An Idol for Others by Gordon Merrick

Author:Gordon Merrick [Merrick, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781497666306
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-09-30T07:00:00+00:00

Hollywood was a new life, a one-dimensional life of work; and Walter found it fascinating until he decided that he had nothing more to learn. At the beginning he had everything to learn and a great deal to teach Hollywood.

David had outdone himself. He browbeat his studio into offering Walter complete independence, with final approval of script and cast and the right to cut and edit his own work. The pay was princely, and he discovered what it felt like to be rich. He liked it.

He didn’t like the atmosphere of big business in which he was obliged to work. It took him the better part of his first year to teach the men who ran the studio that he intended to operate nearly as possible to the way he had operated as director of Theatre Today and as principal partner in Makin-Fiedler Productions before that. He had to invoke every clause in his contract that guaranteed independence before he could finish his first film to his satisfaction. It apparently hadn’t occurred to the studio heads that anybody would take the document literally. David, assigned to Walter as producer, knew studio politics and had his own position to consider, but he backed Walter to the best of his ability.

Aside from David, Walter was on his own in a way he had never been before in his professional life. The studio isolated him from Clara. She was no longer there to spare him tiresome details, help him reach decisions, cow opposition with her commanding or forbidding style. He hadn’t insisted on her coming with him. He had discussed the possibility of her staying in New York and producing on her own. Now she was restricted to the life of a housewife, and he wasn’t greatly perturbed by her evident restlessness and frustration. They both had made sacrifices to stay together. Slowly the pain of his unacknowledged loss faded, and eventually he began to feel sorry for her.

Their house, a Spanish-Moorish-Gothic monstrosity that had once belonged to a silent star, was rented and provided no great stimulus to whatever homemaking instincts might be latent in her. They both found Hollywood’s social life absurd or boring or both. It was an adjunct to work; people were always doing their acts, or films were being shown, or photographers were recording everybody for posterity. The fact that every gathering always included some of the most famous faces in the world quickly lost its novelty.

They found many old friends already there–David, of course, who had a nice young wife and two babies; Johnny Bainbridge, still alone; Greg Boland, on his fourth wife; and a number of others–but friendships seemed to get lost in the pecking order. As a vastly eminent newcomer, Walter was drawn into the industry’s elite, and he found it took too much time and trouble to break out.

“If you’re not making the greatest film that’s ever been made, we’re insane to be here,” Clara commented from the sidelines.

Walter didn’t think of his film

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