1
September 19, 1920
Four years laterShe heard their voices first--harsh, male, threatening. The raucous laughter of drunken men bent on forcing their attentions on a woman they knew to be alone. The pail dropped from her hands, into the stream where she'd been gathering water. She turned and ran for the safety of the cabin. But even as she bolted the door, she heard them coming closer: along the pathway, stumbling up the wooden planks of the stairs.
She thought of screaming, but who would hear her in this isolated cabin in the remotest part of the Sierra Nevada mining country? Her husband was miles away, buying supplies. And these men--the loathsome Bromfield brothers--knew it. Crude, illiterate, starved for the feel of a woman, they'd spied on her from a distance, awaiting their chance.
Please, she prayed, go away.
But she felt herself being watched. Hesitantly, she turned her gaze toward the left window and gasped at the horrid sight. Horace Bromfield, the youngest of the brood, was leering at her, his rotten teeth bared as tobacco streamed from the corner of his mouth. She reeled toward the second window where his brother Joshua stroked his matted beard as his lips formed a filthy kiss, his rancid breath fogging the window.
Just as suddenly, the faces disappeared. Silence. Her heart pounding, she prayed, Please, God, let this be enough!
Her prayer was answered by a tremendous thud against the door. Then another and another until it splintered. Feeling faint, she backed away, falling down on the threadbare bed. If they touch me, I'll kill myself!
Another thud broke the door completely. As it crashed open, the three dreaded brothers stood like lumbering bears, their huffing forms framed by the mountains in the distance, their features obscured and made more menacing by the rays of the setting sun.
Terror gripped her as they stood taking stock of their prey. I'm going to faint. . . .
An inner voice told her: Now . . . faint. . . .
But instinct took over. As Horace stepped forth to be the first to violate her, she found her right leg rising to kick the man squarely in the groin, sending him sprawling to the floor to roll up in a ball of pain.
"Stop film!"
The voice, boomed through a megaphone, brought things to a halt. The two standing Bromfield brothers turned in the direction from which the voice had come. A man who'd been hand-cranking a motion picture camera a few feet away stopped with a disgusted expletive. The mood music, coming from an accordion player, died on a sour note.
A short man wearing puttees and riding boots stormed onto the set. "Miss Dare," he shouted through the megaphone he still held, "what the devil do you think you're doing?"
Rising from the bed, Liana, acting under her most recent stage name of Veronica Dare, said, "I'm sorry, Mr. King. I just couldn't do it." Her voice was husky and low. She went to help the wounded actor rise from the floor. "I didn't hurt you too much, did I, Sam?"
"Like hell you didn't," he grumbled, wrenching his arm away.
"You were supposed to faint," the director continued his attack. "These brutes are going to ravish you. The only thing that can save you is your husband getting back before they do. How many times do I have to tell you?"
"I know what you told me. But that's not what a real woman would do."
"You're not a real woman, for crying out loud. You're an actress in a photoplay. And only the third-billed one at that!"
"But the whole thing is absurd," Liana argued, forgetting her resolve to obey without question. "Are you telling me this woman's husband would go off and leave her alone, knowing these marauders live close by, without even a rifle for protection? And even if he did, what sort of woman would faint and risk rape waiting for her husband to come rescue her? These Bromfield brothers are imbeciles! Even if I couldn't overpower them, I could outsmart them without lifting a finger."
"Miss Dare, this is beside the--"
"This is 1920, Mr. King. Queen Victoria's been dead for two decades. Look around you. The shop girls you hope will line up to see this picture are no shrinking violets. They're getting laid in the backs of Model T Fords. Not because they're being ravished, as you call it. Because they want to. Do you think any of them would lie down and take this? They'd fight like wildcats!"
As she'd spoken, the director's face had progressively hardened to stone. "That's it!" he exploded through his megaphone. "You're fired!"
In the aftermath of his eruption, Liana stood staring at him. Reality began to set in. She had a dollar and thirty-six cents in her purse. Not enough to pay her rent. Barely enough to eat. She couldn't afford to be fired.
