American Dreams (58 page)

Wandering in the crowd, she said hello to Henry Walthall from Biograph, the star of the picture. Then she fell into conversation with an affable young assistant cameraman who introduced himself as Karl Brown. She asked about the ammunition they were using.

'Live rounds in the cannon,' he said blandly. 'And firework bombs tossed by men out of camera range. What we shot this morning looked mighty real.'

Members of the crew finished eating and drifted back to work. Most were stripped to the waist and pouring sweat. At the number one camera she saw Billy Bitzer conferring with Mr. Griffith. Bitzer looked ready to melt in his long sleeves, tight collar, and necktie. Griffith by contrast looked cool in a buttoned-up summer suit and straw hat with the top cut out to let the sun bathe his scalp. She remembered someone saying he believed sunlight prevented baldness. Griffith saw her, smiled, and tipped his hat.

The battle staged that afternoon was spectacular and noisy. Griffith had worked out an elaborate signal system using assistant directors with semaphore flags and mirrors to cue masses of men on the battlefield. Soldiers in rebel gray ran at breastworks defended by soldiers in Union blue.

Cavalry charged and counter-charged. Playing a Confederate colonel, Henry Walthall led his men to the enemy lines and personally spiked a Union gun. In the dust and confusion it was impossible to find Loy in the galloping troops of cavalry.

The cannon pounded; the firework bombs burst and spread smoke that burned her eyes and made them water. For a few thrilling and eerie moments Fritzi felt she'd been shot backward through time fifty years. She
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had a taste of what her father must have experienced when he fought for the North.

Mid-afternoon, an actor fell off a horse and was carried away on a Fritzi and Loy 361

stretcher. That was the only injury. It testified to Griffith's careful planning.

Late in the day the sun's angle changed and a perceptible haze weakened the light. Griffith polled his various camera positions, found all the operators satisfied with what they'd gotten, and called a halt.

She wanted to speak to Griffith, but he was busy, constantly moving, and she couldn't catch him. .She camped in the shade of a hilltop eucalyptus grove as the extras collected their pay and dispersed to autos or the trolley stop. The crew loaded equipment into trucks. In about fifteen minutes Loy came tramping up the hillside, boots dusty, blue work shirt open halfway down his sweaty chest. Remembering his manners, he buttoned it hastily, then stepped up to her with a tip of his sugarloaf hat.

'I thought you might not find me,' Fritzi said.

'Spotted you an hour ago. Can't miss those stripes.' When he touched her arm to help her stand, the sensation was like a charge of electricity.

'Hungry? There's a madhouse that serves food close by. Or we can catch a red car and go somewhere.'

'I have the studio automobile. We can go anywhere you'd like.'

'Well, aren't you something?' He kept his hand on her elbow, steadying her in a gentlemanly way as they walked over the broken ground toward the access road. 'I know a little cantina in south Los Angeles, if that isn't too far a piece.'

'Oh, no.' She'd drive to the North Pole if he was with her.

It took them about an hour to travel to the city, Loy relaxing in the passenger seat while she maneuvered through the traffic, horse-drawn and horseless, that seemed to grow heavier every week. She felt wonderful. Her driving veil trailed out jauntily behind the open car. Loy chatted amiably, his hat tilted over his eyes and one arm draped over the Packard's door.

He had a puppy-like friendliness, the other side of that violent streak she'd seen in him.

The cantina was a dim, quiet place, without electricity. Candles lit the rough-hewn tables. Sawdust covered the floor. Loy ordered for them --

flour tortillas with a hot beef and bean filling and a wicker-covered jug of red wine.

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'When did you come to California, Loy?'

'Let's see. 'Bout four years ago now. Family had a ranch in Bailey County, right up against the New Mexico border. After our uncle died I got restless, and my sister -- well, she couldn't handle the work anymore.'

Something unhappy clouded his eyes. 'We sold out.'

'You seem to be doing well in pictures.'

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'I reckon. Work's slowing down some. Week before I did the job at Liberty, the one where you got everyone laughing fit to bust, I was hired by Ince for another Western. He had to shut it down after the first day.1

'Why?7

'Not enough horses. Griffith's corralled a lot of them. European buyers are picking up the rest.'

'What on earth for?'

