Bring on the empty horses Read online

  Being a 'clap' doctor, 'Dockie' Martin was a very useful member of the community. Venereal disease increases in direct proportion to promiscuous fornication, so with Hollywood not being famous for the chastity of its citizens, it was inevitable that through the good doctor's waiting-room passed some of the most famous private parts in the world. Many sufferers who had survived 'Dockie's' extremely painful pre-penicillin treatments were understandably worried in view of his marital setup, that news of their misfortunes might leak to the Press, but the Doctor in his bedchamber or in his cups stoutly stood by his Hippocratic oath.

  'Dockie', who resembled a gone-to-seed middle-weight, was a heavy drinker and people with uncomfortable appointments ahead of them on the morrow, watched apprehensively as he consumed huge quantities of alcohol on the eve of the encounter.

  It was on just such an occasion, during a dinner party, that he slid quietly under the table. Two men moved to pick him up but were stopped by Louella who said, 'Oh! let poor Dockie get a little sleep — he's operating in the morning.'

  Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer chartered a yacht and took a party of us one weekend to Catalina. The Doctor was determined to catch a fish during the four-hour crossing to the Island and sat in a wicker chair trolling a big white bone lure astern. A steward kept him topped up during the voyage with a steady stream of his favourite beverage gin-fizz. After a couple of hours he turned to me:

  'Hold the rod for me willya Dave?… I've gotta take a leak.'

  No sooner had the doctor's head disappeared below decks than with a bang! and a screech! a twenty-pound tuna hit his lure. By the time a relieved doctor reappeared, his fish had been brought to gaff and the yacht was once more gathering speed.

  Almost exactly two hours later a now well-oiled physician asked me once more to hold his rod. Bang! Screech! it happened again; but this time he heard it and came weaving, back on deck with his dress not adjusted, causing Eddie Goulding to say in a pained voice:

  'Dockie, please do up your fly, we've all seen Louella's column.'

  Later that day when we dropped anchor in Avalon Bay, Dockie rowed Louella ashore in the dinghy, 'to have a couple of snorts at the hotel'. When they returned not only was his oarsmanship most peculiar, but on arrival he ungallantly stepped on to the gangway ahead of his wife at the same time pushing off from the dinghy. Louella, dutifully and equally unsteadily following her husband, stepped into forty fathoms of water which was embarrassing for her because she couldn't swim. Goulding and I fished her out.

  Louella and Dockie were a devoted couple and evenings at their home were relaxed and unpretentious. The conversation was strictly movie 'shop'. At Hedda's, evenings were gayer, brighter and because of Hedda's friends and interests outside Hollywood — more cosmopolitan and much more stimulating.

  She was a sparkling hostess, chic; gay, witty and acid. She used a great variety of four-letter words and enjoyed hearing her two poodles sing to her piano playing. Hedda always stated that she would make up for her late arrival in competition with Louella 'by outlasting the old bag'. By the mid-Forties both ladies were nearing seventy and some heavy bets were laid in Movieland as to which one would run out of steam first, but, seemingly indestructible, they continued to work punishing hours and their columns were still widely read despite a certain erosion of readers. The old stars who had played the publicity game with Louella and Hedda were fading fast and the new ones Brando, Holden, Newman and Dean and the young producers and directors — found it old-fashioned and unnecessary to bother about Hedda and Louella. The War was over, tastes were changing, like most royalty they were an anachronism, and anyway, newspaper circulations were dropping all over the country. But if Hedda and Louella recognised all this, they gave no sign of it except, sensing perhaps that they were entering the last few furlongs, each redoubled her efforts to outdo the other and ‘oneupwomanship' became the order of their day.

  The super love goddess, Rita Hayworth, decided to take her first trip abroad and asked my advice on a trip around Europe. Knowing how genuinely shy and gentle she was and respecting her longing to avoid the goldfish bowl of publicity, I worked out a complicated itinerary for her starting with a small Swedish liner to Gothenburg, quiet country hotels and mountain villages all the way south and ending up in an oasis of Mediterranean calm, the Hotel La Reserve in Beaulieu-sur-Mer.

