Los Angeles, 1926
A Feather in the Wind
Lola knew she should be overjoyed. Joanna opened in Mexico on March 6, at the Salón Rojo, to glittering reviews. She was listed third in the credits, and her name was spelled right. In High Steppers, Dolores Del Rio appeared right after Mary Astor, the lead, and now she’d completed two more new films. So, what was wrong? Why was she sobbing into her pillow at night?
“I don’t know what the matter with me is,” she confided. I was styling her hair for publicity shots for What Price Glory? Carewe wanted her looking very French and sexy.
“Hold your head up,” I ordered. “Otherwise, I can’t get your curls right.”
She really was a celebrity now. Women imitated her clothes, and men hung photos of her in their workrooms. Yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was a feather in the wind with no control over her direction or destiny.
“Last night I woke up in the middle of the night,” she whispered. “Jaime was snoring softly. He has this odor...like an old person. The moonlight was streaming through the slats in the blinds and cast a soft, sickly glow on his bald spot. I thought... God forgive me...how could I ever have been in love with this man? I pulled myself out of bed and fumbled toward the bathroom. I switched on the light and looked at my face in the mirror.”
I know what she saw: perfect, smooth, luminous skin. Lofty forehead. Flawlessly arched eyebrows. Colossal eyes—rich and brown and seductive like expensive Belgian chocolate.
“What are you complaining about?” I said. “You’re a household name, just like you wanted.”
The studio publicity wizards had recast her into an exotic siren, and now she had a newly sculpted nose, slender and symmetrical, to go with her heart-shaped mouth, prettily puckered and pink even without lipstick. She was dark enough to market as a “female Valentino,” but light-complected enough to get past the miscegenation laws that forbade showing mixed-race couples onscreen. The studios were marketing Ramón as a new type, not the traditional blond he-man played by actors like Wallace Reid, but the “Latin lover”—alluring and mysterious, but still Caucasian. Lola was the female version.
“I saw a wrinkle,” she said.
“Ah yes,” I said. “As Judas was to Jesus, so are wrinkles to a starlet!”
“Don’t tease me, Mara!”
“You have a devoted husband, impeccable skin, a twenty-inch waist, and a spectacular career,” I said. “Stop whining!”
I was anxious to finish up and leave. Gabe was going to take me to a baseball game that evening, and I was excited—not because I cared anything about baseball, but because we were going to double-date with his brother Vince and Vince’s girlfriend, Julie. It meant something, I thought, that Gabe wanted to introduce me to his older brother.
“Sit up!” I commanded.
But her head kept drooping. She hadn’t slept well. The fruits of a guilty conscience, I was sure. Jaime had become unbearably jealous, Lola complained, but who could blame him? Not only did Carewe cast Lola in sexy roles, but now the publicity was getting more suggestive. First National ran an ad for Pals First in which Lola appeared surrounded by the faces of six of the studio’s handsomest male stars and the words, “Who is her next great love?”
Jaime was growing weary not only of Lola’s screen image, but of Edwin Carewe’s constant presence in her life. The sleazy gringo dictated her roles, her clothes, and her publicity shots. He even decided what parties she would go to—and with whom. Sometimes she went with her husband, but sometimes she didn’t. Often she appeared on Carewe’s arm. People whispered that they were having an affair, and I suspect that was exactly what Carewe wanted.
“Jaime tenses up every time the phone rings,” she told me. “‘It’s for you, I suppose,’ he says. ‘No one ever calls me.’ And then, in an accusatory tone, ‘It’s probably Ed.’”
Was Jaime’s jealousy a sign of love or fear for his reputation? Maybe both. You have to understand that for a Mexican man of his class, an unfaithful wife was a disgrace. Jaime was, after all, a Martínez del Río y Viñent. Lola had confided that he was a dead fish in bed, and people were insinuating that he would rather make love to a boy than to his wife. Maybe Carewe planted those rumors. Who knows?
Carewe was growing weary, too—and he told her so. He was sick of waiting for her to leave Jaime. Her husband was dragging down her career, he said, and it was time for her to cut her losses and get rid of him, just as he was going to get rid of Mary Akin.
To be honest, I didn’t really feel sorry for Lola. If she felt pulled in two directions, it was her own fault. Why had she let Carewe into her life—and bed—in the first place?
Four men crowded into the room. “We’re ready for the shoot,” they said.
Lola, Carewe, and I followed them into the photography studio. Carewe removed a little black beret from a costume bag.
“You play a French girl,” he said, “so wear this.” He plopped the beret down on her head. She struck a seductive pose. The beret slid down over her forehead.
“Shit!” bellowed Carewe. He turned to me. “Give me a bobby pin.”
He fixed the beret in place and took a step backward to assess the effect. Again, Lola struck a seductive pose. “That’s no good!” he groaned. “It casts a shadow over her forehead.”
Lola looked as though she were ready to drop, but her drowsiness worked in her favor. It gave her a heavy-lidded, come-hither look.
Ed pushed the beret to the back of her head. It looked like the Pope’s skullcap. “Oh fuck,” he said. “That’s worse.”
“Here,” I said. “Let me.” I took the beret from Carewe and placed it at an angle on Lola’s head, fastening it with two discreetly placed bobby pins. Now it stayed firm and didn’t cast any shadows.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Carewe. “Who the hell are you?”
“The hairdresser,” I said.
“Well, you’ve got a real eye for it, kid. Have you been doing Lola’s hair all this time?” He stared at me as though I looked vaguely familiar. “You on the staff?”
“No, sir. I work for Miss Del Rio. But I’d love to—”
“Put her on the staff, Mike,” he said to his assistant. He turned to me. “Go over to Makeup and Hair. Mike will take care of the paperwork.”
Lola was beaming as though the whole idea had been hers. Finally! I thought. I couldn’t wait to tell Gabe.
That evening, when he picked me up, Tía Emi didn’t bother coming to the door.
“Does she still think I’m Jack the Ripper?”
“I think so,” I giggled.
He gave me his hand, and we walked toward the trolley stop. I was twenty years old, and that was the first time I’d ever held hands with a boy.