The Age of Dreaming (6 page)
We looked at each other and bit our lips. Mr. Harmon didn’t notice our reaction.
“You have a lovely inn here,” he continued. Then, turning to us, “I assume these room boys are a gift?”
Now some giggles escaped from our mouths, and Kagane, who was standing directly to my left, hit me with the back of his hand. There was even a glint of amusement in old Ishimoto’s eyes.
“Not exactly,” said the proprietor. “They are too valuable for me to part with. But I hope you’ll find their services satisfactory.”
At dinner that night, I watched the Warrens and their interpreter closely. Mr. Warren—a handsome, fit, middle-aged man with silver hair and tanned skin—thanked each person who brought him a dish or refilled his tea. Mrs. Warren, who seemed less comfortable with Japanese delicacies like sashimi, was still clearly delighted by the colorful presentations of the food and the hustling, perfectly synchronized staff. At one point, as I was removing a plate from her setting, she glanced up at me and touched her fingers to her neck. “My, you’re a handsome boy!” she said, blushing. “Good thing you don’t understand me.”
But I did understand—that, and much of the rest of the conversation. Mr. Warren was telling Mr. Ishimoto— slowly, allowing for the garbled translation—about building his chain of hardware stores in Wisconsin and Michigan. He had started out with just one about twenty years earlier, and had parlayed his earnings from the first Warren’s to open another, then another, then another, until he finally had some thirty-one stores. He was so wealthy by that time that he no longer had to oversee the daily operations of the company. The Warrens’ oldest son had taken over this responsibility, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Warren to travel. Only parts of this story, however, were related by Harmon, who was getting red-faced from the sake, and so I would subtly, when Mr. Ishimoto looked in my direction, translate the missing pieces.
The Warrens spent their first few days in Karuizawa the way most tourists did—going to hot springs, visiting the temples, shopping in the stores by the railroad station. Then one morning, Mr. Warren wished to go golfing, and so I drove him, along with Harmon and Kagane, to the new golf course just outside the town limits. Mr. Warren and Harmon were golfing, I was caddying, and Kagane carried everyone’s lunch. They had just finished playing the first three holes when Mr. Warren started sneezing uncontrollably.
“Damn allergies,” he said, eyes watering. Then: “Bill, I forgot my medication. Could you ask one of these boys to go back and get it?”
The interpreter turned to face us and said, “Mr. Warren is having trouble with his nostrils.”
Kagane stared at Harmon in bewilderment.
“His nostrils, his nose!” said Harmon, waving his arms. “They are causing tribulation!”
Kagane looked at me now, and I shrugged. Finally, Harmon turned to Mr. Warren. “I’m sorry, sir, they don’t seem to understand me.”
I stepped forward and said in my most careful English, “I understand, sir. You have allergies and you need your medication.”
Even in the midst of his sneezing fit, Mr. Warren stared at me in surprise. “You speak English!”
“Yes, sir,” I said self-consciously. “But only a little.”
“Well … .” And then he sneezed again. “Why didn’t you let on before?”
“You had Mr. Harmon, sir. But since I am aware of your condition, please excuse me while I return to town. Will Mrs. Warren know where you keep your medication?”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Warren, and with that I left for the inn, where I startled Mrs. Warren by asking in English for her husband’s medication. I then sped back out to the golf course, and within a few minutes of Mr. Warren swallowing his pills, the sneezing fit subsided. For the rest of the morning, as they completed their round, he spoke to me in English—much to the consternation of Harmon, who kept giving me looks of displeasure.
When we returned to the inn that evening, news of my intervention had spread among the staff. I had always been held in a certain esteem because of my English, and this small incident suddenly made me a hero. The Warrens saw me differently as well.
The next evening, after my shift, I was sitting outside with Kagane near the employee quarters, which were about a hundred feet behind the inn. Mr. Warren came ambling back there about 10 o’clock, under a moon so bright I’d seen him from the moment he’d stepped outside. “Junichiro!” he called out as he approached, and Kagane departed without a word, leaving me to my encounter with the American.
