Dreaming of Mr. Darcy Read Online Free PDF Page A

with her varied performances from her wonderfully witty Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing to the most heartbreaking Ophelia in Hamlet . She watched as Sophie flirted with ease with one of the guys who was always carrying cables around. Gemma wasn’t quite sure what he did, but he was absolutely spellbound by Sophie, and why shouldn’t he be? With her bright blond curls and bubbly personality, she was the answer to most men’s dreams.
    Nearby stood another well-known actress, Beth Jenkins, in a dress that was slashed to her very navel. She had striking red hair that fell to her shoulders in an immaculately straight curtain and lips painted a dangerous-looking red. She was beautiful. She was playing Louisa Musgrove, and from the rumours Gemma heard, nobody would mind too much if she really did crack her head open after flinging herself from the Cobb during the famous scene from Persuasion , because Beth Jenkins was a grade-one bitch.
    â€˜I heard she ran off with the producer’s husband on the set of her last film,’ Gemma heard somebody say behind her. She turned to see two young girls serving behind the bar. They were giggling and whispering, pointing at each actor in turn.
    â€˜Wasn’t she having an affair with that pop star at the same time?’ the other girl asked.
    â€˜What pop star?’ her colleague asked.
    â€˜I don’t know. All of them, probably.’
    The both giggled again.
    Best keep my distance from her , Gemma thought.
    That was the problem with filming, though. Casts became like families, in that you couldn’t easily escape one another. Gemma had already learned that lesson on her first production—a TV drama called Into the Night . Part love story, part whodunit, it had been cruelly slated by the critics, as had Gemma’s performance.
    â€˜Destined to play nothing more than the blond bimbo,’ the television critic from Vive! had said.
    â€˜Legs like runner beans,’ Star Turn had said, ‘and they were her best feature.’
    Gemma had been mortified and went into hiding for months, dyeing her hair black and building her leg muscles up at the gym.
    Things weren’t helped by the fact that her mother was the much-loved actress Kim Reilly, who starred in the 1970s cult TV show, Bandits . As soon as Gemma had dared to follow in her footsteps, comparisons had been made. It was inevitable, she supposed. Her mother had been beautiful, talented, and lucky. Bandits had been one of the biggest shows of the time, with sky-high ratings. It had run for five series before the lead actor was tragically killed in a motorbike accident. If that hadn’t happened, the show would probably still be running today, Gemma often thought, her mother dressed in her trademark skintight trousers and skimpy tops, her hair blow-dried and bouffant.
    Her mother never topped her performance in Bandits , although she tried to top herself a couple of times. In the public’s mind, she personified success; women wanted to be her, and men wanted to bed her. She was incredibly fragile, though, and although she adored attention, she also found life in the public eye difficult to cope with, and Gemma, it seemed, took after her. She was a bag of nerves just thinking about taking part in a film, yet there was something in her that compelled her to do it. At stage school, she used to get physically sick before going on stage, but then she always gave a dazzling performance—well, that’s what the other students and her tutors told her. What happened with the fated TV drama, then?
    â€˜Just critics trying to get a cheap laugh,’ one of her old stage school friends had told her when they met down at the pub to discuss it. ‘Don’t pay them any attention. You were marvellous!’
    â€˜What could you possibly do with a script like that?’ another—more honest—friend had told her. ‘I think you did very well, considering.’
    Thank