Stuart Kaminsky: Tomorrow Is Another day

Saturday, December 10,1938, 8:05 P.M.

Atlanta was burning on the back lot of Selznick International.

Cameras were grinding while walls and fake storefronts of old sets from King of Kings, King Kong, Garden of Allah, which had been doctored to look like Atlanta, at least from a distance, went up in crackling fire.

"Looks like what Hitler's doing in Czechoslovakia," Wally Hospodar, second-in-command, Selznick International security, said to me.

I shrugged and watched the darkness beyond the half acre of burning set.

Wally had hired a dozen backup private detectives, and security guards with studio experience like me had been hired for one night of work and the promise of more on Gone With the Wind.

Atlanta was burning with seven technicolor cameras grinding all over the place till they got it right. The studio had its own fire department, but more than two hundred studio employees had been given a crash fire-fighting course and were standing by while the Culver City fire chief, Ernest Grey, tried to control them and all of his own men and trucks.

It was a security nightmare. A stray fan in a U.S.C. sweater, a guy with a grudge against Selznick or old man Mayer, could get in the middle of the shot and force Selznick to rebuild Atlanta and burn it all over again. As k was, the fire had been started seven times and stopped seven times and started again where the second-unit director, Bill Menzies, wanted some extra coverage.

The air was hot, sticky, and smelled of smoke. Reporters who had heard, from carefully planted phone calls from Selznick's press people, particularly Russell Birdwell, that the back lot in Culver City was on fire were trying to talk their way past a detail of security guards. A mile away on Washington Street, Louis B. Mayer and his office staff were probably watching the smoking skies and worrying about the investment they had made in what Selznick had promised would be the biggest movie ever made.

Time and money were on the line, not to mention the embarrassment if the long-delayed Movie of the Century had to close down at the start of shooting.

"Wall back there," Wally said, nodding to the right. "That's the one on Skull Island, kept Kong out. I hear that's Hitler's favorite movie."

I grunted, the heat warming my face. Wally was a good guy, ready for retirement, fond of the bottle, full of information about the movies, and obsessed with the daily movements of Adolph Hitler who, Wally insisted, his sagging jowly face nodding, would soon attack all of Europe and pull us into a war.

We were about a dozen yards behind David O. Selznick, who was wearing a helmet and had already gone hoarse from shouting directions through a megaphone from a spindly tower that had been built so he could see every camera and actor, and most of the forty acres of lot stretching into the early-morning darkness. Behind us, George Cukor, director of the movie, was sitting on a chair, whispering to a thin young guy I didn't recognize. Cukor was staying out of the way while the burning of Atlanta was directed by William Cameron Menzies. It was an action shoot, a second-unit job made harder by Selznick's taking over.

"The wagon," Selznick shouted, pacing and smoking a cigarette at the foot of his tower. "Where's the wagon?"

The wagon was off to the right, in darkness. Wally and I had been there when Dorothy Fargo and Yakima Canutt, dressed like Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, had gone over the action with Menzies and his assistant. Yak had been around forever, a lean, board-hard man with a dark Indian face, as much the king of stunt men as Clark Gable was king of Hollywood.

"Mame Stoltz in publicity, you know Mame?" Wally asked, while I tried to do my job. "Mame says Paulette Goddard's out as Scarlett. Too Jewish, something. Who knows? Start a picture you don't have a star. Bad luck. Not that I'm fool enough to tell anybody that. Been here since Ince owned the studio, made it through Goldwyn, Pathe, and R.K.O. And I'm hanging on with Selznick. You know why I'm hanging on?"

"You're not fool enough to give advice," I said.

"Precisely," said Wally, pulling out a pouch of Dill's Best and filling his pipe. "Exactly, precisely."

I grunted in understanding. Wally had gotten me on this job and assigned me to work with him on the detail guarding Selznick and the crew. Easy work. And I needed the money. I also wanted to meet Clark Gable. I'd only seen him once before from a distance when I tried to keep fans from Mickey Rooney at an M-G-M premiere at Grauman's Chinese.

I've been around Hollywood for all of my almost fifty years. Stars didn't impress me, except for Jimmy Stewart, Buck Jones, and Gable. I'd heard a lot about Gable, some good, some bad, and I wanted to know how much of it was true. But more important, I was getting paid.

The flames and smoke of the burning set were climbing high into the sky over Los Angeles, and Selznick was in near panic. He took off his helmet, brushed back his gray tight curls, and looked at Menzies.

"Bill," he pleaded.

"Action," Menzies said softly to his assistant, who relayed the order on his phone.

A guy in uniform, Confederate gray, wearing a beard and covered with make-believe dust moved next to us. The lot was full of these war-weary extras. Around like popcorn for when the assistant director needed a soldier or eighty soldiers with three minutes' notice from Selznick or one of the directors.

"Hell of a night," the man said.

I didn't look at him. I was watching Yak and Dotty Fargo race onto the burning set on their bucking cart.

"Next few days," the man at my side said, "I lie out there and pretend I'm dying. Doesn't look like I'll even get a line, but who knows. You need pull, clout, a break, and who do I know, I ask you?"

"That's the way of it," said Wally.

"Should have been me," the man next to me said. "You know I tested for Rhett Butler? I've got the look, the accent, but not the credits. I heard them talking. Gable backs out and they maybe go with me. Why not? Big publicity push. Star is born. Character actor Lionel Varney gets the break he deserves."

"Don't miss any of this, any of this," Selznick was saying more to himself than to Menzies or to Ray Rennahan, who was coordinating the cameras.

The cart with Yak and Dotty was almost across the set now. No turning back. No reshooting.

"No problems. No problems," Selznick muttered.

"It can break a man's heart, his spirit. You know?" Varney said at my side.

"Tough business," I said.

"Wasn't for Gable I'd be trying on white hats with big brims, smoking thin cigars, paying my bills with cash, kissing Paulette Goddard in front of the cameras," said Varney. "I'm a better actor."

"I heard Goddard's out," I said, wondering if the gaffer off camera far to the left was moving forward onto the set. I nudged Wally, who looked where I was pointing.

"I know him," said Wally. "No problem there."

"Gable's fault," Varney said. "He doesn't need this movie. He's the king. I need it. And instead of wearing fancy clothes, I'll be dying in dirty gray down there tomorrow. Is that fair or is that fair?"

It was typical Hollywood feel-sorry-for-myself, I'm-a-better-actor-than-Paul-Muni banter, but Varney was spilling it to a stranger, a stranger who had been hired to keep people with grudges and a passion for publicity from damaging the biggest movie ever made.

The cart cleared the set and rumbled into the darkness.

"It's fine," called Menzies, and the word was relayed. "Keep rolling till we have no more flames."

People cheered and Selznick turned, his face red from the heat of the still-burning set.

I turned to look at Varney but he was a few dozen yards away now, his back to me, walking away with sagging shoulders. I took a step toward him. A man and woman brushed past Varney, almost bumping into him. The man and woman were headed straight for Selznick. I nudged Wally, who turned.