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  Marabelle

  Jennifer Wilde writing as Tom E. Huff

  For my mother, with love, and in memory of Patsy

  New York 1958

  Someone once remarked that a day away from Marabelle was like two weeks in Jamaica, and I heartily agreed. I didn’t want to call on her. I had been putting it off all day, but the deep ties of friendship had finally proved stronger than cowardice, and now, as the cabbie drove slowly through cross-town traffic, I fervently wished I was back at the Astor. I knew what the reviews in the morning papers must have done to her, and I knew what to expect, but I felt she might need me.

  No actress in recent memory had been so viciously attacked. That she had presented an outrageous parody of herself was one of the kindest things said. Marabelle was probably laughing uproariously at the venomous barbs, damning her critics with demolishing wit, but I knew how desperately she needed their approval. As the cabbie turned up Fifth Avenue and headed toward East Sixtieth Street I opened the Times once again and read the opening paragraph of the review:

  With Miss Marabelle Lawrence in the leading role, Varnell Page’s classic tragedy about a neurasthenic southern belle has been transformed into the laugh riot of the season. The revival, which opened last night at the Shubert, caused much merriment and prompted more uninhibited guffaws than this reviewer has heard in many an evening. Marabelle, of course, has always had a voracious appetite. Last night she not only lustily chewed every piece of scenery in sight but devoured half the proscenium arch as well.

  Infuriated, I dropped the paper and thought very unpleasant thoughts about the critics who had crucified one of America’s greatest actresses. She had been bad, yes, unquestionably, but not that bad. Marabelle had simply been Marabelle. She had made a career out of being Marabelle, and in the past, in the right roles, she had been electrifying. Although she had been born in Alabama, had spent most of her formative years there and always made a great to-do about her southern heritage, Marabelle was not nor could she ever be a fragile, tormented southern belle. Her undertaking of the role had been a disastrous mistake.

  It was to have marked her triumphant comeback. She had put all her hopes, all her energy and a staggering amount of her own money into this production. After years of knocking around the country on tour, she had intended to take New York by storm. I had advised her against doing this particular play, as had all the rest of her friends, but she had made up her mind to do it and once Marabelle makes up her mind about something one might just as well try to reason with a hurricane.

  In that incredible voice said to have more timbre than Yosemite National Park she had adamantly protested that she’d always wanted to play a sweet l’il southern belle because that’s what she was, I should know that better than anyone. Varnell had had her in mind when he wrote the play, she added, and the only reason she hadn’t been able to originate the role was because she was trapped in the Wilder comedy at the time and it was a huge success and for one full year she was spouting those marvelously insane lines and showing off her legs and packing them in, darling. Marabelle’s use of that particular endearment as a kind of erratic verbal punctuation had long been legend, her every sentence liberally sprinkled with it.

  The cabbie stopped in front of the impressive graystone townhouse with dingy white marble steps and wrought-iron banisters. I paid him, added a generous tip and reluctantly climbed out of the taxi. Late afternoon sunlight made leafy patterns on the sidewalk. One of the windows was open, and I heard a babble of voices. A party of sorts was obviously in progress. One usually was at Marabelle’s.

  I hesitated for a moment, dreading the encounter ahead and trying to convince myself that I’d best go back to the hotel and forget the whole thing, and as I did so the front door opened and Miss Stella Dunnam stepped out, followed by one of Marabelle’s attractive young gofers, who was bidding her farewell in reverent tones. The Leading Lady of the American Stage slung her gray fox fur around her shoulders, adjusted the slant of the flowery pink hat atop her silver-blue hair and curled the corners of her mouth down, her soulful brown eyes filled with spectacular grief. She ran through her whole repertoire of facial tics, and her audience of one was plainly enthralled.

  Stella took his hand and said something gracious and terribly sincere, and then she came on down the steps. Seeing me, she gave another great performance, the potato-plain face registering surprise, elation, apprehension, deep concern, all in a matter of seconds. I felt like whipping out an Oscar and presenting it to her. Had I done so, Stella would undoubtedly have made a humble and exceedingly winsome acceptance speech on the spot. Twenty-five years ago I had had the dubious honor of writing the suds-drenched screen epic for which she had won her first.

