The Prince of Beverly Hills (27 page)

They went out often, to Ciro’s and Mocambo, or dined at Chasen’s and the Brown Derby. The columnists, particularly Hedda Hopper, were kind to them, and Rick’s new sobriquet—the Prince of Beverly Hills—stuck, and was referred to whenever they were mentioned in the press. He also got good ink on his elevation to producer. He had become a player.

They were taking Rick’s dad to dinner a couple of times a month, and Jack and Glenna were practically in love with each other. Jack had never been one for dining out a lot, and Rick was happy to have more time with him.

Glenna’s musical came out in the spring, and they attended a gala Hollywood premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. She got spectacular reviews in the papers, and fan mail began to come in, first a trickle, then a torrent. Rick looked forward to the premiere of
Caper
, which would have huge momentum following the success of the musical, and he hoped for an Academy Award nomination for Glenna’s performance.

Rick continued to receive letters from Clete Barrow, usually through Montreal, but sometimes through Gander, Newfoundland. Clete had found friends among pilots who were traveling to Canada in order to ferry bombers back across the sea, and who would transport his letters that far, then mail them, avoiding the hazards of mail sent via the North Atlantic, where the submarine war was in full force.

Clete exhibited a boyish enthusiasm for everything he was learning in the Royal Marines, and especially for commando tactics, which had yet to be used in the war. Clark Gable passed on a couple of letters from David Niven, too, which were hilariously funny.

In early May a letter came from Clete, describing his regiment’s “foray into Norway,” as he called it, in which they fought bravely, but received “a bloody nose” and had to be evacuated. “It is the first time we’ve seen action,” Clete said, “and as badly as it turned out, we learnt what it was like to fight and gained experience that will be valuable to us in days to come. My men were all pleasantly surprised to find that they were still alive, and that did wonders for morale.”

At the end of May, the Battle of Dunkirk ensued, during which more than 300,000 British troops were taken off the beaches of France in a flotilla of ships, big and small, and returned to England to fight again.

In early June, another letter came from Clete, written before Dunkirk, enthusing that Churchill had been made prime minister, after Chamberlain had gone through a vote of confidence in Parliament that he had won, but in which so many Tories had voted against him or had abstained that his position as prime minister was no longer tenable. “There’s a whole new attitude here, now that we have a real leader in command,” Clete said. “We’ll be off to France soon, is my guess.”

The next day, Rick was at his desk, having completed shooting on
Ready to Go
, and working on the budget for his next film, when Jenny came in with a telegram from London. Rick ripped it open and read the short message:

BARROW KILLED AT DUNKIRK
STOP LETTER TO FOLLOW.
NIVEN

Rick felt as if he had been standing in surf and hit by a very large wave. The breath was taken from him, and he seemed to tumble, head over heels, through a montage of dinners out with Clete, of fishing on the Rogue River, of laughing at anything and everything.

He remembered what Clete had said that night at Jimmy’s, that half the young men in the place were going to die in the coming war. It had never occurred to Rick that Clete would be among them, let alone among the first.

After a few frozen minutes, Rick got up and walked down the hall to Eddie Harris’s office, where a meeting was in progress. He walked into the room without knocking. Someone was in the middle of a budget presentation, but Eddie took one look at Rick’s face and held up a hand for silence. “What is it, Rick?” he asked.

Rick handed him the telegram. Eddie read it and reacted as though he had been slapped across the face. Apparently unable to speak, he passed the cable around the table, which was filled with people who had worked with Clete over the years.

“We’ll resume this later,” Eddie finally said to the group. When they had left, he motioned for Rick to sit down, then buzzed his secretary. “Clete Barrow is dead,” he said. “Have maintenance lower the flag in front of the building to half mast, then come in here with your pad.”

“I don’t think I would have believed it if the telegram hadn’t come from Niven,” Rick said.

Eddie’s secretary came in, looking shocked, and sat down. “Yes, sir?”

