A short picture won you an Academy Award, he tells Hal Roach.
—You’re not listening to me. That may be true, and The Music Box is a fine picture, but I’m trying to tell you that shorts won’t win me any more Academy Awards, and shorts won’t pay salaries. You must start thinking in terms of features. I can’t fund a slate of shorts and make them pay. Look, I’m not shelving short pictures entirely, but we all have to understand that their time is coming to an end. I’m going to need at least one feature a year from you. The first is this.
Hal Roach hands him a script—an outline, really. It’s clear that it’s something Hal Roach has been working on personally because his fingerprints are all over it, literally and metaphorically. It’s called Babes in Toyland.
Isn’t that an opera? he asks Hal Roach.
—Operetta. A little opera—you know, funny. I bought the rights from RKO, and MGM will finance it for a million, maybe a million and a half, as long as we get a singer for the male lead. Although, obviously, the picture is yours and Babe’s. Take the script away with you. Read it over the holidays. We’ll talk when you return.
He stands, rolling up the script as he rises. Hal Roach looks pained, as though Hal Roach cannot bear to see his work treated in this way; that, or Hal Roach fears being beaned with it.
I’d wish you a merry Christmas, says Hal Roach, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate after what you’ve been through. Where will you spend it?
—South Palm.
—With your sister-in-law?
—No, I don’t think so. We’ve decided that it might be best if she and the kids move into their own place. I’ve found somewhere for them.
—How’s she doing?
—Not good.
Hal Roach puts his hands in his pockets.
He waits.
—You been in touch with Lois? says Hal Roach.
—No.
Have you? he wants to ask, but decides against it.
It’s a damned shame, says Hal Roach. She’s a lovely girl. But you never know. At this time of year, people start reflecting on family. They get to put things in perspective.
He does not want to hear this, not from Hal Roach.
—Maybe you could have someone issue a press release. The paths of happiness may have been cleared of dead leaves by now.
Hal Roach takes the hit before landing one in return.
—If you put your girlfriend in one of my pictures again, you and I will have a serious disagreement.
The meeting is over.
119
Amid the holiday celebrations, he suffers only a deep and abiding premonition of disintegration of which he cannot speak, not even with Babe. He knows that Babe is concerned about him. Babe doesn’t like to see him this way. Babe already has one drunk on his hands, and does not need another, but Babe remains as solicitous of him as ever. Babe was there for him in the days and weeks after the divorce came through, and Babe was there for him when Teddy died.
Babe will always be there for him.
But Babe cannot understand the fragmentation he is experiencing. Lois and his daughter gave structure to his existence. Just as he requires order in his working environment, so also does he need it in his personal life, and disruption to one inevitably involves a disturbance in the other. The fact that he was largely responsible for fatally undermining his own marriage does not change this. It was the stability, however fragile, of his home life that enabled him to stray: a tension of symmetry. Only in his pictures is he content to let chaos prevail. He abjures it in reality, yet at the same time he is driven to act on instinct, just as on the set of a picture the scripts over which he labors may provide the framework for spontaneity. But one cannot exist without the other: to create artistic discord, he depends upon the consolations of domestic harmony.
The solution, then, to the profound upheaval in his world caused by the divorce is to find a way to restore equilibrium as soon as possible. With his sister-in-law and her children safely situated elsewhere, he tries to convince Ruth to move out of her parents’ house in Watts and join him at South Palm. But Ruth is conscious of appearances. His divorce will not be final for another year, and she does not wish to be the subject of gossip.
We can’t live together, Ruth tells him. People will talk.
In other words, Ruth will fuck him, but she will not live under the same roof as him, or not without company to add the appearance of propriety. And Ruth is entitled to take this position. She has a business of her own, and therefore a reputation both personal and professional to protect.
It is a quandary.
