Fools die

Chapter 48

On my last trip to California to do the final rewrite on Tri– Culture’s film I ran into Osano at the Beverly Hills Hotel lounge. I was so shocked by his physical appearance that at first I didn’t notice he had Charlie Brown with him. Osano must have put on about thirty pounds, and he had a huge gut that bulged out of an old tennis jacket. His face was bloated, it was speckled with tiny white fat dots. The green eyes that had once been so brilliant had faded into pale colorlessness that looked gray, and as he walked toward me, I could see that the curious lurch in his gait had become worse.

We had drinks in the Polo Lounge. As usual, Charlie drew the eyes of all the men in the room. This was not only because of her beauty and her innocent face. There were plenty of those in Beverly Hills, but there was something in her dress, something in the way she walked and glanced around the room that signaled an easy availability.

Osano said, “I look terrible, don’t I?”

“I’ve seen you worse,” I said.

“Hell, I’ve seen myself worse,” Osano said. “You, you lucky bastard, can eat anything you want and you never put on an ounce.”

“But I’m not as good as Charlie,” I said. And I smiled at her and she smiled back.

Osano said, “We’re catching the afternoon plane. Eddie Lancer thought he could fix me up with a script job, but it fell through, so I might as well get the hell out of here. I think I’ll go to a fat farm, get in shape and finish my novel.”

“How’s the novel coming?” I asked.

“Great,” Osano said. “I got over two thousand pages, just five hundred more to go.”

I didn’t know what to say to him. By this time he had acquired a reputation for not delivering with magazine publishers, even on his nonfiction books. His novel was his last hope.

“You should just concentrate on the five hundred pages,” I said, “and get the goddamn book finished. That will solve all your troubles.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Osano said. “But I can’t rush it. Even my publisher wouldn’t want me to do that. This is the Nobel Prize for me, kid, when this is finished.”

I looked at Charlie Brown to see if she was impressed, and it struck me that she didn’t even know what the Nobel Prize Was.

“You’re lucky to have such a publisher,” I told Osano. “They’ve been waiting ten years for that book.”

Osano laughed. “Yeah, the classiest publishers in America. They’ve given me over a hundred grand and they haven’t seen a page. Real class, not like these fucking movie people.”

“I’ll be leaving for New York in a week,” I said. “I’ll call you for dinner there. What’s your new phone number?”

Osano said, “It’s the same one.”

I said, “I’ve called there and nobody ever answered.”

“Yeah,” Osano said. “I’ve been down in Mexico working on my book, eating those beans and tacos. That’s why I got so goddamn heavy. Charlie Brown here, she didn’t put on an ounce and she ate ten times as much as I did.” He patted Charlie Brown on the shoulder, squeezing her flesh. “Charlie Brown,” he said, “if you die before me, I’m going to have them dissect your body and find out what you got that keeps you skinny.”

She smiled back at him. “That reminds me, I’m hungry,” she said.

So just to cheer things up I ordered lunch for us. I had a plain salad and Osano had an omelet and Charlie Brown ordered a hamburger with french fried potatoes, a steak with vegetables, a salad and a three-scoop ice-cream desert on top of apple pie. Osano and myself enjoyed the people watching Charlie eat. They couldn’t believe it. A couple of men in the next booth made audible comments, hoping to draw us into a conversation so they would have an excuse to talk to Charlie. But Osano and Charlie ignored them.

I paid the tab, and when I left, I promised to call Osano when I got to New York.

Osano said, “That would be great. I’ve agreed to talk in front of that Women’s Lib convention next month, and I’ll need some moral support from you, Merlyn. How about if we have dinner that night and then go on to the convention?”

I was a little doubtful. I wasn’t really interested in any kind of convention, and I was a little worried about Osano’s getting into trouble and I’d have to bail him out again. But I said OK, that I would.

Neither one of us had mentioned Janelle. I couldn’t resist saying to Osano, “Have you seen Janelle in town?”

“No,” Osano said, “have you?”

“I haven’t seen her for a long time,” I said.

Osano stared at me. The eyes for just one second became their usual sneaky pale green. He smiled a little sadly. “You should never let a girl like that go,” he said. “You just get one of them in a lifetime. Just like you get one big book in your lifetime.”

I shrugged and we shook hands again. I kissed Charlie on the cheek and then I left.

That afternoon I had a story conference at Tri-Culture Studios. It was with Jeff Wagon, Eddie Lancer, and the director, Simon Bellfort. I had always thought the Hollywood legends of a writer being rude to his director and producer in a story conference were shitty no matter how funny. But for the first time, at this story conference, I could see why such things had happened. In effect, Jeff Wagon and his director were ordering us to write their story, not my novel. I let Eddie Lancer do most of the arguing, and finally Eddie, exasperated, said to Jeff Wagon, “Look, I’m not saying I’m smarter than you, I’m just saying I’m luckier. I’ve written four hit pictures in a row. Why not ride with my judgment?”

To me this seemed like a superbly clever argument, but Jeff Wagon and the director had puzzled looks on their faces. They didn’t know what Eddie was talking about, and I could see there was no way to change their minds.

Finally Eddie Lancer said, “I’m sorry, but if that’s the way you guys want to go, I have to leave this picture.”

“OK,” Jeff said. “How about you, Merlyn?”

“I don’t see any point in my writing it your way,” I said. “I don’t think I’d do a good job with it.”

“That’s fair enough,” Jeff Wagon said. “I’m sorry. Now is there any writer you know that could work on this picture with us and could have some consultations with you guys since you already have done most of the work? It would be very helpful?”

