THIRTY YEARS.
1925.
1.
Johnny walked through the crowded room looking for Dulcie. She had been with him a moment ago, but suddenly she had disappeared. He wondered where she had gone.
A small, thin-faced woman called him. "Johnny dear," she said in a thin high-pitched voice that was not unpleasant to the ear, "come here a minute and talk to me. We have so little time to chat with each other, I"m beginning to forget how sweet you are."
Johnny turned and looked at her, then he smiled slowly and walked toward her. n.o.body dared to ignore Marian Andrews. She was small and nervously intense and wrote a column that was syndicated in almost every newspaper in the country and throughout the world. Her subject was Hollywood, and Hollywood was her subject. Her words were known to make or break people. She knew how important she was and hesitated but little in using her power when she so willed. But the power was cleverly concealed beneath an overfriendly, gushing, inquisitive manner that carried somehow into her column and gave the reader a feeling that he or she had just heard the news over the back fence that separated his own home from his neighbor"s.
"Marian," Johnny said pleasantly, taking her hand, "I didn"t see you."
She looked at him a moment, an eyebrow lifted archly. "For a second," she said lightly. "I thought you didn"t want to see me."
"How could you imagine such a thing?" He laughed easily. "I just had something on my mind, that"s all."
She looked at him shrewdly. "Such as where is your lovely wife?"
He looked at her in surprise. "That"s one of them," he admitted.
She laughed, happy at her guess. "You don"t have to worry about her, dear boy, she just went outside for a bit of fresh air. Her cousin Warren is with her and you can sit down here beside me and we can have a talk." She patted the seat beside her.
He looked down at her and smiled again. "You see everything, Marian, don"t you?"
A glint of pride came into her eyes. "That"s my job," she replied. "Don"t forget I"m a reporter. Now come on, do sit down."
He dropped into the chair beside her. Reporter was what she liked to think of herself as being; town gossip was more like it, he thought.
She turned to him. "Isn"t it a lovely party that Peter is giving for her cousin? He"s so pleased that Warren"s first picture is to be made by him and you must be so happy that Dulcie is playing opposite Warren."
"Yes," he said slowly. "We"re all very happy over it. Warren Craig is one of the biggest names in the theater and it means a great deal to us that he consented to do this picture." He looked at her directly. "It means a great deal to the whole industry too. We"ve been after him for years."
"I heard somewhere that"s how you met Dulcie," she gushed. "When you went backstage to his dressing room." She laughed gaily. "It must seem all too wonderful to you. You go backstage to sign one of America"s greatest actors for the movies and meet his cousin, fall in love with her, and come away with a wife and not the actor you were after. And then two years later he finally agrees to make a picture, and your charming wife, now one of the most important stars in pictures, is to play opposite him. It"s just like the movies." She looked up at him smiling. "It"s a wonderful story. May I print it? I think everybody would love to know about it."
He returned her smile. "Go ahead," he said easily. "You would use it even if I said no," he thought. He took out a cigarette and lit it.
"You must be very proud of Dulcie," she continued. "It"s not every girl that becomes a star in her first picture and then proves it wasn"t just an accident by making two others in which she is even better than in the first. I hear her pictures are the biggest grossing pictures you have."
He wished she didn"t have the habit of probing in two directions at once. It made it rather difficult for you to decide which one to follow first. He drew on his cigarette. "I am proud of her," he answered. "She always dreamed of being a great actress and I knew it was in her, but I don"t think any of us realized just how great a success she would be. You know she only made that first picture to pa.s.s the time while I was busy at the studio."
"And then she was so good you couldn"t keep her from the screen," Marian said.
He grinned wryly. "That"s about it. She was too good."
She looked at him sharply. "Would you have wanted her to stay off the screen after that first picture?"
He looked at her openly. "Off the record, Marian?" he asked.
"Off the record," she a.s.sured him.
"Frankly, I would have, but after I saw that picture I knew I didn"t stand a chance," he said, hoping she would keep her word.
"That"s what I thought," she said, nodding her head, satisfied with herself. "It must be very unhappy being married to one of the most beautiful and admired women in the country and living three thousand miles away from her."
"It"s not as bad as that," he said quickly. "We both understand that our work keeps us apart and we get together as often as we can. I come out here four times a year and she comes to New York almost as much."
She leaned forward and patted his cheek. "Johnny, you"re such a dear understanding boy. Sometimes I must feel sorry for you."
He looked at her inquisitively. What did she mean by that? Sometimes during the last few visits to the studio he had got the impression that people were feeling sorry for him. Why should she come out and say it? "Don"t be," he said dryly. "We"re actually very happy and, in spite of the distance between us, very close to each other."
"Of course, Johnny, of course," she said quickly-almost too quickly. She glanced across the room. "Oh, there"s Doug and Mary. I must talk to them, will you excuse me?"
