Moving Pictures

  1932: Tin Pan Alley, whistling in the dark, with Depression just outside the door of that Sunset Boulevard retreat, soup kitchens downtown, and in the Ventura Valley on the other side of the Hollywood Hills, embattled farmers tearing down their foreclosure notices. But in the hideaway that Sidney Fox had whisked me to, the laughter, the music, and the whiskey created a mood of timeless escape. Sidney managed to down more than her share of highballs. In the dark I sipped at mine, still loathing the taste and smell, perhaps because I associated it with Father’s delinquencies, but doing my best to appear a man of the world, a Malibu Tom Sawyer trying to remember how Adolphe Menjou or Clive Brook had behaved in similar situations.

  We stayed so long that not only was I getting sleepy, I was beginning to worry about an early-morning tennis date. On the way to Sidney’s house she sat disturbingly close to me and chatted away about film work and movie gossip, saying she knew my father, in a way that made me wonder how well?, and that she admired my mother as “a real mensch, the only studio wife I’ve met who can stand up to the Mayers and the Warners.” I was still too upset about my parents to talk about them, I told her; it was ruining my summer. Sympathetically, Sidney cuddled closer. Nervously, I edged away. When we reached her bungalow on a quiet Hollywood street, she turned her face to me for the expected kiss. I reached for the door handle on my side and ran around the sleek nose of the Dusenberg to open the car door for her. What I lacked in ardor I tried to make up in gallantry. She offered me her arm to walk her to her door in a way that left me no choice but to hold it, tentatively. The only girl I had ever walked with so intimately was my cousin Roz. At the door, as she fumbled for her keys, Sidney said she knew that Ad collected colored glass bells, and she had one she would like to give me for Mother’s collection. A million 18-year-olds would have traded a whole month’s allowance for that invitation from the little beauty whose face had graced the cover of Silver Screen. But my only emotion was pure panic. I muttered a thank-you-some-other-time—I had to be on the court in five hours for a big tennis match. “What a strange boy,” Sidney said. “I wonder if your father was anything like you when he was your age?”

  By the time I drove the long, winding road home to Malibu, where a dawn mist was rising from the ocean just beyond our gate, I was too exhilarated to sleep. Those lies I had been forced to tell at Deerfield about dating “movie queens” had become truth at last. And if I had been just a little bolder, undoubtedly I could have carried back to Green Gate Cottage a colored glass bell as a symbol of conquest. Instead, I had escaped with virtue intact, eager to share this singular experience with Maurice, my brother in innocence and self-doubt. Did anyone truly like us for ourselves? Or were we simply teenage pawns in the ceaseless Hollywood power game? Too exhausted to go into detail on my “escapade” with Sidney Fox, I settled for a single question: “I wonder why she’s so nice to me?”

  The “Baby Peggy syndrome,” as I thought of it, rankled deep inside me. Even if Sidney Fox had fallen madly in love with me, I would have interpreted it as an insidious effort to outflank Sylvia Sidney and wind up with star roles in Father’s new unit at Paramount.

  That summer the sex education that my overactive Father and Freudian-minded Mother had totally neglected came to us from an unexpected source—Maurice’s cousin from New York, Al Mannheimer. Although Al was only a year older, in our eyes he was already a man of the world, debonair, sophisticated, and sexually experienced. Handsome, suave, self-assured, he was our Beau Brummel, our Don Juan, our Havelock Ellis. At the Rapfs’ that summer (because his mother had just committed suicide in New York), he moved in an atmosphere of what seemed to us romantic tragedy. We had become almost hardened to Hollywood suicide: “If I don’t get that job I’m going to kill myself!” was more than a rhetorical exclamation in our town. Suicide, including the prolonged form of alcoholism and drugs (Wally Reid, Jack Pickford, Mabel Normand, Alma Rubens, John Gilbert…), was an occupational hazard. But Al’s mother was different. Why would a prosperous Manhattan matron shoot herself? The details were obscure, we avoided painful questions, and Al’s way of coping with it was to assume the role of young roué for whom Hollywood provided erotic escape. He had studied Casanova’s Memoirs with the devotion of a Hebrew scholar reading the Talmud. Like his 18th-century mentor, Al believed that every young creature, no matter how much she demurred, was inevitably seducible.