The thought flashed through my mind that I could get Osano this job. I knew he needed the money desperately and I knew that if I said I would work with Osano he would get the assignment. But then I thought of Osano in a story conference like this taking directions from men like Jeff Wagon and the director. Osano was still one of the great men in American literature, and I thought these guys would humiliate him and then fire him. So I didn’t speak up.

It was only when trying to go to sleep that I realized maybe I had denied Osano the job to punish him for sleeping with Janelle.

The next morning I got a call from Eddie Lancer. He told me that he had had a meeting with his agent and his agent said that Tri-Culture Studios and Jeff Wagon were offering him a fifty-thousand-dollar extra fee to stay on the picture, and what did I think?

I told Eddie that it was perfectly OK with me, whatever he did, but that I wasn’t going back on. Eddie tried to persuade me. “I’ll tell them I won’t go back unless they take you back and pay you twenty-five thousand dollars,” Eddie Lancer said. “I’m sure they’ll go for it.”

Again I thought of helping Osano, and again I just couldn’t do it. Eddie was going on, “My agent told me if I didn’t go back on this picture, the studio would put more writers on and then try to get the new writers the credit on the picture. Now, if we don’t get script credit, we lose our Writers Guild contract and TV gross points when the picture is sold to television. Also, we both have some net points which we will probably never see. But it’s just an off chance the picture may be a big hit, and then we’ll be kicking our asses in. It could wind up to be a sizable chunk of dough, Merlyn, but I won’t go back on it if you think we should stick together and try to save our story.”

“I don’t give a shit about the percentage,” I said, “or the credits, and as far as the story goes, what the fuck kind of story it is? It’s schlock, it’s not my book anymore. But you go ahead. I really don’t care. I mean that.”

“OK,” Eddie said, “and while I’m on, I’ll try to protect your credit as much as I can. I’ll call you when I’m in New York and we’ll have dinner.”

A month later, Jeff Wagon called me in New York. He told me that Simon Bellfort thought that Frank Richetti should get a writing credit with Lancer and me.

“Is Eddie Lancer still with the picture?” I asked him.

“Yes,” Jeff Wagon said.

“OK,” I said. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Wagon said. “And we’ll keep you posted on what happens. We’ll all see each other at the Academy Awards dinner.” And he hung up.

I had to laugh. They were turning the picture into a piece of schlock and Wagon had the nerve to talk about Academy Awards. That Oregon beauty should have taken a bigger piece out of his balls. I felt a sense of betrayal that Eddie Lancer had remained on the picture. It was true what Wagon had once said. Eddie Lancer was a natural-born screenwriter, but he was also a natural-born novelist and I knew he would never write a novel again.

Another funny thing was that though I had fought with everybody and the script was getting worse and worse and I had intended to leave, I still felt hurt. And I guess, too, in the back of my head I still hoped that if I went to California again to work on the script, I might see Janelle. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for months. The last time I had called her up just to say hello and we had chatted for a while and at the end she had said, “I’m glad you called me,” and then she waited for an answer.

I paused and said, “Me too.” At that she started to laugh and mimicked me.

She said, “Me too, me too,” and then she said, “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” and laughed gaily. She said, “Call me when you come out again.”

And I said, “I will.” But I knew that I would not.

A month after Wagon called, I got a call from Eddie Lancer. He was furious. “Merlyn,” he said, “they’re changing the script to screw you out of your credit. That guy Frank

“Great,” I said. “Good luck with Jeff Wagon.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “I’ll need it.”

I spent the rest of the day moving out of my office at Tri-Culture Studios and doing some shopping. I didn’t want to go back on the same plane as Osano and Charlie Brown. I thought of calling Janelle, but I didn’t.

Richetti is writing all new dialogue, just paraphrasing your words. They’re changing incidents just enough so that it will seem different from your scenes and I heard them talking, Wagon and Bellfort and Richetti, about how they’re going to screw you out of your credit and your percentage. Those bastards don’t even pay any attention to me.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I wrote the novel and I wrote the original screenplay and I checked it with the Writers Guild, and there’s no way I can get screwed out of at least a partial credit and that saves my percentage.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie Lancer said. “I’m just warning you about what they’re going to do. I hope you’ll protect yourself.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “What about you? How are you coming on the picture?”

He said, “That fucking Frank Richetti is a fucking illiterate, and I don’t know who’s the bigger hack, Wagon or Bell-fort. This may become one of the worst pictures ever made. Poor Malomar must be spinning in his grave.”

“Yeah, poor Malomar,” I said. “He was always telling me how great Hollywood was, how sincere and artistic the people there could be. I wish he were alive now.”

“Yeah,” Eddie Lancer said. “Listen, next time you come to California call me and we’ll have dinner.”

“I don’t think I’ll be coming to California again,” I said. “If you come to New York, call me.”

“OK, I will,” Lancer said.

A year later the picture came out. I got credit for the book but no credit as the screenwriter. Sreenwriting credit was given to Eddie Lancer and Simon Bellfort. I asked for an arbitration at the Writers Guild, but I lost. Richetti and Bellfort had done a good job changing the script, and so I lost my percentage. But it didn’t matter. The picture was a disaster, and the worst of it was Doran Rudd told me that in the industry the novel was blamed for the failure of the film. I was no longer a salable product in Hollywood, and that was the only thing about the whole business that cheered me up.

One of the most scathing reviews of the film was by Clara

Ford. She murdered it from A to Z. Even Kellino’s performance. So Kellino hadn’t done his job too well with Clara Ford. But Houlinan took a last shot at me. He placed a story on one of the wire services headlined MERLYN NOVEL FAILS AS MOVIE. When I read that, I just shook my head with admiration.