Catholic school. He could try telling Hal Roach that if comedy is to work, it requires the disintegration of order into chaos. Not only this, it must acknowledge chaos as the underlying state. There is no plot. There is no pattern. There is only a series of randomly connected situations, most of which are not amusing by definition. It is the task of comedians to make them funny.