I yelled back, “Over here!” and he came and sat on the tree stump that Kagane had just vacated.
After a comment on the night and the freshness of the air, Mr. Warren lit a cigarette and asked, “How’d you learn to speak such good English?”
“I went to an American Catholic school. I learned English from native speakers.”
“Have you ever thought of coming to America? There’s a lot of opportunity for a young man like you. You could certainly do better than washing dishes at a country inn.”
I hesitated. “That is kind, sir. But America is very far away.”
Warren shifted around to face me. “Look here, Junichiro. You’re a high school graduate who speaks wonderful English. We’ve got a big university in my state of Wisconsin, and it happens to be right in my city. How would you feel about coming to study there?”
I laughed. “I am only the son of a farmer, sir. Such things could never happen for me.”
“
I’d
take care of it, don’t you see? I could easily arrange for the payment of your college fees. It’s a bit late to register, but we should be able to swing it—the university owes me, considering how much money I give them. And I could send you a ticket for your passage over.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “Mr. Warren, I could never accept …”
“Of course you could,” he said, waving away my protest. “And call me Paul. Is this something you would
like
to do?”
“Sir, in my fondest dreams, I never—”
“Well then it’s done,” he cut me off, standing up again. He held out his hand, and I had already met enough Westerners by then to know I should shake it strongly. “I’ll see you in Wisconsin,” he said.
Although I was intrigued by Mr. Warren’s generous offer, I did not mention it to anyone else. I was afraid that his proposal was the result of sake and the mountains, an idea that would quickly dissolve once he returned to the States. While Mr. Warren did tell me, on the morning he left, to “remember what we talked about,” it did not surprise me when weeks passed, and then two months, without any word from America. It had all been a fantasy, one brief fiash of possibility, as when a beautiful girl smiles at you from across the room and then returns to the arm of her escort. By early August I had resigned myself to returning home and helping my family with the harvest before seeking work at the ski resorts for the winter. But then one afternoon, a week before the end of the summer season, Ishimoto summoned me up to the front desk.
“For you,” he said, handing me a package. It was wrapped in brown paper and covered with colorful stamps. “From USA,” he added in stumbling English.
I took the package from him—it was lighter than it appeared—and saw that it had come from Wisconsin.
“The Warrens?” asked Ishimoto, and I nodded, unable to speak. His wife emerged from the back room and they both watched me like excited parents. At that moment something occurred to me. “Did Mr. Warren speak to you about this?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ishimoto, and he could hardly contain his grin. “He asked if I thought you should go to America, and I said that we couldn’t wait to get rid of you.”
I laughed and opened the package, and there it was—a train ticket to Tokyo from Karuizawa, a ticket for passage by ship from Tokyo to San Francisco, and a bus ticket from San Francisco to Madison.
Dear Junichiro,
said the hand-written letter.
Please accept my apology for waiting so long to write you. It took a few weeks to arrange your travel and your paperwork for entrance to the university, but everything is finalized now. Please make the trip to Wisconsin as soon as you can, and we will get you settled here before school starts in September. You will be staying in the house of one of my good friends. You’ll have a private room, and you should be very comfortable.
The letter went on to describe how exactly to obtain my visa, and what paperwork to bring with me when I came. I had to sit down to absorb the implications of it all, and I shakily translated to the Ishimotos, who were as thrilled as if they were making the trip themselves.
It is hard to explain, now, exactly why I was so captured by the idea of going to America. I loved Japan, its mountains and rice fields and serene, still temples—but there was also something in me that felt contained there; that needed a different setting in which to grow. It was perhaps a mark of my arrogance and immaturity that I believed I had to leave in order to do so. But the picture of America that had been painted by my teachers at St. Francis, and the expansive, entrepreneurial American spirit embodied by the Warrens, had enticed me to believe that America was the place of bounty and hope, or, as some said in Japan, the Land of Rice. And so I traveled home to my village four days after my tickets arrived, prepared to break the news to my family.
