Confessions of a Hollywood Agent Read online

  He wrote some disparaging stories about me, and I have never forgot them.”

  “What does that have to do with your being here chasing after Castro?”

  “Hemingway lives in Cuba, but he’s ignored Castro. He’s stupid.

  He doesn’t see what a great hero Castro is. He’s in his backyard and can’t see the forest for the trees. The Hearst papers are to publish my stories on Castro, and the world will see what a great man he is. A true champion of his people, fighting for their revolution, and for a better Cuba. Old Ernest will look bad for kissing Batista’s ass, and I will have my revenge.” Georgia smiled to herself, Erroll’s ego has taken us here, she thought.

  They approached the village of Palma Soriana, on a plateau in the foothills. Captain Guzman told Luis that they had almost driven the Batista Army from Orient Providence.

  “A great feat, Senor, when you think we only had a small force of about three hundred men and Batista’s Army had ten thousand troops with air power and artillery,” he said.

  Erroll, Georgia, and Luis and party entered the village. They rode to an abandoned sugar mill. They were told it was Castro’s new headquarters. Castro, Celia, his mistress, and some of his commanders came out to greet them. Luis rushed to greet him. They hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks.

  Castro and his group stood dressed in olive green fatigues and fatigue hats. Castro, a tall gaunt man with a full beard, made an impression on Georgia. It was his intense manner. She studied Celia, a small woman with passionate, dark, intelligent eyes. She wore no makeup, and her blouse pockets were stuffed with papers. Celia came to Georgia and helped her off her mule. Communication became a problem; neither spoke the same language, so they stared at each other and smiled.

  Luis introduced Erroll and Jake to Castro who introduced everyone to his commanders.

  Castro escorted Erroll, Luis and Jake into his headquarters and Celia took Georgia to a tent that would be her home for the stay.

  The sugar mill was cavernous. Guns that had been captured from the Cuban army stood stacked in large quantities along the walls. They sat down at the far end of the room and Erroll explained, through Luis, what he came for: about the articles for the Hearst newspapers and the movie that he wanted to shoot. He told Castro that he would like to start shooting in the morning and that he needed some girls from his army to cast in his picture.

  Castro was agreeable to all of this, but he wanted to read the script that evening with the help of Luis to see if there could be something in its contents that would50182201 offend his cause. Erroll agreed.

  Luis stayed with Castro. Erroll went to the tent he was assigned. He had gotten hold of a bottle of rum. He wasn’t heard from until the next morning.

  When Luis had finished his meeting with Castro, he joined Georgia in their tent. Georgia had taken off her peasant costume and was in panties and bra trying to cool off when Luis entered. He took her in his arms and kissed her, whispering in her ear. She fell back on the cot with Luis on top of her. Their bodies ran with perspiration as they clung to each other. She opened her legs as he entered her, moving fast within her body. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down, pulling him deeper inside her. It was like an explosion when he came. She yelled his name as she climaxed. They lay together not wanting to part. Their minds came back to their surrounding as the light dimmed around them.

  Luis sat up and said. “Mi corrosion, Fidel, he want me to fly to Venezuela for him.”

  “When?”

  “In the morning.”

  “You’re going to leave me here? I’m going with you.”

  “No, my darling, you no go. It’s too dangerous. Even for me. I am going to bring back money, arms and supplies for Fidel so he can finish the war.”

  “Why can’t he send someone else? Why you? He must have others he can trust.” Georgia started to cry. “I don’t know what I will do if you leave. I can’t depend on Erroll. He’s drunk or out of it. Please, Luis, don’t leave me here,” she started sobbing and held on to him.

  He pushed her back and gazed in her eyes. “I am sorry, mi amor, but you have to understand. People like me and Fidel, we have a cause.

  The cause comes first above anything. Loved ones … our family … our life is always second to the cause. I am the only one Fidel has now who can do this mission. I know the contact personally in Venezuela. This trip is crucial for the cause. It could end the war. Do you understand?” he pleaded.

  Georgia said nothing. She continued to sob into her pillow.

