Close-Up

‘Right, Leo, right.’ They both smiled at each other as though this idea had only just come to them.

There were eight motor-cars waiting outside KI Pictures in Wardour Street. Nine, if you count Jacob Weinberger’s chauffeur-driven Jaguar, although no one did count it because Weinberger said he had no car. This gave him a chance to ride with Leo Koolman in the Rolls Limousine. Also in the car there were Suzy Delft, her friend Penelope, Leo and Phil Sanchez his assistant. The girls had been waiting upstairs in Leo’s office.

When the convoy of cars arrived at Jamie’s Club, Leo was shown the big circular table set for ten. The two girls hurried away to repaint their faces. Koolman arranged the seating around the table. Nicolson and his director were across the table and Weinberger was two seats away, leaving an empty seat on each side of Koolman. When the girls returned Penelope was wearing a different dress. Koolman noticed this and remarked on it. The girl smiled. Koolman looked at the menu and patted the seat of the chair next to him without looking up. Obediently Penelope slid into it and gratefully took a menu from the waiter.

The New York executives alternated with their London equivalents. The seat between Weinberger and Koolman was held for Marshall Stone, who arrived with the wine waiter. Stone was in a dark suit with a stiff cutaway collar and a Travellers Club tie. A gold watch-chain on his waistcoat carried a gold nuclear disarmament medallion. He made a fine entrance. He walked up to Leo Koolman and stood with his hands stretched forward. He searched for words that might convey his sincere good wishes. When he did speak his voice was husky. ‘Leo, it’s good to see you. It’s damned good to see you.’

Koolman jumped to his feet like a bantamweight boxer coming out of his corner. ‘We saw a great performance tonight, Marsh. A truly great performance.’

Marshall Stone looked around the table with a quizzical smile on his face. ‘You’ve screened the new Richard and Liz film?’

‘We saw Silent Paradise, Marshall.’

‘You old bastard, Edgar,’ said Stone to Nicolson. ‘You might have told me.’

Nicolson said, ‘You were great, Marshall, we all thought so.’

‘It’s a great performance, Marshall,’ said Koolman. ‘Dennis thinks we should go after a best actor nomination and I agree.’ Dennis Lightfoot made a mental note of the fact that if anything went wrong with Koolman’s latest idea, it was going to become a Lightfoot idea.

Stone shook his head. ‘I was just part of a fine team, Leo,’ he said.

‘It’s time we got you one of those metal dolls, Marshall,’ said Koolman.

Stone sat down and blew his nose loudly.

The waiter asked Stone what he would have to drink. ‘Perrier water,’ said Stone. To Koolman he said, ‘I never drink when I’m making a picture.’ Stone looked around the table. ‘Darling,’ he called to Suzy. ‘That dress: sensational!’ He pretended to look around the room for the camera. ‘Are we doing the orgy scene?’

‘How is Stool Pigeon coming along, Marshall?’ said Koolman. The others went on with their conversations while keeping their eyes and ears on Koolman. Koolman said, ‘I like that moustache. That’s for the role, eh?’

Marshall smiled at the other guests before he answered. ‘It’s not a film for over-sensitive people, Leo. It’s a tough, no-holds-barred story of what war is really like.’ He touched his moustache. ‘Yes, for the film.’

‘But are the kids going to like the film, Marshall?’

‘The kids will love it, Leo, because there is lots of fun in it too. And a challenge to authority.’

‘A film has got to have confrontation, colour and conflict,’ said Leo who had got that cinematographic philosophy from a film about a producer.

‘This has got it,’ said Marshall Stone.

‘Who’s directing?’

‘A new director: Richard Preston. It’s his first feature.’

‘A TV kid,’ said Koolman. ‘I hope we’re not getting too many flick zooms, whip pans and all that psychedelic crap. Are you watching that, Dennis?’

Lightfoot said, ‘You bet, Leo. I saw the rushes last week and it’s good solid footage and Suzy is going to be really great.’ His voice betrayed the doubts he shared about the picture.

‘Aren’t they three weeks over?’ He tried to recall the paperwork.

‘Weather trouble,’ said Lightfoot.

‘Don’t these guys who prepare your budgets know that it rains in England, Dennis?’ Lightfoot didn’t answer, so Koolman said, ‘I think it rains here now and again. I think I’ve heard rumours to that effect.’ He looked around the table and everyone smiled.

Lightfoot smiled too. He said, ‘We scheduled it so that we could go inside when it rains but we only have Marshall for three more weeks so we have to do his shots whenever we possibly can. That means holding the crew ready instead of doing the cover shots.’

Koolman nodded. ‘Location films, who needs them. We have the same trouble in New York. They tell me how much we save by not going into the studio and then they stand scratching their arses waiting for the rain to stop. So that’s saving money? If we must have location shooting, what’s wrong with California. At least you can bet on the sunshine.’

Stone said, ‘I’m so pleased that you liked Silent Paradise. Did you notice that wonderful performance by Bertie Anderson?’

‘Which one was he?’ said Koolman.

‘The truck driver in the first reel,’ said Stone. ‘A fantastic performance. Jesus, if I could act like that man…’

‘I don’t even remember it,’ said Weinberger, as soon as he was certain that Anderson wasn’t one of his clients.

Nicolson said, ‘It was the very old man who throws the mailbag on the ground.’

‘Oh, him,’ said Koolman. The part had only had about fifty seconds of screen time.

‘Almost eighty,’ said Stone, ‘a wonderful old man. I made Edgar give him the part.’ Stone took a bread roll from the waiter, broke it into three parts and spread some butter upon it. A careful observer would have noticed the care with which he did this, as if he had no other thought in his mind. And a careful observer would also have noticed how, in spite of all the activity, very little food ever got as far as Stone’s mouth. The little that did was bitten cautiously and probed with the tongue as if he expected to find some tiny piece of foreign matter there. Yet many times during the meal he remarked how fine the food was and how much he was enjoying himself and how little self-control he had when it came to watching his waistline.

‘A wonderful old man,’ said Stone again.

‘Do you know something, Marshall,’ said Koolman, ‘you’re a damned sight too modest, that’s your trouble.’ Koolman turned to Suzy Delft. ‘Only a real artist can talk that way: that’s what I love about this business.’

‘Artiste,’ she corrected him.

‘Is there something wrong with that drink?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Then why aren’t you drinking it?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned to Stone. ‘You’ll get the best actor nomination or I’ll know the reason why.’

All round the table there was the friendly buzz of people in agreement. Patiently the head waiter stood near to Koolman with pencil poised. Koolman said, ‘You know what they do very well here: chicken Kiev. Is there anyone who can’t eat a chicken Kiev?’

No one spoke. ‘And the borsht,’ said Koolman, ‘with the sour cream and the pastry things. OK, there you go.’

‘Thank you, Mr Koolman,’ said the head waiter.

‘I’ll be cutting away early,’ announced Koolman. To reinforce this decision he reached under the tablecloth and grasped at Penelope’s thigh.

4

Of course he romances, but an impressionable person of his sort really believes in his fabrications. We actors are so accustomed to embroider facts with details drawn from our own imaginations, that the habit is carried over into ordinary life. There, of course, the imagined details are as superfluous as they are necessary in the theatre.

C. Stanislavsky, An Actor Prepares

The unit publicist on Stool Pigeon sent me the biography they were using for Marshall Stone. It was printed on duplicating paper. Most of the first sheet was taken up by a letterhead design in which three soldiers and a girl fought their way through an Aubrey Beardsley jungle that had already overgrown the address and telephone number. Although a small clearing had been chopped for Edgar Nicolson’s name.