[Celebrity Murder Case 12] - The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Murder Case Read online

  THE

  FRED ASTAIRE AND GINGER ROGERS

  MURDER

  CASE

  BY

  GEORGE BAXT

  ST MARTIN’S PRESS

  NEW YORK

  THE FRED ASTAIRE AND GINGER ROGERS MURDER CASE.

  Copyright © 1997 by George Baxt.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Production Editor: David Stanford Burr

  Design: Nancy Resnick

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baxt, George.

  The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers murder ease / George Baxt. p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-15129-2

  1. Astaire, Fred, 1898-1987—Fiction. 2. Rogers, Ginger, 1911-1995—Fiction. 3. Dancers—United States—Fiction. 4. Murder— California—Los Angeles—

  Fiction. 5. Espionage—California—LosAngeles—Fiction. 6.

  Hollywood (Los Angeles. Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552. A8478F741997

  8I3V54—dc2I

  First Edition: February 1997

  To Tom Toth—always a friend to me

  and to the late Carole Lombard

  ONE

  Impresario Sol Hurok’s office on West 57th Street in New York City, snugly ensconced on an upper floor of an office building cosily situated near Carnegie Hall, was tastefully decorated, the walls festooned with placards advertising Hurok triumphs dating back to the early twenties. These triumphs included tours starring the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova and the great Russian baritone Feodor Chaliapin (whom Hurok on occasion referred to as Charlie Chaliapin); they trumpeted the earliest glories of George Balanchine with tire Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and introducing three teenage dancers heralded as the “baby ballerinas—Tamara Toumanova, Irina Baranova, and Tatiana Riabouchinskaya. As violinist Yehudi Menuhin exclaimed once, “You are nobody until you have been presented by Sol Hurok.”

  S. HUROK PRESENTS on a billboard was usually a guarantee of sold-out houses. It wasn’t always so, but now, in 1952, the last year of Harry S. Truman s presidency, Sol Hurok was riding higher than ever before in his long and lucrative career. There was 20th Century’s movie about his life and career. Tonight We Sing, a tastefully packaged production of lies, legends, and myths in which the Jewish Hurok was impersonated by the gentile David Wayne and audiences stayed away in droves. There was a fanciful autobiography, S. Hurok Presents, which was ludicrous and laughable and soon won its place on the remainder tables of bookstores across the United States. Yes, Sol Hurok s star now blazed as it had never blazed before, and would never blaze again. He had captured the legendary Baronovitch Ballet for a long tour of the Americas, North, South, and Central, now that they were able to secure exit visas since the death that year of the despotic Soviet leader, Stalin.

  (“Poisoned, I’m sure,” said Hurok, exhaling a smoke ring.

  “If so, then there is a God,” said Mae Frohman, who had been for over thirty years Hurok’s trusted assistant and confidante.)

  And then came an inspiration only the brilliant showman could conjure up. A television special for the Baronovitch Ballet (contracted by the National Broadcasting System, referred to by Mae as the National Broadchasing System), a two-hour special co-starring them with none other than the motion picture dancing legends Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. ‘The ratings,” Hurok assured Mae, “will fly through the ceiling. And then through the roof and on to heaven and even past that!”

  “Where to?” asked Mae, examining a fingernail.

  “To wherever,” said Hurok with a shrug. He got to his feet, cigar firmly clamped in his mouth, and began pacing the office, arms raised above his head like a victorious gladiator. He was warming up. “The public will clamor to see Fred and Ginger reunited after five years. You mock my words ..

  “Mark,” corrected Mae.

  “… it will be sensational! Fred and Ginger are very extinguished personalities!”

  “Distinguished,” corrected Mae.

  “They are legends!” He sighed. “Now all I have to do is make a deal with them.”

  Mae’s eyes rolled up in her head and then dropped down again. “You haven’t got them?”

