American Dreams (53 page)

'The leading men are funny, especially Fatty. The twin girls are just foils.'

'Granted, but you're the one I watched. You have crisp moves. Fine timing. You deserve better comic material, something that's well thought out.'

'What, and get hit in the face with blueberry pies all my life?' Fritzi mugged. 'I keep trying to be a serious actress.'

'Nothing more serious than comedy, love. It requires precise planning and flawless execution. Ruthless concentration to achieve both of those ends.'

When he saw her reaction he shrugged. 'You've the wrong attitude, dear one.

On the screen your face shines like a diamond. One can't help watching.'

'That's silly. I'm not pretty.'

'Pretty is common. Worth a penny or two. What you have, a kind of brightness - that's a thousand-dollar bill.'

They reached the end of the pier and leaned on the railing. The full moon, huge and yellow-white, scattered needles of light on the sea. The effect was trite as a stage drop, but beautiful.

Charlie took her hand in his and gave her a soulful look. 'May I tell you something?' His lips tickled her ear as he whispered. 'I find you damnably
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attractive. Would you come back to my hotel room?'

Her heart raced. She was flattered - sorely tempted. He couldn't know how the proposition lifted her spirits. A respectable man found her worth looking at. Now if only Loyal Hardin would . . .

Stroking her hand, he whispered, 'My dear?'

'Charlie, I like you a lot, truly. But not enough to - well, you understand.

I hope you don't think I'm a terrible prude.'

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'If I thought that, I wouldn't have spoken in the first place. Is there someone else, may I ask?'

Fritzi gazed at the ocean. 'I hope so.'

'That's a damned odd answer'

'I know. I'm sorry. I hope we can still be friends.'

'Well, my pride is damaged. I shall just have to take it in stride. God knows I've learned how. My brother Sid and I grew up in the foulest parts of London. We went back and forth between foundling homes so fast and so often we felt like a game of lawn tennis. That kind of upbringing teaches that one can't possibly hope for all the rewards of the world, only a few. A lesson I learned again just now. Of course we'll be friends. I not only like you, I confess that I admire your character, though I'd much prefer.to admire you in my bed.'

He smiled and batted his eyes. She laughed again. She liked this brash little fellow.

'Shall we go back?' he said. She took his arm as they walked up the pier in the moonlight. The calliope played 'Over the Waves.' The pretty colored lights of the wheel revolved in the night. The Cloud Race rattled and dived.

'How pleasant it is to be out here,' she said, tasting the salty air. 'I won't forget this evening.'

. 'Oh, I expect most of it will slip away,' Charlie said. 'We're in a hectic business. Just don't forget what I said about being funny.'

62 Inceville

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In March 1914, Pathe premiered the first episode of a chapter play called The Perils of Pauline. Overnight, an actress named Pearl White became a star, and the serial form became the rage of Hollywood. B.B.

and Hayman sniffed out other serials being rushed into production. The Exploits of Elaine. The Hazards of Helen. Dollie of the Dailies. Working together against a Kelly deadline, Eddie and Lily wrote scenarios for twelve episodes of The Adventures of Alice by April 1. Fritzi was dragooned for the title role, a spunky heiress whom a villainous relative sought to do out of her inheritance by doing her in.

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Nightmare

She was tied to a moving buzz-saw belt, chained to a post next to a boiler soon to explode, thrown from a runaway freight train (a dummy substituted), dropped from a biplane (same), and subjected to other indignities on a shooting schedule that ran into early summer. When she remarked that all of the villain's henchmen were Latins, Chinese, or actors in black face (and shouldn't they balance things a little more with some white scoundrels?), Kelly put her down flatly:

'Forget it. This is a white man's country. The audience expects a nigger or a greaser or a slope head to be the villain.' After a short but futile argument, Fritzi resigned herself, and even derived some pleasure from playing Alice, who was certainly an active and aggressive 'New Woman' as opposed to a meek house-bound frump.

The first episodes of the chapter play, released in June, were instant hits.

B.B. held out a fresh carrot, $125 a week, and then gently beat Fritzi with a stick: one more picture with a western background? This time with some comedy for her, Eddie's request?

i had a flash, gave him a swell premise, he loved it. Please?'

'Oh, no. Oh, no. B.B., you promised me strong parts, not just silly ones.'

