Hollywood Boulevard (7 page)

    Joe beamed. " Looks like pretty good wine," he said, holding up the Châteauneuf.

    We returned home to a pile of scripts for me to read. All I wanted was to bask in springtime New York, rest up and be normal again, cook us dinner, walk the city, visit friends. Instead I picked up walking pneumonia. "At least I get to be here for longer," I told Joe. "No one would hire me now. I look like an old sock." He nursed me with teas and soups and antibiotics. I slept while he wrote, the cats keep ing vigil at the foot of the bed. I weeded through the pile of mostly junk scripts as spring outside heated up toward summer. By the end of July I was back at work, on location in New Orleans, a supporting role again. Whatever cachet I'd gained from the Cannes win had little currency across the Atlantic. Harry blamed the haircut.

I 
finished my bowl of cereal and, tiptoeing, took a shower and dressed.It was ten o'clock. No signs of life from Andre under his pillow. His cell phone, on vibrate, rock-'n'-rolled on the dining table. I looped the
MAID
Please Make Up This Room
sign, on the side that showed a sleeping, smiling quarter moon and a
Do Not Disturb
message, over the door and went out. One of the maids I'd seen before down at the main hotel greeted me in Spanish. The others spoke to me in Spanish first too. I have picked up a blush of sun on my naturally pale olive skin, but do I look Latin? Andre tells me I am secretly Ethiopian, calling me his dark mistress. I am occasionally taken for Mediterranean but never for a great beauty, though my grandmother would have had me believe otherwise. "Striking" has been used to describe me in reviews. Godard's Anna Karina comes to mind: unassumingly sexual, but look closely and the nose is just the wrong side of big, the teeth a disappointment, the mouth wide for her angular chin, yet so intriguing on camera, even into her sixties. Or take Anouk Aimée: Is she beautiful? Is she in a class with the gold heat of Bardot or Grace Kelly's burnished radiance? What is beauty anyway? I mean, what does it mean? Joe always said beauty had to be earned. Good thing the camera liked me because in person I think I'm funny- looking, with big light brown hair and faded blue eyes, large teeth— none of it quite going with my skin tone. I don't know about all this supposed darkness either. Andre says it comes from the inside. Does he mean that I am dark, as a metaphor?

"A metaphor, yes," he once said. "But, more, you are not white."

    I look white to me, in the mirror. Maybe the darkness metaphor is why I was offered so few leads.

    Annoyed, Andre told me I knew perfectly well the camera ate me alive and served me up to a responsive audience. I didn't respond that I knew nothing perfectly well. And he didn't add that I couldn't expect the lead if I quit.

    Leaving him to his sleep, I walked down the steep hill, out the heavy security gate and on down to the avenue, pulling my new magenta silk scarf closer around my neck. The verdigris cotton sweater I'd tossed on was not sufficient against the morning chill so I walked faster. At least the jeans and sneakers made sense as I practically trotted to Hollywood Boulevard. When I lived and worked here I never walked the Walk of Fame. I tried not to step directly on the actors' names. I've never heard of half the immortalized stars; why, for example, did Dolores Hope merit a star?

    I moved along in my usual interior way, taking in the street while trying to remain invisible. "What?" I said, sensing someone pushing through my barrier. It's not unusual for me to be mentally miles away.

    "Excuse me," said a youngish man. I think it might have been for the third time. " Would you agree to be interviewed for television?"

    
"What?"
Luckily my sunglasses were large and dark.

    "It's for the Style Network."

    I thought, sure, Hollywood Boulevard: Jason from
Friday the13th
, Elvis, Batman, Darth Vader, Tinker Bell out trolling for tourists dumb enough to pay to have their photos taken with them; why not a pseudo TV shoot? I assumed I was supposed to be impressed, flattered, the tourist rube from Podunk suddenly on TV. "Why me?" I said, sarcastic. "Do I
look
stylish?"

