As usual women were to cause a downturn in my fortunes but in retrospect perhaps I should thank them, even ‘Vivienne Prentiss’, who was perhaps the initiator of my discomfort. Looking back in the light of reason I know I would not have survived the advent of the Talkers, an idea which, ironically, I had myself suggested to an uninterested Goldfish earlier that year. To those peasants any foreigner was a Jew and I had already been insulted as The Masked Bucka-Jew and, The Heebe Who-Flew, not to mention more obscene concoctions, so I need explain to no one how my natural voice would be received and perhaps for this reason, too, Goldfish - happiest in Yiddish - took to me. But I would not have volunteered for my future. Towards the end of 1925 a number of events combined to decide my destiny. The discoveries of Tutenkhamun had led to a wave of story projects set in ancient Egypt, most of which were merely the vehicle for a sex-object and which were of doubtful authenticity. I remember seeing The Queen of Sheba with Fritz Leiber and Betty Blythe, who was supposed to be the new Theda Bara, and thinking how ludicrously bad it was. Leiber’s Solomon was clean-shaven and the costumes the invention of an incompetent design department. Columns bore pictograms which were not even vaguely Egyptianate but derived from Norse and Irish myths! Yet the thing was a great success. There was a plethora of what were called in the trade ‘Sheikh movies’ following the popularity of Valentino’s paean to miscegenation (which must have done untold harm). We had East of Suez, Desert Dust, Her Favourite Camel, Queen of the Pyramids, When the Desert Calls, Feisal, Silk and Sand, Carstairs of the Camel Corps, Burning Gold, Passion’s Oasis, and hundreds more. They were not merely Hollywood productions but from every other country where films were made. Yet there had not been a good picture set in the time of the Pharaohs, unless one counted certain of De Mille’s Biblical subjects. I mentioned this casually to Seaman one day and he became unusually enthusiastic. It seemed he was bored with the flood of sophisticated comedies he had directed and wanted to do something more substantial, an epic. In those days the successful epic was what a director’s reputation finally rested upon. Though no Griffith, he had already seen some of the exhibits brought back from Egypt by Carter and Carnarvon and testified to their beauty. He was gloomily fascinated, too, by a curse which had taken the lives of several members of the expedition and their associates. Carnarvon had been struck down almost as soon as the Tomb was opened and his dog, who had also been there, fell dead mysteriously. Bethell, his secretary, died in peculiar circumstances. Westbury killed himself. Carter’s partner, Mace, died just as he was about to X-ray a mummy. Then Carnarvon’s wife and his two brothers died and Arthur Weigall died of fever. That same night we sketched out an idea for an ambitious story set partly in Ancient Egypt and partly in the present, concerning a love-story between a Queen and her High Priest and a passion so powerful it would last two thousand years. We would work in the idea of the cursed tomb, the consequences of disturbing the dead, and we would call it Tutenkhamun’s Queen. I was already visualising the magnificent sets I could build, the lavish costumes and the gorgeous interiors we could make. I do not remember now whether it was Seaman or myself who conceived the notion of setting our story against the authentic landscapes of Luxor, the Valley of the Kings and the Pyramids. I could see no reason against the idea. It made artistic sense. The light was, if anything, better than California’s and, with the British in charge, there should be no working difficulties. Seaman grew enthusiastically determined to show the story to Goldfish, who was specialising only in epics. I thought no more of it except to hope that ‘Walt’ himself might be struck down by the Curse of Tutenkhamun. I resented his proprietorial attitudes towards ‘his’ star, my friend, who would always see her film career as a ‘bit of a larf’. Mrs Cornelius took her luck, she said, as it came. She saw no point in trying to hang on to it. It should be enjoyed to the full while it was available. This is the simple philosophy which kept her sane and by which she survived.
Esmé continued to beg me to get her a part in one of my pictures and I promised I would try, not having the heart to tell her how I had been turned down by Colony, Monogram and Universal so far. These were lean times for actors. She said that Meulemkaumpf was growing ‘moody’ and suspicious and Mix confided that the sausage king had offered him a handsome bonus to spy on her and report her movements in detail. I did my best to find work for her through my continuing role as designer and writer, but was informed by everyone that pretty foreign girls were a dime a dozen in Hollywood. To get work they must have exceptional talent of some kind. I knew that this was not the whole truth of it, even if the footage of Esmé’s several tests did not reveal my girl to be a natural actress. Things came to a head one afternoon, however. Esmé, dressed in her special frock, was squatting on the carpet and I had my trousers ready when we were interrupted by an urgent Jacob Mix rapping on the bedroom door and whispering as loudly as he dared that we were discovered. Then the flat vulgar tones of a Mid-Western industrialist all but drowned him. ‘You’re fired, Mix. And that floozy in there had better not trouble to come back either. I’ve cancelled her contract.’