He smiled tolerantly at her. Having exhausted him as a source of gossip, she was now looking for another. "Sure," he said getting to his feet with her. "Go right ahead."
She hesitated for a moment. Her face was serious as she looked at him. "I like you, Johnny," she said unexpectedly. "You"re a very decent guy."
He was surprised by her statement and the sudden undercurrent of earnestness in her tones. "Thank you, Marian," he said simply. "But why-?"
She interrupted his question. "This is a very funny business, Johnny," she said, putting a hand on his arm. "We live in a sort of goldfish bowl out here. I know, because in some ways I helped to make it so. And I know, too, that many things are said about the people out here that aren"t true and that these things sometimes make a lot of trouble and hurt other people."
He looked at her strangely. "I know, Marian," he said gently.
An expression of relief crossed her face. She took her hand from his arm. "I"m glad you understand, Johnny," she said. "Because I wouldn"t want to see you hurt unnecessarily. Take everything you read and hear with a grain of salt. Don"t believe anything unless you see it for yourself. There are many small and vicious people who are envious of your happiness and wouldn"t hesitate to destroy it." And then with typical birdlike quickness she left him.
He watched her cross the room with her small hurried steps. Strange turn the conversation had taken. He wondered what she meant. He didn"t know of anyone who wanted to hurt him. He looked across the room. Dulcie and Warren were just entering the room from the veranda. A sudden light of comprehension came into his eyes.
So that"s what Marian was trying to warn him about. Dulcie was laughing and her face looked young and happy and excited. She had risen so quickly that there must be people envious of her success. Marian was trying to tell him that these people wouldn"t hesitate to hurt them if they could get at Dulcie that way. He smiled to himself confidently as he made his way toward them. Let them try. He knew better than to believe any of them or anybody. Even Marian Andrews.
2.
Peter held the door open and let them enter the room before him. Then he followed them into the room and closed the door. The little study was quiet after the sound of the party outside. There was a small fire glowing in the fireplace and it cast a cheery reddish light across their faces.
He turned the key in the door and straightened up. "That"s so we won"t be disturbed," he said smiling. "These big parties make me nervous. All day my stomach is upset thinking about it."
"I know how you feel," Willie Borden said. "That"s why I"m glad I"m moving back to New York. This ain"t the kind of life I like. I like making pictures, but I don"t like the things you got to do to keep up with the crowd out here. Sometimes I think we"re slaves to our publicity men"s ideas of how to run our business."
"That"s how you guys might feel," Sam Sharpe injected. "But from my point of view you can"t do without it. Outside in that room there you got maybe twenty people whose business it is to tell the whole world about what happens here. In Marian Andrews"s column tomorrow ten million people will read that everybody in Hollywood turned out for Peter Kessler"s party in honor of Warren Craig, who, incidentally, is appearing in a picture with Dulcie Warren for the Magnum studios. And that"s just one column. Like I said, there are twenty of them. It"s money in the bank for you guys, and you complain."
"But you ain"t got to worry about nothing," Peter objected. "You"re a ten-percenter. All you gotta do is collect your cut of the clients" pay. We gotta worry about making them worth the pay. We gotta worry about whether the people who count come to the party. We got all the trouble building them up."
"I still say it"s worth the trouble," Sam insisted. "It brings customers to the boxoffice."
Peter shook his head and walked to a cabinet. He opened it and took out a bottle of liquor. He took down three gla.s.ses and poured a measured drink in each. He handed the gla.s.ses around. "This is the real stuff," he announced proudly, "not the junk I got out there." He held up his gla.s.s. "L"chaim," he said.
"L"chaim," Borden replied.
"Here"s luck," Sam said.
They swallowed the drinks.
Peter sank into a chair in front of the fire. He leaned forward and slipped off his gleaming black shoes. With a sigh he put his feet up on a ha.s.sock. "Sit down, sit down," he said to them, waving to the comfortable chairs in front of him. "Ah, this is good, my feet were killing me. Esther made me put on my new shoes."
Borden sat down opposite him, and Sharpe sank into the chair next to him. They were silent for a while, each man thinking his own thoughts.
"Another drink?" Peter asked at last. Without waiting for a reply he refilled their gla.s.ses.
Borden looked at him. "You look tired," he said.
"I am," Peter answered.
"Maybe you"re working too hard," Borden suggested.
"It"s not that," Peter denied. "I feel upset like. Ever since Johnny got here the day before yesterday, I"m worrying."
They both knew what Peter meant.
"His wife?" asked Sharpe.
Peter nodded his head wearily.
"I"ve met women like that before," Borden said. "In this business you can"t help it, but I"ve never met any as bad as she is. The stories I"ve heard about her!" He shook his head. "It"s almost unbelievable."
"She"s a mental case," Sam said bluntly. "If she keeps on the way she"s going I don"t think there will be a man left in Hollywood she hasn"t shared her bed with."
