PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1939, Page 10

PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

MRS PATRICK MACGILL.

CHAPTER XVI (Continued)

Peggy leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes because she was suddenly desperately afraid that the tears of sheer misery which suddenly filled them would brim over and spill down her cheeks if she kept them open. It was not going home, aftother Holywood failure, that hurt Peggy, so keenly, it was leaving David to whatever Opal Orth chose to do with or to him, once he left the hospital. The thought of Oscar Lewisohn was her one sheet anchor, her only sustaining comfort. The film lover, despairing of getting any reaction from Peggy, retired in a huff to the observation car.

For several moments Peggy had been aware of the shuffling and fussing in her immediate vicinity but thinking the noise merely that of a traveller settling himself for the long journey, did not even trouble to open her eyes. It was when the thud of a heavy body dropping into the seat vacated by the film star attracted her attention that Peggy opened her eyes, to behold, mopping his perspiring forehead and grinning wickedly—Oscar Lewisohn! “Why?—what?—how in the world? . . . what does it mean? . . but . . .”

Peggy was incoherent with surprise and pleasure; she jumped up from her seat and the tears that had been checked so sternly resolved to have their part in the emotional scene, even if they masqueraded.as an expression of joy, promptly spilled themselves into the bright eyes. “Oh . . . excuse me . . .” Peggy darted down the crowded corridor, pushing her way to the toilet saloon with scant ceremony; not emerging until, fresh and sweet and smiling, she was able to face the concerned old Jew as nonchalantly as if she had found in Hollywood the realisation of her fondest hopes..

“That’s better, honey,*’ he approved, patting the little bare hand. He reached up for the exquisite corsage of orchids that, still Unwrapped, lay on the luggage rack, atop the large expensive box of candy. “Put them on, girlie . . . orchids always make a woman feel like a million dollars!” Peggy’s champion advised, tearing off the green waxed paper and revealing the mauve and gold loveliness of the aristocratic blooms.

Peggy shuddered. “Open the window and pitch them out,” she urged angrily. With the innate sensitiveness of the Jew to feminine psychology, Oscar Lewisohn did as he was bid, quickly, quietly, and efficiently. “And the chocolates, too, added Peggy, briefly contemptuous. But there the Jew demurred. “They cost ten dollars, honey . . . out of the show-case at the Ambassador. I saw them there,” he pleaded, a kaleidoscopic flash of the pleasure his little grandson would get out of that splendid sample of confectionery lighting up his mental consciousness. “Certainly; do just what you like with .them, Mr Lewisohn. I don’t want them, that is all,” temporised Paggy, willingly enough. Lewisohn was packing the box carefully into the small suit-case that he carried when suddenly the train stopped, and he did a surprising thing. Grabbing Peggy by the arm, he spoke swiftly, with a fierce urgency .that could not but convince. “This is San Felipe, Peggy. Don’t stop to ask questions but follow me as quietly as you can. I’ve got a car waiting outside.”

"B —but ...” stammered Peggy, thinking of the trunk containing all her clothes which was in the luggage van.

Oscar Lewisohn was too- seasoned with women not to sense what was in Peggy’s mind. He cursed himself for forgetting. “I’ve tipped the attendant to pitch your trunk out. Don’t ask any more questions; there’s a honey. Come along.” With her arms full of hastily grabbed travel impedimenta, /. Peggy allowed herself to be propelled through the corridor down the steps and 1 on to the platform. Her mind was a confused welter of jumbled thought which she did not attempt to clarify. Her ticket had been booked straight through to New York and her room at a theatrical hotel was also arranged for. San Felipe was about a hundred miles from Hollywood, the first and only stop before the train reached Arizona. It had no particular significance so far as she knew.

Outside the station a sedan car awaited them, driven by a man who was nearly always to be found im the vicinity of Oscar Lewisohn, a tall, blonde, slow-speaking Swede, with the clear, honest, kindly blue eyes of his race. Peggy afterwards discovered that he had worked with the veteran director for twenty years and was his camera man. assistant director, business manager, prop boy, everything, in fact, when times were bad. and camera man only when times were good. He seldom spoke, but when he liked anyone, his whole face lighted up with the force of his feeling for them, and .this force, extending also to his handshake, usually made people content with just one exhibition of his regard and respect. “You get her, yes? Ah, good—very good,” and, his -face one huge smile, Jon Erickson leaned down from his place at the wheel and gave Peggy a sample of his regard. Wondering whether her right hand would ever recover completely from what felt like a vicious mangling, Peggy did her best to make her smile match Jon’s and climbed into the body of the car. She saw her trunk strapped to the luggage rack at the back and Oscar Lewisohn disposed of the smaller pieces in various convenient places. Then, with his ugly, good-humoured face beaming, he seated himself beside Peggy and took her still-painful right hand tenderly between both his own.

“All right, Jon, let’s go,” he told his henchman, and as soon as the car was well on the way, he turned to Peggy, evidently with the idea of relieving her bewildered anxiety.

There was something different about Oscar Lewisohn; a new authority, a new gravity, and when in repose, Peggy was struck with an almost granite sternness; whatever it was, it captivated and dominated her imagination, so that her former mood of sheer, utter hopelessness was chased like a bad dream.

“Sorry you are not going to New York, Peggy?” questioned the rather .slurred, heavy voice.

