Close up, p.31
Close-Up, page 31
Of course, one had to allow for the hyperbole of both journalism and movie-makers. The money had come from a new sort of company, but Continuum’s twenty-one cinemas could never liquidate the investment, so some time in the future they would have to do an old-fashioned distribution deal. The cassette business might become bigger than the circuits, but how long would it be before enough customers owned machines to screen them. The pessimists said that the interest charges on Man From the Palace would make it impossible to recoup its cost. Stone had agreed to take no money up front, but they were doling him out a thousand pounds a week in unquestioned expenses, and that can be very nice if you are in Stone’s tax bracket. What’s more, the production was still footing the bill for superbly furnished dressing-rooms, luxury trailers and limousines with drivers on duty twenty-four hours a day. None of that would be seen by the camera, and nor would the lunch that I was having that day with Stone, but Bookbinder’s publicity department had already offered to pick up the bill.
Stone said the TV people would be finished well before lunchtime, but I knew better. His vast house was a challenge to any documentary camera crew, and they trailed cables through every room and littered the hall with lights to shoot Stone looking down from the carved galleria and have the painted Venetian ceiling in shot beyond him.
The TV interviewer was an elegant teenager of about fifty. His coal-black eyes and a fierce scowl were known in every home in Britain. He wore a lounge suit of conservative cut, but made from brocaded tapestry. It was said to be the first one. His hair was long enough to cover his ears and touch the deep collar of his shirt. His handkerchief was being refolded for the fifth time. This time it was exactly right. ‘You can put the mirror down now,’ he told his director, who had been peering over it to talk.
‘Poor little rich boy,’ said the director, resting his chin upon the top of the mirror.
‘Empire without an heir,’ explained the interviewer. ‘Track in on that. It’s just a thirty-second clip for the summing up. Big close-up: frightened eyes for the end. Your interiors for the beginning.’
‘Suppose Stone digs all this bread, though? Suppose he’s an unfrightened happy little rich boy?’
‘The script’s been approved now,’ said the interviewer, ‘it’s too late for changes like that.’ The director gave me a secret wink and raised his eyebrows in anguish.
Their filming began with Stone reading a tooled leather edition of ‘any great-looking book, the title won’t read with the wide-angle on’, as he sat at the fireplace of his Louis XIV library. ‘Gas poker or something, Harold. Any flame out of focus behind him, we’ll flicker a red gel on him for firelight; And for Christ’s sake draw the curtains, or we’ll get the sun on the river.’
The camera and its crew tracked with him to the library door, then they moved their equipment and continued the filming upstairs in the Japanese dining-room – ‘So who the hell’s going to know it’s a different part of the house?’ – and finally the breakfast-room that led to the garden.
‘During the tracking shot I’ll be spouting some crap like, “but not all students of drama end up with less than five hundred pounds a year. Marshall Stone is one of the highest-paid actors in the world. It was at his country house in Kent that he answered the same question.” Hey, that’s not bad. Did you get that down in shorthand, Agatha? Great, great, great.’ He liked to add his own creative touch to the script. That’s why he wouldn’t allow the TV Times to describe him as a TV personality. That’s just for jokeless comics who wished they could sing and dance. He was a creative man, a specialist on the arts. Just as he’d been TV specialist on cars, America and ballroom dancing at other stages of his career. He smoothed his greying hair before applying a holding spray to the sides.
To me the great house, and its extraordinary and varied décor, had always looked like the dressed sets of a studio where a dozen epics were waiting to go. The presence of the TV technicians and their equipment made it even more so. I wondered if they were going to play it like that in ‘The Business of Acting – a TV Inquiry into the Arts Today’. But if they intended to roast an actor for their feast, they were too artful to give him a hint of it.
‘What do you think?’ said Stone.
‘Be careful,’ I said.
‘What of?’
‘I don’t know.’ Stone thought it was an instance of media battling for him. He smiled knowingly and walked over to the interviewer.
