Santa Monica,
California
September 1932
Sam Goldwyn threw a small chunk of Roquefort cheese into his mouth. “I still think Arsène Lupin is a terrible title. Nobody knows how to pronounce it.”
Irving loved how this guy had lived in America since the turn of the century, but hadn’t lost a smidge of his Polish accent. “You’re right. Nobody—except for the millions of people who have read the books.”
Sam swished at the air dismissively. “Frenchmen.”
“You helped me secure the screen rights for a huge moneymaker. All I’m trying to do is thank you, so I don’t know why you’re griping.”
Norma turned to Sam’s wife, Frances. “How does one get your husband to accept a compliment?”
Frances, a slim brunette possessing a vivacious smile, rolled her eyes. “Beats me.”
“Ah!” Sam said. “In this town, compliments are nothing. They are like toilet paper. Full of sh—” Frances cut him off with a sharp look. “Anyway, your new home, it is very nice.”
The Santa Monica house had taken longer to build than they would have liked, but Irving needed complete silence when he slept. Consequently, every wall had been soundproofed like the stages at the studio to shield him from the constant whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the ocean. But now that was all behind them. The place was everything Irving and Norma had hoped it would be, and the Goldwyns were their first luncheon guests.
Sam pointed an accusatory finger at him. “But don’t think I haven’t noticed how many staff you have now that you’re Mister House on Santa Monica Beach Big Shot. Domestics—they cost a pretty shekel, don’t they, eh?”
He wasn’t too far off the mark. The Thalbergs now employed a maid, a cook, a butler, a daily cleaning woman, a nanny for Junior, a gardener, and a pool man.
“Metro pays me well.” The Roquefort was too strong for Irving’s tastes so he selected some gouda. But only a thin slice. The cook had prepared Labor Day brunch for what looked like twenty people.
“Ah, but Samuel Goldwyn Productions could pay you more,” Sam said. “And you wouldn’t have to oversee so many pictures at once. Honestly, Irving, you take on too much!”
“That’s what I keep saying!” Norma interjected. The Goldwyns would have heard only the frothiness in Norma’s voice; Irving, however, caught the steely underpinnings. It had been two months since Paul and Jean’s wedding, and her advice to Jean that Irving had overheard still pricked his ego like a snake bite that refused to heal.
“I enjoy working,” Irving declared. “Juggling a number of projects keeps me active and engaged.”
“But surely you have to worry about your heart,” Frances said.
“Again,” Norma exclaimed, “that’s what I keep saying!”
“Perhaps not worry about it, per se.” Frances pulled her hair back from the ocean breeze that had blown up. “You look perfectly healthy to me, but from what I understand, you need to take your condition into account. Sam’s offering you an alternative, nothing more.”
This wasn’t the first time Goldwyn had made overtures to luring Irving away from Metro. And had his pictures been floundering at the box office, or if Mayer had been squeezing his budgets, or not supplying him with the stars he requested, then perhaps he might have taken Sam seriously. But here they were deep into the Great Depression and Metro’s take the previous year had been eight million. Sitting in their custom-built house, with closets full of expensive clothes, a staff of seven—plus Slickum—and the Thalenberg to drive them wherever they wanted, it wasn’t like they were in danger of having to join the line at a nearby soup kitchen. Surely, they ought to stay where the money seemed most secure.
“I’m flattered, Sam. Truthfully, I am. But I—”
Norma shot forward in her chair. “Is there a problem, Charles?”
Their oh-so-British butler hovered at the patio’s edge. Like all butlers, he possessed an unflappable nature, no matter the situation or world-famous celebrity. This hint of hesitation was conspicuous.
“You have a caller on the line. I told Mrs. Mayer you were busy with guests, but she was most insistent.”
“Margaret? Has called here?”
“Indeed. And if I may say, she sounds somewhat unnerved.”
In the dozen or so years Irving had known Margaret Mayer, not once had she contacted him. A little on the meek side, she wasn’t well-suited to parties and premieres. Lately, starlets and society doyennes had been escorting L.B. to his social obligations. So for her to call him at home on a holiday weekend was more than unprecedented.