The first person I had to tell was my father. Although he was only forty-five at the time, I thought of him as old. He was as steady and silent as the mountains we lived in, not gregarious or hard-drinking like the other men I knew, and I was always proud to have such a respectable man as my father. The whole family was aflutter because everyone was home. The house was alive with the sounds of my mother cooking and laughing, and of the four of us children loudly recounting the events of the last few months. It pained me to know that I would deflate this happy scene with the news that I was bearing, and for the first two days there was no opportunity for private conversation with my father. I finally found him alone one morning, standing outside, looking out at the maturing crop of rice. It was a glorious day. The sky was clear and blue, and a gentle wind was blowing through the trees. The stream that meandered past the house was full from a recent rain; our three old mules stepped gingerly down the banks to drink from the running water.
“It is nearly time to harvest,” my father said as I approached. I glanced out at the fields and saw that he was right—the rice plants were as high as our waists. After we harvested, we would dry the stalks on bamboo frames and then sell them to the makers of tatami.
“There is a good crop this year,” I commented. “It should yield a high price.”
“Your brother has become an able farmer,” he said. “I am giving him more and more responsibility with every passing season, and you see he is very successful.”
“My brother is becoming a man. I believe I detected a gray hair this morning when he leaned over his bowl of rice.”
My father smiled at this and then kicked the ground. His knee-high boots were splattered with mud. “Your mother thinks we might be losing you, Junichiro. She says that even when you are here, you are not really here.”
“It is just the opposite, Father,” I said, feeling a tightness in my throat. “Even when I am not here, I will always be here.”
He pulled himself up to his full height, which did not quite equal my own. “So it is true that you are leaving us.” He looked straight ahead as he said this, and I followed his example.
Even though I was taller than my father, I felt like a little boy. “I have been offered a chance to study at a university in America. An American family I met in Karuizawa is willing to pay my passage and university fees.”
My father absorbed this news silently for a moment. “And why do you need to go to America for schooling? What is available to you there that you cannot find here?”
I could think of no way to answer that would make him understand, so I continued staring out at the fields. A crow dipped down among the rows of rice; the scarecrow my brother had devised, wearing our old clothes, did not seem to bother it at all.
My father kicked the ground again and spoke. “I will not stand in your way, Junichiro. But this opportunity is both more and less than you think. It will change you in ways you can’t anticipate now. And if you go, you will never again see your father.”
I glanced at him, and then turned my head away. “Of course I will see you, Father. It is only four years.”
“Four years can be a lifetime. And the world you are about to enter will open up into many others.” He paused and looked out at the hills. “It does not surprise me that you’re going. You, of all my children, are always looking forward, always seeing what’s around the next bend. But you must remember to feel the ground that is right beneath your feet. Live where you are, not only where you think you should be. Otherwise, you will end up living nowhere.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he raised his hand and bid my silence.
“I wish you luck. You have been a good son.”
I looked at him again, surprised by the emotion in his voice, and saw that there were tears in his eyes. But before I could say anything, he turned away and walked wearily back to the house.
I will never understand how he knew what would happen once I made the trip to America. But he was right about everything. My father was always right. And one week later, when my tearful family accompanied me to the train station in Karuizawa, my father embraced me long and hard, which he hadn’t done since I was a child. We disengaged and I bowed to him deeply, hoping my respect and love were clear. And as I sat and lay and wandered on the ship for two weeks, I kept wondering whether I had made the right choice. Eventually, I would gain success and fame of a level I could not have imagined. But the man I sought to please—as he seemed to know already—was lost to me forever.
