Belinda (37 page)

I don't think Mother expected all this. Even with the talk of the tribute I think she had expected to be patted on the head and no more. But as always happens with Mom, the attention only made her more afraid. Trish and Jill had to make her eat something and then she couldn't hold it down. The vomiting started, and I had to be in the bathroom with her till it was over. Then she tried again.

Finally I told her I had to find Susan. And she told me straight out that she didn't know how I could think of things like that at a time like this.

I tried to explain Susan was expecting to hear from us, but she was crying by this time, and that meant her makeup was ruined, and she told Jill that I was changing towards her, that I wasn't my old self, and Jill said that was her imagination and that I was not going anywhere, was I?

I didn't know what I would have done then, but Susan came at that moment, knocking on the door. She looked terrific in her silver satin tasseled shirt and silver pants, but Mother did not even look at her, she was sick again, and I took Susan into the bedroom and found out from her that our showing was tomorrow morning and we'd have a press conference right after and that is when Mother had to be there.

I told Susan that everything was just going to be fine. Mother was sick right now, but she'd be OK in the morning, that's how it was with Mother. She was always on time. As for me, I'd meet her before the screening, but I couldn't leave right now.

Meantime Trish had taken Mom into her room for her nap. And Uncle Daryl and a new Hollywood agent named Sally Tracy were having a drink in the parlor of the suite, and I brought Susan in to meet them.

They smiled at Susan but almost immediately told her very tactfully that they didn't think Mother would be doing the press conference after all. Lots of people wanted to see Mother. And the press conference about Susan's movie just wasn't the kind of exposure that Mother should have. Surely Susan understood that they have to orchestrate things.

Well, boy, did Susan not understand. Her face went dark as she looked at these two. And then she turned and looked at me. I said immediately that whatever the case I'd be at the screening and the press conference as Bonnie's daughter, and we could get some mileage out of that.

Susan nodded, then she got up, said, Real nice meeting you, Texas-style, to Daryl and Sally Tracy and she split. As for me, I was in a state of shock, but not so much that I didn't snap out of it and light into Uncle Daryl. Didn't he realize why we were here?

But he and Sally Tracy smoothly and almost cheerfully explained to me that the sort of films that Susan did were not going to find an audience in America and the smart thing to do was not get any deeper in. I said, Mom owes Susan, you know that. There isn't any ethical way to back out on Susan. But I could feel my face getting red.

What I was thinking basically was, this is my film, too, goddamn it, I'm in it and, damn it, we came here to support it. But what stopped me from arguing was realizing that this might make me sound just like Mother, as self-centered as she always was. I was just silent thinking about that, not wanting to sound like Mother, and then Uncle Daryl took me aside and told me all kinds of people had been contacting him about Mother. He was sure I understood.

Then Sally Tracy asked me about Susan's film, if there was a love scene with me in it and what kind of scene. I told her it was tasteful and it was sort of revolutionary because it was between two women, and she just shook her head and said, "I think we have a problem."

I said, "What's the problem?" And then Daryl said I wouldn't be at that press conference in the morning, no sir. "Like hell," I said.

I was just about to light out for Susan's room when out of the other room of the suite there came this man. Now this is Marty Moreschi I'm talking about, but at the time, of course, I didn't know him at all. And let me explain how he came across.

Marty is not handsome, the way you are. He doesn't have your poise and cool, and even when he is as old as you are, he will never have your charm. Marty is self-made and what you call a loud, vulgar New York kid in a lot of ways. He has rather ordinary features and plain straight black hair. Nothing particular about him except everything seems particular, especially his deep, kind of purring voice, coming out of his chest, and his eyes, very brilliant and feverish eyes.

But like Susan, Marty is very impressive and very sexual, too. He is sinewy and hard all over, one of those wiry guys who is incredibly strong. And he is always suntanned black and is always in motion and always talking. So you respond as much to the way he glides up and takes your hand and to the way he laughs and says: "Belinda, honey! Bonnie's daughter, well, isn't this sensational, this is Bonnie's daughter, come here, honey, let me look at you?'-you respond as much to this as to his looks.