Irving strode into the living room where the new black Bakelite telephone sat with its handset lying to one side on an occasional table. “Margaret? Is everything all right?”
“Oh, Irving! No, it’s not!” Her voice wobbled and cracked. “Something dreadful’s happened!”
Irving’s heart convulsed in a single beat that rammed against his ribcage. “L.B.? Is he okay?”
“It’s Paul. Paul Bern. He’s—he’s—he’s dead!”
Irving dropped into the nearby armchair, the muscles around his throat tight. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what Louis told me as he ran out of the house.”
Irving couldn’t imagine L.B. running anywhere. “Please, Margaret, what were his actual words?”
“The telephone rang. He picked it up and listened for a few moments. Then he said, ‘Oh my God, no! When? Where is he?’”
“Who was L.B. talking to?”
“Didn’t say. He told me to call you and tell you what’s happened and to get yourself over to Paul’s house as fast as you can. He left, and then he rushed back in and said ‘Make sure Irving tells nobody about this. He has to drop whatever he’s doing and go straight to Beverly Hills.’”
Irving thanked Margaret for calling and hung up.
Dead? From what?
He replayed conferences and meetings. Lunches in the commissary. Showing him the new house. Norma’s Strange Interlude premiere at Grauman’s. Listening to the opening of the Los Angeles Olympic Games on the radio. He appeared to be normal. Happy. Healthy. Paul’s house resembled a small Bavarian hunting lodge snuggled into the hills above Sunset Boulevard. Two flights of stone steps led down to the pool. Had he stumbled and broken his neck?
Irving rubbed his forehead. It was clammy and cold. He didn’t want to see any corpse—especially Paul’s. His legs were leaden and all strength had left his arms.
Norma knelt in front of him. “What did Margaret want?”
“It’s Paul. He died.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “How?”
“She didn’t know the particulars, but L.B. insists I go over there.”
Norma leaped up. “I’m coming with you.”
“I think you should stay.”
“But Jean must be catatonic.”
Oh, Christ. Jean. He hadn’t thought about her. Irving struggled to his feet. “But what about the Goldwyns?”
“I’ll explain what’s happened. Go into your room and pull yourself together, because God only knows what we’ll be walking into. Leave everything else to me.”
She turned away from him, but he drew her back. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
She ran her fingers along his cheekbone. “I do.”
“Thank you for being here.”
“Oh, my darling, where else would I be?”
Irving craned his neck as Slickum turned off Benedict Canyon and onto Easton Drive. No newspapermen, no photographers, no nosy neighbors. That was something, at least.
Slickum parked between L.B.’s black Packard and an unfamiliar dark maroon Cadillac. The gate opened onto a winding path leading up to the house, where Mayer and Strick stood in the foyer. Of course the head of publicity was here. He was probably the first person Mayer had called when he arrived. Through the front window, Irving could see other men moving around the rooms.
They stepped out of the car, and Norma gave his back a gentle nudge.
“I know, I know. It’s just that . . .” He seized her by the shoulders. “We don’t know what’s in there. It might be messy and ugly and hard to forget. How about you stay out here until I give you the all-clear?”
Conflict played across her face, but she fought it back and nodded, saying nothing more.
He continued up the garden path.
I’m the one who was supposed to drop dead. I’m the one with the crummy ticker. He was supposed to outlive me. By years and years—decades. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Thanks for getting here so quickly.” Mayer’s face was grim as a morgue.
“What the hell happened?”
Strick ran a hand over his hair. “We’re still deciding.”
It was an odd choice of words. Not ‘We haven’t pieced it together yet.’ Nor ‘We’re trying to figure it out.’
Behind Strick, a couple of men in overalls were pushing a sofa closer to a large colorful mural of a Jacobean feast. Irving didn’t know their names, but they were stagehands from the studio.
