Show Business Kills

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Book: Read Show Business Kills for Free Online
Authors: Iris Rainer Dart
famous now to take the time to write in and tell the alumni magazine what he was
     doing
.
    In some newspaper article she read a while back, it said that Jack Solomon gave two million dollars to some museum in New
     York. Imagine having a spare couple of million you could just give away. That was something. Her eyes moved down the page
     and stopped to read a little piece of gossip
.
    Mann, Marly Bennet. Marly was a key player on a long-running situation comedy, “KeepingUp with the Joneses.” You’ve also seen her in many movies of the week and miniseries. Also since her arrival in Hollywood,
     Marly has acted in over one hundred and fifty commercials. Marly writes whimsically to this office, “Am happy to report that
     I’m legally separated from Billy Mann, so all college sweethearts can contact me through the alumni association.” Marly and
     ex-husband, late-night-TV-star Billy Mann, have twin daughters, Jennifer and Sarah.
    Oooh, separated. Maybe that’s why Marly didn’t get her letters. She’d mailed them to Marly in care of “The Billy Mann Show,”
     thinking Billy would bring them home. But the big TV star dumped her. Tough break, Marly, she thought. But you’ll survive.
     Someone with my simple tastes could probably live for a year on one month of the child support you’ll get for the twins. Now
     she skipped down the list, looking only at the names of the people she used to know well
.
    Morris, Rose. The film
Faces
, which starred Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, brought screenwriter Rose Morris Schiffman an Oscar nomination for best original
     screenplay. Rose was widowed in 1982 by the death of department-of-architecture graduate (’66) Allan Bayliss. Rose and her
     second husband, physician Andrew Schiffman, have a ten-year-old daughter, Molly.
    She thought about the day Rose Morris and Allan Bayliss got pinned in a fraternity-pinning ceremony held outside in front
     ofthe dorm. Those two loved one another big time, in an almost mystical way. They were the couple she always thought about when
     she learned the term soul mates. They even looked alike
.
    She could still picture that funny little four-eyes Rose Morris nervously running down the stairs to untie Allan from the
     tree where the Sigma Nu’s had tied him as part of the ritual. She had to kiss him in front of everyone and she was mortified,
     didn’t want to go out there alone, but none of her buddies would go with her. Brave it, or some shit like that, they told
     her. You can do it
.
    Rose was terrified. She was on her way up to her room after a dance class, and when Rose spotted her, she grabbed her. “Please
     just walk me out there,” she said. “I’m too afraid to do this alone.” It was no big deal to her, those fraternity jerks didn’t
     intimidate her. So she walked Rose down the steps and out to the tree. Stood next to her while she kissed Allan and untied
     him and the Sigma Nu’s sang the goopy sweetheart song, with Rose blushing flame red
.
    So naturally when she was sitting with her daughter in the State Theater, and Rose’s name came on the screen, she let out
     a yelp and embarrassed the shit out of Polly. “I know her,” she said, really loud, “I saved her ass one time,” and Polly covered
     her face with her hands and someone a few rows back yelled, “Shut up, lady!

    All the way home from Rose’s movie that night, she kept thinking, I could have played the part in
Faces
better than Meryl Streep did. I could have at least played the sister. She tried to call Rose the day after she saw the movie.
     She was going to remind her about the pinning. She was going to say she remembered how much she and Allan loved one another.
     Rose would appreciate that
.
    She was going to ask her for help in the business, but the information operator in Los Angeles told her, “Sorry, but that
     phone is unlisted.” Unlisted! Who do these people think they are? Who are they hiding from, when they don’t list their goddamn
    

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