The Gypsy Joyride Had To End, It Couldn’t Go Forever.

Maisie in Hollywood / Part Six / G.W. Pabst, Thelma Furness, and the Prince of Wales.

Read Part Five / When Good Americans Die, They Go To Paris — Oscar Wilde here.

One evening we were looking through her scrapbooks. Maisie was big on scrapbooks, had piles of them. You’ll get a peek at them by and by.

Most of the time thumbing through those yellowed pages made her smile. That night, she turned melancholy.

“Hey, lady,” I said, trying to coax her out of a sour mood. “If you had the chance, what would you have done differently?”

I expected . . . hell, I don’t know what I expected. One of her smart-mouth one-liners. A cute crack. Something shaking her free of the spell that had hold of her. Nope. She was in some kind of a mood that night.

“Bea and me,” she muttered, “we kicked around Europe for a year. A year to remember, my dear. We soaked up the sun on yachts off St. Tropez. In Paris we studied flamenco, something I’ve always wanted to do, with a master, Francisco Miralles Arnau, nearing the end of his brilliant career, but still in complete command of his art.

We spent long, lovely weekends with remnants of the ancien régime in their Loire Valley hand-me-downs, living high with little worry to our pocketbook. We had to tip generously, was all, and we damn well did. Everyone loved us, down to the least chambermaid. When our funds ran low, we’d wire Walter and have a money order awaiting at our next destination.

“I worked some. I had an offer from Georg Pabst to make a film, came in just afore we sailed. Bea and I intended to take him up on it. Our housekeeper on Holborn Drive was looking after there. The lease would not renew until year’s end, we had time to decide what to do about it. Blue skies smiling on me, nothing but blue skies do I see, that was us. Never saw the sun shining so bright, never saw things going so right. It was,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “summer of ’28.

“My German film, these days it’s called a classic. Released January ’29, it flopped. I was vilified–what was Pabst thinking? An American, who couldn’t act. He assured me I was outstanding in it. He wanted to do a second one, had it all lined up. Fine with me, another very nice paycheck.

“Diary of a Wild Girl debuted in Berlin on October 15. I didn’t stick around for the hoopla. I knew that one was a disaster. Risqué content had been heavily censored, leaving the plot in a shambles. On top of that, sound was in. Diary was the last of a dying breed.

Bea and I hunkered down in London, considering our options.

“We put up at the Shelbourne, quietly, contacting no one. Thelma Furness heard we were in town, God knows how–well, at that point I was a sensation, it was bound to get out–and tracked us down.

“I’d never met her, knew her only from the tabloids. She phoned out of the blue. I hoped she had a job for me, she’d been a producer and actress a bit back, but, no. We were invited to Primrose Hill, where, get this, we should expect to meet the Prince of Wales. This Kansas Kiddo, my darling, was presented to the future king of England! I was quite impressed with myself. Blue skies, blue as could be. Then–bam!–the party was over. Black Friday, you heard of it, right?”

“I heard Black Tuesday,” I said.

“Christ, kid, we had Black Thursday, Black Friday, Black Monday, Black Tuesday, hard to keep ’em straight. And, don’t forget, I was an ocean away. I was at Burrough Court, Thelma’s country hang-out. We’d been in the field all day, murdering grouse. They shot, I watched, grinding my teeth. This was Viscountess Furness. I was doing my best to be social. And I certainly didn’t want to make a scene in front of the Prince of Wales.

“We got back to the house, heard the news. Thelma tried and tried to get a call off to her broker. The lines were jammed. The ooomph had gone out of that crowd in an instant. Bags were packed, cars were called. We grabbed our suitcase and begged a ride into town.

“The invites dried up. No one was in the mood to play. Bea and I agreed, time to get our butts home. In the dumps, we treated ourselves to one last screw-Paramount fling. We booked passage on the Ile de France, the crossing at its finest. I suited up in my gladdest glad-rags and danced on table tops all the way from Le Havre to Manhattan Island, accompanied by the quintet serenading whatever used-to-be-flush types as had the heart to show their faces in the first-class salon.

New York was a morgue.

“We zipped pier to Penn Station, passed nary a night in town. For why? To hear sob stories? Everyone had lost money, or knew someone who had. We’d taken a beating ourselves. I had my jewelry to sell, but who was going to buy it?

“I was unemployed and, having walked out on contractual obligations, unemployable. I held out hope I could smooth things over. I’ve always been able to charm my way out of a tight corner.

“In show business it’s feast or famine. If you have a job, another bobs up, the logic being that if you’re working, you’re good; if you’re idle, you must be bad. I was sure my small-budget films would go on. Somebody would pick me up. People craved a spot of bright in their lives, bright being my specialty. Nope. I was poison, to producers at least.

“Ever notice that when bad days come, hard luck seems to have been waiting to fall on you like a ton of brick? Talkies had arrived, dearie. Many a headliner was dropped for a voice not captured well. Ten years later, the kinks worked out, they might have been fine. T’was the timing done them in.

“What place did I have in that Brave-New-World? Who wanted a mousie who spoke via subtitles, my voice near unintelligible to most? It takes a keen ear to get what I’m saying. That’s the fact, I don’t beat myself up over it. It’s a wonder I speak at all, right? Well, thanks to that, and to another sad situation, to a certain other film-land flotsam lured from the New York stage by the second gold rush, I was toast.

