NOSTALGIA
Everyone these days seems fascinated with the past: places, events, things; what people did, what they read, how they were entertained. And the greatest of our fascinations is unquestionably Hollywood. What was it like in the old days, the Golden Era of Bogart and Gable and Cagney? Well, Sam Swanson and Herman Greenfield, the protagonists of Betty Buchanan’s “Hollywood Footprints,” know exactly what it was like. And so does Betty herself: she comes from a theatrical family, grew up in Hollywood, has worked for such studios as RKO, MGM, Universal, and Disney Productions, and has written for Billboard and Daytime TV (the latter of which she is presently for as their Hollywood Editor). She is also the author of two well-received mystery novels under the pseudonym of Joan Shepherd. - B.P.
Sam Swanson had gone to the funeral of the old movie star Jason Towers, and a sudden attack of nostalgia made him head over the Pass to Hollywood instead of driving west to Woodland Hills. It had been years since he’d walked down Hollywood Boulevard. Without realizing it, he hoped to find some of the old magic still there. As a young press agent, he’d arrived in 1939 fresh from a grubby midwestern newspaper, and found Hollywood was all he had ever dreamed. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, it still existed as he’d first seen it, an illusion he’d managed to preserve by staying west of Doheny.
It was still early in the day, so he was able to park on Sycamore.
At the corner, he turned east on Hollywood Boulevard and walked down to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, his spirit dimming somewhat as he passed the featureless new buildings and the raffish new population. In the old days, he reflected, the cops would have hustled most of these cuckoos out of town, tossing them across Alvarado, going east. From whence, no doubt, they had arrived.
He was happy to see that the Chinese still looked impressive, though Sid Grauman’s name had been taken off the theater he had built. Sam strolled about the forecourt, looking at the prints of all the stars who had plunked their hands and feet into wet cement for Sid and posterity. Sam had been to a hundred premieres (pronounced pree-meers in his time), but always as a working press agent. He’d never really taken the time to stroll over the pavement and look at all the prints and signatures. Publicity men were always too busy checking lists, hand-holding, getting the right people in front of the mikes and cameras. If they goofed off, they faced the wrath of Herman Greenfield.
In Sam’s day, the studios had been run by the tycoons and their families, a system which had seemed to be a law of nature. And the tycoon at the head of the dream factory where Sam had worked was a wild man named Herman Greenfield. In all the other studios, the impact of publicity was only an echo that reached the head man when something went terrifically right or terribly wrong. Not with Herman, Sam recalled. Herman knew everyone in the department, and he wasn’t above striding over to the offices and raising hell in person when he felt like it.
As he wandered over the irregular pavement of the famous forecourt, Sam remembered some of the exciting—and some of the deadly—nights in which he had participated, only slightly less starry-eyed than the fans beyond the barricades. He almost laughed aloud, thinking of Herman and the three-ring circus on premiere occasions. The lights sweeping the skies, the near disasters, the drunks, the fans, the confusion…then, the last fulsome gush into the microphone…the house lights down…the hush…the crackling sound track…and “Herman Greenfield Presents…” And, of course, the applause.
Suddenly, Sam was stopped in mid-reverie by activity in the far comer of the forecourt. Wooden forms. Buckets. Protective canvas draped over sawhorses. Someone important had just had his or her footprints saved for the future. Sam went over to see if the new name would be at all familiar. He made a small bet with himself that it wouldn’t be. It wasn’t. But he was fascinated to see that the cement square next to it contained the prints and signature of Dorina Belle.
He’d almost forgotten her. Oh, how adored she had been. He was happy to see that her bit of pavement was one of the larger ones, though from her prints, she must have had the feet of a ten-year-old girl. Her time had been brief. Sam had been here the night of her triumphant appearance at the premiere of her best-known film, This Gilded Planet. He tried to remember that night. Dorina interviewed by the emcee…Dorina pressing her hands into the wet cement…Dorina standing with one foot extended prettily while an attendant made the impression, and she held on to Herman Greenfield’s arm to keep her balance…Dorina triumphant! And then she had walked out of the wet cement, out of the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese—and disappeared forever.
Now it looked as if they were getting ready to dispense with even this last remembrance of Dorina; the grout around her prints had been partly chiseled away. Sam hadn’t realized that they took out the old, forgotten footprints. He supposed they must be running out of space; it had been fifty years since Norma Talmadge had walked into the wet cement by mistake and started the tradition.
A young usher was standing at the entrance, talking to the ticket taker, and Sam went over and asked about the cement work in the corner. “I don’t know, exactly,” said the usher. “They started it last night before I came on. Could be they’re going to move the box office over there.”
“That’s not it,” said the ticket taker. “They’ve just put in the new one. I think they’re going to take out an old one and put it someplace else.”
Sam went back to the sidewalk in front of the theater and stood looking out at the traffic and thinking about Dorina, the disappearing star. The rumors—she had eloped, and would return. She had run away, frightened by the sudden fame. She had contracted a rare disease and was confined in a sanitarium, her great beauty destroyed.
There had not been time to know her very well, Sam reflected. All he recalled now was a mobile face, sad eyes, and a surprising liveliness on the screen. He also remembered one tough little cookie. Sam had written her bio and given her a background to go with her face and screen personality—army officer father, socialite mother, European education. In reality, she was a child from a vaudeville act who had known only work, discipline, and ambition. Beyond that—nothing.
Sam remembered how Herman Greenfield had gone into action as the rumor of Dorina’s disappearance spread. Frantic stories to the press. Midnight conferences. Detectives in the offices, even on the sets. Rumors of pay-offs. The hints in the columns that Dorina would return. The story was rehashed in the magazines from time to time. But Dorina never reappeared. And now, everyone who cared was gone. Or almost everyone. I’m still here, Sam said to himself. And so is old Herman.
