“Mr. Handy? You are the man who called me, aren’t you?”
Handy turned and looked at Emery Romito.
“Hello,” he said, through the dust of decades.
HANDY
Jefferson once said people get pretty much the kind of government they deserve, which is why I refuse to listen to any bullshit carping by my fellow Californians about Reagan and his gubernatorial gang-banging—what I chose to call government by artificial insemination when I was arguing with Julie, a registered Republican, when we weren’t making love—because it seems to me they got just what they were asking for. The end-product of a hundred years of statewide paranoia and rampant lunacy. That philosophy—stripped of Freudian undertones—has slopped over into most areas of my opinion. Women who constantly get stomped on by shitty guys generally have a streak of masochism in them; guys who get their hearts eaten away by rodent females are basically self-flagellants. And when you see someone who has been ravaged by life, it is a safe bet he has been a willing accomplice at his own destruction.
All of this passed through my mind as I said hello to Emery Romito. The picture in the PLAYERS DIRECTORY had softened the sadness. But in living color he was a natural for one of those billboards hustling Forest Lawn pre-need cemetery plots. Don’t get caught with your life down.
He was one of the utterly destroyed. A man familiar to the point of incest with the forces that crush and maim, a man stunned by the hammer. And I could conceive of no one who would aid and abet those kind of forces in self-destruction. No. No one.
Yet no man could have done it to himself without the help of the Furies. And so, I was ambivalent. I felt both pity and cynicism for Emery Romito, and his brave foolish elegance.
Age lay like soot in the creases of what had once been a world-famous face. The kind of age that means merely growing old, without wistfulness or delight. This man had lived through all the days and nights of his life with only one thought uppermost: let me forget what has gone before.
“Would you like to sit out on the terrace?” Romito asked. “Nice breeze off the ocean today.”
I smiled acquiescence, and he made a theatrical gesture in the direction of the terrace. As he preceded me down the onyx steps into the living room, I felt a clutch of nausea, and followed him. Cheyne-Stokes breathing as I walked across the threadbare carpet, among the deep restful furniture that called to me, suggested I try their womb comfort, sink into them never to rise again. Or if I did, it would be as a shriveled, mummified old man. (And with the memory of a kid who grew up on movies, I saw Margo as Capra had seen her in 1937, aging horribly, shriveling, in a matter of seconds, as she was being carried out of Shangri-La. And I shuddered. A grown man, and I shuddered.)
It was like walking across the bottom of the sea; shadowed, filtered with sounds that had no names, caught by shafts of sunlight from the skylight above us that contained freshets of dust-motes rising tumbling surging upward, threading between sofas and Morris chairs like whales in shoal, finally arriving at the fogged dirty French doors that gave out onto the terrace.
Romito opened them smoothly, as if he had done it a thousand times in a thousand films—and probably had—for a thousand Anita Louises. He stepped out briskly, and drew a deep breath. In that instant I realized he was in extremely good shape for a man his age, built big across the back and shoulders, waist still trim and narrow, actually quite dapper. Then why did I think of him as a crustacean, as a pitted fossil, as a gray and wasted relic?
It was the air of fatality, of course. The superimposed chin-up-through-it-all horseshit that all Hollywood hangers-on adopted. It was an atrophied devolutionary extension of The Show Must Go On shuck; the myth that owns everyone in the Industry: that getting forty-eight minutes of hack cliché! situation comedy filmed—only the barest minimally innervating—to capture the boggle-eyed interest of the Great Unwashed sucked down in the doldrum mire of The Great American Heartland, so they will squat there for twelve minutes of stench odor poison and artifact hardsell, is an occupation somehow inextricably involved with advancing the course of Western Civilization. A myth that has oozed over into all areas of modern thought, thus turning us into a “show biz culture” and spawning such creatures as Emery Romito. Like the cats in the empty Ziv Studios, nibbling at the leftover garbage of the film industry, but loath to leave it. (Echoes of the old saw about the carnival assistant whose job it was to shovel up elephant shit who, when asked why he didn’t get a better job, replied, “What? And leave show biz?”) Emery Romito was one of the clingers to the underside of the rock that was show biz, that heavy weight dominating like Gibraltar the landscape of Americana.
