Closing Credits: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood

By Martin Turnbull

Sometimes the end is only the beginning.

Kathryn Massey thought a long-forgotten secret was dead and buried—just like the 1950s are about to be—but when a mysterious list circulating Screenland ignites salacious rumors about the gossip columnist, it’s her life that now falls under the magnifying glass.

Marcus Adler is a rare survivor of the Hollywood blacklist. Beset by writer’s block, he’s intrigued by an abandoned box in the basement of the Garden of Allah Hotel. Its contents could rejuvenate his career—but cost him his reputation.

Gwendolyn Brick stumbled into the blossoming television industry. No fan of the spotlight, she’s conflicted by the opportunities coming her way. Things are about to change, and when she teams up with Lucille Ball, she won’t let the network stop the rapid march to progress.

On busy backlots and in quiet basements, secrets and lies dance with fame and failure amid Hollywood’s dying golden era. Nobody knows how this movie’s going to end . . . but it’ll be one for the ages.

"Closing Credits" is the ninth and final installment in Martin Turnbull’s Hollywood’s Garden of Allah saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Turnbull
• Release date: Oct 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463887028

Martin Turnbull

Martin Turnbull has worked as a private tour guide showing both locals and out-of-towners the movie studios, Beverly Hills mansions, Hollywood hills vistas and where all the bodies are buried. For nine years, he has also volunteered as an historical walking tour docent with the Los Angeles Conservancy. He worked for a summer as a guide at the Warner Bros. movie studios in Burbank showing movie fans through the sound stages where Bogie and Bacall, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and James Cagney created some of Hollywood’s classic motion pictures.From an early age, Martin was enchanted with old movies from Hollywood’s golden era–from the dawn of the talkies in the late 1920s to the dusk of the studio system in the late 1950s–and has spent many, many a happy hour watching the likes of Garland, Gable, Crawford, Garbo, Grant, Miller, Kelly, Astaire, Rogers, Turner, Welles go through their paces.When he discovered the wonderful world of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs, his love of reading merged with his love of movies and his love of history to produce a three-headed hydra gobbling up everything in his path. Ever since then, he’s been on a mission to learn and share as much as he can about this unique time.Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Martin moved to Los Angeles in the mid-90s.

Book preview

1

Kathryn Massey wished she had a button on her desk labeled SILENCE. During the twenty years she’d worked in the Hollywood Reporter newsroom, she’d grown inured to the incessant shrieking of telephones, lewd comments thrown around like clay pigeons, and barking laughter at the expense of some studio peacock whose weekly salary exceeded the gross national product of a small European nation.

The zip and zing of sixty-five people battling to meet a collective deadline usually galvanized her into a feverish blur of fingertips pounding typewriter keys. But there were days when the din drowned her thoughts and she wished she could hit her SILENCE button and make the racket fade away.

This was one of those days.

She reached for her Chesterfields. The pack was empty, the ashtray filled to overflowing. She had worked hard to build Window on Hollywood into the read-first column that had filmland denizens asking, What is Kathryn Massey writing about today?

Tomorrow’s column addressed a subject that could point the way for a brand-new future for Hollywood. But only if she worded it exactly right.

She had just come from a press preview for The Man with the Golden Arm. The movie had everything going for it. Starring Frank Sinatra, directed by Otto Preminger, and based on a National Book Award–winning novel, it was about an ex-con’s attempt to kick his heroin habit. Stirring stuff. Gritty. Unflinching. And likely to be at the front of the line when it came time to hand out shiny awards—except for one little detail: the producers planned to release the picture without Production Code approval.

Preminger had done it with The Moon Is Blue, and that brave shot across the bow had paid off handsomely by pulling in eight times its budget. But this Sinatra movie, with its ex-cons, card sharks, strippers, and heroin addicts did more than break the Code’s rules; it was a double-fisted, middle-finger salute to the sacrosanct Code and the blue-nosed puritans whose morality was stuck in Victorian-era quicksand.

This was 1955, for crying out loud. What could and could not be depicted on screen needed to be overhauled—or better still, overturned. If The Man with the Golden Arm was the hundred-pound bowling ball to knock over those carefully arranged wooden pins, Kathryn was all for it.

And if she could word her column to persuade rather than browbeat, she might set the whole town talking. But she needed to say it right and at the moment, the surrounding squall served to distract rather than ignite.

