[FICATHON] These Few Days' Wonder, for lareinenoire
Title: These few days' wonder
Author: kerrypolka
Play: 2 Henry VI
Recipient: lareinenoire
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Humphrey Gloucester/Eleanor Cobham; Henry VI, Suffolk and Somerset, Margaret of Anjou
Warnings: swears
Rating: 15+
Summary: Look, you try to run a studio with Henry Junior's name on the deed and Beaufort and Pole breathing down your neck and see how far it gets you. Old Hollywood AU.
Of all the ladies, Miss Holly was the only one who'd talked to me like I was a person instead of a prop. Her nails were neatly done in bright red, and there was a splodge of ink on her left index finger as she waved her cigarette at me; I took a moment to remember to light it. She blew a stream of smoke straight up into the air.
Jacqueline Holly had never technically been a star. I remember watching her when she was a little girl in one of Mama's soaps, but when she'd grown up, she just hadn't taken to film. Sure, film had taken to her - she'd turned down four offers from three studios for full-time contracts, for more than what my parents' house was worth. She didn't want to be stuck, she said. The only leading role she'd ever had was in that Mexican Tennessee Williams picture, all hard and sharp and just too closed-mouthed for her co-stars to get on with. After that it was playing dark-haired other women, lurking in the background looking mysterious and clever - which as far as I could tell suited her fine. She didn’t need the money, not after the way her lawyers had done a number on her husbands.
Humphrey Lancaster was her much put upon newest model, or so the gossip would have it, but I couldn't see it. I'd seen him in the studio parking lot picking up all kinds of different girls, at least three different ones, with their hair different colours. Miss Holly I never saw with anybody but him. I mean, and her two other husbands, of course, but they hardly counted. So I wasn't exactly surprised when they split, although Mr Lancaster sure seemed to be. You could just tell he thought he'd be able to dip into her cash pot any time he liked, probably even to take his other lady friends around town - I bet he must have let out a real yelp when she let him know they were through. I didn’t see him for a week, with anyone or alone.
But you could tell Plantagenet Studios was getting older, and maybe just a bit wiser, because they stuck their little snotty lawyer brother on her. I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of Johnny Lancaster, that's for sure. He convinced a judge to fix a restraining order on her to keep her from anywhere in the vicinity of his poor hard done by kid brother - which meant no Hollywood, no parties and no films.
Last I heard Jackie Holly had bought the grandest villa on the Riviera and was entertaining Princess Grace and the Taylor-Burtons at a two-week-long cocktail party, so I'm not sure what that was supposed to accomplish exactly, but still - I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of Johnny Lancaster.
A bourbon, thanks. Straight up. Very kind.
What I mean is, how the hell was I supposed to know the little blonde girl was anybody? I see dozens of makeup girls and extras coming through every morning, how was I supposed to know this one was different? It was only when she marched up to Humpers and laid a big fat one on him that I had any idea, and by then it was too late. Humphrey stalked over and started grumping at me for not laying out the red carpet for Miss Eleanor Cobham - well excuse me, he hadn't demanded special treatment for any of his other lady friends before, and what am I supposed to do here, read minds?
But when he was done (and I didn’t take it personal, you know, actors), and they’d headed into the studio office and come back out, I watched them together, leaning against his car in the early evening sunlight and talking. Him reaching for his lighter before she’d even thought about a cigarette, her smoothing his jacket down like they’d been married twenty years, even though I know for a fact there are umbrellas he’s been in longer and more passionate relationships than her. I was surprised when I couldn’t think of a single other man I knew who looked at a lady like that, or a woman who looked at her guy like that. It was like they knew what each other would be thinking five minutes from now, and not even on purpose. When they left, they didn’t peel out like Humpers usually did with his lady friends - he had his arm around her, and she was laughing up at him, and they drove nice and slow like they were actually enjoying themselves.
Two days later it came out they’d driven all night to Vegas and got married in the small hours of the next morning. I won’t say I saw it coming, but I can’t say I was surprised, either.
