A Touch of Stardust (2 page)

“Young woman, you’ve arrived too late,” a strong voice boomed out. “Your message preceded you.”

She whirled around and found herself staring into the face of the man who ruled this world of make-believe—everything and everyone in it.

David O. Selznick. Nobody called him David; he was too magisterial for that. He wasn’t an exceptionally tall man. His brows were thick and dark; his hair was receding. His steel-rimmed glasses had slipped down slightly onto his nose, which gave him a kind of professorial look. But the eyes behind those glasses would have burned through mere students; there was nothing benign about them.

And right now, they were staring at her. All Julie could do was stutter.

“Not her fault—the fire department wouldn’t let her through,” said the man who had brought her up here. His tone was casual but matter-of-fact.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Selznick—” she managed, thrusting forward the message.

Selznick glanced at it, frowning impatiently; he raised his hand, to bat away her words like so many flies. He turned, facing out toward the sky turned orange by the conflagration consuming the back lot of Selznick International Pictures. His chest swelled; his expression turned into pure delight.

“Great scene, isn’t it?” he said happily, sweeping a wide arc with his hand to take in the scope of the fire.

All the observers crowded on the platform clapped in approving unison. Selznick had done it again, crazy though he might be. Brilliant, of course. But crazy.

“And how about
this
lovely lady?” Selznick turned his back on the inferno and gazed with calculated appreciation at a woman standing next to him. “Just so you know,” he said, with a nod in Julie’s direction, “this message was supposed to alert me to the visit of my young British beauty here, but she arrived before you did. Usually, I don’t like surprises. Tonight was an exception. May I introduce England’s treasure, the stunning Miss Vivien Leigh?”

Oh Lord, was he talking to her? No, he was addressing the crowd. Julie stared at the actress. Everything about her was tiny—her features, her limbs. Her skin was as luminous as a bed of pearls, and her eyes—almond-shaped, with artfully applied green eye shadow—gave her the appearance of a sleepy cat. The sensuous beige silk dress she wore embraced her amazingly slender waist, then swept out halfway to the floor in sinuous folds. Her smile, as she peeped slyly from under her velvet cloche, was dazzling. With the flames behind her casting their flickering light, she could have just stepped by magic from the pages of a Civil War history book.

“Scarlett?” Julie breathed.

A titter of laughter from some of the people on the platform
greeted her words. Julie flushed. She had assumed too much. The part of Scarlett O’Hara in
Gone with the Wind
was not yet cast.

But Vivien Leigh’s delight at her blurted response was evident. Who here could know how many hours she had spent in front of a mirror, while coming over from England to America on the
Queen Mary
, practicing the expressions of the imagined Scarlett, coaxing her alive? “I hope you’re listening, David,” she cooed, flouncing her skirt in a saucy gesture. Her dress billowed out, forcing some on the platform—slightly nervous about being swept over the side—to move out of the way.

Selznick laughed hugely, then tossed a dismissive glance at Julie. “You can go, my dear. The fact is, I don’t tolerate tardiness, not among the employees of my studio. But I’m sure you’ll find work somewhere else. And you can tell your friends back home you met the very beautiful and clever Vivien Leigh.”

Julie turned to go, mortified. She was fired; he had just fired her. She straightened her posture, willing herself not to cry. No, she wasn’t going back home. Not even the famous Mr. Selznick could make that happen. She was here to make a new life for herself, away from the stifling proprieties of Fort Wayne, Indiana. She mustn’t buckle with the first setback.

As Julie reached for the ladder, she caught sight of a blond woman slouching casually at the railing. Beside her was a man with dark, thick hair and a carefully clipped mustache. His arms were folded tightly in front of a formidable chest. Julie registered a quiver of recognition, but her attention turned quickly back to the woman by his side. There was something about her—her demeanor, mainly. She seemed indifferent to the congratulatory hum of the crowd around Selznick. Her honey-colored hair looked real, not from a peroxide bottle, and obviously no stylist had dressed her. The linen shirt and wrinkled slacks she wore were probably from Bullocks Wilshire, but they looked as casual as the ones Julie bought at Ayres’s department store back home.