He had forfeited his humanity in order to remain “with it.” He was dead, and didn’t know it. What, and leave show biz?
The terrace was half the size of the living room, which made it twice as large as the foyer of Grauman’s Chinese. Gray stone balustrades bounded it, and earthquake tremors had performed an intricate calligraphy across the inlaid and matched flagstones. It was daylight, but that didn’t stop the shadowy images of women with bobbed hairdos and men with pomaded glossiness from weaving in and around us as we stood there, staring out at the ocean. It was ghost-time again, and secret liaisons were being effected out on the terrace by dashing sheiks (whose wives [married before their men had become nickelodeon idols] were inside slugging the spiked gin-punch) and hungry little hopefuls with waxed shins and a dab of alum in their vaginas, anxious to grasp magic.
“Let’s sit down,” Emery Romito said. To me, not the ghosts. He indicated a conversation grouping of cheap tubular aluminum beach chairs, their once-bright webbing now hopelessly faded by sun and seamist.
I sat down and he smiled ingratiatingly.
Then he sat down, careful to pull up the pants creases in the Palm Beach suit. The suit was in good shape, but perhaps fifteen years out of date.
“Well,” he said.
I smiled back. I hadn’t the faintest idea what “well” was a preamble to, nor what I was required to answer. But he waited, expecting me to say something.
When I continued to smile dumbly, his expression crumpled a little, and he tried another tack. “Just what sort of part is it that Crewes has in mind?”
Oh my God, I thought. He thinks it’s an interview.
“Uh, well, it isn’t precisely a part in the film I’m here to talk to you about, Mr. Romito.” It was much too intricate a syntax for a man whose heart might attack him at any moment.
“It isn’t a part,” he repeated.
“No, it was something rather personal…”
“It isn’t a part.” He whispered it, barely heard, lost instantly in the overpowering sound of the Santa Monica surf not far beyond us.
“It’s about Valerie Lone,” I began.
“Valerie?”
“Yes. We’ve signed her for Subterfuge and she’s back in town and—”
“Subterfuge?”
“The film Mr. Crewes is producing.”
“Oh. I see.”
He didn’t see at all. I was sure of that. I didn’t know how in the world I could tell this ruined shell that his services were needed as escort, not actor. He saved me the trouble. He ran away from me, into the past.
“I remember once, in 1936 I believe…no, it was ’37, that was the year I did Beloved Liar…”
I let the sound of the surf swell inside me. I turned down the gain on Emery Romito and turned up the gain on nature. I knew I would be able to get him to do what needed to be done—he was a lonely, helpless man for whom any kind of return to the world of glamour was a main chance. But it would take talking, and worse…listening.
“…Thalberg called me in, and he was smiling, it was a very unusual thing, you can be sure. And he said: ‘Emery, we’ve just signed a girl for your next picture,’ and of course it was Valerie. Except that wasn’t her name then, and he took me over to the Commissary to meet her. We had the special salad, it was little slivers of ham and cheese and turkey, cut so
they were stacked one on top of the other, so you tasted the ham first, then the cheese, then the turkey, all in one bite, and the freshest green crisp lettuce, they called it the William Powell Salad…no, that isn’t right…the William Powell was crab meat…I think it was the Norma Talmadge Salad…or was it…”
As I sat there talking to Emery Romito, what I did not know was that all the way across the city, at the Studio, Arthur was entering the lot with Valerie Lone, in a chauffeured Bentley. He told me about it that night, and it was horrible. But it served as the perfect counterpoint to the musty warm monologue being delivered to me that moment by the Ghost of Christmas Past.
How lovely, how enriching, to sit there in sumptuous, palatial Santa Monica, Showplace of the Western World, listening to the voice from beyond reminisce about tuna fish and avocado salads. I prayed for deafness.
6
Crewes had called ahead. “I want the red carpet, do I make my meaning clear?” The studio public relations head had said yes, he understood. Crewes had emphasized the point: “I don’t want any fuckups, Barry. Not even the smallest. No gate police asking for a drive-on pass, no secretary making her wait. I want every carpenter and grip and mail boy to know we’re bringing Valerie Lone back today. And I want deference, Barry. If there’s a fuckup, even the smallest fuckup, I’ll come down on you the way Samson brought down the temple.”
