An Idol for Others (43 page)

Their house, a Spanish-Moorish-Gothic monstrosity that had once belonged to a silent star, was rented and provided no great stimulus to whatever homemaking instincts might be latent in her. They both found Hollywood’s social life absurd or boring or both. It was an adjunct to work; people were always doing their acts, or films were being shown, or photographers were recording everybody for posterity. The fact that every gathering always included some of the most famous faces in the world quickly lost its novelty.

They found many old friends already there–David, of course, who had a nice young wife and two babies; Johnny Bainbridge, still alone; Greg Boland, on his fourth wife; and a number of others–but friendships seemed to get lost in the pecking order. As a vastly eminent newcomer, Walter was drawn into the industry’s elite, and he found it took too much time and trouble to break out.

“If you’re not making the greatest film that’s ever been made, we’re insane to be here,” Clara commented from the sidelines.

Walter didn’t think of his film as the greatest ever made; he intended it to be the only film to come out of Hollywood since the invention of sound. He put aside everything he had learned in the theater and set out to master the unexplored medium of pictures. His visual sense was highly developed. He rejected all the adaptations of plays or books that were offered him and picked out an intricately plotted thriller. He cut dialogue to a minimum and developed the action with numerous comic effects. When he finally allowed the studio heads to see the finished product, it was so completely unlike what had been expected of him that nobody knew what to make of it, but everybody had to agree that it was exciting and funny. When it was distributed eventually, it attracted a great deal of attention from serious critics and was acclaimed a refreshing landmark in filmmaking. The studio had been prepared to settle for prestige with Walter, so the fact that it did very well at the box office added to his status.

There was time for another trip to Europe between pictures, and he was gratified to be able to afford the luxurious travel that he had thought would be possible only when Clara’s money came through. Passing through New York revived dormant memories. He was able to allow Mark to assume the substance of reality in his mind, at last, and he saw the episode as the final eruption of the unstable fires of youth, a childlike romantic passion that had been certain to burn itself out. He was finally 30 and old enough to know better.

Aided by his professional independence of Clara, they had entered a new phase and, he suspected, arrived at what marriage was intended to be: an unequal partnership in which he laid down the law and she followed. In the future he could indulge a fancy for any young body that caught his eye. It had been Clara’s competing with him for supremacy that had inflated his response to Mark out of all proportion.

So they traveled in splendor, and nobody caught his eye, and he concentrated on buying paintings. He also acquired a marvelous French cook and her husband and shipped them off to Hollywood. He was going to adorn his life with the style he had always given to his productions.

Before going to Hollywood, he had been outraged by the growing harassment of the theatrical world, led by a congressional committee and concentrated on the film industry. He had signed protests and petitions and had dropped, professionally and personally, those who cooperated with the forces of repression. In view of the total irrelevance of Hollywood’s product to the world, he was unprepared for the fear and insecurity that pervaded the industry, the raging paranoia that infected the whole studio system. Everybody was afraid of his own shadow. Johnny Bainbridge spoke gloomily of the “witch-hunt.” Even David warned him not to talk too much about some of his New York productions, but Walter’s associates over the years had been of such awesome distinction that he couldn’t imagine any of these upstart movie moguls questioning anything he had done under their patronage.

Two days before he was to begin shooting his second film, he was summoned by the studio boss, one of the grand old men of the industry, Sidney Magnus. Walter had met him several times, but he was too old to take an active part in the community’s social life. Walter supposed he wanted to wish him well on his new venture. He was a small mournful man who always wore dark business suits as if to disavow the lush tropical environment he had played a large part in creating. He didn’t mention Walter’s film but made a rambling speech about the greatness of America.

“There’s a terrible threat to the industry, Walter,” he concluded. “A handful of Bolsheviks and troublemakers are trying to take over. Perverts, Walter. To the public, we are getting a bad name. I am going myself, personally, to Washington, D.C., to tell the Congress of the United States that these people will be cleaned out. I will not have one of them left on my lot. We know who they are. I’m told you once produced a play by a Communist.”

