This is a short story from the collection The Bold Investor

Fallen Star

Producers and directors often exhorted Martin Stevens to beat or at least be like Errol Flynn, and that seemed attainable. In terms of facial structure, Martin looked as if Flynn had fathered him. Hell, maybe he did. So the sequence was logical enough. Martin was outfitted in tights in his first starring film role and told to be dashing and athletic. Regrettably, costume dramas had expired even before Flynn and that was a generation before Martin became an adult. Now, at age twenty-six, the same as Flynn in his smashing debut in Captain Blood, Martin Stevens was being hooted by the few who attended his movie.

“He’s no Errol Flynn,” said the critics.

They were entirely correct. The splendidly handsome Martin Stevens had the physique of a philosophy professor, a young professor, true, but decidedly unheroic.

All right. They simply changed strategy and cast Martin as a brilliant scientist struggling with a larcenous wife. He was supposed to be sympathetic but was merely maudlin, and filmgoers stirred when his smoldering patent attorney bedded Martin’s breathless spouse.

“You can’t let them cast me in subordinate roles.”

“That was an opportunity for some real character acting.”

“I’m not a character actor, you idiot. I’m a star.”

“You ain’t no star. Try another agent.”

Martin was turned down a few times but got an agent soon enough. There weren’t any lead roles, though, not in movies.

“This is a terrific opportunity,” said his new agent.

“I’m not doing TV. If I crawl in that wretched little box, I’ll never get out.”

“You’re kidding, Martin. Look at Burt Reynolds and Michael Douglas. Those guys did well on TV before getting established in movies.”

“Another goddamn detective.”

“People like detectives. You gotta make people relate to this guy.”

Detective Frank Sparks was assigned to clean up and revitalize the corrupt and dispirited group of lawmen in Chicago’s homicide division. Martin understood this could take a long time, so he decided to divorce his wife, a former Playboy bunny striving herself to become a serious star, sell his modest house south of Sunset Boulevard, and purchase a beautiful condominium near Lake Michigan.

He should have tried a hotel. Ratings were low from the start, off-screen scandal didn’t help, and after but a season Detective Frank Sparks disappeared.

“Martin, I gotta ask you,” said his agent. “Do you think you might’ve done this unconsciously? You know, to be like Flynn.”

“Hell no. She told me she was nineteen.”

And she had. There were witnesses. No one at the restaurant that night thought she was only fifteen. Even if they’d been sober they wouldn’t have suspected that. The district attorney had started all this. He wanted to be governor and figured he could become a star protecting the innocent girls of Chicago from lecherous Hollywood actors. The guy preached pretty well but decided not to file charges. Unlike Flynn, Martin was saved from a humiliating trial.

It was time to regroup, reassess, revise. It was time to return to Hollywood. Within a week, as he’d long done with unsettling frequency, Martin made his pilgrimage: he drove up onto Mulholland Drive to the house where Flynn had lived. Hollywood insiders had shown him where the place was, and it was always a letdown because the blockheads who’d moved in after Flynn changed everything. Martin could not imagine such unmitigated stupidity. Didn’t any of them realize they were living in a historical monument, a place not merely of the most sublime and highly publicized debauchery, but a home where a Van Gogh had once hung?

Martin considered lecturing the current occupant but decided he needed excitement. Lacking Flynn’s yacht to whisk him onto the high seas, he settled for a franchise Mexican restaurant and started drinking beer with tequila chasers. After several quick rounds and not being approached by any of the lunchtime diners, he stood and announced: “Which one of you ladies wants to fuck Martin Stevens?”

No one responded, and this devastated him. Errol Flynn wouldn’t have even had to ask, would he?

“Are you all so mundane, are you all so insipid, that you’d rather bury your faces in enchiladas than have a transcendent experience with me?”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave now,” said the manager, a clean-cut fellow barely in his twenties.

Martin sat down and said, “Son, bring me three beers and three shots, and please do so before I dismantle you and this prefabricated house of shit.”

Soon the police were there, telling Martin to stand up.

“On the contrary, boys, you sit down and join me.”

This became Martin’s seventh arrest, but only one of those had been a DUI, and that almost three years ago.

“Mr. Stevens, what do you do?” said the judge.

“I’m Martin Stevens, your honor.”

“Yes, Mr. Stevens, what’s your job?”

“I’m an actor.”

“A working actor?”

“Of course.”

“Why weren’t you working the other day?”

“I’m taking some time off.”

