When the Stars Come Out (30 page)

“Hey,” said Jimmy, his arm now around Quinn’s waist. “We still

have the videotape, right? That’s worth something. And you know

what else? She can manipulate what’s on the screen, but she can

never erase the past thirty-six years of reality.”

Quinn began to relax, seeing the wisdom in Jimmy’s words. That

was true; Kitty Randolph could forever delete that precious on-

screen glance between the two men, perceptible only to them and

Kitty herself. But she couldn’t separate them from each other. And so he began to return Jimmy’s embrace.

“It’s just too bad,” said Jimmy softly, as they held each other,

aware that Quinn was calming down and not happy about that. “It’s

too bad that she always gets away with these things.”

Quinn looked at his partner, realizing that, in Jimmy’s arms, he

had almost forgotten his anger.

“Not always,” he said gruffly, and looked over Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Noah, let’s talk.”

Apparently, the Kitty Randolph who Noah Abraham and 99.99

percent of the world’s population thought they knew was quite dif-

ferent from the Kitty Randolph who actually existed. And over the

next few months, as her gay ex-husband dragged skeleton after

skeleton out of closets that had been sealed for decades, Noah felt more and more secure that Quinn Scott’s autobiography would be

a winner.

W H E N T H E S T A R S C O M E O U T

199

The closest they came to an awkward moment was one after-

noon when Quinn dictated: “The movies are nice—no, the movies

are wonderful—but they aren’t a substitution for life. The only

thing they have in common is that you can have popcorn in both of

them.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Okay, that line is going to have to go.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s stupid.”

“It stays.”

“But—”

“Remember whose story this is. It stays.”

Noah decided to edit it out at a later point, when Quinn wasn’t

looking.

Noah’s sentiment of the book’s prospects was shared by his edi-

tor. No less than three times each week—more often, when Quinn

was being particularly loquacious—Noah e-mailed David Carlyle

summaries of the stories he was integrating into Quinn’s book, and Noah could practically feel the moisture from David’s salivation in his responses.

Noah was also relieved that his demon, the block that had once

left him unable to write, had gone away. But how could it not, with the material Quinn was handing to him? Noah’s only concern as

fall turned to winter, and winter began to pass quickly—that being his primary writing window, since David wanted a more-or-less-complete manuscript no later than April—was that the dirt on Kitty was so juicy and substantial that Quinn risked becoming a minor

player in his own memoir.

Not to worry,
Noah told himself.
I’ll fix that in the editing.
In the meantime, there were stories to document.

Kitty’s battle with the bottle, for example. She hid the problem

from most of Hollywood through the 1960s, but it was tough to

hide all those stashed liquor bottles from the husband with whom

she shared a home. That wholesome perky screen persona bore

much more resemblance to
The Days of Wine and Roses
when Kitty wasn’t in front of the cameras.

Then there were her parenting skills. Or, put more accurately,

her
lack
of parenting skills. Young Q. J.’s mother didn’t really want to be a mother, and showed it through her lack of attention. The

story in which the post-divorce Kitty completely forgot to buy her 200

R o b B y r n e s

four-year-old a single Christmas present would definitely be in the book.

She was cheap and abusive toward her household staff, although

that was almost a cliché in a Hollywood tell-all, but she was also a merciless backstabber. Many actors had felt her wrath, although

few knew where to assign the blame. Kitty would excise people

from her films for the smallest, most innocuous offense, with as

much surgical precision as she had disappeared Jimmy Beloit from

When the Stars Come Out
. Her genius came in never letting them know she had sacked them. She would comfort some poor, fired actress in her dressing room, joining her in running down the direc-

tor or whomever, and never confess that Kitty had been behind the

deed.

Not to mention the hapless actor Bert Cooper, whom she had

married at a young age and then promptly divorced when his ca-

reer flatlined. Three years later, when he drowned himself in the

Pacific Ocean, Kitty—her own star in ascension—couldn’t even be

bothered to send flowers, and left out all mention of him when she penned her own autobiography.

Oh yeah, thought Noah. She was a gem. What had David Carlyle

called her? A tigress? It was becoming increasingly clear that she was something much more dangerous than a tigress.

The Gay Hollywood angle Noah had originally hoped for was

present, but it was more Gay Lite than Gay. In a sense, that was understandable. Quinn was gay, but he really hadn’t done anything about that aspect of his sexuality until he met Jimmy, and since the two of them had been a couple almost since the day their eyes met on the

set of
When the Stars Come Out
, he had managed to avoid interjecting too much tawdriness into his life story.

But still, there
were
stories. A few friendships had to be cloaked in anonymity, because the gay actors in question were still alive and more or less closeted. Noah could use the names of a few other actors, but many of them were unknown in 1970 and remained un-

known in 2006. Quinn did confess to drunkenly making out with

Cesar Romero after a dinner party; and, of course, there was the

hot-and-heavy flirtation with Rock Hudson, about which Quinn was

surprisingly coy, but if he had any true bombshells of the homosexual variety, he wasn’t dropping them.

W H E N T H E S T A R S C O M E O U T

201

No, this would not be a revolutionary gay autobiography. No

hustlers or diseases or shocking marquee names.

But as a story of one man and his short, tempestuous marriage

to a major Hollywood star who could have single-handedly beat

down Joan and Bette simultaneously, it was pure gold.

And, for Noah, there was a definite bonus beyond the gossipy in-

trigue: time with Bart.

When Noah began writing with Quinn, he had commuted from

his father’s apartment to stay at Quinn’s house for a few days of interviews on most weeks, returning to Manhattan to write. After the DVD fiasco, though, Quinn all but ordered Noah to spend most of

his time in Southampton. It made sense, after all, and it cut down on their growing telephone time, but it also made Bart a constant

presence in Noah’s life . . . not that either one of them had a problem with that.

