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

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

The Japanese signs and sentry boxes, and the section of…

9

And who was I kidding about contractual possibility. The publisher…

10

The same world to which Stone had sacrificed his sense…

11

‘Leo Koolman, only twenty months ago you joined this organization…

12

The Merchant of Venice at His Majesty’s Theatre: the first…

13

For Marshall Stone, his life was not made of the…

14

Christmas Day 1948, Bookbinder remembered it only too clearly. He…

15

Man From the Palace has a place in the history…

16

Cherrington is a public school by definition, simply because it…

17

A film is born on the day that the man…

18

In 1952 the tourists guessed wrongly; September was entirely gentle…

19

The countryside grew dark more slowly than the town. The…

20

This whole episode was as artificial as a bad film.

21

Show-business trade papers reflect the heady optimism of the people…

About the Author

Other Books by Len Deighton

About the Publisher

Introduction

The story of Marshall Stone is the story of an actor. His dilemma is one that still faces many actors and actresses. Public television was born with the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and after a period of hibernation caused by World War Two, it soon became an affordable utility of the Western World, like hot water and electricity. But for actors and actresses television did not have the attraction offered by the theatre and films. Television became the residential home where reputations went to die and it has never escaped from this grim shadow.

Close-Up is the story of a writer and an actor. Actors, and sometimes writers too, are an exasperating breed; manic-depressives with a foot pressed hard on the accelerator or hard on the brake. Sadly, the film world does not treat these delicate temperaments with care and consideration. Few of us could withstand the sort of rollercoaster ride that leads to stardom and then back to earth again. Close-Up explains in detail the skills and hazards that the difficult art of acting involves. As you will no doubt detect, I like actors and actresses and all the other people who spend their lives making movies. I like them all so much that I had to write this book about them and about the convoluted way in which movies are made and devious movie deals put together. Writing several scripts – including two James Bond scripts – and producing two films, one of them a musical, gave me a wonderful insight into film, from the deal-making that starts the process to the editing and post-recording that ends it. This is how my education started.

‘Maybe you suddenly hate the way he parts his hair.’ This was Harry Saltzman’s way of describing the irrational personal showbiz dislikes that are impossible to account for in any other way. Harry felt that formal written contracts were only valuable when the parties concerned forgot the promises they had made at the start of the deal. He was right and I never needed to refer back to any contract I had with him. I was very fond of Harry Saltzman, who had co-produced the James Bond films and by buying the film rights for The Ipcress File in 1961 started both me and Michael Caine on our respective careers. But Harry was a very private person and it was a sad fact that he never seemed to distinguish between his friends and his enemies.

I had dinner with him one evening and picked up the bill. Harry was quite alarmed. ‘I always pay the bills,’ he said. He was resigned to being exploited. He never showed resentment about the freeloaders who drifted to his lovely Mayfair mews home in the early evening with a view to joining him, his wife and anyone he was doing business with, for a lavish meal in some fine restaurant.

I owe a great deal to Harry Saltzman. Writers are not respected in the movie business. Along with directors and all the other technicians they are despised and regarded as easily replaced workers with limited skills. But that was not Harry’s way with writers; he liked them, even if he did routinely shuffle his pack of scriptwriters, so that most of his films went through several total rewrites before shooting began. The first lesson I learned from Harry is that films are created by producers: they buy the story and choose everyone else who makes it into a film. I started to think that becoming a movie producer who wrote his own material would be unceasing fun. In this assumption I was proved wrong.

Without Harry’s kindness I could never have written this book, Close-Up. I questioned him relentlessly about films, filming and his career. He immediately responded to my thirst for knowledge by assigning me to write a screenplay for From Russia With Love and including me in the half-dozen people who went to Turkey on the recce trip for the film. On a separate occasion, Harry invited me to meet him in Paris so that we could watch a remarkable James Bond sequence in which a jet-propelled backpack sent Sean Connery’s stunt double up to rooftop heights. By the time my book, The Ipcress File, was being filmed in a wonderful old house in Grosvenor Gardens near Victoria Station in London, I was beginning to understand something of the way movie producers transform books into movies.

Harry became a mentor to me. So when I was working on the final draft of a screenplay based on Joan Littlewood’s stage show, Oh What A Lovely War!, I went to Harry to ask his advice and seek his approval. He was occupying a tiny circular office in a turret surmounting one of Shaftesbury Avenue’s famous theatres. As usual, Harry was wearing a superbly tailored suit, crisp shirt and silk tie with the bright red socks providing the only hint of eccentricity. He was his usual congenial self. He warned me that Joan Littlewood’s stage production had closed many years previously and that numerous people had tried to make it into a film. ‘None of them got a deal,’ said Harry. ‘So don’t put down any of your own cash.’

