Hollywood, California * October 3, 1941
Louis, Harry, and Ava were so awestruck they hardly knew where they were. Champagne coupes clinked in the air all around them. None of them had ever been to a Hollywood screening, let alone one with such lavish pomp and circumstance.
Once they stepped from the chauffeured car the studio had sent for them, they were lost in a swell of bodies clad in evening gowns and tuxedos, milling about outside the theater. Velvet ropes created an aisle and there was plush red carpet underfoot, covering every inch of sidewalk for almost a full block. It was as though a party had turned itself inside out, as though the theater—a stark white adobe building styled to look like a hacienda or maybe a great palace in Spain—had opened its mouth and its sumptuous ruby interior had spilled out onto the surrounding pavement.
Outside the main entrance, a showgirl in a shimmery dress stepped up onto a riser and struggled to lift a bottle nearly half her size, eventually managing to pour it over a pyramid of glasses stacked three feet high atop a table. Her arms quivered, betraying the perfectly lipsticked smile she beamed throughout her struggle. Onlookers cheered as golden suds slipped down the champagne fountain and the pyramid of glasses began to fill up, brimming over and filling each successive tier below. More coupes clinked.
Photographers’ lightbulbs flashed and popped, and magnesium sparks showered the dark with spectacular brilliance. Doll-eyed women, most of them minor starlets, wiggled up the crimson swath of carpet, sipping champagne, speaking a few words into the radio announcer’s giant silver microphone, turning and waving before disappearing between the dark curtains that flanked the theater’s entrance. The majority of these beauties were escorted by various Hollywood types: producers, directors, leading men, oil barons, eccentrics—even the occasional European aristocrat. Ava couldn’t help but notice that a great number of the starlets wore hats with veils pulled down over only one eye, or else had their hair pinned to one side, occasionally festooned with a flower tucked over the exposed ear, each of them with their blond, brunette, or red smooth-brushed curls spilling over one shoulder like a liquid wave of silk. They reminded Ava of her mother’s efforts to imitate an earlier generation of starlets in what already felt like a lifetime ago, living in that little bungalow in Santa Monica.
A SELECT ENGAGEMENT, the marquee above the theater read.
“I still feel like there’s been some kind of mix-up,” Louis breathed in disbelief.
“Shhh,” Harry hissed, “or they’ll catch on and give us the boot.” He winked.
“HELLO THERE!” came a jovial roaring voice. They turned to see Buster Farrow. He was a large bear of a man, well over six feet, with graying hair and very pale blue eyes. His face was slightly red and he was puffing prodigiously on a cigar. “Boys, boys—my boys!” he repeated, his cheeks shining as he smiled. “Welcome! We are honored to have you here!”
The event was technically an “exhibition”—a screening of several different stuntmen plying their trade, all of them motorcyclists and wing-walkers and the like. Buster Farrow had—with the help of his assistants, of course (it turned out there were nine)—rounded up all of the daredevil acts that had recently caught Farrow’s eye and commissioned ten minutes or so of film to be shot of each. Then he’d had the footage all cut together, with black title cards to introduce each stunt act, and a sound reel laid in for good effect. It was a slapdash job, but it was good enough for a single screening. The idea was to call it a “special event,” but, more important, Farrow wanted to screen the different stunt acts together to see how a Hollywood audience reacted to them. He liked everyone who his studio employed to constantly compete; it kept the overhead low and the profits up.
Farrow pumped Louis’s and Harry’s hands and welcomed them inside the theater.
“And who do we have here?” he asked, noticing Ava for the first time. He towered over her, leering a little at her pretty mouth and lithe figure; but when he got to her décolletage—or lack thereof—his interest waned.
Ava fought the urge to roll her eyes at him.
“Only one date between the two of you?” Farrow joked.
“This is Ava Brooks,” Louis explained. “She’s . . . well, she helps us run our act. She does the books for our barnstorming spectacle.”
“I’m here as their manager,” Ava said in a matter-of-fact voice.
Farrow raised an eyebrow.
