could remember.
HEARST HEARD THE HORSE HOOVES from a mile up the great hill, as he sat on a boulder he’d known since he was a boy staring out at midnight over the Pacific Ocean. The old campsite at San Simeon was dotted with crisp white canvas tents lit from the inside like paper lanterns, while men worked to unload wagons and trucks, not stopping for the last three months, only working in shifts, to bring in his collection from back east. Little mementos from Bavarian strongholds and Italian palaces that would become the foundation, the cornerstones of his American castle. The foundation had been poured, and already he could imagine the way the stone turrets would rise from the ragged hillside in a way that no man said could be done. So he’d used a woman architect from San Francisco who dreamed without limits.
By the time the horses rounded that final bend on the great hill, he could barely make out the man’s face sitting next to the coachman. The white hair, the big nose, and little eyes of Al Zukor, who stared straight ahead under a bowler hat with great annoyance that brought a smile to Hearst’s face. He walked toward the wagon as it slowed and Zukor hopped to the ground, dusting off his three-piece suit with the flat of his hands and readjusting the bowler on his head. He still looked like a guy peddling furs on the streets of New York, not the head of Paramount Pictures.
He stood a good two feet below Hearst, who was a tall man. The wide-brimmed hat and big boots on Hearst made him seem even larger, as he gripped the short man’s little hand.
“I’ve cabled you sixteen times.”
“I’ve received them all.”
“And you did not cable back,” Zukor said.
“No,” Hearst said. “No, I did not.”
“What’s all this?”
“Just a little cottage or two.”
“Five miles up in the goddamn air?”
Hearst shrugged, wrapped his arm around Zukor, steered him back to the old childhood rock, and swept his free hand across the expanse that hung in the air like a dream above the clouds. And Zukor closed his eyes and then opened them wide, taking in the way the moonlight caught on the great mossy boulders down along the craggy shore and all the inlets and coves and hardscrabble pines clinging to the hills and wide pastureland with little dots of cattle below. A single stray cloud moved under them and the sight of it made Zukor step back from the edge to find his feet and turn back to the familiar movement of the Chinese workers tearing into great wooden crates and pulling out statues of winged women and horses and thick, beaten columns that Zukor had probably only seen in papier-mâché.
“How much is this goddamn thing gonna cost?”
“Do you Jews only think about money?”
“Yes,” Zukor said.
“Let me show you something,” Hearst said, steering into a brightly lit tent, larger than the others, pulling the canvas door aside. He took Zukor to a table littered with drawings of great fountains with spitting lions and a mammoth swimming pool copied from a Roman bath, of fireplaces large enough to burn a forest, and of a cleared strip to land his airplane atop the mountain instead of having to be jostled all the way up the hill like poor Zukor.
“How’s that Arabian picture coming along?” Hearst asked.
“It’s in the can.”
“That’s the one with the Italian fella.”
“Valentino.”
“And he’s playing a sheik.”
“Like a girl from Brooklyn playing a queen. We all like to pretend, Willie.”
Hearst grinned at him with his big teeth and breathed, and then smiled a bit more.
“I came for Roscoe.”
“I didn’t crush that poor girl.”
“You’re not just crucifying this fat boy in your goddamn papers, you’re making the whole goddamn picture industry look like devils. That’s bad business. Very bad business.”
“I don’t tell my men what to write.”
“And you don’t start wars with Spain either. You must lay off Arbuckle, see? What’s with your paper
HEARST HEARD THE HORSE HOOVES from a mile up the great hill, as he sat on a boulder he’d known since he was a boy staring out at midnight over the Pacific Ocean. The old campsite at San Simeon was dotted with crisp white canvas tents lit from the inside like paper lanterns, while men worked to unload wagons and trucks, not stopping for the last three months, only working in shifts, to bring in his collection from back east. Little mementos from Bavarian strongholds and Italian palaces that would become the foundation, the cornerstones of his American castle. The foundation had been poured, and already he could imagine the way the stone turrets would rise from the ragged hillside in a way that no man said could be done. So he’d used a woman architect from San Francisco who dreamed without limits.
By the time the horses rounded that final bend on the great hill, he could barely make out the man’s face sitting next to the coachman. The white hair, the big nose, and little eyes of Al Zukor, who stared straight ahead under a bowler hat with great annoyance that brought a smile to Hearst’s face. He walked toward the wagon as it slowed and Zukor hopped to the ground, dusting off his three-piece suit with the flat of his hands and readjusting the bowler on his head. He still looked like a guy peddling furs on the streets of New York, not the head of Paramount Pictures.
He stood a good two feet below Hearst, who was a tall man. The wide-brimmed hat and big boots on Hearst made him seem even larger, as he gripped the short man’s little hand.
“I’ve cabled you sixteen times.”
“I’ve received them all.”
“And you did not cable back,” Zukor said.
“No,” Hearst said. “No, I did not.”
“What’s all this?”
“Just a little cottage or two.”
“Five miles up in the goddamn air?”
Hearst shrugged, wrapped his arm around Zukor, steered him back to the old childhood rock, and swept his free hand across the expanse that hung in the air like a dream above the clouds. And Zukor closed his eyes and then opened them wide, taking in the way the moonlight caught on the great mossy boulders down along the craggy shore and all the inlets and coves and hardscrabble pines clinging to the hills and wide pastureland with little dots of cattle below. A single stray cloud moved under them and the sight of it made Zukor step back from the edge to find his feet and turn back to the familiar movement of the Chinese workers tearing into great wooden crates and pulling out statues of winged women and horses and thick, beaten columns that Zukor had probably only seen in papier-mâché.
“How much is this goddamn thing gonna cost?”
“Do you Jews only think about money?”
“Yes,” Zukor said.
“Let me show you something,” Hearst said, steering into a brightly lit tent, larger than the others, pulling the canvas door aside. He took Zukor to a table littered with drawings of great fountains with spitting lions and a mammoth swimming pool copied from a Roman bath, of fireplaces large enough to burn a forest, and of a cleared strip to land his airplane atop the mountain instead of having to be jostled all the way up the hill like poor Zukor.
“How’s that Arabian picture coming along?” Hearst asked.
“It’s in the can.”
“That’s the one with the Italian fella.”
“Valentino.”
“And he’s playing a sheik.”
“Like a girl from Brooklyn playing a queen. We all like to pretend, Willie.”
Hearst grinned at him with his big teeth and breathed, and then smiled a bit more.
“I came for Roscoe.”
“I didn’t crush that poor girl.”
“You’re not just crucifying this fat boy in your goddamn papers, you’re making the whole goddamn picture industry look like devils. That’s bad business. Very bad business.”
“I don’t tell my men what to write.”
“And you don’t start wars with Spain either. You must lay off Arbuckle, see? What’s with your paper
Similar Books
