Life Its Ownself (20 page)

"Gary Cooper died?" I glanced at Shake.

Big Ed gave me an explicit look. "I'll guarantee you Gary Cooper is dead. Gary Cooper is deader than soccer!"

"When did it happen?"

"I don't know," said Big Ed, "but he hauled off and died, just like Lucille Ball."

I turned to Burt Danby.

"Lucille Ball's not dead, is she?"

"Blanko," said Burt with a shrug.

To Shake Tiller, Big Ed said, "All right, answer
this!
If Lucille Ball ain't dead, what's her God-damn show doin' on television in black-and-white?"

Big Barb and Veronica meandered over to our conversation group.

"What's this about Lucille Ball?" Big Barb wondered.

I said, "We're trying to decide whether she's alive."

"Why?"

Shake tumbled onto a couch.

"That's right," he said, starting to wheeze from laughter. "
Why
is it important? I don't need to know. Do you need to know, Billy C.?"

"I'd sort of like to know," Burt said.

Shake came up from the couch, gave Big Barb a hug, and said, "You just asked the greatest question I've ever heard."

Big Ed held an unlit Sherman in his teeth as he said, "I got one! Jimmy Stewart!"

He turned down the flame on his Dunhill, and said, "No, wait! It's Gregory Peck! It's either Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck, by God!"

Shake said, "If it's Gregory Peck, we can say goodbye to the screenplay as we know it."

"Why's that?" I said, reaching for the young Scotch.

"I know a guy out here who told me how to write screenplays," said Shake. "On page forty-two, Gregory Peck stands up in his trenchcoat and tells everybody what the movie's all about. On page eighty-four, Gregory Peck stands up in his trenchcoat and tells everybody what the movie's all about again. On page a hundred and fifteen, the movie's over. Gregory Peck slings the trenchcoat over his shoulder and gazes into a spiritual dawn."

"That was a God-damn-good movie, too," Big Ed said. "Gary Cooper wasn't in it, but I liked it."

"They can't make movies like that anymore," said Burt Danby, looking depressed. "What are they gonna do, put a trenchcoat on one of those Italian gnomes, let him go up in the B-l 7 and teach the crew how to breakdance? Jesus... this fucking town."

Big Ed wanted to know what the names of those "silly newspapers" were.

"Barbara Jane refers to 'em," he said.

"The trades?" Burt volunteered. "
Daily Variety
and
The Hollywood Reporter
?"

"That's them," said Big Ed. "They could provide a hell of a public service. They ought to print a list every day. Who hadn't died yet."

Shake said, "I'm with you, Ed. I say if Lucille Ball's not dead, let's tell people."

"Don't have to be a big story or anything. Just a list. Jimmy Stewart... Gregory Peck... Lucille Ball—if they're sure of it."

Shake clinked his glass of J&B against Big Ed's glass of Stolichnaya. "You got it, Ed. It's time to eliminate all this damn guesswork."

I was cornered by Veronica Danby down on the street before our limo parade left for the studio.

"We have something in common," she said.

"We do?"

"You're going to be exercising your leg. I study with this amazing woman who used to be a soloist with the Ballet Russe. Her grasp of body alignment is not to be believed! I have learned how to isolate so well! Most people don't know there's a correct way to use your feet when you exercise. Are you aware of the feet?"

"I think so."

"Feet are so critical."

"Feet are right there."

"Of course, I know my body will have to be re-shaped eventually, even with all of the aerobics I'm doing now, but I hope to prolong it through proper exercise for ten years or more. What I wanted to say to you is that the right kind of exercise is every bit as important as skin care and diet, it rrreally is!"

"Thanks for the tip," I said.

Shake insisted on riding in the limo with Big Ed. He wasn't going to let a good thing get away.

"You're tired, what about Poland?"

The show was in progress, and Barbara Jane (Rita) got her first ample laugh from the audience with that line. She now moved away from Carolyn (Amanda) to see about a table of "customers" who were dining at Rita's Limo Stop.

The next thing we heard was the muffled voice of the director as it came over the loudspeaker from the control room.

"That's a better ender for Scene One than what we have," the director's voice said. "Let's set up in the living room, please."

All of us were sitting on the second row of an elevated grandstand in the studio. We looked down on the television set, at the cameramen, technicians, lights, and cables.

The set consisted of the restaurant as a large centerpiece, the kitchen of the restaurant to our right, and the living room of Rita's apartment to our left.

To one side of us in the bleachers, as part of the audience, were the bicoastal network executives, a blend of dark-suited men and tailored women, all looking morbid. Their drones were seated around them, earnest young people who were filling up pages of yellow legal pad with production notes.

Directly across the aisle from us were two harlequins who couldn't have been mistaken for anybody other than Sheldon Gurtz and Kitty Feldman.

Sheldon Gurtz was a chubby man of medium height, about fifty. He had a beard and wore thick glasses, a denim suit, a string tie, his white 10-gallon cowboy hat, and sneakers. When he crossed his leg, I definitely noticed an Argyle sock.

Kitty Feldman wore a beret, dark glasses, Cossack boots, a sack dress, and smoked with a cigarette holder. Kitty Feldman wasn't actually as small as a rodent, but she would fit in your carry-on luggage.

I pointed out Sheldon and Kitty to our group. Sheldon and Kitty were enemies of the people, I said.

Big Ed studied the executive producers for a moment that dragged on. His eyes were still on them as he said to himself:

"Big Silly and Little Silly."

The cameras rolled again after a man held aloft a sign that said, "QUIET, PLEASE," and another man adjusted his headset and signaled to Barbara Jane.

Barbara Jane, who was standing in the living room of the set with Carolyn, had changed from something smashing and casual by some kind of Adolfo into something more smashing and more casual by some kind of Gianni.

