The Early Ayn Rand (20 page)

She was still thinking it as she trudged wearily through the gates of the Wonder-Pictures Studio. Claire Nash had worked for seven years on the Wonder-Pictures lot. But it was for the first time in her life that she entered it through the shabby side-gate of the “Extra Talent Entrance.” She kept her head bowed cautiously and her scarf under her nose, not to be recognized. She soon found that she had nothing to fear: no one could pick her out in the dismal stampede of gray shadows streaming past the casting office window; no one could and no one showed any inclination to try. The boy in the window handed her her work ticket without raising his head or looking at her. “Hurry up!” her companion prodded her impatiently, and Claire started running with the others in the mad rush to the wardrobe.

Three stern-faced, gloomy-eyed, frozen individuals in shirtsleeves stood behind a wooden counter, distributing the extras’ costumes. They fished the first rags they could reach out of three hampers filled with filthy junk and pushed them across the counter into uncomplaining hands. When Claire’s turn came, the lordly individual threw at her something heavy, huge, discolored, with dirty pieces of faded gold ribbon, with a smell of stale makeup and perspiration. “Your ticket?” he ordered briefly, extending his hand for it.

“I don’t like this costume,” Claire declared, horrified.

The man looked at her incredulously.

“Well, isn’t that just too bad!” he observed, seized her ticket, punched it, and turned, with an armful of rags, to the next woman in line.

The extras’ dressing room was cold as a cellar, colder than the frozen air outside. With stiff fingers, Claire undressed and struggled into her costume. She looked into a mirror and closed her eyes. Then, with an effort, she looked again: the huge garment could have contained easily three persons of her size; the thick folds gathered clumsily into a lump on her stomach; she tried to adjust them, but they slipped right back to her stomach again; she was awkward, obese, disfigured.

Suffocating, she sat down on a wooden bench before a little crooked mirror on a filthy, unpainted wooden counter—to make up her face. But she knew little about screen makeup and had long since forgotten what she had known. For the last seven years she had had her own expert makeup man who knew how to correct the little defects of her face. Now she realized suddenly that her eyes were a little too narrow; that her cheeks were a little too broad; that she had a slight double chin. She sat twisting the greasy tube helplessly in her fingers, trying to remember and do the best she could.

Around her, the big barrack was full of busy, noisy, hurrying and gossiping females. She saw half-naked, shivering bodies and flabby muscles, vapor fluttering from mouths with every word, barbarian tunics and underwear—not very clean underwear.

She was about to rise when a strong hand pushed her down again.

“What’s the hurry, dearie? Put on yar wig, willya?”

A short, plump girl in a blue smock stood before her, with hairpins in her mouth and in her hand something that looked like the fur of a very unsanitary poodle.

“
That
. . . for me?” Claire gasped. “But . . . but I’m blond! I . . . I can’t wear a black wig!”

“D’ya suppose we got time to monkey around with every one of ya?” the girl asked, swishing the hairpins in her mouth. “Ya can’t have bobbed hair in this picture. It’s the ancient times, this is. Take what ya get. We ain’t gonna bother about the color of two hundred heads!”

“But it will look awful!”

“Well, who do ya think ya are? It will ruin the picture, I suppose, will it?”

The wig was too small. The hairdresser rammed it down till it squeezed Claire’s temples like a vise. She wound a huge turban over it to keep it in place, and stuck a dozen hairpins inside with such violence that she skinned Claire’s skull.

“Now ya’re okay. Hurry up, ya got five minutes left to get on the set.”

Claire threw a last glance in the mirror. The black poodle fur hung in rags over her face; the huge turban slid down to her eyes; she looked like a mushroom with a lump in the middle. She was safe; no one would recognize her; she couldn’t recognize herself.

 

“Ef-fry-body on de set!” Werner von Halz roared through his megaphone.

Obedient as a herd, the huge crowd filled the stone-paved yard of Queen Lani’s castle. Four hundred pairs of eyes rose expectantly to the high platform where Mr. von Halz’s majestic figure stood among seven cameras.

In the solemn silence, Mr. von Halz’s voice rang imperiously:

“Vat you haff to do iss diss. Der iss a var going on and your country she hass just von a great fictory. Your queen announces it to you from her castle vall. You greet de news mitt vild joy.”

