All the Stars in the Heavens

  “Sir, will you please pry Mr. Tracy loose from the ladies?” Loretta asked the manager. “We’d love to see the movie.”

  The manager obliged, freeing Spencer Tracy and ushering him into the theater with the Young sisters in tow. He led them to a private viewing box over the mezzanine that overlooked the audience and stage, where the screen was obscured behind gold velvet curtains.

  “I’m going to get you for that,” Spencer whispered to Loretta.

  “They love you, Spence.”

  “That’s not love, that’s fighting over a sweater in a bargain bin. I could’ve been George Arliss, and they would’ve gone batty.”

  “You’re a star.”

  “Oh, big deal.”

  “It is a big deal. The bigger the star, the better the scripts, and the better the scripts, the bigger the career.”

  As the theater went dark and the newsreel jumped onto the screen, Georgie and Sally piled into the viewing box with bags of popcorn and bottles of cold soda. Georgie handed Loretta a sack of licorice and gave Spencer his change. Loretta shared the candy with Spencer. When Spencer took Loretta’s hand in the dark, every muscle in her body relaxed.

  The feature credits appeared on the screen. Claudette Colbert received applause, but when Clark Gable’s name appeared, the audience went wild. Sally reached across and yanked Loretta’s arm. “He’s the king!”

  Loretta leaned back in her chair. Spencer leaned forward and looked over the banister of the viewing box to observe the audience. He watched as hundreds of people sat up higher in their seats when Clark Gable walked into the scene. Whatever that guy had, Spencer figured, it was bigger than good acting. It was a mania, a kind of popularity that he could only imagine. But he had to admit, Gable had technique. He understood the camera and played to it well.

  Loretta watched Gable work. He photographed with ease. His gray eyes had a depth in black and white; tall and lean, his posture was both confident and relaxed. Gable’s acting had become less presentational and more emotional, an improvement on his earlier roles playing crooks, gangsters, hucksters, and con men in pre-code melodramas. Over time, Gable had dropped the menacing leer, along with other bad stage habits, and begun to use his body to express feeling. He learned to play to the camera, to fill the shot, to use emotion and expression when he said a line instead of playing it in one dimension, as if on a stage. He had become a leading man. Usually it’s the studio that decides who will become a star, but it doesn’t stick unless the public concurs. As is the alchemy of all good fortune in show business, Gable had the backing of the studio and a fan base that was growing by the week.

  Gable appeared polished onscreen yet masculine, his deep dimples giving away a wily humor, a knowingness that the joke was not on him. Loretta saw him with a new admiration and hoped to work with him someday, but she knew it was unlikely. Gable was in demand, and there was a line as long as Ventura Boulevard of leading ladies who wanted a shot at him.

  “You’re not falling in love with Gable, are you?” Spencer whispered.

  “I’d be the only woman in the theater who didn’t.”

  “Do me a favor, Gretch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Be the only one who doesn’t.”

  Loretta looked over at Spence. He didn’t take his eyes off the silver screen.

  Alda watched the exchange between her boss and Spencer and knew that Loretta was in deep. Alda had heard that Tracy’s wife was due to visit the set of Man’s Castle, and while Alda did not approve of infidelity, she didn’t want Loretta to be embarrassed. Alda observed that all the men on the set fell in love with Loretta a little, but on Spencer Tracy’s part, it wasn’t admiration or a crush. It appeared to Alda to be the real thing, the most dangerous kind of love of all.

  The Ides of March blew David Niven, part-time caddy, deckhand, and performer, into Bel Air, practically on horseback. The swabbie was making his move into Hollywood. One of David’s equestrian pals from England introduced him to Loretta’s sister, Sally Blane, who never met a foreign accent she didn’t love. She immediately invited David to dinner at Sunset House, knowing he would charm Gladys and her sisters with his fine manners and scintillating conversation.

  David excused himself from the table to take his plate to the kitchen.