Stone was pleased that the TV people were so affable. The interviewer admired his antiques and his horses and exchanged with Stone his considerable knowledge of both. The interviewer strolled across the lawn to where his Bentley was being used as a dressing-room and wardrobe. To Stone he said, ‘At my place in Dorset I’m having to put in more stabling. So far I’ve done no racing but there’s one filly that I bought two years ago for a song…’ He crossed his fingers.
‘It’s a damned expensive hobby,’ said Stone.
The interviewer nodded gravely, as any rich owner would. He touched the huge knot of his tie and closed his eyes as the make-up girl applied a touch of colouring to his lips. She moved away and he looked around to be sure that the two chairs had been placed so that the oriental garden would be seen in the background of the two-shot.
‘You’ve got the tea pavilion and the hump-backed bridge.’
‘Out of focus,’ said the camera operator, his voice muffled as his face pressed against the viewfinder. The interviewer leaned close and Stone smelled an expensive cologne that was advertised as being made from rum and tobacco. ‘These talking heads are not very boxy, Marshall, old chap. Keep your face as animated as possible.’
The boy on the Nagra nodded to show that he’d used that to adjust his recording level. ‘Let’s go,’ said the director.
The interviewer’s screen voice was rich and responsible, like a High Court judge in a treason trial. The voice he used to the camera crew might have been instruction for a jury, but interviewees were men accused. ‘For you, Marshall Stone, superstar extraordinary, the rewards have been bountiful and the privileges many. Cars, jet planes, yachts and palaces are at your command. At your instance film companies have paid vast sums to bring great playwrights and eminent writers to your service, and yet you have remained essentially a commercial actor.’
Stone blinked. He wasn’t sure whether he was being invited to comment. The interviewer nodded to him. ‘I’m not sure what a commercial actor is,’ he said. ‘Surely the only people who are not commercial are those who live on charity.’
The interviewer gave no sign of having heard Stone’s reply. He leaned close to his script and read the next question. ‘Nowadays you employ agents, secretaries, accountants, business managers, lawyers, PR men and Press agents. You command an army of domestic servants in your many houses. You have a yacht crew and a private pilot for your jet. Tell me, Marshall Stone, have you time left for the simple art of acting?’
Stone fielded. ‘I don’t know about simple.’ He touched his eyebrow with a fingertip. It was nicely spontaneous. ‘You talk of time: all these things are ways to buy time. Time is a sacred element in an artist’s life: time to study, time to think…’ another pause,’ ‘…and the root of all drama: time to observe life.’
‘The root perhaps of all art,’ affirmed the interviewer, with godlike impartiality. ‘But there’s a Parkinson’s Law for business. And, whether you like it or not, Marshall Stone is a business. You employ as many people as, and gross much more than, many small factories. Can an actor run a business?’
Stone smiled into camera. ‘I’ve had no complaints so far. I think I’m a pretty good businessman.’
‘Given the astronomical fees that your name commands, would a good businessman spend so much on non-productive personal comfort? Would he devote so much time to observing, thinking and studying? Surely a good businessman would be tempted to take the money and run?’
‘You can’t expect me to discuss the possible temptations of hypothetical businessmen, still less their possible fall,’ said Stone. The interviewer waited for him to continue. ‘My plane means that on location I can get home overnight instead of staying in a local hotel. My house in Beverly Hills is there because a lot of my work is still done in California. My yacht provides my only absolute and uninterrupted relaxation, and my technical advisers are a necessary evil in a system that levies invidious taxes upon successful men.’
The interviewer smiled. ‘All of which, Mr Stone, leads me to ask why. To whom are you hurrying home in your jet plane? For whom are you working so hard that you need a yacht to relax? To whom will you be leaving the empire you have built, aided by armies of tax advisers and managers?’