  Erroll operated better in the early morning before he got drunk. He already had a line of Cuban girls in front of his tent, casting. The girls giggled and laughed among themselves. Erroll did what he learned in Hollywood, getting the girls out of their clothes so he could see their bodies. For this picture their figures were not important. Erroll knew, but the girls didn’t, so he was having fun.

  Luis had left Georgia’s cot while she still slept. He went to Erroll’s tent.

  “Fidel is sending me on a mission this morning. I don’t know when I will return,” said Luis.

  “You can’t do that to me,” Erroll protested. “You’re the director, old boy. You can’t abandon me. It’s not kosher. It’s just not done. I’ll put the word out on you. You won’t be able to get a job in a gunpowder factory. I’m a big deal in Hollywood. Hell, I’m a big deal all over the world. Everybody has heard of Erroll Flynn. This is not Al Zugsmith you’re dealing with.”

  “I am sorry, Erroll. Fidel needs me to do this mission. Fidel is my comrade”.

  “What’s this comrade shit? Are you a Commie? For Christ’s sake. I hate Commies.” Erroll’s face went red with rage. He wiped the sweat with a scarf. Then they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching as they left the tent. The chopper hovered low and made a landing in the clearing.

  Castro and Celia came out of the sugar mill. Luis ran to them.

  Together they walked toward the helicopter.

  Georgia left her tent and ran to Luis. “Luis, Luis, wait for me,” she yelled crying. Luis stopped and she ran into his arms. Tears ran down her checks. “Oh, Luis I love you so.” She kept kissing him and holding on to him. “Say you love me. Please say it.”

  “I love you, mi amor. I will be back soon. I promise,” he said gazing into her teary, red-rimmed eyes. Luis left her side and hugged Fidel and Celia and climbed into the chopper. It took off low over the trees and disappeared.

  Erroll went into a funk. Everything was distasteful. The food, the water, the location, the film, the ugly women. Nothing pleased him. He proceeded to get drunk and stayed drunk.

  Castro sent for him, but he was too drunk to respond. Jake tried to keep everything together, but it was impossible. Castro wasn’t happy about the script. Some of the scenes bothered him and he wanted them changed, but Erroll remained too drunk to discuss them. Not one foot of film had been shot.

  In the meantime the war kept going on around them. Rebel troops came in and out of the camp. The makeshift hospital was filled with casualties. A temporary prisoners’ compound had been set up to take care of the Cuban Army troops that had been surrendering. The local farmers brought in food supplies to take care of the logistics of the large population.

  Georgia had come down with depression the moment Luis left.

  Besides feeling sorry for herself, she saw the film going nowhere. She stopped by the camp hospital and volunteered to help. After seeing all that needed to be done, she forgot her problems, and threw her energy into caring for the wounded.

  A few days after Luis had left the camp, with no word from him, Celia and Jake entered the tent hospital. Celia asked one of the Nurses who passed them in the entrance where Georgia was and she pointed to the operating room in the back of the tent. When they peered in they found her assisting the doctor, working over a young man on the operating table. Blood was everywhere. The boy had a deep shrapnel wound that had torn open his chest and side. It was gruesome, but Georgia stood next to the doctor,
handing him clamps and bandages as if she were a professional nurse. Jake was amazed by her performance. She looked up and saw them standing in the doorway and acknowledged their presence. She continued to assist the doctor in removing the shrapnel and cleaning and closing up the wound. Then she cleaned up and came outside to join them. She noticed the expression in their eyes. “It’s Luis, isn’t it? Something has gone wrong.”

  “We got word. His helicopter was shot down into the sea somewhere near Guantanamo,” said Jake.

  Celia moved close to comfort her. Georgia said nothing. Celia tried to get her to sit down, but Georgia refused. She gazed at them steadily.

  “He’s alive. I know it.”

  “Georgia, they said no survivors,” said Jake.