  “Ed-ward!” she cried. “Edward, dear. I didn’t know you were in New York.”

  “I’ve been keeping it a secret.”

  “I never see you,” Stella complained. “You’re going to have to come to Stamford for the weekend, that’s all there is to it. Gretchen will cook us a glorious meal and we’ll take off our shoes and sit in front of the fire and have a lovely talk about old times.”

  “That’d be terrific,” I lied.

  “Dear, isn’t it sad? Poor Marabelle, I felt I just had to drive in and let her know how sorry I am. At times like this we have to stick together, and I know she needs all the support she can get. Oh, there’s my car—”

  A station wagon pulled up to the curb. Stella had a perfectly good silver Rolls-Royce, but the station wagon was more in keeping with her current folksy image. It was battered and sadly in need of a wash, and the stout German woman sitting behind the steering wheel drummed her fingers impatiently, glaring at her employer with a surly expression. Stella rolled her eyes heavenward and gripped her purse tightly, reaching up to adjust the hat again. The gray fox fur threatened to slip from her shoulders. Even at her most elegant Stella Dunnam somehow still resembled a scrubwoman playing dress-up.

  “She’s bearing up brilliantly,” she confided in a husky stage whisper. “Poor dear, I felt so inad equate. She absolutely refused to talk about last night, spent the whole time talking about Luxury Express and my tacky little role. Quite embarrassing. I told her I had no idea they were going to give me an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.”

  “They wouldn’t have dared not to,” I replied. “The Great American Public would have stormed the theater.”

  Stella looked up at me with bewildered brown eyes, not knowing exactly how to take my remark. Finally deciding it had to be a compliment of some sort, she smiled modestly and sighed, doing a startled two-step when her cook-companion-chauffeur slammed her fist on the horn.

  “I must rush, dear,” she said breathlessly. “Gretchen gets so impatient, and it is a long way back to Stamford, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, poor Marabelle. You will come to see me, won’t you? I have such fond memories of our working together.”

  The Leading Lady of the American Stage stepped nimbly over to the curb, opened the front door of the station wagon and slid democratically onto the seat beside the bulky German, pulling the door shut with a bang. The station wagon tore away from the curb with frightening speed. Stella waved merrily and, as the car jolted to a screeching halt at the corner, slid from sight. I moved on up the steps and rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a very attractive young man with thick red hair and warm brown eyes. He smiled amiably and held the door back.

  “I’m Larry,” he said.

  “I’m Edward.”

  “I know. I recognize you from your picture.”

  “
What picture?”

  “The one on the back of your book. Marabelle bought copies for everyone and made us read it.”

  “Did she hold a gun on you?”

  “It wasn’t necessary,” Larry informed me. “I liked it.”

  Larry grinned and closed the door. He looked vaguely familiar, and I realized he played in one of the television soap operas Marabelle was so fond of. I asked him if he’d recovered from his case of amnesia yet, and he looked very flattered.

  “I got over that last month,” he confided. “I’m getting ready to murder my sister-in-law now.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I’m schizophrenic, you see. Most of the time I’m charming Bill Johnson, pillar of Sunny Grove society and all-round good chap, but ever since the accident I’ve been having these spells when I black out and become a homicidal maniac.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  “It’s a living.”

  Clarissa Stanton moved regally into the hall to see who had rung the doorbell. When she saw me she stopped, placed her hands on her hips and examined me with critical eyes.

  “You still need a haircut,” she announced.

  “At least I still have my hair.”

  “Are you implying I don’t?”

  “Of course not, love.”

  “I’ve never worn a wig in my life except on stage and you bloody well know it. I’m in no mood for your sarcasm, Edward. I have enough to contend with as it is.”

  “You seem to be bearing up nicely.”

  “Some of us do.”