She dropped the empty cigarette pack into her trashcan and cast around the office for a catalyst to kickstart her juices. What caught her eye, though, was the Reporter’s honey-blonde receptionist stomping toward the women’s bathroom. Deadline or not, the sight of this one-woman Sherman’s March to the Sea was worth investigating.

Her telephone buzzed.

This is Kathryn Massey.

Are you free to talk discreetly? Darryl Zanuck sounded as though every syllable was being throttled out of him.

I’m sitting in a roomful of people all within spitballing distance.

I want to come see you.

In the usual course of events, men like Zanuck issued a summons and people like Kathryn broke the speed limit to accommodate them.

When did you have in mind?

Tonight. Your place.

The OH! rocketed out of Kathryn before she had a chance to smooth away its sharp edges. How’s about eight o’clock? I’m in number twelve.

Be sure Nelson Hoyt is there.

He hung up, leaving her to wonder what the blue blazes had just happened. For Zanuck to request a meeting at the Garden of Allah was puzzling, but to ask that her private-eye boyfriend also be there was intriguing.

Kathryn’s mind returned to the vision of Cassandra beelining for the ladies’ room, and she got to her feet. She found the girl at the farthermost mirror repairing her watery mascara and parked herself at the neighboring vanity. You okay?

Cassandra reached into her purse and pulled out three sheets of paper that had been stapled together. She crumpled them between her knuckles like the bouquet of a bride jilted at the altar. Mr. Wilkerson had me paw through yesterday’s trash to look for a memo he accidentally threw out.

Is that it?

No. This is a list of employees and their salaries. Cassandra thrust the papers into Kathryn’s hand and told her to check the name at the bottom of the third page.

Kathryn smoothed out the papers on the vanity and flipped to the last page in the sheaf. Her eyes narrowed. The number wasn’t much but she guessed it was probably the going rate for a seventeen-year-old mailroom boy.

Now look at my name, top of page two.

Kathryn turned the sheet over. You earn seven dollars a week less than the mailroom boy?

Yup, the one who’s been working here eleven months.

But you’ve—

Nearly ten years.

Kathryn checked her salary against her own name. The amount was accurate. You want me to take this to Wilkerson?

Look at Mike’s figure.

From the day Mike Connolly had arrived at the Reporter, Kathryn had suffered through a love-hate relationship with the guy who wrote the other high-profile column. He had pushed The Rambling Reporter to admirable prominence, but his snide tone and underhanded tactics left her wishing he’d creep back to Daily Variety, from whence he’d slithered.

She stared mutely at the number beside his name until Cassandra asked, Do you feel like puking?

"I’ve been here for twenty years. I had a radio show. I helped elevate the Hollywood Reporter name to national prominence. I—I’m—"

—paid a whole bunch less?

Kathryn sat immobile, transfixed by a whirlpool of emotions. It was outrageous. Stupefying. Downright insulting was what it was. Do you mind if I hang on to this?

You can cut it up and make paper dolls, for all I care.

On the hike back to her desk, Kathryn counted seven women, including herself and Cassandra. Of the ten lowest-paid staff members, eight of them were women. She was the only one on a decent salary.

She picked up the phone and buzzed Billy Wilkerson’s secretary to see if he was available. Vera told her he was at Santa Anita and wouldn’t be in the office until tomorrow. Kathryn inserted the papers into the zippered side pocket of her handbag. One campaign at a time, she told herself, and turned back to her typewriter.

By the time eight bells chimed on her mantle clock, Kathryn had decided it was just as well that her boss had been at the racetrack. If she’d come roaring in, guns blazing like Annie Oakley, she might’ve ended up shooting herself in the foot. Holding back to consider all approaches might result in a more equitable outcome—and not just for her, but for every female employee at the Reporter.

Am I fooling myself? she asked Nelson.

About what? He knew as well as Kathryn did that this was likely to be no ordinary meeting, so he’d stirred up a pitcher of martinis.

Men are paid more because they have families to raise, kids to send to college, Elks Lodge fees to pay.

You don’t actually believe that, do you? he asked.

Even as she’d said it out loud, she knew she was regurgitating all the drivel Wilkerson would give her. No, but I’m not sure which way to play it.

Are you asking for advice, or do you just need an ear to bend? He moved aside the vase of pink and mauve peonies she’d arranged to distract her anxious hands.

You’re a guy, too, she said drily, so your loyalty is questionable.