  Georgia went to her tent. She remained through dinner. Jake brought a tray of food, but she didn’t touch it. Normally when she would lie down after her day at the hospital she’d fall into a deep sleep, but that night she could hear the many noises of the camp: dogs barking, soldiers marching, motor vehicles coming and going, women’s laugher coming from their quarters, music blaring out from the tents as the smell of pungent smoke from the camp fires drifted into her tent.

  She wondered how she ever slept before. She turned and turned in her cot, her thoughts on Luis. She could see his image smiling at her.

  When she went back to the hospital in the morning, it was like Luis was with her as she went about helping the casualties. It was a difficult task, taking care of the wounded. She changed their bandages and assisted in the operating room. The time passed quickly, and it kept her from dwelling on Luis.

  Erroll was impossible. He remained drunk, but he and Castro finally had their meeting about the script. Castro objected to a major sequence. He wanted it changed and Erroll refused. Luis wasn’t around To negotiate, so Erroll and Jake were not permitted to film. They would have to do the filming in Jamaica.

  Castro wanted Erroll out of the camp. He couldn’t tolerate his behavior, but he was very attentive to Georgia. He marveled at her strength. He told his commanders she was a great example to them and their revolution. Castro couldn’t believe that Georgia could be an American. They weren’t supposed to be like that. Erroll, he called a “yanqui”, but Georgia was “Matama Rubia.”

  United Press correspondent Roger Ganz had arrived at the camp to interview Castro and report to the world on the progress of the war.

  There were stories in the newspapers in the United States that Castro was a Communist and Che Guerrva, one of his top commanders who had joined Castro from Bolivia, was a known Marxist.

  Castro told Gans that 50182201the Eisenhower administration had been covertly arming the Batista army for resistance. He wanted world pressure to be put on this administration. He said that Mexico and other Latin countries were going to protest over the U.S. intervention.

  Roger Ganz and his photographer, Philip, stayed for two days. Jake talked Roger into taking Georgia with them when they left for Guantanamo. It was a small chopper and it could only carry three people with the pilot. Erroll and Jake had to stay until other arrangements could be made for them.

  Early the next morning after the United Press crew had arrived, a lone airplane strafed the camp. Erroll had been hit by a bullet that ricocheted off an old jeep parked by his tent. He was taken to the hospital where they discovered it was just a skin wound and he was patched up and sent back to his tent. It could not have been a better opportunity for him with the press there. They shot pictures of his wound for the world.

  He wanted to let his fans know not only was he a hero in the movies, but in real life.

  Georgia had changed. She wasn’t the same woman as she was before she came to Cuba with Luis. She had found strength in herself though her experiences. She thought it had be a fast lesson in growing up. She felt she would hear again from Luis, even though all the reports she had gotten were of his demise.

  Roger Ganz told her that she could leave with them in the morning for Guantanamo. Georgia was worried. She was in her sixth week without her period and she felt she had to be pregnant. She had nausea in the morning, and all the symptoms. The thought of having an abortion was out of the question. Her religious background would never allow for that. Thinking over her options, she had a plan and she was ready to put it to work.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Clint arrived in Havana and saw and felt danger everywhere he went. He was told that Castro and his rebels were in the hills in eastern Cuba, but the people who sympathized with him were underground throughout the island, especially Havana, where sporadic gunfire could be heard.

  Thorton and Marge North with their party checked in at the Nacional, Havana’s old world hotel and casino. It stood ten stories on a rocky cliff overlooking the bay and the Spanish fort, Morro Castle, which guarded the entrance to Havana harbor. The hotel was built in the twenties and resembled the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. It had been recently refurbished, a casino and a showroom added. The hotel was on a wide boulevard called the Malecon that ran along the sea wall, where the car race would be staged.

  Clint took a walk down the Malecon, in front of his hotel, the Riviera.

  The streets were alive with activity. The city was preparing for the race.

  Grandstands had been put up at the turns in front of the American Embassy, next to the Nacional. He watched as hay bales were assembled in the corners to protect the drivers if they were forced off the course.

  Flags of the countries whose cars and drivers were race entries hung along the course and in front of the buildings around the city. The Cuban military stood everywhere, their rifles and machine guns strapped to their sides in anticipation of rebel activity.

