LITMIR.BIZ

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you at Stage B to begin shooting in an hour,” Stern said.

      “An hour? What, do you think I’m Moses at the Red Sea? I don’t do miracles. There’s nothing on the rack to fit him,” Mrs. Romanov protested.

      “Get goldilocks—you know, that blonde—to help. Whatever it takes but make it happen,” Stern ordered.

      “Stage what? Put on my makeup? I need . . . Papa, can’t we? I thought I would . . . ” I objected. I was overwhelmed but too nervous to be terrified.

      Mrs. Romanov grabbed a small ladder resting on a wall behind the rack of costumes. Without so much as a by-your-leave, she opened it in front of me, climbed to the fifth rung, and began to measure my arms and shoulders. Before I could utter another word of dissent, Stern had spun around and disappeared into the crowd on the wooden walkway.

      I wanted my father to rescue me, but he was as surprised as I was. He looked at me with a helpless grin that said: You’re on your own, Jakey.

      I thought for sure that first day all I would do was take a tour of the studio, learn the lay of the land, and maybe get some pointers on how to act in movies. But there had been no real tour and not even a minute of orientation and certainly no pointers. Soon I would be shooting the first scene in my first film. I didn’t have the slightest idea who my character was, what the story was about, how to act on camera, or what in the hell I was doing there. I wasn’t ready. I was totally lost and what’s more, I didn’t even have my costume.

      A few seconds passed as a mute Mrs. Romanov scrambled off the ladder and angrily shuffled through the clothing on the rack. I came to the awful realization that it was just my first day on the job and I was already causing big problems.

      Then the old woman coughed, spit on the ground, roughly signaled for me to follow her, and guided us to another nearby building. Inside was the cubbyhole—more accurately, the closet—that would serve as my dressing room. It would have been small for an ordinary sized man; for me, it was miniscule.

      A few minutes later, Blanche Payson, a six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound Amazon who had worked as a police woman in Los Angeles before her stint as an actress at Century, stood in my dressing room. She extended one arm to shake my hand. In the other hand she held a banged-up beige cosmetics case. I recall she had the strongest grip of any woman I’d ever met. As a matter of fact, it was stronger than those of most men I knew.

      Blanche explained that Julius had tasked her with giving me a crash course on the basics of donning movie makeup. For the next fifteen awful minutes I was initiated to the mysteries of being vamped. As Papa looked on, Blanche roughly painted thick, white, lead-based greasepaint all over my face. That awful stuff came in paper-wrapped, six-inch-long solid cylinders. The first time she rubbed it on me, it actually hurt. Then Blanche used a toothpick to apply a dab of lip rouge to the inner corner of each of my eyes. After that, she used her pinky finger to carefully apply purple eye shadow. She finished by patting my entire face with white powder. I coughed after inhaling some of that heavily leaded dreadful dust.

      By then, Mrs. Romanov had returned with my costume and hung it on a small rack that ran along the rear wall of the dressing room. My first costume consisted of worn dungaree coveralls and a scratchy canvas shirt done in a Scottish Plaid. I was to use my own shoes until the studio could special order some to fit me.

      Blanche and Papa stepped out and I changed into the outfit Mrs. Romanov had just delivered. As I dressed, I gazed out of the single source of light in the cramped room. It was a tiny block of smoky glass in the rear wall. I imagined squeezing myself through it and high-tailing it to the Hollywood Hills.

      “Hurry it up, princess!” Blanche yelled.

      When I came out of the door I was embarrassed for them to see me in costume. The pants looked two sizes too short and the shirt was so small I could barely button it. Papa politely smiled. Blanche wasn’t so kind. She shook her head and snickered.

      “Follow me!” she demanded as she lit out down the wooden path. “It’s time to lose your virginity.” Blanche started out at a brisk pace.

      Papa didn’t look pleased. We both jogged to keep up. Soon we stood in front of Sound Stage B. Blanche threw the door open with authority and marched in. Papa followed and I brought up the rear, hoping to not be seen.

      The massive space was dimly lit by twin skylights. When I had just about reached the dozen or so members of the film crew who were huddled together, I tripped on a cable and plunged into a small utility table that was holding a stack of blue plates that I later learned were used as props. I whacked my shin on the way down. A crescendo of shattering ceramics and my shriek of pain announced my clumsy crash landing on cold concrete. So much for staying invisible, I thought. In unison, the entire group turned and moved toward me. If I could, I would have shrunk into the floor.

      “That’s quite an entrance. Can you do it again for the camera?” Fred Fishbach, the director of my first film, asked. Everyone but Papa and I laughed. “You must be Big Jake,” he said in a voice that was at once booming and friendly. “We won’t hold your clumsiness against you.”

      I know he was trying to make me feel welcome, but I felt anything but that. Fred Fishbach was an experienced moviemaker who had worked for Mack Sennett at Keystone. He was tall and muscular and reminded me of what a Notre Dame fullback would look like in the flesh. He dressed conservatively in gray wool trousers, a white shirt, and dark cravat. If I close my eyes I can still see him in the white visor with green felt lining that he always wore on set to reduce the glare from those damned klieg lights.

      There was something about Fishbach that got you to trust him. I liked him from the get go.

      “Nice to meet you, sir,” I said timidly, holding out my hand to greet him.

      “Well, what the kid lacks in grace he makes up in manners,” Fishbach said.

      “I’m Jake’s father,” said Papa, holding out his hand as well.

      “Well, I can see that when it comes to social graces the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. But how in the hell did such a little man produce this Paul Bunyan?”

      “That’s a long story,” Papa said. I’d seen him handle similar questions he wanted to deflect in that manner before.

      “Well, hopefully some day when we have more time you’ll tell me, but for now we have other fish to fry. Jake is up in the next scene.”

      Papa and I walked back behind the camera. Despite the fact that the camera operator and lighting men and all their helpers—who I would later learn were called grips—focused like diamond cutters on their tasks, I was certain they were studying and judging my every move, just waiting for me to make a fool of myself again.

      XXXX

      I had been trying my best not to think about it. I really had. But standing there waiting for my first time in front of a movie camera, all I could think about was the fact that Papa and Mama were going home to El Paso the next day. Mama and Papa had already been in Los Angeles for almost a week and had to get back to my brothers—particularly my little brother—and the store.

      Standing in that chilly soundstage with an aching shin, I came face to face with the reality that I would soon be alone with all those peculiar strangers working in this weird new business. I hadn’t even shot a frame of film and already a crowd had followed me in the street, I had smacked my head, I had fallen out of a chair, and my new coworkers saw me trip and break dishes. I wanted out . . . to quit . . . to go back on the train with my folks.

      “Erlich, come over here.” It was Alf Goulding, the assistant director and one of the gag men. I hesitated suspiciously, having no idea who he was. “I won’t bite,” he said noticing my reticence. “I just want to help you.”

      It turns out Goulding really did want to help me. He had previously worked as an actor and had compassion for what it was like to be the new guy on the set.

      In those days in silent comedies, there were no real writers, just gag men like Goulding. Gag men would write their

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