Thelma laughed. “I’m out of Billy’s two-reelers and doing different kinds of parts now. It’s hard for a girl to grow in grace in those crazy comedies!”
“Surely it’s a good place to begin,” Nita said.
“To
begin
,” Thelma repeated. “But if you remain in two-reelers too long you’re typed. It’s even happened to Billy himself, and he could have been a great star.”
“I’m only leaving his house,” Nita said. “I mean to go on working with him.”
“Until you get a better chance,” Thelma said. “You must look out for yourself in this business.”
“I’m not sure Hollywood is right for me,” Nita said. “It was Marty who wanted to come here. He was more dedicated to show business than I’ve ever been.”
“You’re in it now,” the blonde told her. “You’ll stay on. Why did you decide to move out on Billy?”
Nita blushed. “It was getting awkward. I felt I should be on my own.”
“You were right. But something must have decided you. Did he make love to you?”
Her cheeks burning, Nita glanced down at her folded hands. “Yes. But that was only part of it.”
“I know the scenario, kid,” Thelma said with sympathy. “I played it myself. I lived with him for a while and we were lovers but it didn’t work.”
“And you left?”
“Just about like you,” Thelma said. “I knew he wasn’t in love with me and so did he. He’s in love with his dead wife who killed herself for another man. He’s hopeless.”
“I’m terribly sorry for him,” Nita said.
“He has his booze,” Thelma said. “That’s the big thing in his life now.”
“But he’s slowly drinking himself to death. He says the doctors have warned him.”
“Murphy tries to keep him from doing that,” Thelma said. “As long as he has Murphy he should be all right. Murphy sees he’s sober enough to work and keeps the booze away from him whenever he can.”
“I know,” Nita agreed. “I like Murphy. Now what about yourself?”
Thelma smiled happily and pointed to the Wallace Reid poster. “I just finished that feature with Wally,” she said. “And he wants me in his next one.”
Remembering, Nita said, “There are some strange stories going around about him.”
Thelma’s lovely face shadowed. “I know. I’ve heard them. Don’t believe any of it.”
“How did they get started?” she asked. “The drug rumors?”
“Wally hurt his back finishing one of the stunts in a picture,” she said. “Since then, whenever it bothers him while he’s working they give him morphine. It’s purely medicinal and prescribed by the studio doctor.”
Nita was relieved to hear the innocent explanation of the gossip. “So that’s what started it all!”
“You know how vicious they are here!” Thelma said. “I’m going to work in an Alma Rubens picture next. She’s wonderful and a friend of mine also.”
“What about romance?” Nita asked.
“I’m seeing Monte Blue,” Thelma said. “But it’s nothing serious. He’s handsome and talented — and part Indian. Did you know that?”
“No,” Nita admitted. “I’ve always liked him on the screen.”
“I must get Mrs. Denny to show you the cottage. I’m sure you’ll like it,” Thelma said. “Then I have to run. I’m meeting Monte at the Biltmore.”
Nita was delighted with the cottage. They were all much alike except that hers was closer to the street than Thelma’s and a few of the others in the rear of the courtyard. Mrs. Denny was a mannish lady with a handyman husband who attended to repairs. She demanded a month’s rent in advance.
“You’re a movie person,” the big woman said firmly. “I have to get my rent in advance from all my movie tenants.”
Nita gave no argument. She could hardly blame the woman, knowing what a frantic place Hollywood was. Within a week she moved in but she saw little of Thelma in spite of their friendship. The blonde girl had her own circle of friends and her hours were different from Nita’s.
One day on the movie set of a cowboy and Indian satire with Billy starring as a pioneer, the comedian told her, “Reserve tonight. I have something planned.”
She and Billy had continued to be friends and to go out together. They mostly went to modest restaurants away from the main strip and not the popular places where the stars congregated. One day he took her to the cemetery where Marty was buried and she saw the handsome memorial stone Billy had had erected over his grave. She would never doubt that Billy had been sincere in his friendship with Marty and now was perhaps her best friend.
That night he picked her up in his new Packard and took her to Musso-Frank’s for dinner. On the way to their table they passed a table where Douglas Fairbanks was chatting with his wife Mary Pickford, and with them were Gloria Swanson and the dapper Charles Chaplin. As she hurried by Nita was glad that none of the quartet had noticed her entrance. She would have been embarrassed to have faced Chaplin after their last meeting.