  “I’ll get them. I’ll get them. Put your chips on the number marked S. Hurok. I’m on a roll, my darling Mae, a very big roll. What time is our flight to Los Angeles?”

  “It leaves Idlewild at five P.M. sharp.”

  Hurok looked at his wristwatch. “My bag is here?”

  “Outside, in the reception room.”

  “And your bag?”

  “Also.”

  “Mae, you’re not showing enthusiasm.”

  Mae managed a smile as she reminded her boss, “I hate flying. Do I have to keep reminding you?”

  “You’d prefer perhaps a Greyhound Bus?” Hurok buzzed the outer office on his intercom. “Tessie, is that you?”

  Mae s assistant, Tess Barrow, favored Hurok with her standard nasal response, “Yes, boss, its me.”

  “When the car taking us to the airport arrives, tell me immediately.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  The office boy asked Tess, “They off to L.A.?”

  ‘That’s right.”

  “What time does the broom leave?”

  Tess flashed him a withering look, little knowing that within the next decade he would open his own office, stealing stars from Hurok and hiring Tess, not because she was all that good but because she knew just about all of Sol Hurok’s trade secrets.

  It was three hours earlier—and sunnier—in Los Angeles, a smog-free Los Angeles where you could still see the sun and a beautiful cloudless sky and where cicadas chirruped in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard. Dr. Igor Romanov’s beautiful pink villa was situated on an acre that overlooked Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards, with rows of cedars of Lebanon trees towering over the driveway that led to the front door like a neat line of sentries on duty. The villa served as both office and residence. The front of the ground floor was the doctors reception room and office, both spacious and sedately furnished. Alida Rimsky, in her neatly starched and ironed white uniform, was Romanov’s assistant and the reception room was her domain.

  It was late Friday afternoon and Alida was grateful the doctor was with his ultimate patient of the day. The patient in question was Ginger Rogers, glamorous movie star and one-time dancing partner of Fred Astaire, who had no use for psychiatry. When in need of advice, Fred would phone his sister, Adele, his first dancing partner and now the lady of a castle in Ireland, having wisely used her head over a decade earlier and snapped up Lord Carnarvon’s offer of marriage and early retirement from the theater. He was of course rich and fairly attractive, the degree of his attractiveness being enhanced by the size of his wealth, which was sizable. Now that her baby brother Freddie was an international movie star, Adele capitalized on his fame and secured a solid niche for herself in Ireland s tightly knit social circles. She liked Ginger but did not care much for Gingers ever-present mother, Lela, whom Adele had nicknamed “Lethal,” a nickname that was even more appropriate as far as Adele was concerned since Lela had volunteered an appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington, D.C., branding actors and writers and directors as communists (“Them rotten commies!”), which amazingly
enough did not ruin her daughters career. It was never known what Ginger thought of her mother’s perfidy, as most of Hollywood assumed Ginger wasn’t given much to thought. They were quite wrong, however, as at the age of forty-two. Ginger was constantly giving thought to her recently acquired younger husband, Jacques Bergerac, an actor by definition rather than by qualification. He was also gorgeous, and at forty-two that counted for a lot with Ginger.

  Ginger was reclining on the doctors well-upholstered couch, which he himself had designed, clutching the requisite tissue in her right hand, occasionally dabbing at her nose, her left hand artfully poised over her head. The doctor was staring out the window and stifling a yawn. He heard his patient say, “Sol Hurok wants Fred and me to do this TV special. You’ve heard of Sol Hurok, I’m sure. He’s also from the Soviet Union but many years ago. Anyway, he wants us to do this two-hour special with some ballet company. With Hurok there’s always some ballet company. I sometimes wonder if he was born on his toes. Anyway, let me think… She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with her left hand. Then her eyes flew open and she snapped her fingers. “Baronovitch?”

  “Baronovitch?”

  “Baronovitch. That’s it. The Baronovitch Ballet. I’ve never heard of them, have you?”

