The Slipper (19 page)

“She is good,” Berne said, “but she has no color, she has no spirit. Her face is pitted with the acne, this is not appealing, and she is married as well. This would not go over with the public. This other girl, this Carol Martin, she is perfect.”

“She can't act, Eric.”

“As I say earlier, this is no problem. Half the bitches in Hollywood, they cannot act either, but I get the performance from them. Give Eric Berne a block of wood, he gets the performance from it. The studio wires me, they inform me I must select my Corday immediately and so I bring the press, I bring the cameras, determined to find her here, perhaps this student you tell me about when we talk over the telephone. I see her. I am impressed, yes, this I will admit: She is an actress. I do not want an actress. I want a star.”

“So Carol gets the part,” Compton said dryly.

“This girl, she will be my greatest discovery,” Berne said. “We do a newsreel this afternoon. Next week she is on the cover of
Life
. I introduce her on the Jack Paar show. Come, Julian, we go out now. I tell the press I have found my Corday.”

Julie heard a door open, close. Moments later there was a furor in the outer lobby.

Julie left the theater, unnoticed.

7

It was November now, and the huge, drafty old movie studio outside of Paris was cold, despite all their efforts to heat it. One more day, God willing. As she moved toward her dressing trailer, Carol sent up a silent prayer that all would go well today and this nightmare would end. High overhead, lighting technicians busily set up lights on the catwalks while, below, the set swarmed with dozens of people busily doing their jobs, the rest of the studio like a vast dark cave. Carefully stepping over an electrical cord, Carol smiled at one of the workers. He grinned, giving her the victory signal. All the crew adored her, particularly the French, for she was invariably kind and she spoke the language. They had rallied round her magnificently these past months, and she was grateful to each and every one of them. Without their support and encouragement she would probably be in a padded cell somewhere, gibbering incoherently.

“We have the lights ready in forty-five minutes,” Jacques told her. “We make you look very beautiful.”

“Bless you, Jacques.”

“The close-ups yesterday, ah, you are Helen of Troy. I slip into the projection room. I watch. Even The Demon agrees they are perfection.”

“They should be. It took him five and a half hours to shoot them.”

“He is the bad man, that one. Maybe we murder him for you after the shooting is finished today.”

“It's an idea,” Carol said.

Jacques grinned again and went back to work. Carol moved on. Hammers were banging as carpenters did some last-minute reinforcement on the set. One of the walls had almost collapsed yesterday when she opened the door. Berne had loved that. It had afforded him another opportunity to castigate her in front of everyone. She had stood there quite calmly as he ranted and raved and called her a clumsy idiot, a silly bitch, a rank amateur deliberately sabotaging his film, and when he finally wound down she extended a stiff middle finger and there was a round of applause. The fact that ninety percent of the people involved with the filming stood behind Carol incensed Eric all the more.

The Demon was nowhere in sight. He was undoubtedly huddled in his office with Lelia and Ron, talking to California on the telephone, firing off cables. He'd appear soon enough, wearing his knee boots and gray jodhpurs and herringbone tweed jacket, looking for all the world like a caricature of Cecil B. deMille with his megaphone and green felt golf cap. Maybe the crew
would
murder him. There wasn't a court in the world that wouldn't call it justifiable homicide. Carol smiled at the thought. She smiled rarely these days.

It was nine o'clock in the morning. Carol had been at the studio since six, a limousine whisking her through the wet gray streets of Paris. She was already in costume, a charming pink cotton eighteenth-century gown with white organdy fichu and a draped overskirt. She hadn't donned her wig yet, and her short-clipped gold hair looked incongruous with the period costume. She had spent an hour in makeup, but her face still looked too thin, her blue eyes haunted. It had taken Perc quite a while to conceal the shadows beneath them. In two months she would be twenty years old, and this morning she felt a good seventy-four.

“Morning, luv,” Sir Robert said.

“Oh—you startled me. I—I'm a little jumpy this morning.”