  Rita departed with a girl friend and the works of Jean-Paul Sartre. Everything went beautifully according to plan and after three leisurely and peaceful weeks, she arrived radiantly relaxed at La Reserve. The champion charmer of Europe, Prince Ali Khan, saw her walk in and a new chapter was added to Hollywood history.

  It was indeed a romantic match and Hedda and Louella spent frustrating weeks angling for invitations to the wedding. The ceremony was to be held at L'Horizon, the Ali's pink villa near Cannes — an enchanting place to look at from the sea with its feet in the blue water, but a difficult place in which to carry on a conversation when the express trains to Italy thundered past the kitchen door.

  The Ali had no intention whatever of having a Hollywood style wedding and all newspaper reporters received a blank refusal to their requests for inclusion on the Guest List.

  Hedda and Louella could not believe that this treatment of the Press included them and they were particularly irked that with their immense power, their supplications received the same cold shoulder as that turned towards the local reporter from Nice Matin. Poor gentle Rita with her inbred Hollywood fear of Hedda and Louella needed all the Ali's Olympian calm when threatening and ominous calls came from Beverly Hills: but she held her ground and neither was invited to the wedding. Both ladies, however, goaded by their powerful employers, headed for the South of France hoping for a last-minute breakthrough.

  Louella, much to Hedda's chagrin, persuaded Elsa Maxwell, the famous party giver and sometime columnist, to take her along with her to a large buffet luncheon at L'Horizon a week before the wedding. Once she had her foot in the door, Louella pulled out all the stops and appreciating the pressure that was piling up on Rita, the Ali finally agreed that Louella's name could be added to the wedding List.

  If Louella was in a position to crow, Hedda was more than ever determined to square the account. She harangued the frustrated French reporters milling around Cannes, Antibes and Juan Les Pins — 'How disgraceful,' she told them, 'that such favouritism is being shown to an American journalist.'

  At last, an embittered Parisian newshawk broke the deadlock. He unearthed a Provençal law from Napoleonic times which stated that no wedding could be held in private if one citizen objected. Dozens of citizens — reporters from all over France — signed the objection and the local Mayor announced that the wedding must be held in public at the Mairie. Hedda had squared the account but both she and Louella, after all their efforts, had to swallow their pride and join a cast of thousands hoping to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom.

  When Louella reached the age of eighty-one, she was still writing her column, but the flagship of her syndication fleet was foundering and day it sank without trace… The Los Angeles Examiner ceased publication leaving the Los Angeles Times as the sole morning newspaper in the city. Louella retired and the stripling seventy-six-year-old Hedda had realized her wish — 'to outlast the old bag'.

  She continued writing her column till the age of eighty-one when illness incapacitated her, but she went down firing broadsides from her death-bed.

  'I hear that sonofabitch Chaplin is trying to get back into the country,' she told all and sundry… 'we've got to stop him!

  Neither of them would have won a scholarship at M.I.T., nor even have obtained good marks for grammar, and most of their crusades turned out to be a waste of ink. Chaplin returned in triumph to receive a special 'Oscar' in Hollywood; Orson Welles was forgiven; Gone With The Wind rose above the fact that David O. Selznick had 'insulted Hollywood by employing an English actress to play Scarlett O'Hara'; Ingrid Bergman overcame the screams of outrage caused by her romance on Stro
mboli; Senator McCarthy inevitably became a nasty word and Brando continued to be Brando.

  Hedda and Louella had power out of all proportion to their ability and a readership out of all proportion to their literacy.

  They had delusions of grandeur and skins like brontosauruses but they were gallant, persevering and often soft-hearted. They interfered in casting and were partisan in politics; they helped some beginners and hindered some established film makers but they could not be faulted when it came to their devotion to Hollywood and they tried daily to preserve it as it stood — a wondrous structure of corruption, fear, talent and triumphs: a consortium of dream factories pumping out entertainments for millions.

  Perhaps they did not do much good but on the other hand, they didn't do much harm either and it's a good thing they were both spared the spectacle of the once mighty Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its death throes auctioneering off Fred Astaire's dancing shoes, Elizabeth Taylor's bra and Judy Garland's rainbow.

