The Slipper (60 page)

On the screen, Faye Holden looked six feet tall, but that was because of her regal presence. In reality she was much shorter, but everything else was the same: the very broad shoulders that had inspired shoulder pads during the thirties, the slender waist and narrow hips. She was wearing gold shoes and narrow bronze slacks and an elaborate bronze hostess coat embroidered in gold and silver and amethyst. Her hair was bronze, too, cut short and sprayed to helmet stiffness. The eyebrows were thick and dark, the enormous, wide-open eyes giving her a startled look, the famous “Faye Holden” mouth painted a vivid red. Holden had never been a beauty, even in her youth, but her oversized features were a cameraman's dream, superbly photogenic, and at fifty-nine she was magnificently preserved, exuding grandeur.

Carol put out her cigarette. David led her over to Holden and performed introductions. Carol wondered if she should curtsy. Instead she smiled politely and said she was very honored to be working with her. Holden gave her a drop-dead look.

“We'll see what you can do,” she snapped. “Let's get this show on the road.”

David explained the scene briefly, and they went over their marks. Holden managed to be both patient and patronizing. She took her place and immediately informed the lighting technician that he hadn't done his job properly, and sure enough there was a faint shadow on her cheekbone and they had to readjust one of the lights. Carol wondered how on earth she had known. Holden tartly informed her that when you'd been in this business as long as she had, you could
feel
it if the lights weren't right. Ten minutes later they started shooting. Carol, draped in furs, entered the drawing room and Holden icily informed her that John wouldn't be taking her to the opening tonight, that John was on his way to Boston and wouldn't be seeing her again.

“You thought you had him in your clutches, didn't you? You thought you were going to trap him into marriage. I had your number from the first, and I wasn't about to let my son marry a pushy little trollop from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“You should know about the wrong side of the tracks, Mrs. Marlow. I believe your father was a railroad switchman from Biloxi, Mississippi, and your mother ran a boardinghouse. Of course, you married well—after your stint in the chorus at Minsky's.”

“You little tramp!”

“No, Mrs. Marlow, I'm not a tramp. I was selling perfume behind a counter at Saks when he met me, yes, but that doesn't make me a tramp. I happen to love your son, and he loves me.”

“Love! You think I don't know what's been going on? You think I don't know who paid for those furs, that gown? You think I don't know who's paying the rent on this town house? Jack—I mean, John—shit! Sorry, David. Amateur hour. Let's do it again.”

They did it again and yet again. Holden was nervous. She hadn't been in a major picture in two years. Her last had been a B horror flick in which she played an ax murderess. This was her “comeback.” Holden had been making comebacks and hanging on tenaciously for the past decade. A dinosaur from another era, she adamantly refused to sink into the tar pits along with most of the rest of her contemporaries. The lady had guts, and you had to admire her for that, Carol thought. Holden blew her lines twice more, but she eventually got it right and gave an electrifying performance no other actress in Hollywood could have approached. No one played a tough bitch like Faye Holden. She had patented the role thirty years ago and had been playing it in varying degrees ever since.

They finished the long shot at two o'clock in the afternoon and began to set up to shoot the same scene in close-up, first with Faye, then with Carol. The film editor would splice various close-ups in with the long shot to avoid a static effect and give the scene variety and movement. Her makeup refurbished, her bronze hair sporting a new coat of spray, Faye returned to the set and sat down in the canvasback chair next to Carol as her stand-in patiently endured the tedium of having the lights set up to best show off her features. Carol smiled. Faye gave her another drop-dead look and accepted the glass of water the winsome young man brought over. Carol soon discovered that it wasn't water. Hundred-proof vodka, from the smell of it.

“You're good, Martin,” Faye said abruptly. “Damned good, and I don't say that about many of these young upstarts in pictures today. They've got a pair of tits and a shapely ass and they think they're a star. You've got the real stuff, the stuff we had back in the old days.”

“Why—thank you, Miss Holden.”

“Call me Faye. I kept blowing my lines this morning, I was scared shitless, and you were wonderful. You did your best to help me, make it easier. Most of these young bitches would've thrown a tantrum or made disparaging remarks. You
wanted
me to be good, I could see it in your eyes.”