“Christ, Arthur, you don’t have to threaten me!”
“I’m not threatening, Barry, I’m making the point so you can’t weasel later. This isn’t some phony finger-popping rock singer, this is Valerie Lone.”
“All right, Arthur! Stop now.”
When they came through the gate, the guards removed their caps, and waved the Bentley on toward the sound stages. Valerie Lone sat in the rear, beside Arthur Crewes, and her face was dead white, even under the makeup she had applied in the latest manner—for 1945.
There was a receiving line outside Stage 16.
The Studio head, several members of the foreign press, the three top producers on the lot, and half a dozen “stars” of current tv series. They made much over her, and when they were finished, Valerie Lone had almost been convinced someone gave a damn that she was not dead.
When the flashing red gumball light on its tripod went out—signifying that the shot had been completed inside the sound stage—they entered. Valerie took three steps beyond the heavy soundproof door, and stopped. Her eyes went up and up, into the dim reaches of the huge barnlike structure, to the catwalks with their rigging, the lights anchored to their brace boards, the cool and wonderful air from the conditioners that rose to heat up there, where the gaffers worked. Then she stepped back into the shadows as Crewes came up beside her, and he knew she was crying, and he turned to ask the others if they would come in later, to follow Miss Lone on her visit. The others did not understand, but they went back outside, and the door sighed shut on its pneumatic hinges.
Crewes went to her, and she was against the wall, the tears standing in her eyes, but not running down to ruin the makeup. In that instant Crewes knew she would be all right: she was an actress, and for an actress the only reality is the fantasy of the sound stages. She would not let her eyes get red. She was tougher than he’d imagined.
She turned to him, and when she said, “Thank you, Arthur,” it was so soft, and so gentle, Crewes took her in his arms and she huddled close to him, and there was no passion in it, no striving to reach bodies, only a fine and warm protectiveness. He silently said no one would hurt her, and silently she said my life is in your hands.
After a while, they walked past the coffee machine and Willie, who said hello Miss Lone it’s good to have you back; and past the assistant director’s lectern where the shooting schedule was tacked onto the sloping board, where Bruce del Vaille nodded to her, and looked awed; and past the extras slumped in their straight-backed chairs, reading Irving Wallace and knitting, waiting for their calls, and they had been told who it was, and they all called to her and waved and smiled; andpast the high director’s chair which was at that moment occupied by the script supervisor, whose name was Henry, and he murmured hello, Miss Lone, we worked together on suchandsuch, and she went to him and kissed him on the cheek, and he looked as though he wanted to cry, too. For Arthur Crewes, in the sound stage somewhere, a bird twittered gaily. He shrugged and laughed, like a child.
Someone yelled, “Okay, settle down! Settle down!”
The din fell only a decibel. James Kencannon was talking to Mitchum, to one side of the indoor set that was decorated to be an outdoor set. It was an alley in a Southwestern town, and the cyclorama in the background had been artfully rigged to simulate a carnival somewhere in the middle distance. Lights played off the canvas, and for Valerie Lone it was genuine; a real carnival erected just for her. The alley was dirty and extremely realistic. Extras lounged against the brick walls that were not brick walls, waiting for the call to roll it. The cameraman was setting the angle of the shot, the big piece of equipment on its balloon tires set on wooden tracks, ready to dolly back when the grips pulled it. The assistant cameraman with an Arriflex on his shoulder was down on one knee, gauging an up-angle for action shooting.
Del Vaille came onto the set and Kencannon nodded to him. “Okay, roll—” Kencannon stopped the preparations for the shot, and asked the first assistant director to measure off the shot once more, as Mitchum stepped into the position that had, till that moment, been held by his stand-in. The first assistant unreeled the tape measure, announced it; the cameraman gave a turn to one of the flywheels on the big camera, and nodded ready to the assistant director, who turned and bawled, “Okay! Roll it!”
