+fiction. miles marshall lewis
Peg Entwistle Will Have Her Revenge on Hollywoodland
+story copyright 2005, Miles Marshall Lewis

She stood straphanging on an iron horse below city streets, listening to a digital transmission of jungle music downloaded days ago. A blues vocalist sang the same line of despair over and over, her voice diced up and dispersed within the electronic beats. Surrounded by lunch break commuters she tuned out the immediate multitude by meditating on the agitated trip-hop in her earpieces, fly-eyed black shades aiding in her disassociative sense deprivation. Head shaved within an inch of a distinctive whorl pattern, metal stud through her full lower lip. She clutched a black brief handle, her black woolen overcoat falling over a navy blue business suit so dark it, too, looked black. She stepped lively off the train, in time with the jungle, at the stop for Christmas Muse Productions.

Removing her earpieces she took time to savor the present moment. The clicking of her high heels on the pavement slowed. She thought: I’m less nervous than I expected. Today’s events could irrevocably alter the shape of my destiny for the foreseeable future. Yet I hardly feel anxious at all. She approached the ninety-story Christmas Muse Productions building and thought: I’m just not worried about this—not due to confidence, but, perhaps, ambivalence.

Three suited men stood behind a lengthy gray reception desk.

“Can I help you? You have an appointment?”

“I have a one o’clock meeting.” She made no motion to remove her shades.

“What department, miss?”

“Please phone Punch Isigny. My appointment is with Christmas Muse.”

The security receptionist glanced skeptically at the young woman, then raised a nearby clipboard at arm’s-length before his farsighted vision. The other two men began walking over, paying rapt attention. “Your name?”

“Rogess Fee.”

Her countenance remained stoic with authoritative undertones, unaffected by the man’s change in attitude. With a phone call she was given a triangular visitors sticker for her jacket and directed to walk through the metal detector entranceway. “Good luck,” offered the guard as she marched onto the elevator. She pressed the button for the forty-third floor. As the lift ascended she reached up for her shades and placed them in an inside pocket. Stepping off the elevator, Rogess was immediately greeted by a chipper, casually dressed brunette volunteering a firm handshake.

“Rogess, I’m Kelli! Good to meet you. Christmas will be with you shortly. Cold out there, isn’t it? Please, have a seat in reception. He’s meeting with Punch, he’ll be out in a minute.”

Rogess sat, adjusted her dark-as-black navy stockings, and recalled her father’s advice: Be yourself. With sarcasm, she thought: Yeah, that’ll get me the job. Smirking, she thought: So this is it. How anticlimactic. No sooner than she contemplated browsing magazines had a tone sounded from the phone on Kelli’s desk.

“Christmas is ready for you, Rogess. I’ll take you back to the office. I’d advise you keep your coat with you,” said Kelli, with a wink. Rogess was led into Christmas’s large, sunlit corner office; Kelli smiled (had never stopped smiling, actually) and shut the door behind her.

Christmas Muse leaned against his desk, almost sitting. His expressive brown eyes were wide with wonder and zealous spirit, assessing Rogess and drawing her in immediately. His hair was slightly longer on top than Rogess’s buzz cut, bald at the sides. He had a boyish look about him, despite the neat mustache topping off his upper lip. The busy design of his Glen plaid suit somehow lent levity to the aristocratic air about him, yet he still held the commanding presence of a man of ability, an American pioneer, twice his age. He was thirty-three.

“Christmas Muse—pleasure to meet you.”

“Good to meet you,” Rogess replied. The two shook hands. She felt an unfamiliar sense of being slightly off balance. Already Christmas was not what she expected.

“I’ve gone over everything with my main financier and the board. All your budget requests, your terms, and the prospectus I requested from you last month. First, let me say that your student film, Atlas Shrugged, was amazing. There’s a lot of excitement about you in Hollywood, and you deserve it.” Rogess missed the beat where an ingratiating “thank you” was expected. Christmas turned to his desk, lifted a sheaf of papers clamped together by two black brad clips, and held it out to her.

“You’ve got the job. Congratulations.”

Rogess discerned a brilliant intellect from the virtue of his bright smile. Again, a strange feeling of vertigo struck her gut. A heartbeat passed, and she righted herself for a second time. Her brow furrowed as she grasped the contract in her lithe fingers.

“Thank you, Mr. Muse. But I’m not sure you… That is, my addendum of—”

“Please, call me Christmas.” At this, Rogess noticed the acceleration of her heart rate.

“Christmas. This is a gracious offer, but—”

“You have your full ninety-million dollar budget, and as to the addendum of unreasonable demands I asked you to include: you’ve been granted them all. Let your lawyer look over the terms, but your pre-production is set to start right away. I’ve got a few demands of my own, though.”