  “Actually, I have,” he said smoothly, although he seemed to be having trouble controlling his voice. “Though they came into prominence after I fled the Soviet Union,”

  “‘Fled,’“ repeated Ginger. “It sounds so exciting, so romantic. ‘Fled the Soviet Union.’ Boy, that’s nothing to ‘flying the coop,’ which I have done on many an occasion. Now then, where was I?”

  “Flying the coop.”

  “No no no no. Baronovitch, that’s where I was, Baronovitch. Where is Baronovitch? Do you know?”

  “North of Moscow. It was once a lovely little village.”

  “And now they’re big enough to have their own ballet company. Think of that. And wouldn’t you know Sol Hurok would snatch them out from under the noses of the other big booking companies.”

  “The company is coming to America?”

  “They’ve been here touring for months. Don’t you read Variety?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Of course you don’t. Why should a psychiatrist give a damn how much a show grosses on tour unless he’s invested in it. Have you ever invested—”

  He interrupted her swiftly. “Miss Rogers, let’s get back to the ballet company. It obviously disturbs you.”

  “It doesn’t really disturb me. It’s just that Hurok wants Fred and me to do a TV special with them.”

  “Do you want to do it?”

  “Yes and no.” The doctor looked with exasperation at the ceiling. In the year or more that she had been his patient, the doctor had come to recognize “yes and no” as the most common expression in Gingers vocabulary.

  (“Do you want to marry Jacques Bergerac?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “You wish your mother wouldn’t get politically involved?”

  “Yes and no,” and so on ad infinitum.)

  “Of course the prestige would be fantastic,” he heard Ginger say. “I mean Fred and Ginger reunited again and dancing with a Russian ballet company. Wow!” Her eyes were sparkling. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work. I’m not trained to dance on point. I’m a hoofer!” She sat up. “Fred wants me to do it. Jacques wants me to do it. My mother’s all for it even though she hates communists.”

  “Not everyone in the Soviet Union belongs to the Communist party.”

  ‘They don’t?” She struggled to a sitting position. “I thought they had to!”

  “There are many non-communists in the USSR. I fled from there. I’m not a communist”

  Thanks for telling me!” She smiled. That’ll make Lela feel better. I mean she knows you’re doing me a world of good but she worries you might be brainwashing me.”

  “My dear Miss Rogers, psychiatric treatment is a form of brainwashing. A very healthy form.”

  She thought it over for a moment. “Oh. I’ll tell Lela.”

  “Why tell her anything?”

  “If I don’t, she gets suspicious and please don’t ask me to explain that.”

  There was a knock at the door and Alida Rimsky entered.

  “Is it time?” asked the doctor.

  “Yes, doctor,” said the nurse crisply.

  “My,” said Ginger, “how time flies when I’m with you, doctor.” She went to the wall mirror and began fixing her luxurious mane of blond hair.

  “Alida?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you know the Baronovitch Ballet was in America?”

  “The Baronovitch? Yes I think I read something about them not too long ago.”

  “Sol Hurok wants Miss Rogers and Fred Astaire to appear with them in a two-hour television special.”

  “On NBC,” added Ginger.

  “Well, isn’t that something to look forward to?” Ginger found Alida’s slight trace of a Russian accent charming.

  Ginger asked, “Are you familiar with the company?”

  “It’s a long time since I left Russia.”

  The doctor spoke. “So now that Stalin is dead, Moscow is thawing. It sounds as though Gosconcert is being unusually free with their exit visas for artistes.”

  “Gos … what?” asked Ginger.

  “Gosconcert. They decide which artists will be permitted to perform abroad and, of course, they control their fees.”

  “But that’s communism!” exclaimed Ginger.

  “That sure is,” confirmed the doctor. “Gasconcert wields a lot of power from their shabby little office on Neglinnaya Street.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “In my youth, yes, I had occasion to apply for an exit visa. I wanted to go to Paris to study.”

