American Dreams (31 page)

He leaned back. He was good-looking, with plenty of Irish charm. He spoke beautifully. His smile and his gregarious style made her feel at ease.

'What's your acting experience?' After she summarized it he said, 'Made any other pictures?'

'No, this would be my first.'

i like honesty. 1 know a dozen actresses who'd lie like the very devil to get a part.'

'Can you tell me a little about the picture?'

'I grew up on Cooper's Leather-Stocking tales. I wondered why an Indian should always be portrayed in pictures as the skulking villain. Why Westward Ho 191

not a noble savage? A true Native American hero? So I wrote this scenario.'

He showed the typed yellow foolscap. 'My original title was 'The Lone Indian.' Mr. Pelzer, one of the partners, approves all the scenarios. He wanted money in the title. He said everyone's interested in money.'

After his spurt of confidences Eddie Hearn seemed unable to think of more to say. They stared at each other. He blushed from his throat to his cheekbones. Fritzi smiled sweetly.

'Mr. Hearn, do I dare ask whether you have any interest in hiring me?'

'Yes! Definitely! I like your appearance, I love the way your eyes dance when you smile, and I take David's word that you can act. We'll soon find out, won't we?' She was forced to laugh at his little jest, though its underlying truth was chilling.

'I can offer two, possibly three days of work if we have fine weather.

Wages are four dollars per day. Mr. Kelly also pays for trolleys, the ferry, and your lunch over in Jersey.'

'Who is Mr. Kelly?'

'The other partner. In charge of the money. You know how they say all
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the Irish are merry and whimsical as leprechauns? They never met Kelly.

He squeezes a dollar ten cents out of every dollar we spend.' His cloudy brow suggested it wasn't a well-loved trait.

'Four dollars a day,' Fritzi mused.

'Yes, and - what's wrong?'

She was on her feet, acting her heart out to register disdain. 'Mr. Hearn, you may be under instructions to buy talent cheaply, but the standard salary at the Biograph and other good studios is five dollars a day, regardless of the role. I won't take less.'

'I see.' He gnawed on his lip, tried to keep his expression that of the flint-hearted capitalist. He didn't have it in him. .

,'All right. Five.'

From a drawer he pulled another typed sheet, folded it, and handed it across the desk.

'Please study the scenario. Tuesday morning report to the 129th Street ferry terminal at six-thirty sharp. We'll meet our cameraman in Fort Lee, then proceed to Coytesville - that's a little hamlet several miles farther on.

Dress warmly. This time of year it may be cold even when the sun's well up.'

'Thank you, Mr. Hearn. Thank you very much. I'll do my best to repay your confidence.'

'Everyone calls me Eddie. You must too. See you Tuesday.'

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She floated out of the exchange in a state of bliss. At a shop near Herald Square she treated herself to hot tea and a biscuit. She sat in delicious reverie, imagining how she'd splurge on Christmas presents. Then she pictured all the things she could at last buy for herself. An oval throw rug for the cold, bare floor of her room. A rectangular wall mirror without flaws or cracks.

Underwear.

What contortions and deceptions she'd gone through during lisa's visit so lisa would never see the sorry state of her undergarments. Because of her inept mending, small rips had become lumps of thread hard as pebbles; they hurt when she sat the wrong way. Lace trim on one pair of drawers resembled a fringe of string, and the fabric was worn so thin, a man could have seen everything, had there been a man in the universe who cared to look. New underwear! She gave the thought a whole string
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of Pal Pictures exclamation points. New underwear was better than a gold strike.

Oh, the horizons that opened when you had a job and the huge sum of fifty dollars hidden in a tin box! The thought of lisa's surreptitious gift, the love and generosity it expressed, always turned her teary. The moment in the tea shop was no exception.

She ordered a second pot and unfolded the scenario, noting its wretched typewriting, the many strikeovers.

(1 reel) Scenario by Ed. B. Hearn Jr.

The melodrama opened with Chief White Eagle of the Apache riding up to a general store. A 'genial old-timer' ran the store, together with his 'spunky daughter' (she would have to stand before her new mirror and experiment with various attitudes and faces that might register spunk). An interpolated note said the store interior would be filmed outdoors, using a canvas backdrop supplied by a relative of money man Kelly. This was not going to be high art.

