how to get along with them. But I’m always nervous with liars.”
“What makes you think I’m lying?” he asked.
“Because if you didn’t want me you wouldn’t try to buy me,” I said.
I didn’t take their money, and they couldn’t get by my front door, but I kept riding in their limousines and sitting beside them in the swanky places. There was always a chance a job and not another wolf might spot you. Besides, there was the matter of food. I never felt squeamish about eating my head off. Food wasn’t part of any purchase price.
11
My chief problem next to eating, stockings, and rent, was my automobile. I had made a down payment on a small, secondhand car. But the hundred and fifty I still owed on it was Sweepstake money.
The second month I received a letter saying if I didn’t make the fifty dollar monthly payment the company would have to repossess the car. I inquired of a girl I knew at Central Casting what the word meant and she told me.
The third month a man knocked on my door, showed me a document, and repossessed my car.
“On the receipt of fifty dollars,” the man said, “the company will be glad to restore the car to your custody.”
A movie job hunter without a car in Hollywood was like a fireman without a fire engine. There were at least a dozen studios and agents’ offices you had to visit every day. And they were in a dozen different districts, miles away from each other.
Nothing came of these visits. You sat in a waiting room of the Casting Department. An assistant came out of a door, looked over the assembled group and said, “There’s nothing today. Leave your names and phone numbers.” That was almost a break—the second sentence. “Leave your names and phone numbers.” Usually they uttered only the first sentence.
In the Agency office it was a little more complicated. Because the agents weren’t as sincere as the Casting Departments. They were inclined to string you along, utter a few wolf calls, make promises, and try out a wrestling hold or two. Nothing came of it, but you had to keep coming back. Agents sometimes had “ins” and jobs.
Ring Lardner wrote a story once about a couple of girls who saved up their money and went to Palm Beach, Florida, to mingle with the social elite of that famous resort. He said they stopped at a swell hotel, and every evening “They romped out on the veranda to enjoy a few snubs.” That’s the way it was with me. Except without an automobile, I could do very little romping.
I did everything possible to get the car back. I spent days tracking down the Marshall and the Sheriff of Los Angeles. I visited the company that had done the repossessing. I even contemplated calling up a few millionaires I knew. But I couldn’t. When I started to dial one of their numbers a hot angry feeling filled me, and I had to hang up. I realized this wasn’t quite normal, but all I could do was throw myself on the bed and start crying. I would cry and yell and beat the wall with my fists as if I were trying to break out of someplace. Then I would lie still for a day or two and go without food and wish I were dead—as if I were Norma Jean again looking out of the orphanage window.
The phone rang. It was a photographer I knew named Tom Kelley. He and his wife Natalie had been nice to me. I had posed for some beer ads for Tom.
“Come on over,” he said. “I’ve got a job for you.”
“This is a little different than the other jobs,” Tom said when I got to his place. “But there’s fifty dollars in it for you, if you want to do it.”
I told Tom and Natalie about the repossessing of my car.
“For fifty dollars, I am ready to jump off a roof,” I said.
“These pictures are for a calendar,” said Tom, “and they will have to be in the nude.”
“You mean completely nude?” I asked.
“That’s it,” said Tom, “except they will not be vulgar. You’re ideal for the job not only because you have a fine shape but you’re unknown. Nobody’ll recognize you.”
“I’m sure unknown,” I said.
“It would be different if you were a starlet or some such thing,” said Natalie. “Then somebody might recognize you on the calendar.”
“With you there’ll be no such trouble possible,” said Tom. “It’ll just be a picture of a beautiful nobody.”
I spent the afternoon posing. I was a little confused at first, and something kept nudging me in my head. Sitting naked in front of a camera and striking joyous poses reminded me of the dreams I used to have as a child. I felt sad that this should be the only dream I ever had to come true.
After a few poses the depression left me. I liked my body. I was glad I hadn’t eaten much in the past few days. The pictures would show a real washboard stomach. And what difference would it make—the nude of a “beautiful nobody”?
People have curious attitudes about nudity, just as they have about sex. Nudity and sex are the most commonplace things in the world. Yet people often act as if they were things that existed only on Mars. I thought of such matters as I posed, but the nudging continued in my head. What if I became an actress sometime? A great star? And somebody saw me on the calendar, and recognized me?
“What are you looking so serious about?” Tom asked.
“I was just thinking something,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing worth repeating,” I said. “I’m just crazy. I get all kinds of crazy thoughts.”
I had my car back the next day and was able to romp around from studio to studio and enjoy the usual quota of snubs.
12
I rushed to Aunt Grace with the big news. I had a job. I could enter a studio without being asked fifty questions. And I didn’t have to sit in a waiting room. I was on a payroll as an actress.
“It’s the finest studio in the world,” I said. “20th Century-Fox.”
Aunt Grace beamed and went to the stove for coffee.
“The people are all wonderful,” I said, “and I’m going to be in a movie. It’ll be a small part. But once I’m on the screen—”
I stopped and looked at Aunt Grace. She was still smiling at me. But she was standing still. Her face was pale, and she looked tired—as if life was something too heavy to carry much further.
I put my arms around her and helped her to the table.
“I’m all right,” she said. “The coffee will fix me up fine.”
“It’ll be different now for all of us,” I said. “I’ll work hard.”
We sat a long time and discussed a new name for me. The casting director had suggested I think up some more glamorous name than Norma Dougherty.
“I’d like to oblige him,” I said. “Especially since Dougherty isn’t my name anymore anyway.”
“Haven’t you any ideas for a name?” Aunt Grace asked.
I didn’t answer. I had a name, a real name that thrilled me whenever I thought of it. It belonged to the man with the slouch hat and the Gable mustache. His photograph was now in my possession.
I tried the name out in my mind, but kept silent. My aunt was smiling at me. I felt she knew what I was
