A Stranger in the Mirror

Hollywood, California, in 1946, was the film capital of the world, a magnet for the talented, the greedy, the beautiful, the hopeful and the weird. It was the land of palm trees and Rita Hayworth and the Holy Temple of the Universal Spirit and Santa Anita. It was the agent who was going to make you an overnight star; it was a con game, a whorehouse, an orange grove, a shrine. It was a magical kaleidoscope, and each person who looked into it saw his own vision.

To Toby Temple, Hollywood was where he was meant to come. He arrived in town with an army duffel bag and three hundred dollars in cash, moving into a cheap boardinghouse on Cahuenga Boulevard. He had to get into action fast, before he went broke. Toby knew all about Hollywood. It was a town where you had to put up a front. Toby went into a haberdashery on Vine Street, ordered a new wardrobe, and with twenty dollars remaining in his pocket, strolled into the Hollywood Brown Derby, where all the stars dined. The walls were covered with caricatures of the most famous actors in Hollywood. Toby could feel the pulse of show business here, sense the power in the room. He saw the hostess walking toward him. She was a pretty redhead in her twenties and she had a sensational figure.

She smiled at Toby and said, "Can I help you?"

Toby could not resist it. He reached out with his two hands and grabbed her ripe melon breasts. A look of shock came over her face. As she opened her mouth to cry out, Toby fixed his eyes in a glazed stare and said apologetically, "Excuse me, miss - I'm not a sighted person."

"Oh! I'm sorry!" She was contrite for what she had been thinking, and sympathetic. She conducted Toby to a table, holding his arm and helping him sit down, and arranged for his order. When she came back to his table a few minutes later and caught him studying the pictures on the wall, Toby beamed up at her and said, "It's a miracle! I can see again!"

He was so innocent and so funny that she could not help laughing. She laughed all through dinner with Toby, and at his jokes in bed that night.

Toby took odd jobs around Hollywood because they brought him to the fringes of show business. He parked cars at Ciro's, and as the celebrities drove up, Toby would open the car door with a bright smile and an apt quip. They paid no attention. He was just a parking boy, and they did not even know he was alive. Toby watched the beautiful girls as they got out of the cars in their expensive, tight-fitting dresses, and he thought to himself, If you only knew what a big star I'm going to be, you'd drop all those creeps.

Toby made the rounds of agents, but he quickly learned that he was wasting his time. The agents were all star-fuckers. You could not look for them. They had to be looking for you. The name that Toby heard most often was Clifton Lawrence. He handled only the biggest talent and he made the most incredible deals. One day, Toby thought, Clifton Lawrence is going to be my agent.

Toby subscribed to the two bibles of show business: Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. It made him feel like an insider. Forever Amber had been bought by Twentieth Century-Fox, and Otto Preminger was going to direct. Ava Gardner had been signed to star in Whistle Stop with George Raft and Jorja Curtright, and Life with Father had been bought by Warner Brothers. Then Toby saw an item that made his pulse start pounding. "Producer Sam Winters has been named Vice-President in Charge of Production at Pan-Pacific Studios."