The Hollywood Trilogy (48 page)

She knew why they were testing her. She had known at the reading just how good she had been, and now all that mattered was if she could stand the pressure of acting in front of forty bored technicians, and if she photographed well enough to entertain millions of bored people, who did not want to see their friends and neighbors on the screen but wanted big dynamic exciting superpeople. Today's test was to discover if she was super. She did not feel super.

But when Harry came in twenty minutes early, his face drawn in anxiety, her own fears dropped away, and she stood up with a beautiful smile and said, “I'm all ready!”

“You look fine,” Harry said, although he did not mean it. She was not wearing any makeup and her hair was pulled back and tied, giving her eyes an oriental look. But she kissed him anyway, and off they went.

Although it was extremely hot outside, the sound stage was clammy and musty. There were abandoned props and pieces of equipment all over the place, looming out of the shadows like gigantic worn-out toys. Jody felt fine. The makeup man was doing great things to her face, and the costume they had picked out for her, a faded green-and-white checked dress, fit loosely but made her figure all that much more attractive, as far as she was concerned. She did have a little run-in with the costumer, though. He was a small intense-looking man in skin-tight white pants, white deck shoes and a fresh white tee shirt. He stood back from Jody as she modeled the costume for him, his hand on his chin.

“I can see that panty line,” he said. “Where the fabric brushes against you.”

“Oh that's all right,” Jody said. She could see Harry and the director standing next to the big camera talking to a couple of other men. St. Francis Magnuson, already in makeup, was poking around in the shadows somewhere, and the other people just seemed to be standing around waiting for her to get ready.

“No,” the costumer said. His name was Bitts, she thought. “Those panties are going to have to come off.”

“Okay,” Jody said, and went into the trailer they had for her to change in. She slipped out of the panties and looked at herself in the oblong mirror on
the back of the door. She could now see that if you looked carefully, if you were a pussy man, you would notice that she was not wearing any panties. Jody snorted and put them back on and went out. The costumer was gone, and so she went over to Jack.

“I'm ready,” she said.

“That's fine,” Jack said. He smiled warmly at her, and then introduced her to a bunch of technicians, and was about to get going when the costumer came back and took one look at her and bit his lip.

“I thought we were going to take those panties off,” he said. He did not look at Jody. To Jack he said, “That panty line is unbelievably vulgar.”

“So'm I!” Jody said and laughed.

“Leave them on,” Jack said. “You're right. It's in character.” The costumer gave her a dirty look and shrugged. Jack took her by the elbow and led her toward the set. “Have you met Maggie?” he asked her.

Maggie Magnuson was middle-sized and almost stocky. She had seen him in a few things and liked him. He grinned at her and shook her hand and said, “It's my first screen test, too, baby. We gotta help each other.”

“No kidding?” Jack said. “You've never tested before?”

“I'm not testing now,” Maggie said, “but you know what I mean.” To Jody he said, “You know your lines?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then you know all there is to know about acting. Let's do it!”

“Do you mind if we sort of settle the lighting first?” Jack said with a puckish smile, and they spent the next hour under the lights, standing on their marks while the cameraman and electricians fiddled around. Harry was off in the gloom, sitting in an old easy chair, his hands formed into a steeple under his nose. While they stood around, Maggie Magnuson told Jody a string of filthy stories which he swore his twelve-year-old daughter had brought home from her private school in Switzerland. He was being kind to her, Jody knew, and keeping her entertained so that she would not be nervous. But she had not been nervous at all, not since Harry had come for her. But she liked Maggie for what he was trying to do. She knew he was a big-time actor and did not have to hang out while they fixed the lights. He was doing it so that she would get used to him and could play to him more naturally.

But something funny happened to Maggie while they were rehearsing the scene. It was such a short little scene, and so little happened in it that Jody
wondered why they were making such an effort. It was the same scene she had read in the office. They come in, Maggie sort of propositions her, she goes for it, and they start to make love. Nothing to it, a compressed slice of life. But Maggie seemed to change, right after the first walk-through.

Jack came into the lighted area. “That was pretty nice,” he said. “Maggie, would you sort of loosen up? You seemed to get a little tight there when you said, ‘Come to bed, Helen,' like you really didn't want to take her to bed.”

“Sorry,” Maggie said. “I was thinking about something.”

Then it was time for the take, and the man held the clapper and clapped it and Jack said very quietly, “All right, go ahead, action.”

This time there seemed to be something the matter with Maggie all through the scene. His mouth seemed tight. If it had been real life, Jody would have suspected a little impotence problem; he hustles her into bed and then can't get it up. But if that was what Maggie was playing, he didn't say so when Jack asked him what was the matter. “I don't fucking know,” was all he would say, and on the next take he was too enthusiastic, too macho, and he overwelmed her. Jody was beginning to sweat in the heat of the lights, and to lose her temper a little at Maggie, who was supposed to be such a great guy and who was fucking up her screen test.

On the fifth take, as they stood behind the door waiting for Jack to say action, Jody whispered to Maggie, “Watch out!” and when they came into the room, she threw her things onto one of the beds, and when he said, “We'll bunk here,” she snorted at him and said, “You? And me?”—overplaying hard. Maggie caught it and threw it back to her, raising the level of his own performance, so that by the end of the scene they were practically shouting at each other.

“Cut, oh
fudge
, “ Jack said. “Now we've all got it out of our systems, let's get a take and wrap.” The next take was a good one, and they did one more for fun and it was good too, and Jody went into her trailer to be alone for a few minutes.