“Oh-ho! Manager, is it?” His lips twisted into a jovial, bemused grin. “I guess I’d better be on the lookout for this one, eh, boys?”
This time Ava openly rolled her eyes at Farrow, but Farrow took no notice, herding them all into the theater instead.
“If you’ll pardon me, I ought to say hello to some of the other stars and their, ahem, managers . . .” Farrow winked at Louis and Harry, still ignoring Ava. “Enjoy the show, fellas! Nothing like seeing yourself on that silver screen, I hear. We’ll talk afterward!”
With that, he shuffled off to clap some other, brawnier stuntmen on the back in greeting.
“He’s not going to offer us a movie contract,” Louis said. “He thinks we’re small fry. Besides, he already got the footage he wanted for free.”
“You don’t know that,” Harry insisted. He turned to Ava. “What do you think?”
“I think that man doesn’t do anything that isn’t in his best interest,” she replied. “And in some ways that’s encouraging: There is the slightest chance that in this case his interest runs parallel to ours.” She looked at Louis and Harry. “You’re talented—both of you,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Eagle & Crane steals the show tonight,” she predicted.
Unaccustomed to the sound of blatant compliments spilling from Ava’s lips, Louis and Harry were surprised into silence. More trays of champagne were being passed around them as they lingered in the lobby; one whizzed quite close to Ava’s shoulder and she turned to lift a pair of glasses, offering them to Louis and Harry.
“Cheers,” she said, flashing them a rare grin.
The beautiful people around them continued to mill about until, at last, a bell rang, the signal for the audience to take their seats. Everyone in the lobby made a quick move to shuffle into the theater, and the three of them followed, sinking into their seats just as the lights went down. A curtain opened and a projector flickered to life. There were no advertisements, no newsreels. A hush settled over the theater.
“THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF TIME,” boomed the narrator’s voice, “MANKIND HAS DARED TO PERFORM FEATS OF BRAVERY, PUSHING HIS LIMITS FURTHER AND FURTHER . . . NOW MODERN TECHNOLOGY HAS ALLOWED TRUE DAREDEVILS TO GO FURTHER THAN EVER BEFORE, HIGHER, AND FASTER THAN WAS ONCE THOUGHT POSSIBLE! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET’S DELVE DEEP AND TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE GREATEST LIVING STUNTMEN OF OUR DAY!!!”
Out the corner of her eye, Ava observed both Louis and Harry watching the footage very carefully as the movie progressed. The other stuntmen were profiled first; Eagle & Crane turned out to be last on the reel. They watched the other performances with rapt attention, nonetheless agonizing to see Eagle & Crane turn up on-screen. Louis and Harry both held their breath as the black title card announcing their act finally appeared and the screen flickered to life with their own grainy black-and-white shapes performing various tricks.
The cameraman had done a pretty good job capturing their various stunts: You could even make out a little bit what the storyline was behind their choreography. Ava knew that would make Louis proud; he’d come up with the idea to have a story in the first place, and had even drawn it out like one of his comic books. For the purposes of the exhibition, their forty-five-or-so-minute act had been compressed down into twelve minutes. This gave it an additional impression of exhilarating, nonstop action.
When their act concluded, their familiar Stearman—piloted by Hutch—flew off into the sunset in a parting shot, and the theater lights came up. The audience began to cheer and applaud as though they had just witnessed a live performance. It was clear that Eagle & Crane was the finale, the favorite. Ava looked to Louis and Harry, who were grinning madly and blushing at the same time, as though overcome with a strange sense of embarrassment mingled with pride.
“So, boys,” Farrow called to them, leaning over the aisle and grinning in his tuxedo, “whaddaya say I take you fellas out for a late supper and we talk about your future?”
“I dunno . . . you better ask our manager,” Harry replied.
Louis elbowed him, but Ava only gazed at Harry, rolling her eyes. It was a different kind of eye roll than the one she’d given Farrow earlier. Harry could be cocky and ridiculous sometimes, and for that she was grateful.