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generous drinks. Fits was not my type. He was heavyset with sandy, graying hair scattered like buckshot over his head, and a good number of years older. His small eyes had an ironic twinkle belying the rough kindness of his nature. He was unexpectedly light on his feet and sexy and, at that particular moment, the best shoulder in the world for me to cry on. Like Joe, he had radar for injustice and a healthy sense of outrage. And, like most actors I know, he was on the lookout for injury, his ego on his sleeve, finding slights where none was intended. His main complaint, besides rarely getting the lead, was not enough camera time. I've never met an actor who didn't have that particular complaint. But it wasn't something he got ugly about, or only fleetingly, and not a true disappointment. When I met him he was cleaning up. He said he'd wake up not knowing if it was the booze or the coke from the night before that made him feel like slow death each morning; he'd decided he did not want to live that way anymore. He was divorced— twice— who isn't in Hollywood— and the father of a kid living problematically with her mother, which added worry and increased the booze- or- cocaine or cocaine- or- booze routine— whichever it was. He wanted to be able to account for his nights and learn to let things be: his acquired wisdom; very L.A.
    Â Â Â Â He teased me that night for being so young and pathetic, and for being Dottie's friend. I pointed out that he was her friend too, but he said that was different and went on calling me a child and so on until I finally asked him to dance with me just to get him to shut up. His elegant dancing took me very much by surprise. I mean, Fits could waltz. I'm a closet dancer. I respond to music; even dumb, sentimental twaddle wafts its way into my skin and my hips begin to sway. Joe mocked dancing unless it was exotic, by which he meant Indian or Indonesian, not lap. Dancing was a bourgeois pastime meant to allow repressed people to touch, he said. He did learn to watch me improvise at home, to jazz mostly, saying it was probably necessary for an actor to be connected to the body in that way. Once in a while we played at striptease. Ah, Joe.
    Â Â Â Â Anyhow, Dottie was singing a Gershwin tune that night I'd forgotten requesting. She didn't know all the lyrics and said so, sticking the blame of her attempt on me. The song was "Someone to Watch over Me," and I hummed along in Fits's ear as we danced, fighting down tears. He chuckled, his loose frame wobbling in my arms. "Don't laugh at me," I murmured.
    Â Â Â Â He pulled back to look into my face. "I would never laugh at you," he said. "At the song maybe, but not you."
    Â Â Â Â I looked back to see if he was fooling with me. He wasn't. I moved to the music, not even needing a partner. "Who's leading?" I asked.
    Â Â Â Â "I always lead," Fits replied.
    Â Â Â Â It was a Hollywood moment.
    Â Â Â Â He took me home that night. Dottie had insisted I take a car service to the club, though it was not far, down on Fountain, I think. I didn't drink that much anyway and could have driven even if it was three a.m. and I was weary. So Fits took me home in his beat- up Beemer and came in and made himself a pot of coffee, and we sat up in the bungalow for what was left of the night and talked. He was contrary and proud and not easy, but he was the right guy that night. Underneath a fair amount of armor, my soul was safe with Fits.
    Â Â Â Â He was full of stories, having arrived on the scene just ahead of AIDS slowing down the Hollywood sex- press. He'd been skinny— believe it, he insisted— fresh, raw meat. "This one time I was invited to this A- list actress's house [he wouldn't name names, but I guessed] about a part in a movie. She'd lead and produce, so it was kind of an audition. I wanted the work bad— not a great part but solidly supporting: a dumped lover she keeps