Close-Up

Close-Up
Len Deighton

The legendary, incendiary novel of the film industry back in print after 20 years. A Hollywood Babylon for our timeMarshall Stone, international superstar and charismatic member of Hollywood's elite. Abundantly blessed with charm, genius and wealth, the one gift he most desires – everlasting youth – seems within his grasp when an eminent writer begins the star's biography. But painful memories and suppressed scandals threaten to expose the fiction of his life.Dazzled by flattery and numbed by threats, the biographer is caught up in the big-daddy world where books are properties, films are investments, ratings are rigged, and stars and directors are bought and sold like slaves at an auction.The rituals, the wheeler-dealing politics, and back-stabbing tactics of the richest industry in the world have never been more effectively portrayed. And at the heart of this glittering machine, a brilliant star who will do almost anything to remain untarnished.This reissue includes a foreword from the cover designer, Oscar-winning filmmaker Arnold Schwartzman, and a brand new introduction by Len Deighton, which offers a fascinating insight into the writing of the story.

Cover designer’s note

When I moved from my London home to Hollywood in 1978 I made a pilgrimage to the famed Hollywood sign. To my great dismay I found that the former real estate sign that later became the iconic landmark of “The Motion Picture Capital of the World” had become derelict.

Thankfully, due to the sterling work of some entertainment luminaries, the sign was later restored to its former glory but I never forgot how it had looked. So when I was asked to create a new design for Close-Up, Len Deighton’s wonderful tale of the glamour and sleaze of the film industry personified in the fictitious Marshall Stone, the sign’s deteriorating characters gave me the idea of dropping the letter “S”, alluding to Stone’s fall from favour.

I have a small collection of postcards of Hollywood movie stars’ homes and so it occurred to me that we should show Marshall’s lavish Beverly Hills residence, a colourful view of life during the star’s heyday, which contrasts sharply with the background of the sign. Marshall himself was added to the card, looking suitably pleased with himself – possibly he is off to an awards ceremony (though more likely to politely applaud a rival’s win than to collect one for himself).

For the book’s spine I went through my rather extensive collection of cigarette cards and found this card of “Continuity girl & Director on set”, one of my favourites from the series.

The back cover shows a part of the 1940s board game, Oscar – The Film Stars Rise to Fame. With triumph and scandal around every corner, and money dictating who would succeed and who would fail, it seemed the perfect metaphor for the highs and lows of Marshall Stone’s life, and the world of Hollywood in Close-Up!

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI

Len Deighton

Close-Up

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by

Jonathan Cape Ltd 1972

CLOSE-UP. Copyright © Len Deighton 1972. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2011

Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2011

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9780007395774

Ebook Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 9780007395811

Version: 2017-08-22

In the recent past it has become fashionable for writers to use thinly disguised biographical material about ‘show-business’ figures, but I have not intended to depict any person, living or dead, or any film, institution or corporation, past or present.

Len Deighton

Contents

Cover designer’s note

Copyright

Epigraph

Introduction

1

The heavy blue notepaper crackled as the man signed his…

2

‘All my brother ever wanted to do is make this…

3

No oriental potentate had a more attentive retinue than followed…

4

The unit publicist on Stool Pigeon sent me the biography…

5

The phone at Weinberger’s bedside had the quietest ringing tone…

6

Marshall Stone had almost forgotten the miseries that airline companies…

7

There are places midway in status between antique showrooms and…

8