But the final climax where the hero and bad guy (note that I’m being PC here!) clash for the last time in a life-and-death struggle—well, that was a mystery until right up to the very end. I gave my hero the lead, and he ran with it, asking questions and pushing witnesses until he (and I) got some answers.
So blame it all on Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer!
THE CASTING COUCHERS
Well, I had my personal introduction to show business on several levels. But we won’t reflect on that—this isn’t true confessions time—yet! I’ll simply say that my father was a commercial artist who worked for a com-pany that made the titles (screen credits) for most major motion pictures at the time (the early 1940s and ’50s). If you look carefully, it is still possible to find “Pacific Title” in the credits of some new flicks. I did my time at one of these small firms (Studio Film Service), working as a cameraman and discovering the complexities of the sound stage and set and other related items. As for the biz itself, well, I even worked a short stint there. But that’s another story.
When I wrote Whodunit? Hollywood Style, the book that became Hol-lywood Mysteries (also published by Wildside Press), it gave me some background information on the history of life behind the scenes and behind the stages of the movie-making capital of the world. I later expanded on this by penning a series of novels with Hollywood and motion-picture pro-duction settings, and also by doing further research on the business and its usual practices.
I now know quite a bit more about the world in general and Hollywood in particular then I did forty years ago. Among other things, I was given a kind of guided tour into the life of the performer by a real-life professional singer, who has a minor walk-on in the present version of this novel. Its new theme derives partially from some of the background data and anec-dotes she supplied.
The Casting Couchers was originally published under the pseudonym of Stu Rivers, which I employed fairly frequently in my early days as a writer, together with his companions, John Davidson, George Fredrics, and Fred MacDonald, among many others. Maybe someday I’ll write a piece about the joy of being a pen name.
BODIES 4 SALE
I suppose the best place to start would be at the beginning. And supposin’ again, that would be Frozen Smiles and Glad Hands. Plus a little bow to the fact that this was one of my very first novels, and certainly the first to touch on show business, even in a vague manner of speaking.
Okay, it all started in a piano bar sometime in the mid-twentieth centu-ry, when steak houses were famous for offering, of all things, steak and po-tatoes as their main course at fancy prices. Well, by today’s consideration, paying a little under twenty bucks for a couple of top-rate dinners, includ-ing cocktails and all the trimmings, plus live music to inspire a romantic mood and…well, they just don’t make ’em like they used to. Thank the gods, wherever they may be.
I’m getting off the point.
I had written a short story about a man who played piano in one of the fancy eateries, and had to bang out songs like “Sweet Adeline” so the drunks could try to sing the lyrics in slurring voices that couldn’t keep on key. But what he wanted was a break, to become a singer, and when the story opened he was expecting a big named agent to come and listen to him sing a few songs, and maybe sign him up for a Vegas gig. This could be his big break. Of course things didn’t happen that way. He was glad-handed and offered generous frozen smiles and ignored by Mister Big, even though the audience was generous in their applause.
I had simply wanted to tell the story of the man’s pain and the anguish. You know, an inside look at the horrors of show-biz and the terrible cost in human emotions and—well it wasn’t a very commercial bit, but locked in my memory and heart. So, when I was asked to write a novel under some pressure and deadline, I didn’t have time to waste, and out came the manu-script Frozen Smiles and Glad Hands as a starter. That gave me Manny Anson. All I had to do, now, was to set up some main character and give him some desperate goals and background, then let the characters tell their story.
I picked an actor who had once been on the fast lane of success, only to have it yanked out from under him. All I needed then was your standard every-day females tossed into the plot! The stew was beginning to boil hot!
Just like that I had the beginnings of Bodies for Sale, which takes a bold look at the seedy side of show business, the Hollywood parties, the prosti-tutes and big money managers.
Jim Norton knew show business from top to bottom. Once he’d been on top and now was at the rock bottom. He never knew what really happened.
And that’s where I picked up my characters and started to stir them around.
It was published by Epic Novels back in 1961, and then translated in Europe. Now updated, it tells the story of what it is like to be famous in a town that cares about nothing other than success, big bucks, and fame means knowing the right people to keep you on top! Even if they might have had underworld connections.
Okay, to say more would simply spoil the plot. It all starts south of the border, down Mexico way….
ONE SUMMER OF LOVE
This was a special book for me. I’m not quite certain, for sure, why it became so important. It was, after all, designed to meet certain requirement of the marketplace at the time. But, for some reason, I couldn’t cheapen it up to the “lowering standards” that publishers were demanding—not in this case. I actually took a little more time with it than usual.
It was the theme that hooked me.
We all have some person in our past which lingers, haunts, and stays locked up in our memories as “unfinished business” and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.
We wonder what if things had happened differently. What might have happened if we’d made a right turn rather than a left, at a number of possi-ble moments, events that were turning points in the relationship.