'Cavalry and artillery. They say everybody's setting up for a war over there.'

Fritzi shivered. The mention of war upset her. She wanted nothing to spoil the delicious feeling she got from the wine and his nearness.

'I hope to heaven there's no war,' she said.

He shrugged. 'Can't see that it would bother us if it happened. You mind if I smoke?'

'Oh, no! Please!'

Her enthusiasm amused him. He lit a curved pipe packed with tobacco that smelled of rum.

is this your first day working for Mr. Griffith?'

'No. Last weekend he took a passel of men down to Whittier, outfitted us all in Ku Klux robes for what he called the big Klan ride to the rescue.

I didn't much care for it. You see, Sis and I lost our folks early. We were raised by our Uncle Nate. He rode for the Confederacy in the war, Seventh Texas Volunteer Cavalry. But he didn't have much heart for the slave cause, he was like Bob Lee that way. After the war he said he was American again, and would obey American laws, including the ones saying nigras were free citizens, entitled to the same rights as white folks.

Some around Uncle Nate's spread in Bailey County didn't like that. They
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burned him out twice. Men with hoods. Strikes me this Mr. Griffith's just a high-class copy. No hood, but the same old hate. You can see it in his picture.'

Made bold by the wine, she said, 'Do you think you'll settle down sometime?'

He took his pipe from his mouth and leaned back in his chair, as if retreating. Fritzi was alarmed.

'Doubt it. It's in my blood to drift.'

A fat man in an embroidered shirt climbed on a stool with his guitar, began to play 'CVe/tfo Linda?

'Will you go back to Texas?'

His mouth set. 'Never.'

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'Not even to visit your sister?'

'Isn't much point. Likely she wouldn't recognize me. She lives in a state hospital. Always will.' He tapped a fingernail on the bowl of his pipe.

'Poor thing's not right in the head.'

'Oh, Loy, I'm sorry. Has she always--?'

He shook his head. 'Something bad happened to her right before I left Bailey County. Just as soon not talk about it, you don't mind.'

The moment of warmth and intimacy was ruined, as though a whole bank of arc lights had blazed on to illuminate the dark and grimy corners of the cantina, the cracks in the whitewashed walls, the stains on the waiter's apron. Loy pushed his plate away, emptied his wine glass, reached in his jeans for money. Fritzi touched his wrist.

Til pay. I promised I would.'

He didn't argue.

She dropped him at a corner in downtown Los Angeles at half past nine. He walked around to her side of the auto, helped her out for a stretch on the curb.

'You be all right driving home?'

'Just fine. The city's perfectly safe. In an emergency I always have this.'

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She tapped the pearl head of her long hat pin.

'Well, then' - he extended his hand - 'thanks so much. For the meal and the good time.'

'Can we do it again? I'd like that.'

He studied her, as if trying to figure her intent. 'Why not? I don't have many friends, because I never stay put for long. I'd like to count you a friend. I don't have a telephone where I live, but the gents at the Waterhole will always get a message to me.'

'Fine.' Fritzi leaned forward suddenly, kissed his cheek. 'Good night.'

He smiled, gave her a long, warm look that melted her down to her toes.' 'Night.' He tipped his hat, turned, and sauntered off in the glare of electric signs.

She walked around the gleaming hood of the Packard, slid behind the wheel. Loy reached the corner and disappeared. She put her hands on the steering wheel, rested her forehead against them.

I'd like to count you a friend.

Oh, no, not good enough. Not nearly good enough for someone hopelessly m love.

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67 That Sunday

Early on Monday B.B. called Fritzi to his office, a large room in the main house crowded with secondhand furniture and quirky wall decorations.

These included a stuffed moose head adorned with a Scots tarn, a color lithograph of Teddy Roosevelt in Rough Rider uniform, an eye chart topped by a giant E, a photo of a wrinkled woman with a peasant face, signed ""To Sonny, love Mama.'

'How are you this morning, my gel? Have a chair, make yourself comfortable. I'll be with you in one second.' He ran out to confer with his

secretary. Fritzi noticed a colorful steamship brochure on his desk. The cover bore a painting of a Cunard liner and a drawing of the British lion standing upright and juggling the globe on its forepaws.