It was too late. I had already paid Joan, out of my own pocket, for a six-month option on the screen rights. I was disconcerted by Harry’s warning and spent a few nights worrying that I had taken too much for granted. With diminishing money to pay for all the costs that come with pre-production, and with only a bundle of carefully typed pages of film script, and some rough sketches and photos of chosen locations such as Brighton Pier, to show for months of hard work, I was nervous. But Fate often smiles upon the unwary and events took a sudden turn for the better when I was invited to have coffee with Eva Renzi, a German actress who was in London to star in Harry’s film of my book, Funeral in Berlin. She had been having lunch at the Dorchester Hotel with her agent from the William Morris Agency. At that time the Dorchester was the world’s most important gathering spot for film people. By the time we were drinking our third or fourth espresso, the William Morris Agency was representing me as a film producer.

All films need an early financial commitment and John Mather, the head of the London office of William Morris, took my script and my location photos to Paramount where Charlie Bluhdorn reigned. Fortunately for my film project, Charlie, a tycoon who had recently added Paramount to his array of business ventures, was a dedicated anglophile. I became fond of Charlie; he had an entertaining line in self-mockery and endless anecdotes about his beginnings searching through scrap yards for engine parts. I suppose my years researching books has had a lasting effect upon my social life for, despite Charlie’s reputation as a fire-eater, I encouraged his reminiscences and we became friends.

It was about this time when I took a call on my car phone that was to face me with a difficult decision. The year before, in Paris, I had become friendly with Lloyd Chandler, a Canadian uranium prospector who had ‘struck it rich’ as they say in movies. He donated large sums to a fund organized by the celebrated philosopher Bertrand Russell, and became such a friend of Russell that he was consulted about the legal implications of a letter the great man had written to a publisher many years before. It concerned the autobiography that Russell was completing. Lloyd said his friend Len Deighton knew all about literary contracts and publishers. In fact I know little about such things but an offer to spend some time with Bertrand Russell – widely regarded as the world’s foremost intellectual – was not something to be declined.

Together with my wife, Ysabele, I went to see him. My time in Plas Penrhyn, Russell’s home in Wales, was a delightful experience. ‘Bertie’, as he was called by those around him, was over ninety years old but he was as sharp and witty as anyone I knew and he enjoyed arguing. So it set our relationship on a firm basis when I found his one-sided view of the Vietnam War unconvincing. And I told him that without an agreed fee his letter had no legal importance. But to be on the safe side I suggested that Bertie consult my old friend and adviser, Anton Felton. He confirmed my verdict on the letter and eventually assembled and collated Russell’s archive and became his legal executor. It was during our time at Plas Penrhyn that Bertie told me that the Beatles had been speaking to him about making an anti-war film and that Paul McCartney wanted to talk to me about it. That, he said, was the prime reason for his invitation. A few days later, in our south London home, my wife and I cooked Paul an elaborate Indian meal and spent the evening discussing his project. But the Beatles wanted an anti-Vietnam war film with an up to date setting. I would have enjoyed working with Paul but I could see no way to become a useful part of the Beatles project. I was deeply committed to two films by that time, and Paul and the Beatles were in a hurry.

To run Paramount’s European operations, Charlie Bluhdorn had appointed George ‘Bud’ Ornstein. Bud knew more about old Hollywood than anyone else I ever met. He was related to the legendary Mary Pickford and the stories he told about the days she ruled the movie world enthralled me and provided a basis for some of the material used in Close-Up. Bud was responsible for many of the fine European films of the fifties and sixties. Luckily for me, as well as being a major figure in the film world, Bud was a pilot and an aviation enthusiast. My hours with him were always a delight. It was Bud who first pointed out that, since my script for Oh! What A Lovely War proposed many scenes on Brighton pier and was largely dependent on outdoor locations, it would be wise to defer shooting until the following summer. It was good advice and yet by this time I had rather grand offices – once occupied by Alexander Korda – overlooking the traffic swirling around Hyde Park Corner (the site is now a hotel). The continuing expenses during such a gap in the schedule were going to drain from me money I couldn’t afford.