“Every man needs a job, Mr. Stevens.”

“I’ve got a job.”

“Who’s your employer?”

“I’m self-employed.”

“Do you make your own films?”

“No.”

“Then you’re unemployed,” said the judge. “You need to keep busy, and I’m going to help you. Five days a week for the next six months, you’re to attend an AA meeting.”

“I’m not an alcoholic. I’ve read extensively about these matters.”

“Then you failed to comprehend what you read. Also, Mr. Stevens, you’re to find work immediately.”

“I’m recharging my creative batteries.”

“Fine, while doing so, you can work in another field. Do you have any other experience?”

“Of course not. I’m an actor for life.”

“I’m assigning a probation officer to this case. Report to him in one week about the efforts you’re making to find a job. If you don’t have something, at least a promising lead, in a month, you’re coming right back to this court.”

Martin placed many calls and rushed around trying to get an agent. Everyone was too busy, booked with dynamic clients they had to commit all their time to. Screw em, Martin thought. How many have starred in two movies and one television series? Damn few, no doubt.

Marching in cold Martin knocked on doors of people who produced and directed plays in theaters where people could actually see him and none of his action would be snipped away. A number of the theater people knew about Martin, but that proved a disadvantage. They hadn’t liked his minor stage work a few years earlier, and certainly hadn’t been impressed by his work before the cameras. Martin moved from large theaters to medium-size and finally to those seating less than a hundred. They all had lots of talented and experienced actors vying to appear in their productions. Did he have a business card? Okay. Maybe someday they’d give him a call.

Despite the humiliation Martin strutted into a dingy theater of thirty seats on Pico Boulevard.

“We’re casting a play now,” said the young director. “It’s about Jack Warner and his brothers. Not many know what Jack looked like, but we’ve got a dead ringer. We’ve also got a lady who looks just like Bette Davis and a guy who could be Bogey’s twin. Naturally, we’d love to have a guy like Flynn, too.”

“Here I am.”

“Absolutely. You got it.”

“When do rehearsals start?”

“Next week.”

“Great. I’ll be here.”

“Next week’s just for the main characters, the Warner brothers.”

“Flynn was very important in the history of Warner Brothers movies.”

“I know, but the story’s primarily about the brothers themselves. Poor Jewish immigrants who achieved astounding things. We’ll be focusing on what a compelling but reprehensible bastard Jack Warner was. He screwed the other brothers, you know.”

“Yeah, I know all about the Warner brothers. I could help with the script.”

“The script’s already tight. My brother’s worked on it five years. That includes at least ten rewrites.”

“I assume everyone gets Actors Equity Association wages.”

“All the stars, yes. The extras get twenty bucks a show. But, more importantly, you get experience and exposure.”

Martin shook the young man’s hand. Fine. This was what it took. In two weeks he returned and met the Bette and Bogey actors, and all three periodically twinkled in the background as the Warner brothers talked about using them to build an empire. Each movie star briefly spoke in a few scenes, and Martin’s best was based on an account from Flynn’s ghostwritten autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Bad Jack has insulted the Baron, as he calls him, and Flynn, via studio telephone, announces he’s coming up to the inner sanctum to kick Jack’s ass. The movie mogul, more competent in matters of brain than brawn, skedaddles out a secret exit before Flynn, charging in, is left on stage, looking around.

During two weeks of rehearsals Martin was able to get the young Bette Davis actress into bed, which is something Flynn had never done with the real one. Flynn claimed he’d never wanted to. Bette insisted he did and she declined. Martin Stevens was invigorated by his thoroughly charming, albeit dramatically limited, Bette Davis. And he was ready on opening night.

They were all primed. And The Warner Brothers play was a hit. The L.A. Times came down and immediately awarded it Critic’s Choice status. That designation, one must emphasize, was primarily due to provocative performances by the actors who portrayed the Warner brothers. Many theatergoers said they got a great feel for how the studio system worked during Hollywood’s Golden Age. The play, originally scheduled to run six weeks, was extended another six, and then six more. Martin, meanwhile, was earning twenty bucks six times a week. That, combined with the prestige, was plenty to satisfy the judge. But, now that his savings were gone, it wouldn’t have been sufficient to shelter him had the new Bette Davis not agreed to evict her old high school chum, a ballerina and cocktail waitress, and move him into her one-bedroom Hollywood apartment that must have been there the day the original Warner brothers strode into town.

