At this point in his long career Sam was one of the last mainstays of the studio system. He had started as a two-bit shill, barking for a downtown theatre in Los Angeles. Sam eventually found himself a studio flack at the old AyanBee Studio, where his sister, Viola, a then-secretary, had procured him a job, and in time he became a moneymaking, and therefore powerful, producer. Later he moved to Metro, where, following the death of Irving Thalberg and the departure of David Selznick for Gone With the Wind and greener pastures, he held down the number-one producing spot. In those days a film with the credit
A Sam’l B. Ueberroth Production
meant lines around the block and money in the bank, and many is the blonde tootsie who put in her lap time, sitting cozily with Sam while he told her the story of his next script and checked out the glands.
Then to the cast of the brewing melodrama was added that up-and-coming young thespian Floyd “Bud” Ayres, rechristened Kit Carson, the lad who really took it on the chin. Bud was a beauty, and not only in the physical sense. It’s true, when the girls got an eyeful of that Nordic face, that beach-tanned body, that cornsilk hair, and the green eyes, they creamed their undies. But Bud was not merely that famous Hollywood commodity, the Boy Next Door; he was made of rarer stuff, the guy everybody thought would become the next hot rave after Van Johnson and Monty Clift. For a kid from El Segundo, son of a plant worker at Hughes Tool and Die, whom Jenny and I first saw parking cars, Bud did okay for himself.
It was our wedding anniversary and Jen and I decided to celebrate at La Rue, our then-favorite restaurant. As we pulled up to the entrance, a young man appeared in a red jacket and took the car away. On our way in Jenny squeezed my arm, remarked on how gorgeous he was, then, to my annoyance, mentioned him again during dinner. Later, when he returned our car to us, I decided to give him the once-over. Jen was right, he was impressive—tall, wide shoulders, blonde hair bleached to white from sun and surfing, a whalebone smile, and kind of funny eyes; by funny I mean with something intrinsically interesting in them, something hidden, a bit inscrutable, a definite oddity in a Santa Monica beach type.
Certainly he was a good bet for pictures, and when I next saw Frank I casually made mention of the fact to him, then promptly forgot about it until another evening, when we returned to La Rue and a different attendant took our car. When I commented on the change, Jenny said in her blithe way, “Oh, Bud’s not here anymore; Frank has him working at the office.” I soon learned that Frank had also signed his newest find to an actor’s-representative contract, and it wasn’t long before he had located cheap digs for him in our own neighborhood, a few turns down the hill, in the guest apartment above a friend’s garage.
Even with Jenny’s enthusiasm, which was enough for both of us, I had to admit that this new beach jock of Frank’s had it over most Hollywood hopefuls that I’d come across; “star quality” it’s called, and almost against my will I found myself liking him. He was twenty-two that year, which gave him a good ten years on me, and we made him part of the household, along with the dog and the cat and the cleaning lady.
In those early years Bud was like an apple ripening on the bough. He dressed like a beach bum and drove around in an old Ford woodie with a rack on top for skis or his surfboard, and if he stooped to wearing shoes it was a pair of battered sneakers, and in a time of short hair, his was always in need of a trim. He was nature’s boy, an unsophisticate with a degree in engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. But he was the raw material that movie stars are often fashioned from, one who if there was justice in the world should have become a big, big star. He did, too—for a while, until life intervened. That oft-repeated agents’ and producers’ cliché “You don’t have to act in the movies” is just so much agent-producer canned crap. Someone who looks like Bud Ayres may not have to act but it damn well helps—and, oddly, he could, a little.
