The Property of a Lady (53 page)

Magic’s pictures revolved around their five stars: all the other actors were picked up as needed from the casting offices. Mostly they churned out comic one- and two-reelers and drawing-room dramas, but a new stage was being built to house their first big epic. Magic aimed to compete with Griffith with their new movie,
Scheherazade
, featuring their roster of stars and a cast of thousands. The sets were already being built, the costumes designed, the shooting script assessed and reassessed a million times; and now they had lost their director.

C. Z. Abrams—owner and president of Magic—leaned
back in his large leather swivel chair and stared at his team coldly.

“So, gentlemen,” he said in his low, quiet voice that had them on the edge of their seats, “which of you knew that Arnott was going to defect to Vitagraph?”

The four men shuffled the papers in their hands and stared at their feet. “It was like this, sir,” the assistant director said finally. “Arnott’s heart wasn’t in it and … well, the fact is Vitagraph offered him five thousand a week. You can’t blame a man for taking that kind of money.”

“I can blame him for not coming to discuss it with me first,” Abrams said quietly. He stared at the four young men: his assistant director, his producer and assistant, and his cameraman, all of them vital to his mammoth new production. “Do I take it then that you all agree with Arnott’s decision?”

They glanced at each other and then the assistant director said, “Well, sure, Mr. Abrams, all of us reckon we would have done the same under those circumstances. And besides, the hours we’re putting in we could all be earning better money.”

He nodded, pushed back his chair, and stood up. “Then I suggest you follow Arnott’s example and go to Vitagraph. Maybe they will pay you five thousand a week also. Gentlemen, you are all fired.”

The producer leapt to his feet, red-faced and stuttering. “But, Mr. Abrams, all we said was it was understandable….”

Abrams’s cold eyes met his for a moment. “Not to me, it isn’t,” he replied. “Money can always be earned, but loyalty and integrity are beyond price.” After pressing a buzzer, he told his secretary to see that they were paid off and that they left Magic’s lot immediately.

He watched as the men he had worked with for over a year followed the secretary out of his office. In a way he felt sorry for them, but the rumors of discontent and impending
trouble had been reported to him weeks ago. Now he wished he had acted faster. Discontent spread like gangrene in the flesh, and he knew quick amputation was the only way to stop it. It would cost him thousands more to delay the shooting of
Scheherazade
than it would to pay the men more money, but he could not bear disloyalty. He did not demand love from his employees and his stars, but he did expect honesty. He dealt fairly with them, treated them like family, ensured the happiness on the set of even the lowliest extra by paying them promptly and well. His stars were sent flowers regularly and given extra little gifts, like the brand-new low-slung scarlet Packard roadster for Mae, the floor-length ermine cape for pretty Dawn, and the biggest blue-tiled swimming pool in California for Mitzi. He even paid Tom’s racehorse trainer as well as picking up the tab for Ralph’s custom-made London suits and hand-crafted shoes. All he asked in return, besides good money-making pictures, was that they kept their sex lives quiet and their names out of the papers—except for the carefully posed inserts in
Picture Play, Photoplay
, and
Motion Picture Classics
. And on the rare occasions when he met his stars socially, at a party at one of their sumptuous houses or a formal dinner held at his own mansion next to the Burton Green estate on Lexington Road in smart new Beverly Hills, he was cool, charming, polite, and always remote.

And when he sat in his big office with the pictures of his stars on the walls or strolled his fifty acres on Cahuenga, inspecting his fine studios and his newest cameras and his revolutionary klieg lights, he knew he was master of all he surveyed. At his fine thirty-room mansion on Lexington he could count great paintings on his walls, tasteful decor, and fine carpets. There were flowers in each large sweet-smelling room, a dog sprawled on his terrace, tall cedars to spread shade across his carefully tended lawns. He had a housekeeper and servants, a chauffeur and half a dozen automobiles, he had accountants and lawyers
and a great deal of money in the bank. And he worked twenty-four hours a day to keep his loneliness at bay.

He almost looked forward to the problem confronting him now. Finding a new director for
Scheherazade
would not be easy; the best were already working at other studios.

