Hollywood Husbands (4 page)

It seemed that Silver always rode the wave of bad publicity and rose from the ashes smiling. The next year she bore a daughter, refused to name the father, and went off to live in Brazil with a very rich man (some said a plasticized Nazi war criminal) for two years. Then she returned to Broadway at the age of thirty-four and starred in two hit shows one after the other for a total of five years.

Meanwhile Jack was getting his life together. After college he shared an apartment in Hollywood with his friend Howard Soloman. Howard wanted to be an agent, mainly because he felt it opened the gateway to ‘unlimited pussy’. He got himself a job at a big talent agency working in the mail room.

Jack wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Everyone said that with his looks he should be an actor – he shuddered at the thought. Writing interested him. Newspapers interested him. The journalistic world beckoned. He started to review movies and records for a small magazine, and to make his half of the rent he became a tour guide at a television studio. Within six months he was promoted to a researcher on a local talk show.

‘You’ve got a way with people,’ said the head researcher, a woman who recognized raw talent when she saw it.

‘Thank you,’ he replied, deftly avoiding her offer of a night of ecstasy in her Westwood condo.

He then proceeded to sleep his way through all the good-looking female guests on the show, while learning everything there was to know about television.

One day a young movie actor – one of the guests – grabbed Jack backstage. ‘Hey, man – you’re fucking my girlfriend,’ the actor protested.

‘I am?’

‘You can bet your ass on it.’

Jack couldn’t figure out which one might be the actor’s girlfriend so without naming any names he gave a blanket sorry.

‘So you goddamn well should be,’ huffed the actor. ‘She won’t let me get beyond first base. What’s she like in the sack?’

Conversation led to the nearest bar, and Mannon Cable – newly discovered and busted out – became the third roommate to Jack and Howard. They called themselves the Three Comers – a reference to their career goals rather than their colourful sex-lives. Howard was a walking hard-on. Mannon had looks and humour to lure them between the sheets. Jack had everything.

One thing Jack never advertised was his famous sister. Howard knew, but kept it to himself. Mannon found out, and thought it was a hoot. ‘Why the secret?’ he asked.

Jack shrugged. ‘I hardly know her. Who needs the connection?’

Fortunately, Silver, at the start of her career, had chosen to use her mother’s maiden name, which was Anderson. Jack preferred the more dramatic family surname – Python.

And so the Three Comers’ careers rose.

Howard by the age of twenty-six became a fully fledged agent, and at twenty-eight he was hot. Along the way he got married, took out a mortgage on a too-expensive house in Laurel Canyon, purchased his first Mercedes, and gave great meeting.

Mannon hit the road to big stardom via a centrefold in a popular woman’s magazine. He out-Reynolded Burt Reynolds, starred in several sure-fire hits, bought the requisite beach house and cream Rolls-Royce, and supported a constant stream of beautiful ditsy girlfriends.

Jack went off to Arizona and worked on a local television news station. After two years he was hosting everything they had to offer. He got an anchor position in Chicago, then Houston. He tried his hand at everything from serious news to fluff pieces, covering politics, film festivals, murders, movies, child molestation. You name it – he knew something about it. In Houston they gave him his own show,
The Python Beat
. He out-rated everyone and everything in the vicinity. His fan mail was legion. By the time he hit New York to host a nightly network show, Silver was on her way to Hollywood to star in a movie version of one of her Broadway hits. He often wondered if she would make contact to congratulate him. After all, like it or not, they
were
brother and sister, and maybe they could forget the past and start again.

He never heard a word from her.

The movie Silver starred in bombed. It wasn’t just an ordinary bomb, it was a mega-explosion, a nuclear disaster, wiping out all connected with it. Silver fled to Europe, humiliated. Everyone seemed to blame her. As far as she was concerned she was the best thing in it.

She went through what she now delicately referred to as her ‘nervous breakdown’ period. Actually it was a serious flirtation with booze and drugs which very nearly ended her life – let alone her plummeting career.

