Chapter 4

We stayed seated until the guys had finished, then, as we all stood, Kurt and Jack did the rounds with hugs, kisses and “Welcome to the Movie Madhouse" for everyone. We watched them as they got into a waiting limo and were driven away. It left a vacuum that could only be filled by one thing. Wanda voiced it.

“I don’t know about you girls, but I have just realised that what I was going to wear tonight, isn’t up to my new mindset. Are we shopping?”

We found our driver, sitting on a seat, ice cream in hand and watching the beach bunnies. He opened the door for us and finished his ice cream before driving us back to the hotel in Honolulu. We all freshened up and then hit the shops, in smaller groups. I found myself with Belle, arm in arm, walking along, window shopping. We saw some lovely things in Downtown and Do’s, but they were too formal to be packed in our personal luggage. After a while, we found what we were looking for at Valia. They had good looking, long dresses in cool materials that looked good, were all right for a hot evening, and would pack well.

Belle came away with a very colourful, long, dress with spaghetti straps and a low neckline, while I opted for a shorter dress, in a blue and white pattern so I could use my sandals, with a higher neckline so that my falsies didn’t show. If I was going to be wearing anything more revealing, I would have to have a proper prosthetic pair, merged to hide the seams, or else have a boob job. We took our bags and went back to the hotel to dress for success.

When we assembled in the lobby, waiting for the limos, I could see that reality had prevailed. While we all looked fabulous, we were all in dresses that we could add to our personal luggage and were easy wearing enough to use on other occasions. It would have to wait until we had some certainty before we got truly glamorous. When the limos arrived, we piled in, and made ourselves comfortable. I was in one car, with Belle, Cynthia, and Moyra. The driver told us that there were drinks in the cabinet, and that he would be careful so that we didn’t spill any on our dresses.

At the Prince Waikiki, one of the film crew was outside waiting for us. We stood until we were joined by the others, and then he escorted us to a private room where the party was just starting. David and Cecil were there, along with some of the film crew. We were given glasses of wine and shown the buffet, so we could graze.

As we nibbled and talked to the others, we were joined by others, from members of the crew to the stars we had already met, and some of their friends. I was introduced to C.J., the writer of the original screenplay. He told me that he would not be at the actual shoot and had left any changes to David to approve.

Suddenly, I found myself standing there, talking to Kurt’s wife, Kym, who was a film star in her own right. I asked her why she hadn’t been at the shoot and was told that she and Kurt tried not to be in the same picture, as hers were more psychological thrillers, while he excelled in the he-man action genre. She told me that Kurt had spoken about his morning and had let her know that he had kissed some girls who were not in the film.

“We are actors, Jamie, and I kiss a lot of men who are not my husband, and he kisses a lot of women. He told me how you coerced him into kissing your friends, and now I hear that they may be part of the film. That makes it all right. If they weren’t, I would have to refuse him his conjugal rights for a week,”

“That seems harsh, Kym. With the effect he has on women, you must be unsatisfied for most of the year.”

She laughed.

“You’re a breath of fresh air, Jamie. Kurt is very good at restraining himself. If he was kissing every girl who begged for it, the papers would have us on the edge of divorce. We do love each other, and our times away from film sets are very private. He told me how good you were with the screen tests, and I got David to send me a single camera view of you, in both that you were in. If you don’t do this film, I want you in one that’s in the planning stage. It is about two, quite mad sisters, who are serial killers. It’s more terrifying than anything I’ve done before. Maybe we can do it together, after you wrap this one up. Now, getting serious, my agent has just walked in. I’ll introduce you to him. You will need him before you sign anything else.”

She led me over to a very elegant man who had just had a glass put into his hand. He put it down on a table to give Kym a hug.

“Jim, darling, meet Jamie Lee Curtis, the new leading lady of Kurt’s next film, once David signs her up. Jamie, this is Jim Younger, the best agent in the business.”

He looked at me and grinned.

“That has to be your real name, Jamie. The original already has an agent. So, you’re going to be in Kurt’s film? I won’t offer you my services until David shows me the screen test. If I think you have a real future, you’ll get the same deal that Kym and Kurt have, where the percentage is low, and I only really get paid when you earn millions a picture.”

