Los Angeles, 1926
Ramón
Lola’s cousin Ramón Novarro was the new Rudolph Valentino.
Ramón had come to Los Angeles with his brother Mariano right after the Revolution. The war had swept away everything—the family estate, their father’s cash, their mother’s jewels—and so Ramón did odd jobs, worked in community theater, waited on tables, and modeled for artists to survive. But what he wanted was to be in the movies. Mariano might pump gas or sweep floors. Ramón looked for work that would advance his career. He hung around the studios, auditioned for parts, and lingered outside the doors of directors.
In the end, it paid off. The director Rex Ingram liked his face and decided to give him a break. He played up Ramón’s sultry good looks, his athleticism, and his youth. He played down his height—about five feet ten inches—and his emergent belly. He starred him in hit after hit. The most recent was Ben-Hur, for which, according to the newspapers, Ramón was getting ten thousand dollars a week. Even though it wasn’t true, the report made for good publicity.
Lola hadn’t seen him since she’d danced to his flamenco guitar at her Tío Francisco’s house, about fifteen years before. He was five years her senior and knew English, which made her think of him as superior, even though her father said it was shameful that the boy had his heart set on being a ballet dancer. Lola never saw anything wrong with his desire to dance. He was funny, and he could sing American songs. He knew all the numbers from Sally and taught her to sing “Look for a Silver Lining.” As for me, I remembered him as my first crush, the boy I wanted to notice me, but never did.
Now he’d invited Lola and Jaime to lunch, but something was strange. Why, she wondered, hadn’t he invited her to his home on Gramercy Street, where he lived with his parents and siblings? Why were they meeting at the home of a friend?
“Mara,” she said. “I want you to come with me. Jaime refuses to go.”
I didn’t want to go with her. For one thing, I was revolted by her carrying on with Carewe. For another, I was miffed that she still hadn’t asked Ed to hire me as a regular employee of First National. “Jaime should accompany you,” I said smugly. “After all, he’s your husband.”
But in the end, I said yes. She was paying me to be her hairdresser, and I needed the money. I wanted to keep her happy.
Lola was becoming used to the company of celebrities. Carewe made sure she was included in every Hollywood bash he could wriggle an invitation to. But now she was a bit nervous. She remembered Ramón as a fun-loving boy who pirouetted around Tío Paco’s patio, but here he had the reputation of being something of a recluse, a star who shunned Hollywood parties altogether or attended for a few moments, then discreetly disappeared.
A valet answered the door. He wore blue trousers and a tight blue-and-white-striped shirt instead of a uniform.
“They’re in the sitting room,” he said with a wink. “Come on, follow me.” No “good afternoon, ma’am.” No “may I take your jacket, ma’am?”
“They?”
“Ramón and Lou.”
“And you are...?” ventured Lola.
“Ray, the valet,” chirped the young man. “Ray, the valet, from Mandalay! Whore by night, whore by day!” he chanted in a singsong.
“Stop that, Ray!” called a voice from inside.
A young man appeared in the vestibule. He had the same perfectly sculpted face that I remembered, but a higher forehead, a more pointed chin, broader shoulders, and a pudgier build. He wore his hair slicked back Valentino-style. He sported a silk foulard and an Arrow shirt.
“Lola, darling!” Ramón took her jacket and led her to the drawing room. “This is Lou Samuel, my secretary,” he said, nodding at a handsome young man in a golf shirt. “This is his house. And that mischievous boy is Ray Albrecht, Lou’s manservant.”
“Manservant!” snorted Ray. “I’m Lou’s assistant, Ramón, not his servant!”
“Isn’t he impossible? Come, Lola, sit down. Aunt Antonia wrote to my mother, and suddenly it occurred to me that you’ve been here for months, and I haven’t even invited you for lunch. It’s just that I was abroad in Italy filming Ben-Hur, and then, well, my schedule has been just atrocious, Lola. My next movie project is The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. Aunt Antonia says you’re almost fluent in English already. Is that true?”
“I’ve been studying very hard. Ramón, I’d like to introduce you to my friend María Amparo Rojas.”
“They call me Mara,” I said shyly, holding out my hand.
“That’s wonderful, darling. You have a gift for languages. I still have an accent after all these years. Welcome, Mara.”
“Ray, bring us some drinks and hors d’oeuvres, please,” ordered Lou amiably. He slapped Ray gently on the behind. “Come on, lazy boy, get moving.”
“I rarely drink,” murmured Lola.