  Ruby was busy preparing the dessert. “Mr. Niven, get out of my kitchen.”

  “Miss Ruby, I grew up in a kitchen. I like to help.”

  “I don’t need it. Take your English fanny back to the dining room.”

  “I’ve never heard it put that way.”

  “Welcome to Ruby’s.”

  Gladys and the girls listened to the exchange through the door and tried not to laugh.

  “Can we keep him, Mama?” Sally begged.

  “He’s not a stray kitten you found on the side of the road.”

  “He’s so charming. And funny. I haven’t stopped laughing since I met him.”

  “Sally, you’ve been laughing since the day you were born. That hardly qualifies as an endorsement.”

  “The pool house is ready for company. You said so yourself,” Loretta reminded her mother. “Properties get gamy when no one lives in them.”

  “They start to smell like wet mattresses and old socks,” Sally said. “Better to have a tenant.”

  Gladys had taught her daughters well. They were a business, onscreen and off. The girls pooled their money and invested it in houses. Gladys would buy them, fix them up, decorate them, and rent them. When the bank account got high, they’d purchase another property, renovate it, and rent it.

  Loretta became the highest earner in the family, so she served as the bank. Real estate in the early days of Hollywood was a genius investment, but truthfully an innocent one for Gladys Belzer and her family. Gladys simply stuck to what she knew. A renter all her life, she understood what was required when it came to being a landlord. And as actors, directors, writers, and producers flocked to Hollywood from the Broadway stage, they needed good places to stay, ones that would increase their stature and send a message to the studios. “Does Mr. Niven have any referrals?”

  “Mama, he doesn’t need any. He has impeccable manners. He’s British. He’s in the horse business.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Racehorses. Something or other.”

  David returned to the dining room with Ruby.

  “Mr. Niven, I understand you’re looking for a place to stay.”

  “I could not possibly burden you with my troubles, Mrs. Belzer.”

  “What kind of horse business are you in?”

  “I’m not actually in the horse business. I have friends who are, and I’ve been part of a rodeo show that traveled around the country a bit. The truth is, I’d like to get into acting.” He sat down. “Why aren’t you all laughing?”

  “Why would we?” Loretta stood and poured the coffee.

  “Have you tried?” Gladys asked.

  “I’ve been background here and there. I earn my keep on the golf course as a caddy, and I swab for the upper crust on the marina rentals in Del Rey and Monterey. Wherever the wind blows through sailcloth, you shall find me. I fully intend to keep working my odd jobs until I’m cast in something. I would pay you rent, of course.”

  “As Loretta mentioned, we don’t need it,” Sally blurted. “I mean, right, Mama? The pool house is empty anyway.”

  “You’re a hard worker?” Gladys asked.

  “I’m afraid that’s the one thing I’m good at. I’m a very determined young man, or so I like to think.”

  “We do have a furnished pool house here on the property. You’re welcome to it. Ruby serves breakfast at seven if you want eggs. If you sleep in—”

  “I leave out the bread, and you can toast it,” Ruby told him.

  “Sounds marvelous.”

  “If you’re serious about acting . . . ,” Loretta began.

  “I am.”

  “Alda and I leave for the studio at four thirty tomorrow morning
. You’re welcome to come, but we’ll have to sneak you.”

  “I’ve done some sneaking in my day.” He turned to Gladys. “Nothing you wouldn’t approve of, Mrs. Belzer.”

  “I haven’t done anything this low-rent since I seduced my sister’s piano teacher on her sixty-second birthday. The piano teacher, that is.”

  “Get down,” Loretta said, laughing, as Alda threw a tarp over Niven as he lay on the floor of the back seat of Loretta’s car.

  All the way to the studio, Niven kept Loretta and Alda in tearful hysterics as he made the sounds of a hostage under the tarp. At first he whimpered, and then he began thumping the floor of the coupe as though he were trying to wrestle his way out of captivity.