“Take this down,” Eddie said. “ ‘The studio has received reliable word that Clete Barrow died in the Battle of Dunkirk.

“ ‘When war broke out in Europe, Clete did not hesitate. He went home at the first opportunity and rejoined the regiment with which he had served some years ago. We hated losing him, but it was no less than we would have expected of him.

“ ‘A patriot has died and a brilliant career has been cut short. Everyone at Centurion Studios mourns his loss.’

“Messenger that to the columnists, wait an hour, then call the AP and UP and read it to them. Then run off some copies and post it on every bulletin board on the lot. Get some help and call all the soundstages and shops and tell everybody to shut down—the studio is closed for the rest of the day.”

The woman left in tears.

“I never had a brother,” Rick said, “but I feel as though I’ve lost one.”

“Same here,” Eddie said, then stood up. “I can’t work anymore. I’m going home. I suggest you do the same.”

Rick went back to his office, broke the news to Jenny and told her to go home, then he sat in his office, alone, for a few minutes and tried to compose himself. Then he got into an electric cart and began looking for Glenna, stopping whenever he saw someone he knew to break the news. Everywhere he went, people were holding each other and weeping. Clete would be astonished, he thought.

He found Glenna in the costume shop, being fitted for a dress. He told her what had happened.

Glenna sat down heavily in a nearby chair, ripping a seam. “God, but that takes the wind out of your sails, doesn’t it?”

Rick nodded.

She stood up and shed the dress, then came and sat in his lap. “I hardly knew him,” she said, “and I can only guess how you feel. But he was the most charming man I ever met.”

Rick buried his face in Glenna’s breasts and cried like a child, while she held his head.

57

IT WAS THE FIRST OF JULY before David Niven’s letter arrived, postmarked Gander, Newfoundland. Rick saved it until he had a quiet moment alone, then opened it and unfolded the onionskin airmail paper.

My Dear Rick,
I trust that you received my telegram, telling of Clete’s death at Dunkirk. I am sorry to have been so blunt, but getting a telegram out of London in wartime can take a while, so brevity is encouraged. The following is what I have put together after speaking with two old chums who served with Clete.
In mid-May, Clete’s regiment was sent to Belgium to bolster defenses there. Almost before they could take up positions the Germans attacked the Benelux and low countries, driving them north and toward the French beaches. Clete’s regiment fought, if personal accounts can be believed, a brilliant rear-guard action against tanks and overwhelming numbers, taking many casualties, until they finished up at Dunkirk.
The battle there raged for more than a week, as British ships came to take troops off, and they were constantly being strafed by German fighters, as well as bombed. Unaccountably, the Germans withdrew their tanks from action, leaving the battle to their infantry, and this break gave our people time to evacuate many more troops than might have otherwise been possible.
Finally, with what seemed like every small boat from the south coast of England massed off the beaches, something like 320,000 had been taken off, and the figure may have been higher. Clete’s company, their numbers reduced by a third by casualties, were among the last groups off the beach. As Clete, his exec and one other officer were wading out to a small motor cruiser, a Messerschmidt made a low pass, guns ablaze, and Clete took a single round in the neck.
The other two officers got him aboard, and a medic attended him, but he was losing blood rapidly, and the flow could not be stanched. His exec told me that during this time, Clete looked down at his feet and said, “Damn, these boots were new a month ago.” Those turned out to be his last words. He died before the boat reached England.
His body will be interred on the Duke of Kensington’s estate in a few days, and I will be there to bid him farewell from both you and me.
One final irony: Clete’s father, who had been Duke of Kensington for only a few months, died in a motor accident in London at almost precisely the moment when Clete was being taken off the beach at Dunkirk, so Clete was duke for an hour or so and will be buried as such, next to his father and uncle.
I can hear the old boy laughing now.
With kind regards,
David

Rick laughed, too, through his tears. He sent a copy of the letter to Hedda Hopper, who called him and said she would run it as her column the following day.