Kelli spoke through the speakerphone on the desk: “Christmas, the car is downstairs.”

“Demands?” Rogess asked.

“We’ve got a car waiting. But I don’t mean to cut this short. We need to speak further in transit.” Christmas held the door ajar. Rogess had never even put her brief down, clutching the handle all during their two-minute meeting. She slipped her contract into its pocket and exited the office walking briskly down the hall alongside the young company president.

“Have you eaten?”

“No, actually. Not since breakfast.”

Fishing in the inside pocket of his blazer, Christmas pulled out an envelope and handed it to Rogess. “This is for you.” She looked it over, slit the top with a fingernail. Inside laid a Centurion American Express card, her name printed on the face. “You’ll need to call and activate it later.”

Their swift pace finally halted as they stood waiting for an elevator to climb forty-three stories. “You mentioned demands. I assume you acquiesced to my final cut approval, my complete autonomy, my Prime Mover Productions setup. To what were you referring?” The elevator arrived, empty. They began their descent.

“I need a soundboard, Rogess. Desperately. I have full faith in your ability as a filmmaker, have no doubt. But more than anything, I want you on my team because of who you are. I’m aware of your background as a philosophy major in undergrad, and the reputation of your parents in the field.

“To be frank, the public has a certain conception of me because I produce animated movies. And I show the media a certain face, on purpose. It fits my agenda to do so. But when I talk about demands, what I need from you is for you to be yourself. And to talk to me. You’re a young black woman. You grew up in Hollywood, like I did. I’m not looking for a protégé or anything. I’m just really feeling the need to be challenged right now, and from what I know of your personality and the direction you’re headed in, your dedication to cinema, the whole premise of your thesis film, you fit the bill. You’re perfect.

“I’m in a position currently where I’m not afraid to fail. There are already rumors printed in Variety about the foolishness of what I’m planning, doing this live-action movie. Rumors I helped plant. With you, I feel assured of at least putting out a movie of integrity, of over-the-top quality. The dedication you have to moviemaking is clear. All I need extra from you is to build with me occasionally. Don’t be afraid to offend me. You can’t be fired; it’s in your contract. I just need your total honesty.”

“I…see.” The lift had lowered directly to the lobby without interruption. The doors opened.

She walked alongside him once again, struggling to keep her mind from swimming, to remain in the moment. Christmas Muse was apparently somewhat eccentric, driven to loneliness and isolation by the unique burdens of the wunderkind, or something to that effect, she thought. Yet her instincts told her otherwise. She had no way of knowing how far this simpatico psychotherapy he suggested would stretch. But it seemed a low price to pay for the means to realize her lifelong ambition. They pushed through the building’s large revolving doors one by one; he stepped to the curb and opened the back door of an awaiting burgundy Bentley. She entered, and the chauffeur coasted off.

“Christmas, to be honest with you, I’m not the most trusting sort. I’m not sure if I can be what it is you’re looking for. I just want to make movies. I showed up prepared for an interview, I believe my work speaks for itself, and—”

“This is the interview, just without the pressure. You know the job is yours.”

“I never felt pressured, actually.” Christmas directed the driver to take a winding route through Central Park.

“An interview. Okay, that’s fair. But based on what I said earlier, I’d like you to interview me too, if you don’t mind. Our business relationship is a big leap of faith for the both of us. All I’m shooting for is that we get to know each other.

“Who’s your favorite filmmaker, Rogess?”

“Well, there’s a difference between ‘favorite’ and ‘best.’ You’re asking for my favorite filmmaker: I’d have to say Woody Allen.”

“Okay, Woody Allen was great. His work had a consistency in it worthy of European master directors like François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, or Ingmar Bergman. Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories: Great films. His latter period work as well: Husbands and Wives, Celebrity, Match Point. The themes of his work included the major themes of great literature, many of the major themes of life: Death. Love. Sex. The constant use of performance anxiety, prostitutes, and magic in his movies is interesting. He showed no fear releasing black-and-white films, which, visually, is very beautiful just as a film stock.”

“You know what I like about Woody Allen?”

“What’s that?”

“He produced. Woody Allen directed a film for practically every year of his entire life, once he began making movies. Filmmaking was his love, he was a great talent, and he produced. The Academy Awards gave him Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director back in 1978, and he didn’t even show up. Do you know where he was?”

He smiled. That smile again, she thought. “Woody was playing clarinet at Elaine’s, like he did every Monday night,” said Christmas. “He didn’t wanna miss it.”