To fit into the empty time I produced another film. I assigned the screen rights of Only When I Larf, my recently completed book about confidence tricksters, to my production company, and had a writer friend of mine – John Salmon – write a screenplay. By chance, the story was set in New York City, London and sunny Beirut, Lebanon, and to dodge the winter weather I scheduled the production for all three locations. I engaged Basil Dearden to direct and David Hemmings to star. It was while I was casting Only When I Larf that Richard Attenborough called me out of the blue and asked if he could direct my film of Oh! What a Lovely War. I had never met him. He had obtained a copy of my screenplay from his friend, John Mills, to whom I had tentatively offered the role of the infamous General Haig. Dicky Attenborough had never directed a film but he had decided that the time had come for him to do something other than acting. I wasn’t sure he was the right person for me; this was a large-scale musical with all the added complications that would bring. Dicky had spent most of his adult life acting in movies and knew a great deal about the way they were made, but directing a full-colour musical with dancing and outdoor locations would be a challenge. He had also seen the script for Only When I Larf and suggested that he could play the elder man against the young man played by David Hemmings. This would give him a chance to spend time with me during the filming and give me a chance to make up my mind about him. William Morris, who represented me for this movie too, proposed David Niven as the co-star and Basil Dearden was against using Dicky, saying he wanted someone more ‘sexy’. I nevertheless cast Richard Attenborough as the elder confidence trickster. It was virtually the last role of his long and distinguished acting career.

Despite the logistics and expense of filming in Beirut and Manhattan my production of Only When I Larf went smoothly. It was not easy for Basil Dearden; although he had directed dozens of studio films he had never worked on an all-location one. He also had to put up with my choice of a very young lighting cameraman and such innovations as overhead lighting that permitted 360-degree camera pans and my insistence upon mixing daylight and artificial light without corrective coloured ‘gel’ screens. On the whole it proved a lucky production. The only major hitch was the noise of our big mobile generator which, parked on a street in Beirut, spoiled some of the recording. This demanded the added time and expense of some post-synched dialogue but Basil was a professional and we squeezed the budget to pay for it. I followed the film through the editing and entire post-production and decided that films could be made or crippled by these last weeks of work.

By this time, I was talking to all manner of people who wanted to be a part of the Oh! What A Lovely War film. I had half a dozen directors asking for the job – Basil Dearden had mentioned it almost every day on the set – and I even had offers from some of the Hollywood greats, including Gene Kelly. In any other circumstances, I would have given anything to work with Gene Kelly but this film dealt with an important chapter in Britain’s history and it had to have a British director. My screenplay brought many drastic changes to the stage version. The one-act-after-another ‘music-hall’ format of the stage show would not make a movie. There was no ‘story’ in it. For a film the words and songs had to be incorporated into written narrative; a story of the war that year by year reflected the nation’s mounting gloom and sadness. Individuals were combined to become the Smith family, whose men volunteered gladly to serve in the war that killed them. And most important of all, I had envisaged a powerful ending; a vast expanding landscape of graves accompanied by the wonderful old Jerome Kern song ‘They Didn’t Believe Me’. My script met the major challenges, which is why Bud Ornstein at Paramount had supported the project.

Like most screenplay writers, I had visualized each and every shot and kept an eye on the probable costs of each location and its whereabouts. Dicky Attenborough understood that it was going to be restricting to have a producer who had written the screenplay looking over his shoulder throughout the filming but after sitting around with me on the Only When I Larf locations, and listening to me explain my screenplay shot by shot, he promised to keep to every word of it, and welcomed having a storyboard artist to sketch proposals for each day’s camera set-ups. The daily storyboards were the work of Pat Tilley, a gifted artist who had been a close friend of mine since our days as illustrators. Bud Ornstein still had doubts about trusting such a big musical film to Dicky Attenborough, a first time director, and no doubt eyed me in the same way, but Charlie, who was an instinctive gambler, said we should take a chance and pointed out that if the worst came to the worst we could switch to another director at any time. I had already decided that Dicky had the energy and ambition that would be so important, and said so. At an evening meeting with Charlie and Bud in the Belgravia home of my agent, John Mather, a handshake deal was done. As I had promised everyone, Dicky stuck to my script and the weather was kind to us. For Dicky it was the beginning of a long and illustrious directing career and I am flattered that Oh! What A Lovely War is clearly his proudest achievement and the film with which his name is principally associated.

My years in film production were not a time of unalloyed joy but it provided challenges and delights in abundance. The crews and actors with whom I worked were talented and hard-working and did everything to help me. There was a lesson to learn every minute. For anyone who wants to know exactly how a movie is made there is no better way than to sign each and every cheque, with someone standing by to answer questions about the money’s destination. For most of my lessons, I gladly give credit to Mack Davidson, a wartime Spitfire pilot who, as my Executive Producer, guided and advised me constantly and became a close friend. Mack’s contribution to the making of both films was enormous. Mack died on the final day of shooting Oh! What a Lovely War. There had been no sign of illness and I was devastated. We had planned to make another film together and he had become like a wise and experienced elder brother to me.