  Clarissa Stanton was one of the miracles of our time. She had been a great beauty at the turn of the century, was already middle-aged when I first met her in the twenties, and, today, didn’t look an hour over fifty-five. She had acted with all the great stars of the English and American theater, had had a highly successful career in films, had starred in her own television series a few years ago and was still steadily employed. Her raven hair was perfectly coiffed, and her pearl-gray afternoon dress was exquisitely simple, designed to flatter her tall, statuesque figure. Her cheeks were as smooth and white as porcelain, faintly brushed with pink, and her dark eyes were imperious.

  “You’re amazing,” I said.

  “I’ve told you before, I take care of myself.”

  “You look glorious, love.”

  “That came from the heart, Edward, and I appreciate it. You can be gallant when you want to be. I’m glad you’ve come, she’ll be pleased to see a certified friend. God knows where the rest of this riffraff comes from.”

  She fixed her eyes on Larry. He grinned again and moved on down the hall. Clarissa grimaced. Marabelle’s admirers were a cross she bore with notable lack of grace. She took my hand and led me into the enormous living room with its white spiral staircase winding up to the second floor. The din was like a physical assault. There must have been at least twenty people drinking and talking and milling around, most of them amiable, indeterminate young men who had made a cult figure of their hostess. There were several television actors, a couple of ballet dancers, a famous baseball player. Varnell Page stood in one corner, looking catatonic in baggy green trousers and a tan tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. His eyes were filled with tears. His mustache was limp. A young blond Adonis in tight jeans and red jersey was holding his hand and speaking to him in an anxious voice. Eleanora Rossi wandered around in an alcoholic stupor, a bottle of bourbon in her hand, her voluminous purple gown emphasizing her girth.

  “I thought she was singing Turandot,” I said.

  “She has been,” Clarissa said dryly.

  I shook my head in dismay. A buffet table was laden with bottles and glasses and a demolished mound of food. Marabelle’s stout cook was drinking gin and arguing fiercely with a tall, handsome young playwright whose first novel had recently been sold to Paramount. The room was filled with smoke, most of it coming from the cream satin sofa that sat directly in the center of the room. The sofa was surrounded by young men. As one of them moved aside I caught a quick glimpse of Marabelle. She caught a glimpse of me, too, and let out a raucous bellow that must have been heard in Queens.

  “Edward! Clear away, goddamnit, let me breathe! Run get yourselves some drinks, darlings, I want to talk to Edward, and Larry, darling, get me a fresh glass while you’re at it and don’t you dare try to water it, you son of a bitch, I know straight vodka when I taste it. Darling! I knew you would come in my hour of need, I just felt it. I said move, you bastards! Do, darlings. Marabelle wants to have a heart-to-heart with one of my oldest friends.”

  The young men moved reluctantly aside and I had my first full view of Marabelle Lawrence. Half a dozen cream satin pillows piled up behind her, she reclined on the sofa like a rather dumpy Madame Récamier. She wore a tomato-red jump suit and gold lamé sandals. That once glorious honey-blonde hair was dark brown now, worn in a shaggy pageboy, and the face that might have launched a thousand ships in the twenties and early thirties was worn and ravaged and, strangely enough, even more beautiful. The violet-blue eyes were as large and luminous as ever, flashing with anguish and excitement and defiance. Marabelle looked like a magnificent lioness, exuding a reckless, restless magnetism that still assaulted one like shock waves. She sat up, jabbed out her cigarette and threw her arms wide in a dramatic gesture of welcome.

  “Darling!” she roared in that rumbling baritone often compared to the mating call of a moose. “Do you know what they’ve done? They’ve torn my poor body to shreds and dumped the bleeding carcass smack dab in the middle of Times Square! Have you read what they said? Of course you have. Everyone in the whole fucking city has and relished every barb! I gave my all, Eddie, I poured my goddamn heart out last night, and they rolled in the aisles with laughter! Please tell me you weren’t there, darling. I couldn’t stand for you to have witnessed my shame and humiliation.”

  “I was there, Marabelle.”

