Tycoon (43 page)

1958

D
OUGLAS
H
UMPHREY HAD BEEN RIGHT WHEN HE SAID
D
ICK
Painter was the originator of the most successful television programming on the Lear Network. Other ideas came from Cap Durenberger. Jack himself acknowledged that he did not have an instinct for what the public would enjoy. He still did not think Jack Benny was funny.

For his understanding of the technology of television he relied heavily on Dr. Friedrich Loewenstein. The young scientist managed to persuade Jack and the board of directors to invest money in technology he promised would control the future.

Beginning in 1956, LCI had invested in Ampex television tape recorders and retired the old kinescope equipment. Curt Frederick did the evening news in New York at six-thirty. It went out as a live broadcast to stations in cities in the Eastern Time Zone—except in New York, where viewers preferred to have their news at seven-thirty. The taped broadcast was transmitted in New York and by stations in the Central Time Zone at seven-thirty. Three hours after it was made, the tape was seen in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other Pacific Time Zone cities. Only when important news broke during that three hours was the 6:30 tape modified for California broadcast.

LCI opened twenty more satellite stations, in cities like Huntington, West Virginia; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Toledo, Ohio. At first these little UHF stations originated no programming at all but were truly satellites of bigger stations, receiving their programs by wire or microwave and simply relaying them out to an expanded audience. It was Jack himself who suggested that the satellite stations should be able to inject local commercials. Why should a Huntington station broadcast commercials for a tire store in Pittsburgh? So the satellite stations began to make and broadcast their own local commercials. If they could do that, Jack figured they could also broadcast their own local news.

Two more major developments loomed in the future of the whole broadcast industry, and Dr. Loewenstein told the board of directors the company must have an enormous infusion of capital in the next few years.

“Within five or six years, everyone will want color television,” he told them.

“I'm skeptical of that, Doctor,” said Ray l'Enfant. “Color is available. The public is not rushing out to buy color sets.”

“Why should they? There is little broadcasting in color. But there will be. The other networks will increase their number of color hours until in a few years they will broadcast nothing but color. We must do the same if we are to compete.”

“What else, Doctor?” Jack asked grimly.

“Cable,” said Dr. Loewenstein ominously. “Right now cable television is almost exclusively for small towns so distant from any station that they can't get good-quality reception. But it won't always be that way.”

“Why not?” asked l'Enfant. “Why will people pay money to be wired up to a system when they can get good reception on rabbit ears or small rooftop antennas for free?”

“Because,” said Dr. Loewenstein, “a cable television provider will be able to offer twenty-five or thirty channels, maybe more. Broadcasters will beam their programs up to satellites, which will relay the signal back to big dish antennas aimed by the cable operators. All reception will be equally good.”

“How soon?” Jack asked.

“The color, immediately. The cable system, fifteen or twenty years. But we must plan for it.”

Jack grimaced. “Doctor, I'm sure you're right. But it's depressing.”

1959

A
NNE AND
J
ACK FOUND THAT
L
INDA WAS A JOY TO HAVE IN
the house. Gradually she recovered her cheerful, positive personality. She decided she should finish the education she had interrupted when she married John, and in the fall of 1958 she enrolled at Fordham University.

A Floridian, she spent as much time as she could in the sun. She would lie on a chaise longue by the greenhouse-enclosed pool, wearing a bikini and sunglasses, and study for her exams. Jack could not help but notice that she was a voluptuous young woman. Whereas Anne was elegantly slender, Linda was generously endowed with big, soft breasts, jiggly buns, and a convex little belly.

Nelly, too, was a joy. The towheaded toddler ambled about the house, often laughing, sometimes crying when she fell and bumped her head.

Jack and Anne decided to invest in a vacation home, where they could go in the depth of winter and bask in the sun on a beautiful beach. They found such a place on the island of St. Croix, where they bought a house large enough for the whole family, including Linda, Nelly, and Joni, in the hope that all of them would go there together.

They went for five days, between Christmas and New Year's. Joni, however, pleaded to be excused. She had acquired an agent in Hollywood, and he was telling her she had a good chance of winning a starring role in a picture. She'd had three small roles with MGM, but now her contract was expiring. Her agent was advising her not to renew if they offered. He could do better for her.

1960

“I'
D SAY IT'S NOW OR NEVER, KIDDO,”
J
ONI'S AGENT,
M
O
Morris, told her.

He was the agent who had turned Consetta Lazzara into Connie Lane twenty-six years ago. When Joni told her father she was going to be represented by the Mo Morris Agency, Jack had laughed and told her Mo was an old friend of his and an effective agent but that she should be careful of him. He did not tell her he had sent Consetta to Mo after she—had given him an afternoon he would never forget.

Mo was sixty-six years old, a veteran agent who had represented some of the biggest names in Hollywood. He had always been a small man, and he was wizened now, with dark-brown liver spots on his tanned bald pate. Ever a flashy dresser, he was wearing a blue-and-white checked jacket over a black golf shirt. He made a point of telling people that his wristwatch had been given to him by Spencer Tracy. He was a jolly man who seemed to take nothing seriously—until a producer made what he considered a skimpy offer for a client's services, at which point Mo could become very sharp and sarcastic.

“Meaning?” Joni asked.

“You're twenty-six, right? You need a breakout picture. You're not a starlet anymore. MGM built you up, but they never broke you out of the pack. What's more, television didn't do it for you either. What I'm talking about is making you a star.”

“Okay. What's holding us up?”

“Question: are you willing to play the game? It's not played as much as it used to be, but there are powerful guys in town who still play it.”

“What do I get if I play—besides screwed?” she asked.

“Nobody can ever guarantee these things, but I can almost promise you a starring role in an important dramatic picture.”

“Who do I have to . . . service?”