He is very hot. I mean, you feel it with everything. It isn't just sexuality with Marty, though Marty is practically compulsive on that score, it is that Marty just takes charge.

He was wearing an exquisite silver gray three-piece suit, and he had gold all over him-gold watchband, gold rings, gold cuff links, and I have to say that he looked very good to me, very good. He really has a fine body, really fine. I mean, the chest and the way the pants fit him, he looked very good right off.

Anyway, he came gliding out of Mother's room, and he said just what I just said, and he gave me his immediate lock-on attention, which usually means attraction, though, of course, it could have been flattery, just flattery. Of course, Marty swore later that it was not. Whatever the case, he said my mother was sensational, unbelievable, incredible, unreal, and all that and it was the thrill of his life to meet her and she was the dream star, the superstar, the star like they didn't make stars anymore and all that.

And by this time we were sitting on the couch together, and he was asking me how I'd like to come to LA and see my mother be big again, bigger than anybody. And he was throwing in all that crap like, "Hey, what's your sign, no don't tell me, you're a Scorpio, aren't you honey, yes, I knew it, terrific, you're a Scorpio, honey, and so am I. I am a double Scorpio. And I knew you were a Scorpio the minute I saw you because you are independent." And so forth and so on.

It sounds sleazy when I try to describe it, but there was this immense conviction behind Marty as he poured this on. And he was holding my hand and I could feel something coming through his hand. I mean, I felt a sort of overwhelming physical thing for him, and I wondered how many other women felt this, instantly, just from the touch, the way that I did.

I mean, I looked down at his hand and the way the dark hair was on his wrist, coming out of the white cuff, and the way the gold watchband was there with the dark hair. I mean, just this little thing was attractive to me. It was driving me wild.

I could tell you things about you that made me feel the same way, the way that you let your hair just grow loose and kind of wild, and the expression on your face when you look down at me, and the way it feels to sleep against your chest.

But the thing I am trying to describe here is the way that the attraction got to me, and short-circuited me, and how unprepared I was for all that.

Marty was meantime tuning in to everybody in the room, saying: "Can't you see that independence in her, can't you see that, Sally?" and the truth is, he hardly knew Sally, he had just met her. And: "You don't mind if I smoke, do you, ladies? Daryl, how about that Scotch now? You think the lady"-and that was Mother-"would mind if we had a little, what do you think, Daryl? Sensational!" And then he had his arm around Daryl and Daryl brought over the glass.

"Listen, honey, you and I have to be good friends," he was saying. "And you've got to let me make your mother big again in America, I mean big, sweetheart. Belinda, Belinda, is it? Sensational! Daryl, where'd your sister get that name for her? Talk to me, sweetheart. What can I do for you while you're at Cannes? What do you and the lady need? You call me. This is my number "Blah, blah, blah and all the time his eyes narrow and brilliant like this is all earthshaking what is happening, then he says he has to blast off.

"So do I," I said. And I headed out the door, and before they could stop me, I was gone to find Susan while he was still kissing Sally Tracy and shaking hands and all that.

I thought Susan would be hysterical about Mother backing out. But she wasn't. We got right into rehearsing for the press conference. And she had already talked to two Continental distributors. It was a sure thing they'd take the film in Germany and Holland. And United Theatricals was very interested and, of course, United Theatricals was one of the biggest distributors worldwide. That would be dream stuff to get United Theatricals. But she had the inside track that they wanted it. They had heard the rumor that the film had a good narrative line.

When I got back to the room, I found out they had sedated Mother because she couldn't sleep. She was out cold. I went into her room and she was lying there with all those flowers around her and, I tell you, it looked like a funeral, this perfect statue of a lady lying there on the satin cover and the flowers all over the room. She seemed to be scarcely breathing. And it always scared me to see her drugged like that.

But they were going to show her most famous film at the Palais des Festivals, and there would be a supper and the tribute afterwards, and United Theatricals was somehow involved.