“I may have, Sidney. I’ve produced a lot of plays,” Walter agreed cheerfully. Sidney reminded him of his father-in-law, and he responded with blithe defiance. “The only one I know by a Communist was the first I ever did. It was by a Frenchman.”

“The name I have is John Bainbridge.”

“He did the English adaptation. He doesn’t work for you anyway.”

“He does not. He never will. Those are the facts in a nutshell. You say John Bainbridge is a Communist That’s good, Walter. We know it, but I’m glad I can say you told me.”

“I haven’t told you anything of the sort. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he is, but what difference does it make? There aren’t many Communist films being made out here.”

“Bolsheviks, Walter. Perverts. I don’t understand such filth, but people tell me. A man likes another man. He wants to overthrow the system. I understand that much. Out. I want a clean studio, Walter.”

“You sound like the department of sanitation, Sidney.”

“You’re a clever man. You laugh. I’m not laughing. I want you to tell me all such people you know. You’re a great young American. Your beautiful wife is a great young American lady. Her family are great Americans. You’re an example, Walter. I want you to tell me. I want the industry to know that you’re with us.”

“I’ll tell you this, Sidney. If a man does his job well, I don’t give a damn what he does when he goes home. I’d gladly give you a list of people who don’t do their jobs well.”

“You’re young, Walter. You’re the greatest man in the theater today. Fine. That’s why I wanted you out here. But what’s the theater? Peanuts compared to pictures. How much money have you made–a million, maybe? I’m worth $30 million as I’m sitting here. You’re nothing if I say so, Walter. Don’t you forget it.”

Walter chortled. “You people really do have delusions of grandeur. OK, Sidney. Let me know when you decide I’m nothing, and I’ll try to vanish into thin air.”

Going back to the work Sidney had interrupted, Walter knew that he should be indignant, perhaps even to the point of invoking one of the escape clauses in his contract and walking out, but like so much in Hollywood, he found it aroused only contempt and a determination to go his own way. Getting rid of Johnny Bainbridge wouldn’t be enough for them. They wanted to break Walter Makin, make him a good organization man. Their imaginations were too limited for them to grasp the fact that they had nothing he needed. He liked the work and the money, but he could go back to Broadway and make money this time, whenever they pushed him too far. It was almost unfair for him to be in such an impregnable position. It made him feel that he should assert his power on behalf of his less favored colleagues. He wished Johnny worked for the studio. He would insist on shooting any script Johnny had handy and let them try to do something about it. He was aware that he would be less capable of taking such a high-handed stand if his public record weren’t spotless. A man likes another man. Out He hoped David had buried his past.

David called the next day to tell him of a sudden change in the studio’s plans. He wouldn’t be the producer for Walter’s new film but had been given a new assignment and was being replaced by a relative novice. Walter liked working with David and was annoyed, but his control didn’t extend to the choice of studio personnel. He told David about his talk with Sidney as a warning to him.

David laughed. “Honey, I didn’t marry Sidney’s great-niece for nothing. You taught me that a well-connected wife can be useful.”

It wasn’t the only last-minute change. His assistant, who had worked with him on his first film, failed to appear on the first day of shooting. A stranger was there to replace him. Several errors had been made in the actor’s calls so he had to reshuffle the schedule. He didn’t waste time raising hell with the new assistant, but the better part of a half day’s work was lost before he had begun. He was confident he could make it up, but for the first time he had committed the director’s cardinal sin of running late.

He ran later still in the week that followed. There was a succession of accidents and errors that could happen to anybody but had never happened to him. Sets weren’t ready on time, prints were spoiled so that scenes had to be reshot, actors kept going up in their lines. He regarded himself as being relatively free from paranoia, but he couldn’t help having his suspicions. After a week he had no doubt that this was Sidney’s revenge. He went home to Clara every night in a rage, which he was careful to control during the day. Temper tantrums were the greatest time-wasters of all. Clara listened thoughtfully to his reports of the day’s woes, usually delivered over a drink by the pool, while she stared out at the space immediately in front of her, her mouth working as if to savor the taste of the situation.