  A full, leatherbound set of Casanova beckoned from our library, where it had been placed unobtrusively on the highest shelf. A new world began to open up to us from the printed pages. We who still had not learned to dance or to know the feel of a girl in our arms now began to fantasize about obliging French mistresses and flirtatious Italian maidens. On movie sets and in studio dressing rooms our sandy-haired, self-appointed Casanova continued our sex education. According to Al, there was “a particular look in the eyes” of those who had recently indulged in sexual intercourse. “It’s a kind of a ‘fucky’ look—the eyes get lighter—as if they’ve been washed in milk,” our mentor explained. So we began to look into the eyes of ingénues and leading men for signs of the Mannheimer test.

  We applied this test on the set of Divorce in the Family, a picture I thought of as Maurice’s because he had written the original story for it while working as a junior writer the summer before. The title reflected the near-divorce of Maurice’s own parents after the Joan Crawford affair. In the Rapfs’ case, his father suffered a heart attack, took a leave of absence from the studio, his family rallied around, and Harry and Tina were reunited—just like in the movies, indeed not unlike the movie Chuck Reisner, a holdover from silent days, was “megging” from Maurice’s idea.

  Conrad Nagel played the would-be stepfather wooing little Jackie Cooper from his real father, Lewis Stone; somehow the three of us, Al, Maurice, and I, found ourselves in Nagel’s dressing room, where he was changing costumes for the next scene. Our junior Casanova whispered to us to be sure and look at Nagel’s penis. Dutifully, we did so, trying to make it seem accidental as our eyes dropped toward the floor.

  When we withdrew from Nagel’s dressing room, Prof. Mannheimer gave us an improvised lecture on what might be called “penisology.” Had we noticed, he quizzed, the way Nagel’s seemed to be bunched up with little wrinkles and how it looked somewhat reddened at the tip? Those were the symptoms, Al explained, of recent sexual intercourse, either that morning or late the night before.

  Armed with this potent insight into the carnal mysteries that both fascinated and frightened us, we continued our study in the locker room of the Hillcrest Country Club and the Paramount gym and dressing rooms. Thanks to Al, we were also beginning to study the anatomy of the opposite gender in a way we had not dared to before. In our library I read the spicy stories of Colette and also Mother’s Krafft-Ebing, although that ponderous work preferred to mask the best parts in Latin. Now I wished I had learned a little more of the language that was not quite so dead as MacConaughy and I had thought at Deerfield.

  As we had since we were ten, Maurice and I still took turns sleeping over at each other’s houses. But now our intimate all-night talk-fests took a different turn. We were ready to take the plunge, which in our case did not go as far as Mannheimer-Casanova seduction, but merely to work up the nerve to invite a date to the Coconut Grove, or better yet—since we wouldn’t have to dance but merely feel romantic under the stars—to an evening concert in the Hollywood Bowl.

  Divorce in the Family featured a luscious 16-year-old being groomed for stardom, Jean Parker. No ordinary starlet, Jean was the ward of Ida Koverman, former secretary to Herbert Hoover, proudly acquired by L.B. not only as a sign of class but as a means of moving up the Republican ladder to the lofty appointments for which he panted. The ultraconservative Mrs. Koverman, who served as L.B.’s storyteller—saving him the irksome chore of reading treatments and scenarios—was determined to keep her protégée as pure as an ingénue in an Andy Hardy movie. Mrs. Koverman had to approve Jean’s dates; she had to be properly chaper
oned and, like Cinderella, home before midnight. This made Jean an ideal first date for Maurice, removing the pressures of the livelier Sidney Foxes. Through the musical prodigy my parents hoped to develop into a second Paderewski, Leon Becker, I met the fair Elaine Rugg, “very pretty with clean blonde hair and an unusual smile, the kind of girl that is restful to be with.”

  We had first met Leon at the Coaching School, where he appealed to us as a romantic figure, with his bare little knees pumping masterfully beneath the keyboard of the grand piano on which he played everything from Chopin to Beethoven. When we learned that his father had died and his mother was working as a seamstress, my parents were so moved by his plight and his talent that they virtually adopted him, paying his tuition at the Coaching School (he was there on a limited scholarship) and offering to underwrite his musical education. He had become a “third brother” we proudly showed off at parties, where he held the guests spellbound with precocious performances of études and sonatas.

