Getting Garbo Read online

  She laughs. Goes off. I start dabbing butter on the toast.

  “Look, Burt was all over me last night, he said I’m going to be the next Tony Curtis. Hey, the next Rock, next Tony, throw in a little next Marlon. I could be an all-star cast, all by myself.”

  Val laughs. That’s what your agent is supposed to do. But he’s my friend, too. I detect a tension in him. “There are still some major deal points open,” he says. Playing with the sugar cubes.

  “But Burt really wants it to go through. That’s our ace. Right?” Val nods. “And Nate says the bullpen is full up, right?” As of last week two other majors and one indie and a TV network are interested in doing business with me.

  “We’ve been coordinating activities closely with Nate—and that’s part of the problem.”

  “I didn’t know there was a problem.”

  “Couple of ’em, actually.” Deep breath. “The agency is in process of reviewing our talent roster. There are some clients for whom we may not be the best choice—as far as servicing goes. Depending on their current career goals.”

  I can’t believe what he’s saying. “Are you guys firing me? Dropping me from your goddamn roster? Just when I’m verging on a really important movie deal?”

  “I’m supposed to recite that gobbledygook double-talk and cut you loose. But between us? Straight talk? It’s Nate.”

  “Look, I know he’s a thorny asshole. But look what he did for me. He—”

  “Roy, the agency is salivating over the commissions they figure you’re about to generate. Hate to lose a penny of ’em. But they’re scared shitless.”

  “Of what? Being too successful?”

  “Of Jack Warner. He’s blaming the whole lawsuit thing on us. He says we put Nate up to it. So as long as you’re a client, he won’t deal with our agency—”

  “Sonuvabitch! I knew he was up to something! C’mon, Val! Don’t let your guys panic. This is just a power play. To punish me. Get you to dump me. You’re playing right into the Colonel’s hands. He’ll fart and holler and two weeks from now he’ll forget all about it.”

  “They’re betting he won’t.”

  “Screw him! I’m gonna have Nate sue the studio for—”

  “The agency will deny what I just said.”

  His cologne scent is curdling with the smell of flop sweat. I feel bad for Val. Don’t kill the messenger. Time to regroup.

  “Okay, the hell with the agency. I can go down the street and pick up ten agents before lunch. But come with me, man. We’ve talked about it before. Use me as a calling card to make a new deal for yourself some other place—or, better yet, don’t be my agent, be my partner, we’ll make movies together.” Like Hecht and Lancaster.

  I’m expecting his lights to go on. They don’t.

  “Guess I’m making an assumption here. Where do we stand in all this, Val? You and me.”

  “I agree with you, Roy. It’s cowardly of the agency to roll over this way.” He looks me right in the eye. I’ll give him that. “But I’m staying with them. Want to know why?”

  “Dying to.”

  “Not for the agency’s reasons. For my own. You had Nate engineer this whole caper without giving me even a hint.”

  “That was the way Nate wanted it! He insisted! He’ll be the first to tell you—”

  “No, Roy, you should have been the first to tell me. I think you ought to be represented by someone you totally trust. And it’s clear that’s not me.”

  Man’s got a point. I see it now. I’d protest if I could. But I can’t. I’m just filled with regret. And dread.

  “Then I’m losing you, huh?”

  He shrugs. There’s pain in his eyes. “You did already.”

  14

  Roy

  “Golly gee! The big fella is just a big crybaby.”

  That’s Nate Scanlon’s considered opinion on Val Dalton’s objections.

  We’re in Ah Fong’s, one of Beverly Hills’ best Chinese restaurants. Owned by Benson Fong, a Chinese actor who made enough money for the down payment by playing Japanese villains during WWII. Nate is delicately devouring an order of minced pigeon in lettuce cups.

  “Val is acting like a spoiled child who’s sore about being snubbed. That’s not businesslike,” Nate says. “There was no choice. If we’d told Val about the end run we were planning, somehow it might have leaked, gotten back to Warners prematurely and spoiled this opportunity.”

  I guess I did the right thing.