During the day Martin’s girlfriend was a secretary who typed a hundred words a minute. With three modest incomes funneled into one household, they were doing all right, and Martin was delighted to have time to take care of his AA commitment and call on agents, directors, office assistants, anyone who’d talk to him, and invite them to The Warner Brothers. Martin could make sure they got in, provided they let him know when they were coming. A number of show business people attended, including several that Martin had contacted, and the play led to the hiring of all the Warner brothers by an independent company committed to making a good movie adapted from the play. The company, however, had recently promised the supporting roles to other actors.

On closing night Martin was late. He’d called his girlfriend early that afternoon and said to drive to the theater alone. He would come on his own. Five minutes before curtain time, Martin wobbled in.

“Where have you been?” said the director.

Martin placed both hands around the man’s neck and pushed, and then opened the curtains and took the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, the final night of this stupendous play, is going to be special. Indeed, it’s going to be better than that. How? How, you may ask, do you improve an overwhelming hit? In this case, it is entirely simple. You simply remove the usurious and entirely unhandsome Warner brothers, and let the real stars take over. Tonight, therefore, you shall see Errol Flynn copulate, on this very stage, with the esteemed Bette Davis.”

The director, stage manager, and set designer — the latter two were women — tentatively ran on stage toward Martin Stevens, who popped the director with a decent left jab to the nose before grabbing one lady, a hand on each breast, and snap kicking the other in the abdomen.

Martin was fortunate to have his jail sentence suspended and replaced by a mandatory three-month stint in a tight treatment facility. It was there that Martin first experienced delirium tremens. He was twenty-nine years old, and predictions of imminent death began. Those people didn’t understand how much medications were helping Martin. They brought him out of DT’s and gave him a greater calm than he’d ever known.

Pills not only rescued Martin from the revolt of an addicted brain being wrenched clean, they’d enabled him to weigh twenty pounds less. When he left the treatment center, he was the slimmest he’d been since his late teens. Live right, get good breaks. Martin was sure about that when he got a call to guest star on a detective show as the father of a little girl who is missing and later found molested and dead in a park not far from her suburban home. Every day Martin was on time and knew his lines and cooperated with the director, and still photographed well, but no one was enthused about him and he wondered if he’d lost it or ever really had it. But of course he’d had it and everyone would see as soon as he got hold of it.

His next chance came a year later as an ex-husband of the hot star of a daytime soap opera.

“I don’t see many lines for me,” Martin told the director.

“This part doesn’t require a lot of words, but the dialogue is tight and explosive. Each of you four ex-husbands is showing up at embarrassing times for her, and the audience loves how she carves you guys up.”

Alas, the social dynamics were frequently too complicated, even for this time slot, so Martin had to be killed off screen in a car crash. The camera closed in on the star and revealed a wickedly sexy smile. She had it.

In several months Martin next worked as master of ceremonies at the Miss Teen Orange County pageant and afterward persuaded one of the contestants to obediently return home with her parents and then sneak out her bedroom window. As they reached Martin’s car, the girl’s father opened the front door and said, “Get back inside, young lady.”

“Lighten up,” Martin said.

“You want me to call the cops.”

“Go ahead. She’s eighteen.”

“Wait here while I get my gun.”

“You’re a bunch of fascists down here,” Martin said, and headed back to the stars.

The following morning he awakened in a park near USC. His car was still there but his medications and wallet were gone.

“Hey,” Martin said, waving at a man who looked like a regular in the area.

“How ‘bout helping me with some change.”

“How ‘bout helping me with some weed,” Martin said.

“All right.”

Martin sat down and took off his loafers.

“What’re you doin’?”

“I’m givin’ you two hundred bucks right here,” Martin said.

“They ain’t shit to me.”

“You can damn well sell ‘em for twenty. That’s worth a few joints.”

The man reached into his old army-style jacket and presented four thin cigarettes.

“Let me smell ‘em,” Martin said, and then received a book of matches in the deal and started smoking right away. Relief came with the first puff and increased after every hit. This was unequivocally the world’s finest cure for a hangover. Most people would rather endure pain than continue revelry by other means. In a few minutes, despite burning his throat, Martin finished the joint and within a half-hour he’d smoked two more. He put the last joint in his pants pocket and got in his car.

He knew where to go. When he arrived he couldn’t imagine why so few people were there. Forest Lawn Cemetery was manicured pretty and green in the hills, and in all directions Martin could feel the famous people who had worked and lived and done great things, and the magic of Hollywood was within him as he marched to the best place. About an easy wedge shot from an elegant mausoleum, almost under a tree, close to a statue of a naked woman, lay Errol Flynn.

