Tell All

ACT I, SCENE TWO

If you’ll permit me to break the fourth wall,my name is Hazie Coogan.

My vocation is not that of a paid companion,nor am I a professional housekeeper. It is my role as an old woman toscrub the same pots and pans I scrubbed as a young one—I’ve made mypeace with that fact—and while she has never once touched them, thosepots and pans have always belonged to the majestic, the glorious filmactress Miss Katherine Kenton.

It is my task to soft-boil her daily egg. Iwax her linoleum kitchen floor. The endless job of dusting and polishingthe not insignificant number of bibelots and gold-plated gimcracksawarded to Miss Katie, that job is mine as well. But am I Miss Katherine Kenton’s maid? No more so than the butcherplays handmaiden to the tender lamb.

My purpose is to impose order on MissKathie’s chaos … to instill discipline in her legendary artisticcaprice. I am the person Lolly Parsons oncereferred to as a “surrogate spine.”

While I may vacuum the carpets of MissKathie’s household and place the orders with the grocer, my true jobtitle is not majordomo so much as mastermind. It might appear that MissKathie is my employer in the sense that she seems to provide me funds inexchange for my time and labor, and that she relaxes and blooms while Itoil; but using that same logic, it could be argued that the farmer isemployed by the pullet hen and the rutabaga.

The elegant KatherineKenton is no more my master than the piano is master to Ignace Jan Paderewski … to paraphrase Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who paraphrased me, who firstsaid and did most of the dazzling, clever things which, later, helpedmake others famous. In that sense you already know me. If you’ve seen Linda Darnell as a truck-stop waitress, sticking apencil behind one ear in Fallen Angel,you’ve seen me. Darnell stole that bit from me. As does Barbara Lawrence when she brays her donkey laugh in Oklahoma. So many great actresses have filched mymost effective mannerisms, and my spot-on delivery, that you’ve seenbits of me in performances by Alice Faye and Margaret Dumont and Rise Stevens.You’d recognize fragments of me—a raised eyebrow, a nervous handtwirling the cord of a telephone receiver—from countless old pictures.

The irony does not escape me that while Eleanor Powell lays claim to my fashion signatureof wearing numerous small bows, I now boast the red knees of a charwomanand the swollen hands of a scullery maid. No less of an illustrious wagthan Darryl Zanuck once dismissed me aslooking like Clifton Webb in a glen plaidskirt. Mervyn LeRoy spread the rumor that I amthe secret love child of Wally Beery and hisfrequent costar Marie Dressler.

Currently, the regular duties of my positioninclude defrosting Miss Kathie’s electric icebox and ironing her bedlinens, yet my position is not that of a laundress. My career is not as acook. Nor is domestic servant my vocation. My life is far less steeredby Katherine Kenton than her life is by me.Miss Kathie’s daily demands and needs may determine my actions but onlyso much as the limits of a racing automobile will dictate those of thedriver.

I am not merely a woman who works in afactory producing the ever-ravishing Katherine Kenton.I am the factory itself. With the words I write here I am not simply acamera operator or cinematographer; I am the lens itself—flattering,accentuating, distorting—recording how the world will recall mycoquettish Miss Kathie.

Yet I am not just a sorceress. I am thesource.

Miss Kathie exerts only a very small effortto be herself. The bulk of that manual labor is supplied by me in tandemwith a phalanx of wig makers, plastic surgeons and dietitians. Sinceher earliest days under a studio contract it has been my livelihood tocomb and dress her often blond, sometimes brunette, occasionally redhair. I coach the dulcet tones of her voice so as to make everyutterance suggest a line of dialogue scripted for her by Thornton Wilder. Nothing of Miss Kathie is innateexcept for the almost supernatural violet coloring of her eyes. Hers isthe throne, seated in the same icy pantheon as GretaGarbo and Grace Kelly and Lana Turner, but mine is the heavy lifting whichkeeps her on high.

And while the goal of every well-trainedhousehold servant is to seem invisible, that is also the goal of anyaccomplished puppeteer. Under my control, Miss Kathie’s household seemsto smoothly run itself, and she appears to run her own life.

My position is not that of a nurse, or amaid, or a secretary. Nor do I serve as a professional therapist or achauffeur or bodyguard. While my job title is none of the preceding, Ido perform all of those functions. Every evening, I pull the drapes.Walk the dog. Lock the doors. I disconnect the telephone, to keep theoutside world in its correct place. However, more and more my job is toprotect Miss Kathie from herself.

Cut direct to an interior, nighttime. We seethe lavish boudoir belonging to Katherine Kenton,immediately following tonight’s dinner party, with my Miss Kathielocked behind her en suite bathroom door. From offscreen, we hear thehiss and splash of a shower bath at full blast.