The intercom buzzed noisily. He pressed the switch and his secretary said, “Miss Lilian and Miss Mary Grant are here to see you, with their mother, sir.”

He sighed. Stage mothers were an eternal problem, but he always vetted every member of the cast personally before any of his films went into production, and his was the final yes or no. The Grant twins were in the final round of casting for the roles of two dance maidens, not big roles but well featured. At least they had been in the last script he saw. Now he would have to tell them that the film was postponed indefinitely, until he could find a new director.

He stood up as they entered, shook their hands, gave each of them a chair, and then returned to his seat behind the desk, sitting back with his hands folded, looking at the girls, unsmiling.

Winona Grant assessed him as he assessed her girls. She had heard a lot about the reclusive C. Z. Abrams, how he had taken over Schroeder’s dilapidated studios and in two years made Magic a name to be reckoned with in motion pictures. It was said he had made a fortune turning out hundreds of cheap little comedies and serials that fit into almost any bill at every movie theater around the country. Magic had not made its name in big features, but now it was on its way, after hits like
Dark Destiny
and the long-running serial
The Adventures of Mitzi
and Tom Jacks’s spectacular western sagas. It was also said that C. Z. was about to spend a great deal of that quickly amassed fortune on his new epic, and after the failure of Griffith’s
Intolerance
, the word around the casting offices was that he had better know what he was doing.

However, Winona did not care about C. Z.’s great gamble. All she wanted was featured roles for her daughters.

“Both Lilian and Mary are accomplished in all forms of dance, Mr. Abrams,” she said, gushing and smiling brightly at him. “Ballet, tap, rhythm and movement….”

“I am sure they are, madam,” he replied, shifting his cold stare from the girls to her, “and may I compliment you on their beauty. Unfortunately, we are having some problems. We are without a director at this moment. The movie will be postponed indefinitely.”

The girls’ bright faces fell and they glanced at their mother appealingly. “Well, but …” Winona floundered, stunned by his news. “I mean, when the movie is back on schedule, I hope my girls will still be in running for the parts.”

“Lilian and Mary will have their parts—if and when
Scheherazade
goes into production.” A rare smile lighted his face. “I am sorry,” he said to the girls. “I know how much this meant to you. I will tell my secretary to keep your names and photographs on file. Thank you for taking the time to come and see me.”

They gazed at him bemused as he escorted them to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Abrams,” they chorused, not knowing whether to be disappointed about the movie or delighted by C. Z.’s attention.

“Imagine that.” Winona snorted angrily as they walked across the lot to the guarded gates. “We came all this way only to find out he’s fired the director.”

“But he said he would remember us, Mother,” Lilian said, her eyes sparkling, “and you just know a man like that means it.”

“There’s just something about him,” Mary added dreamily. “He’s so calm and controlled, an ice-man—until he smiles, and then he lights up. And he’s handsome too, in that dark, smoldering sort of way.” She shivered dramatically. “I feel he is a man of
power.”

“Enough power to fire everybody whenever he feels
like it,” their mother retorted smartly as they waited in the heat for the tramcar to take them back to Rosemont. “A man like that has power, all right, the power to decide over other people’s lives.”

C. Z. and Magic Movie Studios and the closing down of production on
Scheherazade
were discussed in depth over the supper table at Rosemont that night. Missie was dining with O’Hara at the Beverly Hills Hotel and missed the excitement of how the twins almost got starring roles, but Dick Nevern listened thoughtfully, saying little.

The next morning he got up early, ate two helpings of ham and eggs, a plate of hash browns, and four popovers to give him energy, and then he set out for Magic.

The uniformed guard at the gate tilted back his cap and eyed him up and down unsympathetically. He saw hundreds like him every day. “What are ya? A comic?” he asked cynically when Dick said he wanted to see Mr. Abrams. “Anyways, C. Z. never sees anybody without an appointment, most of all you.” He sat back and folded his arms, grinning.

Dick hesitated for a moment and he reached into his pocket, pulled out a precious five-dollar bill, and said, “Please tell him that Dick Nevern, a genius cameraman and director, is here to see him.” He watched regretfully as the guard slipped the bill into his pocket, listening as he repeated his words to C. Z.’s secretary. He put down the phone and turned back to him.

