Read Online Hollywood Boulevard by Janyce Stefan-Cole - Free Book Online Page B

it. The crew polite, supportive, respectful even, but it was all crap and nonsense. I was living it then, and I couldn't smell it on me because I was making a huge effort to go along. I brought everything I could to whatever I was handed: tramp, schoolteacher, victim of violent crime, even a wayward cop who ended up shot dead. Word went out: Ardennes Thrush delivers; finds her character and gives it all she's got. All the while I kept thinking right around the corner I'd get a handle on things again. I'd remember what I meant, why I chose acting in the first place, where and what I wanted my work to be. Underneath me flowed a miserable stream, a kind of leak: That was me dripping slowly away from myself, terrified I was nothing, a big zero; that Joe had been right all along about me, about actors— we were nothing but shells playing at being people, a pack of counterfeiters. I started catching on to all the cocaine and booze and bad behavior surrounding me; none of us was grounded, none of us was real. "Celluloid Heroes"—that's the name of the Kinks song!
    Â Â Â Â I'd go to the parties and shine and show off and make funny, bitter little jokes, and I'd sing, a few drinks in me to loosen my tongue, my voice gravelly: ". . . Everybody's a dreamer . . ." I'd go for a cheap laugh with a Swedish accent. They put Greta on a throne, looking small and fragile, until the burden drove her to be alone. Garbo, by the way, didn't say she wanted to be alone. She said she wanted to be left alone, pointing out, to anyone who cared to listen, that there was a difference.
    Â Â Â Â Director George Cukor supposedly once asked Garbo why she would allow no visitors on her sets, why she minded people looking at her. "When people are watching, I'm just a woman making faces for the camera. It destroys the illusion," was her supposed reply.
    Â Â Â Â Sure, the illusion . . .

    B orn- again freaks were out on the Boulevard as I headed back tothe hotel. I'd remembered Andre talking about throwing a cocktail party for the crew if he could free up time, so I'd gone into a Bed Bath and Beyond that I came across between Vine and Sunset and ordered an inexpensive outdoor glass garden table for our sitting room because there are never enough surfaces in hotels for books and drinks. A party was not something I looked forward to, though some of the crew were smart and bright, not looking over their financial shoulders every other minute. One of the actors reminded me of a younger Fits. We'd had a funny conver sation about life and death just before Andre and I left the party in Silver Lake, after Ella and I had done examining her dolls' bottoms.
    Â Â Â Â A gaggle of Jehovah's Witnesses was congregated at the courtyard of the Kodak Theater Mall, looking defeated. How could they compete with the hustlers, the fans and dreamers, the shoppers, tourists, souvenir hunters— a few shops sold gold plastic Oscars, so you could go home with your own— and morning liquor- store patrons? Even Ripley's looked abandoned. At Grauman's Chinese Theatre a Jesus wannabe prophet- type crazy let a small crowd know the Lord loved them, making it sound like a threat. He was perched on a box, barefoot, wearing nothing but a white loincloth, long blond hair flowing, ginger beard down to his breast as he bellowed about perdition. " You, sir, have borne false witness, lied to the Lord!" he let a passerby know. I walked briskly between him and the crowd, head lowered. I should have crossed to the other side of the street. " You , madam, have sinned!"
    Â Â Â Â Was he talking to me? Without stopping I gave him the thumbs- up. You bet I've sinned. This town would be nothing with out lies and transgression. He called out to me. "Dear lady, is your heart pure?" I turned, and I think I saw him wink.
    Â Â Â Â Well, is my heart pure? No time to ponder the question: My cell phone rang.
    Â Â Â Â It was Andre. Where was I? Out