Crowned Heads Read Online Free PDF

said one of my biggest favorites was The Player Queen and that I’d seen it at least ten times. She took that as being perfectly natural on my part, as if everybody would want to see The Player Queen ten times—”
    “Barry, that’s not a good film, and you know it,” Marion protested. “It’s pure schmaltz.”
    “I don’t care. I like it and I said so. Find me a better job of a woman playing a man playing a woman.”
    “It’s clever, that’s all.”
    “What’s wrong with clever? … Then she sort of jutted out her jaw at me and said, ‘Well, do you know anything about art?’ I would have hidden my sketch pad, but she’d taken it out of my hands and was holding it away from her with a critical attitude, turning the page this way and that.
    “‘Not a bad thing,’ she said grudgingly, as if she didn’t really want to compliment me. ‘But one doubts you’d make a good artist.’ She handed back the pad and dusted the charcoal from her fingers on the sleeve of my shirt—I’d got it only a few weeks before. She stared around at the statuary, looking, but not really interested. ‘This place,’ she said, ‘it’s like a marble graveyard. A bad anatomy lesson—stone parts of human beings who will never live, never have lived. I think people worship ancient things too much. Like me, you see.’ First came the famous movie pout, followed by the ironic smile. ‘You shouldn’t be drawing in here; you should be out in the street, watching people, where the life and the blood are. You are lucky—you can go there and not be troubled by your fellow creatures. What else do you do besides draw?’
    “‘Not much.’
    “‘Then you’d best get on with something different, or you’ll soon be sta-a-ahrvin-n-ng. ’ She really relished the word.
    “‘Ahr-r-rt is hahr-r-rd,’ she said, like Duse or Bernhardt, the deep tragedienne voice, causing me to believe that if anyone ought to know the truth of that statement, ‘Art is hard,’ she should. She gave me another look. ‘Do you live alone? No, you’re not the type, I see that. Who is she?’
    “‘Just a girl …’
    “‘Aren’t they all? You would be better keeping cats; they are cheaper and you can leave them for the weekend.’ She stabbed my chest with her finger. ‘Heart or art. You cannot have them both, you know—eventually you must choose.’
    “‘Why?’
    “She shrugged. ‘You would have to take the matter up with a wise person, not me. I only know it’s true. They are like oil and water—each repels the other. I know nothing of either. I have no heart and I have no art. I only work work work; that is all I have done in my life—work.’ She lifted her shoulders and sighed. ‘I have been successful in my life, but my life is not a success.’
    “‘When are you going to make another picture?’ I asked.
    “She gave me a surprised look. ‘You want me to?’
    “‘Everybody does.’
    “‘Too kind—everybody. I hope you appreciate this. That I am doing you the favor of talking to you. I don’t usually. I never talk to strangers.’
    “‘I’m flattered,’ I told her.
    “‘You should be.’ She was looking at the statue again, and she said a word I didn’t understand.”
    “What word?” Marion asked.
    “‘Callipygian.’”
    “It means—”
    “I know what it means—now. But not then. She laughed. ‘It means he has a beautiful ah-h-hss. If one likes ah-h-hsses. How do you look without your trousers? No, I don’t mean your ah-h-hss. Do you have legs, good ones? I have always admired men with good legs. I once had a friend, he had awfully good legs. Do you know Willie Marsh?’
    “‘No.’ I said I didn’t know any celebrities, which I didn’t in those days. Years later I interviewed Marsh about the Bobbitt pictures, and I told him what Fedora said. I guess he was pleased.
    “Fedora gave the place a final look; she raised her hand with a weary, encompassing gesture. ‘All this. Those Gr-r-reeks didn’t have it.