Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann Page A
Authors: William J. Mann
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efforts to conquer that fascinating game called golf,” and revealed that she was putting on weight, adding “a pound a week.”
All true—except it wasn’t Staten Island where Mabel had been rusticating.
She had fallen far, but Mabel was determined to prove to her doubters that she was made of tougher stuff than they gave her credit for. She was not Olive Thomas. She had survived not only drugs but betrayal and exploitation, and the loss of a beautiful baby boy.
Mabel returned to Manhattan with a new gleam in her eye.
There would be no orchid-covered casket for her.
CHAPTER 11
LOCUSTS
“They loitered on the corners or stood with their backs to the shop windows and stared at everyone who passed,” Nathanael West would write in The Day of the Locust , describing those who lived in the margins, who’d been denied their share of fortune in the land of sunshine and dreams. “When their stare was returned,” West continued, “their eyes filled with hatred.” Little could be discovered about them, West wrote, “except that they had come to California to die.”
Gibby had yet to turn as sour as all that. For now, her dreams still held. But a dull, dead look moldered in the eyes of the lost souls who congregated on the stairs of the Wallace Apartments, a building full of hookers and dealers on Georgia Street downtown. Leaning against cracked stucco walls, they chain-smoked cigarettes and watched as Gibby climbed past.
She’d come here at the invitation of a new friend, Don Osborn, who shared her determination to make it to the top. Osborn, just a month younger than Gibby, had big plans. Like so many of the postwar generation, Osborn thought everyone could be millionaires if they just put their minds to it. Not for long would he be stuck living at the Wallace. Palatial homes awaited him. Fancy automobiles. Big-budget pictures. Just as they awaited Gibby.
They’d gotten to know each other on the set of The Tempest , a two-reel film based loosely on the Shakespeare play, starring the veteran actor Tom Santschi. But The Tempest was hardly a prestige picture. Made by independent producer Cyrus J. Williams and released by Pathé, the film flickered across only those few screens still uncontrolled by Adolph Zukor or the other big chains. AlthoughWilliams renewed his contract with Pathé for another series of pictures with Santschi, he had not rehired Gibby. Had her past caught up with her yet again?
By now, she’d run out of people to turn to. She had, in her own words, asked “every one” of her contacts for help by now. And none of them had come through.
Enter Don Osborn.
Sitting with her new friend in the courtyard of the Wallace Apartments, the yellow paint peeling off the walls, Gibby listened eagerly as Osborn told her how he planned to rewrite the rules. Osborn might not be high-class—yet—but he had high-class ideas. The big studios might be closed off to people like them, Osborn told her, but the trick was to team with an independent like Williams and make a picture that generated so much publicity that audiences would beg theaters to book it. Even Adolph Zukor would be powerless to stop exhibitors from showing a film if the public demanded it strongly enough. All they needed, Osborn insisted, was a little hype. He had friends who wanted to invest money in pictures. So he was going to direct a fantastic picture and beat Hollywood at its own game.
Gibby was entranced. Don Osborn was Joe Pepa without the criminal record. Shrewd, smart, spontaneous, Osborn had the same fatal charm with women as Pepa.He was six feet three, lean and muscled at a hundred and sixty-eight pounds. His dark hair was offset by striking blue eyes, and he sported the pencil-thin mustache that was all the rage on the motion-picture screen. Most important, he was ambitious. He’d help Gibby get what she wanted, and he’d do it more cleverly than Pepa had with his inelegant schemes. Don Osborn was just the man Gibby was looking
All true—except it wasn’t Staten Island where Mabel had been rusticating.
She had fallen far, but Mabel was determined to prove to her doubters that she was made of tougher stuff than they gave her credit for. She was not Olive Thomas. She had survived not only drugs but betrayal and exploitation, and the loss of a beautiful baby boy.
Mabel returned to Manhattan with a new gleam in her eye.
There would be no orchid-covered casket for her.
CHAPTER 11
LOCUSTS
“They loitered on the corners or stood with their backs to the shop windows and stared at everyone who passed,” Nathanael West would write in The Day of the Locust , describing those who lived in the margins, who’d been denied their share of fortune in the land of sunshine and dreams. “When their stare was returned,” West continued, “their eyes filled with hatred.” Little could be discovered about them, West wrote, “except that they had come to California to die.”
Gibby had yet to turn as sour as all that. For now, her dreams still held. But a dull, dead look moldered in the eyes of the lost souls who congregated on the stairs of the Wallace Apartments, a building full of hookers and dealers on Georgia Street downtown. Leaning against cracked stucco walls, they chain-smoked cigarettes and watched as Gibby climbed past.
She’d come here at the invitation of a new friend, Don Osborn, who shared her determination to make it to the top. Osborn, just a month younger than Gibby, had big plans. Like so many of the postwar generation, Osborn thought everyone could be millionaires if they just put their minds to it. Not for long would he be stuck living at the Wallace. Palatial homes awaited him. Fancy automobiles. Big-budget pictures. Just as they awaited Gibby.
They’d gotten to know each other on the set of The Tempest , a two-reel film based loosely on the Shakespeare play, starring the veteran actor Tom Santschi. But The Tempest was hardly a prestige picture. Made by independent producer Cyrus J. Williams and released by Pathé, the film flickered across only those few screens still uncontrolled by Adolph Zukor or the other big chains. AlthoughWilliams renewed his contract with Pathé for another series of pictures with Santschi, he had not rehired Gibby. Had her past caught up with her yet again?
By now, she’d run out of people to turn to. She had, in her own words, asked “every one” of her contacts for help by now. And none of them had come through.
Enter Don Osborn.
Sitting with her new friend in the courtyard of the Wallace Apartments, the yellow paint peeling off the walls, Gibby listened eagerly as Osborn told her how he planned to rewrite the rules. Osborn might not be high-class—yet—but he had high-class ideas. The big studios might be closed off to people like them, Osborn told her, but the trick was to team with an independent like Williams and make a picture that generated so much publicity that audiences would beg theaters to book it. Even Adolph Zukor would be powerless to stop exhibitors from showing a film if the public demanded it strongly enough. All they needed, Osborn insisted, was a little hype. He had friends who wanted to invest money in pictures. So he was going to direct a fantastic picture and beat Hollywood at its own game.
Gibby was entranced. Don Osborn was Joe Pepa without the criminal record. Shrewd, smart, spontaneous, Osborn had the same fatal charm with women as Pepa.He was six feet three, lean and muscled at a hundred and sixty-eight pounds. His dark hair was offset by striking blue eyes, and he sported the pencil-thin mustache that was all the rage on the motion-picture screen. Most important, he was ambitious. He’d help Gibby get what she wanted, and he’d do it more cleverly than Pepa had with his inelegant schemes. Don Osborn was just the man Gibby was looking
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