He kissed her lightly on the cheek. Do I get extra points for being a guy who’s one hundred percent on your side?

She smiled. Their rock-strewn trail to romance used to feel like the plot of an over-baked Ida Lupino picture. But once they’d dropped all pretenses that the relationship couldn’t work, everything had fallen into place.

Their summer had been a glorious kaleidoscope of candlelit dinners, Sunday picnics on Malibu Beach, holding hands at the movies, and splurging on expensive champagne that neither of them could sensibly afford. But the first bloom of a new love was not the time to be sensible. Not even if that new love was on its second go-around.

Yes, she told him. You get ten extra points.

A soft tap-tap-tap wasn’t what Kathryn expected from a movie mogul. Then again, a home visit was unprecedented too. Kathryn pulled at the cuffs of her blouse before she opened the door.

Darryl Zanuck usually held himself like a Roman general. Tonight, however, he looked every inch the sort of five-foot-six guy who wished he were six-foot-five.

Threading the brim of his Homburg through his fingers, he stepped into Kathryn’s vestibule with a reticence she wouldn’t have believed possible if she weren’t witnessing it firsthand. She made the introductions and led Zanuck into the living room, where she gave him the choice of sofa or dining room chair. He threw the hat onto the dining table.

As Nelson poured the martinis, she took a seat beside Zanuck. I assume you’re here for something that ought not be discussed at the office?

Zanuck reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper folded into thirds. I received this in the mail. He hadn’t looked Kathryn in the eye yet. It came to the house marked ‘Strictly Private and Confidential.’ He unfolded the paper and laid it in front of her.

None of the twenty names in the neatly typed column sounded familiar. Who are these women? Ex-girlfriends?

Jesus! How many women do you think I’ve had?

She threw Zanuck a look that said, Don’t make me answer that.

He chugged a mouthful of martini that must have burned his throat. I don’t have a clue who they are, but you’re as well connected in this town as anyone I know. Probably even better.

I suppose that’s true.

Do you know any of these names?

One of them near the bottom—Lorelei Boothe—looked familiar, but only in the vaguest way. Or was she thinking of Lorelei Lee, the character Marilyn had played in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? Sorry, but I don’t.

Zanuck turned to Nelson. I want to hire you to look into these women.

Nelson took the paper from Kathryn. I can certainly do that. My daily retainer—

Christ only knows where your investigations might lead— he pressed his forefinger to the table —so it goes without saying that you must exercise the utmost discretion.

Of course.

And that goes for you, too, Zanuck told Kathryn. If you promise to keep this on the Q.T., I can offer you the scoop of the year.

No word in the English language possessed the power to set Kathryn Massey’s heart fluttering like the word scoop. Especially when followed by those three delicious qualifiers: of the year. She sipped her martini, then sipped it again for reinforcement. I’m all ears.

Zanuck let a moment tick by. Two villas away, Doris Adler was holding a cribbage party, although given the loud chatter punctuated with bursts of laughter, Kathryn doubted that much cribbage was being played.

I’m moving to Europe to start a new life with Bella Darvi, he said.

During her time in Hollywood, Kathryn had witnessed the careers of czars like Zanuck come to an end. Virtually every one had had to be dragged from his office, fingernails raking the carpet.

That’s quite a step, she said evenly.

His eyes came to rest on Kathryn’s reproduction of a Maxfield Parrish painting called The Garden of Allah—a neoclassic image of a languid trio of gauze-draped women lounging at the edge of a pool. I’m following my heart for once.

Thank you for trusting me with this. Her mind was whirling: she had been planning how to confront her boss about the insulting pay disparity, but she knew that she’d need as much firepower as she could muster—and this earthquake had landed in her lap right when she needed it.

I have a condition, Zanuck said, interrupting her thoughts.

Name it.

You have to sit on this news until I’m ready to announce it.

And when—?

February at the latest.

Three months. News this big was like smoke in a wicker basket: likely to leak out at any time. It’d be a miracle if Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper or Sheilah Graham didn’t catch wind of it first. Or worse, Mike Connolly.

Can I have your word? Zanuck asked.

Absolutely. She pointed to the list. May I keep it?

All yours. He followed Kathryn to the front door. Stepping outside, he said, I’ve always heard about this place. It’s nice. Cozy. Got atmosphere.

You should’ve been here in the twenties and thirties.