    "Yes," he said, "as a matter of fact, you do." And, pronto, a camera was thrust in my face, and a miniboom. Out of nowhere the personnel appeared, including the babe who would interview me, made up to seduce: coiffed, petite, pretty and perky. The director took over, telling me what questions I'd be asked. "It's about a new perfume," he explained, upbeat and positive, as if he were making an important feature, not a grade- B infomercial. Another fellow held high a smoky- glassed bottle of perfume, reached for my wrist, and sprayed two clouds of an organic, peaty, nighttime scent.

    The camera started to roll. "No!" I said palms up to protect my face.
"No, no, no!"

    The camera stopped. The operator peered out from behind his giant lens. "Hang on a minute," he said, "isn't that—" He turned to the director. "Isn't she—"

    "I'm sorry. I have to go."

    I hurried away, past the pretend made incarnate: Darth and Elvis, Edward Scissorhands, Freddy Krueger, Dorothy complete with a stuffed Toto. I walked on. I stopped when I came to Frederick's of Hollywood, still selling sexpot lingerie after all these years. I looked in the window, remembering seeing a Frederick's catalog as a child, but where? Whose? My long- widowed grandmother? My
mother
? I remembered a sense of arousal, looking at the pointy brassieres and revealing nighties at a time when I was only just becoming aware of arousal. Busty women with blond, bouffant dos; breasts pushed into bra cups, nearly spilling out; pasties and G- strings and see- through panties— it got my attention then and now. I moved on when a guy sidled up to me and I saw us reflected in the window, him too close. I pictured the unsheathed penis- under- a- raincoat cliché and moved on, past other sex boutiques with names like For Play and Naughty, and bong shops and cheap eateries, the seedier part of the boulevard where you might not want to be immortalized with a star. Here stains and chewing gum marred the pink stars trimmed in gold. If they ever get around to giving me a place on the Walk of Fame it'll be in this unglamorous, stagnant stretch: punishment for quitting. I didn't slow down again until I was at the corner of Vine.

    I was just walking. I had nowhere to be and was in no hurry to get there. I stopped in front of a kiosk of postcards, two for fifty cents. They were not the most up- to- date and they'd been out on the rack a while, curling in on themselves and sun- faded. I picked out four. I asked the man inside who took my dollar what else he sold. "Posters," he said. "Pictures of the stars, gen- U- ine
autographs
," he added, emphasizing the last word as if letting me in on a steamy secret. Would he have an autographed image of me lying about somewhere, on the off chance? There
were
photos of me in existence, even posters, but I doubted this fellow had any.

    "A real Hollywood store," I said, peering briefly over my glasses, letting him think I believed him. Plenty of suckers would.

    "Yup," he said; a friendly schlump in his dump of a shop. I'd bet an arm he didn't have a single original autograph, but a truckload of fakes. The whole concept was sickening anyway: a sorry, sad public willing to play along, to be photographed with an actor posing as a character from a movie, twice- removed- from- reality Tinsel Town. And the fans: praying to touch the magic, shamelessly begging for a glance, a smile, the contact of a handshake equaling bliss, waiting hours along the ropes for their favorite star to stroll by in a tux or sequined gown, roaring as the limo doors opened. An old Kinks song came to me— the name wouldn't— I used to sing it at parties. This was after Fits, some other, forgettable guy on my arm. I was working again, staying busy and dumb and distracted. I'd devel oped a post- Joe ironic tongue, as if I were channeling him to make up for what I'd become. I took most of the parts Harry sent my way, auditioned, returned calls; wore my hair long and done up by the right salon, fitted dresses when I had to, slouchy on my own, though, the real me sometimes having trouble making it out of the house, in horror of being seen.

    I drew the line at nudity. I was probably too skinny anyhow. Harry feigned horror: Nudity is not what Ardennes Thrush is about. Wasn't he kind not to say no director had asked? My sexiness, about which I was confident even back then, was not of the silver- screen style. Dumb, extravagantly good- looking guys don't usually daydream my type. I'm a touch independent, a shade intimidating. Producers tend to be fairly predictable guys that way. Not that I'm offering excuses. Hepburn, for example, was about as sexy as a perfect piece of furniture. If you want sexuality that looks you in the eye, I'm your girl. That's what I think they meant by striking.