  But I’m scared. I feel homeless, rejected, misunderstood and, most of all, guilty. Is this what playing in the big leagues is like? The Warner Bros. poison seems to have spread all over the agency scene. I’ve been discreetly putting out the word that I’m available. Not even a nibble. I sense that everyone who’s anyone is scared to come near me. It’s simple arithmetic to them: the gain of new commissions on one client (me) isn’t worth the potential loss of many Warner commissions on all their other clients (bigger bucks).

  So at a crucial juncture in my career, I’m left without an agent.

  Nate pooh-poohs the problem. Says he’s taking care of business on my behalf. Doing everything an agent would for me. So just relax. “Once we set up your movie deal,” Nate says, “they’ll come running.”

  I tell him that relaxing is easier said than done. He says try the Peking duck.

  The duck is delicious, but I come away from lunch with a case of indigestion that stays with me for the rest of the week. I live for the daily phone calls from Nate and hang on every morsel of optimism in his voice. What’s making me particularly nervous is that the deal with Hecht-Lancaster seems to be fading away. Nate doesn’t say that out loud. “We’re still talking with them,” he says, “but it’s a very complex structural arrangement.”

  “I don’t know what’s so complex if both sides want to make it happen.”

  Despite the assurances that the deal with Burt is alive and well, I worry. Because more and more Nate’s telling me about the status of offers from the other companies. I don’t want to hear about them. I want the Lancaster deal to go through. It’s got to go through.

  I tell Nate that. Again and again. He says there’s no argument, he also wants the Lancaster deal to go through.

  Then on Thursday, he calls to tell me he thinks Paramount may make a firm offer tomorrow. And oh, by the way, the Lancaster negotiations have turned icy. No return to his last calls. I tell him to phone Burt directly. He says I don’t understand. That’s not how it’s done.

  I want to scream at him, but that wouldn’t be businesslike.

  The vein on the left side of my forehead starts to throb. Announcing the start of a doozy of a migraine. I spend the rest of the day at home cozying up to hot and cold compresses and gobbling painkillers. Trying to suppress this feeling I have that I’m the only passenger in a toboggan sled that’s starting down this steep icy mountain with no one in the driver’s seat.

  • • •

  The parking lot next to the UCLA track is almost empty when I pull in. Just a few student bicycles in the rack and one other car. Burt Lancaster’s forest-green Jaguar. I park next to it and look out across the oval. Burt’s already out there running laps. It’s five minutes to sunup.

  I do my stretches then move out onto the track. Be casual. Don’t look anxious. He spots me. Tosses a mock salute. Good sign. Just be cool. A pair of jocks out for a jog. That’s what I’m here for. A workout. Nothing else.

  Yeah, sure.

  He’s moving at a steady pace. Doesn’t look that fast. Until you try to catch up to him. Long legs pumping. Smooth form. Jim Thorpe, in the flesh. Okay. Put on a little steam and I come up alongside him.

  “Pick ’em up, Roy boy, pick ’em up and put ’em down!”

  Is it my imagination or is he stepping up the speed?

  “Got to stay in shape, Roy boy, the body is
your temple. Your synagogue! You take care of your bod, and your bod will take care of you. Kid like you, when I was your age, I could lift that entire building!”

  He’s pointing at Royce Hall. I have no reason to doubt what he’s saying.

  “I’ll start out with duplexes and work my way up,” I say.

  He laughs. Just like in the movies. A boisterous bark. All teeth and a yard wide. He loves being topped. Proof that you’re not afraid of him.

  “Want to talk a little business?” he asks. I nod. “Then step into my office,” he says. Gesturing at the track. “You’re getting fucked, boy. Plain and simple.”

  Suddenly my sneakers seem stuck in cement. I have to force myself to keep up with him. Dreading what he’s going to say, but desperate to hear every word.

  “Jack Warner’s dropped the dime on you, kid. Bunch of dimes. Called all his fellow moguls. Convinced them to make an example of you as a matter of principle. Those cocksuckers who can’t even spell the word principle. He’s tellin’ ’em all that if one TV actor can jump the reservation, others’ll try. Contracts will be meaningless. Blah-blah-blah. God help you, you’ve become a cause, kid.”