THAT AFTERNOON, Rick heard the news on the car radio: Congress had passed a new Selective Service Act that day, by one vote. All men between nineteen and thirty would have to register for the draft immediately, and inductions would start in the fall.

Rick was driving past the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, and while stopped at the traffic light, he saw a Navy recruiting office with a poster featuring an aircraft carrier landing by a Navy fighter. Impulsively, he parked his car and walked into the office. A dozen young men were filling out forms.

The yeoman at the front desk looked up as he walked in. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked.

“I’d like to speak to someone about flying for the Navy.”

“Just a moment, please, sir.” The young sailor left his desk, walked to an office at the rear, knocked and stuck his head through the open door. Then he looked at Rick and waved him back. “This is Lieutenant Commander Chelton,” the yeoman said, then went back to his desk.

The officer, who appeared to be in his fifties, waved Rick to a chair and offered his hand. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I’m Rick Barron.” He noted the wings on the man’s tunic. “I’ve read in the papers about this new program you’ve got for training Navy pilots,” Rick said. “I’m interested.”

Chelton leaned back in his chair and regarded Rick. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-nine.”

“You look older.”

“It’s the suit.”

“Most of the boys entering the program are nineteen to twenty-two,” Chelton said.

“I’ve got over three thousand hours in about fifteen types,” Rick said, “including about two hundred hours of aerobatics.”

The officer looked more interested. “We need instructors,” he said.

“I’m a lousy instructor. Tried it, was no good at it, don’t want to do it again.”

“What’s your educational background?”

“BA from UCLA and a year of law school.”

“What have you been doing since then?”

“I was a cop for eight years. Now I’m a movie producer.”

Chelton laughed and shook his head. “Only in LA,” he said. “You could land something cushy with the Navy, making training films.”

Rick shook his head. “I’m only interested in combat flying.”

“Well, I guess maturity is a qualification for the program,” he said. “You healthy?”

“Perfectly.”

“Think you can keep up with a bunch of kids in physical training?”

“Yep.”

“Married?”

“Not yet, but planning to.”

“When do you want to go? We’ve got a new class starting the first of every month.”

“Consisting of what?”

“Six months at the naval air station in Pensacola, Florida. If you live through it and don’t bust out, you get your wings and a commission, then back to San Diego for advanced instruction and gunnery training and eventual assignment to a carrier.”

“I’m not ready yet, but . . .”

Chelton grinned. “But you’ll get drafted anyway, right?”

“Right. I heard the news on the radio.”

Chelton took a sheaf of papers from his desk. “Fill these out. I’ll keep them in my desk drawer. I’ll schedule a physical for later this week, and I’ll keep that in my desk drawer, too. We won’t mention your flying experience. The instructor’s corps would grab you immediately.” He handed Rick a card. “Call me when you’re ready, and don’t wait until you get your draft notice.”

Rick filled out the application, made an appointment for the physical and left the recruiting office, feeling better than when he had come in.

58

WHEN RICK GOT HOME, he was greeted by Glenna, who was in tears. She threw her arms around him. “I heard the news on the radio,” she said. “That’s you they’re talking about.”

“We can’t worry about that now. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Let’s get married now,” Glenna said. They had been talking about this for weeks.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Rick said.

“You thought it was a good idea as recently as yesterday,” she said, obviously stung.

He led her to the living room sofa and took her into his arms. “Of course I want to get married,” he said. “But we’re headed into uncharted waters, here. We don’t know what’s going to happen, and I think we ought to get a better handle on it before we make that decision.”

She pushed back and looked at him. “You’re afraid you’ll get killed, like Clete, aren’t you?”

“No, but it’s a possibility. Thousands and thousands of people are going to have to face it.”

“I don’t want you to talk about even the possibility of your getting killed,” she said. “I want to marry you, no matter what, and if you don’t tell me right now that’s what you want, too, then I’ll just go right out and find myself another fella.”

Rick laughed. “All right, all right, we’ll do it whenever you like.”