The Darendinger Build-Up

When The Lousy Phone rang I was pitching quarters against the wall with my associate. I was two bucks winner and doing just great.

"Gallstone Publicity Agency," I snapped. "If it's alive, we push it."

"Is this Mick?"

"This is Mick."

"Sid Halfrock. Listen, baby, I told you I'd give you a growl when I get something big. This is it."

Halfrock was a strictly smalltime producer over at Mammoth. He had maybe two shirts to call his own.

"Busy, Sid," I yawned.

"Look, baby, I said big!"

"How big is big?"

"Forty-one inches where they count."I dropped three quarters. "Genuine?"

"One hundred percent guaranteed genuine goods. This one out-lollos brigida. I'm telling you, she'll give Janie Russell an inferiority complex."

Three years in this business and you run into everything from fruits to nuts in Hollywood, but genuine forty-ones are rare, even in Tinseltown.

"The Gallstone Agency," I said, pulling up a chair, "is listening."

"Three months ago," began Sid, "I'm out walking off a king-size hangover. It's ungodly early in the morning, maybe ten or eleven, and as I pass Grauman's Chinese I see this Venus DeMille standing there trying to fit one of her cute little tootsies into a footprint of maybe Betty Grable. She is wearing what I can best describe as a form-fitting ensemble. You know?"

"I know."

"Topographically speaking, she is utterly fantastic! I saunter up to this remarkable doll and inform her that I am a producer of the first water and would she like to be in flicks. She smiles like I was maybe her long lost mother and says that is just what she came to town for. She's fresh from somewhere ten miles south of Hickville and her name, so help me Gawd, is Nannie Daren-dinger."

"Ouch!"

"Exactly my reaction. I snaps out with a new tag right off. Your name from here on, says I, is Marla Marsh. She giggles. Fine. Will she do an ape picture with me at Mammoth? You bet. Whammo! She's inked for Ug the Ape King. I hustle her off to my abode. I tell nobody about this one. But nobody. We shoot the flick in five days. Low budget, but good. Quality ape stuff. And with this Darendinger dish in a tight sarong --WOW! The flick's in the can, sweetheart, and all I need now is the buildup. That's where you come in, Mick."

By now I am sold. A pair of genuine forty-ones could put the Gallstone Agency on top.

"When can I see said dish?"

"You name it, baby. Her time is your time."

"This afternoon. Tell you what, meet us an hour from now in Pickwick's bookshop. Can do?"

"Can do, Mick, but I fail to comprehend what kind of good a bookstore is going to do my ape picture."

"The public is fed to the teeth with the same ole brand of cheesecake," I said, strolling down memory lane and picking a tried-and-true gimmick at random (I should think up new ideas for a smalltimer like Halfrock?). "The public is hungry for originality. So OK. So you discover this doll reading the complete Greek tragedies, see. All that Sophocles jazz. She's a college grad, see. Knows the Brothers Karamazov by their first names. Interested in nothing but classics. Figures Steinbeck is crude. Class and breeding is what she's got to burn. Grace Kelly with a bosom. Follow me?"

"Yeah," Sid muttered darkly, "but the question is, what is a cultured doll like this doing in my ape picture?"

"That's the whole lovely gimmick! She's working for her master's degree in psychology."

"Yeah, but--"

"And she's doing her paper on The Psychological Manifestations of a Hollywood Career."

"Yeah, that sounds, Mick. That really sounds."

"So, you talk to her casual-like, and seeing as how you are always interested in the advancement of culture, you offer her a role in your ape flick, thereby giving her a crack at some first-hand research. We keep everything on a very high plane. To you, a forty-one inch bust is just something she happens to possess, like ten toes. See?"

"Yeah," Sid breathed. "Hey, this is great, Mick! You're building up her and me, all in the same time."

"Right. See you at Pickwick's in one hour. And listen, Sid, have her dressed in something educated, see. Like maybe a tweed suit. Got me?"

"Gotcha."

• • •

We arrived at Pickwick's a little early. My associate had his camera with him and we planned on a nice shot of her entering the joint with horn-rims on. I bought a pair at the corner 5 & 10 just for the occasion. Life, I figured, would eat this up.

A few minutes later Sid and the doll show. Even in the tweed she was a necksnapper. She had the face, too. Not the usual dumb-broad-type face, but a real nice face that could be cultured. This, I knew, was big-time.

Sid made the intros.

"Marla, honey, I want you should meet the A-number-One tip top publicity man in this here town--Mickey Gallstone."

"Hi."

"A pleasure, Miss Marsh." We shook hands.

Up close she was a real dazzler for sure. Hair so red you could paint the town with it, and the kind of deep-green eyes you want to fall right into. Her face looked like sculptured soap. Even without her spectacular equipment, she was indeed a staggering dish.