B.B.'s mouth turned down at the corners. 'All right, gel, I won't press you. Not when you're so negative to those who want to promote you. And we won't worry about all our folks whose wives and little kiddies depend on the success of this company. No, we won't. That's it. Finis. Kaput. The end.' Ye gods. Now she had two disapproving fathers.

On a golden summer Saturday, Fritzi met her new friend Charlie for lunch at a general store across the road from Mack's studio. They bought bologna sandwiches and sodas and retired to a trestle table in a sunny grape arbor next to the store. A tramp lay asleep in weeds nearby. A wagon
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loaded with broken furniture and plumbing fixtures arrived at the store.

The junk dealer went inside. Charlie sniffed.

'Not exactly Mayfair or the Ritz, this neighborhood.'

Fritzi told him about refusing B.B. His reply was a terse 'Good. You deserve better. Don't surrender.'

Charlie's costume of the day consisted of oversized shoes, baggy pants, a too-tight coat, a too-small derby, and a cane hooked over his arm. Fritzi commented on it, since she hadn't seen it before.

'Then you've missed my latest pictures, dear one. One morning a while back, Sennett discovered a hole in the schedule. He gave me thirty minutes to come up with a character. I grabbed any wardrobe pieces 1 could Inceville

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find and added the mustache as a last touch.' It resembled a black toothbrush bristle. 'The picture I'm working on is my third as the little tramp.'

'Have the others done well?'

'Smashingly. The average number of prints for a Keystone comedy is twenty. Thirty's exceptional. On the second tramp picture they struck fifty, and it wasn't enough.- The exchanges are clamoring for more. I'm very pleased.'

Fritzi didn't tell him that Liberty routinely struck at least sixty prints for a Lone Indian picture. Instead she remained mum as Charlie took a delicate bite out of his sandwich. Just then an amber butterfly settled on his sleeve.

He held still, not disturbing it. He gazed at the butterfly in a wistful way.

'Is something wrong?' Fritzi asked. 'Have you lost your appetite?'

He.shook his head; the butterfly flew off.

'I believe Sennett's going to fire me.'

'For heaven's sake, why? You must be making money for him.'

'Bales of it. And he's paying me $150 a week.' More than B.B. had offered, but then Charlie was something of a comic genius, fat ego or no.

He jarred her when he added, i'm worth a thousand.' As she stared at him, he frowned. 'Money isn't the only issue with Sennett. He has a narrow philosophy. Shoot everything in a hurry. More is better. He said I take far too long to work out a gag. I told him that's because I want to do more imaginative things than slip on banana peels and tumble off ladders.

Furthermore, 1 want to direct. When 1 informed him of that, he blanched
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and handed me over to his girlfriend, Mabel. Now she's directing me.' He was shaking his head. 'Never mind, it'll sort out. My success has not gone unnoticed elsewhere,' he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. 'Say, tell me something. What is a barbecue?'

'A sort of picnic. The main course is meat roasted on a spit and slathered with sauce. Pig, usually. Why?'

'I'm invited to one tomorrow. A special party for some actor Tom Ince has engaged. They roomed together in New York when they were both on stage. Care to go? I'd welcome the company.'

Fritzi had laundry and mending waiting, and unread newspapers, and a letter to write to her mother. 'Thanks, but I don't think I should. Where is it?'

'Rather a long way. The Inceville ranch.'

Cowboys?

'I'll go. What time?'

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Nightmare

Charlie hired a buggy. The June afternoon was glorious. The drive to the northern reaches of Santa Monica took an hour. They went up the old king's highway with the sunlit ocean on one side, and on the other dun colored hills cut by canyon roads and brightened by poppies and purple heather.

Tom Ince had quickly become one of the town's premier directors. The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show wintered in California, and Ince had struck a deal to use Miller men and equipment in the off season. He filmed his big-scale westerns on eighteen thousand acres once part of a Spanish rancho.

They passed through an elaborate ranch gate and climbed a steep road. Grape vines splashed the hillsides pale green. Unpainted barracks with log porches sat like a row of shoe boxes on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. 'Cutting and dressing rooms,' Charlie explained. 'They use them for exteriors sometimes. A fort, a trading post, that sort of thing.'

'You know a lot about this place. Been here before?'

'Frequently. For their Friday night dances. Girls.' He gave an exaggerated sigh and patted his heart.