T
HE PRODUCER WAS
H
ARRY
K
LEIN.
J
ONI KNEW THE NAME
very well—and she knew his reputation. The director was Benjamin Lang. The male lead was Trent Ambler. The three of them were in Klein's office when she arrived.

Klein stood, grabbing the hand she had extended to shake hands with him, and used it to draw her close to him. He kissed her on the cheek and patted her on the rump. “Joni Lear!” he rumbled. “We're gonna do great things together!”

He was an exceptionally big man with a great strong face. His hair was black and wavy, and he wore horn-rimmed glasses. The other two men were casually dressed, but Klein wore a dark-blue suit, a white shirt, and a blue polka-dot bow tie.

“You prob'ly recognize Trent. And Ben Lang will be director.”

Ambler was a handsome, well-built man. He was not just a body, not just a screen presence; he was an
actor,
whose status was only a little lower than Humphrey Bogart's. One reason Joni had accepted this challenge was that Mo had told her she would be playing opposite Trent Ambler.

Benjamin Lang was a small bald man about fifty years old whose eyes swam behind thick steel-rimmed eyeglasses. His directorial credentials were outstanding.

“Mo tells us you know how to play the game,” said Klein.

She nodded.

“Well, we would like for you to take your clothes off, Joni. Do you understand why?”

“So you can look at my bod.”

“That, too. But it is essential that an actress not lose her
professionalism and aplomb in—how shall we say?—in stressful situations. You've read the script. You know a degree of nudity is part of the role. We need to know you will not break down when you must do your lines in front of camera and crew and you are the only naked person on the set. All right?”

“I was a Playmate of the Month,” she said.

“This is a little different. Will you accommodate us, please?”

It
was
a little different. More than a little different. But it was, as Mo had said, now or never. For a brief moment she reminded herself that she would inherit a lot of money and didn't have to do this, didn't have to do what they were going to ask for next, either. But what she was doing here would be an achievement of her own, and this was how it was done.

She took off her clothes and put them aside on a chair. Naked, she sat down and faced Klein.

“Have you reviewed the contract?”

“Mo has. I will accept his judgment.”

“We're going to make you a star, Joni. If you're as good a girl as we think you are, you will be a big star. We're going to do a fine picture. A year from now you come in here and
I'll
take off
my
clothes to get you on another contract.”

“I won't ask you to, Mr. Klein.”

“Hey! I'm only forty-two. The sight of me wouldn't make you sick.”

Joni smiled. That was a sufficiently ambiguous response.

“Ben—”

“Okay,” said Lang. “We asked you to memorize pages sixty-three through sixty-five of the script. You've done?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay. Sit down on the floor, which is how you'll be positioned when the cameras are rolling. Trent picks up with line four on page sixty-three, and you join in from there.”

Ambler moved to stand facing her, and she looked up into his face. They acted out the scene, about two dozen lines.

“Good enough!” said Lang. “More than good enough. I'm satisfied. She can act. She is emotionally stable.”

Joni smiled wanly.

Ambler reached down and gave her his hand to help her stand. “Sign her, Harry,” he said. “I want to work with her.”

Klein grinned. “Now . . . One more thing. Mo told you what. We, uh . . .”

She glanced back and forth.
“All three
of you?” she asked.

He nodded. “All three of us.”

Joni flushed. She raised her eyebrows and drew a deep breath. “All right,” she whispered.

Trent Ambler unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis. Joni knelt and took it in her hands. He reached for a box of tissues and put them beside her on the floor. With her lips and tongue she worked on him for three or four minutes, and he came strongly and copiously. She spit his ejaculate into a wad of tissues.

Lang was next. He was so excited from what he had seen that he almost experienced premature ejaculation. She hardly got him into her mouth before he went into his spasms.

Then Klein. It took twenty minutes of licking and sucking and vigorously pumping her head up and down before he finally came. Her lips and cheeks ached, and her body gleamed with sweat. He generated little fluid, and she suspected he'd already been sucked off by some other hopeful, not long before.

Trent Ambler offered her a snifter of brandy, which she gratefully accepted. She sat on a chair and lowered her head a little, until her hair hid her face.

“The part's yours, Joni,” Klein said. “You're a trooper, and you're gonna be a star.”

B
OB
L
EAR TELEPHONED
J
ACK.
“G
UESS WHO
J
ONI'S MAKING A
picture for.”

“I know. She called me.”

“Harry Klein. Five'll get ya twenty she—”

“Bob! Mind your own business.”

“Don't you care?” Bob yelled.

“Of course I care, but what can I do about it?”

“Talk to the money guys. Block the funding for the flick.”

“Oh, sure. If she did what you think she did to get the part, she's already done it. So you want me to fix things up so she did it and then doesn't get the part after all?”

“I'm just trying—”

“Keep out of it, brother. I got your certificates. The funds were transferred.”

“Congratulations,” Bob said bitterly. “You now own controlling interest in Carlton House.”

“And you're the millionaire you always wanted to be.”

1961

B
RAVE
M
ICHELLE
HAD ITS PREMIERE AT
G
RAUMAN'S
C
HINESE
Theatre.

Jack and Anne flew out on a chartered plane, bringing with them Little Jack and Liz, Linda, and the eighty-year-old Harrison Wolcott. Curt and Betsy came on a different plane with Cap and Naomi, Mickey and Catherine, and Herb and Esther. Douglas Humphrey flew in from Texas with Mary and Emily Carson. Billy Bob Cotton came, as did Ray l'Enfant and his wife. Sally Allen and Len also attended the premiere. Bob and Dorothy Lear did not.

The Los Angeles group included Mo Morris and his wife, Harry Klein and his wife, and Ben Lang and his wife.

The star of the picture, Trent Ambler, escorted his wife, a girl of nineteen who had been sewn into a spangled white dress.