Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (88 page)

'First they've got to be nominated.'

'By our peers, yes.' Skolnik smiled. 'And what in particular
gets
them nominated?'

'The quality of the picture.'

'Aha. There you have it.'

'I don't understand.'

'Bruce will. Bruce, what, specifically, brings people to the
movie theatre, besides wanting to be entertained?'

'The story. The title. The stars.'

'Yes, yes, but outside of all that,' Skolnik said impatiently.

'Gossip. Reviews. Adverti—' He stared at Skolnik.
'
Adver
tising,'
he whispered.

Skolnik smiled. 'There you have it.' He leaned forward excitedly. 'We've learned to tickle the public's interest and
make them want to go and see our films. And I believe we can ignite the same kind of enthusiasm in our peers in order to get
Anna Karenina
nominated. That's the first step.'

'We campaign for the awards!' Slesin said excitedly. 'Start
ing tomorrow, we begin leaking the word that
Anna
Karenina's
only the greatest thing since
Birth of a Nation.
Once people have heard it often enough, they're going to start
believing it. We'll harness the power of suggestion. We'll just
be planting the seeds of an idea—
Anna Karenina
being so
great—in their subconscious.'

'We'll have to make certain it works,' Skolnik said with
finality. 'I say we try it.' He paused. 'Is there any way we can
cover our asses in case it should backfire?'

'Sure.' Slesin grinned. 'That's the beauty of it. We won't be
the ones who'll have come out and said all those wonderful
things. It'll be other people, at other studios. All we have to
do is plant a few confidential rumours on a regular basis and
then sit back and watch them spread. A well-calculated slip
here, another there
...
in no time at all we'll set this town
buzzing. And when people ask us outright for more information, we play it humble, cagey. If we play our cards right,
nobody will be able to resist spreading what we've planted.
And believing it.'

'Rumours!' Louis scoffed. He looked at Slesin in disbelief. 'You think we'll sweep the Academy Awards by virture of
rumours!
What makes you think the information's even going
to spread?'

'It will, because I'm counting on the dark side of human
nature. Our enticing little droplets of information will be
quote-secret-unquote. Nobody can resist that. I mean . . .'
Bruce's voice was pointedly soft and held Louis' gaze, his grey
eyes intent. 'No matter what you may like to believe, or how hard you work at keeping things private, how many people are there in this town who can really keep a secret?'

Tamara was blissfully unaware of the mounting offensive to
secure the Academy Awards. Other, more immediate things
occupied her mind, and Louis thought it best to say nothing
regarding the conversation he had had with Skolnik and Slesin,
as it might interfere with her concentration.

She had thrown herself into the role of Anna Karenina with a vengeance. The beautiful, sensual, rebellious central charac
ter seemed tailor-made for her, as though Tolstoy specifically
had had her in mind when he created his tragic heroine in
1875. The stylish, wintry ice-palace sets and the emotional
turmoil of a passionate, flamboyantly flaunted illicit love affair
racing toward doom were the perfect ingredients for a film,
and Louis' superb direction, magnificent camerawork, and chiaroscuro effects displayed her incredible beauty and virtu
oso performance as deftly as a conductor leading his orchestra.
He used her face and body like a pliable mask which could be
moulded to the precisely desired effect. If, over the course of
her film career, she slipped completely—and seemingly effort
lessly—into any one single role, then this was the one. Even
she could not explain exactly why that happened. Perhaps it
was her Russian background. Whatever the case, the only
thing of which she could be absolutely certain was that despite
Skolnik's best efforts, nothing on the soundstage itself, save
Louis' directing and Tolstoy's story, transported her from
Hollywood to nineteenth-century Russia.

