A Touch of Stardust (29 page)

“Okay, gang, let’s take a look.” It was Goldman, who had disappeared for a long lunch and was now back in the room. He glanced at Julie as he petted the languid Sammy, again curled beneath his chair. “Sammy get his business done?” he asked.

She nodded.

Goldman started collecting the script drafts, chatting cheerfully, joking with the men as they rose and headed back to the main table. She handed him hers, which was barely three pages long.

He raised an eyebrow. “A master of brevity?” he said.

She managed a smile and took her seat at the table again.

“Okay, let’s look at our little lady’s first offering here; fine with you guys?”

The men all nodded.

“So we’ve got Joe O’leary in jail for murder, getting into trouble after a food fight.…” He frowned. “Not sure about the name ‘O’Leary.’ The Irish all want to see themselves as priests these days. Food fight? Wouldn’t a knife fight be better?”

A man at the end of the table—with a round face scorched an unhealthy shade of red—spoke up. “I envision a gang; they break out through an old sewage tunnel. They get caught—who ratted on them?”

Goldman smiled. “I like that.”

Another voice from the end of the table: “Look, we’ve got a rogue guard who kills his best buddy from grammar school—he’s in for robbery, and—”

It went like that for the next three hours. Two more trips to the typewriters. By the time the afternoon was waning, the idea intriguing Goldman the most involved three ex-convicts opening a grocery store in Abilene, Texas. Tomorrow they would probably be two cops.

It didn’t feel like a job, it felt like a game. And maybe it was, she thought as she walked slowly out beneath the grand MGM arch. Maybe they were all acting, and Goldman knew the outcome already, and what was her role in all this, anyway?

She couldn’t talk to Andy, not tonight. They had a date for Friday, but the pace on
Gone with the Wind
was growing faster and more fraught with tension every day. She was on her own for a while.

Julie climbed up the streetcar steps and was grateful to find an empty seat among the tired-looking commuters alternately dozing and staring out the window. The bell clanged; they were off. At least she was in a real world. Anyway, Rose would be eager to hear all about the enthralling start of her job as an MGM scriptwriter. So how would she respond?

That was easy: old Sammy had been the best part of the day. And for some tucked-away reason, that tickled her so, she almost had to laugh.

Andy arched an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. “Julie Crawford, screenwriter—whining about your chosen profession
already
?”

Friday night, her first week over—she had been looking forward to this. And here, finally, was Andy—she could tell him everything as they sat together in a Chasen’s booth. One week now of learning how to read Goldman’s mind and give him what he wanted. It was so crazy, wasn’t it? She was trying to speak up in good old Room 632, but they all looked baffled when she threw out an idea.
Sometimes she wondered if anybody except Goldman actually
saw
her; besides, she didn’t quite get the point of the constantly changing bad-guy script.

And now Andy was challenging her. “I’m not whining,” she protested.

Andy swallowed the last of his martini and signaled the waiter. “Sounds like it to me. Look, it’s been a rough week for me, too. Remember, you wanted this.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “That’s your third martini,” she said.

“Oh, I can do better than that. At least they’re not doubles.” He shot her a jaunty grin. “Sorry, but this movie is a bitch.”

His rough-edged tone was new. Julie looked closely at him, realizing he had a twitch under one eye. His hand holding the martini glass was shaking slightly. She knew from Carole that everybody was expecting Selznick to fall apart any day, that only drugs and liquor were keeping him stitched together. Andy, too?

“How much longer until it’s finished?” she asked.

“We’ll wrap retakes by the end of August, I think.”

She reached for his hand, wanting to still the tremor.

“Look, I’m not good for you,” he said. “You shouldn’t waste your time—”

“Don’t say that again,” she interrupted. “You get tired and depressed and then you think that I’m going to fall apart on you, and that’s not going to happen.”

The waiter was now hovering. Andy lifted his glass. “No doubts? Even if I order another one?”

It was a challenge, and it startled her. “I’m not crossing swords with you on this,” she said.

The waiter took his empty glass and hurried away.

“You deserve better. You’ve had a rough first week, and you should be getting some sympathy, and I’m not giving it.”

“Well, why don’t you try?”

He looked her full in the face now, his eyes steady on hers. “Ah, a gauntlet thrown. Okay, I will, starting right now.”

“Well?” She felt a nervous smile tugging at her lips.

“My dear Julie”—he reached out with his hand and cupped hers—“Abe Goldman is a jackass for not knowing how to use your talents best. And it will get easier as you get grounded. Honest.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The fourth martini arrived. He stared at it and then deliberately set it aside. “Would you like to come watch filming tomorrow? It’s a big scene for Vivien,” he said. “They won’t have the theme music dubbed in yet, but it’s going to be spectacular.”