  “But you—you run your own operation. You’re an independent. UA doesn’t tell you who to hire. You make all your own decisions. You told me that.”

  “True. All true. However. You’ve caught me at an awkward moment in time. Big secret. My partner, little Harold, and I are in negotiations with MGM. Not for a slate of pictures. To go over to Culver City and run the whole damn studio. What the hell we need it for, I don’t know. But when they want to elect you king, you shouldn’t say no.”

  “Kings aren’t elected,” I say.

  He laughs. Not such a big one. “Smart kid, that’s what I like about you. Street kid. Why I wanted you with us. But—there’s a board of directors we’ll have to answer to at MGM. And our lawyers say it’ll look bad if we’re trying to hire someone who walks away from contracts.”

  “That’s not how it was, Burt, they—”

  “Hey, I’m convinced, boy. On your side. But there’s nothing I can do now. After we get over to MGM, once the dust settles, we’ll do something together then.”

  “Yeah, well—sure. If I’m still available. Just wanted to give you first crack. Got a bunch of other irons in the fire.”

  “Hope they’re still there after Colonel Warner works his way through his phone book.”

  I’m sweating. Not from the run. “What do I do, Burt? What would you do?”

  “Go back to New York. Use your clout as a TV star to get a Broadway play. Make it a hit play, if you can. Wait the fuckers out.”

  “Hide in the atom bomb shelter until they sound the all clear? And by the time I get back out here, everybody’s forgotten who I am. This is my moment! It may never come again!”

  He looks over at me. “I’m sorry, kid. Really. If you need any money to tide you over…”

  “Thanks, Burt—but I was looking for a hand up, not a handout.”

  “Good man. Next time,” he says. “I’ll make it up to you next time.”

  • • •

  The phone is ringing when I get back to my place from UCLA. It’s Merle Heifetz. Remember him? The Jewish leprechaun from Warners’ publicity department. The one who invented Roy the Bad Boy. He’s at the Hotel Bel-Air and has to see me. Like now. I tell him sure, buzz right over. My press agent is coming to my house.

  I grab a quick shower and I’m in my terrycloth robe, toweling my hair, when Heifetz arrives. My pal. The only suit at Warners I trust. It’s not nine-thirty yet, but he looks like he needs a drink. I offer him one. He takes a stiff Scotch. I’m sipping black coffee. And he lays it out for me.

  He was just doing a breakfast interview at the Bel Air dining room with Dave Kaufman of Variety and Jack Warner’s vice president for Research and Planning, some guy I never heard of. The angle of the story they were pitching to Kaufman was this exciting new scientific approach the studio is now taking to predict the popularity and potential of projects.

  “What’s that mean, Merle? A crystal ball from the prop department?”

  “It’s something the ad guys on Madison Avenue came up with. They do questionnaires and surveys and graphs and shit to figure out why we brush our teeth or how we pick the cars we buy. Only now they’re applying the same techniques to movies and TV. It’s called Motivational Research.”

  Frankly, I’m a little bored. What’s got Heifetz so rattled?

  “Roy, I didn’t know where it was going until we’re with Kaufman this morning. This asshole vice president whips out a sheaf of papers—and suddenly he’s using the Jack Havoc show to illustrate how his system works. And he proves, scientifically he says, that the success of the show is not Roy Darnell in the leading role.”

  I laugh. “Then what the hell is it?”

  “According to his graphs, it’s Dave Viola and his comedy riffs, that’s why the show’s been a hit.” I’m not laughing now. “And he says that’s why, based on this research, Warners and the network are going to renew the show—starring Dave Viola and a replacement for you. New character, Jack Havoc’s brother. Their charts and statistics, divided into age groups and income groups and whatever the fuck, indicate that you’ve been kind of holding the show back. A negative factor, he called you.”

  Heifetz knocks back the rest of his Scotch. A big belt. I think I’m going to join him.

  “Honest to God, Roy, I didn’t even have a hint beforehand. I called you as soon as we finished the interview.” He shakes his head. “The bastards are out to incinerate you.”

