PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 March 1939, Page 12

PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. ' COPYRIGHT.

BY

MRS PATRICK MACGILL.

CHAPTER XXIII (Continued).

“Folks, Aunt Louella's organ’s bucked again!” he told them, and the highly strung, emotional nerves of the largely theatrical audience vibrated in sheerest sympathy. It was Sam Finklesteen who first jumped to his feet. “Friends on the stage,” he addressed Lewisohn, John Everton, Aunt Louella and others, “and friends in the audience,” he faced the rows of faces at the back. “I will be pleased to subscribe a hundred dollars to the organ that is needed, and here —”, taking out a richly chased gold fountain pen and a cheque book from an inner pocket and writing rapidly, “is my personal cheque for that amount. Will you pass it up to Mr Lewisohn please” he begged the conductor of the orchestra. “Surely, Mr. Finklesteen.” The cheque was handed to Lewisohn, who held it above his head for all in the house tp sec.

“Is this all for Aunt Louella's organ?” he asked, waving the strip of paper towards the little old-fashioned instrument.

“Fifty!” “Two hundred!” This from the owner of one of the major studios. “Twenty-five.” “Ten,” and so the money for the organ came pouring in, until —to the Idyllwild Brethren—the bewildering total of twelve hundred and eighty dollars was reached. Lewisohn gathered money and cheques together, fastened them with a rubber band and formally presented them to Aunt Louella. “There’s the church I promised you,” he whispered in her ear. CHAPTER XXIV. For the second time, the audience was hushed, expectant, waiting. The prologue had been an unqualified success and the greatest novelty Hollywood had ever known.

"Mind you, he had his nerve to do ■it. Nobody but old Oscar could have pulled it off,” said Finklesteen to Opal, behind his hand.

“I think it was perfectly darling of him, Sam. And so sweet of you to start the collection for the organ,” gushed Opal, so that everybody around her heard. Sam Finklesteen leaned back expansively, pleasantly conscious of the glances of approval from those around, and settled down to enjoy and criticise the picture.

Then, as if somebody had suddenly applied a powerful electric current unexpectedly to his spine, he sat up, choked as though invisible fingers were squeezing out his life, and leaned forward, his eyes bulging, strained to their utmost limit, unable to believe what they saw. Slowly unfolding amid showers of golden coins, the screen title came, “Success,” from the play by David Whitley.

The first of the six brawny young men across the aisle from Finklesteen looked meaningly at the others before leaving his own seat to stand in the gangway. Realisation coming to Finklesteen, he jumped to his feet, waved his arms frantically towards the screen and shouted with all his power, “That play is stolen from me! I am making ‘Success’ now! It is thieved—thieved —” The shaking hands had torn wildly at the constricting shirt collar and the result was that the tie was round by Finklesteen’s left ear, while the sweat of extreme mental agony formed in little rivulets down his face. He stumbled into the aisle, arms lifted above his head, and started to stagger towards the stage. He was taken gently, in hand by two of the stalwart young detectives pro-1 vided by Lewisohn for' precisely what was happening and with the rest of the audience hardly realising what was the matter, Finklesteen was escorted outside and taken in his own car to where he loudly demanded to be taken—to his lawyer’s private house. The effect on Opal Orth was to render her more like a corpse than a living creature. She shrank down into her seat, unable to think or move or speak. Finally, in a whisper that was little more than a croak, she said to her leading man, who had moved up into Finklesteen’s seat beside her, “What does it mean, Gus?” The man shrugged his shoulders. "Can’t pretend to say. Opal. But it • • •■ i ,-.11 •>»? rrVi 1'

puts the skids under ours, all right. This is great ‘stuff,’ ” he said with the unbiassed admiration of one artist foranother. Opal nodded miserably. To save hei soul, she could not have taken her eyes from the screen, but all the intrigue and plotting and subterfuge . . the getting of David into her power as she had thought . . . what was it that he had said to her that day in the hospital when she had lost her head and told him of her love? "Why don’t you cut your losses and get out of Hollywood while you can?” He had known all along, then . . . he must have known ... she wished she had guessed his hidden meaning • • But “Success” was Finklesteen s . . . hers she meant . . - what to do What would be best for her to do. Wild inchoate jumbles of disconnected thought hazed and bewildered her brain, while her eyes were riveted r,iav unfolding before them.

It was “getting over.” There was no doubt about it. Peggy ' was fresh, charming youth insurgent with the sandals of delight upon her feet. The audience loved her ate her. Laughing when she willed their mirth, crying when she wooed their tears. The play was an exquisite piece of work; something that, in all probability, David would never repeat. Out ol life he had captured something indefinable but beautiful and Lewisohn had seen it and had imprisoned it in the picture. The supreme test of the film’s achieve- , ment lay in the fact that the audience somehow felt that it had itself struggled and striven and eventually conquered. Success! The wine of life! To the lover the picture was sweet as love itself, to the struggling business man it meant more money to carry out his plans, to the mother the consummation 1 of all her hopes for her children ' “Success” had a human message, and , that message reached the hearts of > those who saw it. Over and over again Lewisohn wishJ ed that Peggy and David had been ’ there to have enjoyed their triumph. “Peggy Rooney! Peggy Rooney. The ’ cry came from all over the house Everybody knew Douglas Gillmore. but nobody in Hollywood, speaking in a general sense, had ever heard of the star that had flashed into the cinema skv that night without any heralding or beating of the drums of publicity. "Of course she won't stay that way

long; she couldn’t But isn’t she sweet and so natural! I cried in her big scene with Douglas.” Remarks like these were heard all over the theatre. In the excitement of a successful new picture, the slight disturbance occasioned by Finklesteen was scarcely remembered. Where it was thought of at all it was generally supposed that he was upset because Lewisohn had got ahead of him in the matter of the title. Another theory was that he was drunk; the latter was given the more credence because of his generosity in the matter of Aunt Louella’s organ.

