A Stranger in the Mirror (25 page)

Toby and Jill were watching a young comedian on television. "He's rotten," Toby snorted. "Damn it, I wish I could get back on the air. Maybe I oughta get an agent. Somebody who could check around town and see what's doing." "No!" Jill's tone was firm. "We're not going to let anyone peddle you. You're not some bum looking for a job. You're Toby Temple. We're going to make them come to you." Toby smiled wryly and said, "They're not beating down the doors, baby." "They will be," Jill promised. "They don't know what shape you're in. You're better now than you ever were. We just have to show them." ... "Maybe I should pose in the nude for one of those magazines." Jill was not listening. "I have an idea," she said slowly. "A one-man show." "Huh?" "A one-man show." There was a growing excitement in her voice. "I'm going to book you into the Hunrington Hartford Theatre. Everybody in Hollywood will come. After that, they'll start beating down the doors!"

And everybody in Hollywood did come: producers, directors, stars, critics -- all the people in show business who mattered. The theater on Vine Street had long since been sold out, and hundreds of people had been turned away. There was a cheering mob outside the lobby when Toby and Jill arrived in a chauffeur-driven limousine. He was their Toby Temple. He had come back to them from the dead, and they adored him more than ever. The audience inside the theater was there partly out of respect for a man who had been famous and great, but mostly out of curiosity. They were there to pay final tribute to a dying hero, a burnt-out star. Jill had planned the show herself. She had gone to O'Hanlon and Rainger, and they had written some brilliant material, beginning with a monologue kidding the town for burying Toby while he was still alive. Jill had approached a song-writing team that had won three Academy Awards. They had never written special material for anyone, but when Jill said, "Toby insists you're the only writers in the world who.'.." Dick Landry, the director, flew in from London to stage the show. Jill had assembled the finest talent she could find to back up Toby, but in the end everything would depend on the star himself. It was a one-man show, and he would be alone on that stage. The moment finally arrived. The house lights dimmed, and the theater was filled with that expectant hush that precedes the ringing up of the curtain, the silent prayer that on this night magic would happen. It happened. As Toby Temple strolled out onto the stage, his gait strong and steady, that familiar impish smile lighting up that boyish face, there was a momentary silence and then a wild explosion of applause and yelling, a standing ovation that rocked the theater for a full five minutes. . Toby stood there, waiting for the pandemonium to subside, and when the theater was finally still, he said, "You call that a reception?" And they roared. He was brilliant. He told stories and sang and danced, and he attacked everybody, and it was as though he had never been gone. The audience could not get enough of him. He was still a superstar, but now he was something more; he had become a living legend. The Variety review the next day said, "They came to bury Toby Temple, but they stayed to praise him and cheer him. And how he deserved it! There is no one in show business who has the old master's magic. It was an evening of ovations, and no one who was fortunate enough to be there is likely ever to forget that memorable..." The Hollywood Reporter review said, "The audience was there to see a great star come back, but Toby Temple proved he had never been away." All the other reviews were in the same panegyric vein. From that moment on, Toby's phones rang constantly. Letters and telegrams poured in with invitations and offers. They were beating the doors down.

Toby repeated his one-man show in Chicago and in Washington and New York; everywhere he went, he was a sensation. There was more interest in him now than there had ever been. In a wave of affectionate nostalgia, Toby's old movies were shown at art theaters and at universities. Television stations had a Toby Temple Week and ran his old variety shows. There were Toby Temple dolls and Toby Temple games and Toby Temple puzzles and jokebooks and T-shirts. There were endorsements for coffee and cigarettes and toothpaste. Toby did a cameo in a musical picture at Universal and was signed to do guest appearances on all the big variety shows. The networks had writers at work, competing to develop a new Toby Temple Hour. The sun was out once more, and it was shining on Jill. There were parties again, and receptions and this ambassador and that senator and private screenings and... Everybody wanted them for everything. They were given a dinner at the White House, an honor usually reserved for heads of state. They were applauded wherever they appeared. But now it was Jill they were applauding, as well as Toby. The magnificent story of what she had done, her feat of singlehandedly nursing Toby bade to health against all odds, had stirred the imagination of the world. It was hailed by the press as the love story of the century. Time Magazine put them both on the cover, with a glowing tribute to Jill in the accompanying story.

