The Lonely Lady (51 page)
Up on the stage the woman clutched the Oscar to her and moved toward the microphone. She blinked her eyes for a moment as if to hold back her tears but when she opened them they were clear and shining.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy…” Her voice was quiet but distinct. “If I were to tell you that I’m not thrilled and happy at this moment I would be very wrong. This is something that happens only in a writer’s wildest dreams.”
She paused for a moment until the applause died away. “Still, there is within me a lingering doubt and a feeling of sadness. Did I earn this award as a writer, or as a woman? I know there would be no doubts in the minds of any of the four gentlemen who were nominated had they won. But then all they had to do was write their screenplays. They didn’t have to ball everybody on the picture except the prop man in order to get it made.”
A roar came up from the audience and panic hit the control room. “Go to tape,” the director ordered. “Delay five seconds.” He half rose from behind the control console and peered through the small window down into the theatre. “Get me some audience reaction shots,” he yelled. “All hell’s breaking loose down there!”
The images leaped onto the small screens. There were women rising to their feet applauding, shouting encouragement. “Right on, JeriLee! Tell it like it is, JeriLee!” The camera zoomed in close on a shot of a dinner-jacketed man trying to pull the woman he was with back into her seat. The director cut back to JeriLee as her voice came on again.
“I do not intend to ignore the custom of thanking all the people who made it possible for me to win this award. So my first thanks go to my agent, who told me the only thing that mattered was getting the picture made. He might be relieved to know that I did not have to climb up on the cross. All I had to do was climb on the producer’s cock, lick the star’s ass, and eat the pussy of the director’s wife. My thanks to all of them. Maybe they did make it possible.”
“Holy shit!” the director whispered. The noise from the audience was beginning to drown out JeriLee’s words. “Cut the audience mikes,” he ordered.
Her voice came over the crowd “…Last, but not least, I want to express my appreciation to my fellow members of the Academy for electing me their Token Woman Writer, in honor of which I want to unveil a painting I had done especially for them.”
She smiled gently as her hand reached behind her neck. Suddenly her dress fell from her body. She stood motionless on the stage, a huge inverted golden Oscar painted on her nude body. The gold paint covered her breasts and stomach, the flat head of the figure disappeared into the pubic hair.
Pandemonium broke out in the auditorium. The audience came to its feet, staring, cheering and booing as men rushed from the wings to surround JeriLee. Someone threw a coat around her. Contemptuously, she threw it off and marched from the stage in naked dignity.
There was a dazed happy expression on the director’s face as the screen went to black for the commercials. “The Academy Awards will never be the same after this.”
“Do you think we got on the air?” someone asked.
“I hope so,” he answered. “It would be a shame if truth didn’t get as much of a chance to be heard as bullshit.”
***
The car moved up the hill and came to a stop in front of the house. JeriLee leaned across the seat and kissed the man’s cheek. “My friend, Detective Millstein. Detective Millstein, my friend. You have a talent for turning up when you’re most needed.”
He smiled. “I wasn’t far from the theater. I was watching the show in a bar when you came on.”
“I’m glad.” She got out of the car. “I’m wiped out. I’ll go right to bed.”
“Will you be okay?”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine. You can go back to work.”
“All right.”
“Give Susan and the baby a kiss for me.”
He nodded and watched her go into the house before he turned the car around and went back down the hill.
The telephone was ringing when she came in the door. It was her mother. “You really did it this time, JeriLee,” she said. “I’ll never be able to hold my head up in this town again.”
“Oh, Mother.” The line went dead in her hand. Her mother had hung up. Just as JeriLee put down the phone it rang again.
This time it was her agent. “That was a brilliant publicity stunt,” he chortled. “Never in all my years in the business have I ever seen a star made in one night.”
“It wasn’t a publicity stunt.”
“What difference does it make?” the old man asked. “You come into the office tomorrow. I got at least five firm offers on which you can write your own ticket.”
“Oh, shit,” she said and hung up the phone. It began to ring again but this time she didn’t answer. Instead she lifted it up, pressed down the cradle to disconnect the call and left the receiver off the hook.
She went into the bedroom, found a joint, lit it and went back to the front door. She went outside. The night was warm and clear. She sat down on the porch steps and looked out over the city. Her eyes suddenly began to mist.
She sat at the top of the stairs and cried. And far down the hill, below her, the multicolored lights of Los Angeles shimmered through her tears.
Harold Robbins, Unguarded
On the inspiration for
Never Love a Stranger
:
“[The book begins with] a poem from
To the Unborn
by Stella Benson. There were a lot of disappointments especially during the Depression—fuck it—in everyone’s life there are disappointments and lost hope…. No one escapes. That’s why you got to be grateful every day that you get to the next.”
On writing
The Betsy
and receiving gifts:
“When I wrote
The Betsy
, I spent a lot of time in Detroit with the Ford family. The old man running the place had supplied me with Fords, a Mustang, that station wagon we still have…. After he read the book and I was flying home from New York the day after it was published, he made a phone call to the office on Sunset and asked for all the cars to be returned. I guess he didn’t like the book.”
On the most boring things in the world:
“Home cooking, home fucking, and Dallas, Texas!”
On the inspiration for
Stiletto
:
“I began to develop an idea for a novel about the Mafia. In the back of my head I had already thought of an extraordinary character…. To the outside world he drove dangerous, high-speed automobiles and owned a foreign car dealership on Park Avenue…. The world also knew that he was one of the most romantic playboys in New York society… What the world did not know about him was that he was a deadly assassin who belonged to the Mafia.”
On the message of
79 Park Avenue
:
“Street names change with the times, but there’s been prostitution since the world began. That was what
79 Park Avenue
was about, and prostitution will always be there. I don’t know what cavemen called it; maybe they drew pictures. That’s called pornography now. People make their own choices every day about what they are willing to do. We don’t have the right to judge them or label them. At least walk in their shoes before you do.
79 Park Avenue
did one thing for the public; it made people think about these girls being real, not just hustlers. The book was about walking in their shoes and understanding. Maybe it was a book about forgiveness. I never know; the reader is the only one who can decide.”
Paul Gitlin (Harold’s agent) on
The Carpetbaggers
after first reading the manuscript:
“Jesus Christ, you can’t talk about incest like this. The publishers will never accept it. This author, Robbins, he’s got a book that reads great, but it’s a ball breaker for publishing.”
From the judge who lifted the Philadelphia ban on
Never Love a Stranger
, on Harold’s books:
“I would rather my daughter learn about sex from the pages of a Harold Robbins novel than behind a barn door.”
On writing essentials:
“Power, sex, deceit, and wealth: the four ingredients to a successful story.”
On the drive to write:
“I don’t want to write and put it in a closet because I’m not writing for myself. I’m writing to be heard. I’m writing because I’ve got something to say to people about the world I live in, the world I see, and I want them to know about it.”
Harold Robbins titles from RosettaBooks
79 Park Avenue
Dreams Die First
Never Leave Me
Spellbinder
Stiletto
The Betsy
The Raiders
The Adventurers
Goodbye, Janette
Descent from Xanadu
Never Love A Stranger
Memories of Another Day
The Dream Merchants
Where Love Has Gone
The Lonely Lady
The Inheritors
The Looters
The Pirate