The Phantom of Stage 16

Hollywood, Ca, 1936

Every year, thousands of hopeful girls from all over the country journey to Hollywood, hoping to be the next big star. Out of them, about one in every hundred thousand makes it. Out of all those hopeful girls, why should I, little Christine Davis from Columbus, Ohio, have been that one? I still don’t know the answer to that question. I suppose it was a combination of perseverance, being in the right place at the right time, Divine Providence, and some good, old-fashioned luck.

Mine was the very old story that had been going on since they started making movies. The young, hopeful girl, after weeks of trying and failing to even get into Central Casting, let alone a studio, takes a job as a waitress. However, I was one of the fortunate girls. I got a job waiting tables at the Brown Derby, the place where everybody in Hollywood goes. For a while, I tried to pick out the people who might be important. That fat gentleman at table six must be a big producer, or that worried-looking middle-aged fellow in the brown suit is surely an important director. Oh, isn’t that Cecile B. Demille at table 18? Oh, I put on quite a show for the people I guessed were important. I did bad impressions of great actresses that they’d all heard a million times before, I strutted up to the table as though I were displaying evening wear at Sax Fifth Avenue, and I accidentally bumped into that table I wasn’t serving as I passed it.

This went on for quite a few weeks before I finally realized it wasn’t doing me a bit of good. I began to think it was just a rumor that all the important people went to the Brown Derby. Oh, certainly I’d seen a few celebrities. There was that afternoon that Clark Gable lunched in the corner table and I nearly jumped over a few tables to get a closer look at him, and there was that evening when Claude Rains came in for a quiet supper and I nearly swooned. Why, one time, I even got to serve Ginger Rogers! These were all thrilling, of course, but I didn’t need to wait on actors; I needed to be noticed by a director or a producer. I needed somebody to notice me who would give me a break. I started to lose hope very quickly after that. I found myself thinking about salads with light dressing and rare steaks rather than studio sets and makeup departments. Finally, I began to think I should never have come to Hollywood. I started getting myself accustomed to the idea of going back to Ohio and marrying the boy next door, for there’s always a boy next door in stories like this one.

However, one day, a certain man came into the restaurant. He was quite tall and distinguished, with hair graying at the temples, and he was wearing a nicely tailored blue suit. A few weeks earlier, I would have been falling over myself trying to impress him, for I would have been certain he was important. This time, though, I didn’t try to impress him. I merely waited on him like I would on any other customer; I was polite, cheerful, and quiet, but I didn’t draw undue attention to myself. At one point he cracked a friendly joke and I laughed, not thinking anything of it. Then, when I brought him his check, he suddenly said to me, “Would you like to be in pictures?”

I was absolutely dumbfounded, and all I could manage was a faint nod. He introduced himself as Winston Wilde, a director at one of the studios. He asked me what my name was, and I finally managed to talk, though I fairly squeaked my reply. He smiled, pulled a card out of his coat, and wrote something on it. Then, he handed me the card and told me to come to the studio where he worked the next day at ten o’clock sharp. He said he liked my face, he liked my smile, and he liked my voice. He said he thought I had the makings of a great actress, and that he would arrange a screen test for me the next day. I didn’t know what to say, so I merely made a fool of myself by thanking him over and over again.

Well, that was what happened to me. As I said before, it’s an old story, but sometimes old stories are the best. Well, whether it was an old story or a new one, I had a screen test at a Hollywood studio. After all those years of dreaming and praying, I was finally getting my chance. As much as I had hoped that this very thing would happen, I had never truly believed it would. The studios had begun to seem like a distant fairyland, beautiful but impossibly out of reach. It was like when I read the story Peter Pan as a little girl and dreamed of going to Neverland. I, Christine Davis, was really going to a Hollywood studio. I felt like Cinderella going to the ball, but I was determined to make this last long after midnight.

I hardly slept a wink that night, but I awoke bright and early, nonetheless. Then, I curled my hair, powdered my cheeks, put on my best dress, and started out for the studio. I had gotten an apartment fairly close to where most of the studios were but, after consulting a map, I decided it was too far to walk. My bus deposited me two blocks away from the studio, and I walked toward the gates looming ahead of me. As I drew closer, I felt my legs begin to tremble beneath me. I was actually going into a movie studio for a screen test. As I approached the guard at the gate, I began to wonder if this whole thing was a phony. Surely, I couldn’t just walk up to the guard, hand him a business card with some scribbled writing on it and be allowed to walk right into a Hollywood studio. It was just too wonderful to be true.