A strident bell clanged in the sound stage and dead silence fell. People in mid-step stopped. No one coughed. No one spoke. Tony, the sound mixer, up on his high platform with his earphones and his console, announced, “Take thirty-three Bravo!” which resounded through the cavernous set and was picked up through the comm box by the sound truck outside the sound stage. When it was up to speed, Tony yelled, “Speed!” and the first assistant director stepped forward into the shot with his wooden clackboard bearing Kencannon’s name and the shot number. He clacked the stick to establish sound synch and get the board photographed, and there was a beat as he withdrew, as Mitchum drew in a breath for the action to come, as everyone poised hanging in limbo and Kencannon—like all directors—relished the moment of absolute power waiting for his voice to announce action.
Infinite moment.
Birth of dreams.
The shadow and the reality.
“Action!”
As five men leaped out of darkness and grabbed Robert Mitchum, shoving him back up against the wall of the alley. The camera dollied in rapidly to a closeup of Mitchum’s face as one of the men grabbed his jaw with brutal fingers. “Where’d you take her…tell us where you took her!” the assailant demanded with a faint Mexican accent. Mitchum worked his jaw muscles, tried to shove the man away. The Arriflex operator was down below them, out of the master shot, purring away his tilted angles of the scuffling men. Mitchum tried to speak, but couldn’t with the man’s hand on his face. “Let’m talk, Sanchez!” another of the men urged the assailant. He released Mitchum’s face, and in the same instant Mitchum surged forward, throwing two of the men from him, and breaking toward the camera as it dollied rapidly back to encompass the entire shot. The Arriflex operator scuttled with him, tracking him in wobbly closeup. The five men dived for Mitchum, preparatory to beating the crap out of him as Kencannon yelled, “Cut! That’s a take!” and the enemies straightened up, relaxed, and Mitchum walked swiftly to his mobile dressing room. The crew prepared to set up another shot.
The extras moved in. A group of young kids, obviously bordertown tourists from a yanqui college, down having a ball in the hotbed of sin and degradation.
They milled and shoved, and Arthur found himself once again captivated by the enormity of what was being done here. A writer had said: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF CROWD IN ALLEY
and it was going to cost about fifteen thousand dollars to make that line become a reality. He glanced at Valerie beside him, and she was smiling, a thin and delicate smile part remembrance and part wonder. It really never wore off, this delight, this entrapment by the weaving of fantasy into reality.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked softly.
“It’s as though I’d never been away,” she said.
Kencannon came to her, then. He held both her hands in his, and he looked at her: as a man and as a camera. “Oh, you’ll do just fine…just fine.” He smiled at her. She smiled back.
“I haven’t read the part yet,” she said.
“Johnny Black hasn’t finished expanding it yet. And I don’t give a damn. You’ll do fine, just fine!” They stared at each other with the kind of intimacy known only to a man who sees a reality as an image on celluloid, by a woman confronting a man who can make her look seventeen or seventy. Trust and fear and compassion and a mutual cessation of hostilities between the sexes. It was always like this. As if to say: what does he see? What does she want? What will we settle for? I love you.
“Have you said hello to Bob Mitchum yet?” Kencannon asked her.
“No. I think he’s resting.” She was, in turn, deferential to a star, as those without marquee-value had been deferential to her. “I can meet him later.”
“Are there any questions you’d like to ask?” he said. He waved a hand at the set around him. “You’ll be living here for the next few weeks, you’d better get to know it.”
“Well…yes…there are a few questions,” she said. And she began getting into the role of star once more. She asked questions. Questions that were twenty years out of date. Not stupid questions, just not quite in focus. (As if the clackboard had not been in synch with the sound wagon, and the words had emerged from the actors’ mouths a micro-instant too soon.) Not embarrassing questions, merely awkward questions; the answers to which entailed Kencannon’s educating her, reminding her that she was a relic, that time had not waited for her—even as she had not waited when she had been a star—but had gathered its notes in a rush and plunged panting heavily past her. Now she had to exercise muscles of thought that had atrophied, just to try and catch up with time, dashing on ahead there like an ambitious mailroom boy trying to make points with the Studio executives. Her questions became more awkward. Her words came with more difficulty. Crewes saw her getting—how did Handy put it?—uptight.