After that the next year was one of the busiest I’ve seen Plantagenet Studios. Humphrey was so keen to get Miss Nora up to her rightful place above the film title, so he thought, and Miss Nora was angling to get him made chief executive - not that anyone would admit that’s what they were up to, but it was obvious enough. And if I may say so, rightly so - even after all of it I still say Humphrey Lancaster was the finest man to run that studio, and I don’t think York Bros. could have pulled the stunt they did if he’d been given free rein - but I’m ahead of myself. Both of them were in and out of the offices at all hours of the day and night, and in November 1959 they were the first (and so far, only) people to spend more hours on the lot than me, and I’ve got the timesheets to prove it.
The next time I saw Humpers he looked like he was gagging for a cigarette. I slipped over and handed him one; I figured it was part of the job. The reason for his dry-mouth-looking nerves turned up thirty seconds later: Junior, the studio's biggest asset and its biggest liability.
Junior's dad made more money in this town than anyone had every figured out how to do before or since, so far, and what's more he did it with style. You won't find anyone with a bad word to say about Harry, and as far as I can tell that's a one of a kind. Everyone has some enemies somewhere here, you know. I bet there's a valet driver who would kill to have my job and imagines he would fit my jacket just fine. But One-Take Harry Lancaster? I never heard anybody breathe a word against him. The camera loved him, directors loved him, women loved him, men loved him. Even his brothers loved him, and in this town that is a rarity.
But whatever Harry had, poor Junior just didn't. He'd been raised on soundstages and had a boom mic stuck in his face before he could walk, but that magic, that sparkle that would make people wait outside in the rain for hours just to get a chance of seeing the top of his head - nah. Sure, Johnny and Humpers pushed him hard - Junior just didn't have it.
So he half-runs up to Humphrey outside the studio office, all of seventeen years old, flushed red, waving away his uncle's cig and clutching a sheaf of paper as thick as my hand, which is a contract I've ever seen one, and Humphrey looked like he was about to burn it through with his eyes. "You can stop worrying about me now," Junior said, and bless him, he sounded like he genuinely believed it. "I've signed on with a PR agency. Beaufort and Pole."
I thought Humpers was going to choke.
"You know them?" Junior asked earnestly. If I were the sort to drink on the job I’d have given all my gin to Humphrey Lancaster then.
No, don't put yourself out. Another, and a brandy for my friend. Yeah, straight up. Yeah, both.
From then I didn't see Humpers and Miss Nora too much, although of course I wish I did - everyone who worked at the studio did. Miss Nora - I mean Mrs Lancaster - was the studio mother, really, and Humphrey was our gruff dad. Even though Junior's flicks still weren't doing too hot, and Plantagenet Studios was paying out half a million a year to retain the services of Beaufort and Pole, marketing experts who never seemed to do anything but throw extravagant premiere afterparties and drink the champagne dry between themselves, Humphrey steered us right. It could have gone on in a perfect state of not-quite-success forever, until Beaufort and Pole - Pole really - and pardon my language - totally fucked us over.
Foreign films were the future, he said. And to picture this you have to really picture Will Pole. Imagine the slickest, slimiest salesman you've ever met. Not the best one - the best salesmen smell a bit desperate, and you feel like you've got something in common with them then, you've got something to relate to. That's not Will Pole. He looked like Superman with gold hair, and he was just selling shit for the sheer hell of it. Because he liked handing people a fistful of crap and making them pay for it, and walking away leaving them happy to be holding crap in their hands and him happy because he could pick up the bar tab at the gentlemen's club that night. Junior still technically owned the studio, and Pole convinced him that the next ten years were all going to be European films, foreign films, a whiff of glamor and that, you know, uninhibited continental sexuality. I hear Junior practically fainted at that, but he wasn't complaining when Will Pole disappeared to France for three weeks and came back with a dark suntan, an affected accent and Rita Anjou, a short little French teenager with dark red hair and a frankly fucking mindblowing rack.
