Gwendolyn’s dressing room at CBS Television City was large enough to accommodate a coffee table, desk, wardrobe rack, two sofas, and as a vanity mirror framed with light globes that actually worked.
She placed her handbag on the table. A girl could get used to this.
She wished she’d had someone to say it to, but Kathryn and Marcus were busy, and Chuck had a Pago Pete’s opening in Santa Fe. Maybe it was just as well. This was only her dressing room for today. Whether or not it would stay that way depended on how the next couple of hours played out.
A week after their meeting, CBS had called Lucille Ball to say they liked the concept but wanted to run their pilot episode past a test audience. “Don’t ask me why they can’t just tune into KWOB, but if that’s what CBS wants, let’s give them a humdinger. And,” Lucille had quickly added, “I’ve got the perfect one.”
Lucille had become good pals with Lana Turner when Lana had done a cameo on DuBarry Was a Lady. Lana’s latest movie, Peyton Place, had come out in December but wasn’t pulling in the hoped-for crowds. Lucille’s snow job must have been crackerjack because Lana had suggested she bring along the author of the book, Grace Metalious.
Gwendolyn slipped out of her street clothes and into a new outfit she’d designed—garnet red, with three-quarter sleeves and a voluminous tea-length skirt onto which Gwendolyn had stitched tiny matching sequins to pick up the lights.
She was zipping herself in when someone rapped three times on her dressing room door and called out, “You decent?”
Neither CBS nor Desilu had any preference about who directed this dry run, so Gwendolyn had suggested Rex. It was one less decision for Lucille, so she’d okayed him on the spot.
Gwendolyn told Rex to come in and help with her zipper.
She’d been around enough men to know when they’d splurged on a professional shave. There was a familiar tang to the aftershave balm that barbers used—a powdery scent infused with citrus undertones. And if she wasn’t mistaken, that was a new suit, too. Or at least a freshly pressed one; the creases down the middle of his pant legs were scalpel sharp. This was a big moment for her, for Desilu, and for possible future female television hostesses, and she was glad he took it seriously.
She lifted her right arm so that he could hoist the zipper tab into place. “What’s it like out there?”
“The crew is remarkably relaxed, very professional. Everything we’re hoping for.”
Gwendolyn turned to the mirror. Television cameras still refused to allow women to get away with anything but super dark lipstick, so she had to go with a shade that looked appalling in real life.
A fresh-faced youngster barely out of puberty appeared in the doorway. “Lana Turner and company have pulled up out front.”
“She came with an entourage?”
“Just the three of them.”
“Lana, Grace, and who else?”
The kid peered up and down the corridor that led to studio 43. “Johnny Stompanato.”
Gwendolyn and Rex exchanged a panicked look. “Are you sure?”
“My dad is with the LAPD. I spent most of my summers hanging around police stations. Trust me, I know Johnny Stomp when I see him.”
Since divorcing her fifth husband (or was it her sixth? It was hard to keep track), Lana had exacerbated her already-precarious reputation by dating the well-known hood with ties to Mickey Cohen. Almost immediately, rumors had circulated Hollywood that Stompanato wasn’t above knocking Lana around if he decided that her big mouth had got the better of her. Some of those rumors also propagated the notion that Lana stuck with him because she liked it. Others mused that she didn’t eject him from her life because he’d won the genetic jackpot in the jockey shorts department.
“Where’s Miss Turner’s dressing room?” Gwendolyn asked.
“You’re standing in it.”
“You expect Lana Turner to share?”
“Nobody gets the run of the place until their show gets picked up.” He ducked his head out of the doorway. “They don’t look too happy.” He stepped into the hall. “Welcome! Right this way.”
Gwendolyn had expected Lana to make a movie entrance: bright smile parting her lips, chest out and head high. But instead, her eyes darted around the room. She breathed in shallow huffs, her fingers twisting at diamond rings, fidgeting with each of them in quick succession.
“Miss Turner,” Gwendolyn exclaimed, “I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m Gwendolyn Brick.”
She had seen Lana at nightclubs and premieres and had admired her from a distance. But standing less than two feet away, she could see that Lana did not exude the glitter and sparkle that Gwendolyn was hoping for. She gave Gwendolyn a tight smile and asked where Lucille Ball was.
Gwendolyn was about to tell her that Lucille wasn’t expected at today’s filming when Grace Metalious walked in. Short and plain, with a fondness for dungarees and an aversion to obscuring her dirt-poor background, Metalious was America’s least-likely bestselling author whose steamy, sinful bombshell had captured readers who secretly loved being scandalized by extramarital sex, illegitimate births, and incest in small-town New Hampshire.
