A Hollywood Fable

by David Westheimer

“There is something very touching about a man who says 'Please' to you and when a man who can say 'Yes' does it, it is irresistible. ”

In the industry, there are those, not many, who can say Yes. A yes from one who can say Yes means Deal. Reuben Ruven can say Yes. Reuben Ruven is an Independent Producer. And not just an Independent Producer. He is an Independent Producer with Access to Financing. Sue Anthony is a friend, sort of, to Reuben Ruven. The way it goes, she teaches Reuben Ruven's teenage daughter, Robin, English at Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades. And that is how they meet, Sue Anthony and Reuben Ruven. As Robin Ruven's acting parent, Reuben Ruven has occasion to confer with Sue Anthony and is impressed by her professionalism, attitude and fondness for his daughter.
So from time to time he takes Sue Anthony off for coffee or even lunch and once shows her around a Lot where he is Shooting a Picture. Never at night, though. Night is for Getting It On and Reuben Ruven would never dream of Getting It On with his daughter's teacher, friend and confidante.
Some of Sue Anthony's colleagues call her Susan B. Anthony for short because she is small, bright and not much in circulation. It is not that Sue Anthony is not a desirable person. It is just that she is not into the Singles Scene. The reason is, Sue Anthony, though she loves what she does and is very good at it, is not really a teacher. What she really is is a Writer. At the present time she is in the writing underground along with many others with rent-paying cover jobs. Waiters and waitresses, beauty operators, aerobic instructors, mathematicians and cab and limo drivers. If your cover thing is driving, it is better to drive a limo than a cab, a limo driver being much more in a position to exchange pleasantries with one who can say Yes than a cab driver, who most often gets passengers not even in the Industry and who in worst case scenarios try to stiff or even rob him.
On this occasion Reuben Ruven has taken Sue Anthony to lunch not at the Brentwood La Scala Presto but to Ivy on the Beach. After the white wine, which Sue Anthony does not want to partake of because soon she must be getting back to the Palisades to teach teenagers not to split infinitives or end sentences with prepositions but which she finally does at his insistence, and the grilled vegetable and the crab cake and the raspberries, Reuben Ruven pushes aside cups and cutlery and puts a bulging manila envelope in the cleared space between them.
"I loved it," he says.
"That's my Script!" she says, blushing as red as the roses in May. "Where did you get it?"
"Robin brought it home to me. She sneaked it out of your desk drawer. And I really love it. I hope you will not hold it against her at grading time."
Sue Anthony cannot breathe.
"I want to do it," Reuben Ruven says.
Sue Anthony cannot breathe even more.
Reuben Ruven looks into her eyes. There is something in Reuben Ruven's eyes she has never seen before. It is fervor. She knew her Script was good, but that good.
Reuben Ruven says, "And I want to do you, too.
Until I read your script I saw you only as a nice person and a good friend of my daughter. But now I know your goodness and your depths and your passion.
And I want to know more about you. All there is to know. And the only way...You do understand that?"
"Yes," Sue Anthony whispers, nodding. "But I have to get back to school."
"Call in sick," Reuben Ruven implores. "Please."
There is something very touching about a man who says "Please" to you and when a man who can say Yes does it, it is irresistible.
So the next thing Sue Anthony knows, she and Reuben Ruven are locked in rapturous embrace in a deluxe motel room overlooking the sparkling Pacific except that they are too involved in what they are doing to notice the view.
What they do is beautiful and pure and they both feel good about it
When Reuben Ruven drives Sue Anthony to pick up her car in the Pali High parking lot she is still aglow, having given and received pleasure and aware that in no time at all she will be a Produced Writer. Reuben Ruven, however, is quiet, almost somber. There is nothing in his expression to indicate either requited lust or love. What he is is thoughtful.
Reuben Ruven pulls up beside Sue Anthony's car in the almost-empty parking lot. She begins to get out but he pulls her to him, kisses her and looks deep into her eyes.
