“You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re
right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap
she believes. You can’t talk her out of it. I’ve tried with tears running down
my cheeks. Benny Polan, respected everywhere, Benny Polan tried. Benny had it
on his mind to marry her, she don’t go for it, Benny spent maybe thousands
sending her to head-shrinkers. Even the famous one, the one can only speak
German, boy, did he throw in the towel. You cant talk her out of these” – he
made a fist, as though to crush an intangible – “ideas. Try it some time. Get
her to tell you some of the stuff she believes. Mind you,” he said, “I like the
kid. Everybody does, but there’s lots that don’t. I do. I sincerely like the
kid. I’m sensitive, that’s why. You’ve got to be sensitive to appreciate her: a
streak of the poet. But I’ll tell you the truth. You can beat your brains out
for her, and she’ll hand you horseshit on a platter. To give an example – who
is she like you see her today? She’s strictly a girl you’ll read where she ends
up at the bottom of Seconals. I’ve seen it happen more times than you’ve got
toes: and those kids, they weren’t even nuts. She’s nuts.”
“But young. And with a great deal of youth ahead of her.”
“If you mean future, you’re wrong again. Now a couple of
years back, out on the Coast, there was a time it could’ve been different. She
had something working for her, she had them interested, she could’ve really
rolled. But when you walk out on a thing like that, you don’t walk back. Ask
Luise Rainer. And Rainer was a star. Sure, Holly was no star; she never got out
of the still department. But that was before the story of Dr Wassell. Then she
could’ve really rolled. I know, see, cause I’m the guy was giving her the
push.” He pointed his cigar at himself. “O.J Berman”.
He expected recognition, and I didn’t mind obliging him, it
was all right by me, except that I’d never heard of O.J Berman. It developed
that he was a Hollywood actor’s agent.
“I’m the first one saw her. Out at Santa Anita. She’s
hanging around the track every day. I’m interested: professionally. I find out
she’s some jocks regular, she’s living with the shrimp. I get the jock told
Drop It if he don’t want conversation with the vice boys: see, the kid’s
fifteen. But stylish: she’s okay, she comes across. Even when she’s wearing
glasses this thick; even when she opens her mouth and you don’t know if she’s a
hillbilly or an Okie or what. I still don’t. My guess, nobody’ll ever know
where she came from. She’s such a goddamn liar, maybe she don’t even know
herself anymore. But it took us a year to smooth out that accent, How we
finally did it, we gave her French lessons: after she could imitate French, it
wasn’t so long she could imitate English. We modelled her along the Margaret
Sullivan type, but she could pitch some curves of her own, people were
interested, big ones, and to top it all, Benny Polan, a respected guy, Benny
wants to marry her. An agent could ask for more? Then wham! The Story of Dr
Wassell. You see that picture? Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper. Jesus. I kill
myself, its all set: they’re going to test her for the part of Dr Wassell’s
nurse. One of his nurses anyway. Then wham! The phone rings.” He picked a
telephone out of the air and held it to his ear. “She says, this is Holly, I
say honey, you sound far away, she says I’m in New York, I say what the hell
are you doing in New York when its Sunday and you got the test tomorrow? She
says I’m in New York cause I’ve never been to New York
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