The Jade Necklace
No, I’m not with the Griffin people anymore. I’m in the picture business—Colossal Films Incorporated. Class, hey? I don’t know what you’d call my job; I’m a kind of a half secretary and half valet to Bauer, L. N. Bauer, you know, the big boss. The big fella—that’s what they call him around the joint, either that or L. N.
I don’t get much more dough than the Griffin people gave me, but honest to God, the things that happen up there would make a book if somebody wanted to write it. You take for instance what they’ve been pulling off just the last couple of months—well, you won’t believe it, but I’m telling you it happened.
Of course you saw Danny Darling, the show Dennis Byrne was in. Al Smith pretty near had to call out the militia to keep the flappers from smothering him every time he left the theater. Well, the Supreme people signed him up to a contract at $7,000 a week, win, lose or draw, figuring he’d make any film sheik look like a cartoon. And when L. N. and Wolf, our vice-president, when they heard about it, they went around for a day or two with their faces so long that their chin tripped them up.
Finally Wolf said there was only one thing to do and that was go and grab some other beautiful Mick, get him all the publicity possible and beat the Supreme people to their first Byrne release. The next question was who, and there didn’t seem to be any answer. A few Irish juveniles were in different shows around town, but none that were liable to make the women forget Byrne. They’d have hired a policeman or a white wings if they could have found one pretty enough, but this Byrne is a tough baby to equal, let alone top.
Well, L. N. cabled to a friend of his in Dublin, a fella in show business there, and asked him to recommend who was the handsomest actor in Ireland and the fella cabled back that there was a young actor named Maurice Kavanaugh who was the handsomest actor in Ireland or anywhere else. L. N. cabled Kavanaugh, asking him what he’d take to come to America and do a picture and Kavanaugh named the modest little stipend of $8,000 a week. I think he was afraid of the ocean. But what does L. N. do but cable him to come at that figure and he showed up at the office two weeks later, as sweet a looking young divil as ever vamped a colleen bawn.
Bauer and Wolf all but kissed him. Now they had Supreme at least tied if not beat. Just under six feet tall, built like Dempsey, black, wavy hair, blue eyes, perfect features and teeth so white that you had to wear smoked glasses when he smiled. Every time he walked in or out of the joint, all the stenographers swooned.
“We’ve showed them up again.” That’s what L. N. said.
“Yes,” says Wolf, “but we haven’t got a story for him and for all we know, Harrison”—that’s the big guy at Supreme—“for all we know, Harrison’s all set with a story for Byrne and ready to shoot.”
“I know different,” says L. N. “I got it pretty straight that they’ve been hunting high and low for a story and haven’t found anything that even comes close.”
So Wolf said: “They’re that much ahead of us, though. We’ve still got to look through a lot of junk that they’ve probably eliminated already.”
“Don’t you worry,” says Bauer. “We won’t waste time on stuff that’s no good. I’ve got a couple of friends of mine—you know; fellas like Paul Wells and Quinn Martin—that whenever we’ve wanted a certain type of story to fit a certain star, they’ve always told me and told me right. Remember when we needed a vehicle for Kate Hollis and I called up Martin and he said ‘Jane Eyre’ without a minute’s hesitation, and you know what a sensation it was. I’ll get a hold of he or Wells right now and tell them who we’ve got and one of them is bound to come across.”
But Martin and Wells were both on their vacation and couldn’t be located. That same day, Harry Salsinger, that works on the paper, he happened to drift in the office and Bauer said to him, he said:
“Harry, do you know any good Irish stories?”
So Harry says: “Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard this one or not, but one night Pat and Mike got lit and went up to a supper club—”
He didn’t get any further with it. L. N. explained that he wasn’t looking for a gag, but a real Irish romance that you could use as a vehicle for a fine-looking Paddy. Harry made a couple of suggestions—I forget what they were, and L. N. couldn’t spell them so he didn’t write them down.
The two big boys kept getting more and more nervous till they had us all jumping sideways and ready to quit; nothing we did suited them. They’re generally pretty good people to work for, but they were so scared Supreme was going to put Byrne over that they began ranting around like a couple of motorcycle cops.
Then one day L. N. was sitting at his desk spelling out the picture news in the morning paper and all of a sudden he gave a yell and told me to run and get Wolf. When Wolf came in, Bauer was so excited that his voice shook.
“Look
