A Star of the First Magnitude

"And when the last trumpet blows, we shall find him up yonder, arms outstretched, on one knee, exhorting us to come to God even as he exhorted us in life to come to Loew's State. For who among us can forget how he filled the theatres of the world, yea unto capacity, to hear his mighty voice lifted in that great song Little Man, Dry Your Tears, which won the Academy Award in 1937..."

The service was being conducted out of doors in the natural amphitheatre which was the principal asset and selling point of the Cemetery of the Heavenly Rest—that, and its convenience to the Freeway. The colonnaded crypt stood on the crest of a little hill reaching thirty feet into the sky. Under the dome was a bronze larger-than-life statue of Jeb Carol in that characteristic pose, on one knee, arms outstretched to the heavens, as if begging admission.

"And as the little children of the world shed their tears for the great singer of songs, star of stage, screen, radio and television, might we not pause in our everlasting pursuit of fame and gold..."

Jerry Seldin, screenwriter and true friend of the deceased, was counting the house, a stratagem he frequently used to distract himself from Abner Cantrill's dreadful prose. He'd caught Abner's act at many funerals, and the juxtaposition of God and Loew's State which once amused him, now annoyed him. Sign of age, perhaps? The winter of discontent? Jerry counted the first row and multiplied. Four thousand, at least. Everybody who wasn't dodging taxes in Switzerland or making a picture in Ceylon or getting a divorce in Las Vegas. Hollywood might be only a shell of its old self, but it still staged its obsequies with grandeur.

"Oh, ye heavenly host!" Abner Cantrill, former comedian, master of ceremonies at ten thousand banquets, charged five thousand dollars for his eulogies, but for that, just like those expensive dolls from F.A.O. Schwarz, he gushed real tears. The hired tears were cascading now: "Ye heavenly angels! Take this man unto your bosom! Bind up his wounds! Take him into your midst..."

"But stay out of poker games with him," Muttered Jerry. "He'll steal the feathers off you."

"Sssh," said Titus Berg, who sat next to him.

Jerry subsided. After all, he was Titus' guest. Otherwise he wouldn't have been in the fifth row. Screenwriters were way back in the pack, fourteenth row at least. The fifth was a row for Very Important People. Next to Titus was Scraggs Rampart, whose flashing blade had swashbuckled through a hundred pictures, not all of them about pirates. At fifty, he was still marvelously handsome, even when drunk, which he was. With him was his current sweetmeat, Thursday Schwartz, the new teenage sensation, sixteen years old and five feet two inches of delectable ponytailed juvenile delinquency. ("Built like a brick doll's house," Harry Kurnitz once said of her.) Next to Thursday were Sheila Ramsbottom, the syndicated columnist whose column ran in 585 newspapers from Nome to Bangkok; Harold Eden, the silent comedian and the only one there who could claim seniority to Jeb in pictures; old H.P. himself, head of the mighty studio which had made forty million dollars out of Jeb's pictures. And, of course, Titus, head of the largest talent agency in the world, Machiavellian hatcher of infinitely complex deals. In Titus' huge bald cranium, a dozen mutual irrelevancies—say, the marital problems of Scraggs Rampart who might want to blow the country for a bit, the tax loopholes in Yugoslavia, the availability of a costume novel the Berg agency had been unable to unload—all coalesced into a lovely package deal, the forerunner of a Technicolor extravaganza probably called The Temples of Wickedness starring Scraggs (continued on page 125) Star of the first magnitude (Continued from page 73) Rampart, using bits of the costume novel, and shot in Yugoslavia with the Yugoslavian cavalry, which would earn six million dollars.

Jerry sighed. It was a lovely funeral by any Hollywood standard – size, splendor, sheer foolishness – and the late Jeb Carol would have hated everything about it. Every single last detail. Jeb despised Abner Cantrill. "If that gasbag delivers the eulogy over mah remains," he had said more than once in that twangy voice known and beloved by millions, "I sweah I'm agoin' to git right out of my coffin an' spit in his eye." Jeb had wanted a simple Jewish funeral in the synagogue where his father had been a cantor. Above all, Jeb had not wanted to be buried in the Cemetery of the Heavenly Rest. He wanted to be buried in the Cedars of Lebanon where his friends lay, where lay practically everyone of prominence in pictures. Cedars of Lebanon contained the last mortal vestiges of Jeri Eaton, the blonde bombshell and Jeb's first wife who had dieted and drunk herself to death at the age of twenty-five; of Hank La Verne, greatest of the baggypants comedians who had starred with Jeb in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925; of Mort Thrall, the boy wonder producer who had brought Jeb to Hollywood, and many, many others. The Cemetery of the Heavenly Rest had no such luminous roster. It was a new cemetery, and its handsome slopes were almost entirely untenanted by any souls, great or small.