Technology made the movie of Oh! What a Lovely War more complex than the stage show, which had the dashing exuberance that Joan Littlewood gave to everything she touched. My film would have no blood and no fighting, and death came as a bright red Flanders poppy. Brighton Pier – a glittering attraction – became the War, and from a constantly expanding booth General Haig sold tickets for it. Some film executives proclaimed such symbolism too subtle and for some perhaps it was. It was the skill and experience of Mack Davidson that gave me the confidence and encouragement that I needed to bring my unconventional movie ideas to fruition. Many other supporters deserve credits. I had a talented and indefatigable casting-director in Miriam Brickman. Casting was of course a vital ingredient and I was probably the first producer to use video equipment to cast most of the roles. This gave the actors the freedom to come to the Piccadilly office at any time convenient to them, and it gave me the chance to run, and rerun, the tapes as and when I had time, and to discuss the choices with Dicky Attenborough.

A crucial decision in the making of any musical entertainment is how to handle the transition from speech to song. In Joan’s delightfully old-fashioned act-by-act music-hall style, the abrupt insertion of songs was expected and welcomed. But musical films demand a smooth transition into music and song. Operas had used recitative for centuries and in the nineteen-thirties Rodgers and Hart, working in Hollywood, invented a simple device of rhymed conversation with musical background that easily moved into their songs. I couldn’t use this rhyming method because the entire dialogue for Joan’s Oh What A Lovely War! had actually been spoken during that war. I had added dialogue for scenes that were not in the stage version but I had kept to that restriction and used only words from the past. Joan introduced me to AJP Taylor, the eminent historian who had advised her, and he became an adviser to me and eventually a close friend. Getting everything right was a headache but it was an absorbing task. Perhaps my transitions were not perfectly smooth but they worked adequately.

The body movements of the actors and actresses – not just the dancers – were important to me and I brought in Eleanor Fazan, experienced choreographer, to oversee the whole production and to ensure that such devices as the leap-frogging officers could be smoothly integrated into the outdoor location. Together with Eleanor I checked out every dancer to make sure they looked right for the wartime period. I wanted the costumes to be authentic and to conform to the changes that the progress of the war brought. I found Tony Mendleson, a distinguished and experienced costume designer, and he gallantly accepted as a historical adviser May Routh, an art school friend of mine who later became a successful costume designer in Hollywood. Her knowledge of military and civil uniforms and experience as a fashion artist made a vital contribution to the film. The sketchbook she compiled during her research and the filming is a most lovely record and deserves to be published in volume form. To have the slings, medical dressings and bandages right I employed a Red Cross nurse to check such things prior to each shooting sequence. I had many sets built on the pier and I visited suggested locations well before schedule, so that I could switch to alternatives if needed.

There were still some surprises to come. I didn’t fully appreciate the fact that movie credits can be a battlefield where determined Darwinians fought to enhance their reputation at the expense of others. I even had people asking me for a co-writing credit on my script. I had commissioned Ray Hawkey, with whom I had studied at the Royal College of Art, to design the titles. They were original and beautiful and now in a childish attempt to shame the wannabes, I told Ray to remove my name from the credits. But I had severely misjudged the clamorous ones. The removal of my name only encouraged the claimants.

Credit or no credit, the production company was entirely mine and the producer is the only person who can’t be fired or even replaced. So in accordance with my contract with Paramount, I continued to nurse my film through the postproduction weeks and deliver it. I had learned a great deal from the previous film. No claimants were around now; postproduction is a lonely time, far removed from the glamour of lights and cameras. I watched and learned more every day as Kevin Connor, the film editor, cut it into shape and the complex sound track was trimmed and modified and a thousand small changes were supervised by truly dedicated technicians. By the time I had a final cut of the film I knew that these amazing things I had seen must not be wasted. I decided to write a book about the film business showing its joys and technicalities plus a few of its warts and wrinkles. Close-Up is not reality; writers go beyond reality to find and depict truth. Close-Up is the truth as I experienced it. A year or two later, one of the proudest moments of my life came as I stood at the bar of Les Ambassadeurs Club off Park Lane. Bud Ornstein said to me: ‘I was reading one of your books recently and I thought this is someone who really knows about airplanes. Then I read Close-Up and thought this is someone who really knows about the movie business. Then I realized that you had written both of them.’

I hope you will share Bud’s satisfaction. If not, you can try one of my aviation stories, my history books or one of my spy stories. All that remains to be said about Close-Up is that although it reflects what I learned producing two films it is in no way an account of that experience or a memoir. The twists and turns, vendettas, deals, disappointments and betrayals are not specific ones and none of my characters depicts real people living or dead. But these fictional people are real to me.

When, years later, in a rather mangled version, a DVD was made of Oh! What A Lovely War I was not invited to contribute an interview. Marshall Stone would have understood.

Len Deighton, 2011

1

Today we spend eighty per cent of our time making deals and twenty per cent making pictures.

