One.Tough.Town.

Maisie in Hollywood / Part Four (Not to worry. Maisie Mulot was One.Tough.Tootsie.)

Read part three, Stars in Her Eyes here

Whatever you know (or think you know) about W.C. Fields, you’re most likely wrong.

“He was a gentle man,” Maisie told me, “The drinking was a gag, at first. It didn’t get out of hand until after we’d gone our separate ways. The blotto curmudgeon was the creation of the publicity department. He was no sadistic bozo, spiking baby bottles with gin.

“He didn’t torment kids and he didn’t abuse animals. I pounded it into his head: we beasties have the same right to inhabit this planet in dignity and security as your kind, with your noxious sense of entitlement. Let me see you mistreat a critter, any critter, and I will cut you dead.

“I insisted he travel with one pocket full of sunflower seed, for the squirrels and the birdies, another with dog treats.” Maisie grinned. “Them damn cats can fend for themselves. See? I have my moral failings too.

“Whenever we got together he knew to scoop a handful of something out of somewhere to show me he was on the right track, or he’d get a good talking to. When we didn’t have a meet-up, I don’t know what he did. He seemed to take my words to heart, but you never know. Well, he was always a doll to me. On that train ride, he couldn’t have been sweeter.

“The carpetbag he lugged on that cross-country trek . . . my overnight essentials, he told the porter with a wink, swinging the satchel so the bottles clanked together. He loved to pull people’s chains. It held his gin, of course, but also his toothbrush, jammies, a clean shirt, the basics. And half-a-dozen books! He was a big reader.

“He read constantly, we had that in common. He left school early to help his Pa sell produce from a wagon, all the while practicing his juggling. Lemons, apples, he had his tools there in front of him.

“He broke into vaudeville as The Silent Juggler. He wanted to be a comedian, ’cept for, he stuttered. He got his tongue under control, became The Tramp Juggler, reprimanding items that escaped his grab, chastising wayward bananas, balls, what-have-you. Not enough. He longed to go legit. He landed a role in a production alongside Madame Sarah, if you can believe it. Always striving, see, just like me. Up from nothing, just like me.

“He was illiterate until his wife Hattie taught him to read and write. Again, not unlike yours truly. The illiterate part, not the Hattie part, obviously. We understood each other. We spoke the same language.”

That train trip we took, it was a hoot.

“He read to me, Dickens, Twain. I did my interpretive dance, acting out scenes, adding sound effects. Our Roomette, it was called, came with a Radiola. When we pulled in a program of jazz, we turned it up and I be-bopped my tail off. Neighbor Roomettes made a stink, but the porter was on our side. He loved the jive. We rewarded him with many a slug from Bill’s portable bar.

“That porter’s name was Rufus, but we were instructed to call him George. All the porters were George. I suppose it made life easier for the passengers. Georgie-Porgie-Mud-in-your-Eye, I dubbed him, behind his back. I didn’t want to shock him. Some people can take me, some not. He was a good guy, looked out for us.

“When we hit N’awlins, we wanted a few hours to tourist around. The studio had foreseen that eventuality. They had no intention of allowing Bill to sight-see on Bourbon Street. Our three shifts of Georges had orders to herd us onto the next train west. Rufus transferred us to the Pacifica Limited with tears in his eyes. Don’t hold it agin’ me, he begged. We didn’t, of course. We got his name and address. Bill sent him a ten-spot at Christmas for years. When Bill took to you, you had a friend for life.”

I gulped. “Since you brought it up,” I stammered, “forgive me for asking the obvious. A friend for life? Where was he when you hit bottom?”

Maisie winced. “Bill was in bad shape by then. He met his obligation, one last film at Paramount, but his behavior discouraged other producers from hiring him. He was chronically ill, and suffering from delirium tremens. I couldn’t add to his woes by foisting myself upon him.”

They arrived at Union Station in Los Angeles on the morning of April 5, 1927.

A car was waiting to pick them up. Bill Fields was dropped off at a hotel on Wiltshire Boulevard. Maisie was delivered to a bungalow in the Hollywood Hills where Beatrice Wanger, Walter’s younger sister, was in residence. He’d deputized Bea, a modern dance theorist and instructor of international reputation, to watch over her.

The two got on like a house afire. Bea was impressed that Mulot had danced with Denishawn. Maisie had read books on dance written by one Nadja, Bea’s stage name. They formed a mutual admiration society that would last until Bea’s death in 1950.