Kym took him by the arm and dragged him towards David, saying, “He’ll have a monitor and video you can watch. He wouldn’t have thrown this party without setting that up.”

I was talking to an older actor, who I had seen in most of his many films, when Jim came and stood beside me. He, and the actor, exchanged pleasantries, and then he took me aside.

“Jamie, David just showed me the two screen tests you did with Kurt and Jack. The two were like chalk and cheese, and your acting was so real. I want you on my books. David has told me that the Hotel has a website, and I’ve phoned my office to send a contract to it. Come with me, down to their office, and I’ll get them to print off a couple of copies.”

We left the room and went to the office, where they looked on their email account, finding the message. They printed off two copies of the contract and slid them into a Hotel folder for us. We sat in the Club Bar while I read through one. It had the only payment to ‘Younger Agents’ as a five percent take of my earnings, from film, modelling, advertising, and any literature. I questioned the last, and he laughed, telling me that I may like to write a book, or an expose, when I got older.

“What about the other girls, Jim? David and Kurt are rewriting the script to have my character as a stewardess, with a bunch of friends all in the same job. It’s what we do for a living. He has asked the whole cabin crew to be in the movie, some with speaking parts and the others as extras.”

He took a notebook out of his breast pocket and asked me to tell him my name, banking, and contact details, and the airline we all flew with. When I told him that, he smiled.

“I’m heading for London, via Los Angeles, on that airline, tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll see you there, then. We’re all working that flight and will get some time off when we get to Heathrow.”

“That’s good. Now, we’ll go back to the party. I think that David might have a contract ready for you to sign, and he’ll want to make a big thing of it. Are you happy with this one? If you sign it, I’ll look at what David is offering before I let you put your name to anything else. I look after my stars like a father. Actually, like a father we have to christen you. You can’t go into the business as Jamie Lee Curtis. Have you had any thoughts about who you’ll be?”

“I hadn’t, really. Leave it with me and if you think of something snappy, you can suggest it. Kym has told me that she wants me to play her mad sister in a blood and guts thriller, so it will have to be a name that doesn’t sound too soft.”

“Good thinking. This is between us, so your real name is important. Will you sign?”

“Is the Pope a Catholic, Jim. Of course, I’ll sign. I’d be an idiot not to.”

“Actually, the current Pope is Jesuit, to be pedantic. Write your name in full on this line on both copies, and sign at the bottom. I’ll countersign and date it. Then we’ll get the hotel to scan one and send it back to my office. After that, I need to be introduced to your friends, and get all their names and contact details so that I can talk to them later. If they’re extras, there’s no rush.”

Once the scanned copy had been sent off, Jim got the hotel to delete the one on the email site before we left, me with my copy of the contract in my bag. Back in the room, the party was continuing, with a few other film stars having arrived while we had been away. Jim was the agent to most of them, and the bulk of the evening was him introducing me to famous people, and me introducing him to the rest of the crew, as my new agent.

When we had done the rounds, he went to David, and they had a quiet talk. They both smiled and shook hands, then Jim came over to me.

“He has a lot of faith in you, Jamie. The numbers on his contract, for your first film, may only be five percent of what Kurt will be getting, but they are ten times what a budding actress would get on her debut. He had already been lobbied by Kurt, and you have two percent of the gross, so that could be a good earner for both of us. I think that he is just about to make an announcement.”

I thought about what he just said, and a name sprang into my mind. I wanted to be called Faith Inyew. I looked and saw a big TV screen light up, and then David clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Friends, I called this party to announce the official launch of a new Kurt Andreessen and Jack Fellows film, with the working title of ‘Gilding the Lily’. Over the last few days, I have had the pleasure of meeting the lovely lady who will be playing Lily. Now, up to this morning, she has been an airline stewardess, and we have, with us tonight, the entire cabin crew of the flight that brought me to Hawaii. This morning, we did some test scenes and a few screen tests. I will now show you the edited results of three of them, Cecil had spent the afternoon turning them into something close to what you’ll see on the screen.”

He pressed a button, saying, “The first is a scene between Kurt and Jack. Please pay attention to the girls in the crowd.”

