Tell-All (2 page)

The irony does not escape me that while
Eleanor Powell
lays claim to my fashion signature of wearing numerous small bows, I now boast the red knees of a charwoman and the swollen hands of a scullery maid. No less of an illustrious wag than
Darryl Zanuck
once dismissed me as looking like
Clifton Webb
in a glen plaid skirt.
Mervyn LeRoy
spread the rumor that I am the secret love child of
Wally Beery
and his frequent costar
Marie Dressler
.

Currently, the regular duties of my position include defrosting Miss Kathie’s electric icebox and ironing her bed linens, yet my position is not that of a laundress. My career is not as a cook. Nor is domestic servant my vocation. My life is far less steered by
Katherine Kenton
than her life is by me. Miss Kathie’s daily demands and needs may determine my actions but only so much as the limits of a racing automobile will dictate those of the driver.

I am not merely a woman who works in a factory producing the ever-ravishing
Katherine Kenton
. I am the factory itself. With the words I write here I am not simply a camera operator or cinematographer; I am the lens itself—flattering, accentuating, distorting—recording how the world will recall my coquettish Miss Kathie.

Yet I am not just a sorceress. I am the source.

Miss Kathie exerts only a very small effort to be herself. The bulk of that manual labor is supplied by me in tandem with a phalanx of wig makers, plastic surgeons and dietitians. Since her earliest days under a studio contract it has been my livelihood to comb and dress her often blond, sometimes brunette, occasionally red hair. I coach the dulcet tones of her voice so as to make every utterance suggest a line of dialogue scripted for her by
Thornton Wilder
. Nothing of Miss Kathie is innate except for the almost supernatural violet coloring of her eyes. Hers is the throne, seated in the same icy pantheon as
Greta Garbo
and
Grace Kelly
and
Lana Turner
, but mine is the heavy lifting which keeps her on high.

And while the goal of every well-trained household servant is to seem invisible, that is also the goal of any accomplished
puppeteer. Under my control, Miss Kathie’s household seems to smoothly run itself, and she appears to run her own life.

My position is not that of a nurse, or a maid, or a secretary. Nor do I serve as a professional therapist or a chauffeur or bodyguard. While my job title is none of the preceding, I do perform all of those functions. Every evening, I pull the drapes. Walk the dog. Lock the doors. I disconnect the telephone, to keep the outside world in its correct place. However, more and more my job is to protect Miss Kathie from herself.

Cut direct to an interior, nighttime. We see the lavish boudoir belonging to
Katherine Kenton
, immediately following tonight’s dinner party, with my Miss Kathie locked behind her en suite bathroom door. From offscreen, we hear the hiss and splash of a shower bath at full blast.

Despite popular speculation, Miss
Katherine Kenton
and I do not enjoy what
Walter Winchell
would call a “fingers-deep friendship.” Nor do we indulge in behavior
Confidential
would cite to brand us as “baritone babes,” or
Hedda Hopper
describes as “pink pucker sucking.” The duties of my position include placing one
Nembutal
and one
Luminal
in the cloisonné saucer atop Miss Kathie’s bedside table. In addition, filling an old-fashioned glass to overflowing with ice cubes and drop-by-drop pouring one shot of whiskey over the ice. Repeat with a second shot. Then fill the remainder of the glass with soda water.

The bedside table consists of nothing more than a stack of screenplays. A teetering pile sent by
Ruth Gordon
and
Garson Kanin
, asking my Miss Kathie to make a comeback. Begging, in fact. Here were speculative Broadway musicals based on actors dressed as dinosaurs or
Emma Goldman
.
Feature-length animated versions of
Macbeth
by
William Shakespeare
depicted with baby animals. Voice-over work. The pitch:
Bertolt Brecht
meets
Lerner and Loewe
crossed with
Eugene O’Neill
. The pages turn yellow and curl, stained with Scotch whiskey and cigarette smoke. The paper branded with the brown rings left by every cup of Miss Kathie’s black coffee.