A five-million-dollar deal was made for Toby to star in a new weekly television variety show, starting in September, only twelve weeks away. "We'll go to Palm Springs so that you can rest until then," Jill said. Toby shook his head. "You've been shut in long enough. We're going to live a little." He put his arms around her and added, "I'm not very good with words, baby, unless they're jokes. I don't know how to tell you what I feel about you. I -- I just want you to know that I didn't start living until the day I met you." And he abruptly turned away, so that Jill could not see the tears in his eyes. Toby arranged to tour his one-man show in London, Paris and -- the greatest coup of all -- Moscow. Everyone was fighting to sign him. He was as big a cult figure in Europe as he was in America.

They were out on the fill, on a sunny, sparkling day, headed for Catalina. There were a dozen guests aboard the boat, among them Sam Winters and O'Hanlon and Rainger, who had been selected as the head writers on Toby's new television show. They were all in the salon, playing games and talking. Jill looked around and noticed that Toby was missing. She went out on deck. Toby was standing at the railing, staring at the sea. Jill walked up to him and said, "Are you feeling all right?" "Just watching the water, baby."

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"It's beautiful, isn't it?" "If you're a shark." He shuddered. "That's not the way I want to die. I've always been terrified of drowning." She put her hand in his. "What's bothering you?" He looked at her. "I guess I don't want to die. I'm afraid of what's out there. Here, I'm a big man. Everybody knows Toby Temple. But out there...? You know my idea of Hell? A place where there's no audience."

The Friars Club gave a Roast with Toby Temple as Ae guest of honor. A dozen top comics were on the dais, along with Toby and Jill, Sam Winters and the head of the network that Toby had signed with. Jill was asked to stand up and take a bow. It became a standing ovation. They're cheering me, Jill thought. Not Toby. Me! The master of ceremonies was the host of a famous nighttime television talk show. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see Toby here," he said. "Because if we weren't honoring him here tonight, we'd be holding this banquet at Forest Lawn." Laughter. "And believe me, the food's terrible there. Have you ever eaten at Forest Lawn? They serve leftovers from the Last Supper." LaughterHe turned to Toby. "We really are proud of you, Toby. I mean that. I understand you've been asked to donate a part of your body to science. They're going to put it in a jar at Ae Harvard Medical School. The only problem so far is that they haven't been able to find a jar big enough to hold it." Roars. When Toby got up for his rebuttal, he topped them all. Everyone agreed that it was the best Roast Ae Friars had ever held.

Clifton Lawrence was in Ae audience Aat night. He was seated at a table in Ae back of Ae room near the kitchen wiA Ae oAer unimportant people. He had been forced to impose on old friendships to get even this table.

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Ever since Toby Temple had fired him, Clifton Lawrence had worn the label of a loser. He had tried to make a partnership deal with a large agency. With no clients, however, he had nothing to offer. Then Clifton had tried the smaller agencies, but they were not interested in a middle-aged has-been; they wanted aggressive young men. In the end, Clifton had settled for a salaried job with a small new agency. His weekly salary was less than what he had once spent 'is one evening at Romanoff's. He remembered his first day at the new agency. It was owned by three aggressive young men -- no, kids -- all of them in their late twenties. Their clients were rock stars. Two of the agents were bearded, and they all wore jeans and sport shirts and tennis shoes without socks. They made Clifton feel a thousand years old. They spoke in a language he did not understand. They called him "Dad" and "Pop" and he thought of the respect he had once commanded in this town, and he wanted to weep. The once dapper, cheerful agent had become seedylooking and bitter. Toby Temple had been his whole life, and Clifton talked about those days compulsively. It was all he thought about. That and Jill. Clifton blamed her for everything that had- happened to him. Toby could not help himself; he had been influenced by that bitch. But, oh, how Clifton hated Jill. He was sitting in the back of the room watching the crowd applaud Jill Temple when one of the men at the table said, "Toby's sure a lucky bastard. I wish I had a piece of that. She's great in bed." "Yeah?" someone asked, cynically. "How would you know?" "She's in that porno flick at the Pussycat Theatre. Hell, I thought she was going to suck the guy's liver out of him." Clifton's mouth was suddenly so dry that he could hardly get out the words. "Are you -- are you sure it was JiJI Castle?" be asked. The straoger turned to him. "Sure, I'm sure. She used another name -- Josephine something. A crazy Polack name."

