Getting Garbo (2 page)

Humphrey Bogart is telling a joke. So, of course, we're all listening. After all, it's Bogie's booth. Second on the left as you descend into the main room at Romanoff's restaurant in Beverly Hills. Where the elite meet to eat lunch and ogle each other. Bogie sits in front of his usual Scotch and soda, dragging on a cigarette in that special cupped-hand way that made smokers of so many of us and killed him two years later. Some of the usual suspects are gathered: genial actor David Niven, high-powered agent Irving Paul Lazar,
Herald Trib
columnist Joe Hyams, plus our imperious host, the royal pretender himself, Prince Mike Romanoff. And don't forget me—Roy Darnell, the kid from South Philly who's finally made it into the big time by way of the small screen. That's us. The guys.

“So there's this man needs a new suit,” Bogie begins, “and his friend Harry says, ‘C'mon, let's go see Pincus the tailor over on Fairfax Avenue. He's a magician with a needle.' They go over and the man tells Pincus, ‘I need a black suit, not navy blue. Black. Black as Joe McCarthy's heart.' Pincus assures him he'll make a great suit. Pincus measures the man, tells him to come back next Tuesday.”

Romanoff interrupts. The Oxford-borrowed accent. “Excuse me, Mr. Bogart, is this going to be a very long story?”

“Shut the fuck up, Mike. So on Tuesday, the man and his buddy Harry come back and the suit fits like a dream. But the man holds a sleeve up to the light. ‘Whaddayathink, Harry? Looks just like very dark blue to me.' Pincus swears to him it's the blackest suit he ever made.”

“Single or double breasted?” Lazar wants to know. Bogie glares. Like he used to at Conrad Veidt in the anti-Nazi flicks. Lazar says no more. Bogie continues.

“So the guy pays Pincus, puts on the suit and they leave. Walking down the street. Still not sure. But here's two nuns coming toward them.”

“That's supposed to be real good luck,” Hyams says.

“You assholes,” Bogie says. “Just forget it. Forget the whole thing.”

“Go on, Bogie, finish the story. I'm dying to hear the ending.” Niven could be razzing him along with the others. But Bogie enjoys the commotion. Another toke on his unfiltered Chesterfield. Then he goes on.

“So the man rushes up to the younger nun and says, ‘Excuse me, sister,' and he holds up the sleeve of his new suit next to her nun's habit. Then he turns to Harry and mumbles something. Now, the two nuns stroll on. After a minute the younger nun says, ‘I didn't know persons of the Jewish persuasion could speak Latin.' The older nun asks her what she means. ‘Well,' says the younger nun, ‘when that gentleman held up his sleeve he said
pincus fuctus.
'”

I laugh. But I'm alone. The rest of the guys just sit there.

“Funny, huh?” Bogie berates Lazar.

“It's anti-Semitic.”

“Up yours, Swifty. I'm more Jewish than you'll ever be.”

“You're a full-blooded goy,” Hyams reminds him.

Bogie focuses on me. “Tell 'em why it's hilarious.”

I pick my words carefully. They can all jump on me in a second. Including Bogie. That's how the game is played.

“Don't you guys get it?” I say. “It's about Hollywood—all the people who got screwed and lived to dine and whine about it. See, everybody tells a different story. But they're really all the same. They're all the tales of how Pincus fucked us.”

Bogie chuckles in his mirthless way. “The kid's the only one in the joint with a sense of humor.”

I bask in my mentor's approval. My punchline echoes inside my head: They're all the tales of how Pincus fucked us.

And this tale happens to be mine.

• • •

“Mr. Darnell, your luncheon companion has arrived,” Kurt, the maitre d', confides to me in a Kraut accent. Prince Mike, nee Harry Gerguson from Brooklyn, likes to hire people with European accents. Classes up the place. Kurt gestures across the room to where Laszlo the waiter is ceremoniously seating a wind-swept ash blonde wearing oversized sunglasses and a fur coat that a stable of sables died for. Flash of good legs as she scuttles into her seat. She waves to me. I wave to her. In fact, all the guys at Bogie's table wave to her.

“Sheilah, huh?” Bogie says. I shrug nonchalantly. “Sunday story?” he asks. I'm too smart to answer. “She always dangles a Sunday story. Well, don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

“Did,” Romanoff corrects him.

“Shut the fuck up, Mike. Go get 'er, kid.”

I cross the room to the green leather banquette where she's waiting. Step into my parlor.

She'll never see forty again. But from where I'm sitting now, Sheilah Graham seems more like a zaftig aging starlet than one of Hollywood's grand inquisitors. No studio press agent to chaperone. Just she and me and here we go.