"My real name isn't Miss Marsh," she informed me brightly. "It's Nannie Darendinger."

I raised a warning finger about an inch in front of her pretty little nose. "Don't fall into the trap," I warned her, "of using your real name in Hollywood. To me, and to the world, you're Marla Marsh. Got me?"

She nodded.

"Can you read, doll?" I asked.

"Sure, I read a lot."

"Whatcha read mostly?"

"All the movie magazines and sometimes a book."

"What kinda book?"

"Romance. Vina Velmar and Vicki Vane and--"

"Nuts! From now on you read classics, see? I will send my associate down to the main library and he will make a list of one hundred of the classiest classics and we will purchase all one hundred of these books and you will be seen carrying one or two of them where-ever you go. Got me?"

"Oh, I could never ever read a hundred books in my whole life, Mr. Gallstone!"

"You don't actually read them, honey, you just carry them."

"Oh."

• • •

We took pics of Marla coming into the store with glasses on and we took pics of her leafing through The Iliad and The Collected Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and gunch like that, and then we knocked off for coffee. I was feeling pretty great about then.

In the java shop she took off her coat and I got my first look at my future bank account. I have seen figures and I have seen figures, but take it from ole Mickey, this doll had them all backed off the map.

"Did I lie?" asked Sid.

"You didn't lie," I said.

"Golly," said this cute bundle, sitting herself down, "I just think Hollywood is the most dreamy place! Mr. Halfrock has been so nice to me, putting me in his wonderful picture and letting melive in his apartment and everything."

She opened her purse and handed me a stack of movie stills. "The first one is my very favorite," she sighed. "It shows me in a sarong, screaming. Mr. Halfrock said to pretend that a huge insane elephant was just leaping out of the jungle right at me."

The snap was a real doozy. The sarong was threatening to burst at the seams under the pressure of those forty-one beautiful inches.

"How'd you manage to keep the thing on?" I inquired, genuinely curious.

"I didn't." She giggled. "I mean, not all the way. It would slip when I ran and Mr. Halfrock had me running all through the picture. They'd have to stop the cameras until I adjusted things."

"Yeah," said Sid. "We had one hell of a time with the sarong."

"Did you know that all the boulders and things are just cardboard?" Marla asked me. "They had the weeds and stuff stuck into wooden blocks like Christmas trees. It was all so exciting. They even had a whole river that wasn't real at all, just a long tank filled with water with all those weeds and fake things along the sides. The natives even had rubber spears!"

"Guess you enjoyed playing next to Jimmy Weisenhoffer," I said. "He played Simba, the Jungle Lord, for God knows how many years over at RKM before Sid got him for the ape."

"I know. Mr. Weisenhoffer was simply wonderful. He'd laugh and then he'd pinch me. Always pinching me and laughing. I felt honored playing in a picture with a big star like Mr. Weisenhoffer."

"Trouble with Jimmy," said Sid, "he eats too much. Got fat as a pig in June over at RKM. That's why they gave him the ole heave-ho. We don't want no fat slob playing Simba, they told him, and--whap!--he's out on his can. I signed him for the ape, but I told him he'd have to ease off the heavy-eating kick."

"He didn't look fat in your last flick," I put in.

"Well, an ape can get away with a little extra beef. You don't go to movies to see skinny apes. Playing an ape, he's OK."

"His fur kept tickling me," Marla said. "He'd kiss me and I'd start to giggle and Mr. Halfrock would yell, 'Cut!'"

"Yeah," said Sid. "We had one hell of a time with the fur."

I handed back the stills.

"Got mighty big plans for this doll," announced Sid, patting Marla on the cheek. "Got a whole new series under way. After Ug the Ape King, we hit 'em with Ug the Ape King and his Mate. Then--"

"Who's his mate?" I interrupted.

"Marla, natch! Who else?"

"How come, if he's an ape, he falls for a girl?"

Sid looked at me with disbelief. "My Gawd," he said, "if you were an ape, wouldn't you fall for a girl with a fortyone inch bust?"

"I see what you're getting at."

(concluded on page 72)Build-Up(continued from page 22)

"Hell, the whole lousy picture pivots around the bust, is all!" declared Sid, with some heat. "Besides, the public expects apes and crud like that to fall for girls. Ever see King Kong? The Creechur from the Black Lagoon? All them monster-types got an eye for the ladies. Don't give me a hard time, Mick-boy."

I conceded his point. "OK already," I said. "So what comes next?"