No, but she cheats on her husband, I thought. Once he sat down with a gin in hand, the old Ramón began to surface—animated and affable and full of news. He’d just engaged the famous psychotherapist Sylvia of Hollywood to help him screw his head back on, he said, and no, it wasn’t true what people said about him, that he slept in a coffin. Ben-Hur was a huge success, and no, he wasn’t embarrassed by the revealing costumes he had to wear. After all, during his hungry days he’d posed nude for artists.
“Ramón has a beautiful body,” murmured Lou, “and he doesn’t mind showing it.”
I looked from one to the other, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
“What do you need a psychotherapist for?” blurted out Lola.
“Darling, out here, everyone has a therapist. All the stars go to Sylvia.”
I had the impression that something wasn’t quite right with Ramón. He seemed as tense as a violin string.
“What does a psychotherapist do?” Lola asked.
Ramón exchanged glances with Lou. “Oh, you know, being raised Catholic... You’ll see that everything they taught you, all the guilt they stuffed into your brain... Well, out here, people are more uninhibited, more spontaneous. More authentic, you might say. And anyhow, this is 1926! It’s time to let go of all that old-fashioned nonsense, for God’s sake!” He stopped himself. “Or maybe not for God’s sake.”
“You don’t believe in God anymore, Ramón?”
“Yes, of course I believe in God. I believe deeply in God. I feel God in the mysterious silence of the night, really feel His presence. I go to mass every Sunday, and once a month I go to a spiritual retreat at Retiro San Iñigo, in Los Altos... It’s so peaceful there, you can really find your soul, your inner self. I believe in a God who loves me for who I truly am, Lola.”
Ramón and Lou exchanged another furtive glance.
“What do you think, Mara?” said Ramón, suddenly turning to me.
I must have turned as pink as a flamingo. I wasn’t expecting to be included in the conversation. Ramón was a big star with a bunch of hits under his belt—besides Ben-Hur, there was The Red Lily, The Midshipman—and yet, he was so considerate, so unpretentious. I mean, I was just...well, nobody in particular, and here he was asking my opinion. “I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “I think what matters most is how you behave yourself, how you treat other people...”
Lola stood up. “Where’s the powder room, Lou?” Maybe she thought my comment alluded to her.
She was gone a long time, longer than seemed necessary. When she finally returned, she seemed unsettled. What could have happened between the drawing room and the bathroom, I wondered.
“I saw something...” she told me afterward. “Something upsetting. My head was buzzing, as though swarms of wasps had nested in my skull.” She was so rattled, she wasn’t sure she could make it back. “I focused on maintaining my body erect,” she said. “One foot in front of the other. I inhaled deeply and held up my head, the way I’d learned in acting class. Control, I thought. I’m an actress. I’m in command of my movements.”
After she left the powder room, she took a wrong turn and stumbled into Lou’s bedroom. A cluster of photos on the wall caught her eye—photos of Ramón, all of them nude. Ramón in the shower, his back toward the camera. Ramón stretched out on a chaise longue, one knee artfully raised to shield his sex. Ramón facing the camera, fully exposed, staring brazenly out at the spectator. Ramón standing naked with a fully clothed Lou Samuel. And then, opposite the display of nudes, a large oil painting of a Christian martyr—she wasn’t sure which one—a delicate young man tied to a tree, his hands fastened to a branch above his head to emphasize the contours of his body. Sensuous arms, gently rippling shoulders, supple belly, sinuous thighs, graceful legs. Everywhere shot through with arrows.
“My gaze rose from his feet to his face,” murmured Lola. “His eyes... They were Ramón’s eyes. The saint’s face was Ramón’s face. All those nude photos and then this, Ramón, the suffering martyr.”
I bit my tongue. You have to understand, in those days, you didn’t talk openly about...that sort of thing, even though it was pretty common in Hollywood. William Haines lived with his lover, Jimmie Shields, and was a one box office success all the same. Greta Garbo went everywhere with her girlfriend. Clara Bow kissed her female costar in Maytime. And The Ten Commandments showed a bisexual orgy. People whispered about lavender love affairs, lavender marriages. As long as it didn’t get into the papers, you could get away with just about anything. Hollywood was tolerant. The general public was not. Folks in Boise or Duluth were not going to pay a quarter to see a movie that would shock the local pastor.
“Ramón must be...you know,” Lola whispered.
I shrugged it off. I was in love with Gabe. All I wanted was to get married and have the kind of normal family I’d never had growing up. I was a mere mortal, and the games of the Hollywood gods didn’t interest me.