My steps grew more and more hesitant as I approached the guard’s booth, and I almost turned back. However, I quickly reminded myself that this was my big chance, and I couldn’t shy away from it. When I reached the window, the guard was looking down, writing on a clipboard. After a moment, I softly cleared my throat, and he looked up.

“Yes? May I help ya, miss?” he asked me, his speech thick with an Irish brogue.

“Yes, thank you,” I said, reaching into my purse and pulling out the card. “I… I’m here to see Mr. Winston Wilde. He’s… arranging a screen test for me this morning.”

The guard took the card and scanned it. “Ah, yes,” he said. “You’re Miss Davis, aren’t you? Mr. Wilde said you’d be comin’ in.” I smiled, very much relieved, as he handed me back the card. Then, he pulled out a slip of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it back to me. “Here’s a pass for you. If anyone questions ya, you just show ‘em this.”

“Thank you,” I said, putting the slip into my purse.

The guard leaned out of the booth and said, “You see that big building down that way?” I looked where he was pointing and nodded. “Mr. Wilde’s office is in that building. Go up the stairs to the second floor, and it’s the third door down.”

“Oh, thank you very much,” I said. Then, the guard pressed the button and the huge iron gates opened before me. I paused to take a deep breath, then, I squared my shoulders and walked in.

As I walked through the gates, I heard the guard call, “Good luck to ya. I know you’ll do great!” I looked back over my shoulder to smile at him, then I stepped over the threshold of my career.

~

As I walked across the lot, I gazed around me like a clueless tourist in a foreign country. From the people I saw around me, I could very well have been in a different country or a different century. A group of Indians strolled by chatting and drinking coffee. Two ladies wearing Victorian dresses and carrying parasols stood in a shaded doorway talking and laughing. A man wearing an entire Georgian outfit, complete with heeled shoes and a powdered wig, walked along with a worried-looking man in a tan coat.

Eventually, I made my way to the building the guard had pointed out. As I mounted the steps, my excitement mounted, as well. However, when I reached the second floor and walked to the third door down, I was suddenly seized by fear again. I scolded myself for being afraid. This was the break for which I’d been waiting since I arrived in Hollywood, and I had to plunge ahead with confidence. I raised my hand and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” called a voice. I quickly straightened my dress, adjusted my hat, and opened the door.

Mr. Wilde was sitting behind a desk, making notes on an open script before him, but he looked up and smiled at the sound of the door opening. “Hello. Please come in and sit down,” he said, closing the script and placing it in a drawer. I obediently closed the door and crossed the room to sit in a chair in front of his desk. “I’m very glad you’ve come, Miss Davis,” he said, folding his hands on the desk. “Yesterday I told you that I think you have the makings of an actress. If you’re half as good as I hope you’ll be, I would say you have a very promising career ahead of you. Now, I’ve spoken to the head of the studio about you, and he says that he’s willing to watch your screen test. He has great trust in my opinion, and he said that, if he likes you as much as I do, he will consider giving you a contract.”

I smiled. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Wilde!”

He nodded kindly. “You’re to be tested opposite one of our young actors, Wayne Johnston. In fact, we signed him on just a few weeks ago, but he shows great promise. I’m going to direct the test myself, and I’ve arranged it for five-thirty this afternoon.”

“Five-thirty?” I exclaimed. “But… that’s over seven hours from now.”

“Indeed,” he replied. “You can’t just walk in front of a camera the way you are, Miss Davis. You have to have your makeup done and your hair styled, and you have to be costumed. That is no easy task I assure you; especially with a new prospect such as yourself. It takes a lot to turn a waitress into an actress, you know.”

“I see,” I responded.

“Now,” he said, rising from his chair. “I’m going to introduce you to our version of Cinderella’s fairy godmother.”

“Who is that?” I asked, as I rose from my chair and followed him to the door.

“The makeup and costume department, my dear!” he replied, taking me by the arm and leading me from the room.

~

The next seven hours were an absolute whirlwind. First, for what felt like three days but was actually three hours, I was thoroughly scrutinized by two slightly insane makeup artists. They squabbled over my eyebrows, experimented with shading on my nose and cheekbones, compared mascara and false eyelashes, and tried at least a dozen shades of eyeshadow and rouge. Finally, they stepped back and studied my face from all angles before finally announcing that my face was, not perfect, but satisfactory. I sensed that they didn’t think it was their makeup that made the finished project less than perfect, but I didn’t let it bother me too much. After all, Mr. Wilde thought I had a pretty enough face to be an actress, and he was the director. When they finally turned the chair around so that I could see myself in the mirror, I was shocked. Could that beautiful, made-up face looking back at me really by mine? I could hardly believe what I was seeing, and I probably never would have torn my eyes away from that mirror if I wasn’t immediately whisked away to the hairstylist.