"Tell me," he says. "Tell me honestly. Are we in a Relationship?"
"I think so," she replies. "I hope so."
Reuben Ruven sighs. "I cannot do your Script," he says.
Sue Anthony's sternum is clogged with ice. Has he used her merely to have his way?
"I love your Script," says Reuben Ruven. "But I love you more. And I cannot do the Script of someone I am in a Relationship with. That would be sordid."
"Someone with whom I am in a Relationship," she thinks, weeping insideeven as she corrects her lover's grammar.
"You understand, don't you, darling?" says Reuben Ruven.
"Yes," says Sue Anthony, lorn.
But she really doesn't.
The Relationship deepens. Reuben Ruven takes Sue Anthony not only to lunches at In Spots but also to dinners at same and to parties frequented by other persons who can say Yes and their Agents and Business Managers and lawyers and psychiatrists and other satraps. He has her over to his home, which belonged to someone famous in his day but who would not be recognized now and would not even recognize his own house were he alive today because so much has been changed by a succession of owners enjoying their own seasons in the sun. She even sleeps over once it is clear that Robin does not object to this arrangement except that Robin is a little troubled at first until she takes Sue Anthony aside and goes, "When Daddy dumps you, will it affect my grades?"
Sue Anthony knows Reuben Ruven will never dump her and is undismayed by the question because of her considerable experience with teenagers, especially teenagers in the Pali High economic bracket and she tells Robin, "Certainly not. Just as what you may choose to do after school hours does not affect our student-teacher Relationship so does what I choose to do, although I must say I was the choosee, not the chooser, after school hours."
And of course after this exchange everything is hunky dory and the three of them, father, daughter and writer-teacher-semi-in-residence, are almost what you might call a family, having Sunday brunches together at Ivy on the Beach and on occasion the Casablanca Restaurant in Venice with its "Casablanca" memorabilia and Hispanic waiters in red fezzes because of all the films Reuven Ruven adores and believes he could have directed better, "Casablanca" is his Absolute First.
But there are limits to the euphoria of being the beloved of a man who can say Yes and leisurely brunches and sleeping over with the possibility of becoming a more or less live-in almost any day. Sue Anthony begins to feel a certain lack, such as recognition as a Writer and not merely as Significant Other of a man who can say Yes. Her Script has rested in her desk drawer since the day her Relationship with Reuben Ruven began and she has not started another Script or even written a single note for one. It occurs to her that in freeing her emotions she may have stifled her Creative Processes.
Is it love or is it Writers' Block? Does she have another Script in her as good as that first one so admired by Reuben Ruven or even another Script at all?
True, there are times when her Word Processor beckons but it seems such times always coincide with brunches at Ivy on the Beach or sleeping over. In all the weeks she is seeing Reuben Ruven she does not write a word.
Well, actually she writes four words, and all of them more than once. The words are: "Untitled Screenplay" and "FADE IN:" So four and one-half words if you count : as half of a word.
One night there is a Major Party in the home of Reuben Ruven at which Sue Anthony is Acting Hostess. Among the guests to whom she renders Acting Hostess services is an almost Important Agent, Peter Paul, known to those familiar with his proclivities as Peter, Paul and Mary. While Peter Paul does not know Sue Anthony he realizes that she has access to Reuben Ruven's most precious anatomy and having access to that it must follow as the night the day that she also has access to his ear, an access which Peter Paul would like most dearly to share. He would also like to share her access to Reuben Ruven's most precious anatomy but business being business this does not occupy First Position with Peter Paul's hopes and expectations of having Reuben Ruven's ear.
So he goes "Are you an actress?" to Sue Anthony.
To which she goes, "No, I am a Writer."
"A Writer!" he goes. "I am impressed. I only thought you were an actress because of your Beauty and Aura. What have you done? "
And she goes, "About what?"
And he goes back, "I mean what are your Credits?"
To which she goes. "A BA with a double major in History and English at Samuel Mudd and a Masters in English Lit at UCLA."