His eyes sparked with long-dormant memory. Prohibition! Those were the days, weren’t they? He jammed his hat on his head. But nothing lasts forever.

She listened to the sound of the gravel crunching under his Mullen & Bluett shoes and watched him dissolve into the shadows.

2

Gwendolyn Brick knew that television makeup was ghastly enough to scare small children so she kept her eyes closed while her makeup guy went about his tortuous work until she heard him snap shut his case. She waited until he closed the door behind him. Kathryn? Are you still there?

Her gentle snort was part amusement, part horror.

How awful is it?

Let’s just say I’m glad you warned me; otherwise, I’d have suspected someone was out to sabotage you. She gave Gwendolyn’s hand an encouraging squeeze. You’re going to have to look sooner or later.

Gwendolyn braced herself and opened her eyes. Lipstick black as tar. Deep purple eyeshadow. Rouge painted on thick as a clown’s. This is worse than I remembered. Who was that guy? A mortician?

He told me in the break room that he apprenticed under Perc Westmore. Kathryn joined her at the mirror. You have to trust that these people have your best interests at heart—even if it means looking like the mother of Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Gwendolyn cracked a splinter of a smile. Some of the lipstick wiped off on her teeth, leaving behind a faint aftertaste of gasoline.

Think of it this way, Kathryn said. "Zanuck isn’t sure that he wants to roll out Fox Fanfare across the country, so you’ll only be seen in LA, which means you’ll only terrify a handful of natives."

When Darryl Zanuck had come up with a TV show to rival MGM Parade, he had wanted Betty Grable to do a test episode to help the inexperienced crew improve their skills. Gwendolyn ended up getting a hostess job that she didn’t want but it had been hard to walk away from the huge paycheck that Zanuck had offered her. Which was fine six months ago, but now she looked like a half-dead corpse that the Headless Horseman had dragged out of Sleepy Hollow. It was hard to believe that anything but disaster could come from this.

The dressing room door swung open and her director walked in.

He was a tousle-haired guy of around fifty who hadn’t yet succumbed to the inevitable gray. He wore an easy grin most of the time and, coupled with an implacably serene nature, it made him the sort of person she needed to guide her through the airwaves.

And how’s—oooo! I’d forgotten about that makeup.

At least you didn’t scream. Gwendolyn turned to Kathryn. I want you to meet my director, Rex Halliday. Rex, this is—

Kathryn Massey, he cut in, shaking her hand. I’m so very pleased to finally meet you. He pulled a clipboard from out of the crook of his arm and laid it on Gwendolyn’s makeup counter. "You can wing the welcome speech if you prefer, but Phoebe will be standing next to the camera with cue cards in case you need them. Then you’ll introduce behind-the-scenes footage for The Rains of Ranchipur, starring Lana Turner and Richard Burton. It hasn’t tested well with advance audiences, so Zanuck wants you to talk it up before it comes out next week and everybody says what a stinker it is."

Is that on the cue cards too? Gwendolyn razzed.

Rex made a half-hearted stab at suppressing a smile. "And then you’ll throw to an ad break. When you come back, you’ll introduce The Ghost and Mrs. Muir with the fun facts. Do you remember them?"

Gwendolyn counted off three fingers on her left hand. The story is set on the English Coast but the film was shot along the Pacific. The word ‘muir’ means ‘the sea’ in Gaelic because sailors like to think of themselves as being married to the sea. And—and— It was getting close to filming time and Gwendolyn’s nerves were starting to gnaw at her composure.

Rex consulted his clipboard. It’s one of the only Fox films that doesn’t open with the Fox trumpet fanfare because the producers felt the picture needed a moodier opening in keeping with the film’s atmosphere.

"So the first episode of Fox Fanfare features a movie that doesn’t feature the Fox fanfare?" Kathryn pointed out.

Ironic, huh? Rex said. Last week, Zanuck lost at poker to Joseph Mankiewicz, who directed that movie. Feel free to draw your own conclusions. So, while the movie’s playing, we’ll set up for your live ad.

Gwendolyn rolled her eyes at Kathryn. Hurley’s Girdles.

Something wrong with them? Kathryn asked.

Gwendolyn’s sponsor was a fat-fingered miscreant who fancied himself an expert in intimate wear, and who had forgotten that his womanizing days were thirty years and sixty pounds ago—assuming he’d ever had them.

Let’s just say that he’s the sort of overheated perv you don’t want to encounter in the dressing room of one of his stores. She turned to Rex. I suppose he’s here already?