And no sooner had Frank taken on this diamond-in-the-rough and changed his name to Kit Carson than he turned him over to Feldy Eskenazy, who took him under her wing and began the process of “polishing” him until he was ready to be sprung on a world hungry for blonde, six-foot, green-eyed heroes, just like in the comic strips. It was at Feldy’s studio that Kit, like Frank before him, would take one look at April and go the same head-over-heels route. And by the time the whole thing was over, it would be this “Kit Carson” who would pay the ultimate price, the loss of his career and worse—and for what? For having faithfully loved the girl of his dreams and lost her? And, by the way, not to Frank, not altogether to him, but more to screaming headlines and bad press, and to being in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
Meanwhile, it wasn’t too long before the newly christened Kit Carson started turning up stag at Frances’s coveted Sunday-night soirées, wearing his tux borrowed from me, and you could see the Las Floristas Ball ladies checking out the basket, eager to have him light their cigarettes (once, at Frank’s house, the stinko wife of a prominent director got into the John, whose lock Bud had neglected to turn; attacking him while he was peeing, she created a scene of some vividness, and when Bud emerged from the encounter, he stood resolved in the firm belief that his shining career was over before he’d ever put a foot in front of a camera).
Actually, his career was about to begin. The minute Feldy Eskenazy slipped Frank the word that Kit was ready, Frank took him out to Culver City and turned him over to Sam Ueberroth to be tested. As it happened, I was shooting a film on the old Selznick backlot (then Desilu, I believe; this was in ’59). I had got into the habit of brown-bagging my lunch, not bothering with the studio commissary. One morning whom do I spot among the day players but Kit Carson got up as a Nazi—his first movie part. He had four lines, all in heavy Kraut, which I, who spoke none, thought he ripped through with professional aplomb.
We’d been so busy lately that neither Jenny nor I had seen Bud in quite a while, and at lunchtime I took him along to my “private dining room,” which happened to be the front porch of Scarlett O’Hara’s Tara. In those days the old Gone With the Wind set was still standing, regrettably much the worse for wear after nearly twenty years of neglect, and in the approximate spot where Scarlett had sat with the red-headed Tarleton twins on the eve of the Civil War, I shared my deviled eggs and tuna sandwich with Kit, all got up in a Nazi uniform about two sizes too large.
We sat around talking acting, directors, his future, the whole movie bit, and I was as impressed as ever by his guileless charm, still so evident despite the recent changes in his life. He spoke admiringly of Frank, giving all due credit and taking none for his own obvious physical assets, and when I complimented him on his morning’s work, he brushed it aside as small potatoes.
There was an important part coming up in a picture at Metro that he hoped to be considered for. When he mentioned the title, I started: I knew all about that one, a big, all-out western, and I wanted that part. Frank had already promised me a crack at it. I said nothing, however, and after a while Bud dug out a football from his carryall and we tossed passes on what remained of Scarlett’s front lawn. From time to time I’d glance up at a window and imagine I was hearing Hattie McDaniel bawling “Miss Scawlitt, you ain’t got no mo’ mannahs than a field han’.”
Next day I lunched again on Scarlett’s porch, reading Vengeance Is Mine, the super-western Bud had mentioned. As things turned out, Frank didn’t have Kit pegged for the same part at all; this was an epic with roles for the entire Players Directory. Kit was up for Cheeter Slade, a young ranch hand who gets chewed up in the bindery, while I was to try out for a one-armed bandit. In the wonderful way of Hollywood, it was Kit who won his chance; I lost mine. Thus endeth the reading for that day. And for many days to come. I sat around through the rainy season, staring at my bleak, leaf-strewn swimming pool, biting my nails and cursing the acting business, while Kit, who’d finished his epic at Metro, went back to school for further burnishing from Feldy.
To my mind, Kit Carson, a.k.a. Bud Ayres, stands as proof positive of the dead
ly destructive properties of Hollywood. Here was this simple, likable guy, uncomplicated but not gullible, not a shnook, and not to be taken advantage of. He wanted to excel at his newly chosen profession and take advantage of his natural assets—God knows it was formidable equipment, and for the time he was an actor he used it well. In his brief film career he stirred audiences the way the good actor, the wise actor, the valuable actor, always hopes to stir his audience. He had the real thing, in spades. The moment he appeared onscreen he had them eating out of his hand. Women went crazy for him; older men envied him, while the younger ones idolized, trying to imitate his leggy lope, his cheerful, earnest manner, his solemn quiet. He walked in the footsteps of the Duke of Wayne; like Gary Cooper, he was kissed by golden lips.
