ROBBINS Harold - The Carpetbaggers

He looked up at me and grinned. "Sounds great," he said, tapping his earphones.

I smiled and walked over to Nevada. He was talking to the director and they both turned as I came up. "How's she doing?"

The new director shrugged. "She was a little nervous at first but she's settling down. She'll be O.K."

"She’ll be great," Nevada said warmly. "I never figured all the times she cued me on the script that it would come in handy for her too."

One of the assistant directors hurried up. "We're ready now, Mr. Carrol."

The director nodded and the assistant turned around and yelled, "Places, everybody!"

The director walked over to the camera as Nevada moved out on the set. I turned and saw Rina entering from the side. I stared, unable to believe my eyes. Her long, white-blond hair was tied up on top of her head and they'd bound her breasts so tight she looked like a boy. Her mouth was painted in a tiny Cupid's bow and her eyebrows were penciled to a thin, unnatural line. She was no longer a woman – she was a caricature of every ad in Vanity Fair .

Dan's face was impassive. He stared at me, his eyes unrevealing. "They did a good job," he said. "She's right in the image."

"She don't look like a woman."

"That's what they go for."

"I don't give a damn what they go for! I don't like it. Broads that look like that are a dime a dozen in this town."

A faint smile came into Dan's eyes. "You don't like it, change it," he said. "You're the boss. It's your picture."

I stared at him for a moment. I felt like walking out onto the set and blowing a fuse. But instinct held me back. I knew one more display like yesterday's would demoralize the whole crew. "Tell Carrol I want to see him," I said to Dan.

He nodded approvingly. "Smart," he said. "That's the right way to do it. You may need me even less than I thought!" He walked over to the director.

A moment later, the director called a ten-minute break. He came over to me and I could see he was nervous. "What seems to be the trouble, Mr. Cord?"

"Who O.K.'d that make-up and costume?"

The director looked at me, then over his shoulder at Rina. "I'm sure it was approved by wardrobe and make-up," he said. "Nevada told them to give her the full treatment."

"Nevada?"

He nodded. I looked at Dan. "I want everybody concerned in my office in ten minutes," I said.

"Right, Jonas."

I turned and walked out of the building.

I LOOKED AROUND THE OFFICE. I GUESS THE STUDIO knew what they were doing after all. It was just large enough to hold all of us.

Dan sat in an easy chair to the left of my desk, Carrol, the new director, beside him. Rina and Nevada were on the couch, and across the room from them was the cameraman. On the other side of the room were the make-up man and the head of the wardrobe department, a slim woman of indeterminate age, with a young face and prematurely-gray hair, wearing a simple tailored dress. Finally, my secretary was on my right, with the inevitable pencil poised over her pad.

I lit a cigarette. "All of you saw that test last night," I said. "It was great. How come that girl wasn't on the set this afternoon?"

Nobody answered. "Rina, stand up." Silently she got to her feet and stood there looking at me. I glanced around the room again. "What's her name?"

The director coughed and laughed nervously. "Mr. Cord, everybody knows her name."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Rina Marlowe."

"Then why don't she look like Rina Marlowe instead of an ass-end combination of Clara Bow, Marion Davies and Cynthia Randall? She sure as hell doesn't look like Rina Marlowe!"

"I’m afraid you don't understand, Mr. Cord."

I looked around. "What's your name?"

She stared right back at me. "I’m Ilene Gaillard," she said. "I’m the costume designer."

"All right, Miss Gaillard. Suppose you tell me what I don't understand."

"Miss Marlowe has to be dressed in the very forefront of fashion," she said calmly. "You see, Mr. Cord, though we make certain concessions to the period in which the picture takes place, the fundamental design must carry forward the latest in high fashion. That's what most women go to the movies to see. Motion pictures set the style."

I squinted at her. "Style or no style, Miss Gaillard, it doesn't make sense that a girl should have to look like a boy to be in fashion. No man in his right mind could be interested in a figure like that."

"Don't blame Miss Gaillard, Jonas. I told her to do it."

I turned to Nevada. "You told her?"

He nodded.

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. I let my voice grow cold. "It's my money that's on the line now and the deal was that I'm the boss. So from now on, you worry about your acting. Everything else is my headache."

Nevada's lips tightened and deep in his eyes I could see the hurt. I turned away so that I wouldn't have to see it. Rina was watching with a curious kind of detachment.

"Rina!" She turned to me, an impassive mask dropping quickly over her eyes. "Go into the bathroom and wash all that muck off your face. Put on your usual make-up."

Rina left the room silently and I went back behind my desk and sat down. Nobody said a word until she came back into the room, her mouth wide again, her lips full and her eyebrows flowing into the natural curve of her brow. Her hair spilled like white shimmering gold down to her shoulders. But there was still something wrong. Underneath the negligee, her body was still a straight line.

"Go back in there and get out of that harness you're wearing."

Still silent, she did as I told her. And this time when she came out, she moved. Nobody could miss the fact that there was a woman underneath that negligee.

"That's more like it," I said. "We'll shoot those scenes again now."

Rina nodded and turned away. Miss Gaillard's voice stopped her. "We can't photograph her like that."

I looked at the designer. "What did you say?"

Miss Gaillard stood up. "We can't shoot her like that. Her bust bounces."

I laughed. "What's the matter with that? Tits should bounce."

"Of course," the designer said quickly. "But on the screen everything is exaggerated." She looked at the cameraman. "Isn't that right, Lee?"

The cameraman nodded. "That's right, Mr. Cord. They won't look natural at all."

"We'll have to put some kind of brassiere on her," Miss Gaillard said.

"O.K. Go see what you can do."

A moment later, Rina and the designer came out of the bathroom. They walked toward me. It was better than the original harness but they didn't look as good as they did without restraint. It just didn't look right to me.

I got up from the desk and walked over to Rina. "Let me see."

Rina looked at me, her eyes deliberately distant. Impassively she dropped the negligee from her shoulders, holding it to her by the crook of her elbows. "Turn right," I said. "Now left."

I stepped back and looked at Rina. I knew what it was now. Whenever she turned, the brassiere pulled and flattened, which was what gave her breasts that unnatural look. I looked at the designer. "Maybe if we took off the shoulder straps?"

Ilene Gaillard shrugged. "We can try." She reached over and pushed down the straps.

Rina stood there, her eyes fixed on some distant point over my shoulder. "Now turn." The brassiere still cut into her breasts. "Unhh-unhh," I said. "I still don't like it."

"There's one other thing I can try."

"O.K.," I said.

A few minutes later, they came out again. Rina wore a wire-ribbed contraption almost like a small corset, except it didn't come down over her hips. And when she moved, her breasts didn't. You could see them all right, but they looked as if they had been molded out of plaster of Paris.

I looked at the designer. "Isn't there some way we can cut out some of those wires?"