BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD Susannah Corwin

HOLLYWOOD & MINE — There are millions of stories here in Tinseltown. Let me read you this one about BILLIE and her meteoric rise from babysitter to Hollywood Studio Chief and what happened next...

HOLLYWOOD & MINE — There are millions of stories here in Tinseltown. Let me read you this one about BILLIE and her meteoric rise from babysitter to Hollywood Studio Chief and what happened next...

It’s not common knowledge, but most leading men are short. They have big heads in relation to their slight bodies, large symmetrical features, especially eyes, and straight expertly manscaped brows. They photograph well. The camera loves them and in order to make them appear tall in the frame they often emote perched up on a flat wooden platform called an apple box, a leftover term from the silent era when California’s main export was produce and anything on hand — like a shipping crate — was incorporated as a movie tool.

It’s amazing in L.A., how often the very early morning brings clarity. It’s true. The low angle of the sun, the freshly brewed coffee, the smell of moist earth and eucalyptus after the sprinklers had gone off. In my gullible twenties — after the birth of my son — it came to my attention that my husband was in the midst of inviting a succession of long legged lady-girls out to restaurants while I let my ends split and my waist expand. I assumed, no, let’s say I trusted, that my husband was engaged in an innocent round of PR and that the parade of beauties would recede when I was able to get back to the gym. Actors? Attention sucking vacuums? Now, really…

I called my mom. Mother Lydia was the antithesis of everyone I knew in Hollywood. If I couldn’t get absolution I knew calling her would result in a strong dose of disapproval, an advised course correction, and a grudging glimmer of hope. First of all, as a school superintendent, she didn’t approve of me dropping out of college, she didn’t approve of my lifestyle; and she certainly didn’t approve of my soon to be ex-husband who she called a dissolute charmer. She often mentioned he had bad blood and that if it weren’t for his good looks he probably would have ended up a goodfella.

I scanned the editing room to see if there was a physical tell for an epiphany moment. Two young men in their early twenties, my classmates, were hunched down in a darkened cubicle, stubble across their chins, staring at the projection screen. The only thing on their horizon was their unfolding masterpiece. It must have been around five o’clock. The editing room was nearly silent. The population of campus was thinning out in anticipation of altered states and misadventures. At a maternal 29 I felt those days had departed, but something key had suddenly taken their place: I liked control and I liked the inkling of muscularity, the real labor it took to make even the smallest film. Call it an epiphany, call it a benediction, call it a curse. For me it was a – no, it was the turning point.