he: A Novel Page 10

  He takes in everything: the care, the attention to detail, the ambition. He had tried to institute these processes with Joe Rock, but Joe Rock had neither the money nor the vision to indulge him.

  Here it is not an indulgence. Here it is a necessity.

  How many pictures will be released by Hollywood this year? He estimates four hundred, give or take. Last year, Hal Roach alone produced over seventy pictures. Mighty Like A Moose will be twenty-three minutes long when the Audience finally sees it. The Audience will watch Mighty Like A Moose, laugh, forget it, and want more.

  Just twenty-three minutes.

  But each minute must be perfect.

  He returns to the apartment. Lois is reading.

  He takes Lois to bed, to the dark.

  To lose himself in the flawlessness of her.

  57

  At the Oceana Apartments, a young man comes to visit: a writer for television, a fan of his work. The young man is polite, overwhelmed. He tries to put the young man at his ease.

  They talk about his pictures. He hates to see them broken up by the advertisements on television. He can understand why it is done, but there is no logic to the interruptions beyond the requirements of time slots. The advertisements interrupt scenes and gags. They destroy the rhythm of what he has created with Babe. The distributors have even butchered the longer features to create shorter shows so that all sense is lost. He has written to them, offering to edit the pictures again for television just so the gags will work better. He will do this for free, he tells them. He has time, and it will not take long. He has watched these pictures often enough. He has already reedited them in his mind. He does not want money. What would he do with it?

  The distributors do not reply. He is not surprised. He had only hoped that they might respond.

  He is not bitter. Never that. Babe would have said it was not worth becoming bitter, and Babe would have been right. But he is sad, sad that they do not care as much as he does.

  And then the young man asks if he has read Chaplin’s autobiography.

  58

  Joe Rock continues to hold out.

  This is frustrating, but William Doane believes that progress is slowly being made. William Doane would like to meet with Joe Rock’s lawyers in order to shake their hands and congratulate them on their acumen, but William Doane is afraid of losing fingers in the exchange. William Doane prefers to keep Joe Rock’s lawyers at one remove, to save having special gloves made. For now, William Doane informs him, he must continue writing and directing, and keep the camera pointed away from himself.

  But Babe’s wife Myrtle falls in Laurel Canyon while fleeing from a rattlesnake, and will be laid up for weeks. Babe decides to cook for her, but burns his hand with hot grease, then slips and injures himself while leaving the kitchen to seek help. He thinks that this might make for a memorable gag, but he is not certain that Babe would see the humor in it. With no one else available, he must take Babe’s roles in Get ’Em Young and Raggedy Rose, while also co-directing.

  I was you, he will later remind Babe. I was a better you than you.

  I gave you your big break, Babe will reply. I burned myself because I felt sorry for you.

  Back before the cameras, he realizes how much he has missed this. He is tired of writs, tired of Joe Rock. He wants to marry Lois, but cannot do so with lawyers arguing in his ears, and his future uncertain.

  Bring it to an end, he tells William Doane. Make a deal.

  Joe Rock is working out of Poverty Row.

  Joe Rock is drowning.

  Joe Rock takes the deal.

  59

  He has been liberated from music halls, liberated from vaudeville, liberated from Mae. He has been liberated from fifteen-minute skits, liberated from spoofs of dramas, liberated from Joe Rock.

  And he has been liberated from repetition only to find himself bound to a new wheel, because Hal Roach operates a manufactory and its machines must be fed. They are voracious consumers of ideas. They seek novelty, but only to replicate it. They demand variety, but only if it can conform to a set rule.

  He watches the vaudeville players come and go. They sense the imminence of the circuit’s passing. When vaudeville sinks, it will sink quickly, like a ship that has stayed afloat only long enough to permit those with an instinct for self-preservation to make for the lifeboats or brave the water, but will now take the rest, the ones who feared to jump, down to the bottom.

  But this is not fair. They cannot all leave, these performers. Some the circuit has made lazy, content to recycle endlessly the gags they have created, inherited, or stolen from others. And some have just one gag, one skit, one bit of business, and it will not be enough to save them. They are pigs cavorting in the knife’s gleam.