  'OUR LITTLE GIRL'

  (Part 1)

  'Missie' was described by the newspapers as a 'Sex Symbol' or a 'Love Goddess' and by us at the Studio as The Boys' Erector Set'.

  Her face, which was snub-nosed and pretty, was saved from being unremarkable by a pair of huge grey eyes. It was topped by a cloud of golden hair and had the great good fortune to be strategically placed above the most beautiful body in Hollywood.

  Most of her adult life 'Missie' had been part of the Hollywood scene. One year out of an Arizona High School, and still thinking a chocolate marshmallow sundae was a 'big deal', she had been spotted by a studio talent scout and offered a solo number in a Busby Berkeley musical. She had immediately kissed goodbye to her Daughter of the American Republic mother and headed for California. A long-term Hollywood contract had followed and the paucity of her acting talent had been minimised by her pretty face, her grey eyes and her quite extraordinary shape. The Studio publicity department had encountered little difficulty in hoisting her to the top of 'The Girl Most Wanted' List, and through the years she had accumulated a large and appreciative following in money-making pictures which had tested the guide-lines of the Legion of 'Decency to the limits.

  'Missie' was not the cleverest girl in the school but she was smart enough to realise that her beautiful body and her enthusiastic use of it should not be distributed as largesse to all and sundry, and as a general rule she cannily bestowed her favours where they would reap the most bountiful harvest — among the producers, directors, writers and cameramen — in that strict order of 'billing'.

  It was a 'nervous' night. The hot desert wind the 'Santana' — was blowing, skins felt dry and itchy, tempers were short and problems were magnified. 'Missie', encased in the lightest of cotton sheets, was lying naked on her back — not her most unfavourite position, let us remind ourselves — but this time she was alone, naked because she liked the feel of the 'voile' sheets around her curves, and on her back because Cary Grant had told her that sleeping in that position was the only way to avoid getting wrinkles. The music was far away and it entered her sleeping brain through a tiny attic window far up in her skull: slowly it filtered down, growing implacably louder until she could identify the song — 'You smile… and the angels sing'.

  'Missie' stirred petulantly and made a brushing movement of her arm but the music did not go away and she realised it was the new alarm clock which 'He' had given her, tuned into the 24-hour 'Music Station', she knew that if she reached out a hand and switched it off, it would relentlessly come on again every 3o seconds until she climbed out of bed and yanked it out of the wall. She groaned and lay for a while listening to the song. When it ended and the all-night disc-jockey started his hearty early morning patter she rolled out of bed and pulled the plug out of its socket… 4 a.m.

  'Missie's' head felt like lead and her mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage. 'Why, oh why?' she asked herself, had she been so stupid. 'One of my sleeping pills a night, only', her doctor, 'Needle Ned' had prescribed, but she had doubled the dose last night because 'He' had invited a group over for supper and cards and although she had tip-toed away at ten o'clock, making movie-camera, hand-turning signals, she had still found herself wide awake at midnight with only four hours to go before another exhausting day's work.

  She tottered into her yellow-tiled bathroom and switched on her mirror lights, but she was not happy with what she saw. Her famous thick creamy white skin was, despite Cary's advice creased upon her face, her famous cat's eyes were half closed and puffy and the stretch marks on her abdomen caused by little Sharon, looked like streaky bacon held up to the light. She was thirty years old and felt fifty, but she doggedly set about making herself presentable for the gatemen, the studio police and the departing shifts of maintenance men who might see her as she was driving through the gates.

  At 4.30 she glanced out of her bathroom window. Alvin was already there, and he knew his business, so he sat patiently with his side lights on to show he had arrived on schedule.

  'Thank God for Manny,' she thought, 'at least I don't have to drive myself to work at this hour of the night.'

  It was still pitch black when 'Missie' let herself out of the house. She had peeked into 'His' room on the way down and had blown a kiss to his sleeping form — a vague mound in the middle of the bed. Downstairs it had smelt of stale cigar smoke and booze so she had opened the drapes and windows. Then she had covered her cream-coloured jacket and slacks with a mink coat, tied a silk scarf under her chin and let herself quietly out of her house.

  'Mornin', "Missie",' said Alvin, touching the peak of his soft black cap. 'Sleep well?'