  The Norths moved into two suites of rooms on the top floor of the hotel. They could open the high French doors and get a magnificent view of the harbor and the Malecon below. They had stopped first in Miami at the new Fountainbleau Hotel where Thorton had gotten drunk.

  Marge had Marshall send for Jimmy, Thorton’s nurse, so she wouldn’t have to worry about him. She knew he would be in no condition to go anywhere. This part of traveling Marge hated. Almost always when she joined Thorton on his racing circuit she would end up staying with him in the room. He would get drunk and order room service and never go anywhere. She could have stayed at home and had a better time. She always complained, but nothing much changed.

  Moe Dalitz, the old bootlegger and gaming operator from Ohio, and a group had taken over the casino at the Nacional from Meyer Lansky when Meyer built his new Havana Riviera, a four-hundred forty-room hotel and casino, down the street from the Nacional. “The Marty Fallon Revue” was up in lights on the marquee. Moe was out of town when the Norths arrived, but left one of his top boys, Aaron Jacobs, to look after them with instructions to give them or find them anything they wanted. There was no limit on Thorton’s credit.

  Aaron, a handsome man in his middle forties, was in charge of the credit at the casino. He had respect from the Cuban employees because he would take no abuse from Presidente Batista’s army buddies or his officials. He refused them credit if he had to. Many times they would try to take advantage of their position with Batista and not pay their gambling debts. Rumors linked President Batista as the silent partner of Meyer Lansky, but no one knew for sure. The Presidente would seldom show at the Riviera or be seen in the company of Meyer Lansky, but if Meyer needed any help or had any problem in Havana, it was handled immediately.

  In the North suite, the hotel waiters had brought in liqueur, champagne, ice, and set-ups for the bar. The waiters were leaving the suite when Aaron Jacobs arrived at the door.

  “Hello. May I come in?” he asked as he peered in the halfclosed door. Thorton sat on the sofa talking to Marshall. The French windows stood open, and war sounds came up from the street below. Sirens and gunshots could be heard from over the balcony. Marshall glanced up and saw Aaron in the doorway.

  “Come in. We’re talking about the qualifying of our racecar tomorrow. Do you
like racing?” asked Marshall

  “I’m looking forward to it,” said Aaron. “It’s been a big headache this year. Castro is out to sabotage the race. He wants President Batista to look bad to the media. Who knows what Castro might be planning, but we’re ready for him. I came to tell you there’d be armed military in the hallways for security purposes. They don’t speak English, but they’re for your protection.”

  Marge entered the room and heard Aaron. “Oh my God, are we to be murdered in our beds?” she asked.

  “Nothing is going to happen, Mrs. North. We have the best security,” said Aaron, reassuring Marge.

  “You always make everything worse than it is, Marge. Quit the dramatics, for Christ sake,” said Thorton.

  “Listen, Thorton, if I had known guards would be outside my door, I never would have come to Havana. It could ruin everything. I came here to have a good time. Wear some of my gorgeous clothes. Are we going out for dinner?” she asked.

  “We’re going to see Superman, right Marshall?”

  Superman was a black man who did a sex show. He had a large penis and performed an act on the stage for an audience. He was famous in Havana to the Americans. To Castro and his sympathizers, he epitomized what happened to Cuba through corruption and vice of the Batista regime.

  “Thorton, I’m not getting dressed to see some dirty show. Why is your mind always in the gutter? You’re pure trash.” The phone rang and Marge picked it up.

  “Hello? Oh, hello, Clint. Let me ask Thorton. I’d love to. “Marty Fallon wants us to come over to the Riviera tomorrow night for his dinner show as his guests. We’ll go, won’t we? We can have some fun.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Marshall, and Thorton nodded his head.

  “We’d love to, Oh, there’ll be six of us. About ten. Good bye.”

  “I saw the show opening night. A great show. Marty is funny. He killed me,” said Aaron.

  “I saw him in Vegas. He made me pee my pants,” said Thorton.