Fragrant mesquite smoke from a barbecue drifted over them as Charlie parked among similar buggies and a few shiny autos. A large crowd, perhaps
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two hundred, were socializing around long food tables. Paper lanterns decorated an open-air stage where a few couples were dancing to music provided by a fiddle and a squeeze box.

Charlie introduced Fritzi to Ince, a portly, genial man with dark hair and lively eyes. He in turn introduced them to his new player, a hawk-featured man named Bill Hart. 'Bill's a classy fellow,' Ince said. 'Done a lot of Shakespeare.'

As shadows began to show on the eastern slopes of the surrounding hills, Fritzi and Charlie filled their plates with shredded pork, slaw and beans and German potato salad. Cattle and oxen lowed in the ranch barn.

Restless mustangs trotted around a big horse corral. Near the corral stood an old stagecoach, much marked by time and weather. Behind it was a Conestoga with its hooped white top in place. They climbed up on the wagon seat with their plates.

The ranch fascinated Fritzi. Tough-looking men in cowboy clothes, men with a touch of swagger, outnumbered women two or three to one.

Quite a few of the men packed pistols in holsters that looked more than ornamental.

A steady thump-thump, tftump-thump began. 'What's that?' she said.

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'Sioux village. Tepees are beyond that hill. The Indians live here but keep to themselves.'

Finished eating, they strolled to the bluff and spent a while watching the sun descend to the Pacific. Behind them the colored lanterns glowed in the purple dusk. More couples danced, even a few of the cowboys together, a holdover from lonely days on the range without women. Talk was lively, with occasional shouts and much laughter. On their way back to the picnic tables Fritzi froze in place.

'Charlie:

'Who are you looking at? That bowlegged runt? Migawd, is he the one you're sweet on?'

'No, no, it's his friend.' She waved. 'Mr. White. Windy!'

After a blink or two, recognition was followed by a bleary smile. Windy toddled over to them. 'Why, hello again, Miss Fritzi.' He almost knocked her over with whiskey breath as they shook hands. He'd brightened up his old cowboy clothes with a bright yellow bandanna. 'Down at the Waterhole last time, weren't that it?'

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'Your memory's very good. This is Mr. Chaplin. Are you working here?'

'Yep. Horse wrangler on a new picture.'

'Mr. White stands in for actors, Charlie. He jumps off roofs, trolley cars, moving trains--'

'Damned dangerous,' Charlie observed.

'Yessir, and there's no camera tricks to fake it. I'm proud to say I've carved out a nice reputation in this town. I knew I was making it the fourth time I went to the hospital with a bone broke. All the nurses recognized me an' called me by my first name.'

Fritzi laughed, but her attention kept shifting to the crowd.

'Lookin' for Loyal by any chance? He's back.'

,'Is he here?'

'Yep. We're both workin' the Ince picture. I dunno where he's at just now, mebbe over to the Sioux camp. Loy talks the Indian sign pretty good.'

'I'd very much like to say hello.'

'I'll keep my eye peeled an' bring him round. 'Scuse me now, I feel a strong thirst prevailin' again.' He almost tripped over the long tongue of the Conestoga as he left.

When Charlie excused himself as well, to look for feminine diversion, Fritzi walked to the outdoor stage, taking an empty plate and silver so as to blend in. She sat on a nail keg, nervously tapping one foot, then the other. A half hour passed.

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Nightmare

She'd chosen the spot by the stage so she couldn't be missed. She wasn't. Windy came weaving out of the dark with the tall cowboy in tow.

'Lady's hankerin' to say howdy again. Fritzi, you 'member Loy Hardin.'

'Oh, yes, yes I do,' she stammered. Standing to shake hands, she was so flustered, she dropped the empty plate and silver in the grass. He laughed and gallantly retrieved everything.

Fritzi was alternately hot and cold. Thirty-three years old, and she felt twelve. Her legs wobbled. Her drawers were embarrassingly damp from excitement. Her mouth dried up and so did her words.

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Windy rescued her. 'Miss Fritzi came on down to the Waterhole one day, lookin' for you. Some part they had.'

'Well, it was kind of you to think of me.' He was bare-headed, his long, dark hair shiny where it curled over his collar. Windy belched softly, said he'd see them later. Fritzi couldn't settle her nerves. Did her hair look stringy? Were her lips red? She nibbled them while Loy waved to Windy as he left.