To which he goes back, "I mean your Writing Credits."
And she goes, "Oh. You mean Writing Credits as in Produced Scripts?" and when he nods she goes on, "Well, no Sole Credits. Or exactly any Credits.
Yet. I do have a Script which Reuben loves dearly."
"When is the Option up?" Peter Paul goes quickly, making it obvious he intends snapping it up like a duck on a june bug the moment it is Available.
To which, being an honest person, which is not necessarily the norm in the Business to which she hopes to apprentice herself, she goes, "It is not under option to Reuben at this time. For personal reasons, not artistic."
"It is Available, then?"
"Enormously."
"Who else has Seen It?"
"Besides me?"
Peter Paul does not know if Sue Anthony is putting him on but if she has the ear of a man who can say Yes she is not a contact to be blunted and he goes very genteelly, "Yes, besides you."
"Just Reuben."
"Who was crazy for it?"
Sue Anthony nods.
"But he Passes for personal reasons?"
Sue Anthony nods again.
"There's a lot of that in this town," Peter Paul goes understandingly. "Do you think..."
Sue Anthony goes "Yes" more quickly and eagerly than she ever will after becoming a Produced Writer. "I will mail it to you first thing."
"A Script that Reuben Ruven is crazy for?" Peter Paul goes. "Never in a million years. I will have it Messengered over."
Which is Sue Anthony's largest thrill since Reuben Ruven became enamored of her. She has never before had a script Messengered. Or for that matter, ever received a Fax, that being difficult to achieve when you do not have receiving equipment. Anyhow.
Like Reuben Ruven before him, Peter Paul adores the Script and more than that he thinks it will command Big Bucks. He goes, " This Script Has It All. Love, hate, vile sex and great killings. If I didn't know better, I would swear on my mother's grave if she was ("Were," Sue Anthony corrects mentally even as she listens, rapt) in one that a man wrote it." Sue Anthony lets this chauvinism pass because nothing is a better antidote to chauvinism than heady praise. And she is overwhelmed by Peter Paul's enthusiasm, even in her innocence sensing that an Agent's enthusiasm, if he is a Carrier,an Agent who can get a script to the Right People,itis Money in the Bank. Peter Paul immediately signs Sue Anthony to a Contract, which she does not mention to Reuben Ruven because when she Bursts Upon the Scene she wishes it to be a surprise, sort of like the little boxes of precious baubles Reuben Ruven sometime places beside her plate at brunch and things.
Peter Paul goes, "A Script of this magnitude calls for Special Treatment. Up for Bids. I will make six copies for six Major Players. Every copy will be hand-carried to the Principal who must read it in the presence of one of my people to be sure it is not Xeroxed and Faxed around to every Tom, Dick and Bruce in the Business. The Floor is two-fifty against two mil, six months, Not Applicable, five percent of the Producer's Net and two First Class air tickets to any and all locations. How does that strike you?"
It strikes Sue Anthony deaf and dumb so it is several beats before she is able to frame a reply, which is, "Thank you, Jesus," which surprises even Sue Anthony because she has never been religious and if she were it would most likely be in the Jewish persuasion, considering her forebears. Then she goes in faltering tones, "May I ask you something, Peter Paul?"
"It would be my distinct pleasure," he goes.
"Are we giving Reuben Ruven a Shot?"
Shaking his $100-coiffed head, Peter Paul goes, "It would not be in your best interest because of your personal reasons. Unless you wish him to have a Shot. "No," she goes. "You are my Agent so you must know best." This is a notion of which she disabuses herself soon after Bursting Upon the Scene.
