Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

“Why break your ass over some nine-to-five job when all you have to do is lay on your back a few minutes and pick up an easy twenty bucks? Just till your agent calls.”

Jill was not interested. Her only interest in life was her career. A poor Polish girl could never marry a David Kenyon. She knew that now. But Jill Castle, the movie star, could have anybody and anything she wanted. Unless she could achieve that, she would change back into Josephine Czinski again.

She would never let that happen.

Jill’s first acting job came through Harriet Marcus, one of the Survivors who had a third cousin whose ex-brother-in-law was a second assistant director on a television medical series shooting at Universal Studios. He agreed to give Jill a chance. The part consisted of one line, for which Jill was to receive fifty-seven dollars, minus deductions for Social Security, withholding taxes and the Motion Picture Relief Home. Jill was to play the part of a nurse. The script called for her to be in a hospital room at a patient’s bedside, taking his pulse when the doctor entered.

DOCTOR: “How is he, Nurse?”

NURSE: “Not very good, I’m afraid, Doctor.”

That was it.

Jill was given a single, mimeographed page from the script on a Monday afternoon and told to report for makeup at six A.M. the following morning. She went over the scene a hundred times. She wished the studio had given her the entire script. How did they expect her to figure out what the character was like from one page? Jill tried to analyze what kind of a woman the nurse might be. Was she married? Single? She could be secretly in love with the doctor. Or maybe they had had an affair and it was over. How did she feel about the patient? Did she hate the thought of his death? Or would it be a blessing?

“Not very good, I’m afraid, Doctor.” She tried to put concern in her voice.

She tried again. “Not very good. I’m afraid , Doctor.” Alarmed. He was going to die.

“ Not very good, I’m afraid, Doctor.” Accusing. It was the doctor’s fault. If he had not been away with his mistress…

Jill stayed up the entire night working on the part, too keyed-up to sleep, but in the morning, when she reported to the studio, she felt exhilarated and alive. It was still dark when she arrived at the guard’s gate off Lankershim Boulevard, in a car borrowed from her friend Harriet. Jill gave the guard her name, and he checked it against a roster and waved her on.

“Stage Seven,” he said. “Two blocks down, turn right.”

Her name was on the roster. Universal Studios was expecting her . It was like a wonderful dream. As Jill drove toward the sound stage, she decided she would discuss the part with the director, let him know that she was capable of giving him any interpretation he wanted. Jill pulled into the large parking lot and went onto Stage Seven.

The sound stage was crowded with people busily moving lights, carrying electrical equipment, setting up the camera, giving orders in a foreign language she did not understand. “Hit the inky dink and give me a brute…. I need a scrim here…. Kill the baby….”

Jill stood there watching, savoring the sights and smells and sounds of show business. This was her world, her future. She would find a way to impress the director, show him that she was someone special. He would get to know her as a person, not as just another actress.

The second assistant director herded Jill and a dozen other actors over to Wardrobe, where Jill was handed a nurse’s uniform and sent back to the sound stage, where she was made up with all the other bit players in a corner of the sound stage. Just as they were finished with her, the assistant director called her name. Jill hurried on to the hospital-room set where the director stood near the camera, talking to the star of the series. The star’s name was Rod Hanson, and he played a surgeon full of compassion and wisdom. As Jill approached them, Rod Hanson was saying, “I have a German shepherd that can fart better dialogue than this shit. Why can’t the writers give me some character, for Christ’s sake?”

“Rod, we’ve been on the air five years. Don’t improve a hit. The public loves you the way you are.”

The cameraman walked up to the director. “All lit, chief.”

“Thanks, Hal,” the director said. He turned to Rod Hanson. “Can we make this, baby? We’ll finish the discussion later.”

“One of these days, I’m going to wipe my ass with this studio,” Hanson snapped. He strode away.

Jill turned to the director, who was now alone. This was her opportunity to discuss the interpretation of the character, to show him that she understood his problems and was there to help make the scene great. She gave him a warm, friendly smile. “I’m Jill Castle,” she said. “I’m playing the nurse. I think she can really be very interesting and I have some ideas about—”

He nodded absently and said, “Over by the bed,” and walked away to speak to the cameraman.

Jill stood looking after him, stunned. The second assistant director, Harriet’s third cousin’s ex-brother-in-law, hurried up to Jill and said in a low voice, “For Chrissakes, didn’t you hear him? Over by the bed!”

“I wanted to ask him—”

“Don’t blow it!” he whispered fiercely. “Get out there!”

Jill walked over to the patient’s bed.

“All right. Let’s have it quiet, everybody.” The assistant director looked at the director. “Do you want a rehearsal, chief?”

“For this? Let’s go for a take.”

“Give us a bell. Settle down, everybody. Nice and quiet. We’re rolling. Speed.”

Unbelievingly, Jill listened to the sound of the bell. She looked frantically toward the director, wanting to ask him how he would like her to interpret the scene, what her relationship was to the dying man, what she was—

A voice called, “Action!”

They were all looking at Jill expectantly. She wondered whether she dare ask them to stop the cameras for just a second, so she could discuss the scene and—

The director yelled, “Jesus Christ! Nurse! This isn’t a morgue—it’s a hospital. Feel his goddamned pulse before he dies of old age!”

Jill looked anxiously into the circle of bright lights around her. She took a deep breath, lifted the patient’s hand and took his pulse. If they would not help her, she would have to interpret the scene in her own way. The patient was the father of the doctor. The two of them had quarreled. The father had been in an accident and the doctor had just been notified. Jill looked up and saw Rod Hanson approaching. He walked up to her and said, “How is he, Nurse?”

Jill looked into the doctor’s eyes and read the concern there. She wanted to tell him the truth, that his father was dying, that it was too late for them to make up their quarrel. Yet she had to break it to him in such a way that it would not destroy him and—

The director was yelling, “Cut! Cut! Cut! Goddamn it, the idiot’s got one line, and she can’t even remember it. Where did you find her—in the Yellow Pages?”

Jill turned toward the voice shouting from the darkness, aflame with embarrassment. “I—I know my line,” she said shakily. “I was just trying to—”

“Well, if you know it, for Chrissakes, would you mind saying it? You could drive a train through that pause. When he asks you the fucking question, answer it . Okay?”

“I was just wondering if I should—”

“Let’s go again, right away. Give us a bell.”

“We’re on a bell. Hold it down. We’re rolling.”

“Speed.”

“Action.”

Jill’s legs were trembling. It was as though she was the only one here who cared about the scene. All she had wanted to do was create something beautiful. The hot lights were making her dizzy, and she could feel the perspiration running down her arms ruining the crisp, starched uniform.