Tell All

ACT II, SCENE SEVEN

We cut back to the auditorium of the lavishBroadway theater where a Japanese bomb explodes, blasting shrapnel into Yul Brynner in the role of DwightD. Eisenhower. The USSArizona listsstarboard, threatening to capsize on Vera-Ellensinging the role of Eleanor Roosevelt. The USSWest Virginiakeels over on top of Neville Chamberlain andthe League of Nations.

As the Zeros strafe IvorNovello, my Miss Kathie climbs to the foremast of the battleship,menaced by antiaircraft gunfire and Lionel Atwill,biting the pin of a hand grenade between her teeth. With a jerk of herhead Miss Kathie pulls the pin, slingshotting her arm to fling thegrenade, lobbing it too wide. The cast-iron pineapple narrowly misses Hirohito, and instead beans RomaniRomani in the string section of the orchestra pit.

From an audience seat, fifth row center, avoice screams, “Oh, stop, for fuck’s sake.” LillianHellman stands, brandishing a rolled copy of the score, slashingthe air with it as if with a riding crop. Lilly screams, “Just stop!”She screams, “You’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy!”

Onstage, the entire Japanese Imperial Armygrinds to a silent halt. The dead sailors strewn across the deck of the USSTennessee standand twist their heads to stretch their stiff necks. EnsignJoe Taussig brings the USSNevada back intoport while Lilly hauls herself up onto the stage apron. Her spittleflashing in the footlights, she screams, “Fouettéen tournant when you throw the grenade, you stupid bitch!” Todemonstrate, Hellman rises to stand, trembling on the point of one toe,then kicks her raised leg to rotate herself. Kicking and turning, shescreams, “And go all the way around, nothalfway.…”

In the reverse angle, we see Terrence Terry and myself seated at the rear of thehouse, surrounded by an assortment of garment bags, hatboxes andunwanted infants. The house seats are otherwise empty. Terry speculatesthat Miss Kathie keeps botching the grenade throw intentionally. Herprevious hand grenade slammed into Barbara Bel Geddes.The throw before that bounced off the thick skull of HumeCronyn. If Webster plans to kill her at the peak of a new stagesuccess, Terry explains, it hardly makes sense for Miss Kathie to defeatthe evil Emperor Showa. Rave opening-nightnotices will only increase her danger.

Onstage, Lilly Hellman executes a perfect pasde bourée step, at the same time putting a pistol shot between the eyesof Buddy Ebsen.

Handing the pistol to Miss Kathie, Hellmansays, “Now, you try it.…”

The pistol misfires, killing Jack Elam. Another shot ricochets off of the USSNew Jersey andwounds Cyd Charisse.

In my lap, I scribble into a notebook. Myhead bowed over my work. Tucked beneath the notebook I conceal thelatest revision to Love Slave,a fourth draft of the final chapter. A scenario beyond the omnibuscrash, the grizzly bear pit, the bubble-bath electrocution.

Onstage, Lilly Hellman performs a series ofjetés while leveling a flamethrower on the FlyingEscalantes.

Across an aisle from Terry, I sit writing,the notebook pages open across my lap in the dim light. The nib of myfountain pen scratching, looping, dotting lines and sentences acrosseach page, I say that no memory is anything more than a personal choice.A very deliberate choice. When we recall someone—a parent, a spouse, afriend—as better than they perhaps were, we do so to create an ideal,something to which we, ourselves, can aspire. But when we remembersomeone as a drunk, a liar, a bully, we’re only creating an excuse forour own poor behavior.

Still writing, I say how the same can be saidfor the people who read such books. The best people look for lofty rolemodels such as the Katherine Kenton I’vegiven my life to create. Other readers will seek out the tawdry strumpetdepicted in Webster Carlton Westward III’sbook, for comfort and license in their own tawdry, disordered lives.

All human beings search for either reasons tobe good, or excuses to be bad. Call me an elitist, but I’m no patch on Mary Pickford.

Onstage, Lilly claps her hands together twiceand says, “Okay, let’s take it from the point where shards of bombcasing shred Captain Mervyn Bennion.”

In silence, everyone present, from Ricardo Cortez to Hope Lange,says fervent prayers to live beyond Miss Hellman, and thus to avoidbeing posthumously absorbed into her hideous self- mythology. Hername-dropping Tourette’s syndrome, set tomusic by Otto Harbach. In the presence of MissHellman, there are no atheists.

Lilly Hellman screams, “Katherine!” Miss Kathie screams, “Hazie!”

Hiss, bray, bark …Jesus Christ.

We all have some proper noun to blame.

The truth about Miss Kathie’s poorperformance is that she’s always looking for the stray mortar shell orrifle round intended to end her life. She can’t concentrate for fearshe’s missed reading any new draft of Love Slave and might be killed at any moment.An exploding battleship. A stage light plummeting from the flies. Anyprop collapsible stage knife might be replaced with an actual dagger,wielded by some unknowing Japanese soldier or AllanDwan. As we sit here, Webster Carlton WestwardIII could be planting a bomb or pumping poison gas into MissKathie’s backstage dressing room. Under such circumstances, of courseshe can’t manage an adequate pas de deux.

Terry says, “Why do you stay with her?” Heasks me, “Why have you stayed with her for all these years?”

Because, I say, the life of Katherine Kenton is my work-in-progress. Mrs. Lord Byron, Mrs. Pope Innocent VI and Mrs. Kaiser von Hindenburg might be Miss Kathie’sbest work, but she is mine. Still writing, still scribbling away, I saythat Miss Katie is my unfinished masterpiece, and an artist does notabandon the work when it becomes difficult. Or when the artwork choosesto become involved with inappropriate men. My job title is not that ofnanny or guardian angel, but I

perform duties of both. My full-timeprofession is what Walter Winchell calls a“star sitter.” A “celebrity curator,” according to ElsaMaxwell.

I retrieve the most recent draft of Webster’storrid tell-all and offer it across the aisle to Terry. From his seat, Terry asks, “How come she’snot electrocuted?”

Miss Kathie hasn’t taken a bath in days, Itell him. She reeks of what Louella Parsonswould call “aroma d’amore.”

Terry reaches across, taking the pages frommy outstretched hand. Scanning the top sheet, he reads, “ ‘No onecould’ve anticipated that by the end of this day my most belovedKatherine would shatter every single, solitary bone in her alluringbody, and her glamorous Hollywood blood would be spattered over half ofMidtown Manhattan …’ ”