October 9, 1964
T
he morning after my meeting with Bellinger, I took the cover off my automobile for the first time in months, coaxed the engine to life, and drove west toward the Fairfax district. I drove slowly, so as not to strain the large old car, passing the Chaplin studio on La Brea and the Pickford-Fairbanks studio on Santa Monica. I turned left at Fairfax and eased the car down into that lovely old neighborhood. All the buildings there—the Spanish-style apartments and English Tudor houses—look much the same as they did when they were built in the ’20s. Once one crosses Melrose, the businesses, markets, and bakeries become solidly Jewish, and the sounds of Hebrew and Yiddish fill the air. Here is the famous Canter’s Deli, filled with elderly Jews in the daytime, and with wildly dressed young people of every religion, I have heard, in the hours after midnight. On the east side of the street is Fairfax High School. And just across from the high school, a theater.
I remembered this theater; I’d even been here once or twice to see second-run films. It was a logical place to choose as a venue for old-time movies. Although much smaller than the lavish theaters where our pictures once played, the details were right, from the curved glass windows and cupped silver change hole of the ticket booth, to the ornate, gold-plated light fixtures, to the old piano that had once been used to accompany silent films. Suddenly I felt nervous about seeing it again, and after I found a space large enough to accommodate my vehicle, I took several deep breaths to gather myself.
As I approached along the sidewalk, I saw workmen carrying heavy tools and equipment and heard the inter-mittent sound of drilling. The old marquee had been removed, replaced by black art-deco lettering that said,
Silent Movie Theater
. A middle-aged man stood in front of the ticket booth and examined a piece of paper. He was wearing khaki pants and a white long-sleeved shirt that was smudged with dirt. His blond hair was uneven, as if it had been cut by a child, and he had the meaty countenance I associate with the Middle West. As I approached, he looked up and said hello.
“Hello,” I replied. Then I pointed through the open doors. “I have been in this theater before when it played second-run movies. What are you doing with it?”
The man, who I assumed was O’Brien, glanced over at the workers. “My wife and I just moved out here, and we’re opening a silent movie theater. We’re fixing it up—we have to replace the snack counter, renovate the bathrooms, that sort of thing. So the place will still have an old-time feel, but with all of the modern conveniences.” He looked back at me and fiashed the smile of a salesman; perhaps that was what he’d been in Ohio. “We’re having a big opening night in four weeks—spotlights, red carpet, live music, the whole shebang. I hope you’ll be able to come.” He reached behind him and then handed me a flyer.
Chaplin Double Feature!
it announced in thick black letters.
Come Celebrate the Grand Opening of the SILENT MOVIE THEATER!! Relive Hollywood’s Glory Days!
“Tell me,” I said, lowering the fiyer, “what other films will you be screening?”
O’Brien tapped his pen against the clipboard he held. “That’s what I’m working on right now. There’s the classics, of course—like Keaton and Mary Pickford and the Keystone Cops. And
Intolerance
and
The Sheik
and all
those
old things. But I don’t know what to show beyond the obvious choices. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Well,” I said, stepping closer to him, “thank you for asking. I do, in fact, have several suggestions. I believe you should consider showing some of John Gilbert’s films, as well as those of the Gish sisters and Harold Lloyd. Certainly Greta Garbo and Gloria Swanson. And you might consider Jun Nakayama.”
A look of puzzlement crossed O’Brien’s big Midwestern face. “Who?”
“Jun Nakayama, the great Japanese star.”
“He was a star in
America
?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to mask my impatience. “From 1912 to 1922, he made more than sixty films. He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, particularly in the years between 1915 and 1920. He starred opposite Fannie Ward, Lillian Gish, and Bessie Love, and did one picture with Gloria Swanson.”
“Really? Now what was his name again?”
“Jun Nakayama. His most well-known work was the 1915 picture
Sleight of Hand.
Several others, including the World War I film
The Noble Servant
, may still exist in private collections. He worked with all the great directors of the day, including William Moran and Cecil B. DeMille.”
“You know, I think I
do
know who you’re talking about,” said O’Brien, brightening. “Somebody else mentioned him also.” He looked at me with a new respect. “You sure know a lot about silent films.”