Sir Robert Reynolds grinned. The celebrated English actor hired to play Marat was in his late fifties now, still a very attractive man with his tall, lean body and rather effete, chiseled features. He wore a gray peruke and a quantity of makeup, a navy blue brocade dressing gown over his flesh-colored body stocking. Personable, warm, professional to the core, he had been one of Carol's strongest supporters, working with her privately when it became apparent that she would get no direction from Berne. Those long sessions in her suite at the Hotel Meurice had been invaluable to her, and she had learned far more than she could have learned at any drama school.

“I must say, you look quite ravishing this a.m.,” Sir Robert said. “If I must be stabbed in my bath, I'm glad it shall be done by you. I shall die a happy man.”

“You died three weeks ago,” she reminded him.

“Six hours thrashing around in that bleeding tub, clutching my chest, rolling my eyes. Death agonies duly filmed—a magnificent performance, if I do say so myself. Today we film the actual stabbing, and then—it's a wrap.”

“Six and a half months,” Carol said wearily. “Not the happiest experience of my life.”

“You've done a valiant job, luv. You deserve a Purple Heart. I, on the other hand, deserve an Oscar. Think there's a chance?”

“I wouldn't count on it,” she told him. “I seriously doubt sixteen people will ever see this epic. They, undoubtedly, will be forced into the theater at gunpoint.”

“It's not that bad, luv. With all the publicity we've received, the studio might even make a small profit. You've done a very good job under the circumstances, and there'll be other films.”

“For you, yes. I'll be lucky to get a job selling nylons.”

Sir Robert grinned again and, blue-green eyes twinkling, patted her on the arm.

“Must dash off and write a letter to Larry, tell him how sensible he was to turn down this role. See you on the set, luv. And-Carol—”

“Yes?”

“When you stab me, do, please, be gentle.”

“I shall,” she promised.

Carol stepped into her trailer a few moments later and shut the door behind her. It was cold here, too, although one of the crew had brought her an electric heater. It glowed bright orange but gave off very little heat. She sighed and sat down on the sofa and reached for a cigarette from the box on the table. She had taken up smoking several months ago. It's a wonder I haven't taken up hard drugs, she thought bitterly, reaching for the box of matches. Over a year and a half as Eric Berne's “discovery” and pet protégée had definitely taken its toll.

While lighting the cigarette, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the dressing table. The girl in the glass seemed a stranger to her. Carol Martin was already an international celebrity, her first film yet to be released, but who the hell was Carol Martin? That fresh, wholesome, enthusiastic girl they wrote reams about might have been entirely fictional. She was nothing at all like the young woman with a nervous stomach and trembling hands who now sat in the trailer. What had happened to the kind, sensitive college girl with a heart full of dreams? Claymore seemed an eternity ago. Lord, it was November. Nora was starting her third year of college, a senior now, for she had indeed taken night courses and gone to summer school. Julie's husband was starting his final year of law school, with Julie still working to put him through. If only Julie or Nora could be here now to hold her hand. She wrote to them both regularly, frequently phoned Nora long distance, but she had seen neither of them since she left Indiana.

Carol smoked nervously, rapidly, filling the trailer with soft blue-gray clouds. What had happened? Eric Berne, that's what had happened. Berne had signed her to an exclusive seven-year contract, and he considered her his personal property, as indeed she was, at least professionally. The contract was not with the studio, it was with Berne, and it stipulated that Carol couldn't make films with anyone else except on loan-out arranged through him. Eighteen months ago that contract had seemed like a dream come true, but now it seemed like a prison sentence. Lincoln freed the slaves, she thought, but he forgot all about Hollywood.

Oh, it had been thrilling at first. Carol had been completely bedazzled and totally in awe, unable to believe this was happening to her. Berne swept her away from Claymore before she could even finish her last two exams, there had hardly been time to say good-bye to Julie and Nora, and then she was being photographed and interviewed in New York City, hundreds of reporters and photographers swarming into the suite at the Plaza. Then, frozen with fear, she found herself on the Jack Paar show, all those lights blazing, those gigantic black cameras churning, millions of people watching her. Dody Goodman hugged her exuberantly. Jack Paar wept real tears as Berne told him how this little girl from Kansas was going to become a major star. The next day they flew to Kansas in a private plane and, confused, disoriented, she found herself standing in front of the cornfields while a photographer from
Life
took dozens of pictures. He shot her sitting out on the front porch with Aunt Jessie and Uncle Edgar, that had been a real thrill, and he snapped her at the Dairy Queen where she had worked one summer, insisting she wear one of the paper hats and hold up a tray with a banana split. Limos swept them back to the airport before she could even say hello to Mrs. Epperson.