“Bill Fields had introduced us. Bea must have her to dinner, he told me. She writes. Not for us, I said. I’ve heard things about her. Give her a chance, he said. She writes.

“He wouldn’t put it to bed. I’ve known her for years, he said, her ex-husband was a pal. On top of that, she was hatched not far from where I saw light of day. She had the sense to bust out of there, like I did. That alone makes her okey-doke in my book. C’mon, girlie, have her over. What harm will it do?

“I pushed her to Bea. Bea asked her up. Not that she fit in, but it went well enough. We had the stage in common. We knew the same people back east. My career was going gangbusters. I could afford to be generous.

“She was trying to make ends meet writing for the fan-rags, under a pseudonym. She’d failed at a number of things. She didn’t want to publicize her latest initiative, she was testing the waters. Bea and me, we felt for her. We did some phoning around, tipped her off to a few juicy scoops. Hell, we even edited her scribbles. She couldn’t spell worth a damn.”

Maisie sighed. “I accuse myself of having had no small part in her eventual success. In answer to your question, sugarplum, putting myself out, against my better judgment, for a snake, that’s the worst mistake I ever made.” She scowled. “Took me a bit, but I finally learned my lesson. I go with my gut ever since.”

“She had it in for you, didn’t she?” I crooned. A chance to trash a woman she still despised forty years later, it always perked her up. No, she was down and, apparently, determined to stay that way.

“Not just me. If ever anyone needed to be lured down a dark alley, it was her.”

Earlier in the day we’d watched Maltese Falcon, one of her favorite movies. (One of mine, too, I don’t care what Louise Brooks had to say about it.) Hon,” she moaned, “I’m worn out. Let’s turn in, how about it?”

If you question how I’m able to report comments made thirty years ago, here’s your answer.

As with many elderly individuals, Maisie told the same stories over and over again. Many of her remarks, I honestly believe I can recite them verbatim.

Do you happen to recall the revue Beyond The Fringe? Yah, probably before your time. I can still recite lines from it, and that was way back, back in my college days. The British import was recorded on two albums. I had one of them, the one with Why I’d Rather Have Been A Judge Than A Coal Miner.

Let’s see . . . what can I summon up, without peeking?

I could’ve been a judge, but I never had the Latin… I never had the Latin to get through the rigorous judging exams. They’re very rigorous, the judging exams, very rigorous indeed. They’re noted for their rigor. People come out of them saying, “My God, what a rigorous exam!” And so I become a miner instead. I managed to get through the mining exams. They’re not very rigorous. There’s no rigor involved really. There’s a complete lack of rigor involved in the mining exams. They only ask you one question. They say, “Who are you?” And I got 75 percent on that.

Okay, I cheated. I googled it. At one point I could rattle off the whole speech. It’s been fifty-five years! Give me a goddamn break!

The intonation, the delivery, I hear the rhythm of it in my head as I read it on the page. It took a ton of listens to work through the accents. Some of it I never got. What meaning I did excavate, I adored. That humor, if you loved it, you really loved it.

Stuff sticks with me. Especially if there’s a rhythm to it. I’m a poet. Sort of. I write verse. Humorous verse. Funny, but not ha-ha-funny. Situational-funny. I’ve been working on my version of Cinderella for forty years. That tells you where my head is at. Want to read it? No, I don’t suppose you do.

If you ever work up to giving it a try, here’s the link: https://medium.com/goint-rogue-2/celestine-and-her-sisters-an-old-favorite-deconstructed-and-reassembled-in-supremely-sly-verse-e632c6a47c8a

Maisie read it, gave my ego a big boost. She said, “Kid, you’re a comic genius.” Not my words, her words. You think that ain’t burned in my memory? That would have been around 1985. My thing was half the length it is now. I can’t seem to wind it down. I keep asking myself, what happened next? I’m more than a little obsessive. Big surprise, right?

Maisie put up with me, thank God. If she hadn’t come along, I’d probably be locked up. I know, I know, they don’t lock you up any more. I’d be on the street. I could tell her anything and she’d talk me through it.

Maisie saved my life. My apartment is a shrine to her.

Attention All: I buy, sell, collect Mulot memorabilia. That’s how I make my (such as it is) living. I’m like that guy on Staten Island who collected Elizabethan. I read about him in the New York Times Sunday Magazine thirty years back. He owned a bed that had belonged to . . . Elizabeth, I think, or someone very near to her. He was a butcher, a nobody. But an expert on Elizabethan. Self taught, never been to college. I’m the expert in my area of interest. I’m the go-to-gal on Maisie Mulot.

Anybody out there got Maisie items you can bear to part with, email me at MaisieInHollywood@gmail.com

We were tucked into bed.

She slept in her own nest, next to me, on my nightstand. I had just turned out the light. A thought had been bugging me for the last hour. I had to ask, I couldn’t hold it in. “Hey, sweetie,” I whispered, “do you go with your gut with me?”

“Damn-well darn-tootin’ I do,” she squealed. “And I’ve never regretted it.”

“Not even that time . . .”

“No. Not even then.”

That little lady, she always told me what I needed to hear. Out of kindness or out of pity, it doesn’t much matter. It kept me calm.

Coming Next / Read ‘Hooray for Hollywood’ — here

The ‘Live Your Truth’ pioneer has burnt her bridges. What now?