[Celebrity Murder Case 04] - The Talking Pictures Murder Case Read online

  Sitting in her magnificent Beverly Hills estate, “Annawill”—a double entendre that escaped no one except gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who was proudly illiterate—Annamary knew she would never forget the looks of hatred and horror and thirst for blood, the desecration of Dolly Lovelace's corpse would surely give her nightmares into her years of senility. She could still see those women who kicked the body as Jack held it while sobbing bitterly, in fulfillment of his wish “to hold her in his arms just once more “ Now Jack was upstairs in his bed, sedated by their doctor, who'd clucked his tongue at the sight of Jack's bruised face and predicted there would most likely be no scars From her seat in the living room Annamary could see her husband blithely working out on the parallel bars he'd set up on the lawn. Marie sat at a small table devouring a turkey sandwich washed down with a large chocolate milk. Annamary warmed a snifter of brandy between the palms of her hands, but it couldn't stop her from trembling. Mama Marie polished off the last of her snack and lit a cigarette

  “I didn't see Louis B Mayer, did you?” Annamary shook her head no and Mama Marie continued “Probably out at the track doping his string of horses. And what about Louise Fazenda?”

  Annamary asked, “How what about her?”

  Louise Fazenda was a popular comedienne. “That cow! Did you see what she was wearing? Purple! At a funeral, purple! What the hell did Hal Wallis see in her? Why do you suppose he married her? It can't be her looks, her face is like the rear end of a dying rhinoceros. He's got a cushy spot with the Warners, he could snap his finger and land any pretty kid on the lot he wants. Well there's no accounting for tastes. If it suits him to be the prisoner of Fazenda—”

  “Mama …”

  “Yeah?”

  Annamary leaned forward, the expression on her face making Marie think of poor little Oliver Twist asking for seconds “Promise me, I want you to promise me.” Marie said nothing. Annamary licked her lips and continued. “If I die before you do—”

  “Booshwah!”

  “If I do, Mama, promise me a private burial. A secret burial,- no one will know where to find me and do to me what they did to poor Dolly today Promise me, Mama. Promise me.”

  Warmth didn't come easy to Marie Darling, but she had recognized her daughter's tender sensibilities as far back as the first time she pushed her out on a stage at the age of three. “I promise you, baby. Now gulp your brandy and I’ll pour you another stiff one.”

  Annamary continued staring at her mother. “Did you really force Jack to leave Dolly?”

  Marie was picking at her teeth with a fingernail. “He could have stood up to me “

  “He's afraid of you. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know.” She retired the fingernail and sucked at the tooth instead. “I think it started when I turned your father in to the cops the week you signed your first deal with Alex Roland. Don't look at me like that. You were six then, old enough to know what I was doing. He was a professional criminal, and if it got out it could have ruined us.” Marie clenched her fists. “By God I was determined to see you kids make it to the top and I didn't give a damn who I had to destroy to get you there. I ran my steamroller over anybody who got in my way. And I'm damn proud of what I accomplished.”

  “But Poppa hung himself.”

  “Well, he didn't have to. Nobody forced him He didn't have to take my suggestion. She sighed. “Just look back on it as a nice fatherly gesture “ She smiled, baring a set of stained dentures “God, but was he a brilliant pickpocket They called him 'the dip's dip.' Do you know—did I ever tell you this before?—anyway, it's worth repeating. At the intermission of Charles Dillingham's Famous Revue back in Nineteen hundred I think it was, dressed in his soup and fish and looking more elegant than Adolphe Menjou, he swept through that crowd and you know what he came out with?” Annamary wasn't listening She was thinking about Dolly's parents and sisters and why there was no sign of them at the funeral. “l’ll tell you what he came out with. Seven diamond bracelets … six pearl necklaces … four rings, one of them studded with emeralds the size of your teeth three cigarette cases, and”—she slapped her knee and roared the remainder of the inventory—”two diaphragms!”

  “I wonder where they were?”

  “Are you kidding me? Where do you think they were?”

  “Dolly's family.”

  “Oh, them Ask Alex Roland, he did the arrangements.”

  Annamary sipped the brandy “Irene Rich and Estelle Taylor have accepted mother roles. They're not even thirty, and they're still as beautiful as ever.”