  'Not enough, Alvin,' she replied as she settled herself in the back seat, switched on a reading light and during the half-hour drive, studied the scenes scheduled for the day's shooting and cursed herself for not having been strong enough to say — 'The Hell with your party… I'm going to bed.'

  'Mornin', "Missie",' said 'Red' the gateman. 'Lovely mornin'.'

  'Missie' got out of the car outside her dressing-room bungalow and sniffed the cool fragrance of the Californian dawn: far away an orange glow was beginning to silhouette the semicircle of mountains that held Los Angeles imprisoned in a half-clenched fist.

  'Coffee's all ready, 'Miss "Missie",' beamed Vergis. 'Missie' kissed the shiny black cheek.

  'Who's looking after the kids today, Vergis?' she asked.

  'Oh! — I has good neighbours down there in Watts, they all takes turns!' and Vergis laughed a happy laugh as she poured the Maxwell House.

  At five thirty on the dot, the make-up man appeared, lugging a huge leather-covered box, containing all the bottles, brushes, pots and pastes of his very considerable craft. He was as unemotional and methodical as a country policeman.

  'Mornin' darling,' he said peering at her. 'You look like hell — got your period?'

  No, thank God,' said 'Missie', 'anyway I get three days off when it comes.— thanks to Manny… he got it added to the contract.'

  'Well, then get more sleep for Chrissakes,' said Carl — 'I don't want to lose my job! Like I said to Doris, the other morning, when she came in lookin' like that… "Little Day — you've had a busy man!" Eye drops first.'

  'Missie' lay back in her reclining chair and watched in the mirror while Carl transformed her from a pasty-faced dull-eyed woman of thirty into a vibrant sparkling girl in her early twenties.

  'Thank God the body's still good,' muttered Carl, 'but you'd better watch it, darling — those bastards in the Front Office have ice water for blood… they'll smile at you and tell you that you're "their little girl", but all you need is to get the blame for a couple of their big flops and you'll be out on your cute little ass… Hey! I nearly forgot. We have to put the scar on you today… just a tiny one on the right cheek bone…!' Carl applied fish skin, surgical spirit, liquid rubber and Max Factor blood with great dexterity while 'Missie' complained about her leading man's body odour.

  'Honest, Carl… I can't stand it! It makes my eyes water! Can'
t you have a word with him?'

  'Very difficult, darling,' said Carl. 'But I'll do my best — if we suggest he eats parsley all day long he may get offended.'

  'I dread the love scenes,' sighed 'Missie'. 'The poor boy's so nervous… that's probably the reason.'

  'Why don't you give him a piece?' said Carl — 'he's obviously got the hots for you — that might do the trick… you know… relax the poor bastard?'

  'Out! out! out!' came a high-pitched squeal from the dressing-room door and, clapping his hands, in swished 'Frankie' the head hair stylist. 'Verg, darling, move your beautiful black ass and get Mother a cup of coffee.'

  'Yes, Ma'am,' giggled Vergis not to be outdone.

  'Out! "Wrecking Crew" I say, and leave this old bag to me.' 'It's all yours, Buddy,' grinned Carl good-naturedly. 'Our girl needs help today, Frankie, so fluff her up and pray for back-lighting… See you on the set, darling.' He withdrew. Frankie soon had a mouthful of hairpins and was working with professional mastery at incredible speed. He never drew breath.

  'Saturday night is bath night for me,. sweetheart… only two more days and I'll be in the full black nightie with one of Hedy's wigs on…'

  'Missie' had heard it all before and she knew that two evenings hence middle-aged Frankie would be sitting hopefully on a tacky stool in Ricky's dingy bar on the Sunset Strip checking on the 'studs' and 'scores' through a tangerine twilight of smoke, fluttering his eyelashes at the bikeless motor cyclists in their shiny outfits and the horseless cowboys in their unaccustomed buckles and boots. She only half listened to the depressing 'drag' talk and the boasts of 'juice' and 'joints', 'Bennies' and conquests.

  She changed the subject. 'I didn't think much of the "dailies" last night,' she said.

  'Nor did Mother, sweetheart,' Frankie replied… 'Between them, that Camera-Queen and Mrs. Director really gave you a fucking you looked ninety!'