‘•Not a bit. But I would like to know where I am going,” confessed Peggy. "Ever heard of a place called Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains?" chuckled, rather than asked, Lewisohn. Peggy shook her head; then smiled. “Never, but it sounds lovely,” she confessed, a sudden lilt in her heart which became music translated into speech.

"It is. It is where the studios of the Oscar Lewisohn Productions are situated,” he told Peggy, with a touch of the new authority that Peggy found so satisfyingly solid and comforting in her present situation. "Oh, I didn’t know that you had an organisation, Mr Lewisohn! And is that where we are going? How splendid!” Peggy sat up, all alert, eager attention. Life suddenly seemed to blossom with a sweet, exciting adventure once again. The owner of a film concern was personally driving her to his studio!

Seeing that he had captured interest, Lewisohn nodded approvingly, and with the mysterious smile of one having a pleasant surprise up his sleeve, asked further, “Yes, and when we get to Idyllwild, do you know what I am going to do with you?”

"I don't, but whatever it is, I am sure I shall love it,” was Peggy’s prompt, satisfactory reply. “I’m going to sign you up for the part of Esta in ‘Success’! How’s that for good news, Peggy?” As Lewisohn had fully expected, the smile and look of eagerness left Peggy’s face. She sat bolt upright and the muscles of the hand that the director held stiffened in his clasp. The big dark blue eyes were fixed upon him with a look of mingled fear and surprise. “But how can you make a picture from David’s play when Opal and Finklesteen have it already in hand? I saw the announcement in the “Los Angeles Times’ only this morning. Ralph Davis is doing the scenario, it seems.”

Lewisohn chuckled. “Yes, they’ll certainly have to pay him plenty for the adaptation,” was his only comment. By the lips so firmly closed and the purposely vacant stare out of the window at the lights of San Felipe, Peggy guessed that Lewisohn would rather she did not pry any further into his reasons for making a picture of “Success.” Apparently he had succeeded in getting the necessary financial backing, but that was no reason for surprise. In the Tinsel Kingdom beggars sometimes' become millionaires overnight; anything seemed possible. The corruptions of Hollywood! Peggy had lived only a few weeks in the exotic, frantic world of broken lives, but she had no illusions. Surely no place on earth showed up so cruelly the ignorance of life of the average man or woman, she told herself, merely as one stating a fact. But “Success” —David’s play, written for herself—was to have its chance, and she was to play Esta! On, on to fame, on to the realisation of her dreams, in spite of —or was it because of?—Hollywood. Peggy could not tell. CHAPTER XVII. A heated conference was in progress in the front office of “Opal Orth Productions.” Around the cigar and cigarette strewn table were Finklesteen, assured, pompous, every inch the film director, which meant that he was free to insult everybody on the lot, and they must either swallow their feelings oi’ lose their jobs; Mervyn Royal, the leading man for “Success,” sure, poised in his egotism—the typical Hollywood film actor; Ralph Davis, the suave quiet, contemptuous genius who could take a mediocre story and turn it into a film play that was invariably “sure fire” at the box office, and Benny Rubin, the highest paid camera man in Hollywood, who had netted a small fortune for renting his services to a new concern which had yet to pass the acid test of public opinion. “I tell you, this Orth woman is hopeless for the part of Esta!” Mervyn Royal spread white, hopeless hands in a gesture of despair that he had learned from a prince who had started life as a waiter. “She’s too old for one thing. . Ralph Davis, his accent genuinely Oxford, excused himself courteously before making his interruption. . “Esta is meant to be the type of girl suitable for a garden of larkspur and foxglove, wih a lilac bush somewhere near . . . moonlight in a punt on the river - . . • you know . “Yes, everything that this woman has forgotten—if she ever knew ’em,” growled Royal, looking fixedly at his polished nails. “She’s got violence but no depth. When Sam tells her to look hurt to the very heart, she either scowls or looks sick.” This was Benny Rubin’s contribution He leaned over and helped himself to a half dozen of the excellent cigars provided by the subject of theii conversation. “I can fake a picture with anybody, but I can’t make a scowl attractive. I tell you the exhibitois won’t stand for it, Sam. The pictuie will flop unless we can either get Miss Orth to act passably well. . “As if she felt something, so as not to make me look a fool all the time, grumbled Royal, cutting across without apology, with perfect Hollywood manFinklesteen spoke for the first time, giving an onlooker the impression that he, too, was playing a part, the part of the Hollywood “big shot” stooping to pour oil on the troubled waters of his studio executives. “Now. . . now . . . he cajoled, leaning back in his chair, sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his sleeveless sweater and swinging his feet on to the table. “Opal’s a nice gal all right, though she sure seems more suited to hotcha parts than this Esta part she’s so keen on. Still, believe you me, the little lady’s got something ’sides a big bank roll to help her crash the movies. She’s never acted in a picture before, remember . . . anybody seen yesterday’s rushes?” “Rushes” is the term applied to the portion of the film taken the previous day, which is always viewed before proceeding to the next scene. “Yes. . . and they are putrid.” Having gracefully delivered himself, the gloomy Royal returned to the minute survey of his nails while Ralph Davis, scorning comment, and Benny Rubin, who had had his say, looked expectantly at Finklesteen. “Better have her and tell her to ginger her love scenes up a bit if she don’t want the picture to flop.” decided Finklesteen in the manner of a swimmer hesitating on the edge of the sea in winter.

(To be Continued)