FADE OUT
Jake Toper looked into the mirror and watched himself disintegrate.
Still recognizable as the handsome, virile matinee idol of the ’30s and ’40s he may have been but the features that always leaned toward cragginess had long since begun to crumble. In a way, Toper was glad. Here he was in location in Montana, preparing to go on set, and he was drawn to the mirror; not out of narcissism, or some lunatic hope that he would see himself rejuvenated in his reflection, but rather to derive satisfaction from gazing on his ruin. He’d come to see that the ruination of what he once was, could be a key to his future on-screen and, he hoped, in his private life.
.
For years he had allowed himself to descend to the depths; his youth mourned for; the joy he’d once taken in life, love, acting (*if* the price was right, of course), sport, sex, extinguished, turned to ashes; friendships become burdens, leaden responsibilities. His myriad resentments over unfair studio contracts (even if a few of the movies he’d groused about having to make had garnered him Oscar nominations and a species of immortality; no one ever claimed all actors are blessed with judgment) and, what he saw as, low pay, had festered within him. The relish he’d once taken in making movies, a relish that had raised him up, soured into anhedonic uninterest. Down, down, down he’d gone. Tiredness was his constant companion, a partner for the booze. He’d half-heartedly tried to deny the drag of age but that had only made the sensation of time lost all the more acute, all the more painful.
.
That personification of testosteronic manhood, of all-American virility, on-screen had soon shown the weight of weariness settled onto his features. True, it wasn’t as if his life had been bereft of all pleasure as the years lay heavy upon him: there had been his fourth wife, and his fifth, and his sixth and – he hoped – last; his children, Guy and Annie; and a few movies that had reignited the spark. Moments of joy. But mostly he felt bound in limbo.
Gazing at his mirror-self Jake reflected ruefully on those limbo years; now he could feel cynical amusement at his ego-driven bitterness but the greater emotion was shame; shame at the time and opportunities lost to solipsism, shame at his very masculine fixation on his diminished machismo, his shrunken potency, as he saw it; a shame that now burned into him like a brand (or, he thought in his more vulgar moments, like the rather more intimate burning sensation he’d felt as a young man through a particular kind of carelessness) when he thought of those years, of his behaviour. On-screen he had still been an imprimatur of a certain kind of manliness but it was obvious, from the look in his eyes and the lassitude of many of his performances, that his faith in himself, the invisible, impermeable, masculine self-belief that he had worn like armour had all but gone, rusted away, replaced by what appeared to him now as the querulous impatience of a man old before his time.
.
Now, it was 1965 and he was almost as old as the twentieth century itself, he really was, in the eyes of many, an old man. And the face he saw in the mirror looked older by five years at least. So it was strange that he, Jake Toper, suddenly felt for the first in two decades as if he had a future.
.
The change came gradually and the cause was mysterious. In fact, he had gained this impossible new perspective by finally facing and acknowledging all the worst parts of himself, by casting his memories back into the turbulent waters of his past and confronting those things that had made him an icon on celluloid but on-occasion a louse in “real life”. And, then, there was the hardest thing of all. In order to come to this painful revelation of a spiritual inadequacy that equalled – or surpassed – the physical primacy that had made him an idol he had had to face the event that led to his long slide into despond, the loss of a woman who had for the time he’d known her helped to make him a better, more carefree, less self-centered man…
Jake Toper waved an errant fly away from his face, looked down from the mirror to his watch and took a sip – of water, nothing stronger – from a glass on the dressing table. Then he returned his gaze to the mirror, both soaking in his grizzled visage, using its effect to power the performance he was about to give, and looking beyond it to the past, each crease, each crevasse transporting him more deeply into the past. The mirror-Jake like a monument of a noble figure gone to ruin while still retaining some semblance of how it used to be, the memory-Jake, young, tan, muscular with the devilishly seductive smile, the lively eyes, and the rakish mustache.
The mirror’s surface seemed permeable as if, were he to touch it, he could slip through it and touch the memories gathering, a jumble, within his mind. He saw his first wife Carolina, nine years his senior and from old money; Carolina simultaneously lovely and worn Carolina enchanted by his macho charisma and vitality; ever-encouraging of his acting ambitions, ecstatic when he won even the lowliest role; Carolina, who had stood by him as he moved from being a carhop to a gas station attendant to a roughneck and, then, actor; Carolina who he’d divorced just after they moved to Hollywood, even though he *had* loved her somewhat and after a fashion, not her money alone. How it stung now to recall his youthful callousness, the towering belief in his sexual aura and the rightness of his actions, it stung *more* that she’d never blamed him and had dropped dead of a stroke at forty-five.