Billy Wilder

The heavy blue notepaper crackled as the man signed his name. The signature was an actor’s: a dashing autograph, bigger by far than any of the text. It began well, rushing forward boldly before halting suddenly enough to split the supply of ink. Then it retreated to strangle itself in loops. The surname began gently, but then that too became a complex of arcades so that the whole name was all but deleted by well-considered decorative scrolls. The signature was a diagram of the man.

Marshall Stone. It was easy to recognize the hero of Last Vaquero, the film that had made the young English actor famous in 1949. He’d sat at this same desk in the last reel, reflecting upon a wasted life and steeling himself to face the bullets. For that final sequence he’d required two hours’ work on his face. Now he would not need it.

A lifetime of heavy make-up had ravaged his complexion so that it needed the expensive facials with which he provided it. Around his eyes the wrinkles were leathery and the skin across his cheeks and under his jaw was unnaturally tightened. The shape of his face and its bone structure would have little appeal to a portraitist, and yet its plainness could be changed by the smallest of pads, tooth clamps or hairpieces, or by a dab of colour over the eyes or a shadow down the bone of the nose. Just the blunt military moustache, grown for his latest role, ensured that some of his dearest fans and nearest friends needed a second look to identify him.

Nor had the ageing process provided Stone with more character. Like many of his contemporaries, he’d grown his hair long enough to cover his ears and make a fringe on his forehead. This hairstyle framing his severe face made it difficult to guess what his occupation might be. His clear blue eyes – as bright as a girl’s and as active as a child’s – might just be a tribute to the eye drops that he put into them. His raven hair suggested the judicious use of dye. His chesty actor’s stride could just as well be that of a seaman or an athlete. Only when he spoke was it possible to label him. The classless over-articulated speech that RADA students assumed so well that few of them ever lost its pattern:

‘Jasper, are you there, Jasper?’

Jasper – driver, bodyguard and valet – was seldom out of earshot. He came into the room and closed the curtains. A summer storm had darkened the sky. The study had become dim except for the desk lamp which painted a green mask across Stone’s face and chopped his bright hands off at the wrists.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A letter to post, a cheque for the club and an open cheque so that you can get me some cash.’

‘Very good, sir.’

The bank would remain open for him. Stone had not yet grown blasé about the favours that money could provide. He’d told them six-thirty, but they’d wait: they’d learned that artistes had little sense of time. Through the heavy brocade the London traffic could be heard.

‘I waste a lot of money gambling, Jasper.’

‘You do have bad luck, sir.’

Stone was not a social reformer and yet his servants made him feel guilty. That’s why he was secretive about his afternoon naps and about his shopping sprees. He insisted that they knock before opening the doors so that he could be alert and industrious when they came upon him. It was for this reason, too, that he mentioned to them the worries and problems of his working life. As of the moment he was working on a film called Stool Pigeon.

‘I’m doing the swamp scenes tomorrow. I hope they’ve fixed up better heating in the dressing-room. Last week I spent four hours under the lamps before getting rid of that pain in my knee. Roger at the gym says that’s the classic way to get arthritis.’

The servant didn’t reply. Stone read the letter again.

From the desk of Marshall Stone

Wednesday evening

Dear Peter,

The idea of a biography of me has come up from time to time but I have always vetoed it. However, a writer of your talent and reputation could bring a whole new dimension to it. Who better to do a star’s biography than the man who wrote the very first script of Last Vaquero?

Now, no show-biz crap, Peter, a real warts-and-all portrait, and damn the publicity boys! And not just a book about an actor! A book about the electricians, the camera assistants, the extras, the backroom boys in production offices. In fact, about the way it all comes together.

Talk to my private secretary, Mrs Angela Brooks, and arrange our get-together as soon as you like.

The piece you did for your paper last month was damned good and mightily flattering to boot! I can’t wait to see what you will do in a whole book devoted to such a humble thesp as,

MARSHALL STONE

He crossed out damned and inserted bloody, hooking the y of ‘you’ with the loop of its b. There should always be at least one alteration in a letter. It gave the personal touch. He put his signet ring into the hot bubbling wax and sealed both envelopes.

‘Is Mr Weinberger here yet?’

‘I showed him into the library, sir.’

‘Good.’ Stone’s vocal cords had tightened enough to distort his voice, and he tasted in his mouth the bile that anxiety created. On such sudden visits his agent always brought bad news.

‘He has documents with him. He’s working on them. He seems content.’

Oh my God: documents. ‘You gave him a drink?’

‘He declined, sir.’

‘People always decline, Jasper. You must persuade them.’ Stone cleared his throat.

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Cut along to the bank, then, and be outside at eight-thirty: the Rolls, and tell Silvio I’ll have my usual table. I’ll probably sleep here tonight. You can tell the servants at Twin Beeches to expect me for dinner tomorrow.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Stone closed the roll-top desk, locked it and went to the bathroom.