Within the first hour of Noah’s tenancy, Bart had cleaned out

the dresser and closets of a guest room, which promptly filled with Noah’s clothes . . . . although it was understood that the man who wore the clothes would stay in Bart’s room. The room became not

only his wardrobe but also his office, complete with a desk for his laptop, high-speed Internet, and a fax machine. On some days,

when Quinn’s hip was being particularly uncooperative, Noah even

conducted his interviews in the room, as Quinn reclined on the

bed.

And now that he had a daily opportunity to watch the interac-

tion between Quinn and Jimmy, he found his mind increasingly

wandering to his own relationship. What if he did end up spending

decades with Bart? Would that be so bad?

In late November, knowing that he would not be back in the

District of Columbia for a while, Noah—Bart in tow—made a quick

trip south to clean out and sublet his apartment. That was the

weekend he finally told Bart that he loved him, and Bart, of course, wasted no time in saying those words back to him.

They cuddled on Noah’s couch in the almost-vacated apart-

ment, naked under an afghan and lost in the afterglow of the

words that moved their improbable relationship to another, much

more serious level.

202

R o b B y r n e s

“I have to admit,” said Bart, holding Noah’s body tightly. “You

caught me by surprise. I didn’t see that coming at all.”

“Me either,” said Noah, shifting until he could see Bart’s face. “I mean, I’ve been thinking the words, but I always thought you’d be

the one to go first.”

Bart laughed. “Because I’m the romantic one, right?”

“Exactly.”

Bart slid his hand along Noah’s flesh, feeling his tight, trim body.

He was everything Bart had ever wanted. But even though Noah

had professed his love, there was still an outstanding issue.

“Let me ask you something,” he said, as his hand came to rest on

Noah’s hipbone. “This is great, but . . . as I recall, you have a problem with long-term monogamy.”

“Maybe I’ve been wrong.”

“Why, Noah Abraham! I don’t think I’ve ever heard you utter

that sentence before!”

Noah laughed. “Probably not. But I’m not in the same place I

was a few months ago when we met. And I want to take a chance.”

He shifted a bit more until he could kiss Bart and did, adding, “I think we’re great together, and if this is going to work, you’re the one to make it work.”

Bart kissed him back. “You must be a great writer, because you

know just the right words to use with me.”

As they worked through the winter, Noah continuously buffed

the narrative, taking Quinn’s often-rambling stories and putting

them in proper order before jazzing them up with his own literary

spin. The words on paper may have seldom been the exact words

that came out of Quinn’s mouth, but the old man, regularly re-

viewing the manuscript for continuity and errors, almost never ob-

jected. The tragic “popcorn” analogy was as close as he had come to putting his foot down.

It was late March, as Noah was trying to put a final polish on the manuscript, when Bart walked into the guest room-cum-home office and closed the door.

“How’s it going?” Bart asked, as he sat on the bed.

Noah looked up from the manuscript. “It’s coming along.

Maybe another week or two.”

W H E N T H E S T A R S C O M E O U T

203

“Good.” He was silent for a while, and Noah’s attention was

about to return the pages in his hand when he added, “So what

happens next?”

Noah set the papers on the desk. “What do you mean?”

“When you’re done. What happens? Do you go back to Washing-

ton? New York?”

Noah didn’t have an answer ready for him. He hadn’t thought

through what he would do when the book was finished.

“Not D.C.,” he said. “The apartment is sublet until the fall. But

maybe New York. I suppose I can always move in with my father and

Tricia for a while.” He paused. “Any thoughts?”

“Not really. It’s just that . . . well, you’ve been out here for almost six months, and it’s like we’re taking a step back.”

Noah sighed. “If you have any options, I’m listening.”

That evening, over the dinner table, Quinn exchanged a glance

with Bart and said, “You know, Noah, I’ve been thinking . . .”

Noah looked up from his plate of chicken and sausage over lin-

guine, a Jimmy Beloit specialty. “About?”

“When the book is done, I don’t think you should leave.”

“Why is that?”

Quinn sat up stiffly. “Are you arguing with me?”

A knowing smile came to Noah’s lips, and he looked across the

table at Bart.

“I know a conspiracy when I see one,” he said. “All right, Quinn,

I’ll stay. At least for a while.”

“Good.” Quinn cleared his throat. “Then after dinner you can

help Bart with the dishes.”

On April 7, 2006, David Carlyle answered the ringing telephone

in his private office at Palmer/Midkiff/Carlyle Publishing. He in-

stantly recognized Noah Abraham’s voice.

“Do you have any news for me?” asked David. “We’re getting

very tight with the production schedule.”

“I’m going to make you a very happy man today, David. The

manuscript is finished.”

Noah was right. David was
very
happy.

Chapter 9

I could understand Kitty’s anger at me after my indiscretion.

For all her faults, she didn’t deserve to walk in on that scene that afternoon at Jimmy’s apartment in Venice. That was one tough

moment for her.

But I could never figure out why she assigned so much of the

blame to Jimmy. The way she tried to destroy him and his career

seemed a little over the top to me. Even by Kitty Randolph’s stan-

dards. Maybe it had to do with attacking the weak. Although I

don’t think Kitty ever appreciated quite how strong Jimmy really

was . . .

Bel-Air, California, August 2006

W
hen she was a little girl in Millville, New Jersey, growing up within sight of the factory where her father blew glass for a living,

young Kathy Fisher took dance lessons. Her father considered them

a waste of money, although he looked the other way. Her mother

considered them a necessary introduction to the social graces. And Kathy, well . . . she was only seven years old. It would be years before she would have her own agenda.

The dance classes led to beauty pageants, and in 1952 Kathy

Fisher was crowned Miss Cumberland County. It was there that a