Read Show Business Kills Online
Authors: Iris Rainer Dart
Show Business Kills
| Show Business Kills |
| Iris Rainer Dart |
| Grand Central Publishing (2009) |
A hard-driving movie executive, a beloved soap opera diva, a screenwriter nominated for an Oscar, and a well-known actress married to TV's King of Late Night. Four friends who have led charmed Hollywood lives facing middle age. They have always shared a "Girl's Night Out", but suddenly it becomes a painful vigil as three of the women watch their friend fight for her life in an intensive care unit. She has been attacked by a stalker who is obsessed with all four women. Will the bonds of friendship that have linked them together for years enable them to survive this chilling night?
REVIEWERS SHOUT HOORAY FOR
HOLLYWOOD, IRIS RAINER DART, and
SHOW BUSINESS KILLS
“A WONDERFULLY FUNNY AND SOMETIMES POIGNANT STORY OF FOUR FEMALE BEST FRIENDS trying to elude the most fatal of all Hollywood
conditions—middle age.”
—
Book Page
“IF IRIS RAINER DART WERE A PERFORMER INSTEAD OF A WRITER, SHE’D ALMOST CERTAINLY BE BETTE MIDLER…. MIDLER’S BRASH STYLE IS
DART’S FICTION MADE FLESH.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“COMBINING ARMED CHASES WITH TENDER EMBRACES… HUMOR WITH CINEMATIC SENSIBILITY.… The author expertly pushes buttons.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“SMART, SASSY, AND REVEALING… Iris Rainer Dart takes us inside the real Hollywood. She brings to life the painful reality
behind all the glamour: the broken promises, the sexism, the worship of youth. But she also shows how good friends—and a powerful
sense of humor—make it possible to survive, even prosper, on the far side of forty.”
—Jewish Week
“DELICIOUSLY DELIGHTFUL…. The latest story from Dart is as exciting as those she wrote in the past.”
—Ocala Star-Banner
“WITTY, BITCHY.”
—
TWN News
Magazine
“FRIENDSHIP, INTRIGUE, MURDER, AND ROMANCE…. It’s all in fun, meant to be instructive in the ways of life and love.”
—
Dayton News
Other novels by Iris Rainer Dart
T
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UBLISHED BY
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The names
of some real celebrities appear as characters in the book to give a sense of time and place. However, their actions and motivations
are entirely fictitious, and should not in any way be considered real or factual.
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1995 by Ratco, Inc.
All rights reserved.
This book was originally published in hardcover by Little, Brown and Company.
Excerpt from “I’m Still Here” by Steven Sondheim. Copyright © 1971 by Range Road Music Inc., Quartet Music Inc., Ritling Music,
Inc., and Burthen Music Co., Inc. Used by permission.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56760-2
Contents
Other novels by Iris Rainer Dart
This book is dedicated to my extraordinary women friends, who have carried me, taught me, supported me, propped me up during
my worst times, and cheered me on during my best. I love you all and am so grateful for the love you give me in return.
The author wishes to thank Jeff Galpin, M.D., Dorothy Sivitz Jenkins, M.D., Joyce Brotman, Wendy Riche, Judith McConnell,
M. E. Loree Fishmann, Shelly Glaser, Barry Adelman, Dr. Melanie Allen, Susan Schwartz, Wendy Duffy, Karen Fell, Joe Gunn,
Sharleen Cooper-Cohen, the cast and crew of “General Hospital,” Elaine Markson, and Fredrica Friedman. And of course there
would never be a book without Rachel, Greg, and Steve.
First you’re another
Sloe-eyed vamp.
Then someone’s mother
Then you’re camp.
Then you career from career to career.
I’m almost through my memoirs
And I’m here.
Stephen Sondheim,
Follies
1
L
ook up, sweetheart, look up. That’s it. Now I’ll just add a little more concealer under the eyes and you’ll be all set.” Bert,
the makeup man, was wearing too much Royal Lyme cologne, and Jan didn’t have the heart to tell him that, at this hour of the
morning, the thick, tangy scent made her nauseous.
“As soon as I finish this, I’ll whisk a little mascara on your lashes, and then you can take the rollers out and get your
hair combed.” Bert’s face was so close to her that while he patted the creamy cover-up under her lower lashes she could smell
the Tic Tac he held in his mouth as an antidote to coffee breath, sometimes even while he was still drinking the coffee. But
it was Bert’s constant barrage of chatter, always in the form of well-meant advice, that got to her.
“If you’d like the benefit of my personal and my professional opinion…,” he said, while he moved his hand down to Jan’s chin,
raised her face up into the light, and squinted so he could get a better look at his work.
His opinion, professional or otherwise, was the last thing she wanted. In fact she’d been so lost in her own thoughts, she
wasn’t even sure where his latest story had drifted. All
she wanted was for him to hurry up and finish her face, so she could get back to reading the new script pages for Friday’s
show. But Bert took her silence for interest and kept talking.
“As far as I’m concerned, and I know a little bit about this subject, to say the least, Frank Kamer is ‘the man,’ ” Bert announced.
“He is a star in the plastic surgery firmament. When that genius gets through with you, you can’t even see a tiny scar. He
did Goldie Hawn and Streisand, who both deny it, and Dolly Parton, who flaunts it, and all three of them are flawless.”
The last was punctuated with a few fast dabs of the sponge, after which Bert stepped back and sighed with satisfaction at
the good job he’d done on Jan. Then he put the sponge down, picked up a mug with the words
BERT WESTON GIVES GREAT FACE
on the side, took a long swig, and winced from the taste of the sludgy backstage coffee.
“Of course, Steve Hoeflin’s very big these days, too,” he said, his mouth still puckered from the bad taste. “But I always
think he makes the customers look like someone other than themselves. You know what I mean? He did Ivana, and if you look
at her old head shots and her new ones, she looks like two different women.”
Jan smiled to signify agreement and polite dismissal, and picked up the pages for Friday’s show, hoping Bert would stop talking.
But he didn’t.
“Now quite a few knowledgeable people swear by Norman Leaf, who I’ve known since he was in medical school. He’s a gem of a
guy, and he did Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine, and I have to tell you, I’ve seen both of their faces up close and personal,
and they ain’t bad, for a couple of old broads,” he said, laughing to excuse the dumb remark,
and moving around behind Jan’s makeup chair to take a longer look in the mirror at his handiwork.
Jan put the pages back on her lap and her stomach ached. Bert’s sledgehammer of a hint was his way of trying to tell her she’d
better go out and throw herself at the feet of some Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and invest twenty thousand dollars in a
face-lift.
Of course she’d considered it. What woman her age, what actress at least, hadn’t stood in front of a mirror when no one else
was around and gently pulled the skin on the side of her face up toward the top of her ears, just to see how it would be if
that little bit of extra flesh was gone? And those fatty little pads below the eyes. While she was under, he could take those,
too. But then she’d think it over and decide it wasn’t for her.
Too many friends had come out of those surgeries with their skin so tight against their bones they looked as if they were
standing in front of a jet plane about to take off. She even knew an on-camera news reporter who kept her recently removed
turkey wattle in a jar of formaldehyde on her mantel and told everyone it was the “Pullet Surprise.”
And then there were those scare-the-pants-off-you articles in magazines about how it was done! That they peeled the skin away
from the skull the way the Indians used to scalp people. After reading a few of those, she vowed to grow old gracefully. One
article said that after surgery they put staples directly into your skull! Office supplies to keep your face from falling
into your soup. Hah! The idea made a nervous giggle rise in her chest.