“Friend of yours, Andy?” the woman asked her guide up onto the platform, nodding in Julie’s direction. Her eyes were kind; her voice was throaty, amused.

“From childhood,” he said with a straight face. “Very talented.”

“Then get her a typing job. You’ve got plenty of people churning out scenes.”

“They rewrite too fast—clean pages are useless. How about her helping out you and Clark?”

She shrugged. “If you can sneak her past David.”

“Maybe with a black wig?”

She laughed. “That’s a guaranteed disguise; do it.”

“I don’t want to wear a—” Julie began, confused.

“Just a joke,” she said.

“Okay,” Julie said, now thoroughly embarrassed.

“Just do what Andy tells you,” the woman continued. “He’ll put in a word with the right person. Right, Andy?” This was said in a casual tone, and the very self-confident Andy answered just as casually:

“Right,” he said.

She turned to Julie. “Don’t despair, sweetie. Everybody gets fired by David sooner or later, but Andy is his right-hand man, and he’ll get you fixed up. At the rate our Mr. Selznick is going, this movie might provide all of you with lifetime jobs of one sort or another.”

“Doesn’t mean everyone gets what they want,” her companion interjected.

The blonde shrugged and gifted him with a tender smile. But that didn’t stop her from casting a scornful glance at Selznick. Not quite daggers, but definitely scorn.

“I’ll handle it,” Andy said, then tugged Julie away and down the ladder before she could say another word.

They faced each other on the ground. “What just happened?” Julie asked.

“You won’t be fired—you’ll see. Just toss out the name of your glamorous protector tomorrow and Selznick’s office will have you back delivering messages in no time. A piece of advice, kid. Don’t ever apologize to Selznick—he hates that. Meeting her was a stroke of luck for you.”

“Who is she?”

His eyes widened, and then he laughed. “You
are
a babe in the
woods. She’s actually quite an innovator—one of the first to avoid getting her head chopped off by the studio heads for living in scandal. Around here—don’t you know?—the morality police rule everything. They’ll drop an actress whose love life gets exposed by the nasty gossip columnist Louella in a minute. This one is a star member of Hollywood’s Unmarried Husbands and Wives—they actually call it that in
Photoplay
—haven’t you heard of it?”

Julie shook her head. She had a lot to learn, even if she had no silly dream of tap-dancing her way to stardom.
That
small fantasy had disappeared the first time she smeared orange Tangee lipstick on her lips. Quite an experience—staring into a mirror and seeing a Kewpie doll staring back. That sight made it easier to accept her mother’s verdict that she was neither beautiful nor talented. A relief, actually. It had given her permission to be a campus bookworm at Smith and ignore the absence of handsome suitors from Princeton or Harvard. There was, of course, always in the back of her mind the safety of the high-school boyfriend back home. She still felt a stab of guilt at the outcome of that.

“I’m no babe in the woods, and I’m out to learn as much as I can,” she said as firmly as she could. “In my world, if you don’t ask questions, you stay ignorant.”

He seemed delighted with her defense. “Julie, my dear young, fresh Julie”—he paused, rolling her name experimentally over his tongue—“that was Carole Lombard, the Queen of Screwball Comedies. Excellent actress. You’re right: keep asking questions. But don’t feel too sorry for yourself—she was turned down for the role of Scarlett, so how do you think she feels?”

“Not good, I suppose.”

“Right. And the man standing next to her is the King of Hollywood—the future Rhett Butler, otherwise known as Clark Gable. She’s long divorced, so they can marry, but his decoupling is still dragging on. Drives Selznick crazy. He’s afraid of scandal, but he wants to keep Gable happy. He invited Carole up today to mollify both of them.”

“He looks different than he does on the screen,” Julie said. Not
recognizing Carole Lombard and Clark Gable? It branded her totally.