"Next we go into Ug the Ape King Finds the Lost City. Marla here is the Great White Goddess and like that. Long hair, gauzy robes, no bra; sure-fire stuff, the Goddess bit. After that, we knock 'em dead with Ug the Ape King and the Elephants' Burial Ground, Ug the Ape King and the Forgotten Treasure, Ug the Ape King Finds the Missing Link and Ug the Ape King Goes West (got a lotta footage left over from Gunsmoke Gulch). Then we get off on a science-fiction kick. Ug the Ape KingGoes to the Moon, Ug the Ape King Goes to Mars, and et cetera."

"What happens when you run out of planets?" I asked.

"Ug the Ape King Goes to the Asteroids," Said Sid. "And when we run outa them, we make up new ones. Who knows from asteroids?"

"And would I be in all these pictures, Mr. Halfrock?" Marla asked.

"Hell yes, chicken, that's the whole idea."

"How about," I suggested, "Ug the Ape King Meets the Snake Queen of Saturn? Marla plays the Snake Queen. You know, where the top half is a beautiful doll and the bottom half is a snake, like with a mermaid?"

"Now there," exploded Sid, "is what I call a classic idea!" He rocked back in his chair, eyes slitted. "A whole damn planet of nothing but snake people. We put the whole cast in snake outfits and they hiss." He demonstrated by hissing loudly. A passing waitress almost dropped a tray. "We could have Make-Up sew long glittering tails on the whole cast."

"With black sequins," Marla enthused, "sprinkled here and here." She showed us where and where.

"Wow!" exclaimed Sid. "A smash!"

"What about dialogue?" I put in. "I mean, if the whole cast just goes around hissing all through the picture then the audience won't know what's going on."

"A thought," admitted Sid. "Something to consider. Maybe we could work out a kind of snake language with lots of hissing on the s's." He was silent for a moment. "Ug could fall in love with the Snake Queen and save her from the raging volcano," he said.

"They got volcanoes on Saturn?" I asked.

"From now on," Sid assured me, "they got volcanoes."

"I think it's all just wonderful!" bubbled Marla.

"What I'm wondering about," Sid said, frowning, "is one thing."

"Is?"

"What's the public gonna think when they see our college chick forgetting all about picking up her master's degree?"

"Cinch. She realizes how much of real life she's missed by living the bookish way. She kisses goodbye to her degree for a Tinseltown career."

"It's real," muttered Sid, "it's believable."

"Just leave your worries to ole Mick. In three sweet months I'll have the name of Marla Marsh as well-known as Grape-Nuts Flakes."

• • •

One month later I was in the office up to my ears in Marla Marsh publicity. Already a couple of local papers and a movie daily had run stories on Marla. Her picture had appeared in a national magazine as "the intellectual find of the year."My associate almost goofed that one. He snapped her holding Dante upside down. We caught the print in time. Close.

The phone rang.

"Mick, is it you, Mick?" The voice belonged to Sid Halfrock. He sounded bad. Real bad.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Everything. Everything's wrong."

"Well, clue me in."

"I told myself it was all too good to be true. You just plain don't run into forty-ones every day in the week."

"Is all this about Marla?"

"Who else? Oh, Mick, I got a terrible thing to tell you."

"Hit me."

"Nannie Darendinger is as flat as an ironing board!"

I fell heavily into a chair, gasping for breath.

"But, Sid, I thought you guaranteed me that--"

"I did, I did. I could have sworn they were the real McCoy."

"Well, good Lord man, didn't you make sure?"

"Course I made sure. She lived right in my apartment for three months didn' she?"

"Then I don't see how--"

"Listen, and I'll tell you."

"Go on," I said weakly, "tell me."

"Turns out she works for some big outfit back in New York. They picked her out especially and fixed her up with their new fool-proof plastic rig so real you just can't tell it's not. They engineered the whole deal, her coming out here and all, as a publicity stunt for their lousy product. Figured that if Hollywood accepted her she'd be in clover. Today, the absolute most horrible day of my entire life, right in the middle of an interview with maybe fifty dozen scribes and photogs, she slips out of this rig, holds it up above her head and, in a voice like a state senator's, shouts out that Deceivo-Bosoms, Inc. has made her the success she is today and that, for twenty-five lousy bucks, any dame in the world can have the same success. I tell you, Mickey, we are done. We are ruined men."

My associate had to bring in some smelling salts before I was able to get out of the chair.

• • •

That all happened three months ago. Today, I am about as far from being a ruined man as you can get. In fact, as the old saying goes, I have got it made. My penthouse suite is on the top of a thirty story building in the heart of New York, and I have three delicious bundles around to type up whatever I can think of, and I have got also three leather couches in my office. I'm still in publicity, but not in Hollywood.

I'm in full and complete charge of publicity for Deceivo-Bosoms, Inc. And my new wife's name is Nannie.

What the hell, even I can't tell the difference!

She was interested in nothing but classics