“Roy Darnell,” she begins. “They say you're the most dangerous man in Hollywood.”

So that's how it's going to be. Okay. “Hey, Sheilah, I'm peanuts compared to Sinatra. I slug snotty barroom drunks. He runs his limo over pushy photographers and clobbers columnists. He's my hero.”

She laughs and jots on her pad. It's what she came for. Jack Havoc in person.

“You took a swing at Jack Warner.”

“Not since last Christmas.”

“Do you ever have the urge to hit a columnist?”

“You mean, are you safe?” I shrug. “So far.”

She laughs. She jots.

Time was, just three long years ago, no one cared what my opinion was about anything. Since then I've been interviewed by hundreds of publications ranging from
Time
magazine to the
B'nai B'rith Messenger.
They want to know if I sleep in the nude and what I think of Frank Costello and what food I hate the most and if I believe in the death penalty. Actually, they're never talking to me. They're always talking to Jack Havoc. That's also me.
Roy Darnell is Jack Havoc.
That's how the billing reads every week on the main title of my TV show. The press tends to confuse the two of us. Me and Jack. And that's okay. I encourage the confusion. Makes better copy. Bogie taught me that.

“How come you're not in the Army?” Sheilah Graham wonders. “We probably would have won the war if you'd volunteered.” It's a compliment with a depth charge attached to it. Simple arithmetic, see? Korea started in 1950, here it is 1956, and I'm 27. So what she wants to know is how I beat the draft.

“Well, I tried to enlist. I begged the Marines but they turned me down. Punctured eardrum. Half deaf on my left side. Souvenir from a gang rumble when I was a kid in South Philly.” Actually, a mastoid from when I had the mumps. But how's she ever going to know the difference? “Bunch of my buddies went to Korea. Some of 'em didn't come back. Not in one piece, anyway.”

She likes the answer. Jot-jot. She's allowed to hit you with questions only a confessional priest is normally entitled to ask. Rules of the game. Hedda, Louella, and Sheilah are the self-appointed protectors of Hollywood's morals. Big job. Takes three of them to do it.

So go explain that now, on twenty minutes' acquaintanceship, beneath the protective concealment of Romanoff's finest linen tablecloth, Sheilah Graham is playing footsie with me.

“Why haven't we met before?” she says lazily as Laszlo the waiter fusses over us. Pouring straight shots of aquavit from a bottle embedded in a slab of ice. Imagine. I'm matching shots with F. Scott Fitzgerald's last mistress, inspiration for
The Last Tycoon,
which he never finished because he drank himself to death. Another one of my heroes. “Have you been hiding from me?” she wants to know.

She doesn't remember, but our paths actually did cross before. Six years ago. Backstage after a performance of
A Streetcar Named Desire.
I was temporarily understudying a small role, the kid who knocks on the door in Act Two and almost gets seduced by Blanche DuBois. Only one scene, but a winner—except the regular actor was healthy as a packhorse so I hardly ever got to play it for an audience. Anyway, this night, Sheilah Graham and entourage brush past me without a glance and sweep into the star dressing room of Jessica Tandy to be introduced to her costar, Broadway's latest sensation—fellow name of Brando.

Expecting high drama? Better settle for low comedy.

“Marlon, I'd like you to meet someone,” Jessica says.

“Well, hello there,” Sheilah says.

“So you're Jessica's mother,” Marlon says. Smiling boyishly.

Sheilah, two years younger than Jessica Tandy, gapes in horror.

Natural enough mistake, of course. Sheilah's blonde and British, just like Tandy. Marlon is nearsighted, refuses to wear glasses, and has been told that Tandy's mother is in town. It might have been glossed over, explained away. Except for the braying laughter. Coming from the hallway. Coming from me.

Me and my sense of humor.

Sheilah Graham fled. Never printed a pleasant word about Brando after that. So no point reminding her of our chance meeting.

Now she's asking about Bogie and me. This part of the interview I can do in my sleep. Friendly Philly cop arrests street punk. Steers him into acting class. Kid actor. New York radio scene. Kid's voice changes, career's over. Starving in New York. Until. Ta-dah! Bogie to the rescue. Comes to New York for “live” TV production of
The Petrified Forest.
Bogie as Duke Mantee once again. Kid auditions six times. Nobody wants me. Except Bogie. Makes them hire me as third mobster in the gang. Next gets Hollywood pal to give me a showy bit as a rapist hoodlum in
Blackboard Jungle.
Warner's TV people come to Bogie. Wanna star in a TV series?
Jack Havoc.
Hired gun with a personal code. White knight in a black T-Bird, tilting against injustice.
Have Gun, Will Travel
without the horses. Get Peter Lorre to play your sidekick. How about it, Bogie? Big laugh. I'm too old and too rich. But Bogie recommends this kid. Me. I work cheap, I work hard. A star is born. Show's a smash. Three years in the Top Ten. Blah-blah-blah. The truth with the edges rounded off.