That’s when Jack heard from her. Well, not from her exactly, he got a call from London, and a ten-year-old girl named Heaven. ‘Are you my uncle?’ she demanded. ‘Can I come and stay with you? Mama’s sick. They’ve taken her away.’

Jack cancelled a week’s interviews and took the Concorde to London. He found Heaven living with a transvestite in Chelsea. Silver was locked up in a mental institution.

‘She tried to take her own life, poor dear,’ the transvestite whispered. ‘Can you imagine what it must be like when the looks go, and the talent. I did what I thought was best. Oh, and by the way, she owes me two thousand pounds. I’d like cash, please.’

Jack took care of everything. He paid the bills, arranged for Silver’s transfer to a private nursing home, hired twenty-four-hour nurses and the best psychiatrists.

When he visited his sister she stared at him blankly. Without makeup she looked like a pale white shadow, but her eyes burned with heat. ‘How’s George?’ she asked. Forty years old and she was finally asking after her father – the father she had abandoned at sixteen.

‘He’s doing okay,’ Jack replied. ‘I’m taking Heaven to stay with him. If that’s all right with you.’

‘Yes,’ she replied listlessly, her tapered fingers plucking at a loose strand of hair. ‘I’m finished, you know,’ she continued matter-of-factly. ‘All washed up. In Hollywood they can’t see real talent for shit. All they want is twenty-year-olds with big boobs. I’ll never come back.’

Jack felt uncomfortable with this pale, wan woman who spoke with such bitterness. This was not the Silver Anderson he had watched throughout the years. In a way it was a relief to know he was out from under her shadow – although the shadow had only existed in his eyes.

‘Hey—’ He tried to give her confidence. ‘You’re still a beautiful woman. And you’ll
always
be a big star.’

‘Thanks!’ Her tone was full of sarcasm. ‘Words of encouragement from baby Jack. God! When you were still in diapers I was a star. I don’t need
you
to tell me.’

She made no comment on
his
career, Jack Python. Man of the hour. His own network show.

Settling everything, financial and otherwise, he flew back to California with Heaven. ‘You’ll camp out at your grandpa’s house,’ he told the child. ‘He’s quite a character. And when your mother is better she’ll send for you.’

‘No, she won’t,’ replied Heaven, wise beyond her years. She was small, with pinched features and enormous amber eyes.

‘Yes, she will,’ he countered.

‘Bet?’ questioned Heaven.

‘Sure. You’re on, kid.’

Heaven won her bet. In London, Silver recovered and never did send for her daughter.

Jack was disgusted. He talked to the head honchos at his network and asked for his show to be moved to Los Angeles. They agreed, and he was delighted. At least Heaven would have
someone
around – apart from her grandfather – who genuinely cared for her.

Silver resurfaced on the English stage in a new production of
Pal Joey
, which brought her excellent reviews and a resurgence of fame. English fame. She loved being back in the spotlight and basked in the light. But it was only English light, and that wasn’t enough. England was a small pond and she wanted America. With that thought in mind she acquired a new agent in Hollywood, Quinne Lattimore, and badgered him to do something about it.

Quinne did not think they were going to create any fires. Silver Anderson was hardly hot news – she had been around too long and stepped on too many toes to set the town alight. He suggested her name for a few projects and heard everything from ‘She’s too old’ to ‘The broad’s a lush.’ And then along came the unexpected offer of a role in
Palm Springs
, a daytime soap. Normally Quinne would have rejected the project immediately. Silver wanted to come back, but hardly on daytime television playing an ageing torch singer. However, when City Television came in with an offer that was too tempting to ignore, he called her in London and said, ‘I think this might be the showcase to get you here, so that the people who matter can see you.’

‘I’m not doing a soap,’ she steamed.

‘It’s a six-week guest spot,’ Quinne interrupted. ‘Top dollar, unlimited budget for wardrobe, and you get to keep the clothes, approve the script, and anything else we want to throw at them. They’re anxious.’

‘So they should be,’ she sniffed. ‘A soap indeed!’

‘Sleep on it,’ he suggested.

‘Why should I?’ she argued.

‘Because it’s the only ballgame in the park.’

Silver did
Palm Springs
. She was fabulous. The show’s ratings rocketed. The producers made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, to stay on. And Silver Anderson became the hottest actress on daytime television.

For three years now she had reigned supreme. She was bigger than she’d ever been, and revelled in every minute of her success.

* * *

A black stretch limo waited outside the front door of Silver’s mansion high up in Bel Air. Inside the limo sat her publicist, Nora Carvell, a fifty-nine-year-old lesbian with knowing eyes and a gravelly voice (who else could possibly put up with Silver?), and her personal assistant – a tall, jumpy young man who had held the job for two weeks and was about to get fired.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ Silver beamed.

There was an imperceptible sigh of relief. Silver was in a good mood – thank God for that!

Chapter Four

When Mannon Cable got up to go to the john, Howard Soloman leaned anxiously towards Jack Python and said, ‘You’re never gonna believe this, but I ran into Whitney at a party last night, and I swear she’s got the hots for me.’

Jack started to laugh. Whitney Valentine Cable was Mannon’s ex-wife, a stunning-looking actress for whom Mannon still carried a torch. ‘Whitney,’ Jack said slowly, ‘has the hots? For you?’ He continued laughing.

‘For crissakes,’ Howard said irritably. ‘What’s so funny about
that?
’

‘Because you and Whitney hated each other when you were Mannon’s agent. Christ! If I had a nickel for all the times you bitched about her, and likewise she about you.’

‘A hard dick an’ a soft pussy creep up on people in a variety of ways,’ Howard said wisely.

Jack almost choked. ‘I love it when you wax poetic.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘When I’m at a loose end I’ll think of you first.’

Howard belched, not so discreetly. ‘I’m tellin’ you,
she
came on to
me
. The next move is mine an’ I’m gonna make it.’

‘You’ll make it when Mannon’s six feet under,’ Jack warned. ‘You move on Whitney and he’ll have your balls for breakfast.’

‘What’s the big friggin’ deal?’ Howard waved his arms excitedly in the air. ‘They’ve been divorced for nearly two years. Mannon’s married to Melanie what’s-her-name. And Whitney hasn’t exactly acted like a virgin since they split.’

‘You’re talking like a dumb asshole,’ Jack said, bored with the conversation. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that Whitney suddenly getting the hots for your body coincides very nicely with your primo position at Orpheus?’

‘Are you saying—’ Howard began indignantly. He stopped abruptly as Mannon slid back into the booth.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Mannon said expansively. ‘Somebody should do a movie about middle-aged broads who follow movie stars into the can. I just got trailed by a real prize. She bird-dogged me into the goddamn john and asked for my autograph while I’m in the middle of taking a leak! Can you believe it?’

Jack could easily believe it. The same thing had happened to him a week before at a fashionable restaurant. Fame. It was the one part of his life he did not enjoy. Sister Silver revelled in it. You couldn’t pick up a magazine without seeing her face staring at you. Her comeback was phenomenal, and yet fortunately it hadn’t affected him. In the public’s mind they had two very separate identities. Like Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine, the fact that they were brother and sister rarely came up.

Today was Silver’s birthday. He hadn’t spoken to her in months. The only conversations they did have concerned Heaven, who was now sixteen years old. When Silver first came back to America, the expectation was that the child would leave her grandfather’s house and return to live with her mother. However, one week in Silver’s company put paid to
that
plan, and Heaven returned to her grandfather, who had continued to bring her up ever since. It pissed Jack off. George was getting older and needed a little peace and quiet in his life. Heaven was turning into a wild child and Silver was the last one to care. She wouldn’t even reveal who Heaven’s father was.

‘What d’you think, Howard?’ Mannon demanded. ‘How about doing a movie called
Old Groupies
or
How I Learned to Take a Piss in Public
? Is the idea grabbing you?’

‘I think you
should
do a film for Orpheus,’ Howard said seriously. ‘Name the deal and it’s yours.’