A Stranger in the Mirror (16 page)

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you have to do is lay on your back a few minutes and pick up an easy twenty bucks? Just till your agent calls." Jill was not interested. Her only interest in life was her career. A poor Polish girl could never marry a David Kenyon. She knew that now. But Jill Castle, the movie star, could have anybody, and anything she wanted. Unless she could achieve that, she would change back into Josephine Czinski again. She would never let that happen.

Jill's first acting job came through Harriet Marcus, one of the Survivors who had a third cousin whose ex-brother-inlaw was a second assistant director on a television medical series shooting at Universal Studios. He agreed to give Jill a chance. The part consisted of one line, for which Jill was to receive fifty-seven dollars, minus deductions for Sodal Security, withholding taxes and the Motion Picture Relief Home. Jill was to play the part of a nurse. The script called for her to be in a hospital room at a patient's bedside, taking his pulse when the doctor entered. doctor : "How is he, Nurse?" nurse: "Not very good, I'm afraid. Doctor." That was it. Jill was given a single, mimeographed page from the script on a Monday afternoon and told to report for makeup at six a.m. the following morning. She went over the scene a hundred times. She wished the studio had given her the entire script. How did they expect her to figure out what the character was like from one pagef Jill tried to analyze what kind of a woman the nurse might be. Was she married? Single? She could be secretly in love with the doctor. Or maybe they had had an affair and it was over. How did she feel about the patient? Did she hate the thought of his death? Or would it be a blessing? "Not very good, I'm afraid. Doctor." She tried to put concern in her voice. She tried again. "Not very good. I'm afraid. Doctor." Alarmed. He was going to die.

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"Not very good, I'm afraid. Doctor." Accusing. It was the doctor's fault. If he had not been away with his mistress ... Jill stayed up the entire night working on the part, too keyed-up to sleep, but in the morning, when she reported to the studio, she felt exhilarated and alive. It was still dark when she arrived at the guard's gate off Lankershim Boulevard, in a car borrowed from her friend Harriet. Jill gave the guard her name, and he checked it against a roster and waved her on. "Stage Seven," he said. "Two blocks down, turn right." Her name was on the roster. Universal Studios was expecting her. It was like a wonderful dream. As Jill drove toward the sound stage, she decided she would discuss the part with the director, let him know that she was capable of giving 'him any interpretation he wanted. Jill pulled into the large parking lot and went onto Stage Seven. The sound stage was crowded with people busily moving lights, carrying electrical equipment, setting up the camera, giving orders in a foreign language she did not understand. "Hit the inky clink and give me a brute.... I need a scrim here.... Kill the baby...." Jill stood there watching, savoring the sights and smells and sounds of show business. This was her world, her future. She would find a way to impress the director, show him that she was someone special. He would get to know her as a person, not as just another actress. The second assistant director herded Jill and a dozen other actors over to Wardrobe, where Jill was handed a nurse's uniform and sent back to the sound stage, where she was made up with all the other bit players in a corner of the sound stage. Just as they were finished with her, the assistant director called her name. Jill hurried on to the hospital-room set where the director stood near the camera, talking to the star of the series. The star's name was Rod Hanson, and he played a surgeon full of compassion and wisdom. As Jill approached them. Rod Hanson was saying, "I have a German shepherd that can fart better dialogue than this shit. Why can't the writers ever give me some character, for Christ's sake?"