  The acts that survive, and make the transition to pictures, understand certain matters without being told. They must innovate while appearing to remain the same. They must diversify without alienating the Audience. They must mold characters from clay before commencing the process of firing them in the furnace of the Audience’s regard. Most of all, they must be aware not only of the camera, but also of the screen. They will be projected upon it, and the Audience will project itself upon them in turn.

  Babe, the electrician, knows this. Babe has seen the Audience bathed in reflected light. Soon Babe will look out from the screen, and gesture at the other, the fool beside him, and asks of those watching if any man was ever before forced to carry such a burden. Babe will seek their sympathy and they will offer it, even as they laugh, because Babe is most like themselves.

  Harold Lloyd looks out from the screen, and seeks help and approval. Harold Lloyd cannot benefit from either, yet Harold Lloyd retains faith in the willingness of the Audience to extend help, if it could, and the capacity of the Audience to signal its approval through laughter and applause. It is in the Audience’s gift. It is enough for Harold Lloyd to know that the Audience would rescue him, if it could, and the Audience will applaud, even if Harold Lloyd is not present to hear it.

  Buster Keaton looks out from the screen, and remains impassive. Buster Keaton is Job. The Audience cannot aid him, and its approval is lost upon him. Buster Keaton can only suffer.

  Chaplin looks out from the screen, and expects love. It is Chaplin’s right. Chaplin offers laughter, but not in return for this love. Chaplin expects the love as his right, but the laughter has to be bought additionally. The currency is sadness: Chaplin is as happy to have the Audience cry as laugh.

  And what of him?

  He is the camera, and the subject. He sees, and is seen. He records, and is recorded.

  And in recording, he remembers.

  60

  At the Oceana Apartments, the young man waits for his reply.

  Yes, he says, I read Charlie’s autobiography.

  – And what did you think?

  – I don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Charlie.

  61

  Hal Roach mixes and matches. Hal Roach has a whole stable of stars, so why, then, does Hal Roach persist in putting the same jockeys on the same horses?

  Hal Roach’s reasoning is not subtle. Fat men are funny. Joe Rock has The Three Fatties, on the grounds that if fat men are funny, then three fat men are three times funnier than one. (Deo gratias, the appellation ‘Fatty’ has served its time in purdah, and can now safely be used again without immediate associations of rape and violent death.) Fat Karr, Fatty Alexander, and Kewpie Ross: together, they weigh a thousand pounds. Babe worked with Frank Alexander on Larry Semon’s pictures. Babe liked standing beside Frank Alexander. Babe said that Frank Alexander made him feel good about himself.

  Fat men are bad guys. Bad guys are not called heavies for nothing. Babe has made a career out of playing heavies.

  Are fat men leads? Not so much. Not since Roscoe Arbuckle, and Roscoe Arbuckle is now directing cheap shorts for Educational Pictures and drinking himself to death on Buster Keaton’s dime.

  But he has watched Babe, direct
ed Babe, acted with Babe. And he likes Babe. Everybody likes Babe.

  When Leo McCarey suggests a collaboration, he is not surprised.

  – Maybe we could come up with something for you and Babe Hardy?

  By ‘we’, of course, Leo McCarey means maybe he can come up with something for both of them.

  And he does. It is not his own idea, but A.J.’s: an old piece of music hall business, yet solid, like all A.J.’s work. Home from the Honeymoon. It is not a bad title, but Leo McCarey suggests an alternative, Duck Soup, which is a very Leo McCarey title. It means nothing, and everything. Beanie Walker is attached as writer, but it is the easiest job Beanie Walker will ever have because all of the writing was done two decades earlier.

  A two-hander, but with Babe as lead.

  Babe has not been the lead in a comedy in many years, not since The Other Girl back in Florida, when God was a child. Babe has resigned himself to never being the lead again.

  Babe comes to him to ensure that this billing is correct. Babe notices that he has given himself more gags, but not the momentum of the picture. It is Babe who will make the running.