  “When will this be in the paper? Tomorrow?”

  Heifetz nods. “Kaufman thought it was a real good story.”

  Then we both have stiff doubles. It’s not my days that are numbered. It’s my hours. This time tomorrow morning I will officially be a dead man in Hollywood.

  • • •

  “I’ll bushwhack ’em for you, Roy—if you just tell me who to whack.”

  Killer is dead serious. I think he’s starting to believe his own legend. But don’t read this wrong. When Killer volunteers to do a job on someone, he’s mouthing off and not really talking about homicide. Clipping a drunk in a bar on my behalf is more his speed. But back when we were kids, when I wasn’t a gang kid, he tried to be. Matter of fact, he was one of those fuckers who chased me home after school every day. He was too runty to do much harm barehanded, but he’d clop you with a brick if he could. Funny world, huh? Now Killer’s batting on my team. But kneecapping a guy with a tire iron on a dark night is about as far as he might go.

  It’s a thoughtful offer.

  Thing is I don’t know exactly who to aim him at.

  Jack Warner obviously heads the short list of candidates. But Nate Scanlon warned me not to talk to him under any circumstances. Maybe when I saw the Colonel in the crapper I should have just run. Maybe he wouldn’t be taking it so personally. How about Val Dalton for dereliction of duty? Or the honchos at his agency for fleeing the field of battle? I definitely could focus my wrath on this research turd, Warner’s flunky, who made his mumbo-jumbo numbers dance to the Colonel’s tune. For that matter, I could send Killer after Dave Kaufman, who’s about to sink my canoe by printing all that bullshit in Variety. Nah, I always liked Dave. I’ve been ducking his calls all day. I want to phone him back and give him an earful. But Nate forbids me to do that. Says it’s better for the possible lawsuit that may eventuate if I have no prior knowledge of the libel about to be perpetrated.

  Christ.

  If lawyers spoke simple English, what a lovely world it would be.

  Killer and I have been here all day in my living room. Command post. Chewing over what Burt and Heifetz told me. Manning the phones. Which consists mostly of talking to Nate long distance. He’s in Washington, D.C., at a board meeting for some veteran’s group. When I first tracked
him down there and filled him in, Nate started with the same old reassurances. It’s no big deal. Who believes what they read in the trades anyway? We’ve still got a hopper full of offers. Just sit tight. Ride it out. Blah-blah. But then he starts talking about a fuckin’ lawsuit. I figure it this way: you can’t collect damages unless you’ve been damaged. So get braced. I’m about to get my head kicked in. How’s that for simple English?

  See, perception is the ball game in Hollywood. Never mind how things really are, how do they appear to be? Back in the ’30s a trade paper guy wrote an article calling Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford “box office poison.” The guy probably had nothing else to write about that day and had to fill up space. But the next day the whole town was gossiping, and those three talented ladies had to fight their way back into the business. Took ’em years.

  Perception.

  So here we sprawl and pace and smoke and curse in my rented living room. Me and my childhood pal Kenny the Killer. Plus a limitless supply of Scotch. Handfuls of darvon. If my fuckin’ head doesn’t stop throbbing I may have to go to UCLA Emergency for a shot. Four lines on my phone. But nobody to talk to. Except long distance Nate. And Kim, but she’s at work and can’t talk long. Bogie’s in some tiny town in Italy making a picture. And I’m on the skids. Nate says I’m being dramatic. Maybe I ought to send Killer looking for Nate. For underestimating the enemy (or overestimating his own smarts). But then I’d have to find another lawyer. Hey. Maybe the asshole who deserves to be blamed for this whole mess is—me. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do. Give Killer a direct order to kneecap me. That doesn’t sound like fun. Easier to just blame it all on Bogie’s bogey man. The treacherous tailor. Pincus fuctus.

  So I sit tight. Very tight. Bad day. Good Scotch. I pass out watching Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners. Shaking his fist. “To the moon, Alice, to the moon!”

  By the end of the week, Nate is back from D.C., and all my other offers have evaporated.

  15

  Reva

  I’m not ashamed to tell you, I’m getting desperate.