Lillian and Dash

Jimmy Dean Prepares
Queen of Desire

M
ANY YEARS LATER
, here’s how Dashiell Hammett remembered it:

The Brown Derby restaurant, not that second-rate sequel on North Vine, but the original on Wilshire, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty. Darryl F. Zanuck was throwing the party because even after the Crash, Warner Bros. was having a better than good year. Hell, if you were out of work, what better place to hide than in a movie house?

He had just bought the rights to
The Maltese Falcon
and told me he had lots of other interesting scripts he wanted to develop with me.
With
me. He’d think up the stories, I’d develop the stories, he’d write the checks. And you wonder why they call the guy a genius? A boy genius at that. He looked about eighteen.

You couldn’t name a Warner star who wasn’t out that night. Cagney? Right up there next to George Arliss. Eddie
Robinson? Holding forth like a professor between Fay Wray and Myrna Loy. Dolores Costello? Paul Muni? Sidney Blackmer? Lila Lee? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. They were all up there at a long, flowered table with Boy Zanuck and his Missus. Writers, directors, cameras, sound and lighting guys, the entire brave ensemble of acting folk, the musicians, office personnel, invited guests (read as anyone who could attract publicity and some shirkers like me), we were scattered like salt and pepper at tables all around the room.

They put me between Eugene Pallette and Joe E. Brown. I knew them only from their movies but wasn’t the least bit surprised by the fact that their screen personas were pretty much who these guys really were, wonderfully flawed and irreverent masks of humanity. Naturally, all they talked about at first was themselves. That was to be expected. When they finally—at long last—got around to asking me what I’d been in, I told them I hadn’t been in anything. A writer, Pallette guessed. Brown asked was I a real writer or did I only write for the movies? Just for the hell of it I said, Was there a difference? Only about twenty grand a script, he said. Well, then, I guess I write for the movies. Good man, and they both slapped my back.

Then, just for the moment, Brown got serious about writing, and said no one ever gave a shit about words before talkies but now one good word was worth a thousand pictures, and that was why the money had gotten so good. And no one appreciated the fact more than Mr. Zanuck up there, who,
did I know, started out as a writer himself. Hell, he used to pull out scripts like they were taffy.

Did I know that Zanuck wrote almost every Rin Tin Tin movie there ever was? Brown said this with the utmost respect, in spite of the fact that this “writing” was for movies before sound and starred a German shepherd. My god, was I ever going to love Hollywood. I said, Here’s to the
mot juste
whether human or canine, and Brown and I touched empty glasses.

Every table had pitchers of water and glasses of every possible shape—wine, highball, martini, shot—waiting to be filled with alcoholic beverages of every sort. The Derby couldn’t serve booze officially, of course, so everyone who imbibed—and that was everyone who breathed—was required to bring his own, usually in a flask. America was still like that in 1930 and I was completely comfortable with it, even pleased by the gangster business it created. At least there would be no raid tonight—this was, after all, a Zanuck affair. Pallette didn’t want to be left out of the toast to literature; so he reached under the table, pulled out a small pail, and filled our glasses with a greenish gin. We three clicked glasses and downed our booze. Surprisingly good stuff actually. It was going to be one of those nights.

The word
starlet
hadn’t been invented back then, but they were there in the delightful flesh even if the word didn’t yet serve. Pallette saw me eyeing a redhead two tables away. He whispered, Sweet meat indeed. I alluded to the well-built
young man with her. Brown laughed and said, Warner pansy. The studio just hooks them up for publicity photos. Pallette asked me if I saw anything else in the room I liked, a silly question, but implying he hoped to have the redhead for himself. I looked around and said, Nope, she’s the only one here for me tonight. It wasn’t until I broke a grin that he smacked me on the back again. This here is my kind of guy, he announced to the noisy room.

I was a much better drinker in those days, by which I mean I could drink a lot more and not get as drunk. Back in the army I drank plenty with the guys and there would even be an occasional brawl. I’d seen guys almost kill one another. Me, I’d just try to pin someone down so he couldn’t hurt me or anybody else. Even back then, the good cop.

In spite of Pallette’s friendly request, in spite of the fact that we were drinking his very good gin, I still had my eye on the redhead. It didn’t seem to me as though I’d have any great problem edging him out unless of course there was to be some sort of fiduciary exchange. I doubt I’d be able to win a bidding war, or might not even want to. But I think we’re supposed to be talking about Lillian here, aren’t we?

As I recall, Mike Curtiz, the director, was just about to begin a speech of gratefulness to and introduction of Mr. Zanuck when I realized it was the perfect time to stand, walk toward the redhead’s table, and touch her bare shoulder as I brushed her chair on the way to the men’s room. I downed my green gin and rose. As I got close, a small
woman blocked my path. We stutter-stepped for a while. Lillian of course.

I have to trust my pathetically broken memory here. I remember being struck by the fact that she wore a suit, a mustard-colored suit, and a small cloche hat with feathers. I recall thinking how out of place—this was a major Hollywood soiree and here was a gal dressed for a New York literary luncheon. But I liked her face immediately. Nature had created it. As unforgiving as Mount Rushmore, as beautiful as the Rockies. She hooked my arm, walked along with me, and quoted my line from, I think, “The Girl with the Silver Eyes.” Something like,
“You beast!” she spat, and then her smile grew gentle again
 … I have to admit, it struck me as pretty funny. She camped in front of the men’s room, looked absolutely helpless, and waited for my line, which of course I’d forgotten but which I’ve learned from her over the years was supposed to have been,
“You’re beautiful as hell!” I shouted crazily into her face, and flung her against the door
. Instead I think I said something about how surprising it was to run into Bette Davis on my way to the men’s room.

She told me how disappointed she was that I couldn’t remember my own lines. What kind of writer was I anyway?

One who got paid by the word, I said.

Some would call that a description of a hack, she said.

Acerbic wench, I said.

I am not a bitch.

I didn’t say bitch; I said wench.

Okay, that one I’ll buy, she said.

Who can resist such charm? I suspected even then that talking to a very, very smart woman in Hollywood was going to be as rare as finding an honest man there. Lillian had lots of both, smart and honest.

She came real close then, ran her hand under my jacket, up my stomach to my chest and whispered, You are not going home with that redhead. No, no, no, no. You will be going home with me. So which of us is going to tell my husband?

As it turned out, neither of us told Arthur. She simply arranged to have a cab waiting for us when the party began to break up. I didn’t know her name until she had taken our clothes off.

T
OWARD THE END OF HER LIFE
, long after Hammett had died, Lillian Hellman remembered their first meeting like this:

The occasion? Something about Zanuck and Thanksgiving and all of us being cringingly grateful to the brothers Warner all rolled into one. I’m not sure where exactly. If you forced me to guess, gun to my head, as Dash used to say, I’d venture the Coconut Grove. Is that correct? Now I’m not so sure. Is it important? Anyway.

At first I swear I thought he was Gary Cooper. Honestly. It couldn’t be, of course, because Cooper was at Paramount in those days. Our table was pretty far away from the action, that I do remember. I never forget where they put me. And I remember saying to Arthur, That’s not Gary Cooper? He said, No, it’s Dashiell Hammett. I said, Jesus Christ, he’s beautiful. Arthur probably knew what was coming even before I did. He made believe he didn’t care. Rather, he made believe he didn’t care as much as he really did care. It hurt him less that way, I suppose.