“I suggest that you try to find Nakayama’s pictures. I believe that you will find them quite interesting.” And with that, I bade him farewell and continued down the sidewalk to Canter’s. I felt too unnerved to make the trip home right away, and ordered some tea and an apple turnover to calm myself down.
While I was thankful that someone had taken enough of an interest in silent films to open a special theater, I was troubled by the fact that the proprietor seemed to know so little about them. How could he do the period justice if he didn’t recognize the contributions of some of the silent era’s most accomplished artists? How could someone who was clearly not a student of film present even the pictures he
did
know in an appropriate context? For silent movies are a singular form, one that viewers cannot appreciate without a basis for understanding what they see. They have their own rules and symbols; they depend on inference and audience involvement much more than outright explication; and every element—from the use of light and shadow, to the choice of color stock, to the suggestion of off-camera space—is vital in creating the overall effect and expressing a larger vision. And it is not simply that silent films themselves have been forgotten; lost, too, has been the language to discuss them. I was not convinced that the man I had met that day would be able to convey that love and understanding.
And I cannot deny that it bothered me that O’Brien was unaware of my own career. It made me question what other major actors and actresses he simply didn’t know. I wondered what he would think if someone told him who I was. I wondered what he’d say if he realized that, even as we spoke, I was being considered for a part in a movie.
I pulled out O’Brien’s fiyer again and looked at the rendition of a crowded theater on an opening night. I myself, of course, had attended many premieres—both for other people’s films and for my own. Those evenings, with their cameras, the lights, the crowds, the stars, were the grandest events in Hollywood. And as I sat drinking my tea, my mind wandered back to the most spectacular opening of all, the premiere of my greatest triumph.
Sleight of Hand
, which opened in May of 1915, was a milestone not only in my own career; it was also one of the most important events in early Hollywood. The premiere was held at the brand-new Illustrious Theater, and the Normandy Players had made special arrangements befitting the occasion. There were spotlights and red carpets, champagne was served in the lobby, and every influential producer, director, and executive was in attendance. The cordoned-off walkway from the street to the front of the theater held back the pressing throngs of people, who all gasped and reached out to touch us as we passed. Women screamed my name when I walked by with the young Japanese actress who’d been recruited as my date for the evening; a few of them cried and fell into each other’s arms. Just inside the door stood Normandy, beaming, and when he saw us he lifted his fists in exultation. Already present by the bar was my costar Elizabeth Banks, who was appearing in her first dramatic role. She left her escort— another Normandy actor secured for the occasion—to come over and give me a kiss me on the cheek. “Jun, Gerard, Elizabeth!” someone called, and we all turned to face a photographer. That shot would be on the cover of the next day’s
Los Angeles Times
, as well as that month’s issue of
Motion Picture Classic
.
I had already been with the Normandy Players for more than two years before I was offered the lead in
Sleight of Hand
. In that time, I had appeared in a dozen films. Usually the roles were somewhat limited in scope: twice I played an Oriental drug lord, once a vanquished Indian chief, and once a Mexican marauder. While I continued to get favorable reviews, I was growing tired of these generally unambitious films, and was eager to expand the range of my characters. When Normandy approached me with the idea of starring in
Sleight of Hand
, I immediately jumped at the chance. I was hesitant about appearing with Elizabeth—I didn’t know how well we would work together—but Normandy, despite his earlier misgivings about her, was convinced that having a female lead of her caliber would give the film a dangerous edge. And while her previous work had been in comedies, he saw an untapped passion in her, a pathos, that he felt would be right for the part.