  “Oh my. You wanted to paint.”

  “No, my dear. I wanted to be a concert pianist.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, and now that you have pried a secret out of me, it is time to say au revoir until next we meet.”

  Alida said swiftly, “Monday at noon.”

  Ginger ignored both of them. “But here you are, so you got out at last.”

  “Yes,” he said, leading her to the reception room, to which Alida held the door open.

  “I’m so glad,” said Ginger. “What would I do without you?” She moved her attention to Alida. “And here you are. Say, do either of you have friends with the Baronovitch company?”

  Romanov said smoothly, “Who knows? I’m away from the Soviet such a long time, perhaps old friends are with them now. I doubt it. The few dancers I knew would be of an age where they would be of no value any longer as dancers.”

  “Ha! Don’t I know that. Put them out to pasture or shoot them. Or put them in a Republic picture.” She waved airily as she strolled toward the front door. “See you Monday!” She pulled the door shut behind her and walked to her automobile while rummaging in her handbag for the keys and wondering as she frequently had cause to what connection the doctor and his nurse might still have to the old country. She got into the car, put the key in the engine, revved the motor, and drove off to a date with Fred Astaire.

  Mike Romanoffs restaurant in Beverly Hills was a very popular watering hole for the Hollywood community. Romanoff was a bogus prince who only kidded himself into thinking he was a scion of the Russian royal family. But his pose was great for business. Humphrey Bogart, for example, was there almost every night of the week either for cocktails or dinner or both, frequently escorting his glamorous wife, Lauren Bacall. Surprisingly, the food was good and for the stars he liked Romanoffs would deliver dinner to their homes on nights when they were either too tired after a days filming or needed to stay home and memorize dialogue.

  Ginger occupied a booth with Fred Astaire. She nursed a ginger ale with maraschino cherries, which she doted on, and he was working on a pot of tea with lemon. He explained to Ginger, “That’s how the Russians prefer it. Wi
th lemon.”

  “I see. That’s how the Russians prefer it.”

  “Stop sounding like your mother.” Lela Rogers was one of Fred’s unfavorite people. He wasn’t a political animal but he disapproved of Lela’s dedication to branding as communist anyone she disapproved of. He once started to ask Ginger how she could endure such a terrible woman as a mother but immediately thought better of it. Ginger knew her mother couldn’t win any popularity contests and wasn’t about to say so, but still Ginger didn’t seem to make any effort to put a clamp on her mother’s mouth. What the hell, he reminded himself, they’d been through hell together making Ginger a star without a father to help them. Lela had literally thrown herself on the altars of the gods bargaining for Gingers success.

  “Listen, Fred, Lela’s worried we’ll have HUAC on our tails if we work with Baronovitch.”

  “I’ve got news for HUAC if they don’t already know, and I’m sure they do—this tour is approved and sponsored by the State Department.”

  “Is that good?”

  ‘You couldn’t ask for better. Hurok’s no sap. He’s been handling the U.S. and the Soviet for three decades. He’s puppet master, ventriloquist, Machiavelli, and superb taste all wrapped up in one.”

  “Sounds like quite a catch.”

  “Now listen. Ginger, listen carefully. NBC is offering us both a small fortune to do this job.

  “That’s music to my ears,” said Ginger, who in addition to supporting herself, her mother, an agent, a manager, and an impressive household staff, was now supporting her new husband.

  “Here’s more music. I’m to choreograph the show.” Ginger smiled. She knew his ambition to choreograph. “Hermes will be there with me.” Hermes Pan was the talented and highly respected choreographer who had done many of the Astaire and Rogers musicals and now worked with Fred at Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer where both were under contract. “You and I will do a few numbers together, I’ll do a couple of solos, and of course you’ll have some too,” he added hastily. “But the big number will be my ballet, which will be the spectacular closing number.”

  Ginger folded her arms. “And what’s the ballet?”