"Shadow - 360215 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Hit The Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

"Heaven help me-yes!-if we have no troubles."
Grace smiled.
"Fine. I'll be on deck. I'm working for you, Mr. Eisman. I'm an actress."
The producer's face registered despair.
"Listen. Actresses I've got. Sure, you're pretty! Sure, you got personality But
now you're in steady work The movies is no place for a nice sweet-"
"I'm an actress-for one day only." Grace's voice was firm, "My name's
Olga-Olga Egloff. What clothes do I wear? Oh, and you don't know me. Catch
wise?"
Mr. Eisman blinked down at her stupidly. Then, slowly, he caught wise.
The Sunday morning sun was cut off from Stage 5 when the heavy doors
rolled shut against it. But the big barn was bathed in a dozen-fold better job of
lighting than nature had provided the previous afternoon. Arc lights and "ash
cans" glared whitely overhead. Small spots-"pickles"-played from the sides.
The "herder," one of a mess of assistant directors, was collecting his
costumed extra people on the set. Ziegler, head cameraman, standing on a box,
was training the camera on the pretty blonde who was "standing in" for Lulu
Dore.
"Hit the baby!" somebody shouted.
A little Russian actress, with coal-black hair twisted in a heavy braid around
her head, turned curious sherry-colored eyes on a girl who had shared her
make-up mirror an hour before.
"What do they mean, 'Hit the baby?"
The girl laughed.
"It's studio for 'Turn on the spotlight. They're ready for Dore now."
Before Grace could make further conversation, the costumed mob fringing
the lighted set fell back. It was Dore, the French prima donna, sweeping in with a
blaze of emeralds.
At her heels trotted a stunted man -almost a dwarf, but with bull-like
shoulders. He carried a littered tray.
"That's Waxy Lubin with her," the girl at Grade's side confided. "Greatest
make-up man in the show business! But he'd never leave New York. He retired
when Dictator's Eastern studio was closed, until now Eisman hires him back.
"They call him 'Waxy'-because he can wax in wrinkles and lines till the oldest
living citizen looks like an infant! Why, one time Waxy-"
But Gracie's new-found friend was talking to thin air-for the redhead had
disappeared into the crowd.
Grace waited, crouching low in the tall weeds, until the doors to Stage 5 had
rolled shut for the last time. They were ready for the first "take" now. The whole
studio would be busy inside.
Slowly she approached the open gate, where a thinning line of hopefuls still
wheedled Barit Tyson for admission. Her costume and grease paint made her
conspicuous in the bright sunlight. Her knees were unsteady. She'd never tried to
fool an actor before.
"Hey! What are you doing off the set?"
A step inside the gates, she gave Tyson's scar-ugly face the full voltage of her
big eyes. She was no scared greenhorn now. She was Egloff, the great Russian
dancer; and regal enough to make Lulu Dore look humble.
"I am Egloff. I do not dance until ze dinnair scene ees fini."
Tyson stared down at her. His brooding eyes seemed to spark to life, cruel