We watched the two great actors do their thing, and I could see that the girls played it to the hilt, with genuine looks from indifference to fear. When it finished, there was some backslapping. Then one of the stars asked his question.

“Those girls, I’ve never seen them, before, and I’ve had a lot of female extras in my films. They’re very good, who coached them?”

“Those girls are with us, tonight, they are the cabin crew I told you about. As for coaching, we just told them to go and sit at those tables and react. Everything they did was their natural reactions. Now, we get to the highlight of this evening. One of the cabin crew really demanded my attention, being a lovely person, as well as looking good. She is here tonight and based on the two screen tests I’m now going to show you, I have a contract waiting for her to sign.”

He pressed a button and the screen lit up with me and Jack. It had been edited so there was close-ups of our faces as it proceeded. I was staggered to see the fury on my face as I went to slap him. The screen went dark as I walked away from him. There was a smattering of applause and I blushed. Jim put his arm over my shoulders.

“That looked good on his phone, it looked like a box-office hit on the bigger screen.”

David just pressed the button again and the screen lit up to show me and Kurt, on the steps of the bandstand. Again, it had been edited to show the general picture, from two angles, and the close-ups of our faces. I felt someone standing the other side of me and glanced to see Kym standing there. When the scene ended with Kurt and I entwined in the kiss, she whispered, “This is where I should call you a bitch and threaten to kill you, but I can see that you’re going to be a great actress and I wouldn’t kill someone who will double my next box office returns.”

I turned to her, and she grinned and hugged me. It was a relief that she could see me in a passionate kiss with her husband and know that it was all acting. Me, though, would be thinking about that kiss for days to come. It may even appear in my dreams tonight. After that, there was some chatter and then David clapped his hands once more.

“Friends, I have a contract waiting for Jamie to sign. She has been clever and has already signed with Jim Younger, so he has had a look at this and agreed that I have been generous. Jamie, would you join me and sign?”

Jim guided me to the table where the contract was. I made them wait while I read it. The numbers nearly made me faint. I was on a monthly salary until the film was released with it as almost a third my yearly salary with the airline. I saw that I had the two percent of the gross and remembered what Kurt had said about it being the real earner. I took the pen and signed three copies. Jim countersigned as a witness after David signed as the director. There was a general applause, and I could see some of the other film stars smiling. David then said something I was waiting for.

“Friends, I will have individual contracts for every one of the other girls, once we have had a chance of doing screen tests for them all. They are all very professional in a very hard job, staying pleasant and focussed while people are screaming at you, or vomiting on you, which means that they all have the patience of an angel, something we all know is a big help in our business.”

There was some laughter at that, and I quietly took my copy of the contract and put it in my bag with the other one. I had noticed that the starting date was today, so I was already employed in two jobs, one of which I would have to leave as soon as I arrive in London. Before we left, I had referred four of the famous stars to Jim, to discuss projects where they wanted me, or me and the crew, to work alongside them. One made me grin, as it was to be a spaghetti western reprise, with us girls being working girls in a bordello, with me as the prostitute with a heart of gold.

I told Belle about that one as we undressed to go to bed, and she grinned, before kissing me.

“I’ve just kissed the lips that kissed Kurt, more than once. Was his wife mad?”

“No, she took it all as something we actors do. Mind you, it was very nice, especially that screen kiss. I might have a bruise on my uvula by morning, the way he flipped it from side to side.”

Belle closed her eyes as she thought about that.

“I wonder what it would be like, playing a whore? In fact, I wonder if we can try out a scene from that film, if you’re up to it?”

“For you, Belle, I’m up for whatever you’re thinking about.”

We spent the next hour in her bed, with me pretending to be her Kurt, and then me pretending, in my mind, that she was Kurt. The main thing was that we were both satisfied with the outcomes of our playacting, and I went to my own bed to sleep the sleep I really needed, after the day I had had.

The morning wake-up call dragged us out of our beds and into the toilet and shower. Belle and I kissed in the shower, which led to us being late down to breakfast, after a rush to get dressed in our uniforms and pack our bags, mine now getting quite full. At the table, Cynthia asked me how many times I had fallen out of character last night, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the crew. Both Belle and I blushed. The atmosphere was joyful, all of us knowing that there was another life that could be had, which could mean that we were the ones in the good seats, sometime in the future.