My next two hours were spent under the supervision of a rather wild-looking woman with a strong Russian accent and a dressing-table full of hairstyling tools. She tried tight curls, loose waves, a braid, a high bun, a chignon, and even a platinum blonde wig! When she finally let me look at myself in the mirror, I saw that my hair, which was thankfully still my natural dark brown, was parted down the middle and fashioned into short curls around my face. I was thoroughly stunned by the image I saw in the mirror, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on it, for I was already off to the costumer.

The final two hours of the process were spent with the most sane person I’d met all day. The costumer was a short, round lady with brown hair pulled up in a bun and kind eyes. She said that I had the perfect figure to fit and seemed thoroughly thrilled to try all kinds of dresses on me. She said that I would be playing a wealthy New York heiress in my test, so my prospective wardrobe was made up of multiple sumptuous evening gowns. She finally decided on a slinky white dress with thin straps and a low back. The picture was completed with earrings, a necklace, a bracelet of faux diamonds, and a pair of silver evening slippers. When she led me over to the full-length mirror, it was the most fabulous surprise of the day. Each step of my transformation had been breathtaking, but nothing compared to the final picture. The woman I saw in the mirror was every inch a glamorous actress, from the silver slippers to the softly curled hair. I’d never thought I could look that beautiful, and I nearly cried for joy.

The costumer quickly gave me a message from Mr. Wilde and excused herself, saying that she had a million things to do. I shook my head, thinking that I’d never seen so many people in such a hurry before in my life. However, I knew that I had no time to waste myself and read the note. Mr. Wilde’s handwriting was little more than a hurried scrawl, and at first, I despaired of ever deciphering it. However, on closer inspection, I managed to make it out. It read: slight change of plans. test at five. Stage 16

I studied the note again. The numbers at the end were practically illegible, but that certainly looked like sixteen. A glance at the clock on the wall confirmed that there was no time to study it further. I would barely make it to the screen test on time as it was, with only about five minutes left until the appointed time, so I quickly set out for Stage 16.

~

Thankfully, the soundstages were quite clearly marked, and I found Stage 16 in no time. It seemed to be in a rather deserted part of the lot, since I didn’t see a single other soul in its direct vicinity. However, I thought nothing of this at the time and merely walked over to it without hesitation. Huge doors loomed ahead of me, and I noticed that the handles had a slight level of rust on them. I took hold of one of the handles and tugged on it, but it didn’t budge. Grasping hold of it again, I heaved with all my might, and it finally opened slightly with a loud groan. I was surprised to find total darkness beyond it. Suddenly wondering if I’d read the number right after all, I hesitantly stepped through the door onto the black soundstage.

I walked into it hesitantly, trying to stay within the beam of light shining through the open doorway. “Hello?” I called timidly. “Mr. Wilde? – Is anyone here?” No answer came, and I became certain that I had read the number wrong. Surely, no screen test was going to take place on this deserted stage.

However, just as I was about to leave the stage, a huge spotlight turned on, shining right on me and fairly blinding me. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” a voice demanded, as I held up my arm to shade my eyes from the light. The voice was angry and rather harsh, but there was nonetheless an undeniable richness and warmth to it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my arm to shield my eyes and trying to see who spoke to me. “I’m being given a screen test, and Mr. Wilde told me to come here.”

“You’ve made a mistake,” the voice said. “There is no screen test here.”

“Yes. I see that now,” I replied, “but could you tell me….”

“Get out,” the voice said, softly but commandingly.

“But, I….”

“Get out!” it shouted firmly.

Without another word, I turned and fled the stage, heaved the door shut behind me, and rushed away as fast as I could.

Thankfully, I soon came across a young man holding a clipboard.

“Pardon me,” I said breathlessly. “My name is Christine Davis. Mr. Winston Wilde is giving me a screen test at five. Could you please tell me where it’s being held?”

“Sure,” he said, looking at me questioningly. “Stage 26.”

“Thank you,” I said, then I rushed away as fast as I could, trying to push the voice out of my mind. That voice that, for all it’s frightening words and angry commands, kept echoing in my head like a long-forgotten melody. Whatever happened, somehow, I knew that I would go back to Stage 16.