  “So what?”

  “I'm tremendously wealthy …”

  “So?”

  “I need never worry again for the rest of my life.”

  Marie said sternly, “The rest of your life is gonna be a long time in coming What are you getting at?”

  “She's thinking about retiring.” They hadn't heard Willis Loring enter.

  Marie jumped to her feet, eyes afire and checks ablaze “Not in my lifetime you won't! You got plenty of good years ahead of you Retire? Retire to what?” She waved a hand like a semaphore 'Live here in this big mausoleum of a dump?”

  “Hey! It cost half a million!” remonstrated Willis.

  “Not your money, kiddol” Willis shrugged and mixed a scotch and soda for himself Hands on hips, Marie advanced slowly on her daughter, who seemed mesmerized by the brandy in her snifter “Irene Rich and Estelle Taylor and most of the rest of them, they ain’t never been the real big star you are and they ain’t never going to, so they can take mother roles. You want to go into vaudeville like so many of the others are doing? Evelyn Brent, Ben Lyon, Jimmy Hall even May McAvoy with her hilarious lisp—you want to do that? You can't sing, you can't dance, you don't do card tricks, what'll you do?”

  Annamary said vehemently, startling both her mother and her husband, “I'm rich! Rich. Very rich. I don't have to denigrate myself. I've seen pictures of these pretty young things and the elegant Broadway and West End stars they’re bringing in by the trainload. I can’t compete with them!”

  “Yes you can!” stormed Marie 'They don't know nothing about making pictures! It took you years to get to where you are, right up on top of the heap. Millions of fans around the world adore and worship you! You're more famous than the Prince of Wales or the President of the United States or Queen Marie of Romania, and none of them knows diddlyshit about acting'“ She mimicked her daughter cruelly: “'Pretty young things and the elegant Broadway and West End stars’ indeed. You know where most of those pretty young things will wind up if they aren't smart enough to go back home and marry a ribbon clerk—they’ll end up whoring for Madam Blanche “ Willis winced, remembering his account at Madam Blanche's was long overdue “And them Broadway and West End stars? Well what about them? I seen some of them around town. Ruth Chatterton? She's forty, for chrissakes! Them limeys Fay Compton and Beatrice Lillie? Compton's a bore and Lillie's nuts She already hates it out here and wants out. So what makes you think they're better than you are?”

  Annamary slammed the snifter down on an end table and cried, “They can talk”

  “What the hell do you think you've been doing all your life, communicating by tom-tom?”

  “Goddamn it, Mama, get your head out of the sand. Look what’s happened to Jack Gilbert. He sounds perfectly fine when you talk to him, but look what he sounds like on the screen. It's embarrassing.“

  “Don't believe everything you hear, baby. Louis B. Mayer hates his guts. He told the sound engineer to ruin Jack.”

  “But Jack just signed a three-million-dollar contract!”

  “Louis B. doesn't care what it costs when he's out to destroy someone. Look what he did to gorgeous Francis X Bushman after he did Ben-Hur for Louis. Francis can't get a job anyplace And look how Louis has ruined Mae Murray, just because he fancies she crossed him when she married that phony Prince Mdvani who's taken her for every nickel she had. Poor bitch is so broke she's doing a quickie on Poverty Row, Peacock Alley o
r something like that”

  Willis reminded her, “Mae’s no chicken. Mama. She's at least ten years older than Annamary.”

  “On her good side,” snorted Marie “And look at what Louis's done to Lillian Gish. Deliberately put her in two flops in a row and neither one of them got any fair distribution. Well, Lily's made of sterner stuff. She's headed back to New York and Broadway Anyway, her mama was as smart as me. She invested for Lillian and her sister, Dorothy, and they can retire if they want to.”

  “Why can't I?”

  “Because I ain't ready!”

  Willis freshened his drink. Annamary sank back in her seat. Because I ain't ready. She should have burst into laughter, but didn't. She was reminded of the perennial silent film intcrtitlc: Came the daunt. Dawn had come to Annamary and settled over her like an invisible cloak Her mother saw herself as an extension of her daughter Annamary s fame was Marie's fame. And Annamary's fame was all that kept Marie from drying up, shriveling and crumbling and drifting away into a dusty oblivion.