Peter looked at them. "You fellas don"t know the half of it. If she stayed in her own bed all the time, it wouldn"t be so bad. But any place, any time, whenever she feels like it. Already I got to fire three men because they were talking about it. One day a guy comes to me with some pictures he took. She was in a corner of a set with one of the gaffers. Her dress was up around her waist and she was leaning against the wall. It cost me a thousand dollars for the negatives and prints and I still don"t know whether he didn"t hold out on me and keep some." He looked down at the drink in his hand for a moment, then back at them. "I called her into my office and handed her the pictures. I was too ashamed to say anything to her. I just put the pictures in her hand without a word. And what do you think she said? You wouldn"t believe it. She looked at me and laughed. "The man who took this picture must have been an amateur," she says. "If he"d waited another minute he could have caught me at a better angle!""
He waited for them to speak. They were silent. He continued: ""Dulcie," I said to her, "You should be ashamed acting like that. People will talk."
""They"ll talk anyway," she says.
""But, Dulcie," I said, "there"s no reason for it. You got a nice husband. What if he should hear about it? How would he feel?"
"She looks at me with a funny look on her face, "Who"s gonna tell him?" she asks. "You?"
"I didn"t answer. She knew as well as me that I wouldn"t say nothing to Johnny. How could I tell him something like that? When I didn"t answer her, a funny smile came on her face and she says to me: "I thought you wouldn"t." She half turns as if to go out of my office and then turns back to me. She stands there almost a minute without talking. I could see she"s thinking. I wait for her.
"Then I could see tears come to her eyes slowly. Her lips began to quiver. "You don"t understand, Peter," she says, crying. "I"m a very emotional person, and when I married Johnny I thought I would be very happy. But I wasn"t. Johnny"s wound is more than just his leg. He can"t do anything. And I"m an actress and sometimes it"s important for me to feel the emotions I project, otherwise I wouldn"t be any good to you at all."
"For a second I"m feeling almost sorry for her. Then I think that"s no excuse for a woman to act like a wh.o.r.e. If it"s that important for her she could do it discreetly and n.o.body would be any the wiser. I told her to behave better or I would have to put her off the lot. She promised she would and I chased her out of the office. I was so glad it was over."
"Poor Johnny," Borden said, looking into the fire. "Is he really like that?"
Peter"s face seemed to grow redder. "She was lying," he said.
"How do you know?" Sam asked.
"Later in the day I was thinking about what she said and I called Johnny"s doctor in New York. He said there was nothing the matter with him that way." He coughed embarra.s.sedly.
"I wonder what would happen if Johnny should find out," Sam speculated aloud.
"I"m afraid to think," Peter said quickly. "She"s got him fooled a hundred percent, she"s such a good actress."
"That"s just the trouble," Borden said. "Why couldn"t such talents have been given to a nice girl? It doesn"t seem right that a b.i.t.c.h like that should have so much."
Peter nodded his head in agreement. "It doesn"t seem right, but that"s the way it goes. The good always have to struggle for what they get, the bad just stand there with their hands out and everything comes to them."
Sam reached over to the bottle and refilled the gla.s.ses. He turned to Borden. "When are you planning to leave for New York?"
"In a week or two," Borden replied. "As soon as I straighten up a few things. I bought a place out on Long Island and my wife is filled with excitement over furnishing it."
"You"re going through with that deal?" Peter asked, looking at him curiously.
"Sure," Borden said. "Why not?"
Peter didn"t answer for a moment. Borden was going to put his stock on the open market, keeping only the amount sufficient to ensure him control of his company. He had made arrangements with a group of bankers down on Wall Street to represent him and was following their advice to the letter. The entire company was being refinanced in accordance with their suggestions. There were two cla.s.ses of common stock being issued, one with voting privileges, the other without. A preferred stock issue and debenture issue would be floated later. From the proceeds derived from the sale of these stocks Borden hoped to reduce his outstanding bank loans and eliminate expensive borrowings in the future.
"I don"t like it," Peter answered at last.
Borden laughed. "You"re too old-fashioned, Peter," he said. "You should learn that that"s how they do business today. No longer does one man try to run everything by himself. It"s crazy. Today everybody is a specialist. Why should I try to be a banker, a borrower, a producer, a theater operator, a sales manager, all at the same time? My idea is to hire the best specialists in each field and watch over them and guide the whole thing. This business is still growing. Who knows how big it will get? And for big business there are specially trained men too. Men who all their lives are in big business."
"I don"t trust them," Peter insisted. "They"re all right now when everything looks good, but who knows how they will act when things are bad? I remember what they used to say years ago when we walked into the banks in New York. They used to look down at their noses on us. You could see them thinking: "Jew pushcart business," when they turned down our loans. Now that they see we"re making money, they want to come in and help us. I don"t trust them. Where were they when we really needed help? Looking down their noses. When we needed money we went to Santos. He trusted us, took a chance on us."
"At practically twelve-percent interest," Borden interrupted.