But nothing was ever simple in Hollywood. A lunch date could mean the difference between oblivion or world fame. A funeral of so great a man as Jeb Carol was fraught with cosmic implications. Warner Brothers was interested in doing a sequel to The Carol Story which had made ten million dollars. The sequel would be called The Last of Jeb Carol and would – if Titus Berg could work out a capital gains deal – star Rock Hudson mouthing the words to Jeb's recorded voice.

"But it needs a strong finish. A big finish," Titus had told the outraged widow. "A simple little Jewish funeral won't do at all. You can't handle the rabbis. They have no sense of picture values at all, those fellows."

"I don't care about any picture," Sarah Carol sobbed. "Jeb wanted a simple little Jewish funeral and he's goin' to get what he wants. Mah husband despised Abner Cantrill and I'm not goin' to have that man at his funeral. And Jeb's goin' to be buried in Cedars of Lebanon where his friends are."

Sarah was a hillbilly girl Jeb had met and married on one of his endless farewell tours. In spite of thirty years' difference in their ages, it had been a happy marriage. Jerry had been called away to New York in the middle of the argument over the funeral plans. But he had been confident that the steely little widow would have her way. It came as a shock when he found she'd given in all along the line. Jerry stole a glance at the gleaming cranium of Titus Berg. Wheels within wheels going around up there. He had got his big finish. But why in this cemetery?

In the great traffic jam after the funeral, Titus Berg's Rolls-Royce was stalled right next to Scraggs Rampart's Mercedes. Titus, who never missed an opportunity to do business, leaned out the window: "Scraggs, we have a little novel in the office – Pirates from peru – which is just you all over. Modern pirates this time. You could film most of it on your own yacht."

Scraggs stopped nuzzling Thursday Schwartz and turned his handsome drunken countenance to Titus: "Crazy!" he said beatifically.

"And, Scraggs," persisted Titus. He swept the horizon with his arm, "Nice cemetery! Very nice. Not crowded like Cedars of Lebanon. In case you're looking . . ."

"I'll dance on your grave, you ghoul," roared Scraggs and went back to mouthing little Miss Thursday.

Titus leaned back on the soft leather cushions of the Rolls: "He'll be next, you mark my words, Jerry. The way he's hitting the bottle. He'll be here, too. He's very unhappy about the way they're treating him at Cedars of Lebanon."

"Titus, how much stock do you own in this cemetery?" asked Jerry.

It was a shot in the dark and it hit nothing.

"Not a dime!" cried Titus. "Cross my heart like you Christians do. Not a penny. Believe me, Jerry."

Jerry believed him. He believed him because it was too simple for that infinitely devious middle-European mind. Darker forces were at work. The Rolls inched its way forward again and Titus tapped on the glass with his cane.

"Oscar," he said, "turn right up ahead. It will get us out of this jam. And I want to show Mr. Seldin my plot."

"Your plot?" said Jerry, surprised. The pieces were beginning to slip into place. "What happened to your plot in Cedars of Lebanon?"

"I sold it." Titus leaned back and closed his eyes, the picture of patient suffering. "They treated me very badly at Cedars of Lebanon. They are getting very arrogant there – just because they have a few movie stars." The voice was unexpectedly bitter.

"A little plot about so big – nine by nine. Way up in the northeast corner. Who would go up to the northeast corner, Jerry? Nobody. The stars are all down at the south end. You know that, Jerry. I tried to be reasonable with them but they seemed to think an agent was of no consequence. Well, of course, maybe I am not a big name to the public like Jeri Eaton or maybe even like Mort Thrall, but I am nevertheless a big man in this business, Jerry. Who fought old man Zukor to get the stars a little billing on the pictures, Jerry? Who fought Lewis Selznick to get the first five-year contract? Who got the first capital gains deal for an author? I ask you in all humbleness, Jerry, who? Should I be buried in a little plot nine by nine in the northeast corner?"