Stone wore a fixed smile. The TV man continued, ‘You’ve a reputation for being a loner, Mr Stone. It is a long time since your name was linked to anyone’s in any meaningful way.’ Again he paused, and this time it was clear that he wanted to strain Stone’s smile to the utmost. ‘You have mastered the business of acting better than anyone, but in doing so you have built an empire without an heir.’
It was a fade-out line if ever I heard one, and the camera operator must have thought the same, for he began a slow zoom that would end as a big close-up of Stone’s frightened eyes. I think they were hoping for a ‘yes’.
‘Cut,’ said the director.
Stone leaned towards the interviewer and said, ‘When I saw that piece of cabbage stuck to your tooth, I thought, oh my God, he’s lost a cap, but then during your last question you swallowed it.’ Stone smiled.
‘I see,’ said the interviewer, and he smiled carefully, without opening his lips.
Stone waved a perfunctory farewell to them as he took the bend on the drive a trifle too fast. A shower of gravel sprayed over the whole crew. The interviewer was sitting alone on the lawn doing his noddies. He was saying, ‘…doesn’t this luxury sometimes cause you to lose sight of the simple art of acting?’ into the lens, and then doing a few smiles and nods so that they could cut back to him while Stone was talking. As the gravel hit them he frowned, and the cameraman stopped work until he could do his hair again.
‘Wouldn’t you know he used to be on BBC2,’ said Stone. ‘The questions are longer than the answers.’
‘And more carefully rehearsed,’ I said.
Stone gave a short chuckle; the joke was on him, and he didn’t hide the fact that he knew it.
‘A Roman Holiday,’ he said. ‘Yes, film stars are always a good target for bastards like that. I hate television. Do you know that, I really hate television and all those pompous bastards in it.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I liked the cabbage on his tooth moody.’
‘I should have listened to you,’ said Stone. ‘I’m too trusting, that’s my trouble.’
‘As a matter of fact, Marshall, I agree.’ We were doing ninety, so he only shot me the briefest of glances. At that moment I was as close to him as I ever got. The grimace that he gave me instead of his bright smile was the nearest he came to lowering the armour glass behind which he cowered.
He concentrated on his driving for ten miles or more. ‘Did you see the camera?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sixteen millimetre.’
‘An Eclair with an Angenieux twelve to one-twenty zoom, and you know what that means.’
‘What?’
‘It means that last shot was just my eyeballs. Those snide bastards. Do they think I’m queer or something. Is that what he was getting at?’
‘Christ knows,’ I said. We drove in silence. I wondered whether he’d remember to have my MG brought up to town as he’d promised to when suddenly remembering that we must eat lunch in town.
Stone handled his Rolls well. He dedicated himself to controlling it, doing all sorts of fancy hand signals, and giving neat stabs of the accelerator that made heads turn. It interested me that he should be so particular about the car, even to the point of closing the door after me and wiping the handle clean of my prints.
We couldn’t speak in the car, the windows were open, and the clock and the wind and the roar of the engine prevented it. I wondered why Stone had been so keen that I should ride in his car instead of following him in my own. Perhaps he just wanted company, but watching him at close quarters made me believe that for him it was just as important that I saw him as that I listened to him. He had, after all, made his fortune by his use of other men’s words, not by his own.
‘I made a twit of myself, didn’t I?’
‘No, certainly not.’
‘I know I did, Peter. Sometimes I can’t find the words. It’s all right for you writers, you can always take care of yourselves. Did you ever notice how every book about movies tells you the actors are creeps, the producers are bastards and the writers long-suffering geniuses? Every book!’
‘They write in pretty good parts for themselves,’ I admitted.
‘Just a quick lunch. I’ve got to see these people,’ he said sadly. ‘A star is only as good as his last publicity.’ He glanced at me. ‘That’s a joke. I read it in Reader’s Digest.’
We drove in silence for a long while, except that a couple of times he said, ‘Queer, is that what the bastard was getting at?’