In a relatively short period he made a solid mark. From car jockey to movie star was a giant leap, but he took it in his stride. Not that others before him hadn’t managed it, but those others had not undergone his meteoric rise. You could probably light the whole of Minneapolis by the candlepower of that kid from El Segundo, Bud Ayres. But El Segundo has never bothered claiming him as its own. “Here was born…” “Here lies…” “This plaque erected to the loving memory of…” Thus pass the glories of this world.
Feldy Eskenazy was probably in love with him. I thought so, others, too. A good twenty years older than Bud, she went to jelly from the very first, and it lasted forevermore—when he died she was ready to commit suttee. Josephine Dillon, Gable’s drama coach, was twenty-five years older than Clark—and she married the guy. She never could have, though, had there been a Lombard around at the time. Feldy never stood a chance with Bud. Nothing against her except that, besides being years older, she simply wasn’t his type. And anyway he hadn’t been working too long with Feldy when April appeared on the scene.
I always imagine that particular epiphany to have occurred something like this: it’s early evening, soft, warm, inviting. Somewhere, from a distance, heart-tugging music plays, invoking mood. The sky is violet-blue, softly velveteen. Then above some foothills or low-lying mountains there appears the evening star, Venus, lambently gleaming—Tannhäuser’s star. It does not move to its place in the sky, it simply appears as if by magic, and hangs there “like a tear upon the soft cheek of night,” gently glimmering. Bud, who has labored hard all day, raises his weary eyes, which come to rest on that same star. He experiences feelings of rare delight and peace and a deep, hitherto unknown stirring in his manly breast. He is fettered, bound on the instant, enslaved for life, and he pledges himself to see that such a beautiful light shall never be extinguished, shall burn forever. It is the love that surpasseth all, the faith that moves mountains. April Rains has just walked through the door.
Appropriately enough, it’s been raining outside, April looks a sorry sight, dripping on the paint-spattered linoleum. She speaks Feldy’s name, querying her whereabouts. Feldy’s in the can, though Bud has difficulty articulating this intelligence, so banal and vulgar does it seem. He takes the visitor’s wet coat, gets her a chair, brings her hot coffee, makes her at home, puts forth his name, asks hers, offers friendly confidences regarding Frank, makes small talk but no pitch, is dazzled by her, and, generally speaking, is bowled over. A star-crossed meeting if ever there was one. The rain-spattered, dewy-eyed creature is almost like a gift, a Frankie-sent gift for Bud, his own, his very own.
The fact helps that Feldy is not in the can, but gone to pick up her dry-cleaning before closing, where she discovers that her ribbon-woven blouse of coral pink that she bought herself last Eastertime has been lost. She is gone a good quarter of an hour, and she is not missed. Bud safely employs that entire quarter of an hour to fall in love. Yes, it was that old familiar “love at first sight”—at least on Bud’s part. From that moment when she appeared dripping in the doorway of that rundown dump of an actors’ studio, April had a devoted slave, one who, as he was one day to prove, would do anything for her. “Anything” making a whole world, but it was the world he offered her—himself, body and soul, his future, his money (when that came, if that came), everything he had was hers for the asking.
And so there developed yet another hopeless triangle, which eventually became some kind of weird five-sided figure, for in time there was Frances who loved Frank who loved April who was also loved by Sam and now by Kit, and everyone was totally miserable. One day Frank comes on the lot, heading for Stage Ten, where a Debbie Reynolds picture of Sam’s is rehearsing. Sam spies Frank, takes off after him, catches up and starts the famous altercation. He calls Frank a shnook! Frank grabs Sam’s nose and gives it a tweak plus a hop in the butt. Sam has a spasm, falls backwards into the privet hedge, where Frank abandons him. Shouting threats and imprecations, Sam lapses into a fit that may or may not be real. Despite the published depositions of one Myron Radowitch III, prominent Beverly Hills attorney, authenticating this so-called fit, Frank accuses Sam of faking injury. Fake or not, Sam ends up in Cedars of Lebanon, and Radowitch institutes legal proceedings, which make all the editions. Recommending that cooler heads prevail, Viola visits her brother in the hospital and begs him to reconsider.