MGM had spent years training Lana Turner on the finer points of how to beguile an audience, but Metalious was about as charismatic as a bucket of mud. She held up a tatty imitation snakeskin handbag that looked like it might have been on a 50-percent-off sale at Kress & Co. fifteen years ago. “Is there some place I can stash this where nobody’s gonna swipe it?”
Gwendolyn introduced herself and Rex. “I can get a runner to watch over everyone’s belongings while we’re shooting.”
Grace looked at her as though to say It’s them runners what worry me. A third figure appeared behind her.
Johnny Stompanato filled the doorway, his surly air souring every atom of oxygen in the room. Gwendolyn instinctively drew back from the hostility radiating out of him, but then thought better of it: he was here now, and angering him might spark off an argument. Or worse. He exuded the sort of unblinking defiance that almost dared anyone in the room to take him on.
“You must be Mr. Stompanato,” Gwendolyn said, stepping forward. “I’m Gwendolyn Brick.”
Stompanato stared at her offered hand as though it gripped a .45 Colt revolver. “Yeah, I know.” His voice was baritone deep, and had a slow-paced rhythm to it, as though he considered every woman a potential boudoir conquest—which he probably did. Leaving Gwendolyn’s hand to dangle mid-air, he pulled from his suit pocket a gold-plated cigarette case with a Chinese dragon etched on the front.
“How many times must I tell you?” Lana hissed at him. “There’s a ton of flammable materials inside film studios and a naked flame is—”
“This is just TV.” He cast a withering glance over Gwendolyn. “And it’s not even that.”
“We are not having this discussion again.” Lana brushed past her boyfriend and told him to follow her out into the corridor.
Gwendolyn let the residual acrimony dissipate before she spoke. “Miss Metalious, is there something I should know before we go on set?”
“We’ll be lucky to get that far.”
“Can you tell us why?” Rex asked.
“The whole drive over, Johnny kept harping on and on, criticizing Lana for debasing herself by agreeing to appear on television.” She lowered her voice in a fair imitation of Stompanato. “You’re a movie goddess and this is only a TV show—and it ain’t even on the air yet. Why’re you even botherin’?”
“What did Lana say?”
“She stayed pretty cool.” Grace picked at a lump of food wedged between her two front teeth until she’d worked it loose and then flipped it across the room. “Her career’s been on the slide ever since she left MGM, so she’s determined to make a success of every film. She wants that Oscar nomination real bad, and if appearing on a show that isn’t even on the air yet might help, she’ll do it, and screw you Mister Big-Shot Gangster.” She shook a finger with raggedy cuticles and a chewed-off nail. “Lemme tell ya, it takes a lotta guts to tell Handsome Harry to go screw himself.”
Gwendolyn knew what she needed to do. She thanked Grace, then turned to Rex. “Will you please keep Miss Metalious company?”
Stompanato stood alone outside the stage door, sucking on a cigarette with his left hand, a crushed pack of Marlboros in his right. He shot Gwendolyn a brooding scowl that warned her to proceed at her own risk.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be joining us today,” she told him.
“I go wherever Lana goes. She needs protection.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to join us.”
He spread his feet apart like he was Gary Cooper and this was the climax of High Noon. “Where?”
“On camera.” Gwendolyn angled her head to make it look like she was the latest in a long line of innocent lambs willingly led to the slaughter of his irresistible charms. “My director and I were going over the schedule and it seems we’re a little short. I’m sure Lana and Grace have no end of stories, but my feeling is that your presence could boost the show with a shot of testosterone.” She kept the edges of her smile at bay until he started nodding slowly.
“What would I talk about?”
“You served in the Marines during the war, didn’t you?”
“Okinawa.”
“You must have seen some thrilling action.” She knew she had him when he smiled a genuine grin not designed to intimidate, unsettle, or seduce. “Everybody loves a good war story. Can you pick one with an uplifting ending?”
“There was this guy I fought with, Joe Petillo from New Jersey—”
“That’s great. I’ll see you backstage.” She yanked open the stage door and left him standing on the asphalt.
Lana’s high heels clip-clopped on the bare concrete as she approached Gwendolyn behind the Brick by Brick set. “I agreed to this because Lucille prevailed on me and because I know you’re a good friend of Kathryn Massey, whom I admire a great deal. But I wouldn’t have said yes if I’d known you’d invite Johnny onto the show.”