Swallowing her pride, she said, "Very well, Mr. King, we'll do it your way."
"That's just the thing, Miss Dare," he raged. "You can't do it my way. We've been through this too many times. You just can't take direction."
She raised her chin in a rebellious gesture. "I can if the direction makes sense."
The director, accustomed to reading emotion, saw past the rebellion to the flash of vulnerability. It was that "I can do it myself" defiance that had made him want to help her in the first place. Despite the sensual beauty and provocative allure that had made him want her at first sight, she'd aroused his masculine instincts with her childlike naivete that she could make her way without any assistance. It had made him want to protect her from herself.
Now, boiling with frustration the equal of her own, he lowered his voice so only she could hear. "Veronica, I gave you this part against my better judgment. I knew your reputation for trouble. But you convinced me you could do what I said. You're talented. You're beautiful. The camera loves you. But you're your own worst enemy. Where do you think this kind of behavior is going to get you?"
"Don't you see, Mr. King?" Her voice lost its defiance and took on the urgency of persuasion. "You're asking me to play a complete ninny. A fool! What kind of woman would see herself as that character? And why is Gloria Swanson the biggest star in the world? Because she's sexy and clever. Let me play someone like that. Why can't this woman react like a human being instead of a helpless bump on a log?"
Her passion didn't move him. "That's fine if you're Swanson, but you're not. And wanting to be won't get it for you." He slumped when he saw her face. "I'm sorry, Veronica, I tried. But no movie company can function with players who don't do as they're told. You're fired and that's final. Turn in your costume, go to payroll, and get your two dollars for the day."
She was seized by a sudden impulse to beg. To do anything she had to in order to keep this, the only job she'd had in months. But in the quiet all around her, she could feel them watching her. Even the carpenters had ceased their building and were staring at her, hammers and saws in hand. Standing there, the focus of attention, she knew she couldn't give them the satisfaction.
Gathering together what was left of her dignity, she squared her shoulders and, head held high, walked off the set. But she couldn't resist pausing at the door and calling back so all could hear, "Tell me, Mr. King. Would things have been different if I'd said yes when you tried to get me into bed?"
When she entered the makeup department, a long bungalow on the southeast corner of the Universal lot, she found two young bit players putting the finishing touches on their makeup. Dressed for the French Revolution, they were an incongruous, if familiar, sight, sharing a cigarette and gossiping in Brooklyn accents. Their elaborate powdered wigs lay on the table before them. Their hair--red and blond respectively--was flattened against their heads beneath skull caps.
"They're shooting the whole thing in Tahiti," said the redhead, smacking her gum.
"Where's Tahiti?"
The redhead shrugged. "I dunno. Somewhere in the South Seas."
"The South Seas . . . say! Ain't that the place where naked women throw themselves at sailors? And where they spoon all day under palm trees?"
"Ain't it just!"
Liana passed them and went to the last of a long row of makeup chairs. Automatically, she reached for the cold cream, but found she couldn't summon the energy. Defeated, she sank back in the chair. What was she going to do? When word of this got around, no one would hire her. Already she was thought to be on her last legs. A playgirl who danced till dawn in local speakeasies, then showed up late to cause trouble on the set. She'd been offered fewer and smaller roles since her brief flush of success two years before. She was nearly twenty-five years old . . . well along for a woman in this still-new business of moving pictures, where ingenues of fifteen and sixteen weren't uncommon.
King hadn't said so, but she could see the writing on the wall. She was finished.
But she couldn't be finished. She'd allowed for nothing else in her life. She'd come to Hollywood four years ago filled with determination, burning with ambition to make it in pictures and create a new kind of woman star. Not the weak sisters of Victorian melodrama, but the newly emancipated woman she saw all around her: the kind of woman her mother had taught her to be. Independent. Resourceful. Daring. Unafraid to take pleasure in her own sexuality.
But what had gone wrong? Her affairs with men had been brief--she'd put an end to them before they had the chance to call it quits. Once or twice it had seemed to her that one of her lovers wanted more, that there was the possibility of some genuine emotion and deeper ties. But even ...