He did little more than splash cold water on to his face. Then he dried it carefully, so that the warm yellow towel would not be soiled by eye-black. He selected high boots, a faded shirt, and tied a red kerchief at the throat. After looking in the mirror he retied it and put a crucifix around his neck on a fine gold chain. He tucked it into the front of his shirt. It was almost, but not quite, out of sight.

‘Viney!’ he said as he entered the library. He spread his hands wide apart in an almost oriental gesture of hospitality. For a moment he stood there without moving. Then he walked to his agent and took the proffered hand in both of his.

Weinberger looked like a gigantic teddy-bear that had survived several generations of unruly children. He was tall, but of such girth that his Savile Row suit did little to flatter him. He had a dozen such suits, all of them equally undistinguished except for the cigarette burns that he inevitably made in the right side of the jackets. His hair was unkempt and his club tie was, as always askew. Under sadly sagging eyebrows his eyes were black and deep set. His nose was large and so was his mouth, which only smiled to show the world that he would endure without complaint the slings and arrows that were his outrageous lot.

It was his desire to be as unsurprising as possible. He succeeded: except to the people who read the fine print in his contracts. His voice had the gruff melancholy that one would expect from such a man.

‘Sorry it had to be tonight, Marshall. No real problem: a formality, really, but it needs your signature.’

Stone did not release the hand. ‘It’s good to see you, Viney. Damned good to see you.’

‘Epitome Screen Classics – that’s Koolman’s new subsidiary – want TV rights for resale.’

Stone released the agent’s hand. ‘Do you realize that we only see each other to talk business, Viney? Couldn’t we get together regularly – just for laughs, just for old time’s sake?’

‘I don’t know why they let us have that approval clause in the contract. I’d put it in to sacrifice it for something else.’ Viney shook his head sadly. ‘They left it in.’

‘Business! That’s all you think about. Have a drink.’ Stone cocked his head and nodded, as if the affirmative gesture would change his guest’s mind. Back in the days when ventriloquism was a popular form of entertainment, such physical mannerisms had encouraged wisecracks about the cocky little star being seated upon the knee of the doleful giant who was his agent. But these jokes had only been made by people who hadn’t encountered Marshall Stone.

‘No thanks, Marshall.’ He looked at his notes: ‘“Three years after completion of principal photography or by agreement.” It’s only got six months to go anyway.’

‘A small bourbon: Jack Daniels. Remember how we used to drink Jack Daniels in the Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills?’

Weinberger looked around the huge room to find a suitable space for his papers. Arranged upon an inlaid satinwood table there were ivory boxes, photos in silver frames, instruments to measure pressure, temperature and humidity, a letter-opener and a skeleton clock. Weinberger moved some of the objets d’art and used a small gold pencil to make a cross on both letters. ‘It needs your signature: here and here.’ He put the pencil away and produced a fountain-pen which he uncapped and then tested before presenting to his client.

Stone signed the letters carefully, ensuring that his signature was the same precise work that it always was.

‘Read it, Marshall, read it!’

‘You don’t want me interfering with your end of it.’ He capped the pen and handed it back. ‘What movie are we talking about, anyway?’

‘Sorry, Marshall. I’m talking about Last Executioner. So many shows are losing sponsors that they want to network it in the States to kick off the fall season. It looks like the Vietnam War is going to be the only TV show that will last out till Christmas.’ Stone nodded solemnly.

‘Except for the scene on the boat, I was terrible.’

‘They’ll want the sequels too. Leo said you gave a great performance. “Marshall gave a sustained performance – conflict, colour and confrontation.” You got all three of Leo’s ultimates.’

‘What does that schmuck know about acting.’

‘I agree with him, Marshall. Think of that first script – you built that character out of nothing.’

‘Five writers they used. Six, if you include that kid that they brought in at the end for additional dialogue.’

‘On TV they’ll be a sensation. Leo would like you to do a couple of appearances.’ Weinberger watched the actor’s face, wondering how he would react. He did not react.

‘And it was the kid that got the screenplay credit. For a week’s work!’

Weinberger said, ‘Serious stuff: the Film Institute lecture for the BBC and David Frost for the States – taped here if you prefer – and Koolman would put his whole publicity machine to work. We could get it all in writing.’

‘They’ll sink without a ripple, Viney.’

‘No, Marshall. If the TV companies slot them right they could be very big. And Leo is high on the spy bit at the moment.’

‘I don’t need TV, Viney, I’m not quite that far over the hill: not quite.’ Stone chuckled. ‘Anyway, they’ll die, a successful US TV show must appeal to a mental age of seven.’

