Photoplay by Hallie Ephron Read Free Book Online Page A

could be that color in real life?
    At Elenor Nichol’s feet stood a chubby little girl with curly reddish hair—­Little Orphan Annie, Duane thought, chuckling to himself. Click. But where Elenor was composed and regal, radiating contentment, the little girl’s smile looked forced. Duane suspected that she was dying to scratch an itch.
    He lowered the camera. Joelen Nichol . The daughter’s name came to him, as names did, had to: names and faces were his stock in trade. Poor little thing. Must have hated that name, Joelen—­a monument to the oversized egos of her parents.
    Elenor Nichol’s big break had been the sudden death of Joelen’s father, Joe Baumgarten until Universal christened him Fox Pearson. Sad story. He drowned in the Beverly Hills Hotel pool during a glitzy bash celebrating the premiere of a film that would have been his breakout role—­or that’s what the papers said after, anyway. Didn’t hurt that the name of the film was Dark Waters , or that he’d been dragged to the bottom of the pool by the cast on the broken leg he suffered while performing his own stunts in the movie’s final apocalyptic fight scene. Too bad Duane hadn’t been the Johnny-­on-­the-­spot photographer who’d snapped the famous picture of some screenwriter, Arthur something or another, attempting to administer artificial respiration.
    The headline in the Sunday morning Los Angeles Examiner read: “Rising Star Drowns in Dark Waters.” The photograph had lived on in the annals of Hollywood lore, long after Fox Pearson’s celebrity status expired, and turned into something of a Hollywood in-­joke: as if a screenwriter could breathe life into an actor.
    Elenor made headlines, too, as the photogenic grieving widow (she draped herself in black lace and carried baby Joelen to the funeral). One of the film’s uncredited producers, Howard Hughes, supposedly paid her a condolence call. Duane wished he’d been a fly on the wall for that one. Soon the pair was spotted around town together. Chasen’s. Perino’s. Ciro’s. Holding hands. Smooching. Arguing. Fighting. He called her Bunny, and the nickname stuck. With Hughes as her short-­lived Svengali, Bunny was soon auditioning for roles opposite A-­list actors like Tony Curtis and Montgomery Clift—­and getting them.
    That oil portrait must have been made a few years after Bunny ended it with Hughes. She supposedly went on to have affairs with Dean Martin, wrestler Tony Altomare, and a parade of increasingly forgettable dark, husky men before hooking up with her current Argentine playboy. The National Enquirer called Antonio “Tito” Acevedo “Mr. Charm and Smarm,” and hinted that he had Mafia connections. Rumor had it that Tito would soon find himself recast as Bunny’s ex. And that was if Bunny was lucky.
    Duane shook himself from the Hollywood gossip and focused on the painting. How long had that poor little girl had to stand there? When his daughter Susan had been that age—­five or six, he guessed—­she wanted to be outside, running around. Susan. He hadn’t seen her or his now ex-­wife in nearly a year, not since Marie packed up and moved to some god-­forsaken corner of Maine, as far away from Duane as she could get. Marie had hated Hollywood, hated the movie business. Hated the way it was all about youth and money. The way surface was all that mattered—­never mind that capturing surfaces was how Duane made his living.
    Susan turned sixteen next week, and it would be the first birthday Duane that wouldn’t be there to capture her blowing out her candles. His daughter did not resemble the girl in the portrait, but he recognized the look in her eyes, the same look he’d seen so many times in his wife’s, that urgent wish to be anywhere but here.
    It was nine-­thirty and still no guests had arrived. Duane turned