We repeat this ritual every evening, following whatever dinner party or opening my Miss Kathie has attended. On returning to her town house, I unfasten the eye hook at the top of her gown and release the zipper. Turn on the television. Change the channel. Change the television channel once more. Dump the contents of her evening bag onto the satin coverlet of her bed, Miss Kathie’s
Helena Rubinstein
lipstick, keys, charge cards, replacing each item into her daytime bag. I place the shoe trees within her shoes. Pin her auburn wig to its
Styrofoam
head. Next, I light the vanilla-scented candles lined up along the mantel of her bedroom fireplace.

As my Miss Kathie conducts herself behind the en suite bathroom door, amid the rush and steam of her shower bath, her voice through the door drones:
bark, moo, meow
…
William Randolph Hearst
.
Snarl, squeal, tweet
…
Anita Loos
.

In the center of the satin bed sprawls her Pekingese,
Loverboy
, amid a field of wrinkled paper wrappers, the two cardboard halves of a heart-shaped candy box, the pleated pink brocade-and-silk roses stapled to the box cover, the ruched folds of lace frilling the box edges. The bed’s billowing red satin coverlet, spread with this mess, the cupped candy papers, the sprawling Pekingese dog.

From out of Miss Kathie’s evening bag spills her cigarette
lighter, a pack of
Pall Mall
cigarettes, her tiny pill box paved with rubies and tourmalines and rattling with
Tuinal
and
Dexamyl
.
Bark, cluck, squeak
…
Nembutal
.

Roar, whinny, oink
…
Seconal
.

Meow, tweet, moo
…
Demerol
.

Then, fluttering down, falls a white card. Settling on the bed, an engraved place card from this evening’s dinner. Against the white card stock, in bold, black letters, the name
Webster Carlton Westward III
.

What
Hedda Hopper
would call this moment—a “Hollywood lifetime”—expires.

A freeze-frame. An insert-shot of the small, white card lying on the satin bed beside the inert dog.

On television, my Miss Kathie acts the part of Spain’s
Queen Isabella I
, escaped from her royal duties in
the Alhambra
for a quickie vacation in
Miami Beach
, pretending to be a simple circus dancer in order to win the heart of
Christopher Columbus
, played by
Ramon Novarro
. The picture cuts to a cameo by
Lucille Ball
, on loan out from
Warner Bros
. and cast as Miss Kathie’s rival,
Queen Elizabeth I
.

Here is all of Western history, rendered the bitch of
William Wyler
.

Behind the bathroom door, in the gush of hot water, my Miss Kathie says:
bark, bray, oink …
J. Edgar Hoover
. My ears straining to hear her prattle.

Fringe dangles off the edge of the red satin coverlet, the bed canopy, the window valance. Everything upholstered in red velvet, cut velvet. Flocked wallpaper. The scarlet walls, padded and button tufted, crowded with
Louis XIV
mirrors. The lamps, dripping with faceted crystals, busy with sparkling thingamabobs. The fireplace, carved from pink
onyx and rose quartz. The entire effect, insular and silent as sleeping tucked deep inside
Mae West
’s vagina.

The four-poster bed, its trim and moldings lacquered red, polished until the wood looks wet. Lying there, the candy wrappers, the dog, the place card.

Webster Carlton Westward III
, the American specimen with bright brown eyes. Root-beer eyes. The young man seated so far down the table at tonight’s dinner. A telephone number, handwritten, a prefix in
Murray Hill
.

On the television,
Joan Crawford
enters the gates of
Madrid
, wearing some gauzy harem getup, both her hands carrying a wicker basket in front of her, the basket spilling over with potatoes and Cuban cigars, her bare limbs and face painted black to suggest she’s a captured Mayan slave. The subtext being either Crawford’s carrying syphilis or she’s supposed to be a secret cannibal. Tainted spoils of the New World. A concubine. Perhaps she’s an Aztec.

That slight lift of one naked shoulder, Crawford’s shrug of disdain, here is another signature gesture stolen from me.