“She says C. Z.’s busy all day, but if you like you can wait. Over there, third path on the right, the big office at the end,” he called as Dick ran through the gate and headed excitedly toward his future.

He paused to stare at an action sequence being shot on the western street, watching the cameraman carefully, noting how he took his instructions from the director. Then he slipped quietly into the big green barn, letting his eyes get used to the darkness, staring awed at the elaborate drawing room set—why, he might have been in a real
Manhattan penthouse with the light from half a dozen brilliant kliegs streaming in through the tall windows and the famous skyline behind. And there was the glamorous Miss Mae French in a long satin dress, lounging on a brocade sofa while a violin quartet played in the background to get her in the mood for her big romantic scene with Ralph Lance.

“Glamour,” a quiet voice said next to him, “that’s what people want. They want to forget the dark hovels they live in and for ten cents escape into a world of romance. They want to gasp at how gorgeous her clothes are and imagine themselves dining with a man like him. They want to laugh and to cry….”

“They want to be entertained,” Dick finished, glancing quickly at the man beside him. “Jeez, see how he’s lighting her, full onto the face like that? He should shift those lamps behind her, get some shadows onto her face … jeez….” He shifted anxiously from foot to foot, itching to get onto the set and do it his way.

“What do you think of the set?” the man asked him casually.

“Good. Too many windows though—we get the message, it’s a penthouse in New York, but we could have had it all a bit grander, with paintings and drapes. More … more texture, I guess. Aw, jeez.” He glanced at the man again. “Did you design it? I’m sorry.”

The man laughed. “Tell me more.”

“Well, for instance, now I think he should be approaching her from behind the sofa, kind of slip his arms around her. This way you can hardly see her face and as she’s the prettiest thing around, I guess that’s what the audience wants to see.”

“And if they don’t, you’ll have one very angry Mae French,” the man said feelingly. “I’m on my way over to the
Adventures
set. Why don’t you come with me and take a look at that?”

“Sure thing. My name’s Dick Nevern.” He pumped the
man’s hand enthusiastically as they strode from the barn and headed for the neighboring set. Mitzi was being filmed outside, sitting on an upturned bucket, wearing frilled gingham skirts, black stockings, and black button boots, and somebody was holding an umbrella over her head to stop her makeup from melting in the sun.

They watched the action for a while, Dick passing some comments and the man asking him some questions, and then they dropped in to see a few of the fast two-reelers being made. “I know I can do better than this,” Dick muttered agitatedly. “I just know I can.”

“There’s something I want to show you,” the man said finally, “but I have to be at a meeting. Here, why don’t you take this key and go and look in the big storage hangar at the back of the lot. It’s a ten-minute walk, but I think you will find it interesting.”

Dick hesitated. “Well, I kinda have an appointment myself….” Then he remembered that C. Z. was busy all day and figured another half hour wouldn’t make any difference. Besides, now he was curious. “Well, sure, why not, if it’s okay, I mean, jeez, I wouldn’t want to be caught trespassing where I’m not supposed to go, you know.”

The man nodded. “Just drop the key off with Mr. Abrams’s secretary when you’re through,” he said as he strode purposefully away.

The hangar was filled with monolithic sets, statues, props, and painted backdrops for
Scheherazade
, all gold and crimson and Arabian splendor. Dick guessed this was what the man had meant about giving people an escape from their drab daily lives. For ten cents they could be transported to the mysterious east via Magic’s magical movie. Or they could have, if
Scheherazade
had not been canceled.

After locking the door regretfully behind him, he walked over to C. Z. Abrams’s office and handed the key to his secretary.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “you must be Dick Nevern. C. Z. said
if you’re such a big-shot genius like you say, then maybe he’d better give you a test. Be here tomorrow morning at six-thirty.”

Dick let out a great whoop of excitement. After grabbing her hand and kissing it, he said, “But when do I get to meet the great man?”

“You already have,” she replied. “I understand he gave you a conducted tour of the lot.”