The Last Don - Mario Puzo [60]
She hungered for fame and success to obliterate her past, to drown her memories of Boz Skannet, of the child they had together, of the betrayal by her beauty; a sly fairy godmother’s boon.
Like any artist, she wanted the world to love her. She knew she was beautiful—how could she not, her world constantly told her so—but she knew also she was intelligent. And so from the beginning she believed in herself. What she really could not believe, at the beginning, was that she had the indispensable ingredients of true genius: enormous energy and concentration. And curiosity.
Acting and music were Athena’s true loves, and to be able to concentrate on these things she used her energy to make herself expert in everything else. She learned to fix a car, became a superb cook, excelled at sports. She studied lovemaking in the literature and in life, knowing how important it was in her chosen profession.
She had a flaw. She could not bear to inflict pain on a fellow human being, and since in this life this was impossible to avoid, she was an unhappy woman. Yet she made hard-nosed decisions that furthered her place in the world. She used her power as a Bankable Star; she sometimes had a coldness that was as intense as her beauty. Powerful men beseeched her to appear in their movies, men begged to climb into her bed. She influenced, even demanded, the choosing of directors and costars. She could commit minor crimes without punishment, outrage custom, defy nearly all moralities, and who was to say who was the real Athena? She had the inscrutability of all Bankable Stars, she was a twin, you could not separate her real life from the lives she lived on screen.
All this and the world loved her, but that was not enough. She knew her inner ugliness. There was one person who did not love her and that caused her to suffer. It is part of the definition of an actress that she will despair if she gets one hundred positive reviews and a single hateful one.
At the end of her first five years in Los Angeles, Athena got her first starring role in film and made her greatest conquest.
Like all top male stars, Steven Stallings had a veto over the female leading role of each of his pictures. He saw Athena in a Mark Taper Forum play and recognized her talent. But even more he was struck by her beauty, and so he chose Athena to costar with him in his next film.
Athena was completely surprised and flattered. She knew this was her big break, and initially she did not know why she had been chosen. Her agent, Melo Stuart, enlightened her.
They were in Melo’s office, a wonderfully decorated room with Oriental bric-a-brac, gold-threaded carpets, and heavy comfortable furniture all bathed in artificial lights since the curtains were closed to cut out daylight. Melo liked an English tea in his office rather than going out for lunch and picked up the little sandwiches and popped them into his mouth as he talked. He only went out to lunch with his really famous clients.
“You deserve this break,” he told Athena. “You’re a great actress. But you’ve only been in this town a few years and despite your intelligence you’re a little green. So don’t take offense about what I’m going to say—here’s what happened.” He paused for a moment. “Usually I would never explain this, usually it’s not necessary.”
“But I’m so green,” Athena said smiling.
“Not green exactly,” Melo said. “But you’re so focused on your art, you sometimes seem unaware of the social complexi-ties of the industry.”
Athena was amused. “So tell me how I got the part.”
Melo said, “Stallings’s agent called me. He said Stallings saw you in the Taper play and was knocked out by your performance. He definitely wants you in the picture. Then the producer called me to negotiate and we made the deal. Straight salary, two hundred grand, no points, that comes later in your career, and no strings for any other picture. That’s a really great deal for you.”
“Thank you,” Athena said.
“I really shouldn’t have to be saying this,” Melo said. “Steven