.
To be continued and completed tomorrow…
Ah, Gilbert Roland. My mother loved this actor. I think she told me my father always attempted to model himself on this one. Looking forward to the completion of this, Vickie.
Hi Le0pard13, George here. Vickie is taking a well-earned break from the weblog this weekend but I’m sure she’ll be pleased with your comment! I am standing in for her and I am very glad you’re enjoying my story 🙂
Excellent choice of picture isn’t it? Ms Lester has taste! My grandmother was a big Gilbert fan, too!
Regards, George
Thanks for the info, George. Can’t wait for the next part :-).
🙂
“The mirror’s surface seemed permeable as if, were he to touch it, he could slip through it and touch the memories gathering” – through the looking glass. I’m in. I second le0pard13!
Sunsylph, you are fabulously kind! “Through the looking-glass”, exactly right 🙂 (with a bit of Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus thrown in!)
Emphasis on Jean Cocteau? Or the mythical Orpheus? I wonder! Intriguing.
Well, I don’t want to pretend to be paricularly sophisticated, but I was thinking of the magical passing through the mirror scene in Orphee 🙂 However, thete’s also an element of the mythical Orpheus entering the underworld; except the underworld here is memory, and looking back may.*save* him. Boy, ain’t I pretentious?! Hope that didn’t bore you, o Sunsylph 😉
Dearest G (& V)
But… oh… have I missed something?
Our photographer?!?
And here you are tempting us with another character…
One wife down, five to go?
Compelling.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Dandy, Dandy, Dandy… Too kind, Sir! Don’t fret, our photographer is in the freezer at the moment (Mr George is a little tired at the moment) but he shall return in the week!
Oh, and fear not Jake Toper isn’t a Bluebeard 😉
Thanks and kind regards,
G
Such gorgeous writing, George…swirling like that last drop of brandy in the sifter. Count me in as ready for the rest!
Bon Weekend.
Oh, cherie Heather, what a gracious and beautiful comment. I’m so pleased you find my scribbling so. Thank you! You’re yet another example of how the luminous Vickie draws wonderful people (I’m not including myself in that, of course ;-)) to Beguiling Hollywood like a divine magnet!
George,good story and rings true also.I wonder how many Hollywood figures of past and present have had and will have those mirror moments.
I wonder too, Edward… Some just *like* looking at themselves though! Bwahahaha! 🙂
Not hard to see either how those mirror moments are connected to the obvious and ever increasing use of plastic surgery in Hollywood and beyond into the wider society.
I have read and find no reason to disbelieve that those tuned to surgey jobs in Hollywood can detect the hand of this or that plastic surgeon in work done.That nose looks like it was done by etc etc.
Yes, Edward, it’s quite horrible.
Oh George, this is so wonderful because it rings true. There’s nothing more satisfying than reading a well written and fleshed out character. Jake Toper, to me, could walk right off the page, or, computer screen as it were. 🙂 Well done!
Underneath all the good looks, fame, fortune, and just on the other side of the adoring fans, is a man with fear and shame at his core. You got it right. I often think of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and how the masses see and believe what they’re told to see and believe. It must be awful to know and live with the naked truth about yourself — always having to pretend to be someone more perfect. I think it’s a lonely and frightening existence at times – I suppose if you start believing in your own creation and in your own press, you can find relief, but only at the cost of losing your real self.
I can sense Jake’s deep inner conflict. Such torment… I guess we all face a little of this at times, just not to the same degree. (Thank heaven!)
Anyway, I ramble… This is another compelling character and story, George. You’re an amazing writer! (I’m pretty sure you don’t need me to tell you that. Lol!)
I look forward to the next installment. 🙂
Your faithful admirer,
Lisa
Ah, lovely, lovely, Lisa, you could hardly have said anything sweet-ah! *Blushing* with pride… Oh, that was such a glorious and thoughtful comment. “An amazing writer”?! No, I hadn’t ever thought that, and that isn’t false modesty, so THANK YOU 🙂
From *your* faithful admirer, with much appreciation,
George
Man oh man oh man, what a great portrait! Of course it is – it was done by Hurrell!
Right? It’s LUMINOUS 🙂