The traffic slowed us to walking pace at Marble Arch. Stone said, ‘What do you think of that, then?’ There were two young girls on the pavement ahead of us. His remark was out of keeping with our previous style of conversation.
‘I don’t fancy yours,’ I said.
Stone smiled and sounded the car horn imperiously, and then slowed the car alongside them. ‘Jump in, girls,’ he called.
The girls turned round and giggled. Several people were watching the exchange with varying degrees of amusement and disapproval. Had Stone wanted to prove to me his total ineptitude with women, he could not have arranged it better.
‘They want to get in the car,’ he assured me. ‘They’ve recognized me all right.’ I tried to smile and make a joke of it. I wasn’t sure how much I liked it as a biographer, but as a bystander it was monumentally embarrassing.
The two girls took another look at him before hurrying into a shop.
‘The hell with them,’ Stone shouted. “There are millions more. All the girls want to know what it’s like, doing it with a film star, Peter.’ He laughed. ‘And I’m always happy to show them. On the back seat, sometimes!’
‘I envy you, Marshall.’
‘Never short of crumpet. That’s one thing about this job.’ He wove neatly around a bread lorry and a taxi which hooted angrily.
‘We’re eating at Jamie’s.’
‘Good.’
‘You may not have heard of it. It’s an expensive private club near St James’s Palace. The food is great. They know me there.’
‘You talked me into it,’ I said.
He looked at me in surprise, and then laughed.
We got past the doorman all right. In fact he took the car to park it. The reception clerk recognized Stone, and said how nice it was to see him again. It was a waiter in the hall beyond who told Stone that it was a members-only club. Had Stone said he was a member, instead of, ‘Never you mind about that,’ that probably would have been the end of it. As it was, he got into an argument with the waiter that only the manager was able to quell. The manager was a small man with a happy mouth and patent-leather hair.
‘Delighted to see you again, Mr Stone,’ said the manager. ‘The boy didn’t recognize you.’ The manager smiled and tugged his cuffs. He clearly hoped that Stone would smile too, and that it would be a joke they could share on many future visits, but he needed only a few seconds to decide that Stone wanted more than that.
‘Imbecile!’ the manager called softly at the waiter’s back. Even as he said it he was smiling in case he was seen by customers across the room. ‘Imbecile! Get your cards! You get your cards! You take a week’s pay and you get out of my place! I don’t want your sort here! Imbecile.’
‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ said Stone graciously, ‘but he grabbed my arm. I can’t stand people grabbing my arm.’ He amended it. ‘I can’t stand waiters grabbing my arm.’
‘It’s all right, Mr Stone,’ said the manager. Again he threw an arm in the air to show the waiter that he was fired. ‘Come this way, sir. Patrick! Mr Stone has Bloody Mary. A nice Bloody Mary for Mr Stone. Right away, Patrick. No matter about anything else. Is that right, Mr Stone, a nice Bloody Mary?’ The manager never ceased talking as he ushered us into his restaurant. His words were a salve upon Marshall Stone, as the manager knew they would be. I decided that Marshall Stone was better in the manager’s hands than mine. To be a witness to an angry scene can make a barrier between two men that takes years to erode.
The toilet at Jamie’s was like the reception hall of a Florentine palace. Far across the marble floor I heard a man say, ‘It’s going to be a fine day.’ It was a pronouncement, as if Leo Koolman had it all planned and paid for. He caught sight of me in the tinted mirrors. ‘Hold it, kid,’ he called to me. He pressed the lions-head taps and rinsed his hands under the water. A notice said it was specially softened water gently heated to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Koolman used it as if he’d never known another kind. He screwed up his eyes to see me more clearly. ‘Anson. Peter Anson. Right?’
‘That’s it, Mr Koolman.’
‘Came in with Marshall Stone.’
‘I’m doing a story on him.’
‘Tomorrow they start shooting that movie,’ he said. He worked on the principle that only his own films should get free word-of-mouth publicity by having their titles mentioned. ‘What’s the budget?’