In simple terms, there are those past relationships that never entered into intimacy for one reason or another; usually for moral or ethical or simply “by chance” being diverted from becoming acted on.
Or, perhaps, it was a raging affair where something went wrong or where the needs of one person was countered with the needs of the other, and it was impossible to continue on. And things just simmered out, in-complete, leaving haunting memories to feast on in lonely moments, across the years that tended to idealize those past events into something they may never have really been.
We seldom get a second chance to fix things. Life isn’t a landscape that generously offers the ability to go back in time and alter events.
But sometimes, magically, events can come up to give a person the chance not only to look back, but to finally face up to what really existed, what still exists, and get a chance to pick things up and let them become totally satisfied and completed, once and for all.
That’s what One Summer of Love is all about.
It ended up being published under the byline of Fred MacDonald, in a somewhat shorter and different form than it is now being presented.
I have, for this expanded version of the book, returned its original title.
It is now the story I always wanted it to be. One Summer of Love has truly become a study of lost love, rediscovered.
PARLEY IN PASSION
This is another one of those looks behind the scenes, an exposure of the film making industry as seen through the eyes of a fella putting words to paper. As noted elsewhere, especially in my Hollywood Mysteries, it can be a tough town on those struggling young actors and even for the big named stars.
In this book I take a man I named Joe Dickerson and run him through the paces of the film-land survival course, a jungle of woman begging for parts and willing to do what is necessary to get them. And I added a super star who is Big Time Trouble for the studio. Your standard mix of players, including the lovely young actress desperately attempting to get her first break in films.
I don’t know, but these kinds of complex little jaunts into the California sunset have al
ways fascinated me. Having lived in Southern Cal all my adult life (and since I was eight years old) has given me some sense of the landscape, the scene, so to speak, and a feel as to how things truly are. I’ve even worked in the business as a young man. All of which makes the set-tings rather comfortable and intriguing. I have been here a number of times in real life and in fictional creations of my own making.
This story, perhaps, takes a closer look at the passions involved and the hungers that drive people to take one another out on romantic interludes and even develop a few meaningful relationships.
Ah, the wonder of romance! We all seek it; and the Industry feeds on our longing for love and our need for fascinating people and places.
So, why not offer up another rendering of the ol’ tune of love and pas-sion and intrigue—Hollywood style?
It looked as if Joe Dickenson was going to make it in the film-land jun-gle. But there were nasty roadblocks. Mainly: he had to bring Carole Clem-ent into line for the studio. Then there was the problem of tearing lovely, sweet Ann, whom he had fallen in love with, from the clutches of the lust-ful Mari—and he knew it would take a master of emotions to pull it off….
Enjoy the sin of it all!
MIDNIGHT LOVERS
The jazz world has always fascinated me, and in recent years I have been really enjoying a rather interesting experience, swing dancing every week with a big swing band supplying the music (seventeen top-flight mu-sicians who have been in the business all their lives, having worked with all the major big bands in their youth—and continue to make great music in their elder years). It has been neat getting to know these men on a personal level. Their stories many times reflect my own experiences as a young man nosing around in the show-biz field.
While these musicians are all quite dedicated and serious about their music, and many happily married, there are some who “don’t have a life” outside of the music. It can be a tough world to survive in, and many of their friends have been dragged down by drugs and booze. Others have been highly successful and are now rich in their semi-retirement. Music still is their center, the dedication, and their passion. Otherwise why would they still be blowin’ like crazy?
I mention the above only to illustrate a point: the following story (as well with my Blues for a Dead Lover) offer up a true sense of how it is for many people in show-business.
This is a story of a musician struggling to make it at the beginning of his career. It tells what it is like to take a gig in a small town and how, well….
Glen Fletcher had worked hard to make it in the jazz world, where cas-ual relationships had been an ideal way to survive loneliness—and Ivy Turner, the combo’s singer, served up “night lunches” after the last set.
For Glen the music was everything until he met Lynn Bennings. Then things changed at light speed! Sparks flew both ways. If it wasn’t love at first sight it was dangerously close.
Lynn loved jazz and for some time she had had a secret crush on Glen. In fact she arranged for his combo to be signed up at the local night club in the small town her father just about owned.
And big trouble followed, for Mr. Earl Bennings would do anything to protect his daughter from fortune hunters. This was a man nobody dared to cross—for his reputation threatened deathly violence!
STAR BITCH
Hollywood has its fascination for all of us. And a quick look at some of my books being released by Wildside Press will underscore my own interest and fascination with the town as it was, as it is and as it might be.
I have lived in and around the town since I was eight years old, when the folks moved down from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Even before that I was a dedicated movie fan, since my father was able to get us in free of charge at any Fox West Coast Theater. He worked in the business and in Southern California he became even more involved while working for Pa-cific Title, which did the special effects and title credits for almost all of the major films being released in the 1940s-60s.