The Rolls had turned right at the intersection of the cemetery roads and now, out of the traffic, it rolled smoothly up a little hill through a grove of trees. Titus pointed out each of the beauty spots. "A lovely spot, you see, Jerry. In case you're shopping around."

"I'm biding my time." "We all have to go, Jerry." "I may not. I like it here."

"You mark my words, they'll be getting the big ones here now. They needed a star of the first magnitude. The biggest one before Jeb was Lamkin of Lamkin and Croft. You remember the comedy team, Jerry? It wasn't enough. Lamkin was only the straight man. If they'd had them both ..."

"But now they've got a star of the first magnitude," said Jerry wearily.

Titus was on the defensive. "I had to look elsewhere, Jerry. But what could I do? Could I be buried with nonentities – me who handled the biggest – Valentino, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore? Space they got plenty of over here, but it was full of nobodies. Lamkin, for God's sake A straight man! Could I be buried with a Straight man? I'm only sixty-two, Jerry. I've got a good ten years and by that time this place will be awash with the big stars. That Scraggs Rampart. He'll be next – the way he's hitting the bottle . . ."

You always aimed at the weakest point.That's the way Titus did business, he had confided once to Jerry. When faced with a wall of arguments, ask for a little concession, only a little one. That's the hole in the dike and after a while the whole wall comes down. The change of cemetery had been the little concession, Jerry guessed. After that the simple little Jewish service and Abner Cantrill had probably been easy.

"Titus, when I left for the East, Sarah was absolutely determined that Jeb be buried in the Cedars of Lebanon. What happened to change her mind?"

Titus clucked solemnly. "They treated her very badly at Cedars of Lebanon, Jerry. Very badly. So little consideration. Sarah was furious. Tore her clothes and everything."

"Who tore her clothes?"

"The reporters, those wolves. It was the first time Sarah had left the house since Jeb died, and the press turned out in full force. Three hundred of them, asking all sorts of terrible questions – like how much money Jeb left her. She'd just come over to inspect the burial site and talk over plans for the funeral. It was very foolish of Cedars of Lebanon to tip off the reporters she was coming."

It sounded improbable to Jerry, an old Hollywood hand. Cedars of Lebanon had been burying famous actors for forty years. The staff had much more sense than to unloose the press on a defenseless widow making her first sortie from her home after a death in the family. Also, it would take a huge organization to tip off three hundred reporters, an outfit as big as the Berg agency, which had done such things often.

Jerry sighed. In the South Seas, they hid the body to keep the devils from desecrating it, but in Hollywood the devils were too numerous and too clever and too ruthless. Where could you hide a body from a brain like Titus Berg's?

The Rolls had stopped at the crest of a hill which commanded a view of the whole cemetery. The ground fell away sharply to the grove of trees they had passed. Far below was the colonnaded crypt where Jeb Carol lay. This was a much more imposing site.

Titus was speaking again, softly, his eyes half closed: "I found a little Doric temple last summer in the Greek isles. They say Praxiteles had a hand in it." Titus coughed deprecatingly. "Mind you, I'm not saying he did, but it's of the same period and Praxiteles is known to have done some work around that area. The temple will go right on the crest of the hill. Under it – just a simple headstone with the words 'He molded their destinies.' Then just a few names of the great ones I handled – Valentino, Milton Sills, Rin Tin Tin."

The afternoon sunshine slanting down through the smog glinted on the new marble of Jeb's mausoleum in the distance. The last of the limousines was just passing through the gates of the cemetery. Jerry lit a cigarette.

"It's a very nice site, Titus. How much did you pay for it?"

Titus grunted with the deep satisfaction of a maker of deals: "Not a penny. They gave it to me." He pointed. "All the way from those trees to that little marble stone over there and up to the road. It was very generous of them."

"Least they could do," said Jerry briefly. He surveyed the patch of land with his eyes, measuring it visually against the whole cemetery. It appeared to be roughly ten percent.