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"Rod, we've been on the air five years. Don't improve i hit. The public loves you the way you are." The cameraman walked up to the director. "All lit, chief." "Thanks, Hal," the director said. He turned to Rod Hanson. "Can we make this, baby? We'll finish the discussion later." "One of these days, I'm going to wipe my ass with this studio," Hanson snapped. He strode away. Jill turned to the director, who was now alone. This was her opportunity to discuss the interpretation of the character, to show him that she understood his problems and was there to help make the scene great. She gave him a warm, friendly smile. "I'm Jill Castle," she said. "I'm playing the nurse. I think she can really be very interesting and I have some ideas about �" He nodded absently and said, "Over by the bed," and walked away to speak to the cameraman. Jill stood looking after him, stunned. The second assistant director, Harriet's third cousin's ex-brother-in-law, hurried up to Jill and said in a low voice, "For Chrissakes, didn't you hear him? Over by the bed!" "I wanted to ask him �" "Don't blow it!" he whispered fiercely. "Get out there!" Jill walked over to the patient's bed. "All right. Let's have it quiet, everybody." The assistant director looked at the director. "Do you want a rehearsal, chief?" "For this? Let's go for a take." "Give us a bell. Settle down, everybody. Nice and quiet. We're rolling. Speed." Unbelievingly, Jill listened to the sound of the bell. She looked frantically toward the director, wanting to ask him how he would like her to interpret the scene, what her relationship was to the dying man, what she was � A voice called, "Action!" They were all looking at Jill expectantly. She wondered whether she dare ask them to stop the cameras for just a second, so she could discuss the scene and � The director yelled, "Jesus Christ! Nurse! This isn't a morgue -- it's a hospital. Feel his god damned pulse before he dies of old age!" Jill looked anxiously into the circle of bright lights around her. She took a deep breath, lifted the patient's hand and took his pulse. If they would not help her, she would have to interpret the scene in her own way. The patient was the father of the doctor. The two of them had quarreled. The father had been in an accident and the doctor had just been notified. Jill looked up and saw Rod Hanson approaching. He walked up to her and said, "How is he. Nurse?" Jill looked into the doctor's eyes and read the concern there. She wanted to tell him the truth, that his father was dying, that it was too late for them to make up their quarrel. Yet she had to break it to him in such a way that it would not destroy him and -- The director was yelling, "Cut! Cut! Cut! Goddamn it, the idiot's got one line, and she can't even remember it. Where did you find her -- in the Yellow Pages?" Jill turned toward the voice shouting from Ae darkness, aflame with embarrassment. "I -- I know my line," she said shaldly. "I was just trying to --" "Well, if you know it, for Chrissakes, would you mind saying it7 You could drive a train through that pause. When he asks you the rucking question, answer it. Okay?" "I was just wondering if I should --" "Let's go again, right away. Give us a bell." "We're on a bell. Hold it down. We're rolling." "Speed." "Action." Jill's legs were trembling. It was as though she was the only one here who cared about the scene. All she had wanted to do was create something beautiful. The hot lights were making her dizzy, and she could feel the perspiration running down her arms, ruining the crisp, starched uniform. "Action! Nurse!" Jill stood over the patient and put her hand on his pulse. If she did the scene wrong again, they would never give her another chance. She thought of Harriet and of her friends at the roominghousc and of what they would say.

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The doctor entered and walked up to her. "How is he, Nurse?" She would no longer be one of them. She would be a laughingstock. Hollywood was a small town. Word got around fast. "Not very good, I'm afraid. Doctor." No other studio would touch her. It would be her last job. It would be the end of everything, her whole world. The doctor said, "I want this man put in intensive care immediately." "Good!" the director called. "Cut and print." Jill was hardly aware of the people rushing past her, starting to dismantle the set to make room for the next one. She had done her first scene--and she had been thinking about something else. She could not believe it was over. She wondered whether she should find the director and thank him for the opportunity, but he was at the other end of the stage talking to a group of people. The second assistant director came up to her and squeezed' her arm and said, "You did okay, kid. Only next time, learn your lines."

There was film on her; she had her first credit. From now on, Jill thought, I'll be working all the time.

JiU's next acting job was thirteen months later, when she did a bit part at MGM. In the meantime, she held a series of civilian jobs. She became the local Avon lady, she worked behind a soda fountain and -- briefly -- she drove a taxi. With her money running low, Jill decided to share an apartment with Harriet Marcus. It was a two-bedroom apartment and Harriet kept her bedroom working overtime. Harriet worked at a downtown department store as a model. She was an attractive girl with short dark hair, black eyes, a model's boyish figure and a sense of humor. "When you come from Hoboken," she told Jill, "you'd better have a sense of humor." In the beginning, Jill had been a bit daunted by Harriet's cool self-sufficiency, but she soon learned that underneath that sophisticated facade, Harriet was a warm, frightened child. She was in love constantly. The first time Jill.met her, Harriet said, "I want you to meet Ralph. We're getting married next month." A week later, Ralph had left for parts unknown, taking with him Harriet's car. A few days after Ralph had departed, Harriet met Tony. He was in import-export and Harriet was head-over-heels in love with him. "He's very important," Harriet confided to Jill. But someone obviously did not think so, because a month later, Tony was found floating in the Los Angeles River with an apple stuffed in his mouth. Alex was Harriet's next love. "He's the best-looking thine- you've ever seen," Harriet confided to Jill. Alex was handsome. He dressed in expensive clothes, drove a flashy convertible and spent a lot of time at the racetracks. The romance lasted until Harriet started running out of money. It angered Jill that Harriet had so little sense about men. "I can't help it," Harriet confessed. "I'm attracted to guys who are in trouble. I think it's my mother instinct." She grinned and added, "My mother was an idiot." Jill watched a procession of Harriet's frances come and go. There was Nick and Bobby add John and Raymond, until finally Jill could no longer keep track of them. A few months after they had moved in together, Harriet announced that she was pregnant. "I think it's Leonard," she quipped, "but you know-- they all look alike in the dark." "Where is Leonard?" "He's either in Omaha or Okinawa. I always was lousy at geography." "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to have my baby." Because of her slight figure, Harriet's pregnancy became obvious in a matter of weeks and she had to give up her modeling job. Jill found a job in a supermarket so that she could support the two of them.