“You
were
good. No one could have done it better.”

“You've paid your dues, Martin. You fell flat on your ass in your first picture and got back up and refused to let 'em defeat you. I admire that. I love a fighter. I've always been a fighter myself. I saw a couple of your foreign films. You learned your craft over there. You're a pro. You know what you're doing and you do it damned well.”

“I wish I were better,” Carol confessed.

“So you're not a natural, so you're not ‘inspired.' Neither was I. You rely on techinque instead of instinct, but the audience out there isn't aware of it. Strong technique and tough professionalism will carry you a hell of a lot further than soulful introspection. You wanna endure? You wanna stay up here on top?”

“It—it's the most important thing in the world to me.”

“Get yourself a man,” Faye told her. “Get yourself someone rich, someone powerful, someone important in the business. A producer or a director or a studio executive. Someone who'll have your best interests at heart and can further your career. This is a man's town, sweetheart. It always was and it always will be. It's the men who run things, make all the decisions. If you wanna have a real career, get yourself a man who can guide your career and be there to see you get the best parts.”

“That sounds—terribly cynical, Miss Holden.”

“Faye. Sure it's cynical. It happens to be a fact. Look at Shearer. That bitch couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag—she gave new meaning to the word affected—but she had Thalberg behind her and she got all of the plums. I got all of the leftovers. No way I could compete with her when she was balling the boss every night. Look at Jennifer Jones. She's got talent, yes, but that's not why she gets all those fabulous roles. She gets them because she's Mrs. David O. Selznick.”

Faye took another generous slug of vodka. It really might have been water for all the effect it had on her.

“Without a powerful man behind her in this town, a woman is at the mercy of the winds of chance. You're young, you're beautiful, you're talented. I could name five dozen who had just as much goin' for them and have long since been forgotten. Why? There was no man behind them. Back in the old days, a few of us fought and clawed our way to the top without a sponsor, but the studios had real power then, and, believe me, we all had to service our share of executives in order to keep a foothold. I like you, Martin. I'd like to see you make a real mark in this business, and you could. You could have one of the really big careers. Take my advice. Get yourself a powerful man.”

Faye finished her vodka, took up her knitting and gave it her full attention, ignoring Carol completely. Their conversation might never have occurred at all. Carol returned to her luxurious trailer, thinking about what Holden had said. She meant well, Carol was certain of that, but … Faye Holden was a relic from another era, and her views would naturally be colored by her own experience. This was 1962. Things were different. A powerful man like … like Blake Dougherty, for instance, could help a girl's career, certainly, but one could have a career without that kind of sponsorship. Carol herself was the living proof of that. She had made a career for herself through hard work and determination, and she didn't need some man to insure she maintained it.

It took them the rest of the day and most of the next morning to get all of Holden's close-ups. Although it was neither required nor expected of her, Carol stood out of camera range and fed lead-in lines to Faye, making it easier for her to react more naturally and give a better reading. Holden didn't respond accordingly. When her closeups and reaction shots were finally completed, she departed with entourage in tow, leaving Carol to do her own without assistance. Faye Holden was a star. A star didn't feed lines for someone else's close-ups. They broke for lunch and, still in her street clothes, Carol ate in the commissary. Gregory Peck was sharing a table with Mary Badham, his young costar in
To Kill a Mockingbird
, and a rather grim Audie Murphy was sitting with Dan Duryea and Joan O'Brien, who were in
Six Black Horses
with him. A vivacious Sandra Dee, working on
If a Man Answers
with Bobby Darin, rushed over to give Carol a hug and say she was looking foward to playing her bratty little sister.

After lunch, Carol spent an hour and a half in makeup and, resplendent, was helped into the white satin gown again. They were having problems with a boom mike when she arrived on the set, ready for her close-up, and there was a half hour's wait before shooting began. She was wearing the white fox furs now, and it was very hot under the lights. She gazed at a nonpresent Holden and calmly, with emotions restrained, informed her that she should know about the wrong side of the tracks. She had filmed her first lines satisfactorily when one of the lights blew, casting half of her face in shadow. David Miller yelled “Cut!” and told Carol it would be at least another forty-five minutes before they would be ready for her again. Relinquishing the furs to the wardrobe assistant, Carol started to her trailer, and a flustered-looking secretary hurried toward her.