This appearance was about a possible Oscar nomination, but if Lana Turner wanted to think that she was doing Lucille Ball a favor, Gwendolyn saw no need to correct her.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Gwendolyn said.
“The guy’s already got an ego the size of the Grand Canyon. Put him on TV and heaven help us.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks, then immediately pulled them away when she realized it might smudge her rouge.
“It’s not going to happen.” Gwendolyn said. “Grace mentioned your quarrel on the drive over so I invited him onto the show simply to calm the waters.”
Lana uncrossed her arms. “He won’t be appearing as a guest?”
“Technically yes.”
“Count me out. I mean it.”
“He’ll be the final guest, and oh my goodness gracious me! What a shame it’ll be when we edit the show together and find that it’s running too long and needs pruning.”
Lana pulled back to give Gwendolyn an admiring up-down-up. “You little slyboots, you.”
Gwendolyn took a deep breath. “I do, however, need a favor.”
“Anything!”
“Grace Metalious.”
Lana rolled her green eyes. “It’s like she’s never left Trashville, Idaho, or whatever squalid black hole she came crawling out of.”
“I’m afraid she’s going to bring down the whole tone today.”
“Do you know Hal King?”
“Lucille’s makeup guy?”
“He walked into your dressing room as I was about to come looking for you. I suspect Lucille sent him over to do my makeup but I told him to work on Grace. If anyone can make a purse out of that sow’s ear, it’s Hal.”
“I’d feel better knowing I had something up my sleeve to ask her.”
“Grace and I, we’ve built up a nice trust.” Lana winked. “Stay alert and follow my lead.”
The set that CBS had constructed looked like Mary Pickford’s sunroom: a stained fruitwood sideboard, a pair of miniature cypress pines bookending a European tapestry hanging from the back wall, and two sofas on a Persian rug that featured a sparse geometric pattern that almost exactly matched Gwendolyn’s dress.
On camera, it all looked rather grand but Gwendolyn knew it would be broken apart and shoved back into storage in less than an hour.
If this is my only shot at the big time, at least I’ll have done it in style.
Her ad-libbed introduction went without a slip of the tongue and she sailed through her monologue. When she cut to the ad break, she looked past the cameras for Rex, who gave her a broad smile and jacked both thumbs in the air.
When Lana came out, she played the full-tilt movie star. Without reservation, she talked about how she’d dyed her famous blonde locks a darker shade so that she and Diane Varsi looked more like mother and daughter. She also broke an unwritten no-no law and talked about beating out Jane Wyman, Olivia de Havilland, and Joan Crawford for the lead. But she laughed about it absent ego or entitlement, so she managed to come across as endearingly funny. And when it came time to introduce Grace, she talked about the brief scene in which Varsi sat at a typewriter in the same pose that Grace had struck for the back of the paperback. “And if you haven’t seen the film yet,” she said, staring into the camera, “when you do, be sure to look out for it.”
Grace stepped out onto the set looking more glamorous than Gwendolyn suspected the woman had ever looked before.
“Thank you so much for joining us,” she said. “I’m guessing this feels so very far from the mill town you grew up in.”
“Yes.”
Gwendolyn waited for Grace to follow up with a pithy observation about Hollywood or her life of instant riches and fame, but Grace just sat there, sweat bleeding through the heavy powder that Lucille’s guy had plastered across her forehead.
Gwendolyn would have preferred the unvarnished hillbilly she’d encountered backstage to the bizarrely attractive mute sitting in front of her. She realized that Hal King’s handiwork had thrown Grace for a loop, too.
“My darling,” Lana clamped a hand on top of the author’s shaking paw, “why don’t you tell us about the news you shared with me when we were backstage.”
Grace’s head remained immobile. “My what?”
“Your new novel?”
Some semblance of life sparked behind Grace’s false eyelashes. “When you have a bestseller, it’s all chocolate and champagne, but sooner or later you have to come up with the next book.”
“And have you?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Yes!” The word was more of a high-pitched squeak. “I’m writing a sequel. And it’s gonna be sensational! We’ll follow what happens to the daughter, Allison MacKenzie, after she writes a book about her hometown. Let’s just say, the locals? They ain’t happy.”
“Do you have a name for it?” Lana asked.
“What else could I call it but Return to Peyton Place?”
Gwendolyn had been friends with Kathryn Massey long enough to know the sort of mileage that could be extracted from a scoop like this. Grace’s revelation was enough to give Brick by Brick the go-ahead. She let out a long breath as though she’d been holding it in for a week.