Chapter 19: Revelations

“WHAT?!” I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was staring at Miss Marcia la Mare, actress, Hollywood sweetheart, recent widow of wealthy actor and world wide heart-throb, clean-cut all-American hero ... and she was silently mouthing with her lips to me that her husband was a Queer, a homosexual, with a same-sex husband.

It simply didn’t add up. They were the perfect Hollywood couple. Everybody said so. Both were respectively the dream man and dream woman of popular culture. She had even told me that she loved him, would always love him, even though death doth part, etc.

“Yes, it is true. Edgar, believe me. When we met I didn’t know him that way, of course. Nobody knew then, nobody knows now. The night we met and I was attacked by some randy old movie director —”

“Whom you beat up, incidentally.”

“Yes, I did. Ok, maybe I exaggerated a little, but with some scratching and well-aimed kicks with my high heels on. I certainly deterred him and he was definitely not going to attack any other young actresses in a hurry.”

“And that was when Gold realised that you could look after yourself, and he also knew that created a problem for you, as presumably some Hollywood directors would close ranks and deny your film career a second chance?”

“That’s absolutely right, if it got out that I was trouble and not willing to ... you know ... give out my favors for film parts in return, I was finished in my career before I got started. But Brad came lookin’ for me because he had heard I was an innocent, with at least some potential, and was just about to become an unwillin’ victim. I suppose when he saw that I was prepared to stand up for myself and not give in to the easy path, gave him food for thought about how he could help himself out of the position he was in.”

“The fact,” I deduced, “that in the promiscuous society of actors and actresses, his preferences would soon be discovered, and his image as the adventurous hero with a huge following of female filmgoers probably damaged beyond repair?”

“Yes, he had been a minor star of silent action movies for some time and, with his deep melodious voice and the attractive British accent that he was born with came through crisp and clear in his first talkies, which were just coming onto the screen at that time. So, he was being thrust even more into the limelight, and he and his father were becoming increasingly concerned about discovery of his sexual orientation.”

“Ah, this where Alfred Gold became involved?”

“Yes. Alfred knew his son, and knew the problem future he faced as a queer, should his secret be exposed. After we had spoken together with Alfred about what had really happened and Alfred had dealt with the director, he took us both out to dinner.”

“Even though they had a chef living in?”

“Yes, Brad and his father had clearly already spoken together about what Brad had in mind for me, while I was taken away to get cleaned up and found a suitable dining dress by Alfred’s then recently new wife, Caroline. Caroline was about Brad’s age and had also either discovered or been made aware of Brad’s problem for the Studio. He was their biggest asset, in his mid-thirties, and had still not had a regular girlfriend, yet no real reputation for living a playboy lifestyle, despite having lots of single dates. The time was right for him to move from supposed rich young playboy to a rock-steady married family man. Rumours were probably already starting about his sexuality, but I knew nothing about that, of course, I was too new to the scene. That also added to my appeal. Caroline told me that Brad dated a lot of leading ladies, but for never more than a few dates, and that he was simply looking for the right girl.”

“So, Caroline was setting you up for romance, but without telling you the full story?”

“Yes, I suppose that was partly so, as she was giving me hints about how put off he was by most women, particularly actresses ambitious beyond their talents. But I took her to mean promiscuous girls, not the female gender in total. Edgar, you have to consider that I was an innocent, a completely naïve young woman, a teenage country girl raised in Hicksville, and born in the Bible Belt. I was beginning to believe from Caroline’s hints that I had a chance to make an impression on my heroic rescuer. Me, who had never had a proper boyfriend before, was trying on all these fabulous gowns, by a glamorous ex-actress who appeared to be in league with little old me, in order to impress her step-son, the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood.”

“While you were thinking this, they were actually dressing you up to impress the rest of Hollywood at a popular restaurant,” I said. “If they just wanted to feed you, they could have dined you at home?”

She nodded, as she finished the last mouthful of sandwich. The ever-attentive Nippy came in on cue to clear the debris, and fetch the scones, jam and cream. We waited until she departed before continuing.

“Exactly. It took me a few dates with Brad before I realised that it wasn’t really a virgin he wanted as a bride, but a nun. By then we had already hit it off as friends and I was very comfortable in his presence. You could say he was a perfect gentleman, and in respect of my safety he was, but he was also attentive, funny, interested in me and my silly stories from childhood and home. So I approached Brad about what his intentions were towards me and by now he trusted me enough to come clean about himself. He was honest and explained how the arrangement of our engagement, followed by marriage, protected us both in our chosen industry to our mutual benefit. It was then that I realised that he was right, the plan he and his father proposed would work for me too, not having to be afraid of directors or pushy leadin’ men. After all, who could possibly compete with the most beautiful man on the planet? And for Brad, he could pretend to all his leading ladies and predatory starlets that he was committed and totally in love with only one woman, me.”

“Was your family happy about this arrangement; I mean, what about children?”

“My family never knew. And I see no point in telling them anything otherwise. Children?...” she paused with a faraway look. “I thought I could retire to my ranch when I reached thirty or thirty-five, about the time when my bloom on the big screen finally faded, and didn’t have need to deal with randy directors and frisky leading men any more. I thought I could quietly get a Reno divorce from Brad at that point, find myself a new husband, and raise my children as well as a couple of herds of cows and horses.”

“And the Gold family encouraged this strange match?”