A stone archway led to a larger room, lit by direct sunlight and decorated more informally. Two men stood in the center. The one in the dark gray suit was Metro’s security chief, Whitey Hendry. The other, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, was MGM’s photographer, Virgil Apger, who nodded as Whitey talked. Or rather, Whitey was giving orders and Virgil was agreeing.
Past them lay the kitchen, where Paul’s valet and cook, John and Winifred, sat at a square table, their heads in their hands. Winifred held a limp, white handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
There was no sign of Jean.
“What do we know?” Irving asked.
“The manservant went into Paul’s room at eleven-thirty to serve him breakfast and discovered him lying on the dressing room floor in a pool of blood.”
“Have you seen him yourself? We’re sure he’s dead, right?”
“He is,” Mayer snapped. “Strick and I were waiting on you.”
Irving braced himself with a deep breath. “Let’s go before I lose my nerve.”
The master bedroom overlooked the pool. Someone had thrown back the covers on the double bed. Straight ahead, a doorway framed in dark wood led to the dressing room. Paul’s naked body lay on the floor, face down, his left arm bent at an awkward angle, his head split open, blood splattered on the white wall behind him.
The last tremor of hope that somehow Paul might still be alive crumbled to dust.
Paul’s right arm was wedged between the body and the carpeting, a Colt .45 in his hand.
Irving backed away from the sordid horror of it all and stumbled to Paul’s desk chair. Mayer and Strick were now talking to one of the stagehands from downstairs who pulled a note from Paul’s green Moroccan binder and handed it over. “This ought to do the trick.”
Mayer grunted, smiled to himself, then thrust it toward Irving. “You probably know Bern’s handwriting. Can you confirm it’s his?”
Irving forced himself to read.
Dearest dear,
Unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and wipe out my abject humiliation.
I love you.
Paul
You understand that last night was only a comedy.
“Yes, it’s his.”
Mayer was looking at Strick now. “Okay, so this is how it went: Paul and Jean had a knock-down, drag-out fight. She ran home to mother. He grew despondent and suicidal. Got out his gun. Wrote this note.” Mayer placed it next to Paul’s body. “Stepped into the dressing room. And shot himself.”
“That’s an awful lot to presume,” Irving said. “How do we know the note is from last night?”
“The point is,” Mayer shot back, “it fits.”
Alarmed, Irving launched himself off the chair. “We can’t orchestrate this!”
“Quit squawking, you naïve ninny,” Strick snapped. “This is the ugly end of the business that you don’t have to deal with. But it’s how it is down here on the ground. Sooner or later we’re all just dead coyotes on the side of the road.”
“Now, now," Mayer murmured. “Moviemakers don’t deal in truth. We deal in stories. They have to make sense or nobody buys it. In this case, our audience is the police. The scene they walk into must add up. And this note corresponds perfectly.”
“We’re not filming some murder mystery.” Irving’s breath was starting to falter. “We can’t disregard Paul’s life—”
“It isn’t about Paul,” Strick said.
“Who the hell is it about, then?”
“Jean, you idiot!” Mayer laid a placating hand on Strick’s chest; the guy pushed it aside. “I know the two of you were buddies,” he said, a touch more charitably, “but he’s gone and we have to think of her. You’ve seen the dailies for Red Dust. Jean and Clark’s chemistry jumps off the screen so bright Helen Keller could see it. We’ve got a major screen pairing on our hands, and they don’t come along every day. We need to make sure everything looks plausible before we call the cops.” Strick turned to Mayer. “Oh, and you should probably call Buron. We don’t want alternative stories getting out.”
He was talking about Buron Fitts, the L.A. County district attorney, who was dirtier than the city dump and not a person Irving had anything to do with if he could help it.
“Wait. What?” Irving said, catching on. “You haven’t even called the cops yet?”
Strick took the Moroccan binder from the stagehand and pointed to the gun in Paul’s hand. “The placement—it’s too neat. He’d lose some control as soon as he fired.”