When Humpers heard about the two million dollar contract Junior offered her, he put himself in the hospital. I mean that literally - he punched a wall, which turned out to be a drywall build for that dumbass Bible epic so close to Junior's heart, and went through to the brick on the other side, jammed his wrist, wrenched his elbow and had to stay overnight at Mount Sinai because of his blood pressure. Two soundstages away, when Miss Nora heard she rushed off set, threw her coat over her Mary Magdalene costume, drove Humphrey where he needed to go and stayed with him the whole time. The next day she heard about Rita replacing her in the film from one of Pole's little runner minions - and you know, say what you will about the lady but I won't lie and say I wouldn't have done the same damn thing if it had been me.
I mean, for Rita - hell, she was pretty. I could see why Pole had jumped into it, and why Junior, when he saw those publicity photos in the mail, was so eager to sign her up. At first I thought she was kind of dumb, and she sure didn’t have Miss Nora’s poise or Miss Holly's edge, you know what I mean, but when she arrived at the studio she just turned her head, and looked over her shoulder at me, and took off her sunglasses, and hell. I couldn't tell if she wanted me to jump into bed or jump under a bus, but I was going anywhere she'd ask me to. I’d never seen her in a film or anything, I don't go for that French stuff, but she looked like she’d stepped out of a Vanity Fair spread. The only women I’d ever seen look like that were on set, in full makeup, with good lighting and a fan going in front of them to make their hair look good - but that was just the way she looked. And, well, you and I both found out she sure as hell isn't dumb.
I don't have much to say about the lawsuit and all that - I know somebody at Plantagenet Studios could have used Johnny Lancaster on their side, but he was shooting on location in the sky, as they say, by then. Miss Nora did her best to buy up any shares she could get her hands on but those fuckers Beaufort and Pole - excuse me - would have done Johnny proud, and the worst part was I was the one who had to walk her out. She hadn't even had time to change - still filming that Bible picture, someone had the smartass idea to shuffle her off into the Jezebel part, so she was rolling around on the floor doing some tricked-up sacrifice to foreign gods when Jack Hume called "Cut" and that was how they fired her - in front of everybody. I won't say that was what killed Humpers but that heart attack sure as fuck didn't help. And now you think York Bros. can make pictures like Plantagenet used to? You think Miss Nora would have let that buyout happen?
Christ, I hate to think about it. You got a match? I left my lighter on the studio lot.
Author: kerrypolka
Play: 2 Henry VI
Recipient: lareinenoire
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Humphrey Gloucester/Eleanor Cobham; Henry VI, Suffolk and Somerset, Margaret of Anjou
Warnings: swears
Rating: 15+
Summary: Look, you try to run a studio with Henry Junior's name on the deed and Beaufort and Pole breathing down your neck and see how far it gets you. Old Hollywood AU.
Of all the ladies, Miss Holly was the only one who'd talked to me like I was a person instead of a prop. Her nails were neatly done in bright red, and there was a splodge of ink on her left index finger as she waved her cigarette at me; I took a moment to remember to light it. She blew a stream of smoke straight up into the air.
Jacqueline Holly had never technically been a star. I remember watching her when she was a little girl in one of Mama's soaps, but when she'd grown up, she just hadn't taken to film. Sure, film had taken to her - she'd turned down four offers from three studios for full-time contracts, for more than what my parents' house was worth. She didn't want to be stuck, she said. The only leading role she'd ever had was in that Mexican Tennessee Williams picture, all hard and sharp and just too closed-mouthed for her co-stars to get on with. After that it was playing dark-haired other women, lurking in the background looking mysterious and clever - which as far as I could tell suited her fine. She didn’t need the money, not after the way her lawyers had done a number on her husbands.
Humphrey Lancaster was her much put upon newest model, or so the gossip would have it, but I couldn't see it. I'd seen him in the studio parking lot picking up all kinds of different girls, at least three different ones, with their hair different colours. Miss Holly I never saw with anybody but him. I mean, and her two other husbands, of course, but they hardly counted. So I wasn't exactly surprised when they split, although Mr Lancaster sure seemed to be. You could just tell he thought he'd be able to dip into her cash pot any time he liked, probably even to take his other lady friends around town - I bet he must have let out a real yelp when she let him know they were through. I didn’t see him for a week, with anyone or alone.