The chief had a sack of gold from the 'tribal mine.' He'd ridden to town to have it assayed. No expert on Indian affairs, Fritzi nevertheless doubted that a people who had been relentlessly harried and nearly annihilated by the United States cavalry had a tribal gold mine to fall back on.

Three skulking bad men spied on the chief as he showed his sack of gold Westward Ho 193

to the storekeeper's daughter. The head ruffian demonstrated by what the scenario termed 'salacious leering7 that he coveted the girl along with the gold. The bad men jumped the chief and fired pistols to make him 'dance'

(Fritzi rolled her eyes and hastily drank some tea).

With the Indian knocked unconscious, girl and gold were abducted. Of course, the chief found and rescued both, in the woods following a 'titanic battle.' The girl clearly adored White Eagle, but he had other business, possibly further excavations of the tribal gold mine. He rode off with a wave and an 'expression of manly stoicism.'

Title card

The Lone Indian Will Return III

Fritzi sighed. Eddie Hearn of Greenwich and Yale had stuffed one too
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many dime novels under his pillow. The scenario was hokum, cheap blood-and-thunder. Did it matter? Shamelessly, she felt that it did not.

She had a part. She was going to act again.

William Gillette fell ill upstate; a week of the Sherlock Holmes tour was canceled. Hobart took leave of his role as the Napoleon of Crime and rushed back to the city from Buffalo - 'the fundament of the world,' as he expressed it to Fritzi. His timing was perfect; she was dying to visit a new style restaurant said to be popular with the acting crowd. She took him to supper.

The Forty-second Street 'Automat' caught their fancy at once. You entered a bright and spotless dining area done in white tile. You laid a tray on a continuous counter and pushed it along in front of little metal-framed windows, each displaying its item of hot or cold food. You paid for each dish separately by putting two pennies or a nickel into a slot. The window sprang open, you placed your purchase on your tray, and a partitioned turntable revolved an identical dish into the window. American ingenuity!

Hobart saw several colleagues dining. He darted off to chat, bow, make a show of confidence while his food got cold. 'Yes, The Tempest is a definite possibility. Belasco is interested.' Fritzi giggled as she broke her kaiser roll. Her friend had never met Belasco.

Finally he came back. He remarked that her decision to investigate the picture studio was wise.

'I'm nervous about next Tuesday, Hobart. Do you think I'll be all right?'

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'If you work hard and don't leaven it with contempt, undoubtedly.'

Stuffed with good food and affection for her bombastic companion, Fritzi took his arm as they left. The cold night air made Hobart's nose shine like a Christmas tree ornament. A wind blowing along Forty-second Street whirled a few snowflakes around them. Hobart squired her to the elevated stairs where they embraced and wished each other luck. They promised to be reunited soon.

'You are a dear girl, Fritzi. I would propose marriage were I younger and, ah, inclined toward the female of the species.'

Fritzi kissed him and ran up the stairs. Hobart walked away jauntily in a cloud of snow swirling under the street light.

37 Blanket Company

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Tuesday's dawn was dark and foggy. Fritzi was in a state of nerves the moment she woke up, said state compounded by a bellyache. Last night she'd treated herself to a meal at a neighborhood saloon, entering by the side door ('Tables for Ladies - Refined Atmosphere'). She'd enjoyed a bowl of navy bean soup followed by liver and onions; she wasn't enjoying the aftermath. Her stomach gurgled like faulty plumbing.

She reached the ferry pier at six-fifteen. Other actors came drifting out of the murk, giving her a close look or casual nod. A pretty black girl in a thin wool coat arrived. She had a friendly face but stood well apart from the others, shivering.

Spears of light pierced the fog: a Stoddard-Dayton with headlamps blazing. Eddie Hearn was at the wheel. Seated next to him, arms folded, was a slight red-faced man in a high celluloid collar and dark gray double breasted suit with a light gray shadow check. He had beautiful thick white hair and a slit of a mouth. Kelly?

A deck hand waved Eddie across the ferry ramp to a parking place.

Eddie jumped out, summoned the others aboard, and performed introductions.

The sour man was indeed Alfred A. (for Aloysius) Kelly. He grunted something to Fritzi while he eyed her up and down. It set her on edge, which was probably the effect he wanted.