Well, that's it, I thought, and Susan's right. We might get United Theatricals to distribute after all.

The screening of Final Score the next morning was one experience I'll remember forever, in spite of everything else that went on. I mean, we really had the audience. You could feel it. And when those scenes came on and I saw the brand-new me up there-not the kid who had been in Mom's films years and years agog-well, what can I say? I had never seen the final cut either. And I was really stunned and grateful for how good Susan had made us all look.

When we got the standing ovation, Susan was holding my hand and Sandy's hand. And she was squeezing my hand so hard it hurt, and it felt just great at the same time.

The press conference was in the lobby at the Carlton and right off Susan got into the sexual issue, that this was a picture by a woman about women and the sex was clean. The idea was that the woman in the film had a private experience and it made her see the shallowness of the life in the fast lane and all that. The Texas band of dope smugglers had risked everything for the cocaine score. And yet, as they hid out on the island, they realized that they had no idea what to do with the money. The final dope score wouldn't change their lives at all. But the interlude between the two women, that had made for a change in the heroine. And to say it was a gay film would have limited it. It was about a new kind of woman, who tries a variety of experiences in life, a woman who had the pressures and freedoms of a man.

From there it went right on to women in film, did women get a fair shake? And did Susan see herself as an American filmmaker, which of course she did. Her dope smugglers were Texan Americans. And then Susan threw in the fact that Bonnie had helped produce the film, and this was one woman helping another, the way Coppola had once helped his friend Ballard to make the Black Stallion, and so forth and so on.

That threw the focus right to me. And then the questions started about Mother's financing. And I tried to keep my voice steady while I explained how much Mother believed in the film of integrity, like the ones she had made in the past.

Then it was: Did I feel the love scenes in the film were tasteful and in the tradition of Mother's films?-and, of course, I said yes. Did I want to make more films? Yes, definitely. How did I feel about playing in a film that maybe I wasn't old enough to see in the United States? And Susan stepped in immediately and explained that no way would the film be Xrated. Had the reporters just been to the screening? What did they see? Final Score would get an Rrating, of course. And then she talked about me and Sandy as two of the most exciting actresses on the current scene.

Then came Sandy's moment, and she probably got as much mileage out of monosyllabic answers as any beautiful woman ever did. Susan rescued her a couple of times, and there was a lot more about America and Europe and Texas, but by that time it was repeating itself.

I'd say even now that it went wonderfully well. Susan was natural and convincing, and the reporters were never hostile to us. After all, we were the underdogs at Cannes. Nobody expected us to win anything. Nobody was out to get us. It was our moment of glory, and everyone was on our side.

Rumors were all over about United Theatricals distributing. But Susan wasn't going to lose her Continental people. She holed up in the room with the phones as the talk about United Theatricals brought more and more offers in.

Reporters attacked us when we went out for drinks. We were mobbed with questions. Did I have any new offers? Would Susan work in Hollywood? We told everybody about Of [Vill and Shame, the Brazilian film.

I was floating when I got back to the suite, but something was brewing in me, too. I was hurt by Mother in a way that I had never been hurt in the past. I could look back on many terrible things, but no matter what Mother had ever done to me, Mother had always suffered worse.

But this time Mother had hurt me, and it didn't involve her self-destructiveness or her carelessness. It involved something else. She hadn't come to the showing! And that hurt me as bad as her not coming to the press conference. Mother had not seen my film.

Yet again, when I came into the suite, I didn't flip over it. I couldn't. I was blocked again by the thought that I would be acting like Mother if I flipped over it. I'd be drawing attention to myself as Mother always did.

When I walked in, nobody even noticed me. Nobody even knew I was there. The whole place was in confusion. The showing of Mom's film had turned into a special evening of clips from all Mom's best. And Leonardo Gallo, who by the way had made a lot of garbage with Mom, was going to make the address. Well, he needed that all right. And maybe everyone would remember his younger days and not the garbage that killed Mona's career.