He’s ponying up a ton of money so yes, he’ll be out there, sweating through his knock-off Brooks Brothers. We’ll do a quick hello-thank-you-goodbye after the show and then skedaddle. Rex picked up his clipboard. "After the live ad, you’ll mention next week’s movie: a 1944 Betty Grable vehicle called Pin Up Girl. And then you’ll sign off. Any questions?"

Gwendolyn’s makeup was starting to suffocate her—and she hadn’t even stepped under those frightfully hot stage lights. Is it too late to back out?

That’s just tension talking. Kathryn gave her a gentle punch to the arm. Once you get out there, you’ll be fine. Better than fine, right, Mr. Halliday?

Of course. The crew is one hundred percent behind you. He kissed the back of her hand. Go out there and knock ‘em dead.

Fox Fanfare’s set designer had asked Gwendolyn to give him an idea of her living room. She described the long rectangle with one end slightly wider than the other, the pale apricot walls, a cherry-wood bookcase next to her Zenith cabinet radio with a walnut and burl veneer wood finish, and her trio of stark Virginia True landscapes on the walls. He thanked her, but she never heard from him again.

When Gwendolyn first saw it, she was thrilled with the remarkable facsimile. A 17-inch-screen Zenith television replaced the radio, a pair of Winslow Homer landscapes instead of Virginia True, but the color scheme was accurate, and the proportions felt right.

Consequently, when she stepped onto the set to do her first Fox Fanfare, Gwendolyn felt more relaxed than she expected. You’re sitting at home, she told herself, chatting with friends.

Rex’s calming voice called out from beside camera two. Need anything?

Gwendolyn shook her hands to discharge the last of her nerves. Some water would be good.

That Delft china pitcher on the table next to your armchair is filled with ice water and there’s a crystal tumbler behind it. Brace yourself. We’re going to full lights in three, two, one.

The bank of lights overhead lit up. Jesus! She shielded her eyes until they had adjusted. How do I look? Like Whistler’s Mother come to life as a zombie?

Miss Brick, you are a vision.

Ugh. It was Titus Hurley in all his fawning, smarmy glory with flecks of saliva amassing in the crevices of those puffy lips.

Thank you, Mr. Hurley, she told him. I’ll do my best for Hurley’s Girdles.

I’m already very gratified, Miss Brick.

Gwendolyn faked a smile and eased into her armchair as she tossed up the pros and cons of quenching her thirst. Would it smudge her lipstick or streak it across her teeth? Or drip onto the emerald green blouse she’d sewn for her television debut? She felt a patch of sweat gather in the folds of her underarms. Was it too late to ask for a drinking straw?

Four minutes to airtime, Rex called out. Places, please.

She consciously slowed her breathing. A layer of calm settled over her as Rex started his countdown from twenty. She focused on the light that sat on top of camera one. When it burned red, she drew in a deep breath and smiled.

"Hello everyone. My name is Gwendolyn Brick and welcome to Fox Fanfare."

The sweat stains were only a drawback if Gwendolyn lifted her arms, so she kept them hugging her sides. Her makeup didn’t become problematic until her Ghost and Mrs. Muir introduction, when she felt it drip down her left cheek and gather behind her chin. She pressed a casual finger to the top of her throat as she told the audience not to expect the trumpet fanfare. As she joked about how they should maybe rethink the show’s title, the sweat trickled down her wrist and into her sleeve.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ran for 104 minutes—plenty of time to mop and repair. By the time Gwendolyn had to perform the ad with an elaborate display of girdles, brassieres, corselets, and slips, and a line of scripted patter that permitted no improvised deviation, she had wiped from her mind Titus Hurley’s slobbering leer and got down to business.

After the live ad, they threw to a station identification spot that lasted thirty seconds. Rex rushed onto the stage. The rosy bloom to his cheeks had paled. We have a problem.

Fixable? Gwendolyn asked.

"The promo package for Pin Up Girl was the original trailer that appeared in theaters."

What is it now?

Missing—so you’ll have to wing it. You saw it when it came out, right?

Probably, but Betty’s movies were kind of all the same.

It’s the one where she plays a military canteen volunteer who promises to become engaged to virtually every soldier in the place.

The plot didn’t sound the slightest bit familiar. Gwendolyn shook her head.

The assistant director called out, Back in ten!