But you could tell Plantagenet Studios was getting older, and maybe just a bit wiser, because they stuck their little snotty lawyer brother on her. I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of Johnny Lancaster, that's for sure. He convinced a judge to fix a restraining order on her to keep her from anywhere in the vicinity of his poor hard done by kid brother - which meant no Hollywood, no parties and no films.
Last I heard Jackie Holly had bought the grandest villa on the Riviera and was entertaining Princess Grace and the Taylor-Burtons at a two-week-long cocktail party, so I'm not sure what that was supposed to accomplish exactly, but still - I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of Johnny Lancaster.
A bourbon, thanks. Straight up. Very kind.
What I mean is, how the hell was I supposed to know the little blonde girl was anybody? I see dozens of makeup girls and extras coming through every morning, how was I supposed to know this one was different? It was only when she marched up to Humpers and laid a big fat one on him that I had any idea, and by then it was too late. Humphrey stalked over and started grumping at me for not laying out the red carpet for Miss Eleanor Cobham - well excuse me, he hadn't demanded special treatment for any of his other lady friends before, and what am I supposed to do here, read minds?
But when he was done (and I didn’t take it personal, you know, actors), and they’d headed into the studio office and come back out, I watched them together, leaning against his car in the early evening sunlight and talking. Him reaching for his lighter before she’d even thought about a cigarette, her smoothing his jacket down like they’d been married twenty years, even though I know for a fact there are umbrellas he’s been in longer and more passionate relationships than her. I was surprised when I couldn’t think of a single other man I knew who looked at a lady like that, or a woman who looked at her guy like that. It was like they knew what each other would be thinking five minutes from now, and not even on purpose. When they left, they didn’t peel out like Humpers usually did with his lady friends - he had his arm around her, and she was laughing up at him, and they drove nice and slow like they were actually enjoying themselves.
Two days later it came out they’d driven all night to Vegas and got married in the small hours of the next morning. I won’t say I saw it coming, but I can’t say I was surprised, either.
After that the next year was one of the busiest I’ve seen Plantagenet Studios. Humphrey was so keen to get Miss Nora up to her rightful place above the film title, so he thought, and Miss Nora was angling to get him made chief executive - not that anyone would admit that’s what they were up to, but it was obvious enough. And if I may say so, rightly so - even after all of it I still say Humphrey Lancaster was the finest man to run that studio, and I don’t think York Bros. could have pulled the stunt they did if he’d been given free rein - but I’m ahead of myself. Both of them were in and out of the offices at all hours of the day and night, and in November 1959 they were the first (and so far, only) people to spend more hours on the lot than me, and I’ve got the timesheets to prove it.
The next time I saw Humpers he looked like he was gagging for a cigarette. I slipped over and handed him one; I figured it was part of the job. The reason for his dry-mouth-looking nerves turned up thirty seconds later: Junior, the studio's biggest asset and its biggest liability.
Junior's dad made more money in this town than anyone had every figured out how to do before or since, so far, and what's more he did it with style. You won't find anyone with a bad word to say about Harry, and as far as I can tell that's a one of a kind. Everyone has some enemies somewhere here, you know. I bet there's a valet driver who would kill to have my job and imagines he would fit my jacket just fine. But One-Take Harry Lancaster? I never heard anybody breathe a word against him. The camera loved him, directors loved him, women loved him, men loved him. Even his brothers loved him, and in this town that is a rarity.
But whatever Harry had, poor Junior just didn't. He'd been raised on soundstages and had a boom mic stuck in his face before he could walk, but that magic, that sparkle that would make people wait outside in the rain for hours just to get a chance of seeing the top of his head - nah. Sure, Johnny and Humpers pushed him hard - Junior just didn't have it.
So he half-runs up to Humphrey outside the studio office, all of seventeen years old, flushed red, waving away his uncle's cig and clutching a sheaf of paper as thick as my hand, which is a contract I've ever seen one, and Humphrey looked like he was about to burn it through with his eyes. "You can stop worrying about me now," Junior said, and bless him, he sounded like he genuinely believed it. "I've signed on with a PR agency. Beaufort and Pole."
I thought Humpers was going to choke.
