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Authors: Sam Toperoff
Tags: General Fiction
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innocent victim of these powerful old lechers. So yet another version was written. And on it went for seven rewrites.
Myra found the original script and retyped it—not rewrote it—making one simple script change throughout: Lil Andrews actually loved and truly admired each and every old man she seduced on her way up the social and financial ladder. Myra attached a memo recommending Jean Harlow for the part. And Harlow, with her comic flair, vamped her way through the role.
Red-Headed Woman
was a great success. For her “typing” job, Myra Ewbank received fifteen thousand dollars, her regular fee and a bonus. “Took me all of two weeks. When I got the check,” she told Lilly, “I put it into my account that very morning. And when I endorsed it, I also wrote, ‘Hooray for Follywood.’ Of course I tried to make the
F
look a little like an
H
.”
“You’ve got your own account?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m not married to the guy.”
“What has that got to do with the price of babies?”
Lillian raised her glass. “May I ask you something even more personal …”
Myra nodded.
“The house, is it in both your names?”
“Actually, it’s mine. I bought it myself. Why? Thinking of getting your own place?”
“We’re talking. Maybe something in New York.”
“Oh no. I’ll really miss you two.”
“Don’t let on to Dash.”
That conversation confirmed what Hammett always averred, that Myra was the brains and the talent, Phil the charm and the studio connections. Together they had everything covered that was important professionally with Mayer at M-G-M. Hammett also knew that Phil Edmunds and Lillian had had a bit of a fling back when Arthur Kober got his wife her first job. Lilly knew that Hammett knew about Phil and hoped to see some indication of jealousy reveal itself, but she never did, other than a small disparagement of Phil’s talent. She thought he was a decent screenwriter. There were certainly worse. On the other hand, Hammett valued Edmunds as one of the most discreet drinkers at M-G-M and as the source of very reliable studio information.
Although Hammett was yawning, Lillian was the one who should have been exhausted. She had gotten back from New York and the opening of
The Children’s Hour
just two days earlier. She had been on the phone continually dealing with new production problems as they arose and requests for interviews and, even worse, well-wishers who wanted tickets and whose conversations with Lilly should have ended after her thankyous but did not. There were some very lavish Hollywood parties planned in her honor, but Hammett thought a quiet evening with Myra and Phil, old friends, would be a more pleasant way of reentering this artificial world. It didn’t hurtthat Hammett considered Myra the best cook on the West Coast and that she promised to make Stroganoff.
Both Phil and Myra were genuinely happy with Lillian’s success. They could not reasonably be jealous because much earlier, when they had read the final drafts of
The Children’s Hour
, they knew neither of them could ever have written it. They had chosen for themselves the relative anonymity and excessive pay of screenwriting over the more dangerous literary pursuit Lilly attempted. But word of the play’s enormous success had come west instantly, that is to say electronically, and Hellman had become a literary star out here as well.
During the evening Phil kept wanting to know more about the opening, more about the audience reactions, about the performances, more about the reviews, and who said what exactly. Lilly kept insisting she didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Anyone pan it? Myra asked.
“Of course,” Hammett said, “the Hearst flacks went after it like it was
Das Kapital
for lesbians.”
“Still,” Phil said, “it’s an unqualified Broadway success.”
Hammett said, “In New York there is no ‘unqualified’ anything.”
“For Christ’s sake, Lilly, tell us more
Myra found the original script and retyped it—not rewrote it—making one simple script change throughout: Lil Andrews actually loved and truly admired each and every old man she seduced on her way up the social and financial ladder. Myra attached a memo recommending Jean Harlow for the part. And Harlow, with her comic flair, vamped her way through the role.
Red-Headed Woman
was a great success. For her “typing” job, Myra Ewbank received fifteen thousand dollars, her regular fee and a bonus. “Took me all of two weeks. When I got the check,” she told Lilly, “I put it into my account that very morning. And when I endorsed it, I also wrote, ‘Hooray for Follywood.’ Of course I tried to make the
F
look a little like an
H
.”
“You’ve got your own account?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m not married to the guy.”
“What has that got to do with the price of babies?”
Lillian raised her glass. “May I ask you something even more personal …”
Myra nodded.
“The house, is it in both your names?”
“Actually, it’s mine. I bought it myself. Why? Thinking of getting your own place?”
“We’re talking. Maybe something in New York.”
“Oh no. I’ll really miss you two.”
“Don’t let on to Dash.”
That conversation confirmed what Hammett always averred, that Myra was the brains and the talent, Phil the charm and the studio connections. Together they had everything covered that was important professionally with Mayer at M-G-M. Hammett also knew that Phil Edmunds and Lillian had had a bit of a fling back when Arthur Kober got his wife her first job. Lilly knew that Hammett knew about Phil and hoped to see some indication of jealousy reveal itself, but she never did, other than a small disparagement of Phil’s talent. She thought he was a decent screenwriter. There were certainly worse. On the other hand, Hammett valued Edmunds as one of the most discreet drinkers at M-G-M and as the source of very reliable studio information.
Although Hammett was yawning, Lillian was the one who should have been exhausted. She had gotten back from New York and the opening of
The Children’s Hour
just two days earlier. She had been on the phone continually dealing with new production problems as they arose and requests for interviews and, even worse, well-wishers who wanted tickets and whose conversations with Lilly should have ended after her thankyous but did not. There were some very lavish Hollywood parties planned in her honor, but Hammett thought a quiet evening with Myra and Phil, old friends, would be a more pleasant way of reentering this artificial world. It didn’t hurtthat Hammett considered Myra the best cook on the West Coast and that she promised to make Stroganoff.
Both Phil and Myra were genuinely happy with Lillian’s success. They could not reasonably be jealous because much earlier, when they had read the final drafts of
The Children’s Hour
, they knew neither of them could ever have written it. They had chosen for themselves the relative anonymity and excessive pay of screenwriting over the more dangerous literary pursuit Lilly attempted. But word of the play’s enormous success had come west instantly, that is to say electronically, and Hellman had become a literary star out here as well.
During the evening Phil kept wanting to know more about the opening, more about the audience reactions, about the performances, more about the reviews, and who said what exactly. Lilly kept insisting she didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Anyone pan it? Myra asked.
“Of course,” Hammett said, “the Hearst flacks went after it like it was
Das Kapital
for lesbians.”
“Still,” Phil said, “it’s an unqualified Broadway success.”
Hammett said, “In New York there is no ‘unqualified’ anything.”
“For Christ’s sake, Lilly, tell us more
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