The mighty castle rose proudly to the clear, blue sky, a giant of impregnable granite and plaster in a forest of wooden scaffoldings and steel wires. An army of overalls moved swiftly through the castle, placing metal sheets and mirrors in, under, above the ramparts. The hot rays of the sun focused on the crowd. Hasty, nervous assistant directors rushed through the mob, placing extras all over the set.

Claire followed every assistant with an eager, hopeful glance. No one noticed her. She was not chosen for the best, prominent spots. And when, once, an assistant pointed her out to another, that other shook his head: “No, not that one!”

The cameramen were bent over their cameras, tense, motionless, studying the scene. Werner von Halz watched critically through a dark lens.

“A shadow in de right corner!” he was ordering. “Kill dat light on your left! . . . I vant sefen more people on dose steps. . . . Break dat line! You’re not soldiers on a parade! . . . Dun’t bunch up like sardines on vun spot! Spread all ofer de yard! . . . All right!” he ordered at last. “Let’s try it!”

Heddy Leland’s slim, quick figure appeared on the castle wall. She spoke. The crowd roared without moving, only hundreds of arms shot vigorously in every direction, as though practicing their daily dozen.

“Stop! Hold it!!” Werner von Halz roared. “Iss dat de vay people iss glad? Iss dat de vay you vould meet your queen speaking of fictory? Now try to tink she iss saying dat you are going to haff lunch at vunce! Let’s see how you vill meet dat!”

Queen Lani spoke again. Her subjects greeted her words enthusiastically. Mr. von Halz nodded.

“Diss vill be picture!” he announced.

Frantic assistants rushed through the crowd, throwing their last orders: “Hey, you there! Take off your spectacles, you fool! . . . Don’t chew gum! . . . Hide that white petticoat, you, over there! . . . No chewing gum! They didn’t chew gum in that century!”

“Ready?” boomed Werner von Halz. The huge set froze in silence, a reverent silence.

“Cam’ra-a-a!!”

Seven hands fell as levers. Seven small, glistening eyes of glass were suddenly alive, ominous, commanding the scene as seven cannons fixed upon it. Four hundred human beings in a panic of enthusiasm stormed like a boiling kettle of rags at the foot of the castle. On the wall, two thin, strong arms rose to the sky and a young voice rang exultantly through the roar of the crowd.

And Claire Nash felt herself torn off her feet, pushed, knocked, tumbled over, thrown to left and right by human bodies gone mad. She tried to act and register joy. Pressed between two huge, enthusiastic fellows, she could not tell on which side stood the cameras and on which the castle; all she could see was a piece of blue sky over red, sweating necks. She tried to fight her way out. She was thrown back by someone’s elbow in her ribs and someone’s knee in her stomach. A woman screaming frantically: “Long live our Queen!” was spitting into her face. A gentleman with the figure of a prizefighter stepped on her bare foot, taking the skin off three toes. She smiled pitifully and muttered: “Long live our Queen,” waving a limp hand over her head. Even the hand could not be seen by the cameras. . . .

When, at last, the piercing siren blew and assistants shouted “Hold it,” when the cameras stopped, when Claire drew a deep breath and pulled the wig’s hair out of her mouth, Mr. von Halz wiped his forehead with satisfaction and said:

“Dat’s good. . . . Vunce more, pleaz!”

 

Claire had been standing on her feet for three hours when the cameras were moved at last, and she was able to hobble towards a nurse, to get Mercurochrome smeared over the scratches on her arms and legs, to breathe, to powder her face and to look around.

She saw the tall, slender figure of a man in the simplest gray suit, insolently elegant in its simplicity. Her heart did a somersault. She recognized the clear, contemptuous eyes, the scornful, irresistible smile. He was bending over Heddy Leland, talking to her intently, as if they were alone on the set. Heddy Leland was sitting in a low, comfortable canvas chair, a dark silk robe drawn tightly over her costume, her thin, brown hands motionless on the chair’s arms. She was looking up at Winston Ayers, listening quietly, her face inscrutable; but she was looking at him as if he were the only man on the set.

Claire felt suddenly as if something had struck her through the ribs. She did not mind the set, nor the crowd, nor her place in it, nor Heddy Leland’s place. It was the man in gray and the look with which he spoke to the girl in the chair. Claire was surprised to learn how much she minded that. She walked away hastily, with one last, bitter glance at the chair with the black inscription on its canvas back: “Keep off. Miss Heddy Leland.”