“Yes. It seemed to fit well with them, too. Alfred personally shunned self-publicity. He loved to be anonymous, especially after his first divorce. I later found out it was a very acrimonious affair and cost him a fortune. He had been having indiscreet affairs and Brad’s mother took him to the cleaners. After his second divorce, he became almost reclusive. His third wife Caroline was a realist, she was a beautiful looking actress, but was a disaster as an ageing silent movie actress with a heavy New Jersey accent. She sounded OK in normal conversation, but when her voice was projected for acting on a sound stage, the recordings were very unkind to her, and made her sound shrill. So, when Alfred eventually sought a new young wife, Caroline gave up the acting struggle to become the loving wife of an old and wealthy film studio owner who had learned his lesson. The last thing she wanted was for their biggest asset, Brad Gold, facing a scandal that could pull the Studio down.”

The jam with the cream tea was a damson, and quite tasty, I thought, as I took all this new information in. Of course I had come across queer men before in my experience. They tended to fall into two camps, either they were wealthy and powerful and relied on being able to prey on young men, rather like Mary’s director had with young actresses, or they were poor and tended to become the victims of rape and degradation, like Mary could have been trapped into a system of being passed from director to director.

These poor victims were often part of the serious cases of murder or violence that I was involved in, either where the victim turned on the master, or the master went too far and killed his victim. I could see where Brad Gold and Marcia la Mare’s ‘happy marriage’ arrangement was a good fit for both parties.

“So, the Gold parents and son took you out on the first evening to a high profile restaurant in front of a well-connected public for what looked like a family dinner?”

“A rather odd family dinner,” she smiled. “Actually, Caroline apologised to me, saying that she couldn’t possibly come with us. That lovely lady made me up expertly to look more glamorous than I could ever have managed on my own at that time. She had smiled as she told me that there was no way she would ever dress down to concede the focus of attention to another woman, me, so she stayed at home and probably had a better meal from their chef than we had in this swanky restaurant.”

“Whatever happened to Caroline?” I asked.

“Oh, they are still happily married, they are good together and, when Alfred passes on, she will still be a wealthy woman and be free to do whatever she pleases. In some respects, we are very similar, and my mother in law Caroline has become one of my best friends, certainly my best friend in the movie business. We meet up all the time, obviously spending a lot of the time in full public gaze —”

“To help promote the myth of your happy marriage within a solid traditional family?” I interjected.

“Yes Edgar,” she replied, her eyes sad but fully focused on mine so I knew the absolute truth of it, “my marriage was a sham, has always been so, and I am sorry that I didn’t trust you enough to own up until now. I will always regret that, but you must be aware that no-one, not even the dearest people to me, my family, has any idea that my marriage to Brad was merely one of mutual convenience only. And yes, I did love him, although impossible as it may seem, and in his way I believe he was loyal and true to both his ‘lovers’, the woman he officially married but could never consummate his relationship with, and his male sweetheart, who also loved him strongly enough to never reveal their shared secrets.”

“My dear, your earlier reticence on this highly personable subject sounds perfectly reasonable to me and I completely respect the reasons for your actions in preserving your privacy.” I said, whispering to ensure the Nippy couldn’t overhear. “And you can be sure that I will never reveal any secrets about yourself or Mr Gold, or his lover. The entertainment industry is not the only one seeded with homosexuals, Mary. I believe they are far more numerous than anyone truly suspects. As a disabled man working successfully in a highly charged environment, I was often approached by colleagues, regarded as someone with a reputation as a sympathetic and completely discrete adviser for all manner of personal problems, including homosexuality. In this country, practising male homosexuality is a criminal offence, yet there are no penalties for female homosexuality. I believe that for most queer fellows, they can no more help being what they are than if they were born left- or right-handed.”

Mary squeezed both my hands in hers and smiled with the warmth reminiscent of a mother ... or even a lover.

She continued, smiling, “It was funny, I recall, that first evening of the rest of my life. There we were at this fabulous restaurant, a big Studio boss, rarely seen in public, his box office superstar son, and me, an inexperienced teenage want-to-be starlet that barely anyone knew the name of. We were being seen by everyone, dining and dancing together. I even danced one dance with Alfred. There I was, thinking this was a dream, dancing with the best leading man in the business, and being blissfully unaware that to everyone in Hollywood it looked like the eternal bachelor Bradford Gold was introducing his first serious girlfriend to his father for his approval. To all the world, and believe me Edgar, the whole world was watching every minute detail of what was going on, it looked like the girl was young and cute, the son was smitten and the father approved the match.”

“So Gold was a very good actor even then?”

“They both were. Brad explained what they were doing, not then of course, but about a few weeks or so later when we sat down in his suite, had our first frank discussion and started to plan the engagement.” She relaxed and laughed. “Oh! What a first week that was after that little dinner date! It was a whirlwind. I couldn’t go back to my shared apartment that first night. Caroline insisted I stayed in the guest suite in their wing of the house, while Brad had a suite in the other wing. Talking of wings, Caroline took me under her wing and we have been firm friends ever since, as I said. The next day, she persuaded me to stay and move permanently into the guest suite. Meanwhile, Alfred was talking about me appearing in three movies, the first two quite small but important parts, that they were sure would get me noticed if I played them well enough, and the third movie would be the one that I had auditioned for, where I would play the female lead and Brad drafted in to replace the original intended male lead.”