At the table Billy ordered lavishly and told her, “This is a special evening for two reasons.”
“What are they?”
“One, I’m taking you to see a comedy in which you have the co-starring role with me. Remember ‘The Baker’s Daughter’?”
“I’m not liable to forget it,” she laughed.
“You’ll see it in a theatre tonight and tomorrow night I’m taking you to a party at Pickfair.”
“At
Pickfair
?” she echoed. “I saw Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford just as we came in!”
“I saw them too,” he said. “They’ll be on hand to greet everyone tomorrow night. The place is large. Too large, I think. But it’s Hollywood magnificence and you’ll have a chance to meet the right people there. People who can help you get ahead in this town.”
She smiled at him. “Are you trying to be rid of me altogether?”
“You have talent,” he said seriously. “You deserve something better than my two-reelers.”
When they left the restaurant they drove to the neighborhood theatre where the comedy was showing, and for the first time she was able to sit in a theatre and hear the audience around her enjoy her efforts. They laughed at her funny antics and she heard one say aloud to a friend, “I think that new girl is adorable!” It was a heady experience.
But it was nothing compared to attending the party at Pickfair. Marty wore a tuxedo and Nita donned an evening gown. The stars’ famous house was reached by a winding roadway which led high up in the hills. The stucco house was in a setting which included magnificent grounds, and at the rear of the rambling mansion there was a vast swimming pool.
On this pleasant evening the roadway was lined with parked cars. At the door Billy turned his Packard over to a servant who drove it away. Music emanated from the house and they went inside to the reception hall to be greeted by a smiling, sun-tanned Doug and sweet-faced Mary in a ruffled pink gown.
“We don’t see you often enough, Billy,” Doug said shaking the comedian’s hand. “What’s the news on Arbuckle?”
“Just the same,” Billy said. “I wish he’d leave Hollywood altogether.”
“I heard he was writing some scripts,” Fairbanks said.
“Yes. But that doesn’t pay much,” Billy told him. He introduced Nita to both Doug and Mary.
Doug was clearly more interested in having a few words more with Billy before other guests arrived, but Mary took a special interest in her.
“You have good bone structure,” Mary told her. “That’s important for the camera.”
“I’ve been told that,” Nita said with a smile.
“I want you to meet Lew Meyers,” Mary said, “Don’t be misled by his size. He’s a big man when it comes to Hollywood, even though he is only five feet tall.”
“He owns Master Films, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” Mary said. “And he hires far too many of his relatives for the studio’s sake. But in spite of them all, he’s so smart he is making money and moving up in the film world every day.”
Mary led her to a group of three people talking together away from the main room where the dancing was going on. She recognized one of them at once, the dark, sultry Barbara Lamont. With her was her husband, suave Eric Gray. He had starred in his own films as well as appearing with his wife. The third member of the trio she did not recognize but knew it had to be Lew Meyers, the studio head of Master. He was, as Mary had told her, short and bald, with a fringe of gray hair around his bald pate, and sharp eyes peered nervously from his wrinkled, sour face through thick horn-rimmed glasses.
Mary offered one of her famous smiles and introduced Nita to the trio. Then she said, “I must desert you. I can’t leave Doug alone to receive.” And she hurried off.
Barbara Lamont, pale skinned, her black hair drawn back tightly and wearing a black evening gown with a double strand of pearls at her swan-like neck was regarding Nita with such warm interest that she felt embarrassed.
She said, “What a lovely face you have! And this in a town of lovely faces. Don’t you agree, Lew?”
The elderly Lew Meyer shrugged. “I don’t go by faces, but by what’s behind them. I like actors with brains!”
Barbara Lamont raised her chin loftily. “This girl has brains as well. You can see that!”
Elegant and poised, Eric Gray beamed at Nita and said, “My opinion was not asked but I’ll offer it in any case. I think you are quite lovely but that you shouldn’t be subjected to this kind of comment! Let us have praise with subtlety!”
Barbara drew on her cigarette in its long holder and said wearily, “My husband pretends to be a gentleman. I assure you he’s no more genteel than the rest of us.”