But she likes it.

Sheilah is jotting with her right hand. Probing with her left foot. Shoeless. Her toes up my pants leg. I glance over at Bogie's table. Others yakking. Bogie, munching his usual platter of French toast, grinning at me. Son of a bitch has X-ray vision.

Clink! Another round of icy aquavit. Platter of cracked crab we're sharing stands neglected.
Skaol!
And now
she's
confiding in
me.
Her marriage has hit a bumpy patch. Looks like it's never gonna recover. I don't really give a shit, of course, and I'm not sure she does either. But I sympathize. I pat her hand, she squeezes my thigh. Hey. So what's the big deal here? To boff or not to boff, that is the question. Not like it's Louella the horned toad or Hedda the decrepit dowager queen. A roll in the hay with Miss Graham might be fun. Used to be a London chorus girl, bet she's still got rhythm. Follow in F. Scott's footsteps, what's the matter with that? Damn. It's the aquavit talking. Get a grip on yourself, Roy.

I lean forward. Accentuating the importance of my next words. Tongue's a little thick, but it's straight from my heart.

“Sheilah, can I tell you? I am in love with the most beautiful, wonderful girl in the world—my wife. That's what I wish for you. But with a guy, of course.”

She shrugs. “All the good guys are taken.” Her sunglasses slip down her nose. She pushes them back up again. Sighs. Disappointed? Maybe. What she's really after besides my ass is secrets. Exclusives. Hot bulletins for her readers.

We're walking out now. Closing the joint. Last stragglers. Prince Mike kisses Sheilah's hand. Shakes mine. Solemnly. We amble on. Cozy. Arms around each other's waists. Clutching. Because we're both shit-faced. Saunter, don't stagger. Make it to the curb outside Romanoff's. Usual knot of fans still there. Autograph books and flash cameras. The valet parking guy has Sheilah's Rolls-Royce waiting. I bend close to kiss her cheek. She turns her face and I get a mouth full of tongue. Flashes go off. We both laugh. She whispers, “If anything changes in your situation, let me know right away.” For her column? For her bedroom? Probably both.

The autograph kids swarm now. Waving pens and albums and 8x10s and candid photos they've shot. A red-haired, freckle-faced boy holds out a folded hunk of paper. New kid. Built like a high school linebacker. Brassy smile. “What's your name?” I ask. Ready to write on his paper.

“Doesn't matter,” he says. “You can keep that.”

“What?” Having a little difficulty focusing just now.

“That's for you,” the new kid says. “You're served.”

Unfold the hunk of paper. Legal mumbo jumbo. Subpoena. Fucking subpoena! Words blurry, dancing. Must be Jack Warner, that creep! Ruining my life. I look at the red-haired kid. He's standing there in triplicate. All three faces grinning. What would Jack Havoc do? I take my best shot. Short right-handed jab. Straight from the shoulder. At the face in the middle. But I hit air. And tumble forward. Sprawling on the hood of Sheilah's Rolls. All three red-haired kids snickering at me now. More camera flashes. Sheilah climbing out of the Rolls. Shark smells blood. Asks the red-haired kid what it's all about. Ready to jot. “Divorce papers,” he tells her.

I feel a friendly hand. Helping me sway up. I gaze into the sweetest face I know. Little Reva. Reva Hess. My number-one fan. Perky little teenager. Pops up wherever I am. New York. Hollywood. Always there. With that worshipful smile.

“Hi, Reva,” I say.

“You okay, Mr. Darnell?” Worshipful-worried.

“Never better,” I say.

Reva doesn't look like she believes me.

• • •

I tool away in my sporty black T-Bird two-seater. Our sponsor, Ford Motors, gives me a fresh ride every year. For free. I'm a roving ambassador for my show and, of course, their product. Almost two-thirds of those T-Birds in the country are in Southern California. But none of them has the lustrous twenty-six coats of midnight black finish mine has, with the specially designed wire wheels. I change lanes carefully, with the concentrated attention that only the drunk put into their driving. I should go home and sleep it off. But I don't usually do what I should do. God. I'm starting to sound like Jack Havoc—and on my own time.