“Oscar's brought home the bacon, and this Peggy Rooney will go a long way in Hollywood,” was the general prediction of those in the Hollywood “know.”

“Miss Rooney is in New York. Mr Gillmore flew back to New York as soon as the last retake was made. No, I do not know the address of either, but Douglas can be reached at the theatre. Wr Whitley is in Arizona getting material for a new play. Thank you—thank you—glad you liked the picture.” Oscar Lewisohn’s first action when he got back to his apartment at two o'clock in the morning, was to disconnect the telephone. “Jon, boy, we’ve pulled it off! We’ve lifted ourself by the boot straps and we’re once more on the up and up! Wasn’t it a great night? Didn’t they eat up little Peggy? Oh, boy!” The two lifelong friends held hands and did a species of Indian war dance on the floor of the narrow apartment that they shared. . , ■ . “Tomorrow we give that yellow rat Finklesteen his big headache. And the Orth woman will get what’s coming to her as well. I’ll subscribe a hundred dollars to Aunt Louella’s organ! Ow! Ow! Am I laughing—am I laughing?” Lewisohn mimicked the tones of Finklesteen’s voice offering the money for the organ, and fell on the bed, doubled up with laughter. Jon. ordinarily more stolid, saw the joke in an even greater degree, and rolled about the floor till sheer physical exhaustion compelled him to stop. CHAPTER XXV. The little outer office of Oscar Lewisohn’s lawyer was crowded with people, just as it was before the hearing of an important case. Usually the pretty blonde at the side table was given leave of absence for two hours on these occasions, and the telephone was disconnected, while all callers were headed off from downstairs. The five who were seated in the outer room were all very well known to each other; three wore the white sick look of people whose consciences were ill at ease; the other two wore masks of insolent bravado which, however, would not have deceived a student of physiognomy. Through the slightly open doorway of the inner office David could glimpse them all; there were Opal Orth, seated beside Finklesteen; the boy whom he was supposed to have killed in the fight on the boat, the captain of the boat, still in the musical comedy sort of uniform that he affected, and looking the most sheepish of all, and the doctor who had been called in to pronounce the boy dead. If the situation seemed unreal, theatrical, absurd, it was to be remembered that all life in a place like Hollywood, with no traditions, nor -the desire for background, no future, no thought for any distant time; where nothing but the present counted, all life was forced, unreal, tending towards the fantastic. As a dramatist, David found the display of human emotions diverting, fascinating material to be pigeonholed in his mind for future use. Love and hate and jealousy, cold and monstrous habits and desires, ruin impending or steadily advancing. It was the world in miniature.

Oscar Lewisohn sat on one side of the lawyer, David on the other. A little apart, because he had no share in the drama beyond that of an interested spectator, sat Jon. On the table in front of Bernard Gow, the lawyer, was a pile of official-loking papers. As he studied them his face was a mixture of regret, disgust and anger. At length, looking up, he said, “I think we might have them in now, Mr Lewisohn.”

Tapping the bell in front of him, he instructed the girl who answered to show in all the people who were waiting, and then to take two hours off. “Good morning, everybody. Will you find yourselves seats? Miss Orth and Mr Finklesteen, I’d be obliged if you would sit just here.” The lawyer indicated the two seats opposite to his own on the other side of the table. The light from two windows fell full on the superficially calm, in reality wretched, faces of Opal Orth and her fellow-ad-venturer. Her other tools found seats as near the door as they could. David noticed.

"There isn’t any sense in beating about the bush, Miss Orth and Mr Finklesteen,” began the lawyer in his stern, official court manner.

Finklesteen spoke up, in a loud, blustering, bullying fashion, which deceived nobody. “There is only one question to be asked and satisfactorily answered, so far as I am aware, Mr Gow,” he said.

“And that is?” The lawyer was all courtesy, all attentiveness. “By what law does the author of a play sell the moving picture rights of it to two producers at one and the same time." That is what I and Miss Orth, who has spent nearly seventy thousand dollars on Mr Whitley’s play, have come here to know.”

The lawyer picked up a ruler, studied it for a few seconds then carefully replaced it on his desk. The tension grew in proportion to Finklesteen’s irritation.

“I am sorry to have to correct you as to the ownership of ‘Success,’ Mr Finklesteen. Did not you and Miss Orth take it for granted that you could film Mr Whitley’s play without so much as ‘By your leave’ simply because, you had him in your power, as you thought, on a trumped-up charge. Mr Whitley certainly wrote it, but he is no more the owner of the play than you—or I, for that matter,” finished the lawyer, with maddening equanimity.

“Then who on earth does own it, if the author doesn’t?” There was genuine bewilderment on Sam Finklesteen’s face and Opal Orth had the look that David had once seen on the face of a dog who seemed to sense that he was about to be shot.

“The rightful owner of ‘Success’ by deed of gift, is the leading lady of Mr

Whitley's version—Miss Peggy Rooney. I have here,” the lawyer tapped the letter which Peggy had received from David on her birthday morning, "a letter from Mr .Whitley to Miss Rooney, making, over to her unreservedly the play ‘Success’ and all rights therein. If I may say so, it has turned out to be a most valuable gift. Isn’t mat so, Mr Lewisohn?” ' ■ “You bet! A million dollar deal was put through by long distance from New York at five this morning,” said Lewisohn, shifting his cigar to the side of his mouth with the satisfied smirk of the man whose nick has at last turned. Finklesteen looked as if he might be in danger of an apoplectic fit but said nothing. “Now, with the ownership of ‘Succes’ settled, we can get down to business." (To be Continued).