At the airport, we went through the motions, and assembled in our places on the plane. When the real paying customers came in, we led them to their seats and made sure they were comfortable. I got Jim seated and he was smiling.

“You know something, Jamie. This is the first time I’ve been cosseted by one of my clients. Cussed and cursed, yes, but never cosseted.”

“There’s always a first time for everything, Jim. Now you be a good boy and settle down, buckle up and I’ll bring you a drink when we’re in the air. Remember, the shoe is on the other foot once I’ve resigned, so enjoy my waiting on you, hand, and foot, while you can.”

The flight was uneventful, except for Jim wandering towards the back of the plane to say hello to the rest of the crew. I wondered what those in economy thought this guy was up to. By evening, we were on the ground in Los Angeles, and then it was an overnight hop to Heathrow, where I would need to go to the company office, once I had my personal case, so I could give them back all of the company uniforms. I would need to keep my ID to get me out of the company car park, but they could cancel it overnight.

It was a strange feeling, sitting there with Belle in the pull-down seats, during my last approach in a company uniform. She must have known what was going through my mind as she gripped my hand and whispered that everything will be all right, and that she would look forward to seeing me again.

Jim had given me a note during the flight, with his business card. He would be in the city for some time and wanted me to meet him in two days’ time at the Clermont Hotel Restaurant, for lunch. I had put it in my bag. We stood when we had landed and ushered the passengers out of the plane and onto the airbridge. Cynthia made sure we were all together and alone before we were leaving.

“Now girls, this is our last chance to be private and I know Jamie will be resigning before she leaves the terminal. I have to thank her on so many fronts. She stood up when things went haywire, several days ago, and carried on in an unusual role for her. She has given us all the chance to be something other than glorified waitresses, and it will be now up to each of us with how we move forward with that. She has been a good person to have as cabin crew, and I’ll miss her smiles until we meet, perhaps on a film set. Now, let’s all give her a hug and tell her that she’s in our hearts and minds, for ever.”

I had tears in my eyes as they all took turns to give me a hug and wish me luck. Then, we made our way up the airbridge and into the crew lounge. We went through the usual customs check without any trouble, with me now reunited with my new personal case. I then went to the company office where my adventure started, so long ago. There, I declared that I was resigning, as of now. They told me that I would be docked two weeks wages, in lieu of notice, and I told them that it was all right. I had calculated that I had earned almost the same amount with my new job already.

They allowed me to go into an empty office to change, so I put on my mini-skirt and top. The uniform dress and company shoes went into the flight case, along with the other company clothes. All my personal papers were now in my handbag, with my wallet. I had my white sandals and the silver top and went back to the main office. I left the beige case in front of the managers’ desk while he took my ID to write down the number for cancelling later. He looked up.

“There was a message that came through for you the other day, Jamie. A passenger wanted to tell us how good you were in your job. We’re sorry to see you go, but I’m sure that you have your reasons, especially by the way you look now.”

“Thank you, sir. I did speak to that customer on a later flight. Now, if things are their usual efficiency, there should be another roller case in my name, probably sitting in the crew quarters in L.A. You can tell them it’s not needed now.”

I thanked them for their time and made my way into the terminal. I could see that it was cool and blustery outside, and the only coat I had left in my car was an old anorak. I wheeled my case to the shops and bought a Burberry trench coat that was on a rack, marked down. It was my pointer to a new future, and I was much warmer when I had found my car, putting my case on the back seat, then getting in and coaxing it into life. I sat there for a while, as it warmed up and the oil got circulated. I pulled my phone out of the glove box and turned it on, then sat and thought of the me that had put it there, to get on a flight, almost two weeks before. That was such a different person it almost beggared belief.

I put the car into gear and drove out of the carpark and made my way home. I lived in an apartment in South London. It wasn’t bad, quite roomy, in fact. Having a good job was all it needed to live well, if a bit on the lonely side. I was glad I didn’t have a flatmate, as they would have been very surprised at what I looked like now.

Marianne Gregory © 2024