Read Online Along Came A Prince by Carlyn Cade - Free Book Online

headed
for the bar off the living room. Grabbing a bottle of water from the
refrigerator, she went to her bedroom closet and started pulling out clothes
and tossing them on the bed. Shoes. Dresses. Jeans. Pants and blouses. Purses
and a warm coat. London might be cold this time of year, she remembered someone
telling her once. In the middle of packing, she thought about her passport and
removed it from the wall safe.
    When she had
everything in order, she started filling her suitcase. Stacia always enjoyed
getting ready for a trip. She hadn’t traveled much when she was younger, so the
anticipation of going somewhere was exciting to her, and packing seemed to make
her forthcoming trip a reality.
    At last her work
was completed. She plopped on the sofa with the remote and turned on Entertainment
Tonight just as their entertainment reporter, Nancy O’Dell, was making an
announcement.
    “Starlit Studios
released information today about a new idea for an old movie. It seems that the
producer-director team of Nathan Sterling and Arthur Keyes will begin shooting
a remake of 1950's Academy Award winning movie, London Affair . This remake
will be unique because the duo will use the entire movie as it was originally
shot – all the actors, settings, costumes, scenes will be intact except for
Audra Parker’s role. With the computer magic of the film’s screen editor –
another hat producer Keyes wears – actress Stacia Saunders’s image will replace
Audra’s in the movie.”
    Photos of Audra
and Stacia flashed side-by-side on the screen. “Look how they resemble each
other,” Nancy continued. “Does this all sound intriguing? Or maybe just
confusing? Well, we’ll show you the first pictures of this new movie as soon as
Starlit Studios releases them to us, hopefully in about three weeks. We’ll also
try to include an interview with Stacia, and perhaps screen legend, Helen
Ashley Shores, who was nine years old at the time and took home an Oscar for
her role. Good luck, Stacia, on this new remake venture. Now, Rob Marciano will
tell you about the tragedies that occurred right after the original film’s
shooting.”
    “There have always
been mysteries and secrets concerning the stars of the original movie,” Rob
began. “In 1949, unlike today, studios had power and influence over the media.
If they didn’t want an event to be known to the public, they could stop it
dead, and this was what happened in the case of Audra Parker and Mark Bennett,
the stars of London Affair .
    “Little has been
written about their deaths. Audra supposedly was killed in a car accident when
she lost control of her car in a canyon near Hollywood. The details of her
accident were never revealed, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation and
rumors about what really happened.
    “Off screen, Audra
and Mark were deeply in love, and their wedding was planned. I’ve researched
interviews made when they were alive, and it seems everyone thought they were born
to be with each other. Rather like the way people viewed the relationship
between Clark Gable and his actress wife, Carole Lombard.
    “When Audra died
though, unlike Clark Gable after Carole was killed in an airplane crash, Mark
Bennett couldn’t handle Audra’s death. He moved to their cabin retreat in
Northern California near the infamous Donner’s Pass. He stayed there over the
winter season, snowed in and cut off from everyone and everything. In the
spring, sheriff’s deputies found his body after being notified by Bennett’s
grounds’ caretaker. Mark reportedly kept a journal during the last weeks of his
life. The contents of this journal were not made public, nor is it known if
this journal actually exists.
    “Another person
who figures into this mystery puzzle is Farrell Fontaine, who was the producer
on this movie. Rumors circulated back then said he, too, was deeply in love
with Audra and also was a very good friend of Mark Bennett. However this has
never been substantiated by