Walter had arranged for his sister to advise Paramount on matters pertaining to modern dance. She took the starlet under her wing, ferried her around and, most importantly, introduced her to her circle of writers, dancers, and artists.

“That town,” Maisie told me, “is full of phonies. I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did without Bea and her circle. I did not lack genuinely caring companions in the land of fair-weather friends.

“They were open-minded. In their presence I could be myself. I did what I could for them by way of thanks. I fed struggling creatives. One kid wrapped bread in a bakery, supporting his Mom and sis while he attended USC. I paid his tuition until I ditched Hell-Hole Hollywood.

“The guy wrote, had a few things published. Then he hit it big. Then he took a bad tumble. I’d burned my bridges, I could no nothing for him. Poor Dumbo–my pet name for him. Believe you me,” her glossy eyes turned a tad glossier, as close as a mouse comes to tears, “dumb he was not–he and I went down the drain together.”

“Filmmaking,” she lectured me many times, “is considered a glamorous life. Far from it, my dear. It’s a grind, long days, retake after retake, dictatorial directors. Once the film wraps, it’s straight to the next one. You’re paid well, but they get their money’s worth.”

“Maisie,” I said once, “why didn’t you …” She shot me a look I’ll never forget.

“Jump ship sooner? That kind of dough,” she whispered, “is hard to walk away from. Until you can’t take the bullshit any longer.”

She spread her money around. She bought herself toys, clothes, art, gems, but she also paid rents and supported a soup kitchen in West L.A. and another in Anaheim. She did good, quietly, in innumerable ways.

I heard of it from recipients of her largess after she was gone. Word got out I’d been kind to her in her final years. I can only imagine it was Frances Arnstein who let the cat out of the bag. No one else knew I existed.

After the obit in the New York Times, the tributes poured in. Cards. Flowers. I was invited to be interviewed on the nightly news. I declined the honor. Bastards! She was there for those in need when she was on top. Where were they when she hit the skids?

She loved her time in front of the camera. It was the politics she despised. She could not force herself to fawn. She could not make people feel clever and pleased with themselves when they didn’t deserve it. She was equally indifferent to the censure of those she did not admire.

Maisie continued to play dancing mice in foolish pictures. B.P. Schulberg could not envision her any other way. She went on strike, demanding better roles. It was a dangerous time to go on strike, the business was in turmoil.

Talkies were on the way, who knew what that meant? Established stars were in as precarious position as anyone else. The advent of talking pictures provided a plausible reason to give the public for the disappearance of their overpaid darlings.

Maisie had a job security unavailable to most. She was one of a kind. Who was her competition? Rin-Tin-Tin? She was far more personable, and she took exacting direction. She understood what was asked of her, and she delivered.

When you bucked the front office, you were loaned out as a punishment. That meant you were forced into projects of even less merit than those you were refusing. Maisie was cast in the shorts, aimed at infants, that preceded the main attraction.

It was, in a way, a godsend. She finally broke free of the tabletops. One wag had the genius idea to remake Rudolph Valentino’s recent boffo hit with hordes of rodents in the kufiya rampaging across dunes down in La Jolla, a concept flick before there was such a thing. They built a story around it. Secret of the Siren Sands starred one Rudolph Rodentino, with Maisie as Francesca Fortesque, an American Egyptologist.

Valentino’s films were all remade. You took in a Paramount show, you got a Valentino knock-off in the bargain. They were as much an attraction as the feature. Maisie was hotter than ever.

She’d never made a picture that lost money. Bankers were sitting in on board meetings, giving orders. Remake Sheik of the Sullen Sands, set it in Turkestan, call it Princess Kasamina’s Revenge. Maisie, locked into a multi-year contract, was run ragged.

The big threat–not for a few more years–was not talkies. Talkies were stormy skies preparing, not yet ready, to dump on everyone’s parade, to remake the industry top to bottom. The immediate threat was Garbo, a magical being, who created, out of the thinnest material, characters of enchanting complexity. Females, actress and civilian both, were in despair. Who could compete with a goddess?

Another magical being sprinkled with the fairy dust of screen presence, a mouse with an adorable smirk, eloquent eyes, and superb comic timing, who wore clothes beautifully, that’s who.

It would be interesting to be able to observe Garbo and Mulot in the same film. Who would have dominated in that scenario? What a tantalizing thought!

It never happened. We will never know.

Next: Maisie in Hollywood / Part Five / When Good Americans Die, They Go To Paris–Oscar Wilde. Josephine Baker and a cheetah named Chiquita. Read it here