Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

"I hired Wally to see just how deep it went. This is what he found before he went nuts."

He gave me a sheaf of documents: letters, bills, newspaper clippings, insurance claims, unproduced scripts like The Bowery Boys in "Jokers' Town," and scenes cut from 30 Minutes Over Broadway .

What it added up to was that someone had it out for wild cards, and scenes that made aces a little too heroic had gotten the axe. And movies that showed jokers as anything but monsters terrorizing teenage beach parties invariably had set fires or other accidents.

Welles swirled his burgundy. "I was over at MGM when they were doing Golden Boy . From what I saw of the dailies, it looked to be a reasonably good film. What happened in the cutting room was criminal, probably in every sense of the word.

"Someone doesn't like wild cards, Nick," Welles said. "I want you to find out who. Blythe is going to go ahead and it's going to be the best damn picture I've done."

He gave me a copy of the script and filled me in. They hadn't contracted all of the players yet, and Trumbo was still doing a polish, but Zanuck had lent him Marilyn Monroe for the title. After her performance in Cleopatra , they'd have lines down the block.

I believed it. Blond Marilyn was nothing compared to raven-haired Marilyn. I was one of ten thousand men wanting to have been that asp.

I stubbed out my cigarette and Welles offered another before I had to ask. "Marilyn," he said, giving me a light, "is the risky bit. She's on the bottle, and that wouldn't be half so bad if it weren't for Paula Strasberg, her acting coach, and her new psychiatrist, Dr. Rudo. Between the two of them they've got her loaded down with more pills than any woman should be able to swallow." Welles scrunched down, mimicking the posture and accent of a New York matron: "Marilyn, darling, take one of your tranquilizers." He straightened up then, affecting a haughty look and an aristocratic German accent: "Miss Monroe, I prescribe a Damn-It-All. Take two, they're small."

I bit my cigarette to keep from laughing. "So you want me to pry Marilyn away from her bottle and pills?"

Welles was back to himself, trimming another cigar. "I don't care," he said, lighting up and sucking smoke like some sort of directorial dragon. "I don't care if she takes twice as many or goes cold turkey, just so long as she can act. The money for Blythe comes from people who're willing to bet on the combination of Monroe / Trumbo / Welles, not a bunch of philanthropists who'll pay for any actress to play a diseased schizophrenic the government's glad is dead."

He paused, leaning back in his chair, tapping the cigar with finality. "If Marilyn goes, Blythe is dead too. And whoever doesn't like wild cards gets what they want."

I may have been a hidden ace, but I was still a wild card. There was no way I was letting this one go. "I'll take it."

"Deal," Welles said and we shook.

The next day, I showed up at the lot, bright and early. I'd gone through the papers the night before and read Trumbo's script. It was still rough in places, but genuinely moving, with the mark of Hollywood: It may not have been exactly what did happen, but it was the way things ought to have happened.

I think someone once said that art wasn't truth, but a lie that made you realize the truth. That was the beauty of Hollywood, and Blythe was beautiful.

I'd asked Welles if there was some part he could make up that would give me an excuse to be on the lot, preferably near Marilyn. After giving me a director's once-over, he asked if I'd like to be stand-in for Golden Boy. I gave him my best Jack Braun Aw-shucks, — I-can't-act, — Colonel grin and saluted, saying I'd be happy to stand wherever the committee wanted me to.

My name was at the front gate: Nick Williams, nowhere actor and Golden Boy stand-in.

I got to meet the cast. Costuming wasn't quite finished, but james Dean had a hat from one of the old Robin Hood flicks. Add a red wig and he'd be Dr. Tachyon. Sydney Poitier, of course, was Black Eagle.

They hadn't contracted for Harstein yet, but Welles had another stand-in, name of Josh Davidson from New York. He was a little chubby and didn't have a Jewish nose, but otherwise looked even closer to the Envoy than I did to Golden Rat. Everybody liked him, but Welles was looking for a name actor.

And then there was Marilyn. I know everyone has seen her pictures, but none of that compares to the reality. She was beautiful. The iron butterfly they sometimes called her. Small and delicate, but with this underlying strength, something that told you that yes, this woman could be crushed, but not as easily as you might think.

Her skin was pale white and her eyes were blue. But her hair … In Cleopatra , most of the time she'd worn a wig, her real hair too damaged by the bleach. But now it had grown out, and it was dyed a rich, sable black. Ebony on snow.

It was Cleopatra all over again. Blythe Van Renssaeler had been a beauty, but nothing compared to this. Marilyn was Blythe Van Renssaeler, the way Blythe should have been. It was like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. A beautiful, fragile thing, destined to float briefly, then die.

Costuming had gone full stop. Her dress was sheer black silk with a silver fox wrap thrown over her shoulders, like the princess from a Russian fairytale. And around her neck she had a triple string of pearls, clasped with an onyx square set with a diamond. It was the necklace Blythe Van Rennssaeler had worn during the trial.

She read her lines haltingly, almost childlike, while Paula Strasberg, her acting coach, watched from offstage, along with what could only be her new Svengali, Dr. Rudo. They observed her like butterfly hunters after some prized new specimen, but then, God, she was beautiful.

They were practicing the scene where Blythe comes to Tachyon's apartment after her husband throws her out. Marilyn was curled up against James Dean's chest, weeping, and those were real tears, not glycerin. And her words: "I don't know what's to become of me. What man could ever love a woman who knows all his secrets?"

"I would," Dean said, and I know I mouthed the line as he said it. That moment was magic. Marilyn stood there, the silver fox wrap sliding softly off her shoulders, like a chrysalis off a butterfly. And one by one her tears hit the floor.

That was the moment I truly fell in love with her.

Then there were people swarming around her, Paula Strasberg shrieking like some Jewish grandmother from Hell, alternately congratulating her and asking if she wanted one of her tranquilizers, Dean hugging her, then Welles swept through them, pulling Marilyn free of the knot. He gave her directorly compliments and she started to laugh and dried her tears, then Welles steered her and her admirers over in my direction and introduced me to the crew.

I don't know what my first words were to her. Probably something stupid and obvious like "That was wonderful" or "I've been a fan for a long time." It didn't matter. That was Marilyn's moment, and I think there's no way to do it justice. She was brilliant.

Then the tension was broken by Josh Davidson going, "How did you do that?"

Marilyn suddenly calmed down and started giving him a whole explanation of method acting, and Paula took them off into the corner.

And I found myself face to face with another hero from a Wagnerian opera.

The joke was, the voice matched. "She is very complex, yes?"

I think I sort of vaguely nodded as I looked at the owner, trying not to laugh: Welles' impersonation had been spot-on. Like I said, he was another blond-haired, blue-eyed type, and even had the same little Kirghiz fold to the corner of the eye as I did. He looked like my uncle Fritz.