  You don’t want to play the lead? Babe asks.

  – No, it works better if you take it.

  Babe, summoning to mind the specter of Larry Semon, tries to recall if anyone in his experience has ever willingly ceded the spotlight in a picture, and decides that no one has, or certainly not for Babe Hardy.

  – And it’s okay with Hal?

  – It is if the picture’s good.

  Babe nods.

  Thank you, says Babe.

  – You’re welcome.

  Babe leaves to find a quiet corner of the lot. Babe takes the script with him, but does not open it.

  Babe sits, and contemplates.

  62

  In 1915, Chaplin is being paid $1,250 per week by Essanay.

  In 1916, Chaplin is being paid $10,000 per week by Mutual, and has pocketed a signing bonus of $150,000.

  In 1918, Chaplin is being paid $1,075,000 per year by First National.

  In 1925, he is being paid $5,695 per year by Hal Roach.

  In 1926, he is being paid $12,450 per year by Hal Roach.

  In 1927, he is being paid $20,450 per year by Hal Roach.

  By 1927, no studio can afford Chaplin.

  63

  At the Oceana Apartments, he checks his wallet.

  He is comfortable, but not wealthy. He has been cautious in his investments ever since the stock market crash of 1929, when he lost much of his savings. Annuities have funded his retirement, and what he does not need he gives away, although sometimes he grows weary of the endless importuning.

  For the world is full of starving actors.

  Ben Shipman looks after his financial affairs, and has for decades, which may explain why he is not wealthier. He thinks Ben Shipman’s negotiating strategy went something like this:

  STUDIO: We’d like to offer him a new contract.

  BEN SHIPMAN: Great. How much should we pay you?

  But Ben Shipman is a nice man, and Ben Shipman is not a crook.

  And besides, because of Ben Shipman, there is nothing left for Ben Shipman to steal.

  He could live somewhere better, he knows, somewhere bigger, but he enjoys being near the sea, and he enjoys being around people. He can walk out of his apartment, if he is feeling well enough, and become part of the flow, or climb in the Mercury and go to a restaurant, but he tries to be discreet. It is not that he is in any way aloof – if that were the case, he would not be listed in the telephone book – but he is uncomfortable with his looks and his age. He remains a younger man on television, and that is how the Audience thinks of him. He does not wish to disappoint it with reality. This is why he turns down offers to appear on shows and in pictures.

  And, of course, there is Babe: what is he without Babe but a reminder of all that has been lost?

  He closes his wallet.

  64

  Hal Roach gives Mae Busch a contract.

  Hal Roach gives Mae Busch a contract because Mae Busch is funny, and pretty.

  Hal Roach gives Mae Busch a contract because it will annoy the hell out of Mack Sennett.

  Mae Busch ends Mack Sennett’s romance with Mabel Normand back in 1918, although there are some – Jimmy Finlayson among them – who claim that Mae Busch does Mack Sennett a favor in this way, because Jimmy Finlayson says Mabel Normand is crazy and a cocaine fiend, and people around her have a habit of getting shot.

  He does not know if Mabel Normand is actually a cocaine fiend – he saw no evidence of it when they worked together on Raggedy Rose – but the part about the shooting is certainly true, or else William Desmond Taylor, who was found on February 2nd, 1922 with a locket in his possession containing a photograph of Mabel Normand, and a bullet hole in his back, would still be directing pictures instead of rotting in the ground. He does know that Mabel Normand was close to Chaplin: fought for Chaplin, encouraged Chaplin, shared Chaplin’s bed. Mabel Normand spoke with him of Chaplin between takes on Raggedy Rose, while she sipped gin from a silver flask.

  Like him, she had seen many sides of Chaplin.

  Like him, she still adored Chaplin.

  He thought Mabel Normand was appealing on screen, but she looked unhealthy up close. Her pallor made her eyes appear too large. Mabel Normand once wrote and directed pictures. Mabel Normand was a star. Mabel Normand learned to fly a plane. All in the past. By Raggedy Rose, Mabel Normand was sinking, and she knew it.

