Deuces Down

It was a sweltering August day in southern California, and he could feel damp on the palomino hide along his flanks. The stink of rancid make-up, stale coffee and donuts just added to his joy. The big air conditioning unit on the roof of Sound Stage 17 came to life with a grind and a rumble that shook more dust out of the rafters.

Clops looked up from his copy of Variety. His single eye was magnified to the size of a goose egg behind the fold-down lens which was mounted on an old fashioned surgeon’s headband. It was tough to be an actor when you were that near sighted.

Of course Clops had other disadvantages-like being seven feet tall, and having only one eye in the center of his forehead. Fi

“You realize that dust may have been around when Mary Pickford was a star,” the cyclops said.

“I don’t think Pickford was ever at Warner’s,” Goathead responded.

“Hmbruza #** muffel wanda,” said Cleo. She was lying on her stomach while one of the snakes which sprouted from her head gave her a neck massage. Cleo, whose full name was Cleopatra Reza, was Turkish, didn’t speak a word of English, but never let that stop her. She commented on everything. The other jokers just agreed with her, and so far none of the men had gotten slapped.

When Fi

“You know what I mean. This is historic. This sound stage was built in 1927,” Clops said.

“Yeah, well, I wish we were on a new sound stage with real air conditioning that we didn’t have to turn off for every shot,” Goat-head groused. Goathead was your basic asshole who never missed an opportunity to trash anything and everybody. Fi

Fi

The D.P. threw the lights, and there was a magnificent geyser of sparks from one transformer. Firemen rushed forward with extinguishers, but the sparks were all she wrote.

“Shit!”

“Fuck!”

“Hell.”

“Damn!”

The curses rose from all over the stage, erupting from the D.P., the First A.D., the director’s assistant, and Goathead. Fi

“Sure, go ahead. Nick, when do you want the Myths back?” she shouted at the D.P.

“Give me an hour.”

Clops just climbed down the front of the plaster cliff. It wasn’t that far for him. He then reached back up and, handling her as if she were made of spun glass, he lifted Cleo to the floor. She gave him her thousand watt smile. If only it weren’t snakes, Fi

Fi

Once Fi

Fi

He waited in front of his dad’s stage until the light went out so he could enter the set. Pulling open the door, he stepped into a Victorian drawing room complete with dark wood, red velvet and i

She passed close by Fi

“You’ve just seen an example of what they mean by ‘stu

“She is quite remarkable, isn’t she?” Stan gazed for an instant at the closed door as if conjuring a picture of the star. “So who did your make-up? You look dead.” Fifty years in Hollywood hadn’t blunted his upper-class British accent. Of course it was an affectation after all this time, but no one cared. It was part of the legend of Stan Whitehorn-Humphries.

“I’m supposed to look scary,” Fi

“Sorry, dead. Come over to the trailer after you get a bite and sup, and I’ll touch you up.” Whitehorn-Humprhies walked away before Fi

Fi

Fi

Fi