BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD

I’ve been tossing about as much stardust as I can muster right now. That’s it, this novel is done. I think the podcast of the book runs a bit over 10 hours in its entirety. Let me know if you’d like to hear another Hollywood novel podcast — remember it will take me some time to write it — if you think I should independently publish what you’ve heard, or, if you just want to chat the comments are open. I’d love to hear from you.      

“Do you know the Mayo Clinic lists menopause under diseases and conditions? What do you think of that?” “Well, I know it’s not contagious.” He sat down beside me. “Jesus, this is hard on my knees.” “Sorry about that, old-timer. Cooper, I am not pissed off.” “Then what’s with the face?” “This old thing?” He laughed. “Did I ever tell you about when I was nineteen? When I was working for the Taylors?” “You worked for them?” “I was the nanny.” “Classic.” “Shut up!” “I never knew you were their nanny.” “I guess I never told you.” “I was going to say we should go for a drive, catch up, and you could charge your phone in the car, but I don’t think I can get up for a while. Why don’t you tell me now?” “God. It seems like a million years ago. I came out here from Boston and it was like I’d landed on an alien world. Everything was brighter, so much brighter, more dramatic. The Taylors made me feel like I was living on a movie set.”

There were heaps — accumulated reminders of a life — all around. Everything that served as an archival asset, or a teaching aid for future filmmakers, I boxed and hauled over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clothes, I donated. Books, I culled down to the essentials and gave the balance to the library. I avoided looking at my computer for days, ignored my constantly vibrating mobile, and I turned off the ringer on my landline. I played music at all hours, danced when I felt like it, and slept in any room where I had spent the day organizing. If I couldn’t quite see a plan to execute in my mind, I could in my house. And what about the house? It was so ridiculously big. A home should be filled, specifically with children. I pulled all the papers from my files (that I could find) to deed the property over to Jake, his future wife, and my (yet to be born) infant grandchildren. When I texted Jake the good news he replied, “Thanks Mom. But don’t think I’ll be needing a screening room.” The issue of the house I put on hold.

All through life, instinctively or intellectually, we adapt to survive. Even insects have some boss strategies, for example, the formation of a chitinous exoskeleton, which is the somewhat see-through shell that encapsulates and protects a shrimp or a spider. I have a theory about directors who succeed in the movie industry; they have see-through shells. The shell can be the ability to tune 100 other people out and focus on what’s right in front of you. It can be a tough ego. It can be a calming chemical cocktail that allows all to think they have access to your attention, while your core remains protected. Or, it can be a producer that never leaves your side. As this is the holiday season the comments are open, and, our story is drawing to a close — just a few more chapters.

Life is a series of metamorphoses. Some of them get more airtime than others. I remember once waiting in a gynecologist’s office to see the doctor. There was his desk, on the walls family pictures, on the shelves, some weighty texts. I was curious about hot flashes, so I pulled one of the volumes and flipped to the index. There was a single page referenced, and on the page one paragraph. It said, to paraphrase, that your internal thermostat might go haywire, the medical establishment wasn’t sure why, they hadn’t really studied it much, and the publication’s advice was: dress in layers or take supplements and don’t worry about it. Oh. And it (it, meaning menopause) can go on for ten years. That’s a long time. The comments are open…

For a few short days after Antoine’s crisis I was more aware of the rhythms and mechanisms of filmmaking and its twitchy straitlaced cousin finance than I had ever been. Much like how time can seem to slow when you fall, leaving you able to see everything around you with crystal clarity before you crash into the ground, I found myself hyperaware of all the moving pieces of movie creation, as inevitable and formidable as a heartbeat. A studio produces 10-15 films a year. In 9 years someone like me would have given 90-135 movies the green light. Personally, I had been responsible for bringing 145 projects to the screen. Stories were told and tens of thousands of people were employed, day after day after day.

Lethal stress can come at you no matter whether you’re onscreen or off. Actors in Hollywood have committed suicide by swallowing ant paste, Nembutal, or barbiturates. George Sanders (check out his performance in All About Eve) swallowed five bottles of pills in Barcelona and left two suicides notes. One in Spanish instructing the local authorities to notify his sister of his death, and the other went like this: Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool—good luck. Directors generally shoot themselves, although some jump from bridges or top floors. What’s all this got to do with me, and the time Antoine decided to call instead of nicking his femoral artery?

Clara Bow wasn’t the only one who found Hollywood depressing. On a chilly, unusually clouded over, February afternoon in 2009 when I was 48, after the fourth week of shooting on the revived franchise, I received a call. It was Antoine. He told me he couldn’t make it to set on Monday. One could say that was unusual to the nth degree. Directors never miss work unless they’re stricken, for example, by a heart attack or family tragedy. I asked Antoine what the matter was. He was politely evasive, and almost robotic. Further, he was tampering with film protocol making his first call to me, a studio head, instead of his producer (who would, in the normal course of events, alert the studio and arrange either a temporary work stoppage or a fill-in). However, we were on the phone. I was his friend. There was something so alarming about the intonation of his voice, and the nature of the call that it was as if I heard in my ears a cloud of invisible bees, miles away, swarming, buzzing, dangerous, and on their way to sting.

Gifted with a glib tongue he moved quickly from never-featured actor, to production assistant, to assistant director, and rapidly ascended the dating scale (as he saw it) from the cute craft service gal who brought cucumber sushi snacks to camera at four in the afternoon, to the daughter of a producer. Everything was meteoric with Antoine — his love life, his career, his quick adaptation to style and circumstance. Where do I insinuate myself firmly into Antoine’s story? I think right about here. We were friends for some unfathomable reason, well, that’s not exactly candid of me. We were close friends because my ascent in films intrigued him, my quiet on set demeanor had impressed him, and he was perfectly clear, when the time came, that my position as newly minted studio head made me all the more worthy of devotion. Does that sound callous? I suppose it does. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care for him, or Antoine me. Yet, in large part, I think our early fascination with each other had to do with the novelty the other presented. It meant he could tell me stories when we met of waking up on location somewhere across the Pacific with two bedmates he didn’t recognize and I would gasp and say I hoped he had used a condom. He would recount evenings on hallucinogens speaking to ancient spirit guides and I would ask what they were wearing. “Toga? Buckskins? What?”

In the words of Dorothy Gale, there’s no place like home. The light here is what made filmmakers move to California. It shines here most of the time, and there are certain places, certain times of year that take your breath away with sheer wonder. It’s a crying shame that with generations of talent based here so much production is going elsewhere, and I went with it. The migration had to do with tax incentives in some places, and preposterous salaries in others. I think it’s time I told you about when I went on location in Mongolia. The average film worker there makes $40 a day—and that’s considered generous.