There was really no way she could have slipped into the character by forgetting where she actually was. That was
always too painfully apparent. Her performance happened in
spite of a multitude of day-to-day disasters which took place
during the filming. For one thing, the unheated soundstage
was dark and cold and drafty. In the midst of filming a scene
in which Count Vronsky and Anna live abroad in a neglected
old Italian palazzo with frescoed walls, the roof of the sound
stage began to leak, destroying the set and disrupting the film
ing, but Louis was not one to take defeat sitting down. He
used the leaky roof to his ultimate advantage by continuing
the filming. In the final print, it was the leaks, more than the
genteel shabbiness of the palazzo interior, which set the mood
for the scene. But the cost was stiff. Tamara had gotten dren
ched, and subsequently developed a ravaging flu. Her fever
climbed to 103, and she was bedridden for six days. When she crawled prematurely out of bed and returned to work, Louis
took one look at her gaunt, feverish face and juggled the
shooting schedule to film the haunted, emotionally charged close-ups of the film's final scenes—those of a woman under
emotional seige. The images would be hailed as cinematic classics for decades to come. What neither the critics nor
filmgoers suspected was that these scenes were purely acciden
tal. Tamara did not have to act the part of someone feeling
miserable: she was in truth acutely miserable and still quite ill.

The tragedies mounted.

During the fifth week there was a fire on the set one day, and
the next, a laboratory accident which ruined fifteen minutes of
completed film.

But actors are actors first and foremost, by necessity an
especially hardy species when it comes to survival, and the old
adage held true: the show must go on. And go on it did, with remarkably few complaints, everything considered. If ever
there were troupers who took everything in stride, the cast of
Anna Karenina
ranked among them. Despite the obstacles
posed by rain, illness, accidents, and death, the film would be
among the finest ever to come out of the Hollywood entertain
ment factories.

When the filming was completed without any further mis
haps, everyone involved felt a deep sense of relief. In all,
the filming had taken thirteen weeks—six longer than initially
anticipated. The cast dispersed—Fay Bainter, Janet Gaynor,
Dorothy Gish, Fredric March, and Charles Laughton to the
studios from which they had been on loan, the bit players and
others to whatever projects they were to do next. Tamara was
given what would become her customary week off between
pictures before she was thrust into
Razzmatazz,
a frothy, ener
getic farce of glittering Manhattan (actually soundstage eight),
mistaken identities, and twin sisters (she played both the guileless, innocent Sabrina and the sophisticated Simone, a music-
hall star who smoked Primrose cigarettes in a long ivory
holder). Her co-stars were Billie Burke and, once again, Miles
Gabriel.

After she had been immersed in
Razzmatazz
for one week,
she felt so curiously detached from
Anna Karenina
that it was
as if she had never been involved with the film at all. She threw
herself into the dual roles with such abandon that it was as if
she had slipped under the skin of the characters and lived flesh-
and-blood roles. Even when she left the set each evening, she took part of the character home with her. She lost all sense of
time and reality, and it was almost as if things were happening
to the characters she was portraying instead of to her. One
Monday, when Louis announced that they had been invited
to a formal dinner at Ciro's the following Sunday evening, she
didn't give it a second thought. A dinner was, after all, just a dinner. Why shouldn't they be invited to a dinner? Weren't
they Hollywood's acknowledged golden couple?

Chapter 14

Inside and out, the restaurant was decked out as though for a
festival. At the kerb, a black doorman in a striped cotton
djellaba opened the rear door of the Duesenberg, bowed low, and helped Tamara out while the chauffeur held open Louis'
door. Louis joined her on the sidewalk under the domed kiosk
that had been specially erected in front of the entrance for
whatever occasion this was and straightened his lapels. He
smiled at her. 'You look sensational, as always,' he said, tak
ing her by the arm and leading her to the door.

'What's going on here?' she asked him in a low voice. 'Why
is that doorman dressed in that funny thing?'

'Well, I suppose it must be a theme party of some kind. The kiosk is probably part of it too.' He smiled good-humouredly.
'Don't worry, his outfit doesn't hold a candle to yours. You never looked more beautiful.' He stuck his tongue out comically and panted like a dog. 'Come on, let's scandalize the
whole town. Disrobe right here. You look so good I could eat
you in public'

She clapped a gloved hand over her face and stifled a wild
wave of laughter. She did look particularly becoming in the
resplendent silver sheath which hugged her body like a second
skin. Her shoulders were bare, and the gown plunged daringly
to her waist in the back, displaying an enormous area of flesh
and showing off the polished-bead necklace that was her spine.
The ten-foot-long silver fox boa she had draped around her
like a stole added a regal touch, while the small diamond drop
earrings he had given her for her last birthday flashed and
jiggled from her ears. She looked every inch the star, from the
top of her platinum hair to the tips of her silver sling-back
heels.