The basic plot line was simple: A young society wife, bored by life with her older husband, has taken to midnight excursions to illegal casinos, where she drinks and runs up a steady debt playing blackjack and poker. The proprietor of her favorite gambling joint is a wealthy Japanese named Sasaki. As she gambles away her husband’s money, Sasaki offers to loan her more—for a price. If she fails to pay off her debt within thirty days, she must surrender herself to him for one night. She continues to lose, however, and to borrow more money, until she finds herself in greater debt than she could ever repay. What she doesn’t realize is that Sasaki has rigged the games—his men who run the tables have made it impossible for her to win. The story culminates in a protracted scene between the two principals, where Clara Whitbrow—Elizabeth’s character—begs for more time, and Sasaki insists he must collect. Her continued resistance only stimulates his fury, which he expresses not through angry words or histrionic gestures, but with concentrated glares of rage and desire. Finally, he embraces her and sinks his teeth into her neck, and carves an
S
into her shoulder with a knife. As he grabs her from behind and presses his weapon to her fiesh, her eyes fiy open in shock and rapture. It was the most radical scene ever filmed between a Caucasian actress and an Oriental actor, and it was this scene that stirred so much discussion and interest on the picture’s opening night.
The erotic violence in the film was only fueled by the conficts between the principals. As documented years later in Croshere’s history, and as I was already well aware, Elizabeth Banks had a problem with alcohol. She often arrived intoxicated to the set in the morning, and then slipped off to her dressing room at lunch for a cocktail. Several times Gerard had to send her home, and on the days she
was
sober, he worked her up with his scolding to a fever-pitch intensity that resulted in a masterful performance. For he’d been right—despite her drinking, her acting was passionate and authentic; perhaps the difficulties of her own early life had instilled in her a great reserve of feeling. But regardless of her talent, I was often irritated with her—not just because of her drinking, but because of the tantrums she would throw if the catered food was not satisfactory, or the Klieg lights too blinding, or the mood music not to her liking. It wasn’t difficult for me to convey this rage through the eyes of my character, Sasaki. And because I was seeing her off-camera as well, our friendship, which fiashed hot and cold on a near daily basis, created a tension that was electric on the screen. All of these elements—along with risky subject matter—made the three-week filming a heady, intense, and volatile experience. When Normandy played back the final cut for the actors, we were stunned by the beauty of what we saw.
It is hard to convey now, in the different atmosphere of the 1960s, how shocking
Sleight of Hand
was fifty years ago. This was an era when people did not kiss in public—and there was I, with my lips on Elizabeth’s neck. This was a time when Japanese moviegoers were seated separately from whites—and there was I, with my name on the marquee. This was a time when Caucasian actors still played most Oriental parts, as Mary Pickford had done that very year in
Madame Butterfly
—and there was I, playing the lead in a major film. The sensation our picture caused was something wholly unprecedented, surprising even to those of us who were involved in its making. That first night, at the premiere, an audible gasp went up from the audience when Sasaki bent down over Clara’s shoulder—and after the curtain was raised, the standing ovation lasted a full five minutes. Reviews of the film were ecstatic.
“An instant classic,” wrote Kenneth Seaborne of the
Los
Angeles Times
. “Elizabeth Banks, in her first serious role, is beautiful and tormented, and Jun Nakayama, as the evil Jap Sasaki, is at his savage and sensual best.”
“This picture will have everyone talking,” wrote the
Herald Examiner
. “The chemistry between Nakayama and Banks is electric, and Nakayama is brilliant at conveying the beastliness of the Oriental nature. The future is unlimited for this slant-eyed son of the Orient. In its daring subject matter and its brilliant acting,
Sleight of Hand
pushes cinema to a whole new level.”
Later, in his
History of the Silent Film Era
, Davis Croshere had this to say about the film:
As important an event as
Sleight of Hand
was to Gerard Normandy’s career, it made Jun Nakayama a star. His concentrated stares, which showed both passion and rage, established him as the master of containment. All the other actors at that time tended to exaggerate gestures and facial expressions in order to compensate for the lack of sound. But Nakayama distilled all his emotion into the center of his being, and then let it be revealed through a single raised eyebrow or menacing glance.