Read Online We're So Famous by Jaime Clarke - Free Book Online

of Natalie Wood, Friday is a medley of automobile deaths: James Dean, Isadora Duncan and Jayne Mansfield. I suggested adding the murder of Bob Crane and a couple celebrity suicides, but management didn’t think the crowd would want snapped necks or bashed brains with their linguine and clam sauce.
    Due to an exceptional review in the
Los Angeles Times
, Monday night is packed with guys in suits and their elegantly dressed ladies, everyone giggling nervously as the wait staff attend to filling water glasses and taking dinner orders.
    Break a leg, baby, Craig says, kissing me on the mouth.
    Break a leg, I say back. I put my hand on my stomach to calm the butterflies.
    The house lights go down and the crowd hushes, squinting through the low light from the candles on their tables at the red-curtained stage. Craig switches on the microphone.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Monday night at the Starion. Now that your waiters and waitresses have your orders please stay seated and silent. Our presentation lasts an hour, without intermission, and we expect to hold you spellbound for that hour. If you should need your waiter or waitress, please extinguish the candle on your table and wait patiently. We hope you enjoy the show
.
    Craig switches off the microphone and takes two deep breaths.
    On a rainy April night in 1958
, he begins again into the microphone,
the police were summoned to 730 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills… the home of screen star Lana Turner
.
    That is my cue. The stage lights go up on Lana’s gorgeous pink bedroom and I pretended to be folding laundry on the bed. I wear a white blouse and black pedal pushers with my hair up under a pink scarf. I’m barefoot, like Lana was that night. Craig’s voice booms as I walk back and forth to the closet and the dresser.
    Johnny Stompanato, a former bodyguard for mobman Mickey Cohen, had fallen in love with the glamorous movie star. Theirs was a passionate affair, but when Turner learned of Stompanato’s underworld connections she refused to be seen in public with him. Nominated for an Oscar for her performance in
Peyton Place,
Turner wouldn’t allow Stompanato to escort her to the awards ceremony… so he beat her to within an inch of her life. The tension increased as Lana would phone Stompanato continuously, telling him how much she missed and lovedand wanted him but wouldn’t meet him anywhere other than the seclusion of an apartment. Finally… the lies and confusion came to a head
.
    There’s a stage knock and Lana says, ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
    â€˜C’mon, baby,’ Stompanato says. ‘It’s me.’
    â€˜We’re through,’ Lana yells through the door. ‘Go away!’
    Three more loud knocks. ‘Open this motherfucker up!’
    Lana hurries to the door, unlocking it.
    â€˜We’re through,’ Lana says, looking Stompanato straight on.
    â€˜You’ll never get away from me,’ Stompanato says, closing the door. Then, angrily, ‘I’ll cut you good, baby. No one will ever look at that pretty face again.’
    Lana moves to the far end of the dresser. ‘First you lied about your name—-John Steele. God, it sounds like a porno name, I should’ve known—and now I find out you lied about your age.’
    Stompanato feigns ignorance. ‘What are you talkin’ about?’
    â€˜That’s why you left in such a hurry this afternoon, isn’t it? You knew Bill Brooks recognized you, right? He told me all about you back in military school in Missouri. He told me to stay away from you,’ Lana says, her voice rising.
    Stompanato grabs her by the arm. ‘It’s too late for that now, isn’t it?’
    Offstage, Molly Mann, in the role of Lana’s fourteen-year-old daughter Cheryl, yells, ‘Mother! What’s going on?’
    Stompanato loosens his grip. ‘You’re not going to get rid of me so easy, Miss