Little Lew Meyers had been staring at Nita in a hard, interested fashion for several minutes. Now he turned to his two stars and barked a command. “Why don’t you two go and dance? Mix around with people! They like to see you!”
“Lew wants to be rid of us,” Barnara Lamont said. “And I’d hardly call him subtle, either.”
“When the master commands,” Eric Gray said, offering his arm to his wife. And to Nita, he smiled and said, “I shall expect a dance when you’ve finished with Lew.”
As the two went off to join the others, Lew Meyers glared at her and said, “I can’t ask you to dance. I don’t dance!”
“That’s all right,” she said.
“A few years ago I was running a string of nickleodeons in New Jersey,” the small man went on. “I decided I’d never make any money unless I made my own films. So I came out here and started a new career.”
Nita said, “There’s a lot more to your story than that, I know. I read about you in
Photoplay
. You gambled all your life’s savings and you worked hard. You still do!”
The bald man eyed her sourly. “You know all about me.”
“At least what I’ve read in newspapers and magazines.”
“I don’t know anything about you,” he said. “Do you want a drink?”
“Not just now. I don’t drink much.”
“I don’t drink at all,” Lew Meyer snapped. “Boot leg booze rots your stomach and ruins your brain. I smoke Havana cigars.”
“I’ve never tried them,” she confessed.
“Sarah Bernhardt smokes cigars,” the little man said. “You know who she is?”
“A famous French actress.”
“What have
you
done?”
“I’ve only been in Hollwood some months. Before that I did an act in vaudeville, singing and dancing.”
“Your voice doesn’t matter here. It’s what you can do with pantomime and how you project.”
“I’ve been playing in the new Billy Bowers comedies.”
The little man showed new interest. “Are you the one who played in something about a baker’s daughter?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ha!” Lew Meyers glared at her. “One of my scouts mentioned you to me.”
“Did he, really?”
“He said you were pretty and had talent but you made too many faces. You can’t make faces at the camera. You have to play into it.”
She said, “In the comedies, everything is overdone.”
“I know,” the little man snapped. “Slapstick! All right in its place! I want no part of it!”
And no part of me, Nita decided. But she said aloud, “I think I can do other things.”
The shrewd eyes fixed on her again. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“Barbara seems to like you. She has pretty good taste in girls,” Lew Meyers said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you can begin work the first of the week I’ll give you a supporting part in her next picture. And we’ll talk about a contract with options.”
She was surprised and ecstatic. “Mr. Meyer! You can’t mean it!”
“What can’t he mean?” Billy Bowers, who had joined them, asked the question.
The little man gave the comedian a sour look. “I’m trying to steal your girl from you.”
Billy laughed. “That’s the reason I brought her here!”
For the first time Meyers chuckled and said, “Honest sonofabitch!”
Billy looked at Nita fondly, “I don’t want her playing in two-reelers for the rest of her life, like me,” he said.
Nita reproached him, “You know I’m satisfied.”
“That’s not enough,” the comedian replied. “When do you want to see her, Lew?”
The little man shrugged. “Tomorrow morning. Around eleven.”
“I can’t be there,” she protested. “I’ll be working on the lot in the new comedy.”
“I fire you as of now,” Billy told her. “She’ll be there, Lew!”
The next morning Nita presented herself at Lew Meyers’ office and was introduced to his Austrian director, Conrad Mirnoff.
Mirnoff studied her from several angles and then told the studio head, “She vill do!” then walked out of the room disdainfully tapping his puttees with his riding crop.
Lew Meyers gave her a sour look across the desk. “He must like you,” he said. “He usually complains.”
“He’s very awesome,” she said.
“He knows camera angles and not much else,” Meyers said grimly. “I’ve had to keep a producer on his back all the time or the costs would go sky high. He wants real Persian carpets on the floor, knowing they’re going to be stained with fake blood.”
She said, “Then I will be in Miss Lamont’s film?”
“She wants you,” Lew Meyers said irritably. “Mirnoff accepts you. I think you’re a good risk. I’ll give you a six month contract at hundred a week with options and raises to seven years.”
Nita had dinner with Billy that night and told him all that had gone on. She said, “I hope if it doesn’t work out I can come back to Hammons.”