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One afternoon when Jill returned home from work, she ound a note from Harriet. It read; "I've always wanted my 'aby to be born in Hoboken. Have gone back home to my oiks. I'll bet there's a wonderful guy there, waiting for me. Thanks for everything." It was signed: "Harriet, The Nun." j The apartment had suddenly become a lonely place, j

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21

It was a heady time for Toby Temple. He was forty-two years old and owned the world. He joked with kings and golfed with Presidents, but his millions of beer-drinking fans did not mind because they knew Toby was one of them, their champion who milked all the sacred cows, ridiculed the high and mighty, shattered the shibboleths of the Establishment. They loved Toby, just as they knew that Toby loved them. He spoke about his mother in all his interviews, and each time she became more saintlike. It was the only way Toby could share his success with her.

Toby acquired a beautiful estate in Bel-Air. The house was Tudor, with eight bedrooms and an enormous stab-case and hand-carved paneling from England. It had a movie theater, a game room, a wine cellar, and on the grounds were a large swimming pool, a housekeeper's cottage and two guest cottages. He bought a lavish home in Palm Springs, a string of racehorses and a trio of stooges. Toby called them all "Mac" and they adored him. They ran errands, chauffeured him, got him girls at any hour of the day or night, took trips with him, gave him massages. Whatever the master desired, the three Macs were always there to give him. They were the jesters to the Nation's Jester. Toby had four secretaries, two just to handle the enormous flow of fan mail. His private secretary was a pretty twenty-one-year-old honey-blonde named Sherry. Her body had been designed by a sex maniac, and Toby insisted

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that she wear short skirts with nothing under them. It saved [ them both a lot of time.

| The premiere of Toby Temple's first movie had gone I remarkably well.' Sam Winters and Clifton Lawrence were iso. the theater. Afterward they all went to Chasen's to discuss | the picture. s Toby had enjoyed his first meeting with Sam after the ' deal had been made. "It would have been cheaper if you had returned my phone calls," Toby said, and he told Sam of i how he had tried to reach him. ; "My tough luck," Sam said, ruefully. Now, as they sat in Chasen's, Sam turned to Clifton Lawrence. "If you don't take an arm and a leg, I'd like to make a new three-picture deal for Toby." ^ "Just an arm. I'll give you a call in the morning," the agent said to Sam. He looked at his watch. "I have to run along." "Where you going?" Toby asked. "I'm meeting another client. I do have other clients, dear boy." Toby looked at him oddly, then said, "Sure."

The reviews the next morning were raves. Every critic predicted that Toby Temple was going to be as big a star in movies as he was in television. Toby read all the reviews, then got Clifton Lawrence on the phone. "Congratulations, dear boy," the agent said. "Did you see the Reporter and Variety) Those reviews were love letters." "Yeah. It's a green-cheese world, and I'm a big fat rat. Can I have any more fun than that?" "I told you you'd own the world one day, Toby, and now you do. It's all yours." There was a deep satisfaction in the agent's voice. ' "Cliff, I'd like to talk to you. Can you come over?" "Certainly. I'll be free at five o'clock and --" i "I meant now." There was a brief hesitation, then Clifton said, "I have appointments until --" "Oh, if you're too busy, forget it." And Toby hung up. One minute later, Clifton Lawrence's secretary called and said, "Mr. Lawrence is on his way to see you, Mr. Temple."