“They all look different when you see them in the flesh. Thinner, fatter, shorter—lots of the men are shorter. They stand on buckets for love scenes.”

“Not Gable—he’s tall.”

“A mark of authenticity. And, as further introduction, I am Andy Weinstein, an assistant producer working with the amazing Mr. David O. Selznick, here to work on the as yet nonexistent
Gone with the Wind
, which is a sloppy monster of a movie with an unfinished script that lots of people predict will go down as the biggest disaster in film history. Got that?”

So he wasn’t just handsome, he was smart and sort of funny; she was intimidated, so her instinct was to push back. “Well, I loved the book, just like everybody else in the country, and I think it will be a magnificent movie,” she said.

“Ah, a contrary streak. Well, let’s hope you’re right. Now, before you slink away to nurse your wounds, will you let me take you to dinner?”

He really did have a jaunty smile; it warmed the shadows in his eyes.

He probably wouldn’t pass muster back home in Fort Wayne, Indiana. But she wasn’t there, she was here, so she could toss
that
bit of caution into the trash. Adventure and opportunity—wasn’t that what she was looking for? She could either have dinner with this man and learn something, or declare herself a coward and go back to the rooming house and eat tuna fish on toast—the posted dinner for tonight.

“Yes,” she said. She sounded a little calmer than she felt, or—at least—so she hoped. And, as he was to tell her later, she sealed the deal by lifting her chin high and adding, “Just as long as it’s somewhere glamorous.”

They drove up from Culver City to Sunset Boulevard, then east toward Vine Street. It was a balmy night, once they were past the haze of the studio fire. Julie cranked down the window of Andy’s gleaming blue DeSoto coupe and peered out at all the glittering neon signs looming above the palm trees, trying not to appear too awed by it all.

“See over there?” he said, lifting one hand from the steering wheel as they turned off Sunset, pointing. She spotted a huge billboard of a woman’s head illuminated over a darkened building. People on the street were slowing their pace and staring upward. No wonder. An even larger neon sign next to the one of the woman proclaimed
THROUGH THESE PORTALS PASS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRLS IN THE WORLD
.

“That’s Earl Carroll’s latest supper theater,” Andy said. “He went broke in New York, but we’re all about second chances out here. They don’t open until after Christmas, or we’d go there and take in a show.”

“So does that mean if I walk in there someone will wave a magic wand and turn me into one of the Most Beautiful Girls in the World?”

“All you have to do is believe,” he said lightly. “Is that a little skepticism I’m hearing in your voice?”

“Do you believe?”

He laughed. “Well, I gave up a long time ago on Santa Claus, so you may have spotted something. All I’m doing is showing you the different kinds of magic we of the entertainment industry can offer.”

She liked the dryness of his tone, which was somewhere between rueful and sarcastic. And also, she realized, quickly changeable.

“So you’re a good Protestant girl? And not put off by my name?”

“Why would I care about that?” she retorted, imagining what her father would say right now. Something like, “Weinstein, huh?” Then he would snap his evening paper smartly and frown his disapproval. He was good at that.

“No reason,” he said. His tone became playful. “You know, my mother always used to say, ‘Why can’t you meet any nice Jewish girls out there in Hollywood?’ and I told her, ‘Ma, all the girls here are Gentiles, and they all want to be actresses, and they all want to live in Beverly Hills.’ Most of the Jews are writers or film editors and still live in West Hollywood. Some of us have worked our way up to the Hollywood Hills, but give us time.”

He gave such an artless, loose shrug, she laughed. “Thank you for helping me out today,” she said.

“No problem. It was quite a sight, wasn’t it?”

“The fire? Oh yes.”

“Nobody but Selznick would have attempted that,” he said. “He hasn’t even got a full script or a leading lady yet. You can’t help being impressed by his chutzpah.”

“Chutzpah?”

“Audacity. Nerve. It’s Yiddish.” He seemed resigned as he swung a hard right. “We’re going to a place I like on Beverly Boulevard,” he said. “Do you want to be an actress? Please say no.”