“Who else have we got?”
“What about that one from Fox? What the hell’s her name?”
“She’s such a big star, you can’t even remember her name!”
“If you know a name, and you forget it, that’s one thing. But if you forget it without ever having heard of it, that’s another. Who can remember a phony name like Gillian Burke?”
“Anyway, Fox is out. They want thirty grand and over-the-title for her, and I know she got only eighteen-five on her last lendout, so I told them to go screw. They said we were making a big mistake, they said she was a big star. I told them if she was really big, she’d be asking a hundred grand and a cut, and not thirty grand which she isn’t even worth. So she’s out. What do you think?”
“I’ll tell you the truth, I had in mind somebody like Liz Taylor.” He paused. “She’s got black hair.”
“She’s doing Butterfield 8.”
“She finished that. She’s doing Cleopatra now.”
“Whatever she’s doing, we couldn’t afford her anyway. We got three stars already. Come on, what do you think?”
“We can get her cheap, huh? This Gillian Burke?”
“I think so.”
“What’s cheap?”
“Two grand, twenty-five hundred, maybe three tops.”
“That’s reasonable, Eddie.”
“Floren says she’s gonna be very big once this picture is released.”
“Yeah, they said that about me, too, when I was playing juveniles at Metro.”
“What do you think?”
“There’s more of her in this picture?”
“No. You want me to run the reel again?”
“No, no, that’s okay. Why don’t you call her agent, sniff around a little?”
“What do you want me to sniff around about? Do I offer the part or not?”
“See how much she wants.”
“How high can I go?”
“Offer her a thousand a week.”
“The part’s too big, Eddie. Her agent would laugh at me.”
“Okay, then two grand. Two grand is the highest I’ll go for an unknown with buck teeth when she’s supposed to have black hair.”
“And find out if she’s married!”
“And if she agrees to two grand, do I sign her?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“What do you think?”
“I say sign her.”
“Eddie?”
“Sign her, sign her.”
Her agent called that night. It was eleven o’clock, and she was asleep when the telephone rang. At first she thought it was Monica. She pulled the phone to her and said, “Hello?”
“Gillian?”
“Yes?”
“Sid.”
“Oh, hello, Sid.”
“Did I wake you, Gilly?”
“No, that’s all right.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you got out of Hollywood?” he asked.
“What?”
“Get away from this place, huh? Change of scenery? Be good for you, don’t you think?”
“What’s the matter, Sid?”
“I just thought you might like to get away from this town.”
“Oh, God,” she said, “don’t tell me! Please don’t tell me.”
“What, baby, what?”
“They cut me out of the picture.”
“No, no. Matter of fact, Herbert Floren arranged for some people to see that last reel today. Some very important people, Gilly. Some people who are shooting a very big picture with three stars in it, and they need another girl for the picture, a big fat supporting part, and they offered fifteen hundred bucks a week which I grabbed instantly.”
“What?” she said.
“Yeah, baby, yeah.”
“Me?” she said.
“Yeah, who else?”
“Sid, if you’re joking...”
“Baby, I never joke where it concerns money.”
“Me?” she said again.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ready to leave this town?”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“Can you leave Hollywood?”
“I’m packed,” she said.
“Good, ’cause shooting starts on June fifteenth.”
“Where, Sid?”
“Rome,” he said.
Maybe it came too late.
And maybe it was not what she expected. Maybe, after years of working, and hoping, and waiting, there should have been more. There should have been spectacular fireworks, perhaps, shooting up into the sky in a blaze of trailing sparks and dripping incandescence, there should have been brass bands playing rousing golden marching-songs with heartbeat bass drums pounding out the rhythm, there should have been hordes of people screaming approval. She should have arrived overnight, the overnight success, the miracle of America, she should have arrived in a burst of glittering white teeth smiling in a radiant lovely face, arms outstretched to accept the bushels of offered love, success should have been an overnight shimmering thing, a golden thing, a throbbing, wonderful exciting thing. But it wasn’t.
Maybe it simply came too late.
She cried alone that night.
She lay naked on the bed in the house at Malibu with the sound of the surf rushing up under the timbers, the sticky feel of salt on everything, the sheets soggy, she cried. She cried into the pillow because she knew intuitively that this was the break, this would do it, this was the opening door. She had never really felt this way before, all the things she’d done, the good things and the bad, had never made her feel this way before, she knew this was the one. And knowing it, felt empty. Knowing it, knowing this was only the beginning for her, the fat supporting role in a picture with three top stars, a picture that would have all the ballyhoo bandwagon behind it, a picture that would probably advertise “And introducing Gillian Burke,” she felt empty.
Introducing Gillian Burke, she thought.
And the machinery would whir into motion, and there would be the concocted stories of the overnight success, the dream to feed the kiddies on, this is the story of the overnight success, last night was seventeen years ago when she left home and took the apartment near the river and started classes in a loft with an old man named Igor Vodorin, that was last night, and tonight is this morning, and she was thirty-five years old. And seventeen years of hope and rejection and solid dedication to a premise never doubted and always doubted in a secret corner of the mind, do I have it, do I really have it? seventeen years of extending the deadline, I’ll give it another year, seventeen years of watching that girl child march from a glittering wide-eyed youthful hopefulness into a professional attitude of competence and restraint, and then into a barely disguised hopelessness, this was the culminating event of those seventeen years, the door was swinging wide, a big supporting role in a three-star picture, this was it, this was the reward.
But too late to be a reward.
Too late to be anything. Too late to provoke anything but tears, this was success, hold it in your hand, clutch it tight, it was meaningless. I knew it all along, she could tell herself, I knew this would happen, I know what will happen next, I have dreamed of it often enough, I have gone to sleep with it in my mind, and awakened with the taste of it in my mouth, I knew this would happen one day, and I know what is coming, I can feel it, but it doesn’t excite me, and I can only lie here with my head buried in the pillow and cry.
She did not feel like telling anyone.
It was odd that Monica wasn’t home. It was odd that on the night it came, Monica was out, and there was no one to tell.
She used to tell people. She used to say, “I’ll be on Dragnet next week, watch for me,” until she learned that all the Dragnets in the world did not add up to very much unless this happened, so she stopped telling them. Her agent knew when she would be on, and he informed the people who counted, and they watched — maybe — but the others didn’t matter, the others followed her progress with only a fleeting interest. She was to them a fringe celebrity, they knew someone who was in a play over in Westport, they knew someone who was going to be on television Thursday night. But they also knew private secretaries and they knew receptionists and editorial assistants, and this girl, this Gillian Burke, was only another person with a job, a slightly more glamorous job, but certainly nothing to go shouting about, a fringe celebrity, yes, someone who could give you the inside story on some of the big stars she’d worked with on the edges of the crowd scene, “Is it true what they say about...?” but not someone to consider very seriously because she had not yet been touched by the magic wand of success. She could be as successful as the most successful secretary they knew, but the standards were different here. And so, until this came along, until she exploded on the scene as an overnight sensation, and she knew it would happen, there was no doubt in her mind now that it would happen, until success came big and gaudy, why, then she was a failure. Even though she worked as steadily as the receptionist or the editorial assistant, even though she probably earned more money each year than they did, why, everyone knew — and so did Gillian — that she was a failure. So she stopped asking them to watch for her here and there. She simply went about her business knowing, believing, trying to maintain belief, that one day she would make it.