  Thanks to Leon’s introduction, I was able to take Elaine to the Hollywood Bowl where, moved by the sensuous music of Ravel, we shyly held hands. Then on to the Brown Derby, the original one on Wilshire Boulevard, built Hollywood-style in the shape of an actual bowler. Elaine was lovely, gentle, sweet, passive, and over a steaming plate of tamales I wondered if the unfamiliar flush I was feeling came from the spicy Mexican dish or from my first experience of falling in love. She lived downtown in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, in a modest frame house with an old-fashioned front porch. Getting out of the Dusenberg I knew I hadn’t earned, I forced myself to take Elaine’s arm and walk her to the door. There was a tantalizing moment when we almost kissed. It was comforting to find someone as demure as I. In my diary is an entry suitably restrained: “Elaine is liable to become my first ‘crush.’”

  Early next morning I called to ask if she would go with me to the Coconut Grove. “Oh, that sounds very nice.” Her voice was a gentle purring, almost a whisper. I talked so softly myself that we could barely hear one another. As I made my rounds of the studios that day, I was too distracted to take proper notes. At the end of the afternoon, the 14-year-old Sonya, with a dance style slightly this side of Adele Astaire’s, put some records on the Capehart and offered last-minute instructions on my command of the box step. It seemed I only knew how to move in one direction, clockwise. Not only did that become monotonous but it tended to induce vertigo. Whenever I tried counterclockwise, my partner’s feet had an annoying habit of tripping me.

  It was almost time to pick up Elaine. Sonya could do no more. “I guess you’ll just have to keep on doing that one step and try not to get dizzy,” was her sisterly advice.

  A night of triumph! Elaine was graceful, tender and helpful. By the end of the evening I even took a few tentative steps counterclockwise.

  Parked in front of her house, I rested my arm on the backrest behind her and with studied casualness let it slip down over her shoulder. Progress. It was not quite the seductive tactics Al Mannheimer had recommended: “Guide her hand gently toward your fly. If she doesn’t pull her hand away, put your hand over hers and say something romantic. You’ll be surprised how many girls can’t resist feeling it once you hold their hand to it. The stirring excites them even if they pretend to be shocked. If she pulls her hand away, don’t get discouraged. She may want you to think she’s not that kind of a girl. Wait ’til next time. But if she doesn’t draw her hand away, surreptitiously begin to unbutton your fly. …”

  Instead, while I draped my arm modestly around Elaine’s shoulder, I listened sympathetically to her long, sad story: She wanted to be a classical dancer; a fortune left to her in a grandparent’s will could only be claimed if she went to Sweden, a journey her parents refused her because she was too young to travel and live there alone—but unless she could claim that fortune, she felt doomed to a life of mediocrity.

  The pale light of tragedy enfolding her seemed to make her more beautiful. At the door I asked her if she would like to have lunch with me at the studio next day. “Oh, that would be nice,” she purred again. Of course it never occurred to me that the beautiful Elaine might be a confirmed dullard. In ecstasy I gunned the big car back toward prosperous Windsor Square, and promptly ran out of gas. In the diary the crown prince of the Schulberg fortunes had his emotions under control: “What a swell girl! Her life story would make a great yarn. Putting my arm around her is a great step forward!”

  At the studio luncheon next day I innocently invited “third brother” Leon. He seemed distracted, upset, and strangely quiet. While I signed the bill—sent to Father’s office—he asked if he could drive Elaine home. I was surprised, as Leon was working in the music department, writing out scores for background music, and I knew he was under pressure to get back to work. The head of the department, Nat Finston, was a demanding boss. Leaving abruptly during the middle of the day could cost Leon his job.

  Later I drove down to Elaine’s to discuss this serious turn of events. She admitted she had been “seeing” Leon, but in her opinion he was overdramatizing the situation. So my first tentative romance had led to dramatic complications. In the overexcitement of finally asking a girl to the Grove, I had been insensitive to Leon’s feelings. In his martyrdom, Leon assured me that if Elaine and I were really serious about each other, he would step aside. But he was hurt. Underlying this drama, I knew, was his sense of inferiority. He, Maurice, and I played as equals, but there must always have been that gnawing feeling that we had been born to the Hollywood purple, while he, with all his musical culture, still came from the other side of the tracks.