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He stared at Clifton and said, "Hey! Didn't you used to be Clifton Lawrence?"

There is an area of Santa Monica Boulevard, bordering between Fairfax and La Cienega, that is County territory. Part of an island surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, it operates under County ordinances, which are more lenient than those of the City. In one six-block area, there are four movie houses that run only hard-core pornography, half a dozen bookshops where customers can stand in private booths and watch movies through individual viewers and a dozen massage parlors staffed with nubile young girls who are experts, at giving everything except massages. The Pussycat Theatre sits in the midst of it all. There were perhaps two dozen people in the darkened theater, all of them men except for two women who sat holding hands. Clifton looked around at the audience and wondered what drove these people to darkened caverns in the middle of a sunny day, to spend hours watching images of other people fornicating on film. The main feature came on, and Clifton forgot everything except what was up on the screen. He leaned forward in his seat, concentrating on the face of each actress. The plot was about a young college professor who smuggled his female students into his bedroom for night classes. All of them were young, surprisingly attractive and incredibly endowed. They went through a variety of sexual exercises, oral, vaginal and anal, until the professor was as satisfied as his pupils. But none of the girls was Jill. She has to be there, Clifton thought. This was the only chance he would ever have to avenge himself for what she had done to him. He would arrange for Toby to see the film. It would hurt Toby, but he would get over it. Jill would be destroyed. When Toby learned what kind of whore he had married, he would throw her out on her ass. Jill had to be in this film. And suddenly, there she was--on the wide screen, in wonderful, glorious, living color. She had changed a great deal. She was thinner now, more beautiful and more sophisticated. But it was Jill. Clifton sat there, drinking in the scene,

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reveling in it, rejoicing and feasting his senses, filled with an electrifying sense of triumph and vengeance. Clifton remained in his seat undl the credits came on. There it was, Josephine Czinski. He got to his feet and made his way back to the projection booth. A man in shirt sleeves was inside the small room, reading a racing form. He glanced up as Clifton entered and said, "No one's allowed in here, buddy." "I want to buy a print of that picture." The man shook his head. "Not for sale." He went back to his handicapping. "I'll give you a hundred bucks to run off a dupe. No one will ever know." The man did not even look up. "Two hundred bucks," Clifton said. The projectionist turned a page. "Three hundred." He looked up and studied Clifton. "Cash?" "Cash."

At ten o'clock the following morning, Clifton arrived at Toby Temple's house with a can of film under his arm. No, not film, he'thought happily. Dynamite. Enough to blou fill Castle to hell. The door was opened by an English butler Clifton had not seen before. "Tell Mr. Temple that Clifton Lawrence is here to see him." "I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Temple is not here." "I'll wait," Clifton said firmly. The butler replied, "I'm afraid that won't be possible. Mr. and Mrs. Temple left for Europe this morning."

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32

Europe was a succession of triumphs. The night of Toby's opening at the Palladium in London, Oxford Circus was jammed with crowds frantically trying to get a glimpse of Toby and Jffl. The entire area around Argyll Street had been cordoned off by the metropolitan police. When the mob got out of hand, mounted police were hastily summoned to assist. Precisely at the stroke of eight o'clock, the Royal Family arrived and the show began. Toby exceeded everyone's wildest expectations. His face beaming with innocence, he brilliantly attacked the British government and its old-school-tie smugness. He explained how it had managed to become less powerful than Uganda and how it could not have happened to a more deserving country. They all roared with laughter, because they knew that Toby Temple was only joking. He did not mean a word of it. Toby loved them. As they loved him.

The reception in Paris was even more tumultuous. Jill and Toby were guests at the President's Palace and were driven around the city in a state limousine. They could be seen on the front pages of the newspapers every day, and when they appeared at the theater, extra police had to be called out to control the crowds. At the end of Toby's performance, he and Jill were being escorted toward their waiting limousine when suddenly the mob broke through the police guard and hundreds of Frenchmen descended on them, screaming, "Toby,