The Thief of Time (38 page)

‘Right,' I said, trying my best to keep up with the train of events in all of that. It occurred to me how much I had to learn about Hollywood, how the town thrived on insider gossip such as the above and how it could make or break careers. ‘So did you give her a job?'

‘Jesus, no,' he said, shaking his head furiously. ‘Are you kidding me? Girl like that means only one thing to a man like me. T. R. Ubble.'

I thought about it. ‘Right,' I repeated, smiling now. His point, I supposed, was that people came to him looking for jobs all the time. That the seat where I was sitting had been used by a hundred people already that week and I was merely keeping it warm for its next occupant. All of this, the tour, the enormity of the soundstages, the regal nature of his offices, the name-dropping, the decision-making about who can or cannot work in Hollywood, it was all for my benefit. I stood up and reached across to shake his hand, assuming that what he was really saying was that it would take a lot more than a couple of games of golf to get a job in his studio. ‘Thanks for the tour,' I said.

‘What are you doing?' he asked, as I turned around to walk towards the door. ‘Where do you think you're going? I haven't got to the good bit yet.'

‘Look,' I said, not a man to be toyed with. ‘If you don't have a position for me, that's fine. I simply wanted to -'

‘Don't have a position for you? Matthieu, Matthieu!' he said, laughing and patting the seat opposite him once again. ‘Sit down, my friend. I think I've found the very job for you. Assuming you are everything you claim to be. I'm going to give you a chance, Matthieu, and I don't expect to be let down.'

I smiled and went back to the couch where he filled me in on his idea.

The Buddy Rickles Show
was big business. It was a prime-time, thirty-minute comedy on NBC every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Although it had been on the air for only just over one season, it was one of the most popular shows on television and, no matter what the other networks put up against it in the same time-slot, it won hands down.

It was a family comedy. Buddy Rickles himself, although now virtually forgotten by all but the most astute of entertainment historians, had been a bit-part actor from the mid-twenties to the mid-forties. He'd never headlined his own feature, but he'd played the best friend to James Cagney, Mickey Rooney and Henry Fonda and had once duelled on screen with Clark Gable for the hand of Olivia de Havilland (he lost). His work had dried up though and he had been offered this show by NBC and, not only had he accepted it, he had almost single-handedly turned it into a success.

It was a straightforward concept: Buddy Rickles (his character shared his own name, save for one small change – he was known as Buddy Riggles) was a regular family man living in suburban California. His wife Marjorie was a homemaker and they had three children, Elaine (seventeen) who was just getting interested in boys, much to Buddy's consternation, Timmy (fifteen) who was always trying to find ways to play truant, and Jack (eight) who mixed up the meanings of words in ever more hilarious ways. Each week, one of the children would get involved in something which could potentially lead them down the road of self-ruination, but Buddy and Marjorie would set them right, making them see the error of their ways just in time for supper. There was nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, but people enjoyed it, and that fact was mostly down to the writers.

The Buddy Rickles Show
was written by Lee and Dorothy Jackson, a husband and wife team in their mid-forties who had been writing hit shows for the best part of a decade. They were popular and threw extravagant parties in their home to which everyone who was anyone tried to score an invitation. Dorothy was known for her sharp tongue and Lee was known for his drinking, but together they were considered to be one of the happiest couples in showbusiness.

‘I'm looking for a new producer for
The Buddy Rickles Show,'
said Rusty to me that afternoon in his office. ‘There's already two there but I need a third; they each have different responsibilities, and the last guy wasn't up to the job. What do you say?'

I exhaled loudly and thought about it. ‘I have to be honest with you,' I said. ‘I've never seen the show.'

‘We've got all the reels here at the studio. We'll set you up for an afternoon and you can watch it from start to finish. What I need is someone to deal with the public image of the show. Someone who will handle all publicity and enquiries from the news organisations. Someone who will generate publicity for us so that the show grows even more successful. I'm going to launch a new show immediately after it in six months' time so I need it to still be on top of the ratings then.
The Buddy Rickles Show
has to be what people do on a Thursday night, you got it?'

‘All right,' I said, warming to the idea. ‘I can do that.'

‘Yes, but can you start yesterday?'

It was a far more difficult job than I ever would have imagined. Although the show was already a success – the writing was witty and sharp, the acting was simple and appealed to the American public -there was never an attitude of complacency around the crew who produced the show. Rusty Wilson was a hands-on vice-president and he had regular meetings with the three producers of
The Buddy Rickles Show
to discuss our plans and vision for the future.

There was a mild flurry of trouble at the beginning of the third season, when ABC put a brand new quiz show up against us which offered regular folks the opportunity to win up to $50,000 over a period of time. However, it didn't catch on as the networks were deluged with quiz shows then and we regained supremacy of our time-slot.

Buddy Rickles himself was an odd fellow. Although immensely popular with the American public, he didn't like to do too much publicity and avoided both the talk-show circuit and anything but the most important of print interviews. When we did consent to these, he always spoke to me about them in advance and required me to sit in on them with him, which surprised me as he was a capable man and in no more need of help from me than I was in need of a life insurance policy.

‘I don't want them knowing too much about my life,' he explained. ‘A man's got a right to a private life, hasn't he?'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘But you know what these magazines are like. If you've got anything to hide then it won't be long before it all comes out.'

‘That's why I like to keep my profile low. Just let people watch the show. If they like it, that's fine, that's all they need. They don't need to know much more about me than that, now, do they?'

I wasn't so sure but I couldn't see what he had to hide anyway. He was happily married to a thirty-five-year-old woman called Kate and they had two small children who were regular visitors to our set. As he had been in the business a long time there didn't seem to be anything about the last twenty years or so that wasn't in the public domain in one way or the other. I guessed he was just a private person and decided to allow him his privacy. And although the fanzines wanted more access to him, I limited it and simply granted them more interviews with the rest of the show's stars to compensate.