  “Shush back there,” Loretta commanded before she waved to the guard at Twentieth Century-Fox. The guard motioned Loretta and Alda through the gates, their big smiles protecting the stowaway.

  Loretta was capable of following the rules, except when it came to people she cared about. She was game to break rules to benefit others, but never herself. If she liked you, as David Niven and Alda Ducci had found out, she welcomed you into her life, shared everything she had, made you family, and never let you go.

  David followed Loretta and Alda into the dressing room bungalow. Loretta’s team was ready to put her through “the car wash,” as the actress called it. She was buffed, plucked, rolled, and pressed, ready for the cameras at 6:00 a.m. sharp.

  David sat back and watched the proceedings with wonderment. He had not seen this aspect of the process up close. As an extra, he only saw the finished product, the actress fully made up and costumed, surrounded by her staff, shielded by an umbrella carried by a dresser lest the California sun age and scorch her on her way to the set, her bungalow, or the commissary.

  David observed that once the studio believed in you, they protected their investment. Niven longed to be a contract player, vowing he would never complain, if he were so lucky as to go under contract, about any role assigned him. He said he would play a toilet plunger if Louis B. Mayer asked him to, and he meant it.

  He observed as the makeup artist applied rouge to Loretta’s cheeks. He could barely stand to watch as they made her creamy skin like glistening marble, her eyelashes as thick as the bristles on a push broom, and her lips a shade of pink that he could only recall on his favorite flower, the peony.

  In the course of the previous evening, Niven’s yearning and attention had spun through the Young sisters like a roulette wheel, his fancy landing first on Sally, then on Polly, and now on Loretta. He adored them all, with indiscriminate grace notes of lust. Like a man in a showroom full of new cars, unable to pick just one, he coveted all equally. Is there much difference between a roadster, a convertible, or a coupe? They all had their charms, and so did the glorious Young sisters.

  Niven appreciated all women, but beautiful women were his weakness. He’d almost put up with the worst aspects of character in a girl if she had a pretty face and a fetching figure. He would endure a twit as long as her aesthetics held up in the hot light of the bright sun. There was plenty of that in California.

  Niven was also vulnerable. He desperately wanted to sit on the merry-go-round, but it was spinning so fast that he couldn’t get a running start to make the jump. He needed connections, and he needed them now. He had admitted to the Young sisters that he wanted an acting career. It was almost as brave to admit it as it was to find the determination to do it. Niven would have to dig deep for his acting ability, as it did not come naturally to him. Parlor storytelling was his gift, and he would do his best to apply those skills when it came to acting, but in the meantime, he’d have to charm his way into the movies.

  Alda brought Niven a sandwich and a cold bottle of root beer while Loretta changed costumes for her work that afternoon.

  “You’re so kind, Alda. Will you join me?”

  Alda looked around and took a seat next to him.

  “We have a bond, you know,” he said as he fished in his pocket for his Swiss Army knife with the bottle opener.

  “You worked in a convent?”

  “I wish. I don’t have the stuff for saving humanity. My liver is made of lily, I hate to tell you.” He snapped the lid off the soda bottle.

  “I doubt that.”

  “I have no courage.”

  “You’ll need it as an actor.”

  “I don’t know how Loretta does it.”

  “She makes it look easy.”

  “She’s made fifty pictures, you know.”

  “I imagine she was good in the very first one.”

  “You know, Mr. Niven, it’s not a sin to want to succeed.”

  “It may be a sin to put an audience through one of my performances.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Niven sat up and smiled. “You know, you’re right, I don’t. I might be bloody good at acting.”

  “Loretta says you’re only as good as who you act with in the scene.”

  “That’s what Gable says.”

  “You know him? Don’t tell Sally.”

  “Oh, she already dug those ten red talons into my arm when I told her I swabbed for him.”

  “Do you know Spencer Tracy?”