“Miss Martin!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I'm so glad you're free. We have a phone call for you. Ordinarily we wouldn't bother you, of course, but—well, it's long distance and they had your private number and they said it's very important—”

“Long distance? Who is it?”

“I don't know, Miss Martin. They just sent me over to see if you would take the call. The party is still on hold.”

“I'll take it,” Carol said. “Can you have it transferred to the phone in my trailer?”

“No problem at all. It'll take a few minutes, but we'll ring you.”

The girl scurried off, and Carol entered her trailer with a worried furrow between her brows. Long distance. It had to be either Nora or Julie and it had to be something serious for them to call her at the studio. Had something happened to Nora in Mexico City? Had Julie finally reached the breaking point on the set in Arizona? Carol lighted a cigarette and smoked it rapidly, seizing the phone the moment it rang.

“Hello?”

“One moment, Miss Martin,” a cool, officious voice said.

There was a clicking noise, and then another voice came on, a male voice she didn't recognize.

“Carol?” The voice sounded strained, far away.

“Yes, this is Carol Martin. Who—”

“I didn't think I was going to be able to reach you. Didn't think they were going to put me through.”

“Who—Cliff? Is—is that you?”

“I'm calling from Wichita. I—I hate to bother you like this when you are working, but I felt you should—I—I felt you'd want to know.”

Carol was standing, holding the phone in one hand, cradling the receiver between shoulder and ear, and she didn't say anything. She couldn't. A terrible premonition swept over her, and she knew, she knew, and she knew it was something she couldn't face, something she couldn't endure. She sat down and took a deep breath. No, she cried silently. No, no. Please, please, dear God, no.

“Carol? Are you there?”

“I'm here,” she said. Her voice was perfectly calm.

“It's Dad. He—he was on the golf course, he's been playing a lot of golf lately, said it gave him something to do, and—he was on the third hole and it happened all at once, Carol. His heart. It—the doctor said it just gave out.”

“No,” Carol whispered.

“We—we're all shook up about it, of course, but the doctor said there was no pain. Cardiac arrest. He died instantly. I—the funeral is tomorrow morning and I know you can't come but—I thought you would want to know. I felt I had to call you.”

“Of course.”

“He loved you, Carol. He never said anything about it, never mentioned those weeks you spent together in France, but—he loved you. I know he did. He went to see your last two pictures several times and—when I was cleaning out his desk this morning I—I found a collection of clippings about you and several photographs. I could tell he—I could tell he looked at them often. The clippings were worn, and the photographs—”

His voice broke. He repressed a sob.

“Thank you for calling, Cliff,” she said quietly.

“He loved you,” Cliff repeated.

“And I loved him,” she whispered.

Carol replaced the receiver and waited for the emotion to sweep over her in a tidal wave, but it didn't. It was locked inside. She took another cigarette out of the case Sir Robert had presented to her so long ago and lighted it with the matching lighter from Jean-Claude. How can I be so calm? Why don't I cry? Why don't I sob? I can't endure this. I can't. I can't possibly go on. We could have been together. I could have made his last years so happy. Oh, Norman. Norman. I loved you. I loved you with all my heart and soul. Why, why why did I let you leave without me? I loved you, and I wanted you so badly. So badly. And now it's too late you're gone, and you never knew how … how much I loved you.

Carol finished her cigarette, and still the tears didn't come. She was perfectly calm on the surface, impossibly calm, sitting here in her luxurious trailer in a sumptuous white satin gown. Norman was dead. He died without knowing how she longed for him, how she loved him. She didn't sob. No. She couldn't let those emotions free. She had to keep them contained inside her. Some things are too dreadful and too painful to endure and a numbness sets in and we can't feel and it is nature protecting us and that's what is happening to me. The clock is ticking. I've been sitting here for twenty-five minutes and I'm dying inside and I don't feel a thing.