Despite popular speculation, Miss Katherine Kenton and I do not enjoy what Walter Winchell would call a “fingers-deepfriendship.” Nor do we indulge in behavior Confidentialwould cite to brand us as “baritone babes,” or HeddaHopper describes as “pink pucker sucking.” The duties of myposition include placing one Nembutal and one Luminal in the cloisonné saucer atop Miss Kathie’sbedside table. In addition, filling an old-fashioned glass tooverflowing with ice cubes and drop-by-drop pouring one shot of whiskeyover the ice. Repeat with a second shot. Then fill the remainder of theglass with soda water.

The bedside table consists of nothing morethan a stack of screenplays. A teetering pile sent by RuthGordon and Garson Kanin, asking myMiss Kathie to make a comeback. Begging, in fact. Here were speculativeBroadway musicals based on actors dressed as dinosaurs or Emma Goldman. Feature-length animated versions of Macbeth by William Shakespearedepicted with baby animals. Voice-over work. The pitch: Bertolt Brecht meets Lerner andLoewe crossed with Eugene O’Neill. Thepages turn yellow and curl, stained with Scotch whiskey and cigarettesmoke. The paper branded with the brown rings left by every cup of MissKathie’s black coffee.

We repeat this ritual every evening,following whatever dinner party or opening my Miss Kathie has attended.On returning to her town house, I unfasten the eye hook at the top ofher gown and release the zipper. Turn on the television. Change thechannel. Change the television channel once more. Dump the contents ofher evening bag onto the satin coverlet of her bed, Miss Kathie’s Helena Rubinstein lipstick, keys, charge cards,replacing each item into her daytime bag. I place the shoe trees withinher shoes. Pin her auburn wig to its Styrofoamhead. Next, I light the vanilla- scented candles lined up along themantel of her bedroom fireplace.

As my Miss Kathie conducts herself behind theen suite bathroom door, amid the rush and steam of her shower bath, hervoice through the door drones: bark, moo, meow… William Randolph Hearst. Snarl, squeal, tweet … AnitaLoos.

In the center of the satin bed sprawls herPekingese, Loverboy, amid a field of wrinkledpaper wrappers, the two cardboard halves of a heart-shaped candy box,the pleated pink brocade-and-silk roses stapled to the box cover, theruched folds of lace frilling the box edges. The bed’s billowing redsatin coverlet, spread with this mess, the cupped candy papers, thesprawling Pekingese dog.

From out of Miss Kathie’s evening bag spillsher cigarette lighter, a pack of Pall Mallcigarettes, her tiny pill box paved with rubies and tourmalines andrattling with Tuinal and Dexamyl.Bark, cluck, squeak … Nembutal. Roar, whinny, oink… Seconal. Meow, tweet, moo …Demerol.

Then, fluttering down, falls a white card.Settling on the bed, an engraved place card from this evening’s dinner.Against the white card stock, in bold, black letters, the name Webster Carlton Westward III.

What Hedda Hopperwould call this moment—a “Hollywood lifetime”—expires.

A freeze-frame. An insert-shot of the small,white card lying on the satin bed beside the inert dog.

On television, my Miss Kathie acts the partof Spain’s Queen Isabella I, escaped from herroyal duties in the Alhambra for a quickievacation in Miami Beach, pretending to be asimple circus dancer in order to win the heart of ChristopherColumbus, played by Ramon Novarro. Thepicture cuts to a cameo by Lucille Ball, onloan out from Warner Bros. and cast as MissKathie’s rival, Queen Elizabeth I.

Here is all of Western history, rendered thebitch of William Wyler.

Behind the bathroom door, in the gush of hotwater, my Miss Kathie says: bark, bray, oink …J. Edgar Hoover. My ears straining to hear herprattle.

Fringe dangles off the edge of the red satincoverlet, the bed canopy, the window valance. Everything upholstered inred velvet, cut velvet. Flocked wallpaper. The scarlet walls, padded andbutton tufted, crowded with Louis XIVmirrors. The lamps, dripping with faceted crystals, busy with sparklingthingamabobs. The fireplace, carved from pink onyx and rose quartz. Theentire effect, insular and silent as sleeping tucked deep inside Mae West’s vagina.

The four-poster bed, its trim and moldingslacquered red, polished until the wood looks wet. Lying there, the candywrappers, the dog, the place card.

Webster Carlton WestwardIII, the American specimen with bright brown eyes. Root- beereyes. The young man seated so far down the table at tonight’s dinner. Atelephone number, handwritten, a prefix in MurrayHill.

On the television, JoanCrawford enters the gates of Madrid,wearing some gauzy harem getup, both her hands carrying a wicker basketin front of her, the basket spilling over with potatoes and Cubancigars, her bare limbs and face painted black to suggest she’s acaptured Mayan slave. The subtext being either Crawford’s carryingsyphilis or she’s supposed to be a secret cannibal. Tainted spoils ofthe New World. A concubine. Perhaps she’s an Aztec.