“You know, of course,” she said the first time he mentioned the possibility of dropping the film and getting out of Hollywood, “all you’d have to do is give him the names of half a dozen people that everybody knows anyway, like Johnny. It wouldn’t do them any harm, and it would make him feel you’re on his team.”

“But I’m not. Blacklists. Prying into people’s private lives. It’s disgusting. Good men are losing their jobs. I knew it, but I didn’t see that there was anything I could do about it. I’m beginning to wonder.’ He hadn’t seriously considered dropping the film. He intended to stay and stay on his own terms. “I want to talk to Johnny about this. Do we have any spare time between now and Sunday?”

“No, dearest. We’re having Betty and Bogey and that crowd for dinner tomorrow. Otherwise, it’s one brilliant soiree after another at the Metros and the Goldwyns and the Mayers. Actually, it’s the Selznicks tonight for a change.”

Clara pondered the problem for two days while Walter reported mounting difficulties. She wanted to leave Hollywood–there was no question about that–but she wanted to leave in a way that wouldn’t hurt his career. She had heard of Sidney’s tricks being used on others. They would hound him until he quit and salvage their investment as best they could with a new director. Walter would be professionally discredited.

That would be bad enough, but if he allowed himself to be drawn politically, he might make trouble for himself that would follow him back to New York. She had a more realistic grasp of the situation than he. A wave of bigotry was sweeping the country that wouldn’t stop with sinister politicians like McCarthy and California’s own ghastly little Nixon, whom they’d had the misfortune of meeting. A quixotic embroilment with Johnny and others like him could dry up Walter’s sources of production money.

She hadn’t been happy with the way they had left New York. As soon as Walter had returned from Europe, he had rushed the play, for whose poster Mark had posed, into production while he was simultaneously liquidating Theatre Today. The play had been quite a success and was only now coming to the end of its run, but there had been something precipitate and undignified about their departure. Mark had been a close call. She had learned that her intervention in Walter’s life could have dramatic consequences, so she weighed the risks carefully for two days before she called Sidney Magnus and arranged a meeting.

Sidney staggered to his feet when she entered his office. “Clara,” he exclaimed as she approached. “A sight for sore eyes. Let me look at you. The embodiment of pure young American womanhood.”

“Come off it,” she said as she offered her hand. He took it and leaned over it to lift it up to his lips. She caught him as he was about to pitch forward onto his desk and put him back into his chair. She withdrew a single sheet of paper from her pocketbook. “There, Sidney. A list. You weren’t very clever the way you handled Walter. You must know you can’t bully a man of his stature.”

The old man sat huddled in his chair and studied the list. “Good, Clara, good. What I would expect from the daughter of one of the most respected families of this country. The FBI might want to ask some questions about these people.”

“Lay off, Sidney. You’re got what you want. Naturally, Walter doesn’t know anything about this. There’s nothing in his contract that says he has to tell you about the people he knows. Tell the FBI to do their own homework.”

“Clara, there’s a terrible threat to the industry. A handful of Bolsheviks and–”

“I know, Sidney.” Clara, who had perched briefly on the edge of Magnus’s desk, stood. “You’re going to clear them out. It’s your responsibility. After all, you hired them. You wouldn’t want the FBI wondering about that, would you? We won’t talk anymore about it. Walter may be on your side, but he’s a professional. He doesn’t believe in doing anything that isn’t stipulated in his contract. Now I must fly.”

“It’s an inspiration to talk to you, Clara. Your family–”

She hurried out before he could tell her about her family.

Walter came home the next evening in a much happier frame of mind, reporting that work had progressed almost without incident. In another few days, with everything going smoothly at last, he was so absorbed in his film that he literally had no time to devote to the witchhunt, except as it affected his immediate concerns. When Clara heard that Johnny and a few others she knew had been dropped by their studios, she didn’t bother to mention it to him. It would have happened sooner or later in any case. Walter would hear soon enough.