When she came out, Maggie was waiting for her. She could see Harry and Jack talking to the cameraman and the production manager.

“I want to apologize,” Maggie said.

“You didn't do anything,” she said. Jody was standing on the step of the trailer, looking down at Maggie. He had his hands in his back pockets, and now he grinned in the gloom.

“Who was that you were doing?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“That's somebody, isn't it? That character you did.”

“Oh, that's my sister,” Jody said.

“I'd like to meet her. I
think
,” Maggie said. Jody just smiled down at him and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other and said, “Listen, you're really good. I want you to have good luck on this picture.” When she still did not say anything, he added, “I'm quitting. I'm getting off the picture.” He reached out and shook her hand and walked away.

THIRTY-ONE

MONDAY AFTERNOON after Harry got the official word from Maggie's agent he cursed for almost five minutes and then got into his car and drove out to Maggie's house in Brentwood.

“You have to tell me why you're quitting,” he said. They were out in the back, near the pool. Maggie had a towel around his middle and sat on a white cast-iron chair under a striped umbrella. Harry stood.

“What'd my agent say?” Maggie asked cheerfully.

“He said a commitment from the past, something you really didn't think would come through, came through. Some spaghetti western or something.”

“That's what we worked out,” Maggie said. “Do you really want to go into it?”

“Yes.”

“You're worried. I don't blame you, but don't worry. I mean, really, don't worry.”

“But I am worried. You have to tell me.”

Maggie tilted his head and began slapping it, to get the water out of his ear. Harry decided it was just an actor's trick to gain time, so he said,
“Schtik,”
and Maggie stopped and told him what had been the matter.

When Harry got home Jody wanted to know, and what he told her was that Maggie had been enthusiastic about doing the test for them because he had figured it would be a good way to get in solid with the producer—help him through his old lady's screen test. He had figured it would be like a lot of those scenes, the chick was making Harry's life miserable and so they had
to go through the farce of giving her an expensive screen test, and then the director could play the villain and not cast her. Everybody would be off the hook and Maggie would look good—cooperative, humble, willing to work.

But when they got under the lights Jody had stunned him with her performance. Oh, no, it wasn't
that
good, but good enough to stun him. He had not expected acting. He had expected almost anything else, but not acting. After all, he told Harry, who was this chick anyway? Nobody had ever heard of her, how come she was so good? Anyhow, he had probably screwed up her screen test, and he knew he felt antagonistic and jealous toward her, and there really was this other job where he could spend three months in Spain making an Italian western, where he would be the
star
, where his name would appear
over
the title, and so what with one thing and another, Maggie felt it was right for him to drop out.

Harry explained to Jody that he had told Maggie that he was being foolish. After a few days together, he and Jody would work together fine, everything would be all right, and besides, they really wanted him in the picture and were willing to raise his salary to where it would be at least competitive with the Italian starring job, if you take into account all the cost of travel, etc., and Maggie laughed and agreed and apologized for being temperamental.

What Harry did not tell her was what Maggie had really said. Oh, he had said all the other things, but afterward Harry told him it was all bullshit and wanted to know the real reason.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. What did you see?”

“You're right, I saw something. I sure did. Listen, man, I'm a trained mimic. I can do anything. You show me a little piece of business and I can do it. I can do a fifty-year-old man with a goiter on his neck drinking a lemon phosphate through two straws. I can do anything. Because I'm an observer. I walk down the street looking at the people. I really look at them, and sometimes it gets me into trouble, but when I look at them I see into them. Maybe it started out as self-protection when I was just a little kid, but I have it and I can do it. I watch a guy sitting at a bus stop and I can get into his mind, not know what he's thinking, but how he feels about himself, his life, all that shit. It's a lot in the way people hold themselves or dress themselves, and a lot of it's in the eyes.”

“Okay,” Harry said, “you're good.”

“Listen, man, that chick is a loser. I don't care how well she can act. She's a stone loser. It's written all over her. It just spooked me, I just didn't want to be around for it, you know? I didn't want to work six, eight weeks on a picture waiting for that fucking timebomb to go off. She made me want to cry, man.”

Harry knew what he meant. That afternoon in a tiny screening room in a remote corner of the lot he and Fats Dunnigan and Jack Meltzer had sat watching all the takes, less than ten minutes of film in all. It was Harry's job to watch everything—the direction, the camera work, the lighting—but he could not keep his eyes off Jody. Of course he was in love with her and it distorted his perceptions, but he had also been watching performances for better than twenty years, and Jody's performance was incredible for an untrained and unknown actress. In each of the takes she was a person, with twists and turns of character Harry had never dreamed of in her. She was vibrant, vital, alive, and yet she did not seem out of place as a waitress; in fact she would have seemed out of place as anything else.

Harry did not dare look over at Jack, who was sitting next to him in the back row of seats, with the fold-down table and telephone in front of him. Jack was scribbling in his notebook as usual, Harry could hear, but he kept himself from craning over to look at what Jack was writing. When they were at the end, Jack leaned forward and flipped the switch and said to the projectionist, “Thank you, would you run it again please?” and they sat through all the takes once more. By now Fats, alone in the row ahead of them, had gotten onto the telephone and was murmuring to somebody. Harry had to go to the toilet very badly, but he refused to leave the others alone until they had all discussed it. So far, Fats Dunnigan did not know Jody's relationship to Harry, and Harry dreaded having to tell him. Dreaded especially because now Harry was determined that Jody have the part. She was far and away the best actress they had looked at for the role.