It was back to New York for two more weeks of interviews and photographs and three more national television shows, Eric always at her side, Eric holding her hand, Eric parading her about as though she were a trained seal. The
Life
article appeared. Carol was on the cover, standing in front of the cornfields with windblown hair and a bemused expression, looking very young, very fresh and wholesome and bewildered. Berne decided that the hair must go. It was too long, too conventional. He took her to the most exclusive hair salon in New York and the long gold waves were clipped off and she was given an extreme Peter Pan cut, very chic, very striking. More photographs were taken, and her haircut made national news. An extensive shopping spree followed and she acquired a complete new wardrobe, each and every garment personally selected by Eric Berne, right down to the underwear. The price tags were unbelievable. Two thousand dollars for one evening gown. Three thousand dollars for a white satin evening wrap beaded with jet and lined with black satin. Carol was astounded, and she was weary, bone weary, longing, praying for a few minutes of her own without Eric or Lelia or Ron in attendance.

A full month was to pass before they finally left for California. Berne found her a “suitable” apartment in Beverly Hills and early every morning one of the limousines picked her up and drove her to the studio, where she learned to walk, learned to speak without a Kansas accent, learned to fence, had costume fittings, posed for publicity photos, all under the close supervision of Eric Berne. She had lunch at the commissary and caught glimpses of Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb and Susan Hayward and Jeanne Crain and the younger stars like Mitzi Gaynor and Dale Robertson and Jeffrey Hunter.
They
were all working on pictures, but she was still being “groomed.”
Daughter of France
would commence filming soon, Berne assured her, it was still in preproduction, she must be patient. She was interviewed by Louella, who gushed and informed her readers that Carol was fresh and unspoiled and a sweet, sweet girl, America's Favorite Cinderella. She was interviewed by Hedda, who wore an utterly preposterous hat and fired questions at her in a crisp voice and scared the shit out of her.

And Eric was always there, seeing that she had the best teachers and the best photographers, introducing her to the studio bosses and telling them they had a new star on their hands. With the aid of the publicity department, Eric carefully orchestrated her “romance” with a handsome young actor who was under contract to the studio. Brence was charming and polite and good-natured, duly took her to Ciro's and Mocambo and splashy movie premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theater and then went home to the costume designer with whom he lived. The fan magazines wrote countless articles about Carol Martin and Brence LaSalle. They were almost as popular as Debbie and Eddie. The boy in the windbreaker was the perfect prince for America's Favorite Cinderella, and the public approved. Everyone in Hollywood assumed she was sleeping with Eric Berne. She wasn't. She was very, very fond of him, and he was quite affectionate with her, but he hadn't made a single attempt to seduce her.

Carol crushed out her cigarette and poured a cup of coffee from the silver thermos. She seemed to live on caffeine and nicotine these days, but at least she wasn't drinking. An occasional glass of white wine was her limit, and Gaby and her fast pals were always amused when she ordered ginger ale or a Coca-Cola at the noisy dives they frequented in Saint-Germain. She sipped her coffee, recalling those early days, while outside the trailer men still scurried about on the catwalks setting up lights and calling instructions and making a great racket.

Eric had been so different in the beginning. Bossy and possessive, true, frequently stern, but kind, too, so very considerate, seeing to her every need. Carol supposed it was inevitable she fall a little in love with him. He was no Adonis, but oh what charm he had, what overwhelming magnetism. She could easily see why Linda Darnell and Ann Sheridan and Paulette Goddard and a dozen others had been so taken with him. Eric was a very powerful man in Hollywood, and he had given her a feeling of security in a crazy, glamorous, bewildering world that sometimes left her feeling she had tumbled down a rabbit hole. Carol didn't really belong, she knew. She was there on a pass, and Eric had always been on hand to calm her and comfort her and give her the assurance she so desperately needed. He treated her like a beloved daughter, indulging her and pampering her and scolding her, too, at times. Her feelings for him deepened, and Carol clung to him as a drowning man might cling to a spar.