Greenfield, the ex-terror and ex-tycoon, was now an old man who lived with his son’s family in a Spanish castle in a no-longer-fashionable section of Hollywood. Poor Herman! Without Marge, the peppery little wife who had believed in Herman and his studio as fiercely as he himself did, he had gradually withdrawn from the business. Her death had also brought a halt to the famed Greenfield parties. After a time, people forgot that he was still around. Sam had exchanged phone numbers with him at last year’s Christmas party at the Masquers, and though Sam had promised to call, he never had.
He found the number in his address book and called from the booth in front of the theater. Herman’s voice sounded the same. And that was reassuring. “I’m here in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese,” Sam explained, “and I suddenly found myself thinking about you, Herman. I thought I’d just call and see how things are going.”
“How things are going, for Christ sake?” Herman barked. “How the hell do you think they’re going? I’m older than God, and I’ve got a houseful of grandchildren playing guitars. And a daughter-in-law from New York with an I.Q. of two hundred who hates movies. So things are just great. What about you, Swanson?”
“I went to the Towers funeral this morning,” Sam said. “Then I drove over to Hollywood to look around.”
“Damned place looked like a toilet the last time I was down there.”
“They’re still putting new footprints in the forecourt at Grauman’s, anyway. Oh, by the way, I think they’re removing Dorina Belle’s cement square. They’re going to move the box office or something.”
“What?” Herman barked.
“Dorina Belle,” Sam repeated. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that night?”
“Jee-sus! Forgotten? Listen. I’ll meet you at Radlick’s in twenty minutes.” Bang. He’d hung up.
Radlick’s? It took Sam a moment to remember that there had been a little cafe of that name in a corner of the theater property—but it hadn’t been there for at least twenty years. Sam went over and stood in front of the souvenir shop that had replaced it.
Fifteen minutes later, a Mercedes driven by an angry-looking, dark-haired woman pulled up in front of the theater, and Herman Greenfield hopped out. He stuck his head back into the car, had a few words with the woman and then stood and watched the car zoom off. He looked around for a moment, spotted Sam, and said, “Hello, Swanson. What happened to Radlick’s?”
Sam explained. “Doesn’t matter,” Herman said. “What I want to see is what the hell they’re doing with Dorina’s footprints.”
He must be seventy, Sam thought in amazement, and he hasn’t changed at all. Sam felt a little sorry for the smart daughter-in-law.
Herman strode over to the comer where the new footprints were slowly drying, and where the edges of Dorina’s square had been partly chipped away. He stepped onto Dorina’s piece of cement with an air of ownership. As he did so, the usher and the ticket taker approached. “Watch out for the wet cement, fella,” the usher said.
“Where’s the manager?” Herman barked. “Tell him Herman Greenfield wants to see him.”
The ticket taker recognized the name and immediately became respectful. The two young men went off to find the manager.
When the manager appeared, he also seemed suitably impressed by Greenfield. ‘‘No, no, sir,” he said, “we are certainly not removing any of the old footprints, and we’re not relocating the box office. Nothing will be changed. After the ceremony, we decided to renew the grout around some of the older sections. Just chisel it down slightly and smooth the surface. Merely cosmetic. We can’t change anything. This is a historical site.”
“You’re damned right,” said Herman. The two shook hands, and the manager left, barely concealing a sigh of relief. Herman Greenfield still had that effect on people.
Sam had sensed a thread to be picked up. “You must have had a bad time when Dorina disappeared that night.”
“Bad time is hardly the expression. I went through hell. God, it’s great to talk to someone with a memory. I’ve been alone with so much, Sam.” Herman paused, studying Sam as if trying to reach a difficult decision. An indecisive Greenfield? Finally, he took a deep breath and continued. “I’ve been alone with the truth too long. When you get older, a secret eats at your mind, and sooner or later you’ve got to get rid of it. You’re afraid to take a drink—you might tell the wrong people. So I’m going to trust you, Sam. But it goes no further. Swear?”
“On the memory of D. W. Griffith,” Sam said, frowning.
“That’s good enough for me. Well—you know me, Sam; no casting couch crap, ever. Right? But somehow, I’d gotten involved with Dorina. She was so clever and ambitious, and I guess I was flattered. Anyway, Dorina’s big night arrived, and I figured that was the end of the affair. It was a relief. And she’d gotten what she wanted. So, after the premiere, when everyone was still milling around, my wife and I and Dorina got into the car…”
But I thought she’d gone off alone,” Sam said.
Herman shook his head. “There was so much confusion that no one remembered we’d left together. Then that legend about Dorina walking away alone got started. Fortunately. Anyhow, we drove back toward Bel Air, and on the ride home, Dorina decides this is it. The whole enchilada! She tells Marge that we’re in love and that we’re going to get married. Marge knew something was going on, but that was a bombshell. Marge was prepared, though. People always underestimate wives. Marge whipped out the little gun she’d carried ever since the last Hollywood kidnap scare and shot Dorina right through her gorgeous head.”
Sam was so astounded that it took him a couple of beats to recover. “What—what did you do?”
‘‘Buried her. What else? Poor Dorina! We did it late that night. It was one hell of a job, and we had to be very careful. And very neat. But we managed.”
“But where? Where did you bury her?”
Herman Greenfield gave him a studio mogul stare. “Where?” he repeated. “What the hell do you think you’re standing on?”
Sam looked down. He was standing on Dorina Belle’s footprints.