Ridding himself of Vera is like extricating himself from a thorn bush. Every action brings misery, and every maneuver snags him on another spine.
Vera seeks to remove him from his home.
Vera seeks $1,500 a month in maintenance.
Vera seeks $25,000 in attorney’s fees.
Vera seeks title to all community property.
Vera accuses him of beating her.
Vera accuses him of slashing her with a razor.
Vera accuses him of waving a loaded revolver at her.
Vera accuses him of hitting her with a shovel and attempting to bury her alive in the garden.
And always, in the background, prowl Countess Sonia and the Dancing Master.
He tries to keep all this from Lois, his daughter, but he cannot tell how much she knows, how much she has been told or has overheard. His reputation is being publicly denigrated through newspaper reports and leaked documents.
Did you really hit her with a shovel and try to bury her alive? Ben Shipman asks.
—I might have dug the hole, but I never actually intended to put her in it.
Ben Shipman considers this answer.
—If you’re questioned about it in court, say you were gardening. Just don’t tell anyone what you were going to plant.
It is November.
Ben Shipman files suit on his behalf against Hal Roach Studios, seeking $700,000 in damages for breach of contract.
Vera, Countess Sonia, and Roy Randolph smell money.
It is December.
On their first wedding anniversary, Vera is to begin serving a five-day sentence for the accident of the previous April in which she crashed the rental car, the rental car that she was not insured to drive as she had no license. But Vera cries before the judge. Vera cries so much that the judge fears less for his reputation if Vera is put behind bars than for the risk of flooding to his courtroom.
In the end, Vera spends just five hours in a cell. He drives her to the Beverly Hills city jail, and returns to drive her home when she has served her sentence. They kiss. They pose for the cameras. They announce their reconciliation. He professes his love for her.
Ben Shipman calls him the next day. Ben Shipman has been digesting the newspaper reports. Ben Shipman fears for his own sanity as much as his client’s.
Ben Shipman reads aloud to him from the newspaper.
They are describing you as “gallant,” says Ben Shipman. Since when was “gallant” another word for “crazy”?
He tries to interrupt, but Ben Shipman is on a roll.
—According to the AP, and I’m quoting directly here, you two have “kissed and made up . . . Their divorce is off, definitely, and maybe permanently.” You planted on her, unless the AP is lying, “a resounding kiss as she was led away to a cell,” and you “greeted her affectionately as she emerged.” Finally—and I particularly like this touch on the AP’s part: “‘The divorce is off. I will tell the judge that I want no divorce,’ she trilled gaily.”
Ben Shipman pauses for effect before repeating the last three words.
—“She. Trilled. Gaily.” That woman has never trilled in her life. “Caterwauled,” maybe. “Screeched,” definitely. But “trilled,” no. You want to hear what the Los Angeles Times had to say about it? The Times ran it as a drama, like something out of a Cagney picture. Did she really say “My God, don’t tell me you are going to leave me alone in the big house?”
He allows that Vera may have done so.
—She was going to spend five hours in a country club jail, not a lifetime in Alcatraz. Did she also give her date of birth as September 24th, 1912?
He informs Ben Shipman that this is the date of birth Vera always gives.
—With a straight face? Have you actually met her? I figure you must have, because you married her. I’m looking at a picture of her now, with you grinning beside her. If that woman is twenty-six years old, I’m Mrs. Lincoln. Even the Times struggled to pretend to believe her, and it lies about the age of people in Hollywood as a matter of principle. Jesus, you look younger than she does.
He tries to tell Ben Shipman that many women, under similar circumstances, surrounded by newspapermen and photographers, might deduct a year or two from their age.
—We’re not talking a year or two. We’re talking a portion of an adult life. We’re talking half a person. And did you tell the reporters “We love each other. When Illeana phoned me yesterday and said, ‘Darling, I want to come home,’ I flew to get there. It’s the real thing this time, the divorce will be called off”?
He admits that he may have become caught up in the moment.
Ben Shipman puts away the newspapers. Ben Shipman wishes to set them alight, but not before piling them around a stake and immolating his client in the resulting inferno.
Don’t call me again, says Ben Shipman, not until you’ve regained your senses.
It is January.
He regains his senses.
It does not take much: only further exposure to Vera, and Countess Sonia, and Roy Randolph. They encourage him in his lawsuit against Hal Roach; of course they do. Countess Sonia, when intoxicated, promises that she can arrange for him to be buried in the family vault back in Russia, where he will be surrounded by princes and they can all be together in the next life, just as they must remain together in this one. He does not ask if Roy Randolph will be included in this posthumous arrangement. Neither does Roy Randolph. Perhaps the Dancing Master is afraid to hear the answer.
Meanwhile Vera, when intoxicated, continues to sing, her repertoire now exclusively devoted to lays of disappointment in love.
But he has no money, and as yet Hal Roach shows no sign of bending the knee. If he cannot work in pictures, he must return to the stage. Even Ben Shipman agrees that this is a deft way to improve his finances. He still has contacts on the circuit. The Roosevelt in Oakland is booked for two nights, and two further dates are arranged for Seattle and Vancouver in February. He will be able to pick up more; he feels certain of it.
He assembles a cheap bill: Commodore J. Stuart Blackton from Yorkshire, who founded Vitagraph Studios at the end of the last century, but lost all his money in the crash of 1929 and is now reduced to lecturing on old pictures in mellifluous tones; Eddie Borden, a bit part player who came up through vaudeville; and James Morton, who is a gentleman actor of the old school, but suffers from myocarditis and could do with the work. Nobody can call it a star-studded line-up, but it will suffice. The Audience is coming to see him, not the others. All that is missing is a singer: someone inexpensive, someone who will be glad of the exposure.
The announcement is made.
He will be joined in his return to the stage by His Famous Wife, Illeana, Singing Russian Ballads.
Ben Shipman asks his secretary to bring a cold compress for his brow, and takes to his couch.