  “We haven’t met. He does not participate in the sporting life. No shooting ranges, no boats, no golf. At least, if he does, I haven’t seen him.”

  “He’s a good actor.”

  “Not much of a looker.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You forget all that when he speaks. He makes you understand what he’s feeling.”

  “Loretta is sweet on him, so he must be a good fellow.”

  “He is.”

  “But it’s complicated, right? Isn’t it always a tangle when a man loves a woman?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Niven.”

  Alda remembered the girls of Saint Elizabeth’s. No matter their despair, they still believed in romantic love. They talked about movies, how a kiss could save a character, redeem her or elevate her to a higher social station. Kisses had not done much good for the girls at Saint Elizabeth’s, though Alda encouraged them not to turn bitter. Even as their pregnancies advanced toward labor, the girls would hold on to their dime novels, to the possibilities of a storybook romance happening in their own lives.

  “I’m very grateful to you, Alda,” Niven said as he finished his sandwich. “You feed me. You quench my thirst.” He toasted her with the root beer. “And you took me in on the spot.”

  “Everyone can see you’re a good man.”

  “Now what do you suppose the value of that is in Hollywood? I don’t think I’ll rise very far with goodness as my calling card. If I am polite, agreeable, and good-natured, I will be a deckhand and a caddy for the rest of my life. Of course, I will have a marvelous suntan in the process. I’ll have absolutely no film career, but I will look like Midas by way of Pismo Beach. I shall be a golden god with a sterling temperament who buses tables at the Pig N Whistle.”

  Alda laughed. She wondered if Mr. Niven knew how funny he was. He was so busy being suave and courtly, he might not have any idea how his real gift, the humor that came so naturally to him, was in fact the only talent he needed to become a star. It seemed to Alda that the people who were successful in Hollywood knew exactly who they were, and the parts they played were extensions of themselves and not a creation of someone new.

  Father McNally knelt in the confessional booth, made the sign of the cross, and took a seat. He placed a purple stole around his neck, lit a small votive candle, and opened his prayer book.

  The priest had noticed a long line of congregants in the front pew when he arrived for work, so he settled in for a long afternoon. His superior, Monsignor McNeill, was working the confessional on the other side of the church, but his line was shorter because he had a reputation for strict penance. Everybody, it seemed, even Catholics in search of absolution, rooted for the rookie.

  He heard the door snap shut on the other side. A woman whispered in the dark.
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  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. The last time I went to confession, a few moments ago.”

  “You went to Monsignor McNeill?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Across the way?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Then you must follow his penance.” McNally was in second command at the church. The last thing he needed was to return to the rectory that evening for his own penance and admit to the monsignor that he had overturned his absolution.

  “There was no penance, Father.”

  “Monsignor must have thought your confession was not a sin.”

  “No, he said he could not absolve me.” The woman began to cry.

  “Did the monsignor say why?”

  “Father, please. I need your guidance. I’m in love, and I can’t think.”

  “You should talk to your mother.”

  “I already know her feelings on the matter. She told me not to fall in love with this gentleman, but it was too late.”

  “You should listen to your mother.”

  “But you haven’t heard my side.”

  “I don’t need to—I’m sure your mother is wise.”

  “I’m in love with a good man. He’s Catholic. But he is separated from his wife.”

  “Are there children?”

  “Yes.”

  “What has this man offered you?”

  “We love each other.”

  “Is his intention to leave his wife?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I believe so. He said he would seek an annulment to marry me.”

  “An annulment isn’t like paying a parking ticket. It’s an arduous process.” The priest was exasperated. “There’s a tribunal that doesn’t guarantee a result in your favor.”

  “I know that, Father.”

  “If you know what you’re doing is wrong, then you know what you must do.”

  “Even though I will give up any future happiness?”

  “How can something you know is wrong make you happy?”

  “It can’t, Father.”

  “So you see, you didn’t need to come to me. You know what is required of you. You have to end this love affair with this married man. He will not have the strength to do it.”