B.B. returned and noticed her studying the brochure. 'Pretty swank, ain't it? Next trip we make to Europe, Sophie wants a luxury suite.'

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Fritzi waited. B.B. cleared his throat, rearranged some articles on the desk, blurted:

'Hayman's wild for Eddie's comedy idea. When he saw the footage he nearly fell out of his socks. Al yapped about the waste of film, but that lasted about half a minute. He wants you in the picture too.'

'I see.'

'You're disappointed.'

'Am I only good for pratfalls, B.B.?'

'Now, now. Eddie feels this is a big opportunity. The picture's sure to click.'

'He would.'

'Please go along with this. I'm pleading, Fritzi. Don't upset the apple cart when we're in high cotton and the Liberty boat's riding the crest.' He saw she was not persuaded, 'listen, I'm not a slave driver. You really hate the idea, I'll tear up your contract. You want to go back to Broadway?

Nobody will stand in your way.'

Innocent as a Buddha, he sat with folded hands, waiting. The old trickster, she thought. Someone had told him about Loy. He knew she wouldn't walk off. She liked B.B. far too much to be angry.

'All right. One more comedy.' She stood. 'Then I want a dramatic part.'

'That's my gel. That's my Knockabout Nell,' he cried.

That Sunday 365

She wandered to the rear of the lot, where glaziers were setting panels of glass in metal frames. Two walls of the new stage were complete. They reflected the sun and clouds like polished facets of a diamond.

Fritzi walked on, brushing overgrown weeds with her fingertips. In her reverie she saw the star-struck girl who had stood before Sargent's portrait of Ellen Terry at the great Chicago fair. That child, that innocent, had been so full of dreams. What had happened to them?

Experience had taught her answers to that question. Unfulfilled dreams disappeared, tucked away in some ghostly bureau drawer of the heart like last year's unwearable style - mementoes of what might or should have been.

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Sometimes dreams changed. Hers had changed, the way her face in the looking glass was changing slowly, the first crow's feet at the eye corners, the first roughening of the cheek scarcely noticed until, one shocking day, they showed in the glass and couldn't be denied. For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to be an actress. She had broken with her father to be an actress. And she was an actress. But what kind? One who got letters praising her for falling off horses. She convulsed Eddie and Charlie with low comedy antics. Her dream had come true in a way she couldn't have imagined a few years ago. She wasn't Lady Macbeth; she wasn't even one of the Bard's clowns.

Her reflections created an image of a river in flood. A roaring river that bore you along relentlessly. You could go with it, struggling to stay afloat, or you could give up and drown. Fritzi had no intention of drowning. She would always choose survival.

What of her other dream, though -- the one pressing her heart so fiercely? Her dream of Loy as a lover and life's companion - would that change too?

, Or disappear?

Fritzi heeded Griffith's advice about giving two hundred percent and hurled herself into the new picture. Eddie's two-reel scenario cast her as likable but clumsy Nell, employed as a temporary domestic at a posh mansion. The thin plot called for Nell to accidentally unmask a man pretending to be a European nobleman; he was in fact a yegg bent on lifting all the jewelry at a dress ball.

They shot exteriors at Chateau Holly, an overblown Gothic mansion on Franklin. The hillside property commanded a view of more modest real 366

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estate scattered along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards. A banker named Lane had built the house in 1906. Lane's wife hovered near during the filming, no doubt fearful of desecration of her property by ill-mannered movies.

They returned to the studio the next day. One slapstick stunt followed another. A lot of pies were tossed. Nearly a whole crate of cheap china was broken. The climax called for Fritzi to swing on a prop chandelier rigged from the rafters of the outdoor stage. While extras in rented formal wear hammed it up, gasping and cringing, the chandelier fell, bringing Fritzi down along with a storm of debris. The floor was padded with two mattresses below the frame, but she still hit hard. They pulled the mattresses, and Jock Ferguson shot a close-up of her face at impact. She didn't have to fake the look of pain.

A message left with Windy at the Waterhole reached Loy when he returned
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from Catalina Island, where he'd gone to play a pirate in a sea picture. He picked her up one evening in a borrowed Ford. They drove north to Ventura and a ramshackle beach restaurant, set on stilts, that served wonderful clams and sand dabs.