Above the mantel hangs a portrait of Miss Katherine painted by
Salvador Dalí;
it rises from a thicket of engraved invitations and the silver-framed photographs of men whom
Walter Winchell
would call “was-bands.” Former husbands. The painting of my Miss Kathie, her eyebrows arch in surprise, but her heavy eyelashes droop, the eyelids almost closed with boredom. Her hands spread on either side of her face, her fingers fanning from her famous cheekbones to disappear into her movie star updo of auburn hair. Her mouth something between a laugh and a yawn.
Valium
and
Dexedrine
. Between
Lillian Gish
and
Tallulah Bankhead
. The portrait rises from the invitations and photographs, future parties and past marriages, the flickering candles and
half-dead cigarettes stubbed out in crystal ashtrays threading white smoke upward in looping incense trails. This altar to my
Katherine Kenton
.

Me, forever guarding this shrine. Not so much a servant as a high priestess.

In what Winchell would call a “New York minute” I carry the place card to the fireplace. Dangle it within a candle flame until it catches fire. With one hand, I reach into the fireplace, deep into the open cavity of carved pink onyx and rose quartz, grasping in the dark until my fingers find the damper and wrench it open. Holding the white card,
Webster Carlton Westward III
, twisting him in the chimney draft, I watch a flame eat the name and telephone number. The scent of vanilla. The ash falls to the cold hearth.

On the television,
Preston Sturges
and
Harpo Marx
enter as
Tycho Brahe
and
Copernicus
. The first arguing that the earth goes around the sun, the latter insisting the world actually orbits
Rita Hayworth
. The picture is called
Armada of Love
, and
David O. Selznick
shot it on the
Universal
back lot the year when every other song on the radio was
Helen O’Connell
singing
“Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,”
backed by the
Jimmy Dorsey
band.

The bathroom door swings open, Miss Kathie’s voice saying:
bark, yip, cluck-cluck
…
Maxwell Anderson
. Her
Katherine Kenton
hair turbaned in a white bath towel. Her face layered with a mask of pulped avocado and royal jelly. Pulling the belt of her robe tight around her waist, my Miss Kathie looks at the lipstick dumped on her bed. The scattered cigarette lighter and keys and charge cards. The empty evening bag. Her gaze wafts to me standing before the fireplace, the tongues of candle flame licking below her
portrait, her lineup of “was-bands,” the invitations, all those future obligations to enjoy herself, and—of course—the flowers.

Perched on the mantel, that altar, always enough flowers for a honeymoon suite or a funeral. Tonight features a tall arrangement of white spider chrysanthemums, white lilies and sprays of yellow orchids, bright and frilly as a cloud of butterflies.

With one hand, Miss Kathie sweeps aside the lipstick and keys, the cigarette pack, and she settles herself on the satin bed, amid the candy wrappers, saying, “Did you burn something just now?”

Katherine Kenton
remains among the generation of women who feel that the most sincere form of flattery is the male erection. Nowadays, I tell her that erections are less likely a compliment than they are the result of some medical breakthrough. Transplanted monkey glands, or one of those new miracle pills.

As if human beings—men in particular—need yet another way to lie.

I ask, Did she misplace something?

Her violet eyes waft to my hands. Petting her Pekingese,
Loverboy
, dragging one hand through the dog’s long fur, Miss Kathie says, “I do get so tired of buying my own flowers.…”

My hands, smeared black and filthy from the handle of the fireplace damper. Smudged with soot from the burned place card. I wipe them in the folds of my tweed skirt. I tell her I was merely disposing of some trash. Only incinerating a random piece of worthless trash.

On television,
Leo G. Carroll
kneels while
Betty Grable
crowns him
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Pope Paul IV
is
Robert Young. Barbara Stanwyck
plays a gum-chewing
Joan of Arc
.

My Miss Kathie watches herself, seven divorces ago—what Winchell would call “Reno-vations”—and three face-lifts ago, as she grinds her lips against Novarro’s lips. A specimen Winchell would call a “Wildeman.” Like
Dorothy Parker
’s husband,
Alan Campbell
, a man
Lillian Hellman
would call a “fairy shit.” Petting her Pekingese with long licks of her hand, Miss Kathie says, “His saliva tasted like the wet dicks of ten thousand lonely truck drivers.”