VI: “Sammy, darling, didn’t Mama ever tell you?”
SAM: “Tell me what, Vi?”
VI: “Never go to law, Sammy, never never go to law if it can be avoided.”
When Sam and Frank next met, Sam enjoined Dore Schary to take a unilateral stand. “Damn it, Dore, I want that dago bum barred from this lot! I don’t want to see him on this side of Motor Avenue!”
“But Sammy, Sammy,” Dore said, “only think—how can we bar Frank from MGM? He handles four of our biggest stars.”
“What you mean is he hondles four of our biggest stars! It’s an ultimatum here, Dore, friend. Either him or me goes!”
Frank was forthwith barred from the Culver City lot. No problem. He set up temporary quarters in the bar on Culver Boulevard across from the Thalberg Building, where he would meet with his clients in the red Naugahyde-upholstered corner booth. It fell to Sam’s wonder-working sister, Vi, to attempt to bring about peace. Since Vi and Frank always had great affection for each other, she was able to persuade him to meet her irate brother more than halfway. She invited Frank over for her regular Friday-night poker session, having already suggested that her brother stop by. When she heard Sam come in through the kitchen door, Vi asked Frank to get some more ice, her drink was warm. The two archenemies met at the sinkboard.
Sam was not pleased to find Frank in his sister’s house and said as much. Frank offered to leave. Viola hurried in and began pouring oil on the troubled waters. Sam agreed to patch it up, tossing an arm around Frank and saying he was just like a son to him. Everything was fine until April’s name came up again; then Sammy burst into tears and pulled out a gun, a German Luger he’d picked up in the war. Frank laughed at him, daring him to pull the trigger. Sam’s aim was sufficiently faulty for him to miss the heart by two and a half feet, the bullet striking Frank in the crotch. Half an hour later he lay in a bed at Cedars of Lebanon. No charges were pressed, and an abject Sam appeared at the invalid’s bedside with apologies. The incident was hushed up, and other than some wounded pride the only loss was that where, like most males, Frank had once had two of something, he now had only one.
Now what happens? By now Kit, or Bud, is head over heels for April, but it’s not reciprocal. Why? Because April has already fallen for Frank. Bud’s all ready to have Turkish towels monogrammed, while out on Tennessee Avenue, before going to sleep, April’s kissing nighty-night a picture of Frank she cut out of Photoplay (the wastebasket got the other half: Frances in a two-piece sharkskin cocktail ensemble).
Frances had paid scant attention when Frank casually dropped the news that he’d signed some new piece of talent and was peddling her over at Metro. She didn’t even pay much attention when Mike Connolly remarked in The Reporter that MGM had signed a pretty blonde cover girl, the latest filly in the glamorous stable of the Adonis Agency. Frances did, however, prick up her ears when
it reached them that while her husband was supposedly attending one of Vi Ueberroth’s Friday-night poker games, he was actually having dinner at Jack’s-at-the-Beach, a seaside hideaway notorious for harboring clandestine meetings. Needless to say, Frances took exception, and it wasn’t long before she was taking exception all over the place.
Truthfully, to know Frances was not necessarily to love her, but at least you knew where you stood with her. She liked me, I think, or anyway she did at that time—certainly she was always interested in my meeting “the right people,” and (at Frank’s suggestion) had occasionally included me as a stag freelancer at the Sunday-night supper gatherings she and Frank were famous for. (Life did one of their “Life Goes to a Party” layouts; it was like a Hollywood Who’s Who.)
It came as something of a surprise, however, to find myself attending a Sunday-evening soirée, not stag this time, but with April Rains as my date. This pairing came about because Jenny had flown home to Boston for her sister’s wedding, and when I came back from the airport I found a message from the agency. Frank’s secretary, Minnie, said that he wondered if I wouldn’t mind bringing along my acting partner for “bits and pieces” on Sunday at the Bristol Avenue house. Black tie compris.