  “Half the country was there, all my friends, all my enemies. Walter Winchell was there, I can imagine what the son of a bitch will say next time he gets near a microphone. Noël was there and Elsa Maxwell—she had the gall to come backstage, darling, and talk about a fucking party—and poor, brave Cole came, too, they had to carry him in. Everyone came to witness an execution, and I was assassinated, darling, assassinated, but I want you to know I’m bearing up, I’m being a pillar of strength. Hurry up with that goddamn drink! I’m at my best in the face of adversity, darling, and I’ll be goddamned if I’ll give the sons of bitches the satisfaction of thinking for one tiny minute I give a fuck what they say.”

  Larry returned with a glass of straight vodka and she took it with one trembling hand and reached for a cigarette with the other. I lighted it for her.

  “Thank you, darling. These goddamn filter tips! My doctor won’t let me smoke anything else, but it’s not the cigarettes that are going to kill me, it’s the lack of compassion. I can’t believe what they did to me, Eddie, I can’t believe it. Do sit down, darling, and have a drink, it makes me so nervous to see someone with empty hands. Larry! Bourbon! On the rocks, darling, and hustle, will you? Move that attractive little derrière. I may as well be honest, Eddie, it was a disaster from start to finish. I made a bloody fool of myself. Thank God Daddy isn’t around to see my disgrace.”

  She took a gulp of vodka, devoured the cigarette in eight puffs and reached for another, lighting it from the butt of the first. On an average day Marabelle could go through five packs without even being aware she had inhaled.

  “Daddy never wanted me to become an actress, and it’s times like these I wish I’d listened to him and married one of those boys in Alabama and had three kids and joined the P.T.A. and spent my life worrying about shower curtains and crabgrass, but it would have killed me, darling, you know it would have. I’ve done pretty goddamned well over the years all things considered, and Walter Kerr can go fuck himself. David’s closed the play, you know, tighter than a drum box, darling, after one performance. You see before you a broken w
oman, Eddie, and, darling, I put some of my own money into it as well. I’ll probably be stealing milk bottles before it’s all over with.”

  Larry brought my bourbon and gave me a conspiratorial wink as he handed it to me. Marabelle sat bolt upright and gave him a look that would have curdled the blood of Jack the Ripper.

  “I saw that, you little bastard! Get out of here! He thinks I’m drunk. They all think I’m drunk. Don’t just hold it, darling, drink it. The whole world thinks I spend half my life indulging in riotous orgies and the other half dead drunk on the carpet, that is if I’m not out of my mind with hashish. Don’t they realize it takes work to be an actress? I’ve never missed a single performance because of drink or drugs, darling, not once in all these years. I haven’t even been late. They go on and on about Mary doing all those performances of South Pacific and washing her hair every night and not ever missing a show—I adore Mary, darling, you know I do, she’s one of the few genuine human beings in this goddamn backstabbing business, but I did From These Roots for over a year and then took it on the road and never failed to be there when the curtain rang up. I played in Butte, Montana, with a temperature of 105, darling, and I plowed through a blizzard to play for an audience of eight in Kansas City and took them up to my hotel suite and fed them hot chicken soup and bloody marys after the show, and once, in Texas, the goddamned lights went out and stayed out for thirty minutes and I went right on playing, they couldn’t drag me off the stage. When the hell have I had time for orgies?”

  “Between engagements,” I said.

  Marabelle gave me one of her looks, mouth turned down, eyes blazing.

  “You always were a smart ass, Eddie, even when you were a boy in Alabama in those goddamn knickers. Did I tell you Stella came by to see me? Can you believe she drove all the way from Stamford just to gloat, and, darling, can you believe she just won another Academy Award? My God, the woman’s the laughingstock of the theater, a joke, and those yokels out in Hollywood give her another Oscar, they think all that simpering and twitching and soulful sighing is acting. She told me all about it, darling, with becoming modesty. She was so goddamn modest I couldn’t get a word in edgewise! You should have seen her cooing and clucking and she actually had the gall to tell me I should’ve stuck with Noël Coward. ‘They love you in the provinces, dear,’ she said. ‘Why, you could have gone on touring for another two years.’” Marabelle’s imitation was devastating. “Jesus, a woman of sixty-five who actually dimples! If she’s the Leading Lady of the American Stage I’m Margaret O’Brien!”