Julie nodded, feeling somewhat breathless. Being with Andy sometimes felt like swinging on a trapeze quite high above the ground.

Saturday morning, sunny, with a bite in the air. Appropriate. Once again, if Julie inhaled deeply, her throat constricted with the tension reverberating across the soundstage at Selznick International Pictures. It was only eight o’clock, earlier than most shoots, but Selznick was relentless in keeping up the pace—as everyone knew.

Andy’s eyes lit up as he saw Julie slip into a chair. A dip of his head his only acknowledgment.

She spied Vivien Leigh standing aside, bedraggled, her clothes limp and dirty, her hands cupped over her mouth, eyes cast down. Behind her, a comforting hand on her shoulder, stood Vivien’s lover, the dark-eyed, stunningly handsome Laurence Olivier. So Selznick had allowed him on the set this once; that’s how important getting the right performance from Vivien was today.

Off to the side, Hattie McDaniel waited, arms crossed, staring at the floor. The set was a mix: a shambles of a wrecked house and, a few steps away, a flat piece of earth. A broken, skeletal fence. A stark, naked tree against a backdrop. Electricians were fumbling with floodlights.

“Move those spots; she’s got to be in complete silhouette,” Fleming ordered. The electricians hurried to obey. They tested the color.

“Intensify it,” growled Selznick. “Make the light of that sun the
color of fire. Flames, flames—everything has been destroyed. It’s a sky of anger, the sun setting on a way of life. Get it right.” The electricians nodded, adjusted again. Nobody questioned the orders of these two masters.

The hum of voices quieted. Fleming took his director’s chair; Selznick, next to him, sat in rigid form, straight up, staring at the set. Julie knew what everyone was praying: Don’t find anything wrong, not now.

“You ready, Vivien?” Fleming’s voice, though not relaxed, was calm.

“Yes,” said the drab, worn woman in the shadows.

The clap:
SCENE: HUNGER, TAKE ONE—VIVIEN

Scarlett has escaped from the burning of Atlanta and made her way back to Tara. War has ruined everything. Her family and the remaining servants are all sick and starving. Dazed, she moves out to a barren stretch of land, a field scorched by war. The light glows behind her, casting her into stark silhouette. She leans down and pulls a root from the ground. A carrot, a turnip—withered, unedible. She crumbles, broken, her head down above the land, crying—finally, crying. And then she stands
.

Vivien’s voice cries out from the soundstage, filled with torment and ferocity. “I’m going to live through this. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”

“Cut,” commanded Fleming.

For a long moment, no one said anything. Vivien was still standing in the makeshift field, breathing hard, and tears streamed down her face. She took a deep breath; wiped them away.

“Don’t ask me to do that again, David,” she said calmly, staring at Selznick. “You’ve got everything I have to give.”

Selznick was motionless in his canvas chair. Olivier stepped forward, his arm around Vivien, staring at Selznick, silently daring him to try demanding his usual multiple retakes.

The set was very quiet as Selznick picked up the unnecessary bullhorn by his side and put it to his mouth.

“That’s it for the day,” he said. “Great job.”

Vivien strolled off the set with Olivier, walking in the direction of her dressing room. Even with scraggly hair and a dirty face, she was beautiful. As she passed Julie, she winked. She was breathing deeply, almost defiantly.

Of course. As moved by the scene as she was, even with tears in her eyes, Julie couldn’t help smiling: Scarlett’s cry of defiance had come from a body unrestrained by a tight corset—and there were no tapings squeezing her two perfectly respectable-sized breasts together. You win this one, Vivien, she told herself.

Andy was at her side, looking tired and relieved. “We’re getting there, we’re actually getting there,” he said. His shirt was damp with perspiration. “Pretty good, right?” He looked at her almost eagerly.

“It was terrific,” she said.

“Wait until you hear the music. Max Steiner is working night and day; the one for this scene is called ‘Tara’s Theme.’ Pretty damn good.”

“How can he score the whole movie so fast?”

“He’s got a couple of top composers helping, but if we run out of time, we’ll take some scores from the MGM library,” he said. “Look, we’re done for today. We’ll watch dailies after dinner. I hope there are no scratches on the film—I wouldn’t relish the job of getting Vivien to do it again. Victor invited a few of us out for a couple of beers. Will you come?”

In the middle of the day? Fortunately, she bit her lip to keep from saying the words. God, maybe she was a wimp. A puritanical wimp.