As the action began, Barb walked across the living room but stopped to pick up something off of a coffee table.

"Robert Redford's been in my apartment!" She wheeled on Carolyn.

Nobody laughed but Shake and me—and Carolyn.

"Is that a cracker?" said Carolyn (Amanda), fighting to stay in character.

"Yes!" said Barbara Jane (Rita). "And there are only three people in the world who leave a half-eaten cracker lying around in your home! Dustin Hoffman, A1 Pacino, and Robert Redford!"

Carolyn said, "How do you know it wasn't Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino?"

"They're too short to reach the table!"

I surveyed the audience. Sheldon and Kitty weren't laughing.

Buoyed by the audience's response, Barbara Jane and Carolyn set a land-speed record for ad-libs.

Carolyn said, "Rita, Dustin Hoffman's a wonderful actor. Didn't you like
Kramer versus Kramer
?"

"I didn't see it."

"Why not?"

"I know how to make French toast!"

I reached behind Big Ed and tapped Shake on the shoulder.

"She's going down in her own flames," I said.

"That's our girl," said Shake.

Back on the set, Carolyn lit a cigarette—stage business— and said, "I've been thinking about the restaurant, Rita. Maybe we ought to take toxic waste off the menu."

"Too expensive?"

"Well, that, and...we've never been able to get the seasoning right. Jerry called you today."

"My ex-husband?"

"He's still your husband. The divorce isn't final yet."

"His personality is."

"Jerry thinks you're being tough with the lawyer because he's going out with a younger woman."

"You call that girl young? Just because she hasn't been potty-trained?"

Sheldon Gurtz and Kitty Feldman left their seats and started up the aisle, still unamused. Perhaps it wasn't pleasant to see a show kidnapped before your very eyes.

In the final scene, a network-ordered script change had turned the transvestite with an automatic weapon into a punk rocker who had come into the restaurant for dinner, the logic being that a young musician was more of a now character.

Barbara Jane hadn't liked the change. I was wondering how she might handle it.

The young musician's hair was orange and purple, he wore a peeling T-shirt, and there were four safety pins stuck in his cheeks.

Barbara Jane measured him momentarily, and said:

"Are you here to dine or would you just like to sit and bleed awhile?"

Looking at the menu, the kid said, "What have you got in the Top Forty?"

"The lamb curry is nice. But you probably aren't into New Wave. It's too Rock Perennial, I suppose."

"Huh?"

Barbara Jane said, "It doesn't bother me if a group can express alienation with a beat I can feel—a rudimentary, garage-band rock-and-roll, so to speak, but you probably like to break furniture, don't you?"

Barbara Jane lifted a plate of curried lamb off the tray of a passing waiter.

"Uh... like... far-out," said the punker.

"Can you describe your music?"

"Right!" he said, overjoyed to hear a familiar cue. "We have a technocratic, mystical quality combined with the hostility of Heavy Metal, you know?"

"That's what I thought," Barbara Jane said. "Here's how Duke Ellington and I deal with that!"

She shoved the plate of curried lamb in his face.

This of course got a huge laugh from the audience. The crew broke up. Carolyn stumbled across the set and collapsed in a chair.

"That's it, gang," said the muffled voice of the director over the loudspeaker. "They call it a wrap."

The audience shifted from laughter into prolonged applause as Barbara Jane, with gestures of acute apology, began helping the stunned young actor wipe the food off his face and neck.

The reviews from our group were all good.

Shake and I had always said that if we were ever going to watch a sitcom again, it had better have a good friend or a close relative in it.

Big Ed said, "That was enjoyable. By God, old Barbara Jane knew how to handle that faggot."

Big Barb and Veronica were certain that Barbara Jane's smashing and casual outfit in the second act had been a Versace.

"Isn't Gianni wonderful?" said Veronica. "He combines Calvin's understatements with Oscar's flamboyance."

Big Barb said, "We met him last month in Palm Beach. We flew down for Klaus and Mimi's horticulture party at The Breakers. He designed Mimi's coveralls. Everyone dressed like a gardener and carried a hoe. It was a delight."

Burt Danby remembered Carolyn Barnes from another period in his life. "Jesus," he said, "I didn't know Carolyn was still around. I could have sworn she ate six miles of cock and lived in Holmby Hills now."

The Bookmans and Danbys went on to the Polo Lounge so they would feel like they had been to Los Angeles. Shake and I waited for Barbara Jane. I also wanted to congratulate the director.

Jack Sullivan was a nice-looking guy in his late thirties. He had an effiminate way of running his hand through his hair when he talked, and I detected the hint of a British accent, but he must have been straight or my wife wouldn't have embraced him so enthusiastically.

Shake and I were down on the set. The studio had emptied. the director had emerged from the control room when Barbara Jane, having already received our plaudits, lurched from my arms into his.

"You beauty!" said Jack Sullivan, giving Barb a hungry kiss.

Other husbands might have read more into their behavior than friendship and relief, but I didn't. I knew show-biz people hugged and kissed often, even when they detested each other.

"She was great," I said to Jack Sullivan.

And Shake said, "Not since Carole Lombard have we seen—"

But Shake was interrupted by Jack Sullivan, who said, "Great? She's beyond category!"

Almost before any of us knew it, we were being encircled by the network bicoastals and their drones along with Sheldon and Kitty. Everyone was assembling for the post-mortem.

Two of the bicoastals bothered to introduce themselves to Shake and me. We weren't intruding on anything, they said. Stick around. One of the bicoastals said the New York Giants were his team. He asked what the odds were on the Giants' making the playoffs.

"They're a mortal lock to lose twelve games," Shake said.