  Mabel Normand was married to Lew Cody, but they did not live together.

  Mabel Normand told him that she married Lew Cody for a gag.

  Mack Sennett is said to be pining for Mabel Normand still, although if Mack Sennett loves her that much then Mack Sennett should not have fucked Mae Busch in their apartment, in their bed, only to be caught in the act by Mabel Normand. Worse, Mae Busch was Mabel Normand’s friend, or Mabel Normand thought so until Mae Busch started fucking Mack Sennett.

  So Hal Roach puts Babe and him together with Mae Busch and Jimmy Finlayson for a picture entitled Love ’Em and Weep. The day before shooting commences, Jimmy Finlayson reads extracts aloud over lunch from The Sins of Hollywood: An Exposé of Movie Vice!, which costs Jimmy Finlayson fifty cents and has repaid him many times over in entertainment value. All of the stories in The Sins of Hollywood are pseudonymous, but Jimmy Finlayson takes great pleasure in restoring the true names to each.

  One day – Jimmy Finlayson reads – there came on the lot an attractive brunette. Straightaway the girl – shall we call her Mae? – and Mabel became friends, then pals. It was Mae who proposed that they be good friends. At first Mabel demurred, then she agreed. It was a diplomatic move. There was a good deal of talk going on around the lot. She wanted to stop that talk. So she frolicked with Mae. Mack was true to her – this the girl knew. Of course, there were a large number of new faces around the studios these days – they were necessary in the sort of pictures Mack was making. But Mabel worried none about them. Her Mack was hers – always.

  At this, Jimmy Finlayson sighs in the manner of a softhearted man watching a kitten playing with a ball of yarn.

  And so – Jimmy Finlayson resumes – blissfully working her way along toward stardom, Mabel drove to the lot with a song in her heart each morning, and with a happy smile on her face in the evening. Wasn’t she kept by the great maker of pictures, himself? Was she not soon to become a star? Was she not earning a wonderfully big salary?

  But Mack began to get young ideas. True, in his way Mack loved Mabel; Mack does yet. But Temptation tossed her curls and beckoned him to come and play along the Highways of Immorality. Temptation, guised as a shapely maid with alluring lips and firm, rounded bosom, called to him and Mack began to take heed.

  Jimmy Finlayson pauses dramatically.

  – Temptation’s other name was Mae.

  According to The Sins of Hollywood, or Jimmy Finlayson’s version thereof, Mae Busch and Mabel Normand fought over the lov
e-stained sheets for the honor of sharing Mack Sennett’s bed, while Mack Sennett himself did the smart thing and took to the hills. The fight ended when Mae Busch banged Mabel Normand’s head repeatedly against a window frame, reducing her to a state of semi-consciousness.

  By now, Jimmy Finlayson is acting out the roles while reading, and has drawn quite the crowd. When Jimmy Finlayson concludes, there is a round of applause.

  Later, he feels guilty for laughing along. He likes Mabel Normand, and it makes him disinclined to like Mae Busch, even if the two women are said to have patched up their differences.

  The next day, with the four of them gathered on the set of Love ’Em And Weep, Mae Busch asks Jimmy Finlayson if Jimmy Finlayson also gives private recitals, and he decides that he should give Mae Busch a chance.

  65

  Hal Roach is a hands-on mogul, yet views all at one remove. Hal Roach surveys the screen, and upon the screen Hal Roach projects his stars, or his perception of them. For Hal Roach, Babe is the eternal bully. No matter that, away from the set, away from the screen, Babe is a strange mix of gentleness and uncertainty, of frustrated artistry and unfeigned insouciance. Babe has spent years caked in villainy, and so Babe must play the villain.

  Slipping Wives: bully.

  Sailors, Beware!: bully.

  But he watches Duck Soup again, beside him not Hal Roach but Leo McCarey, and he notices how well he and Babe work together when not in opposition. Leo McCarey sees it. Babe has seen it, too. Even Hal Roach’s publicity merchants have seen it.