120
He meets Babe for a drink at the Cocoanut Grove. The atmosphere at the Grove is celebratory, and with so much activity they find it easy to sequester in a quiet corner. Babe is leaving with Myrtle to spend Christmas in Palm Springs. Babe says that he is welcome to join them, but he tells Babe that he would prefer to stay in the city. He does not discuss questions of order and stability with Babe. He does not share with Babe the breaches in his quiddity. They talk of his meeting with Hal Roach, and the script for Babes in Toyland. Babe, too, has received a copy.
I don’t much care for it, he tells Babe.
Babe, by contrast, admires the ambition of the piece, and is pleased that it is a musical. If Babe has any regret about the pictures they are making together, it is that opportunities seldom arise for him to sing.
But why? Babe asks.
—I think it’s silly. I don’t want to dress up as some fairytale character.
—You’ve dressed up as worse before.
—And I don’t wish to do so again.
Babe backs off. Babe realizes that there is no point in talking with him about work when he is in this humor. He does not tell Babe that he is also frightened. He has control on a two-reel picture; he can bend directors to his will. But the longer the picture, the less control he can exert. Babes in Toyland will compound this problem because Hal Roach proposes to fill the cast with both stars from the lot and actors borrowed from other studios. With a million dollars or more of MGM’s money riding on it, Babes in Toyland will have many masters, and he will be fortunate if he is one. This will be disorder in the guise of order. This will be a tumult of voices in a time of personal discord.
How is Lillian? he asks.
Babe shrugs in reply. Lillian DeBorba is a transitory respite from Myrtle, and no more than that. The relationship cannot last, particularly because Dorothy DeBorba is no longer among the cast of Our Gang and therefore her mother has no reason to be around the lot. Just because Babe and Myrtle are back together doesn’t mean reporters are not curious about the mysterious blonde mentioned in Myrtle’s original suit, and whether Babe might have other such women in his life.
I want Ruth to move in with me, he tells Babe.
—That’s kind of sudden, isn’t it?
—I find it hard to be alone.
—It’s the season. It’ll pass.
—No, I don’t believe it will.
Thelma Todd comes by to say hello. They exchange kisses. Thelma Todd is involved with a director named Roland West, with whom she plans to set up a café in Pacific Palisades, as Thelma Todd can see her acting career petering out. Thelma Todd also sometimes fucks Ted Healy, who manages a slapstick act called Ted Healy & His Stooges, which is signed to MGM. Ted Healy & His Stooges perform violent knockabout material, and have made a feature and a few shorts, none of which he likes. Ted Healy is a mean drunk, and Thelma Todd is too good for him, but Thelma Todd’s choice in men is generally poor. Thelma Todd is also still married to Pat DiCicco, who is nominally a producer but mostly acts as Lucky Luciano’s eyes and ears in Hollywood, and who once hit Thelma Todd so hard that her appendix burst, which means that anyone else who fucks Thelma Todd is either brave or stupid—or, in the case of Ted Healy, just too drunk to care.
Don’t get me wrong, Babe continues, after Thelma Todd has gone on her way. I think Ruth is a lovely woman, but how much do you know about her?
&n
bsp; He knows that her maiden name is Handsberger. He knows that Mr. Rogers, her husband, didn’t last the pace, and is now safely dead. They had been living apart for some time, but Ruth held on to the Rogers name, as one would if one’s own name was Handsberger. He knows that she is pretty and funny, and not dumb.
He knows that he does not wish to be alone.
The problem, he tells Babe, is that I can’t live openly with her until my divorce is final. I mean, I suppose I could, but she won’t agree to it anyway.
And Hal wouldn’t like it, says Babe. Being square with you, I wouldn’t be too happy about it either. Now that Roscoe Arbuckle is dead, there’s a vacancy for a disgraced comic, and two will fit the bill as nicely as one.
Babe never refers to Roscoe Arbuckle as Fatty, not even posthumously. Babe tries never to allude to anyone’s appearance in a way that might prove hurtful.
So what am I supposed to do, he asks, rattle around in my rooms like an old maid?
—It’s a big place. Why not have someone move in with you, someone nobody could take issue with, and then ask Ruth to join you?