The stagehand knelt beside Paul’s body and pulled at the Colt. It refused to budge. “I think rigor mortis has set in.”
“Give it a real solid yank. But be careful. There might be more bullets.”
Sour bile crimped Irving’s stomach. He couldn’t watch this appalling scene play out one second longer. He sprang up from the chair and walked into the corridor. “Speaking of Jean, where is she?”
“There’s no sign of her beauty case, toothbrush, cold cream, any of the usual woman stuff,” Mayer said. “We assume she spent the night at her mother’s house.”
“So she doesn’t know?”
The stagehand yelled “GOT IT!” and scrambled to his feet. Strick produced a blue handkerchief from his trouser pocket and used it to wipe the pistol’s handle. He measured out three lengths of his shoe and placed the gun at an angle, pointing into the bedroom.
“L.B.!”
“There’s no need to yell, Irving,” Mayer admonished. “I’m standing right here.”
“I’m asking about Jean. Has anybody told her?”
“We wanted to figure everything out first.”
Irving punched the checkered wallpaper with the side of his fist. “Jesus! She should have been the first to know.”
“It’s important you keep sight of the priority here.”
The air inside the house suddenly felt thick with decay. “She deserves to hear this news from someone she knows and trusts,” Irving snapped. “I’m going over there and break it to her myself.”
“You’re right, she does,” Strick said. “And it should be you.”
He didn’t need to say, Get the hell out of our hair and leave us to fix this grisly scene. His dismissive tone had said it for him.
Slickum rounded the corner onto Club View Drive. Again, no cops. No press. No fans.
“We need a plan,” Norma said. On the interminable ride over, Irving had told her only the barest of facts. If this travesty went awry, she could plead ignorance. “You take Jean into a separate room. If Mama tries to follow, I’ll run interference.”
“She’s not the type you can easily head off at the pass.”
“I’ve had practice.” She kissed his cheek. “My mother-in-law is—”
Jean answered the door, pulling her floor-length silk robe around her. “My goodness, this is a surprise!” She took in their solemn expressions. “What’s wrong?”
“Is there somewhere private we might go?” Irving asked. “Your bedroom, perhaps?”
“Is it Clark? Has he had an accident? He loves to go hunting—”
“No, no,” he assured her. “Clark’s fine.” He peered up the staircase leading to the second floor. “Your room—is it up there?”
“Who knocked?” Mama Jean appeared in a dreary housedress, a copy of Variety dangling from her fingertips, a Lucky Strike drooping from her lips. “Mr. Thalberg! Norma! If I’d known you were coming, I’d have—”
Norma took her by the arm as though she were a sparrow with a broken wing. “We’re so sorry to waltz in here unannounced, but Irving has some studio business to discuss with Jean and it wouldn’t wait. You know what they’re like; everything is urgent, urgent, urgent. I don’t suppose you have the coffee on? It’s been such a topsy-turvy morning . . .”
The rest of Norma’s cajoling faded as she steered Mama Jean toward the rear.
Jean tied the pink sash around her waist. “So it’s studio business?”
“Let’s go upstairs, shall we?” By the time they were standing in her bedroom, the reality of the task ahead of him had sunk in.
She studied his face. “I take bad news better when I can see the outdoors.” She led him onto a large Juliet balcony. The day was warming up. She watched the late morning sun shine through the leaves of the tall, proud oak tree. “Okay. Lemme have it.”
Irving stepped half a foot closer to create a more intimate space. “It’s Paul. John discovered him in his dressing room.” He wrapped his hand over hers. “I’m sorry, my dear, but he’s gone.”
A pair of doves nesting in the tree near them made a cooing sound. A John Philip Sousa march blared from a nearby open window.
Jean had the strength for one, single word. “How?”
“There was a gun in his hand.”
She cried out, a strangled gasping noise, raw, wet, fractured, then collapsed in on herself, falling sideways into Irving’s arms. He navigated her toward the rumpled bed, where he held the back of her head to his shoulder as sweet, candid, uncomplicated Jean Harlow slowly unraveled.