She fell down wearily on the first chair she could find. “ ’scuse me, please!” snapped a prop boy and, without waiting for her to rise, snatched the chair from under her and carried it away. She saw that it was marked: “Keep off. Mrs. McWiggins, Wardrobe.” She stumbled away and sat down on the steps of a ladder. “ ’scuse me, please!” snapped an electrician and carried the ladder away. She dragged herself into a shady corner and fell miserably down on an empty box.

“Ef-fry-body on de set!” roared Werner von Halz.

She stumbled heavily back to the set, swaying slightly, the white glare of the sun on the metal reflectors blinding her. A swift shadow fell across her face as someone passed by. She opened her eyes and found herself looking straight upon Winston Ayers. He stopped short and looked at her closely. One of his eyebrows rose slowly; he opened his mouth and quickly closed it again. Then he bowed, calmly, precisely, graciously, without a word, turned and walked on. But Claire had seen that his lips were trembling in a tremendous effort to stop the laughter that choked him. She grew crimson as a beet, even through the thick layers of brown makeup.

When the new scene was being rehearsed, Claire pushed her way, resolute and desperate, to the edge of the crowd, in front of the cameras. “They’ll notice me!” she whispered grimly. They did.

“Who’s dat girl in brown?” asked Werner von Halz after the first rehearsal, pointing his thumb at Claire Nash, who was struggling fiercely with the lump gathering on her stomach and the turban sliding off her head. “Take her out of dere! Put somebody dat can act in front!”

At the end of the day, every bone in her body aching and her feet burning like hot irons, with dust in her eyes and dust creaking on her teeth, Claire Nash stood in line at the cashier’s window, curious and anxious, watching girls walk away with seven-fifty and ten-dollar checks. When she asked for her payment, the little slip of paper she received bore the words: “Pay to the order of Jane Roberts—the sum of five dollars.”

 

Claire Nash was an indomitable woman. Besides, the thought of Winston Ayers’ trembling lips kept her awake all night. On the following day at the studio, she got a bit.

She remembered the beginning of her first career. She smiled and winked at an assistant director; she spoke to him—not too sternly. And as a result, when Mr. von Halz asked for a girl to do a bit, she was pushed forward.

Mr. von Halz looked her over critically, bending his head to one side. “Vell, try it,” he said at last, indifferently. “Dat man”—he pointed to a tall, lean, pitiful extra—“iss a covard, he iss afraid of var. You”—he pointed to Claire—“are angry und laugh at him. You are . . . vat dey call it? . . . vun rough-und-ready woman.”

“I?” gasped Claire. “I—a rough-and-ready woman? But it’s not my type!”

“Vat?” said Mr. von Halz, astounded. “You dun’t vant to do it maybe?”

“Oh, yes!” said Claire hastily. “Oh, yes, I do!”

The cameras clicked. The coward trembled, covering his face with his hands. Claire laughed demoniacally, her fists on her hips, and slapped him on the back, trying to forget as much of the ideal of sweet maidenhood as she could forget. . . .

On the following evening, Claire saw the rushes of her scene in the projection room. No extra could be admitted lawfully into the sacred mystery of a projection room; but she smiled wistfully upon the susceptible assistant director and he surrendered and smuggled her in through the narrow door, when the lights were off and all the great ones had settled down comfortably in deep leather armchairs: Mr. Bamburger, Mr. von Halz, Mr. Ayers, Miss Leland. Claire stood in a dark corner by the door and looked anxiously at the screen.

She had to confess to herself that she did not photograph as well as she used to; and she remembered that for seven years she had had her own cameraman who knew the secret of the lights which made her face what the fans thought it to be. Besides, rough-and-ready women were definitely not her forte.

Mr. von Halz’s opinion was more detailed. “Hm,” she heard him say, “dat girl hass not got vun nickel’s vorth of personality. And she duss not photograph. And she iss no actress. Cut dat out!”

She did not remember what happened after that. She remembered standing in a dark studio alley, with her head raised to the wind, a cold wind that would not cool her flaming, throbbing forehead; while the assistant director was pleading foolishly, mumbling something about dinner and about something she had promised. She got rid of him at last and fled blindly.