"You know them?" Junior asked earnestly. If I were the sort to drink on the job I’d have given all my gin to Humphrey Lancaster then.
No, don't put yourself out. Another, and a brandy for my friend. Yeah, straight up. Yeah, both.
From then I didn't see Humpers and Miss Nora too much, although of course I wish I did - everyone who worked at the studio did. Miss Nora - I mean Mrs Lancaster - was the studio mother, really, and Humphrey was our gruff dad. Even though Junior's flicks still weren't doing too hot, and Plantagenet Studios was paying out half a million a year to retain the services of Beaufort and Pole, marketing experts who never seemed to do anything but throw extravagant premiere afterparties and drink the champagne dry between themselves, Humphrey steered us right. It could have gone on in a perfect state of not-quite-success forever, until Beaufort and Pole - Pole really - and pardon my language - totally fucked us over.
Foreign films were the future, he said. And to picture this you have to really picture Will Pole. Imagine the slickest, slimiest salesman you've ever met. Not the best one - the best salesmen smell a bit desperate, and you feel like you've got something in common with them then, you've got something to relate to. That's not Will Pole. He looked like Superman with gold hair, and he was just selling shit for the sheer hell of it. Because he liked handing people a fistful of crap and making them pay for it, and walking away leaving them happy to be holding crap in their hands and him happy because he could pick up the bar tab at the gentlemen's club that night. Junior still technically owned the studio, and Pole convinced him that the next ten years were all going to be European films, foreign films, a whiff of glamor and that, you know, uninhibited continental sexuality. I hear Junior practically fainted at that, but he wasn't complaining when Will Pole disappeared to France for three weeks and came back with a dark suntan, an affected accent and Rita Anjou, a short little French teenager with dark red hair and a frankly fucking mindblowing rack.
When Humpers heard about the two million dollar contract Junior offered her, he put himself in the hospital. I mean that literally - he punched a wall, which turned out to be a drywall build for that dumbass Bible epic so close to Junior's heart, and went through to the brick on the other side, jammed his wrist, wrenched his elbow and had to stay overnight at Mount Sinai because of his blood pressure. Two soundstages away, when Miss Nora heard she rushed off set, threw her coat over her Mary Magdalene costume, drove Humphrey where he needed to go and stayed with him the whole time. The next day she heard about Rita replacing her in the film from one of Pole's little runner minions - and you know, say what you will about the lady but I won't lie and say I wouldn't have done the same damn thing if it had been me.
I mean, for Rita - hell, she was pretty. I could see why Pole had jumped into it, and why Junior, when he saw those publicity photos in the mail, was so eager to sign her up. At first I thought she was kind of dumb, and she sure didn’t have Miss Nora’s poise or Miss Holly's edge, you know what I mean, but when she arrived at the studio she just turned her head, and looked over her shoulder at me, and took off her sunglasses, and hell. I couldn't tell if she wanted me to jump into bed or jump under a bus, but I was going anywhere she'd ask me to. I’d never seen her in a film or anything, I don't go for that French stuff, but she looked like she’d stepped out of a Vanity Fair spread. The only women I’d ever seen look like that were on set, in full makeup, with good lighting and a fan going in front of them to make their hair look good - but that was just the way she looked. And, well, you and I both found out she sure as hell isn't dumb.
I don't have much to say about the lawsuit and all that - I know somebody at Plantagenet Studios could have used Johnny Lancaster on their side, but he was shooting on location in the sky, as they say, by then. Miss Nora did her best to buy up any shares she could get her hands on but those fuckers Beaufort and Pole - excuse me - would have done Johnny proud, and the worst part was I was the one who had to walk her out. She hadn't even had time to change - still filming that Bible picture, someone had the smartass idea to shuffle her off into the Jezebel part, so she was rolling around on the floor doing some tricked-up sacrifice to foreign gods when Jack Hume called "Cut" and that was how they fired her - in front of everybody. I won't say that was what killed Humpers but that heart attack sure as fuck didn't help. And now you think York Bros. can make pictures like Plantagenet used to? You think Miss Nora would have let that buyout happen?
Christ, I hate to think about it. You got a match? I left my lighter on the studio lot.