Rex receded into the shadows beyond the circle of lights. Martha Raye for comic support. Came out April 1944. Two months before D-Day.

The light on top of camera two burned an angry red.

Everything had been going so well. She had read her cue cards without looking like she was, and hadn’t knocked over the Hurley’s Girdles display. But now her head was empty as a blank page.

I—uh—hello! Gwendolyn groped for words but came up empty. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. She remembered the golden rule Kathryn had told her on the way into the studio that morning: Dead air is the enemy. But that just made her mouth turn to pumice. So now we—uh—come to— She felt her skin prickle under the smothering layer of greasepaint. —the part where . . .

She heard a gasp shoot out of the darkness beyond the cameras.

Behind her came a familiar voice, breathy and giggly. This is the part where you introduce your special guest!

Marilyn Monroe emerged through the fake doorway to Gwendolyn’s right and approached the center of the set. She had applied the same macabre black-and-white makeup in hasty, broad strokes. The shocking sight of the world’s most beautiful woman resembling a living skull caused Gwendolyn to burst into involuntary laughter. Don’t we look a pair?

Marilyn’s eyes flared. Not on the television screens, we don’t. She turned to the camera. "Hello, everyone. Your hostess and I have been pals since I-don’t-remember-when and I wanted to stop by and wish her all the best for her new show. As Betty Grable fans will remember—I certainly do, because I rarely miss a Grable picture—in Pin Up Girl Betty plays a military canteen dance girl who promises to become engaged to every serviceman she signs her pin-up photo for. It’s a marvelous movie that I’m sure you’ll want to see next week. Right, Gwendolyn?"

Marilyn gave Gwendolyn’s hand an extra-hard squeeze, jolting her back into all-hands-on-deck alertness.

That’s right, Gwendolyn said. You won’t want to miss it, so tune in again, same time, same channel for another chance to see one of Twentieth Century-Fox’s classic motion pictures. But for now, it’s goodbye from me, Gwendolyn Brick, and it’s goodbye from my friend and yours, Marilyn Monroe.

Gwendolyn held her smile in place until Rex shouted, And we’re out! Her knees buckled slightly. That was a close one! Marilyn giggled. What are you doing here?

"I was doing costume tests for Bus Stop when I heard this was your first day. I arrived just as panic started breaking out over losing the Pin Up Girl trailer. I could see the horror on your face as the director was giving you the bad news, so I grabbed your makeup guy’s kit and twenty seconds later . . ." She pointed to her grotesque face.

Adrenaline surged through Gwendolyn’s veins like fireworks. Thank you! Thank you! You really saved my bacon!

You’d have done the same for me. She gripped Gwendolyn’s hands. "I’d love to sit and chat but I have a dinner date. My Bus Stop director, Joshua, and his wife Nedda have invited me over for dinner so I daren’t be late!" Within seconds, she had vanished like a phantom.

Gwendolyn told Kathryn to give her fifteen minutes to wipe this horrific mask off her face and they could grab a bite to eat at Ah Fong’s on Vine Street. She was just finishing up when Titus Hurley strode in. Mr. Hurley! she said, struggling to her feet.

His eyes dropped to her chest, where they stayed. Please call me Titus.

Despite that last-minute glitch, I do hope you’re happy with how it all went.

Why, of course, my dear, dear girl.

At forty-five, Gwendolyn hadn’t qualified as a girl for twenty years, but to men like this panting reprobate, girl was any female younger than his mother.

Gwendolyn turned back to the mirror; it was the safest way to break eye contact.

The Marilyn Monroe bit was a stroke of genius! he exclaimed. Gwendolyn could no longer see him but she sensed him creeping closer. "The publicity alone is worth a fortune, especially after that article in Confidential."

Recently, the tabloid had broken a story they’d dubbed the Wrong Door Raid about how Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra had gone looking for Marilyn but had busted down the door of a petrified spinster by mistake. The article had caused a furor that showed no signs of abating.

Gwendolyn dropped her cold cream into her makeup case. I think you’re probably right.

You don’t need to think. Hurley’s hot breath warmed the back of her neck. You just need to look pretty, and you do that so very well. Five stubby fingers settled on her behind and gently squeezed it.

Now, now, she said, plying his wrist away. Let’s keep this professional.

I’m your sponsor, he said, his voice hardening. A generous one. And that entitles me to . . . He didn’t need to finish his sentence.