Rogess laughed. “Right. And the Academy never gave him awards of that stature again, until the Thalberg Memorial Award right before he died. His films were so appreciated by every other country but his own. And the hypocrisy of the whole thing is: now the country holds out his body of work as one of our national treasures. But where was that appreciation when he was alive?”

“I know. They did the same thing to Spike Lee throughout his whole career. They’re announcing the nominations on Wednesday, you know. What do you think of animated film?” he asked.

“Frankly, I don’t have any interest in cartoon movies. I viewed all your productions for our interview, but I have no personal… They don’t engage me at all.” She was distracted. Dare she ask? Evading her true question—she thought: too much, too soon—she said, “Tell me what it was like to be considered a child prodigy.”

He fixed her with a purposeful stare, mirth flaring in his determined brown eyes. “I was spoiled in a very strange way as a child, because everybody told me from the moment I was able to hear that I was absolutely marvelous. I never heard a discouraging word for years.” He laughed. “The image has been of some benefit but I don’t take too much stock in it. The whole mystique in this society for child prodigies and young genius, it helped my career in the very beginning. Sometimes that stuff can backfire, with Orson Welles, for example. Don’t believe the hype, you know?” The car exited the park at Fifty-ninth Street. “When did you know you wanted to make movies? Was there one in particular that clinched it for you?”

Rogess Fee was nine when she decided that she would become a filmmaker. It was at nine years of age that her parents, driving home past the Hollywood sign, told the young film buff the story of Peg Entwistle.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Deida Wilcox and her husband divided their southern California ranch into parcels. In 1903, a village was incorporated under the ranch’s name: Hollywood. The Hollywood sign, however, was not their doing. Reading HOLLYWOODLAND , it was built to advertise a real estate development.

Peg Entwistle was born Lillian Millicent Entwistle in London, 1908. A very young and successful Broadway actress, she moved to Hollywood during the Great Depression. She received several walk-ons, then a small part as Hazel Cousins in Thirteen Women, a role that was almost completely cut in its final edit. The film received poor reviews, and she was fired from RKO Studios. In 1932 a despondent Entwistle climbed to the top of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign and jumped from the forty-foot high H, killing herself. Ironically, soon afterward her uncle received a letter intended for her: an invitation to star in a Hollywood play in the role of a woman who commits suicide. Thirteen years later the last four letters were torn down in commemoration and the sign forevermore read: HOLLYWOOD .

The story worked on Rogess’s young conscience. At the time she thought she might follow in the path of her parents. Raja and Katherine Fee met at the University of San Francisco, working towards master’s degrees in philosophy, and married upon graduation. When Rogess was a girl, Raja taught as a tenured professor at the University of Berkley; Katherine was the author of several books in the field of philosophy. Rogess’s mind reverberated with the story of Peg Entwistle that afternoon and night, twirling it around at different angles. She thought: How incredulous that the opinions of others could drive this woman to end her own life. I would never allow that to happen. She thought: I refuse to be afraid of failing in Hollywood. I could…tame Hollywood. An assured smirk crossed her young lips. One month later the Fees—encouraging and supporting of Rogess choosing her own path—supplied their daughter with a vintage Sony DCR-VX2000 digital camera.

Rogess rounded out the story of Peg Entwistle and her own tale as the Bentley paused at the curb of Central Park West. When the door at her right opened suddenly, she was hardly startled. Her mind often thought in terms of long, cinematic tracking shots and was quickly acclimated to the nonstop pace of Christmas Muse.

“Rogess: meet Punch Isigny.”

The man in the door possessed matinee-idol blue eyes. His body swathed in layers of sheepskin coat and gloves, scarves, and a colorfully striped wool cap, Rogess could only assess Punch Isigny’s eyes.

“I’m Punch, pleasure to meet you,” filtered through the muffle of a broad strip of wool.

“Listen, I’ve got to be going. I have another meeting crosstown. Punch is taking you to meet the transition team for your production. We should speak again soon.”

“Tonight,” said Rogess. The two exchanged a glance pregnant with déjà vu or a sense of recognition.

“Tonight I have some things to do. We can roll together. Ten o’clock.” He waved, shut the door, exited away in haste. Rogess stood with Punch in the front of Trump Tower.

“They’re waiting for us inside, Rogess.” Punch led the way to the skyscraper’s gold entranceway, rubbing his mittened hands together. Despite the cold, the sun beamed bright. Rogess reached in her inside pocket, grasped her shades and placed them on.

Miles Marshall Lewis is the Bronx-born author of Scars of theSoul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises, an essay collection on the essence and decline of hip-hop. There's a Riot Goin' On, his exegesis on the masterpiece Sly and the Family Stone album of the same name, is due from Continuum Books in April 2006. Lewis lives in Paris, France.