  Willis cleared his throat but neither of them acknowledged him. “You know girls, I'm a bit of a big box-office star myself “ Now they loooked at him Annamary with patience, Marie like a cannibal about to devour a missionary. “I've been having talks with Joe Schenck over at United Artists “ Schenck was chairman of the board of the independent distribution organization, United Artists, which was owned by Charles Chaplin and Mary and Doug. To keep the distribution arm operating at top speed, Schenck lured the biggest stars into the fold with lucrative promises of untold fortunes and, especially, the right to choose their own properties. Gloria Swanson had left Paramount to join UA, and it was rumored that her first talker, The Trespasser, in which she also would unveil a surprisingly beautiful soprano singing voice, was going to be a smash hit, if the enthusiasm of preview audiences was a true barometer.

  Willis discoursed briefly on Swanson and then returned to his favorite subject, himself. “Schenck has offered me a three-picture deal, a quarter of a million apiece.”

  Marie folded her arms and tapped a foot “And what about your contract with Alexander Roland?”

  “Mama, we both know when I ask Alex to release me, he'll dance around the room with unrestrained joy and lift me in his arms and carry me out to the parking lot and gleefully dump me into my Rolls-Royce or my Hispano-Suiza or my open touring car or whichever pleases my fancy to drive the day I decide to leave “

  “You damn fool You're getting a million a picture from Diamond Films and you'd throw that over for a quarter of a million from UA? You damn fool! Diamond can't dump you! I negotiated your contract myself! There's no way they can get you out without paying you off!”

  'There's one way they can get me out “ Willis spoke calmly and reasonably Few people credited him with any intelligence to speak of, as he seemed so firmly under the thumb of his formidable mother-in-law. But his lawyer often said, and not disparagingly, “Willis has brains he hasn't had to use yet.” Willis looked at Annamary, who guessed what he was going to say. 'They can get me on the morals clause.”

  “Booshwah! Everybody knows if it moves you screw it!”

  “Not if the moving object was sixteen years old.”

  “Willis, you fool.” Annamary crossed her legs and stared out the window The beautiful college student who cleaned the pool was out there stripped to the waist, his slender bronzed body giving her an appetite she knew would not soon be fulfilled.

  Mama Marie was pacing the room That's nothing for you to worry about.”

  “I could go to jail “

  “Horsefeathers! I could send Alex Roland to jail.” They stared at her quizzically “I've got plenty on him. I've got plenty on a lot of them. I know a lot of things I've come close to forgetting. You want to leave Diamond, then leave. But you don't have to “ She went to her daughter “And you're going to make your first talking picture very, very soon “

  “What about me, Mama?” Jack Darling was standing somewhat shakily at the head of the stairs that led into the room, wearing a terry cloth bathrobe and clutching a bottle of gin by the neck. “Are you going to throw me to the wolves?”

  “What are you doing out of bed?” she asked sternly.

  “Asking you questions.” He was descending slowly, stopping on every fourth step for a swig of gin.

  ‘The doctor sedated you1”

  'That was hours ago. It wore off and I been lying there and thinking about my future Or do you plan for me also to swallow acid?”

  “Shut up! You're gonna get back into pictures and you're gonna be bigger then you ever were!”

  “Rah rah rahl” He stumbled on the last step but caught himself and grinned foolishly at his mother.

  Marie stomped across the room and grabbed his arm “No more of that hayseed crap for you. It ruined Charlie Ray and now he's playing bits, We’ll be smart like Richard Barthelmess. He's playing gangsters and smart reporters and he's gonna make good in talkers. The Warner brothers are solidly behind him. I've got a great idea for your first talker.” Nobody cheered, so she continued. “You're gonna play a real chick dip!”

  “A chic pickpocket?” Jack asked. Marie had deposited him on a couch and grabbed the gin bottle out of his hand, leaving him briefly forlorn with a feeling of abandonment.

  “Yeah, like your father, rest his criminal soul. I got it all here”—she poked her head with an index finger—”and I just might write the scenario myself.”