Sure enough, of the six Major Players, five engage in the bidding. (The one who does not bid is fired within 24 hours of the publication of Sue Anthony's picture's first week Gross.) One of the five drops out early, two a little later and when the smoke clears Peter Paul has ten percent of a Sweet Deal--a Straight Buy for two-mil seven. This is, of course, front page in the Trades. When Reuben Ruven reads the Trades over his expresso straight from the $1500 machine in his secretary's office the brew turns to bile in his mouth (there are those who think that is what it tastes like under any circumstance) and he cries, "Get me Sue!" Which his secretary, who has been fielding calls all morning with the skills a secretary to a man who can say Yes must have in spades, attempts to do but fails because Sue Anthony is in class and cannot be reached except in Cases of Family Emergency. Reuben Ruven considers this a Case of Emergency and very close to Family but men who can say Yes do not argue with or explain to subordinate persons on the phone or even in person so he hurtles out to his Private Parking spot on the Lot where he is Shooting a Picture and races out to Pali High, his dudgeon rising with every furlong.
He knows the location of Sue Anthony's classroom, having visited it on occasion on Robin Ruven-related matters and drags her out into the hall without creating particular alarm among her students because no automatic weapon is displayed and anyway Robin Ruven just sits there with no more reaction than just, "Hi, dad," and goes on taking down the day's quote from the blackboard.
Out in the hall he shouts, "How can you do this to me?"
"Do what?" she asks, truly innocently because she has not seen the Trades. "Sell my Script out from under me."
This surprises Sue Anthony no end because as she is well aware, it is she, not her Script, which has been under Reuben Ruven all these weeks.
"But Rube," she says, Rube being an endearing term between them because a Rube is what Reuben Ruben is anything but and he finds the appellation amusing and even somewhat arousing though arousal is not a department in which he requires anything special, "Rube, you said you couldn't do it because we are in a Relationship."
"If you had mentioned you were so anxious to be a Produced Writer and I had any idea it was such an Important Property that it would go Up for Bids I would have made the sacrifice," says Rueben Ruven.
"What sacrifice?"
"End the Relationship."
"Be that as it may," says Sue Anthony, "I do not appreciate your barging into my classroom in front of your own daughter and dragging me out like a sack of potatoes. However, I admire your Integrity and I say that with Utter Sincerity. Now that I will be a Produced Writer, would it be possible to have a Relationship if I give you my next Script, which now that I am On a Roll will be even better?"
"I will have to think about that," says Reuben Ruven. "It is not a situation I have ever run into before."
"You are ending a sentence on not one but two prepositions," Sue Anthony corrects mentally and then aloud, "But no, in this instance 'before' is a conjunction." Reuben Ruven looks at her askance but his attention is drawn elsewhere. Because for several beats now Robin Ruven has been standing in the classroom door listening and observing and now she is prompted to mediate.
What she says is, "Whichever way it goes, will it affect my grades?"
And her father says, "Robin, don't you know better than to interrupt when daddy is talking business?
And Sue Anthony's heart is in overdrive because she realizes that if Reuben Ruven says he is talking business it follows as the night the day that as of now she has a Relationship and a Done Deal on her next Script and she will live happily, if not ever after, at least as long as your normal Produced Writer usually does in this town.
Sue Anthony gazes at Robin Ruven as if just awakened to a rosy dawn.
"No," she goes, "because I do not believe I will be needing this day job henceforth."

*****

-- DW
©2000 by David Westheimer

DAVID WESTHEIMER is a native Texan, born in Houston, and attended school there through Rice Institute (Class of 1937). He and his wife, Dody, will be married 55 years in October. They have two sons, Fred, a senior vice president at the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills, and Eric, a veterinarian, in Goleta, California, and five grandchildren Except for tours of duty in World War II and the Korean War, he worked for the Houston Post in various capacities from 1940 until 1960, when he and his family moved to Los Angeles. He and his wife still live in the same apartment they moved into from Houston (they were only going to stay there until he made it in Hollywood). His first novel, Summer on the Water, was published in 1948 and for the past forty years he has been a freelance writer. He is the author of fifteen novels and one non-fiction book. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal in World War II and was a POW in Italy and Germany, which provided him with material for several novels, including Von Ryan’s Express, a POW memoir, Sitting It Out, and a collection of poetry, The Great Wounded Bird. He is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel.