Show Business Kills (22 page)

“Oh, Norman. He understood. But he misses you too,” I heard myself lying. My son didn’t even look up from his Legos when I
told him Norman Braverman and I were through. “And of course you can call me at home. Any time!” What was I thinking?

At the risk of having you call the
casa de pistachios
to tell
them to warm up the James Taylor suite for me, because this is as nutso as I ever got or ever hope to get, I will admit that
what I was thinking was that I could save Norman Braverman. That I would be the one to pull him out of this terrible state
of mind, of which impotence must have surely been a temporary symptom, and turn him into a new man.

I would have my mother fly out from Florida to stay with my son, and I would rush to the cuckoos’ nest, bring Norman treats,
read to him through the bars or the barbed wire or whatever they put him behind. And soon they would take my darling Normie
out of the jacket with the very long sleeves and send him home under my aegis, the picture of mental health.

By the time I left the brunch, I was a woman with a mission. My plan was clear. After Norman and I got back to Los Angeles,
I would have a restraining order slapped on his mother and change the phone number, and soon we’d be making plans to get married,
making fiery love, and maybe even making a little sister or brother for my Roger.

But when two or three weeks went by, and Norman hadn’t called even once from the pay phone at the wacko ward, my Florence
Nightingale complex cooled, and I began welcoming fix-ups from yet another couple with yet another alleged great guy.

At the same time I was trying to get any job I could, but the work situation was dismal. My bank account was getting so low,
I was afraid my son and I were going to have to move to Miami Beach and live in the old folks apartment building with my mother.
It was another dateless Saturday night, and I was in my sweats, watching television and feeling sorry for myself, when the
phone rang.

“Hi, gorgeous,” Norman said. This time my heart didn’t skip a beat, it just thudded a little.

“Norman, how nice to hear from you,” I said, leaving off the word
finally
. “You sound good.” And he did. Probably a hell of a lot better than I did that night.

“Yeah, I feel great, even though I’m still here,” he said, sounding as chipper as if “here” meant a luxury hotel in the Caribbean.
“People have been writing to me and sending me things, and I really feel as if a lot of folks out there care about me.”

“That’s great,” I said, thinking I should have sent him some baked goods. Maybe something appropriate. Like a box of nut bars.
I also felt very much like I wanted to get off the phone. Norman wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my friend. He was a guy
who gave me the Marty Robbins and who was probably only calling me now because everyone else he tried first was out on a Saturday
night.

“In fact, you want to hear the cutest?” he went on. “Yesterday I got chicken soup delivered in dry ice from Barbara.”

Barbara? Did he mean Walters? If only I knew how he was spelling it. Maybe it was Barbra Streisand.

“Very cute,” I said, wishing I hadn’t let Roger spend the night at a friend’s, because when he was at home at least I had
a Scrabble opponent.

“I’ve also had two or three really long conversations with Bob over these last weeks. In fact,” Norman told me, “just between
us, there’s a very good chance that when I get out of here, I’m going to close a deal with him.”

“Bob?” I asked absently.

“Redford,” he said, “and maybe Paul Newman, too. He actually stopped by here on Tuesday. He lives in Connecticut,
you know, and it’s so close he figured we’d take a meeting instead of talk on the phone, but they told him I wasn’t allowed
to have any visitors. The nurses were so thrilled to meet him, they’re still talking about it.”

“Oh my God,” I thought, sitting up straight and startling the cat off my lap as I really took in what Norman just said. This
was worse than I imagined. This man was having agent’s madness. It made sense. When an agent cracked, lost his marbles, went
around the old proverbial bend, wouldn’t he have delusions that big stars were seeking him out and trying to sign with him?

This poor man. I was aching with sympathy for him now, realizing how far gone he really was. Poor baby, I thought, poor thing.
This was someone I had once really cared for. Maybe my reasons for being with him had all been wrong, but we had shared intimacy,
and time, and hopes for the future. And now this unfortunate creature was losing his grip, a casualty of the pressures of
show business.

“And how are
you
doing, Ellen?” he asked, but I knew it was just to be polite. Well, I thought, at least his madness has left him with a sense
of civility.

“Me?” What could I say? I wasn’t going to complain to a man who was probably phoning me between shock treatments that I was
worried about being unemployed. Somehow, I came up with enough small talk to fill a few minutes. News about Roger’s soccer
team, movies I’d seen, the weather. I was relieved when he finally said, “Call you again,” as his sign-off, but judging from
what I now knew was his condition, I didn’t think he’d be calling again.

“I look forward to it, Norman,” I said, and I put the phone down, feeling devastated for him.

The next morning, when I had just said good-bye to the real estate broker who was coming to take a look at my house, which
I’d decided I’d better sell, Bill Harber from CAA called and said there was a great job opening for me at Worldwide Pictures.
“Go take a meeting there with the senior V.P., Peter Goldman. He’ll love you.”

Worldwide Pictures had a great reputation as a forward-looking company, and they hired a lot of women. I knew a few of the
women executives, and I thought I’d fit in well there. I was feeling hopeful. Maybe I’d saved the house. I hustled my ass
into that meeting, and I knew right away Peter Goldman and I were on the same wavelength. We loved all the same films, we
had similar ideas for future projects, he had a great sense of humor, and when I left I felt confident.

I called Bill Haber when I got home. “Goldman loved you,” he said, “but he still has a few more people to see, and then he’ll
send his top two picks to meet with Harvey Springer. Springer will be the one who decides.”

Weeks went by. I still didn’t hear. Just as I sat writing checks that I thought were going to deplete everything I had left,
I got a call from the real estate lady asking if she could show the house, and I realized I’d been praying that nobody would
want it. In full-out depression, I was about to set a time with her when my call waiting beeped, and I told her I’d call her
back.

“Hi, gorgeous,” Norman said. “So what’s happening?” I remember marveling that he sounded a hell of a lot better than I was
feeling. I remember also resenting the fact the garden-variety neurotics like me were painfully in touch with
reality, and lucky psychotics like him got to live in the ether, where it must be nice.

“Not much is happening here,” I said, not mentioning that my heart was aching because it looked like I’d have to sell my sweet
little house. “I’m still hanging in, and I’ve had a few meetings around town trying to get a job. Right now my best prospect
is over at Worldwide. I had a preliminary meeting with Roger Goldman, and now I’m waiting to see Harvey Springer.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say this, Ellen,” Norman said, “but that’s not going to happen.” And then he was quiet. What did he mean?
What wasn’t going to happen? Did he mean I wasn’t going to get the job at Worldwide Pictures? Had his voices told him?

“What isn’t going to happen, Norman?” I asked, trying to sound patient and not patronizing. Why, I wondered, did I ever tell
Norman Braverman it was all right to call me? Why was I having this bizarre telephone relationship with someone who was now
going to insult me, when I was feeling rotten enough already?

“The job at Worldwide isn’t going to happen,” Norman said. “I mean it’s nothing personal, Ellen. You’d be good in that job,
it’s just that there are too many women in that department already. And Peter Goldman can’t make a decision because he won’t
even be there next month, and neither will Harvey Springer.”

“How on earth would
you
know that?” I asked him, and I almost laughed as I did, because I knew this conversation was in the same category as the
one about chicken soup from Barbara or Barbra, and Bob Redford calling, and Paul Newman coming to visit him. It was part of
the psychosis, the
colossal ego that accompanies that kind of illness, that makes everything anyone else says or does somehow revolve around
the patient. Now Norman believed that my potential job was something
he
was controlling.

“Because when I come in, I’m making a clean sweep,” he said. “Cutting back the chaff and really running a tight ship.” I decided
that the mixed metaphors were probably a symptom of his disease, too.

“What are you talking about, Norman?”

“Didn’t I tell you that I’m going to be running that studio by the first of next month?” he asked me. “I sent back the contracts
this morning.” His voice was more animated than I’d ever heard it. All I could think was whatever those drugs were, I wanted
some, too.

“Norman, that’s great,” I said. “I’m so happy for you.” Meanwhile I was thinking, boy oh boy, this must really be hard for
his mother, even though I already mentioned, hard and his mother, in my experience with him, seemed to be mutually exclusive.

When we got off the phone, I sat at my desk, staring, for a long time. Joel was right, this man was a poor son of a bitch.
But I couldn’t worry about it anymore. I was a single woman supporting a child, my mother, and some felines who turned up
their noses at ordinary cat food and got too snarled to be groomed at home. Maybe I’d better figure out if I could be an independent
producer, start looking for projects, come up with ideas, and of course, pray hard that I’d hear from somebody at Worldwide
about my meeting with Harvey Springer.

My mother called from Miami Beach a few times to see if I was okay, and I knew she was worried. I remember how the three of
you took me out to dinner and kept calling me, too.
Marly even brought over a few bags of groceries one day. Then one morning Sheppy Cherbak called to see if I wanted to meet
for lunch. Sheppy’s a wonderful writer, and someone I’ve been close to for years.

Now and then we meet and complain about the business or romances or just life in general. But I was so depressed by then,
I didn’t want to get out of my sweat clothes and make myself look human to go out.

“I don’t think so, Shep,” I said.

“In the Valley,” Sheppy tried, meaning it could be casual. “For a hot dog.” I’ve known Sheppy since I first arrived in Hollywood.
He’s funny and we always laugh together, and over the years he’s seen me looking worse than I looked that day. I really needed
to be cheered up, and I knew it would be fun to laugh with him, so I said okay, and we agreed to meet at one o’clock at the
hot dog place next to the newsstand at the corner of Ventura and Van Nuys.

I got there a little bit early, on purpose, so I’d have time to browse through the colorful rows of assorted magazines, which
has always been a favorite pastime of mine. I love the flashy covers and the eye-catching headlines. I stood there for a while
picking and choosing which of the tempting ones I would buy, excited by the number of choices.

When I was holding a few favorites and was walking over to the guy who wears the change belt so I could pay for them, my eye
caught the headline of
Variety
and for a minute, all the traffic on Van Nuys Boulevard stopped, and so did the people walking by on Ventura Boulevard, and
so did my heart. I had a giddy, dizzy feeling that I was losing my grip on reality when I read:
BRAVERMAN MOVING TO TOP WORLDWIDE POST, MAKING CLEAN SWEEP
. “Norman Braver-
man, former actor’s rep, announced today that he would bring deals with Robert Redford and Paul Newman with him when he helms
studio pic exec post next week.”

When Sheppy got to the corner, he came over and stood next to me and wanted to know why I was sitting on the curb looking
pale. I told him it must just be because I was hungry.

  
17