An employee had long ago told Martin where Flynn was. You had to know because for twenty years there hadn’t been a gravestone or even a marker. What the hell was wrong with Flynn’s three wives and four children? How could they just plant the man who’d been Robin Hood and General Custer and Don Juan, the unrivalled king of charm, as if he’d been a pauper? It was barbaric. It had been until his kids finally installed a small bronze marker containing the basic information. That was still not enough. Martin, as customary, was prepared to do much more. With considerable solemnity he unzipped his pants and began urinating in thick green grass next to the marker. His colorless stream had a lot of booze in it, and that had to make Flynn happy. Martin would have been happy, too, if only Flynn had known that today was his thirty-third birthday.

* * *

“Martin? Martin Stevens?”

“I guess so.”

“This is William Atkins, the agent. I’ve been trying to find you. Pretty damn difficult. I finally got hold of your mother. Thankfully, she’s helped you out.”

“You implyin’ I need my mother?”

“I’m not implying anything, Martin. I’m stating facts. You’ve frequently been homeless, and now you’re living in a rat hole, from what your mother says.”

“Fuck my mother.”

“Listen, Fred Bannister wants you for his next project.”

“Who’s Fred Bannister?’

“He’s won about every award for documentary filmmaking the last ten years. Now he’s doing one on actors who’ve had hard times. Troy Donahue. The blond hunk from the early sixties. Remember him? He’s been homeless in New York City. We’re gonna line him up.”

“Good man.”

“And we’ve already interviewed several others. Lots of guys have struggled. We want the best stories. Fred’s positive you’re one. Interested?”

“How much?”

“Fred’s work is very dramatic but it’s historical, it’s journalism. He really shouldn’t pay anyone for that. But he understands. He can go a hundred bucks a day, and meals. He wants to talk to you, follow you around. It’d be some good work. Interested?”

Fred Bannister and his cameraman arrived early in the alley beside a transformed garage behind an old house near downtown L.A.

“Roll it,” said Bannister, approaching the door, then knocking.

The door opened to frame a gray and wrinkled man wearing a black scarf, a Hawaiian shirt, black slacks, and brown loafers.

“Martin Stevens?”

“Damn right.”

“Fred Bannister.”

“That thing on? Fine. Come in.”

In one small room there was a single bed, neatly made, two wooden chairs, a wooden table, a little TV on a cardboard box, and a kitchenette.

“Martin, this world is vastly different than Beverly Hills,” said Bannister.

“Beverly Hills bored me.”

“You ever miss it?”

“Never.”

“So you’re reasonably content, despite your troubles?”

“I’ve had more fun than trouble.”

“Martin, you’ve been arrested thirty-two times and hospitalized on several occasions, at least. I hope you’ll tell the truth.”

“I’ve never told anything else.”

“Did you ever imagine this could happen?”

“Today’s stars are tomorrow’s casualties.”

“Do you think you were a star?”

“No. But now I’m ready for character roles no one else can handle.”

“Do you go to the movies often?”

“Never.”

“Do you watch them on TV?”

“It doesn’t work.”

“Who’d hire you?”

“After this, plenty’ll call me,” Martin said.

“What does your day generally consist of?”

“Oh, I get up late. I’m definitely a night person.”

“Movies are made early.”

“Not if they’re about the night.”

“What do you do after getting up? Do you drink?”

“Just coffee.”

“Really, Martin?”

“That’s right, buster.”

“How long?”

“Since the agent called. Eight days.”

“Are you under a doctor’s care?”

“Maybe.”

“What are you taking?”

“What I need.”

“So, after coffee, what do you do?”

“I generally read the paper.”

“Where is it?”

“I already gave it to the people up front.”

“After reading, then what?”

“I walk to the park.”

“Can we go there?”

“Let’s talk here,” Martin said.

“A movie’s always better with movement and some outdoor scenes.”

“Not today.”

“It’s a beautiful day for a comeback.”

Martin seemed to hold his breath and count before saying: “All right.”

Crunching gravel in the alley, the three men provoked a hundred wicked dogs, and the cameraman got a startling close-up of a pit bull howling and slobbering through his chain link fence. After three blocks in the alley they turned left onto a street constricted by cars parked bumper to bumper on both sides.

“Do you have a car?”