  52

  TO DISTRACT US FROM this unexpected romantic triangle, the 1932 Olympic Games, the event Maurice and I had been eagerly awaiting for years, came to our own Los Angeles Coliseum. Further work on The Hollywood Reporter was out of the question. I asked for a leave of absence, so I could give full concentration to the Games.

  The entire Hollywood community seemed almost as excited as I was. A meeting of film celebrities was held to choose hosts for the various foreign teams. Maurice Chevalier volunteered to give a reception for the French team and arrange a tour of the studio. Marlene Dietrich offered to serve in a similar capacity for the German contingent, not yet appropriated by the upstart Hitler. One by one each foreign group was spoken for. Finally it came little Latvia’s turn. Mother raised her hand. She, a daughter of Dvinsk in the heart of our homeland, would be proud to host the Latvian team. At the end of the meeting we were introduced to them, or rather him, for Latvia, we discovered, was represented by a single athlete, a marvelous-looking, ruddy-faced specimen bursting with muscles, energy, confidence, and handsome enough to be a leading man. In fact, Mother suggested half-seriously that after the Games she might get him a seven-year contract at Paramount. Of course Karl would have to learn English. He spoke and understood only his mother tongue. That gap was filled, barely, by the few words of English spoken by the small, paunchy trainer in a cheap double-breasted suit who accompanied our Latvian champion. From him we learned that Karl had become a national hero, the only athlete in the whole country who qualified for international competition. His best event was the pole vault, but he was also the best runner and jumper in Mother’s motherland. Since Latvia lacked funds to field an Olympic team, sending Karl and his trainer from Riga to Los Angeles had become a national cause. Peasants had dropped their meager coins into milk cans to raise money for their “team.” Thousands of Letts waving little national flags had seen him off on his two-week journey by rail and sea to our distant shores.

  Overnight we became patriotic Latvians. Mother had said that she had been a babe in arms when the Jaffes were driven from their village by a pogrom, but now her memory of her Latvian childhood grew miraculously. I looked up our country’s history in the encyclopaedia. From the Middle Ages we had been dominated in turn by Poland, Russia, and Sweden, and by the German land barons. We had been badly mangled in the Great War. And the Germans had struck again and occupied us as l
ate as 1919. But our little army had fought back, and with support from a motley alliance we had won our independence in 1920. Now the 12-year-old Republic had sent us Karl. He was our houseguest at Malibu, and I was proud to run with him on the beach as he underwent his early-morning conditioning. Mother gave a luncheon for him in the studio commissary, decorated with Latvian flags and attended by dozens of Paramount stars. Even though Father had been moved to his bungalow suite, the Schulberg name had not lost its magic, and we still had the run of the lot.

  In his snappy blue blazer with the Latvian crest, Karl must have thought he had died and been reborn in a Baltic heaven. The famous of Hollywood rose to applaud him when he made his charming, halting thank-you speech, which Mother proudly interpreted from a pretranslated text. He spoke of his small Latvian village and of how he had learned to pole-vault by fashioning his own pole from a slender tree and soaring over the high fences of the local farms. His mother, he said, had bought her first radio so she and her neighbors could follow his progress in the Games. Hollywood has always been sentimental about this kind of “outside” celebrity: Movie stars flocked around our Latvian standard-bearer, inviting him to their beach houses and wanting his autograph. At Karl’s side, I basked in reflected glory.

  On the day of the great event, the pole-vault competition, the Schulberg-Jaffe contingent was there to root the Latvian hope to record heights. The bar was put at 12 feet for warm-up jumps. At the head of the runway, Karl paused, took a deep breath to expand his powerful chest, struck a heroic pose, then went pounding down the path to the uprights, went up on his pole to a height of ten feet, ten-and-a-half… and fell clumsily into the pit under the bar. We looked at each other. Apparently Karl’s hand had slipped on the bamboo pole, an accident that could happen to anyone. By this time he was pounding down the runway again. This time he rose to a mighty height of almost 11 feet, trembled there a moment, and then went crashing into the bar which fell humiliatingly on top of him in the pit.