John D. MacDonald
“A Dark People Thing”
Because the tub-thumpers are now trying to turn Kirk Morgan into some kind of a folk hero, I have decided to tell the world what happened to him. I can’t tell you exactly what happened to him, but he certainly didn’t die of some jungle bug contracted under heroic conditions, like it said in the newspapers.
When Kirk Morgan died, so did El-Bar Productions, that small California corporation roncerned with, excuse the expression, packaging television serials. Nobody will ever see the 40 half-hour tapes we put in the can when we were on location last year in the Belgian Congo.
But, because of all the previous television work he did, there must be a hundred million people in this country who, at one time or another, have looked at that stern, handsome, manly face, and felt a little glow of delight when it broke into that wonderfully boyish grin from which he made, and kept, upwards of one million bucks.
I don’t want to malign the deceased. But you can’t get the whole picture unless you understand I despised him. In that I do not stand alone. I stand shoulder to shoulder with everybody in the movie and television industry who ever had to work with him. Also in this group you can find a couple of hundred beautiful women who got too close to him.
When he was 19 he made up that name, Kirk Morgan, hitch-hiked out the Coast, and spent twelve thin years before he finally hit it big in that first packaged series. I have heard some of the stories of those lean years from people who knew him then, and they are not tales to tell the kiddies. Some people explain him by saying that it took so long to hit it big, he got very hungry, but I think that even if he had hit it big the first month he got out here, he would have been the same monster, only younger.
Here is the way this Africa series, that’ll never be shown, came about. It was to have been called SAFARI, by the way. Morgan could have continued in GUNNER’S MATE another couple of seasons anyway, but the ratings had slipped just a little, and he got restless and said he was going stale and he wanted a new vehicle for his quote talent unquote.
I was working as a Unit Manager with El-Bar, mostly on those items where Barry Driscoll was the producer-director. Morgan was able to bite off a pretty good stock interest, of course. While Barry, who is a nervous little guy with better taste than he’s able to use, was looking for a new series suitable for Kirk Morgan, an old pro named Mark Weese hit us with this safari idea, and some sample scripts. It was a first look, and it hung together, and it had some pazzazz; so Barry sold the idea to Kirk Morgan, who said fine, maybe because he liked the way he looked in one of those white-hunter helmets. El-Bar blew over seventy thousand making two pilot films with a faked background, and the agency loved them and the sponsor adored them, so we were in business.
For a lot of tax reasons too complicated to go into, it was decided we’d shoot all the scripts in the Congo. Barry Driscoll has that rare knack of getting a lot of good work out of pickup talent, so the only cast we had to transport was Our Hero, Kirk Morgan, his True Love. Nancy Rome — who is a shrewd, tough, talented broad, and a joy to work with, the Comedy Relief — Sam Corren, a fat whiner who is scared of germs and heart trouble, and the Other Woman, Luara (no, that is not a typo) Walden, a new, slinky type, and a devout reader of the scriptures.
Aside from Barry, Mark Weese and me, we cut the rest of the production crew down to eight guys, eight top guys, armed with Ampex stuff treated for tropical use. That cut it to the point where we could fly in. I flew to Leopoldville early last June, taking most of the shooting crew and a lot of the gear with me. Our experts had told us that you get the right weather from June through September. Hot dry days and cool nights, and no rain at all.
I got us settled into the Regina Hotel and made arrangements for air-conditioned accomodations for the whole group. I put the big letter of credit through the Banque Centrale, located a Frenchman with good English who knew the local scene and, through him; began to arrange transportation, power, labor — all the hundreds of things that have to be lined up before you can shoot the first frame. His name was Rene du Palais, a lean sad-faced joker about 40, an importer with time on his hands. You didn’t have to tell him anything twice. The Banque Centrale had recommended him.
When the rest of our group and the rest of the gear arrived ten days later, I was feeling almost optimistic, which is a dangerous state of mind in this business. I was further along than I had hoped to be, and I had the childish faith that this was one time when things would go as smooth as butter.
Barry Driscoll acted jittery but fairly cheerful. Kirk Morgan was half-drunk, noisy and foul-mouthed. Mark Weese, who had been working day and night getting scripts blocked out, looked exhausted. Nancy Rome hugged me and said I was the only thing in Africa she was glad to see.
On the way in from the airport, I explained to them about how this was two cities, with 20,000 whites in one and 400,000 blacks in the other, with the blacks commuting over to work each day. I said I had almost all the documents and licenses and permissions lined up, and how we had found a dandy man in this Rene du Palais.
I got them all sorted into their rooms, and when I had my first chance to be alone with Barry Driscoll, he explained Kirk Morgan’s foul mood to me. Kirk had known better than try to move in on Nancy, who wouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole, and so he had tried to set up one of his typical relationships with our Luara Walden. But, after a good start, he had tried to rush it too much, and she had righteously slugged him with a very heavy historical novel and told him to watch his language when in the company of ladies.
“Morgan needs a conquest to mend his self-esteem, Joe,” Barry told me. “Will he have any special problems around here?”
On the basis of my ten days of observation, I said I didn’t think he would have any problems at all, and Barry seemed relieved. “Whoever the lucky Jady turns out to be,” he said, “our only problem will be keeping her off camera. Morgan likes to make big promises.”
I knew from experience that Kirk Morgan was going to be an amalgam of all the heroes he had played in the past, and he was going to posture for twenty-four hours a day, but with luck I wouldn’t have to be exposed to it too long. Once we were really rolling we hoped to average out at two sequences a day, so that we could wrap up the whole ball of wax in three weeks.
We were in, I suppose, deepest Africa. But the climate was fine and, except for the pressure of work, the living was easy. The locals were friendly and helpful. I won’t go into the plots we were setting up to shoot. Let’s just say they were adequate for the medium involved.
You would be seeing one of them every Tuesday evening this season, and Kirk Morgan would still be an active menace to maidenhood, had not Rene du Palais been damn fool enough to bring his 19-year-old daughter to watch the first day of shooting. Her name was Therese. She had been educated in a convent. She was engaged to be married as soon as her young man finished his army service and came back home to Leopoldville.
I met her mother later, a dumpy flabby woman whose muddy skin tones spoke of complex racial mixtures. Perhaps, once upon a time, she had looked like Therese. It was hard to believe. Therese was slender, shy, innocent, with smoky hair, huge gray eyes, skin of velvet, ivory and gold. The agents of kings used to search for just such women.
Rene brought her out in his antique Renault, brought her proudly, in dust, and clatter, to watch the Americans perform their tribal rites.
Exposing Therese to Kirk Morgan was as predictable as tossing a fat grubworm into a hen yard. And it happened almost as quickly.