This, he admits, is not a bad idea, although if it were a story for one of their pictures, it would have to go horribly wrong.
They bat around some names.
You like Baldy Cooke, offers Babe, and I know Baldy and his wife are hurting for money. They live in a dump.
He has known Baldy and Alice Cooke since vaudeville. They toured together back then, and he has always done his best to secure Baldy roles in his pictures. Baldy and Alice Cooke are respectable people, and not just by the standards of this town.
I’ll ask Baldy, he says.
He spends the holidays drinking, apart from a brief, unhappy reunion with his daughter. He hosts visitors at South Palm on Christmas Day. He informs his guests that they are celebrating the release of Sons of the Desert, and the first Christmas since the end of Prohibition, while also raising a glass to his deceased brother, who would want to be remembered in this way. Like newspaper reports about chop suey and heated kennels, no one cares if any of this is true.
Baldy and Alice Cooke are invited to attend. He gives Baldy and Alice Cooke a tour of the apartment, and suggests that they might find this preferable to their current lodgings. All they need do in return is act as chaperones for Ruth and him, by which all involved take it to mean that Baldy and Alice Cooke should mind their own business while enjoying the comforts of their new accommodations. An agreement is reached. They shake hands on it.
The next day, he takes Ruth to the High Sierras to break the good news. The resort cabin is heated by a wood stove, and smells of fir. He moves inside her on the bed, his head buried against her breasts. She tugs at his hair, enjoining him to look at her, but he kisses her nipples to distract her so that he may keep his eyes closed. He stops breathing through his nose because her scent is wrong, and he keeps his tongue in his mouth because the taste of her skin is wrong, and he shuts his ears to the sound of her because her cries are wrong, and the weight of her on him is wrong, and when he comes it is as though the last of all that is good in him has been expelled from his body into the wrong woman and he is guilty of another act of betrayal, one more in a sequence that stretches back to Mae and will continue onward through women named and yet to be named unless he can find a way to be with Lois again.
He considers leaving the cabin to call Lois, but the resort has only a single public telephone, and one never knows who might be listening. Ruth, already preparing to sleep, is lying beside him, one leg stretched over his thighs, one arm against his chest, and though he should be able to lift her with ease, the burden of her now holds him down, and as she puts out the light the darkness conspires to add its density to hers.
And in the corner, the last embers in the stove glow redly like the splinters of his sundered being.
121
He is sick.
Sick of Hal Roach.
Sick of Ruth.
Sick of alimony.
Oliver the Eighth is finished, Babes in Toyland awaits, and meanwhile he has too much time on his hands. He fucks Ruth by night. After Ruth leaves for work each morning, he writes letters to Lois asking her to take him back. When he is not writing, or drinking, or fucking Ruth, he pesters Ben Shipman about renegotiating his alimony payments.
The way he sees it, he is working for Lois, and he is working for the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and he is working to pay Ben Shipman’s legal fees. So if he is already working for these three entities, he will not work for Hal Roach, or certainly not at a lower level than Baby LeRoy, and not on a picture he dislikes. It does not matter that Sons of the Desert is drawing crowds and acclaim. It does not matter that even Babe sees the artistic potential in features. He has exploded his existence, and no single aspect will resume its proper situation.
He does not want to work for Hal Roach, but if he does not work, he cannot pay alimony.
He does not want to pay alimony, but Lois will not take him back.
He does not want to be with Ruth, but he has to be with someone.
The solution to his problems is to return to Lois.
But Lois will not have him back.
And he does not want to pay alimony.
And, and, and.
He writes another letter to Lois.
Hal Roach is staring at Henry Ginsberg. Henry Ginsberg makes Hal Roach uneasy because Hal Roach believes that Henry Ginsberg is not above firing even him. Also, Henry Ginsberg appears incapable of being the bearer of good tidings. Either Henry Ginsberg is a jinx or Henry Ginsberg just likes bad news.
He says he’s sick, says Henry Ginsberg.