Not unless it’s in the contract! She’d managed to keep her voice light and frothy, but hoped he had picked up on the underpinning layer of steely resolve.

There are written contracts, he whispered into her ear, and there are tacit contracts. And I’m here to collect on the latter.

She balled her left hand into a fist, brought it up across her chest and swung it down, hitting his forearm and jerking his hand away. She spun around and heaved her knee into his groin. He staggered away, gasping, and fell against the coat rack. Both the rack and her sponsor crashed to the floor.

Gwendolyn grabbed up her handbag, makeup case, and fascinator hat. She stepped over him and swung the door open. Pausing for a moment, she took a half-step back inside. The hell you will.

3

Marcus Adler sat in the anteroom of Harry Cohn’s office on the Columbia lot and leafed through a Hollywood Reporter until he came to Kathryn’s column detailing how United Artists had released The Man with the Golden Arm without the benediction of the Production Code or the Legion of Decency. She’d then gone on to call for abandoning the outmoded policy of vetting movies in a 1950s America that had been shaped by a 1930s sensibility.

Ever since she’d discovered that Mike Connolly was earning a substantially higher salary, there had been a screw-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on quality to her work. And why not? He and Kathryn and Gwennie would be turning fifty soon enough. Who had time for pussyfooting?

He sighed, letting out a soft groan—or perhaps not so soft. Cohn’s secretary looked up from her typewriter, her eyebrows furrowed.

With the box office–slaying successes of The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators, The Egyptian, and The Grief of Achilles, he felt he couldn’t lose with a screenplay he’d written about a sixth-century BC soldier who had destroyed a bridge across the Tiber to prevent the Etruscans from invading Rome. During his recent Italian sojourn, he’d floundered with little to show for his efforts. When he’d brought the notebook home to the Garden of Allah in April, he had assumed that in familiar surroundings, the muse would shower him with nectar.

Wrong.

Nothing.

He was drier than a Palm Springs puddle in August.

And September.

And October.

If he hadn’t had a small fortune of tiny gold nuggets sewn into the monsignor cassock he’d stolen from Cinecittà, he might have starved to death.

But then he’d caught Rebel Without A Cause on a Wednesday matinee. There was an edge to James Dean’s torment that had unlocked the deadbolt. As he walked home from the Warner Brothers Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, his creative combustion engine fired up on all cylinders.

By the end of November, Horatius at the Bridge was the best script he’d ever written. Kathryn called in a favor and within a week, he’d scored a face-to-face with Zanuck and made his pitch. Ten minutes later, he was out the door wincing from Zanuck’s rebuke: Sounds like the cheesy sword-and-sandals that the Italians are making with badly dubbed English.

He’d returned home deflated from the fear that he’d spent twelve months on a script that would slowly desiccate in the bottom drawer of his desk. But then his sister Doris had suggested pitching his idea to her boss.

Mr. Cohn’s policy is to produce only one great picture a year, she’d told him. "We’ve got Picnic coming out in February but after that, nothing much apart from some low-budget effort called Rock Around the Clock."

A week later, Marcus got his shot.

He squirmed in his seat. He’d been waiting since one-thirty and it would soon be three-fifteen. If he’d known how loose Cohn was with appointment times, he wouldn’t have had those two cups of coffee with his lunch and would have made a point of finding the men’s room before presenting himself at Cohn’s executive suite.

You’re Doris Adler’s brother, aren’t you?

Cohn’s secretary was a variation on the sort of woman he’d seen outside the offices of studio heads: middle-aged but well maintained, nicely dressed but nothing flashy, crisp and efficient but with enough humanity to deal sympathetically with schmoes who’d suffered a humiliating dismissal.

Marcus approached her desk. Yes, I am.

She’s a mighty fine girl, that Doris. And Mr. Cohn respects her opinion. Trust me, that doesn’t happen often.

Any tips?

Call him Mr. Cohn. Be direct—he respects that. If he starts swearing—and he will—feel free to reciprocate in kind. A harsh buzz sounded and the glossy white door to Cohn’s office swung open by itself. The secretary pointed to the gap. In you go.

Cohn sat at a white semi-circular desk, raised eight inches off the plush white carpet at the end of a forty-foot walk. He watched Marcus approach with an unblinking pugnacious stare he’d developed from the years of effort it had taken to lift himself out of his Poverty Row beginnings. He gripped a Havana like a dagger and didn’t bite the end off