    I had an on- set conversation once with one of those knockout boys, an obviously handsome, not- my- type lead who'd send some women into spasms merely walking into a room. The film was a quirky whodunit. The actress opposite Knockout was having trouble lying flat on an expensive carpet, in a swoon— or maybe she'd been hit over the head, I forget. Fifteen minutes were called. Knockout and I sat down to wait. We'd be on camera once the starlet got it right. I was playing a tough lawyer sucked into my client's (Knockout's) involvement with a murder. Of course he and his love- girl turn out to be innocent while I provide the juicier dark content. The director was having a tête- à- tête with his crew, and Knockout turned to me, out of the blue blue of his eyes, and said, "Can't she even play dead? I mean, those lips could stop a train. . . ." He shrugged.

    I nodded without cozying. Well, Einstein, she was hired for those lips; the acting's up to us. He surprised me by continuing, "You get a chick like that home and there's nothing there. I've seen it enough times. Knock, knock: a hollow door."

    I turned to look into the face of this unexpected wisdom. He smiled. "I bet that's not true of you." Was he hitting on me or offering a consolation prize to the supporting role? (At the time I was involved with a musician, if "involved" is the right term.) The first AD called places: take in three minutes. Makeup came over and did touch- ups on us. A costumer adjusted my skirt, hair did a quick check, and we were ready to go.

    QUIET ON THE SET . . . CA MERAS ROLLING . . . AND . . . ACTION:

    Knockout and I push in the partially open apartment door. We see his girlfriend lying on the Persian rug. Knockout's character (Eric) rushes in, kneels: "Katie!"

    My character (Laura) sits on a white- upholstered armchair, crossing her legs: "This doesn't look too promising."

    Eric: "Laura! Get help!"

    Laura takes a lace handkerchief out of her purse, reaches for the phone, picks up the receiver, using the hanky. To Eric: "I'd be careful of fingerprints."

    Katie opens her eyes, blinks: "Eric?"

    Laura replaces the receiver: "Cancel the cavalry?"

    CUT!

    I've done love scenes. Close- ups can be as awkward as dying with your underpants down, pulling off a conventional movie love scene. Stay in character, I'd repeat to myself like a mantra, stay in character. The actors stepped up to the plate, kissed and held me like they meant it, breath cool mint vapors, hand grasping a breast, my full mouth bruised. Go for it. The crew polite, supportive, respectful even, but it was all crap and nonsense. I was living it then, and I couldn't smell it on me because I was making a huge effort to go along. I brought everything I could to whatever I was handed: tramp, schoolteacher, victim of violent crime, even a wayward cop who ended up shot dead. Word went out: Ardennes Thrush delivers; finds her character and gives it all she's got. All the while I kept thinking right around the corner I'd get a handle on things again. I'd remember what I meant, why I chose acting in the first place, where and what I wanted my work to be. Underneath me flowed a miserable stream, a kind of leak: That was me dripping slowly away from myself, terrified I was nothing, a big zero; that Joe had been right all along about me, about actors— we were nothing but shells playing at being people, a pack of counterfeiters. I started catching on to all the cocaine and booze and bad behavior surrounding me; none of us was grounded, none of us was real. "Celluloid Heroes"—that's the name of the Kinks song!

    I'd go to the parties and shine and show off and make funny, bitter little jokes, and I'd sing, a few drinks in me to loosen my tongue, my voice gravelly: ". . . Everybody's a dreamer . . ." I'd go for a cheap laugh with a Swedish accent. They put Greta on a throne, looking small and fragile, until the burden drove her to be alone. Garbo, by the way, didn't say she wanted to be alone. She said she wanted to be left alone, pointing out, to anyone who cared to listen, that there was a difference.