‘A lot of TV viewers don’t have a mental age of seven. I like TV.’

‘No, but the men who buy the shows do have a mental age of seven, Viney.’ Stone poured himself a glass of Perrier water and sipped it carefully. He knew that the contract was just an excuse. His agent’s real purpose was to talk about TV work.

‘Now come on, Marshall.’

‘Screw TV, Viney. Let’s not start that again. All you have to do is nod and then take your ten per cent. I’ve got just one career but you’ve got plenty of Marshall Stones in the fire.’ He smiled and held the smile in a way that only actors can.

Weinberger was still holding his fountain-pen and now he looked closely at it. The very tips of his knuckles were white. Stone went on, ‘Like that blond dwarf Marshall Stone, named Val Somerset! You made sure he got his pic in the paper having dinner with the Leo Koolmans at Cannes. Good publicity, that: national papers, not just the trades. Is that why you didn’t want me to go along when Snap, Crackle, Pop was shown there?’ Stone said the words in a low pleasant voice, but he allowed a trace of his anger to show. He had been bottling up that particular grievance for several months.

‘Of course not.’

‘Of course not! Have you seen what he does in Imperial Verdict? The whole performance is what I did in Perhaps When I Come Back. Three people have mentioned it – a straight steal.’

Weinberger went across to the sofa, opened his black leather document-case and put the papers into it.

Stone said, ‘Will you please answer me.’

Weinberger turned and spoke very quietly. ‘That kid isn’t going to take any business from you, Marshall. You are an international star, Val’s name’s not dry in Spotlight. He’s getting a tenth of your price.’

Stone walked across to his agent, paused for a moment, shook his head regretfully and then gripped Weinberger’s arm. It was a gesture he used to pledge affection. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you put up with me, Viney.’

Weinberger didn’t answer. He had been close to Stone for a quarter of a century. He’d learned to endure the criticisms and insults that were a part of the job. He knew the sort of doubts and fears that racked any actor and he knew that an agent must be a scapegoat as well as confessor, friend and father.

In human terms Stone might have benefited from a few home truths. He might have become more of a human being, but such tactics could cripple him as an actor.

And for Weinberger, Stone was by no means ‘any actor’, he was a giant. His Hamlet had been compared with Gielgud’s, and his Othello bettered only by Olivier. On the screen he’d tackled everything from Westerns to light comedy. Not even his agent could claim that they all had been successful but some of his performances remained definitive ones. Few young actors would attempt a cowboy role without having Last Vaquero screened for them, and yet that was Stone’s first major role in films. Weinberger smiled at his client. ‘Forget it, Marshall.’

Stone patted his arm again and walked to the fireplace. ‘Thanks for sending that Man From the Palace script, Viney. You have a fantastic talent for choosing scripts. You should have become a producer. Perhaps I did you no favour in asking you to be an agent.’ Again Stone smiled.

‘I’m glad you like it.’ Weinberger knew that he was being subjected to Stone’s calculated charm but that did not protect him from its effects. Just as confidence tricksters and scheming women do nothing to conceal their artifice, so Stone used his charm with the abrupt, ruthless and complacent skill with which a mercenary might wield a flame-thrower.

‘Do you know something, Viney: it might be great. There’s one scene where I come in from the balcony after the fleet have mutinied. The girl is waiting. I talk to her about the great things I’ve wanted to do for the country… It’s got a lot of social awareness. I’m the man in the middle. I can see the logic of the computer party and the trap awaiting the protestors. It’s got a lot to say to the kids, that film, Viney. Who’s going to play the girl?’

‘Nellie Jones can’t do it, they won’t give her a stop-date on Wild Men, Wild Women and they are four weeks over. Now I hear they’re testing some American girl.’

‘American! Haven’t we got any untalented inexperienced stupid actresses here in England, that they have to go to America to find one.’ Stone laughed grimly; he had to play opposite these girls.

Weinberger smiled as if he’d not heard Stone say the same thing before. ‘I told them how you would feel. You’ll only consider it if the rest of the package is right. But I didn’t say that a new kid wouldn’t be OK. If the billing was right.’

‘Only me above title?’

‘That’s what I had in mind,’ admitted Weinberger.

‘Perhaps it would be better like that.’

‘No rush, Marshall. Let’s see what they come up with: we have the final say.’

‘It’s a good story, Viney.’

‘It was a lousy book,’ warned Weinberger.

‘Eighteen weeks on the best-seller list.’

Weinberger pulled a face.

‘You miserable bastard, please have a drink.’ Stone held up the stopper of a cut-glass decanter.

‘It makes me careless and you fat.’

‘A tiny one?’

‘OK, Marshall, if you need the reassurance, pour me a pint of your best scotch. But I won’t drink it.’

