The Body in the Cast Read Online Free PDF Page A

to Alan Morris. He arranged to come by the kitchens for a tasting later that week on one of his flying visits through town. Faith was ready for him.
    â€œGreat,” he said, referring perhaps both to the attractive lady in front of him and the mouthful of warm pizzette with pears, brie, and caramelized onions (see recipe on page 273) he’d just swallowed. Faith had let her shining blond hair grow longer over the winter and now it grazed her chin in a simple blunt cut. She’d diligently lost the weight she’d put on in pregnancy, and at thirty-two, she caused as many heads to turn as she had at twenty-two, a fact that, while diminishing somewhat in importance over the years, still didn’t bother her in the slightest. After the initial shock of that milestone birthday, her thirtieth, she was enjoying being thirtysomething and firmly believed the best ten years of a woman’s life were between thirty-nine and forty, which gave her something to anticipate.
    Alan was now speedily devouring a plateful of spinach lasagna with a three-cheese béchamel sauce, while keeping a close eye on the medley of Have Faith desserts beckoning from the counter next to him: flourless chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, a steaming fruit gratiné, and crisp dark molasses spice cookies (see recipe on page 274). He smiled. “Max is really going to be happy.” From the relief in his voice, it was no secret that keeping Max happy was Alan Morris’s most important job.
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    Max was Maxwell Reed, the director of the film. At fifty-two, he was both a legend and an enigma in Tinseltown. Known as the “New Jersey Fellini,” owing to his origins as the son of a wealthy shoe manufacturer from Montclair, Reed made obscure but critically acclaimed films, often in black and white. While he was the subject of a shelfful of biographies and critical studies in Europe, he’d received little recognition in his native land. He took great pains to make it clear this bothered him not at all, but the word on the street was that he needed a big
commercial success to keep attracting backers. And the movie about to be shot in Aleford had to be it. No matter how much Vincent Canby and The New York Times loved it, if it didn’t do at least $9 million in wide release the first weekend, Reed would be yesterday’s news for the foreseeable future and could watch his films move from “New and Recommended” to “Cult” in the video stores.
    Mercurial, with mood swings so rapid that a sentence could start on an up note and plunge two words later to despair, Max Reed had attracted a group of actors, actresses, and crew who slavishly followed him from film to film, deeming it an honor to work with the master. He rewarded their loyalty with his, making film after film with the same individuals, often playing roles himself, yet never duplicating an effect. His most famous film, Maggot Morning, cast his constant companion, the beautiful Evelyn O’Clair, as an elderly homeless woman. She won an Academy Award for best actress and went on to other roles, keeping herself available, however, for Max’s films. Speculation was that fresh from her sizzling triumph for another director in Body Parts, Max wouldn’t be hiding Evelyn’s attributes under any bushel baskets or behind shopping bags the way he had quite literally in Maggot, as it was called in the trades.
    Maxwell Reed was also known for his obsession with security on the set. Often the actors themselves didn’t know the name or plot of the movie they were shooting until it was released. He’d broken with custom this time and let it be known he was making a modern reinterpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. The name of the picture was A. He’d also hired two actors who’d never appeared in any of his films previously but who were box-office magic. Over Ty Nants and Evians at the Polo Lounge, heads were nodding