The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [186]
“Abrams was reputed to be the most private person in Hollywood. No one really knew him, he had no real friends, just business acquaintances, but he really liked Dick. Dick would go to his big house on Lexington Drive several times a week to watch new movies or the day’s rushes. They would have supper, always very formal with servants and all, but C. Z. never told Dick anything personal about himself. All he knew of him was that he was a devout Jew who kept the Sabbath strictly.
“Anyway, the day that Dick came round to see us Azaylee came rushing in from dance class. It was one of her really good days and she was vivacious and alive and really pleased to see him. She was fourteen years old and of course she was beautiful, in that unusual way of hers— all enormous pansy-gold eyes and a great tumble of platinum hair. She was tall for her age and still too thin, but she had beautiful legs and a sort of dancer’s grace in the way she moved and walked.
“I noticed Dick looking at her interestedly and I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when he said, ‘You know, Missie, Azaylee is made for the movies. The cameras would just love her and so would the audiences.’
“I shook my head and smiled. I said she was way too young to think about that, and then he said something that really surprised me.
“I really hate to tell tales out of school,” he began, and then he grinned and said maybe he should rephrase that, because what he wanted to say was that Azaylee had been skipping high school and doing the rounds of the studios, lying about her age and looking for work as a dancer or an extra—anything, just as long as she could be part of the magical movie world.
“Of course, she had been unsuccessful because she was so obviously a child pretending to be a woman. But he said that if that was what she really wanted to do, then why didn’t I let him take some tests of her and maybe get her a small role in his next movie? He would guarantee to look after her personally, guard her with his life if necessary, and he’d bet his Oklahoma boots she would be a star before too long.
“I told him again that she was too young, that I would forbid her ever to go near the studios until she was at least sixteen. This was 1928 and Hollywood had changed. It was a boom town now. Rosa and I owned five houses along Fountain Avenue. Rosemont, where we now lived ourselves instead of in the little bungalow out back, was the smallest. The studios were churning out film after film, Hollywood Boulevard was a proper thoroughfare clogged with traffic, and Beverly Hills was a proper town. A lot of the old stars were gone: Valentino dead; Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle ruined by scandal, murders, drugs; it was all going on by then. Hollywood had lost its innocence, you might say, along with our own young Bathing Beauties, who had found out that posing for nude photographs made them a great deal more money than being in Sennett’s line-up. You can see why it was not a world I really wanted a vulnerable, fragile child like Azaylee exposed to. I wanted her to stay in school and life to go on just as it was, with Rosa and the girls. No ups—no downs. I had finally found anonymity and I guess I just wanted to keep it.
“The talkies were just coming in and the whole industry was in a state of flux. No one seemed to know what would happen next and soon many of the old favorites would be gone, discarded by the once-sycophantic studios because their voices were said to be unsuitable. But of course it didn’t stop Azaylee haunting the studios even though I threatened her with