‘You’re an obstinate old sod.’ Stone put the stopper back into the decanter.

‘That’s why you need me to represent you. I really don’t mind being disliked.’

‘And I do?’

‘Yes, you do.’

Stone chased a block of ice with a swizzle stick. ‘It’s good, the deal we made for The Executioner?’

‘It’s the most anyone ever got from Leo Koolman for that kind of package.’

‘I’ll send Leo a little present. Perhaps a first edition, or cufflinks.’

‘No.’

Stone looked up in surprise. Weinberger said, ‘It will make him wonder if we’ve put one over on him.’

‘You’re a devious bastard, Viney.’ Stone toasted him before drinking.

Weinberger smiled. ‘In Perrier water?’

Stone nodded, and sipped at the water. Then he put the glass down and tightened the knot of his neckerchief before consulting his gold Rolex. Once such a watch had been the prime ambition of every film actor. Now kids like Somerset flaunted Micky Mouse timepieces that anyone could afford. ‘Let’s go to dinner, Viney.’

Weinberger recognized it as Stone’s way of taking his leave. He said, ‘I’ve got a wife and dinner waiting. Another hour and both will go cold on me.’

‘Yes, phone Lucy. She must come too. My God, how long since I last saw Lucy.’

Weinberger smiled.

‘No, seriously.’

‘Off you go, Marshall. I’ll just use the phone and be off. I’ll let myself out.’

‘Ring for anything you want.’ Stone touched some of the tiny roses that he’d brought up from his country garden that morning. He missed the garden when work forced him to stay in his London flat. ‘Will you take the roses with you; for Lucy with my love.’ Weinberger nodded. Stone was reluctant to leave without being quite sure that his agent did not bear a grudge for his peevish outburst. It was one of his most awful – and most unfounded – fears that Weinberger would refuse to work with him any more. Or, worse, that Weinberger might deliberately go slow on Stone’s representation while pushing some other client.

‘It was good to see you, Viney, it really was.’ He paused long enough in front of a mirror to be sure his hair looked right. Then, still smiling to Weinberger, he let himself out through the carved double-doors that had once been part of a Mexican church.

Weinberger heard Stone greet someone outside in the hallway. A girl’s voice replied. Then he heard the front door of the apartment close and soon after that the sound of the doors of the Rolls and then its motor as it accelerated along Mount Street.

Weinberger looked around the room. It had hardly changed since a fashionable decorator had designed it almost ten years before. The colour scheme was pink and blue-grey and even the collection of snuff-boxes had been selected so that those colours predominated. An appearance of spontaneity had been achieved by the big bowls of cut flowers and the casual placing of the footstools and the cushions, and yet these had been ordained by the designer. The three silk-covered sofas were still arranged around the fire-place in the same way. Even the expensive illustrated books and the silver cigarette-box and lighter were the same ones in the same positions.

Weinberger helped himself to a cigarette and lit it before dialling the president of Koolman International Pictures Inc. It was some time before the agent was given a chance to talk, but finally he was able to say, ‘Well, I agree, Leo, but an actor must make his own decision about a thing like this. You don’t want him blaming you after, and I don’t want him blaming me.’

Again there was a speech by Koolman, then Weinberger said, ‘All actors are frightened of TV, they think it means they are on the decline. Especially a series – Marshall would certainly do a one-shot for you, or a spectacular, but an option for twenty shows is too many. Let me tell Marshall it’s ten. After the first few it will either be such a success that he’ll go along, or be such a failure that you won’t want more than five.’

Again Weinberger listened. Then he said, ‘OK, Leo, and I’d like to show you some girls to play the wife…’ silence, then, ‘Well, yes, and I wouldn’t mind that either,’ he laughed. ‘Goodbye, Leo, and thanks.’

Jasper switched off the tape-recorder and looked at Marshall Stone. The actor got to his feet and smoothed his tight slacks over his thighs. The girl looked up at him, but her face was expressionless.

‘Bloody Judas,’ said Stone finally. ‘He takes ten per cent of my gross income…’ he turned to the girl, ‘…gross, mark you, not net. It’s a bloody fortune.’ She nodded. ‘And he plots against me in my own home.’ He turned to Jasper. ‘Pity you couldn’t fix it so we could hear the other end.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK, Jasper. Goodnight. I’ll drive Miss Delft home.’

‘Goodnight, sir.’ Jasper closed the tape-recorder and put it away before going out. As soon as the door closed the girl got to her feet and put her arms round Stone’s neck. ‘We can’t go on meeting like this,’ she said, and giggled.

‘Seriously,’ said Stone, ‘you’re the only one I have. You’re all I live for, darling.’

‘I know,’ said Suzy Delft.

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