  Annamary was in another chair now, busying herself half-heartedly with her needlepoint. Willis patiently waited for Marie to resume the subject of Willis. He heard Jack ask, “And who's going to produce this maybe picture?”

  “Who the hell do you think? Alex Roland. He can't break your contract and he knows it.”

  “He could offer a settlement, which I think I would gladly grab “

  “You'll gladly grab nothing while I'm still on this earth. Now the three of you, you listen to me—I'm the captain of this ship and if it ever sinks, it's because I chose to scuttle it. But while I've still got my sea legs, we go sailing together into a prosperous and successful future in the talkers!” She paused, possibly awaiting a fanfare, and then addressed Annamary. “I don’t want you worrying about the invasion from Broadway and London. And forget about all them drippy ingenues they're importing from New York—"

  “Yeah, yeah!” shouted Jack. “You forget about them, sis! They can't topple you! You're too big! You're really big!” His eyes misted “You're the best sister I ever had and I don't ever want no other. You're going to be bigger in talkers then you ever were in the silent. You better believe me. You mark my words.“ The last two sentences were slurred as his head dropped and he fell asleep, more purring than snoring.

  Willis spoke. “I promised Joe Schenck an answer by the end of the week.”

  “You won't have to bother. I'm going to take care of everything “

  Willis didn't doubt her.

  The talkers, as the early talking pictures were called, had turned the movie industry topsy-turvy. Silent pictures would no longer speak an international language. The major studios had assigned their European offices to sign up actors in France, Germany, and Mexico to be featured in foreign-language versions of their talkers. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had contracted the fine French director Jacques Feyder and his actress wife, Franqoise Rosay, to come to Hollywood to do both French and German versions of Greta Garbo's first projected talker, an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Garbo was studying English with Broadway actress Laura Hope Crews. When it was learned that fading suave leading man Adolphe Menjou spoke fluent French (though it was later learned he came not from Paris but from Pittsburgh), he found a new career in foreign versions, which led to new stardom in talkers. Mexican-born Lupe Velez and Dolores Del Rio worked overtime both in English and Spanish.

  The new horizon beckoned Broadway playwrights, novelists, phony speech teachers, singing teachers. The studio hummed with activity strictly pertaining to the talkers and the teleph
one wires sang high C, communicating all over the world in search of talent.

  “Hello Russia?” asked a secretary at Fox studios. “Moscow in Russia? Do you speak English? Oh, thank God. Yes, I’ll speak very slowly .” She enunciated clearly. “Do you have a number for a songwriter named Peter Tchaikovsky?”

  At Paramount, a secretary was talking to London. “I'm trying to locate a writer named Charles Dickens? He wrote something called Great Expectorations, I think? He's where? In public domain? Can you tell me where that's located?”

  Jack Warner was talking to his office in Berlin, and it was a poor connection. “For crying out loud, Harry, we're dumping the foreigners here and you're trying to sell me a whole other batch! You crazy? Sure, we can use replacements for those we're unloading. Were getting rid of Monte Blue and Jack Mulhall, and Dolores Costello sounds like a sodomized canary The only two at the studio that passed their talk tests are Jack Barrymore and Rin-Tin-Tin and believe me, Barrymore may have been a great Hamlet, but Rin doesn't slur his barks!”

  At Universal Pictures, little Carl Laemmle, who headed the studio and whose name was synonymous with nepotism, was explaining to a cousin abroad, “I can't hire any more nephews! No nieces either! And cousins are strictly out! I got a nephew here now who wants to direct, he calls himself William Wyler so help me God, but Junior says he ain't got no talent!” His son, Carl Junior, was in his own office at the moment auditioning a potential starlet, the two of them stretched out on the couch moaning and groaning between nibbles. Junior was a very precocious twenty-one-year-old and the starlet's talent was confined strictly to horizontal activities.

  Earlier that day Sam Goldwyn had auditioned the British singing star Evelyn Laye, although he had already signed a one-picture deal with her. Smiling beatifically, he asked Miss Laye if she could sing one of his favorite songs, “Lo Hear the Gentile Lox“. She bit her lip and then offered to do a number from Noel Coward’s Bitter Sweet, a show in which she had triumphed in New York.