As a young boy I was influenced by his experiences, and then later ended up working in the Industry for a while before becoming a writer. All of this helped to influence my writing output and thereby I did a number of books located in this business, including Hollywood Mysteries, a fact book on some of the major stars at the beginning of the town’s history. (This is one of the Wildside Press releases.)
As I admitted in the introduction to Sex Queen, some stories get retold; a common factor in a writer’s life. Some are so fascinating to the writer that revisiting such storylines is kind of enjoyable and pleasant. But, more im-portantly, in that revisit it is possible to take a new look at things, to see the characters differently and to write a totally different take, a different story. Every book creates itself on its own terms.
This time I considered the following:
Getting ahead in Hollywood demands good looks, talent, connections, timing and youth. Missing any of those spells failure. For the established Stars the Youth Game is serious business. There are endless young actors eager to grab the starring roles.
And so I started creating my list of characters:
Take young Gloria who uses her lush body to get parts in films. She gets Joe in her sights, and is determined to have him as her agent.
That’s a beginning. Now to complicate matters:
But Joe’s main job is to make sure everything runs smoothly for the agency’s top client, Karla, who plays men like the casting couchers play young starlets. Her game involves total domination; and she demands that Joe be her special joy-toy. She has already been making trouble at the stu-dio, so he either plays along…or else!
Sounds good.
To make matters worse, Joe is falling in love with Karla’s personal as-sistant: the virginal Carol, young, innocent and anxious to get her break in show-business.
That just about lines it all up. The now the story follows.
SEX QUEEN
Sex Queen has an interesting history insofar as it involves a short event with Robert Bloch, who, among other things, was the author of the book Psycho, which Hitchcock made into the hit film by the same name.
I was at a party being given for professional writers by the editor of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, who was visiting Los Angeles at the time. People like Bloch and Ray Bradbury were among the guests.
We were all taking about, of all things, writing. For some reason I had the inspiration to share the statement that I was somewhat frustrated by the fact that I’d finished off this book Sex Queen in very short order. Robert Bloch’s statement has stuck in my mind ever since: the trouble with that is we tend to think we should be writing books at that same rate all the time!
WOW! What a revelation. Sounds simple, and obvious. But not really.
Which brings us back to the book itself. It was something that I actually very much enjoyed writing, dealing with characters that I had fairly well-rounded in my mind. Writers do tend to re-use plots and characters. Edgar Rice Burroughs literally admitted to having written the same book seventy times (more or less). So I’m not giving any confessional that isn’t fairly common with most highly productive writers.
In any case, this book wrote itself, almost. I couldn’t type fast enough; I couldn’t keep away from the typewriter until I had finished it off in a fury of creative energy. (I refuse to admit for publication the exact length of time it took to do the first draft!)
Of course there was a price-tag to pay for such a rapid pace of flushing words onto paper. That’s a normal part of writing, too. A lot of times words won’t come; which is the dreaded dry spell. The fact is: you can squeeze the well quite dry. You need time to regenerate the flow and energies and the ideas.
But sometimes the ideas just race into your mind like a dam bursting apart and flooding the valley below. Your brain just becomes overwhelmed and runs wild. Once the flood has ebbed away, it takes time to recharge itself. And that’s the time of tortured hell.
If only a writer could continue ra
cing from story to story, fanatically filling pages without stop. If I’d done that I might have written one heck of a lot more stories, but at the same time I might have dropped dead from exhaustion many years ago.
Instead, we take our lingering moments of healing rest. And sometimes we even let ourselves embrace a long retirement from the demands of full-time writing.
But no matter what we might do, there are moments in our writing ex-perience which stand out. Sex Queen is the tragic story of one woman’s de-scent and another’s rise. The standard Hollywood story, told again and again. People come to the town to seek stardom; all the lovely young peo-ple, eager for fame and riches. But those who make it seldom can keep it for very long.
This is a book that looks behind the scenes of the Hollywood glamour pit and exposes some of the nightmares fame and fortune can create for all the contenders for Hollywood Stardom.
KRISTA
This is a book about a young woman who lived in Germany back in the 1950s, and carries a bit of factual background offered up by my wife.
A little “historical” explanation:
Wars come and go, and they all bring their savaging elements that stay with the survivors. What does this have to do with the present book?
Well my wife is a product of the Second World War. She was a young girl born and raised in Prussia, now a part of Poland. She is German. This book probably would not exist except for that reality. Brigitte gave me the background and the sense of what Germany was like during this period. The Berlin Wall didn’t alter her own lifestyle, but it was a very ugly symbol of a Germany split into East and West.
The story of Krista takes place during these early years, in the harsh af-termath of that savage time when Hitler and his gang of Nazi monsters had driven a cultured, advanced nation down the tubes into total destruction. The country was over-crowded and was still rebuilding itself from the crumbling ruins brought on by the war.