Stina's mood picked up after a few months of grieving for her brothers. She began to grow more interested in my work and even attempted to watch the show on a number of occasions but she could never sit through the whole thing as she found the action beyond foolish. Television was not a popular medium on Hawaii and instead she began to grow more interested in local politics, much as she had been when we had first met at the anti-war meeting.

‘I have a job,' she announced one evening over dinner and I put down my knife and fork in surprise. I didn't even know that she been looking for one.

‘Really?' I asked. ‘Doing what?'

She laughed. ‘It's not much,' she said. ‘Just as a secretary. At the
Los Angeles Times.
I was interviewed this morning and they offered me the job.'

‘But that's wonderful,' I exclaimed, pleased that she was developing a new interest at last and leaving her mourning behind. ‘When do you start?'

‘Tomorrow. You don't mind?'

‘Why should I mind? You could go places from there. You've always been interested in politics. You should train as a reporter. There have to be opportunities for young people in a place like that.'

She shrugged and let the idea pass although I suspected she had already considered this. Stina was not the kind of woman who was happy to settle for a desk job when she could be doing something active; her mind was alert and fertile and she would find a busy atmosphere such as the
Los Angeles Times
exciting.

‘I know some people there,' I said, recalling a few entertainment reporters with whom I had regular dealings. ‘I'm sure it's a good place to work. Perhaps I'll call them. Let them know who you are. Tell them to keep an eye out for you.'

‘No, Matthieu,' she said, placing a hand above my own. ‘Let me make my own way there. I'll be all right.'

‘But they might be able to introduce you around,' I protested. ‘You'll get to know people easier. Make some friends.'

‘And then they will think because I am married to the producer of
The Buddy Rickles Show
that they will get easier access to it and to everything at the network. No, it's better if I just make my own way. For now, I am only a secretary anyway. We'll see what happens further down the line.'

We attended a party at the home of Lee and Dorothy Jackson, which was populated by many of the most important names in the television industry. Robert Keldorf was there with his new wife Bobbi – with an ‘I', as she said every time you mentioned her name – and he made a great show of telling everyone how he had recently lured anchorman Damon Bradley away from the Eye to the Alphabet. Lorelei Andrews spent most of the party propping up the bar, a cigarette drooping limply out of her mouth, complaining to anyone who would listen about the way she was being treated by Rusty Wilson; needless to say I steered clear of that one.

Stina was looking devastating in a strapless pale blue creation modelled on a dress that Edith Head had designed for Anne Baxter for
All About Eve.
It was the first time she met many of the people with whom I worked on a day to day basis and she was excited by the glamour, her eyes opening wide whenever she saw a more devastating gown pass her by. Unfortunately, the people meant nothing to her; she so rarely watched television that I could have introduced her to Stan Perry himself and she would have smiled and asked him whether she could have another Manhattan.

‘Matthieu,' said Dorothy, sweeping towards us from across the room, her arms outstretched to smother me with affection. ‘How wonderful to see you. Still gorgeous, I note.' I laughed. Dorothy liked to play the part of the extravagant, asphyxiating those whom she liked with sparkling compliments while poisoning those whom she could not stand with her acid tongue. ‘And you must be Stina,' she added playfully, sizing up my willowy wife carefully, taking in her gentle form, bronze skin and wide, hazelnut eyes. I held my breath, hoping that she would say something nice as I was very fond of Dorothy and didn't want a barb to come between us. ‘You're wearing
quite
the most devastating gown in the room,' she said with a smile and I relaxed. ‘Honestly, I feel like just walking around naked in order to recapture some of the attention which you have stolen away from me, you heartless tramp.'

Stina laughed, for Dorothy had uttered the phrase affectionately, rubbing her arm in a friendly manner as she spoke. Another habit of Dorothy's was her random decisions to take a
naif
and forge that person in her own likeness. ‘You mustn't mind me fawning all over your husband,' she exclaimed. ‘But I'm the writer and without me he hasn't got a show.'

‘Of course, Lee is the writer too,' I added, teasing her gently. ‘And who among us can imagine
The Buddy Rickles Show
without Buddy Rickles himself, eh?'

‘Come with me, Stina, if that is in fact your real name,' said Dorothy mischievously, winking at me as she took my wife's arm and led her away. ‘I want to introduce you to a young man who I'm sure you'll fall hopelessly in love with. And just think of the alimony you'll be able to demand off this fellow when you finally cut him loose. Why, he must be getting ready to draw his pension any day now.'

If only she knew, I thought, but felt pleased that she was going to introduce Stina around as it would have been ridiculous for a husband to introduce his wife to everyone in the room. Better for the hostess to do it and make something of a show of it. Stina would enjoy it, people would get to meet her and Dorothy would feel that she was performing one of her official functions.

I made my way to the French windows and glanced outside, pleased to see Rusty and Buddy there – such American names, I thought – with an older couple, all of whom were engrossed in conversation. I decided to pester them and coughed slightly as I made my way through the doors. The lawn of the Jacksons' house stretched out magnificently before me and the thin spotlights on either side sent a shiver of brightness on to the central fountain that illuminated it and made it a thing of beauty. The sound of trickling water, always a favourite with me, seemed perfectly right in the cool night air and I was glad to see that, rather than giving me an irritated look for pressing my way into the conversation, Rusty looked pleased and beckoned me forward.

‘Matthieu, there you are, good to see you,' he said, shaking my hand.

‘Hello Rusty, Buddy,' I said, nodding across at him and waiting for the introductions to the other two people who stood by my side, twitching nervously.

‘We were talking politics,' said Rusty. ‘You're a man of politics, aren't you?'