That slight lift of one naked shoulder,Crawford’s shrug of disdain, here is another signature gesture stolenfrom me.

Above the mantel hangs a portrait of MissKatherine painted by Salvador Dalí; it risesfrom a thicket of engraved invitations and the silver-framed photographsof men whom Walter Winchell would call“was-bands.” Former husbands. The painting of my Miss Kathie, hereyebrows arch in surprise, but her heavy eyelashes droop, the eyelidsalmost closed with boredom. Her hands spread on either side of her face,her fingers fanning from her famous cheekbones to disappear into hermovie star updo of auburn hair. Her mouth something between a laugh and ayawn. Valium and Dexedrine.Between Lillian Gish and TallulahBankhead. The portrait rises from the invitations andphotographs, future parties and past marriages, the flickering candlesand half-dead cigarettes stubbed out in crystal ashtrays threading whitesmoke upward in looping incense trails. This altar to my Katherine Kenton.

Me, forever guarding this shrine. Not so mucha servant as a high priestess.

In what Winchell would call a “New Yorkminute” I carry the place card to the fireplace. Dangle it within acandle flame until it catches fire. With one hand, I reach into thefireplace, deep into the open cavity of carved pink onyx and rosequartz, grasping in the dark until my fingers find the damper and wrenchit open. Holding the white card, Webster CarltonWestward III, twisting him in the chimney draft, I watch a flameeat the name and telephone number. The scent of vanilla. The ash fallsto the cold hearth.

On the television, PrestonSturges and Harpo Marx enter as Tycho Brahe and Copernicus.The first arguing that the earth goes around the sun, the latterinsisting the world actually orbits Rita Hayworth.The picture is called Armada of Love, and David O. Selznick shot it on the Universalback lot the year when every other song on the radio was Helen O’Connell singing “Bewitched,Bothered and Bewildered,” backed by the JimmyDorsey band.

The bathroom door swings open, Miss Kathie’svoice saying: bark, yip, cluck-cluck … Maxwell Anderson. Her KatherineKenton hair turbaned in a white bath towel. Her face layered witha mask of pulped avocado and royal jelly. Pulling the belt of her robetight around her waist, my Miss Kathie looks at the lipstick dumped onher bed. The scattered cigarette lighter and keys and charge cards. Theempty evening bag. Her gaze wafts to me standing before the fireplace,the tongues of candle flame licking below her portrait, her lineup of“was-bands,” the invitations, all those future obligations to enjoyherself, and—of course—the flowers.

Perched on the mantel, that altar, alwaysenough flowers for a honeymoon suite or a funeral. Tonight features atall arrangement of white spider chrysanthemums, white lilies and spraysof yellow orchids, bright and frilly as a cloud of butterflies.

With one hand, Miss Kathie sweeps aside thelipstick and keys, the cigarette pack, and she settles herself on thesatin bed, amid the candy wrappers, saying, “Did you burn something justnow?”

Katherine Kentonremains among the generation of women who feel that the most sincereform of flattery is the male erection. Nowadays, I tell her thaterections are less likely a compliment than they are the result of somemedical breakthrough. Transplanted monkey glands, or one of those newmiracle pills.

As if human beings—men in particular—need yetanother way to lie. I ask, Did she misplace something?

Her violet eyes waft to my hands. Petting herPekingese, Loverboy, dragging one handthrough the dog’s long fur, Miss Kathie says, “I do get so tired ofbuying my own flowers.…”

My hands, smeared black and filthy from thehandle of the fireplace damper. Smudged with soot from the burned placecard. I wipe them in the folds of my tweed skirt. I tell her I wasmerely disposing of some trash. Only incinerating a random piece ofworthless trash.

On television, Leo G.Carroll kneels while Betty Grablecrowns him Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Pope Paul IVis Robert Young. Barbara Stanwyck plays agum-chewing Joan of Arc.

My Miss Kathie watches herself, sevendivorces ago—what Winchell would call “Reno- vations”—and threeface-lifts ago, as she grinds her lips against Novarro’s lips. Aspecimen Winchell would call a “Wildeman.” Like DorothyParker’s husband, Alan Campbell, a manLillian Hellman would call a “fairy shit.”Petting her Pekingese with long licks of her hand, Miss Kathie says,“His saliva tasted like the wet dicks of ten thousand lonely truckdrivers.”

Next to her bed, the night table built from athousand hopeful dreams, those balanced screenplays, it supports twobarbiturates and a double whiskey. Miss Kathie’s hand stops petting andscratching the dog’s muzzle; there the fur looks dark and matted. Shepulls back her arm, and the towel slips from her head, her hair tumblingout, limp and gray, pink scalp showing between the roots. The greenmask of her avocado face cracking with her surprise.

Miss Kathie looks at her hand, and thefingers and palm are smeared and dripping with dark red.