Out There in the Dark by Wesley Strick

Author:Wesley Strick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

10

Movie Death

“Cut! Cut, cut, cut!”

Derek Sykes’s tantrums had lost their novelty over the preceding three weeks, but the Betrayal set was still a zone of misery. Nobody complained much—maybe it assuaged the cast and crew’s guilt at being in Los Angeles and not El Alamein?

Hayden had settled into a routine of stoically withstanding Sykes’s public browbeating, doing his work (which everyone who watched rushes agreed was his best), and then, between setups, strolling to his dressing room and casually closing the door—just as his guts erupted upward. He’d puke in the sink, rinse everything down, then huddle, shivering, in a corner, hugging his flanks while taking deep, ragged breaths till an assistant director called, “Mr. Hayden, we’re back,” through his locked door. Whereupon the actor would get up, gargle with Listerine, flash a fresh grin at the mirror, then stroll once again to the set.

Mary Oakley, between camera setups, and during her lunch break, would sit in a lonely corner of the soundstage and answer mail from fans who’d seen her in her previous—and, to date, only—film, Mr. Moto and the Seven Deadly Sins, already in production when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Most of the fans, after praising Mary’s beauty and poise, went on to question how she could have costarred with a yellow ape like Mr. Moto. Miss Oakley, in her perfect hand, would patiently explain, in letter after letter, that Peter Lorre, who played Mr. Moto, was not a yellow ape at all but a white man, in fact—and a very kind and decent person to boot.

Derek Sykes, during his lunch break, would … well, today (Friday, Day Fifteen of principal photography) Sykes had scheduled an urgent appointment with Arthur Lustig. He instructed his second assistant director to supervise the prelighting for the next scheduled shot—a moving master, on the Tony’s Office set—in case he was late returning. Sykes anticipated a difficult and contentious meeting. But he was confident that, in the end, Lustig would be brought around.

As soon as Sykes strode off the soundstage, Hayden reappeared. This was a surprise to the crew, among whom it was well known (if discussed only in whispers) that their star normally spent lunch not eating grub, but bringing up bile in his dressing room. But today Hayden was looking for somebody—and he soon found him: the art director, Jeff, who was often seen with Sykes, discussing the features and geography of San Francisco (the city where Tony made his home).

Harley discreetly drew Jeff aside.

“Say,” he said, quietly, “I know you and Mister … Sykes are always jawing about Frisco. I hear you, between takes—”

“I’m terribly sorry about that, sir,” Jeff returned. Movie stars could get all bent out of shape, he’d learned, about any distractions on “their” sets. “It’s just that Mr. Sykes is such a … stickler, as you know, a real Nazi about detail. I hope it hasn’t been too much of a bother.” Darned if Jeff would get himself fired by some crumb-bum actor, just because the damn director was obsessive about every little thing.

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