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February 1, 1960
EVELYN, GREEN’S NOT YOUR COLOR
Evelyn Hugo showed up to the 1960 Audience Appreciation Awards on the arm of producer Harry Cameron last Thursday. In an emerald-green silk cocktail number, she failed to wow like she has in the past. Evelyn’s signature color is starting to seem like a signature bore.
Meanwhile, Celia St. James dazzled in a stunning pale blue beaded taffeta shirtdress, updating the typical daytime look with a glamorous, fresh twist.
But the icy Evelyn didn’t say a single word to her old best friend. She avoided Celia all night.
Is it because Evelyn can’t handle the fact that Celia received the Most Promising Female Personality Award that night? Or is it that Celia’s been nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for their movie Little Women, and Evelyn didn’t get a mention?
Looks like Evelyn Hugo’s green with envy.
ARI DROPPED ME FROM ANY productions within Sunset and started offering to loan me out to Columbia. After being forced to do two forgettable romantic comedies—both of them so bad that it was a foregone conclusion they would fail spectacularly—the other studios didn’t want much of me, either.
Don was on the cover of Life, gracefully coming out of the ocean onto the shore, smiling as if it was the best day of his life.
When the 1960 Academy Awards came around, I was officially persona non grata.
“You know that I would take you,” Harry said when he called that afternoon to check in on me. “You just say the word, and I’ll come pick you up. I’m sure you have a stunning dress you can slip on, and I’ll be the envy of everybody with you on my arm.”
I was at Celia’s apartment, getting ready to leave before her hair and makeup people came over. She was in the kitchen, drinking lemon water, avoiding eating anything so she could fit into her dress.
“I know you would,” I said into the phone. “But you and I both know it would only hurt your reputation to be aligned with me right now.”
“I do mean it, though,” Harry said.
“I know you do,” I said. “But you also know I’m too smart to take you up on it.”
Harry laughed.
“Do my eyes look puffy?” Celia asked when I got off the phone with Harry. She opened them bigger and stared at me, as if this would help me answer the question.
I saw barely anything out of the ordinary. “They look gorgeous. And anyway, you know Gwen will make you look fabulous. What are you worried about?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Evelyn,” Celia said, teasing me. “I think we all know what I’m worried about.”
I took her by the waist. She was wearing a thin satin slip, edged in lace. I was wearing a short-sleeved sweater and shorts. Her hair was wet. When Celia’s hair was wet, she didn’t smell like shampoo. She smelled like clay.
“You’re going to win,” I said, pulling her toward me. “It isn’t even a contest.”
“I might not. They might give it to Joy or to Ellen Mattson.”
“They would no sooner give it to Ellen Mattson than throw it in the L.A. River. And Joy, bless her heart, is no you.”
Celia blushed, put her head in her hands briefly, and then looked back at me. “Am I intolerable?” she said. “Obsessing over this? Making you talk to me about it? When you’re . . .”
“On the skids?”
“I was going to say blackballed.”
“If you are intolerable, let me be the one to tolerate you,” I said, and then I kissed her and tasted the lemon juice on her lips.
I checked my watch, knowing that hair and makeup would be there any moment, and grabbed my keys.
She and I had been taking great pains not to be seen together. It was one thing when we really were just friends, but now that we had something to hide, we had to start hiding it.