A young man with blond hair and a bull neck was introduced as Owen Blanket Company

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Stallings. He was playing the Lone Indian. He looked about as Indian as Lief Eriksson. After shaking Fritzi's hand enthusiastically, he sauntered to the rail and from there continued to smile at her, as though confident it would bowl her over. Handsome men were worse than beautiful women.

Fritzi's father was Noble Royce, a jolly red-nosed old ham wearing a pea coat and watch cap. One sniff and Fritzi decided he'd flavored his morning oatmeal with beer. The leader of the bad men was a wizened, sullen actor, Sam Something.

A Ford F Model touring car chugged out of the fog. The car was several years old and showed it. Doors were dented; one running board sagged.

Eddie hailed the stout and homely young man at the wheel. 'Bill Nix, our chief carpenter and prop man.' On the seat of Nix's car Fritzi noticed three film magazines lashed together. She saw no camera anywhere.

The bell rang, deck hands closed the stern gates, and the ferry churned
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into the Hudson, sounding its horn. Gulls hunting garbage wheeled over the wake. Half a dozen workmen crossing the river with lunch pails eyed the picture people curiously. Kelly called Eddie to the rail with a brusque wave, hectored him in a low voice. Owen Stallings stepped up to Fritzi and tipped his cap.

'Hello again, little lady.'

Stabbed by a cramp at precisely that moment, she retorted, 'Would you mind calling me something else? I hate to be patronized.'

He blinked his big brown eyes. 'Why, sure. Say, are you one of these brassy new women always marching and demanding their rights?'

'You don't approve, Mr. Stallings?'

'No, ma'am, I'm old-fashioned. It's a man's world. What's your name again?'

Fritzi could have rushed to the barricades and fought this fool, but it would get things off to a bad start. She replied calmly. 'Fritzi Crown.'

'Any relation to Crown's beer? Used to drink that by the gallon back in Ohio.'

And his stomach was starting to show it. Big, silly ox - all those good looks and he didn't know how to use them.

'Yes, my father owns the brewery. I'm a little chilly. I think I'll sit in the car if you don't mind.'

'Sure, Fritzi, I'll see you later,' he said with another tip of his cap.

She climbed into the backseat of the Stoddard-Dayton. She noticed the black girl standing near, smiled at her. 'Cold, isn't it?'

Tllsav.'

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Fritzi patted the seat. 'You're welcome here, there's plenty of room.'

'I'm not supposed to sit next to white folks.'

'Who says?'

'Practically the whole world.'

'Doesn't include me.' Fritzi pushed the handle to open the door. 'Sit.'

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Gratefully the girl climbed in. She introduced herself as Nell Spooner, in charge of the wardrobe trunk lashed to the back of the Ford. Once she discovered that Fritzi wouldn't bite, she chatted freely. She was a native New Yorker, she said, born on Thompson Street, in a district called Little Africa.

'We live in Harlem now, Lenox and 134th -- practically the country.

Daddy's pastor of St. Jude's Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. He says this picture business is tainted and godless.' Nell frowned. 'I tell him work's work.'

'Exactly,' Fritzi said. She noticed Sam Something giving them disgusted looks, and she stared right back. With a sneer he opened his morning Post.

The Jersey palisades loomed. The ferry docked, and the autos drove along a road at the base of spectacular cliffs for a distance of about three miles. Then the road slanted up the face of the palisade to the high bluff.

Eddie asked them all to get out and walk. The cars lurched and wheezed and hesitated frequently during the climb. Sam Something complained about walking, and about the temperature, although the morning was beginning to feel more like a chilly October day than early December.

At the summit the actors rode again, bumping through pleasant countryside to Fort Lee. It wasn't much of a place, drab buildings along a dirt street. A trolley track ran down the middle, and telephone and trolley wires criss-crossed above. A few New Jersey rustics idled on the sidewalks.

They

turned off on a side street, reached a stable where Eddie jumped out to greet a ruddy middle-aged man with orange hair turning white around his ears. The man had evidently arrived in a closed delivery wagon that once might have carried milk or meat; now its wooden sides were painted over.

'Everybody, this is Jock Ferguson, our cameraman. Anyone follow you, Jock?'