“No,” Martin said. “I don’t need one.”

“What if you’re cast in a movie?”

“The studio’ll pick me up.”

“Is that your park?”

“Yep. Not much there.”

Martin turned around.

“Hold it, Martin. Please. Let’s take a look.”

“You’re lookin’.”

Bannister put his hand on Martin’s elbow and coaxed him to turn back around.

“Let’s walk in your park, Martin. Show me what you do there.”

“I like to sit in the shade.”

“Do you have a favorite tree?”

There were six scraggly ones.

“This one, nearest the road,” he said, and sat heavily on a tired rear end. Bannister joined him on the grass.

“You used to look so much like Errol Flynn.”

“Still do.”

“Respectfully, Martin, you don’t really think you still look like Flynn, do you?”

“Better — at the same age. Haven’t you done your homework?”

“You’re fifty.”

“Same age as Flynn when he died. Ever see Cuban Rebel Girls?”

“No. Who’s in it?”

“The wrecked Flynn and his fifteen-year-old blond Beverly. Worst movie ever made. He’s lucky he died, like Elvis. Nowhere to go when you’re like that.”

A large man was pushing a shopping cart full of bottles and cans toward the park. His open black jacket bared his torso and a dirty white cap was perched on an uneven Afro.

“Martin,” the man said.

“Shoot him,” said Bannister. “A friend, Martin?”

“No.”

“Where the hell you been?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know goddamn well.”

“I don’t need any bottles.”

“You already drunk? You musta killed some dude and stole his clothes.”

“Sir, please, I’m working.”

“You workin’. Yeah, and I’m Denzel Washington. Listen, Martin, you gotta pay me for the shit. And don’t disappear on me again. You been in jail?”

“You’re clearly incontinent, sir. You and I have no business.”

The big fellow left his cart in the street and walked toward Martin, Bannister, and the cameraman.

“I can’t decide who to take out first.”

Bannister jumped and said, “Relax. How much does he owe you?”

“Thirty-five bucks.”

“Here’s forty. Keep the change.”

“Don’t pull that shit again, Martin,” he said, frowning, and walked back to his cart and pushed it away, bottles and cans tinkling over squeaky wheels.

“So you’re not really clean,” said Bannister.

“I’m clean. But the goddamn bums are always tryin’ to get something.”

“Don’t you think that’s denial?”

“No, that’s a fact of the streets your audience should see?”

“How long do you usually stay here?”

“A couple hours. I usually bring some novels.”

“Which ones?”

“Read ‘em so fast I can’t remember. Then I get up and stretch and run ten or fifteen wind sprints. I’m a lot trimmer than most men my age.”

“What about eating?”

“I don’t overdo it. Especially now. Diet’s an important part of this business.”

“Have you worked since the beauty pageant in Orange County?”

“Certainly.”

“Where?”

“At various theaters.”

“Which theaters? Which plays?”

“The Warner Brothers, an L.A. Times Critic’s Choice.”

“That was a generation ago. Which plays since?”

“Plenty of em. You ask a lot pointless goddamn questions.”

Like an older man Martin struggled to stand, and said, “This movie’s in the can.”

“Not yet, Martin.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

“We’d like to do some follow-up work.”

“You just get this out there where it’ll rekindle my career.”

“Martin,” a woman hollered, walking fast, almost running from the other side of the park.

“Roger,” said Martin.

“Fred – Roger’s the Englishman who ran the first sub four-minute mile.”

“Yeah, good idea about the follow up, especially after I’m back in business.”

“Hey, Martin.”

“Shoot her,” said Bannister.

“Are your ears as infected as everything else?” she said.

“Madam, I haven’t any idea who you are. Please cease these libelous statements or I’ll contact my attorneys.”

Laughter exploded from a toothless mouth.

“Get the camera off her or, by god, I will find an attorney.”

“What’s the matter? Ashamed of your girlfriend?”

* * *

Five weeks later Fred Bannister returned to the converted garage of Martin Stevens. As there was no response when Bannister knocked, he walked around to a side window and saw Martin Stevens stiff on the floor.

“Shoot him,” said Bannister. “I’ll call the police.”

In about a year, when Fred Bannister’s documentary Fallen Stars debuted on a wave of enthusiasm and praise, Bannister closed his segment on Martin with uplifting news: “Other than a single prescribed medication, Martin Stevens was clean. He died of natural causes as he struggled to make a comeback.”

George Thomas Clark on Amazon