He’s not sick, says Hal Roach. If he is, it’s from alcohol poisoning.
—He’s in breach of his contract.
—I know what he’s in breach of.
Hal Roach has MGM on his back over Babes in Toyland. MGM has committed a lot of money to the picture, and Hal Roach’s reputation now rests on delivering it. But Hal Roach also loves Babes in Toyland. It has become Hal Roach’s pet project, and a symbol of all that has been achieved by his studio. Money will be spent on the picture, and the Audience will see every dollar up on the screen. But Hal Roach cannot start a picture on which one of its two principal stars is refusing to work. This man, of whom Hal Roach is fond and whom Hal Roach admires, for all their occasional differences, is jeopardizing Hal Roach’s studio.
And although Hal Roach will never admit it, there is a sense of hurt on his part. Hal Roach has kept faith with this man. Hal Roach has supported him, and tried to guide him. This is not what Hal Roach expects in return.
What do you want me to do? asks Henry Ginsberg.
—I want you to stop paying the son of a bitch.
So now he has gone from a situation in which he is not being paid enough to one in which he is not being paid at all.
Babe comes to speak with him. Babe has no quarrel with Hal Roach, and no difficulty with Babes in Toyland, but Babe will side with his partner in any disagreement with the studio because that is how Babe is. Yet now he has begun to make noises about quitting the country to work in Europe, about breaking up the partnership. Babe can’t believe that this is even being suggested. Babe has come for reassurance, and receives some, although not as much as Babe might like.
Hal will never let it happen, he tells Babe. We’re worth too much to him. It’s just a means of forcing Hal to make a better offer.
Did Ben approve this? Babe asks.
—Ben doesn’t sign off on everything I do. Ben can’t even secure me a decent alimony settlement. When Ben manages that, then I’ll talk to him about Hal.
—But would you do it? Would you really leave?
—I only know that I can’t continue this way.
Babe feels that he should meet again with Hal Roach, in Hal Roach’s office, over a drink.
I don’t need to meet with Hal, he says. I can find out what Hal has to say by reading the papers.
Hal Roach has taken to wrangling
with him through Louella Parsons’s gossip column in the Los Angeles Examiner. Louella Parsons contracts tuberculosis in 1925, and is told she has six months to live, but this turns out to be untrue, which is now a source of great regret to many people in Hollywood. Louella Parsons is friendly with Hal Roach, and Hal Roach is feeding her details of his star’s personal problems in order to force him back to work.
He does not appreciate this negotiating tactic. He believes that it makes him look bad, and not just to the Audience: he does not wish Lois to think this is only about alimony payments. In addition, the more public the dispute becomes, the less likely it is that Lois will be willing to review the status of their relationship in private.
Hal, says Babe, is threatening to take us off the picture.
This, too, he has read in Louella Parsons’s gossip column. Hal Roach has floated the possibility of Wallace Beery replacing Babe, and Raymond Hatton replacing him. Wallace Beery is contracted to MGM, and is reputedly the world’s highest paid actor. Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton were once a comedy duo, but Wallace Beery now plays hard men and Raymond Hatton plays whatever Raymond Hatton is told to play. If Wallace Beery was ever funny, Wallace Beery has long since given up on being so, maybe around the time Wallace Beery raped his first wife, Gloria Swanson, on their wedding night, or so the story goes. True or not, nobody likes Wallace Beery except the Audience.
The Audience loves Wallace Beery.
Hal won’t replace us, he tells Babe. It’s all for show.
But Babe isn’t so sure. Babe has never seen Hal Roach so enraged. Henry Ginsberg has taken to asking Babe for his thoughts on potential partners if the team has to be broken up. Babe does not want a new partner, but Babe wants to work, and there is only so much golf a man can play. If Babe spends any more time at the Lakeside Golf Club, people will start rubbing his head for luck. And while Lillian DeBorba has exited, and Viola Morse has returned, Babe still requires the creative outlet provided by the studio, as well as the checks that come with it.