I could almost hear him deflate, but he rejoined without a second’s delay. “Mr. Nakayama,” he said, “this is a great opportunity. If I can be frank, there just aren’t that many of you left from the silent era, and this article could help give you the recognition you deserve.”
I took a deep breath before I answered. “Young man, you are clearly not as avid a student of film as you profess to be. For if you were, you would certainly be aware that I received
tremendous
recognition throughout the course of my career. I …” and here I took a breath to level my voice.
“I was twice named the year’s most popular actor by
Moving Image Magazine
. I was regularly featured in
Photoplay
and
Motion Picture Classic
. For three years, I was the highest paid actor at Perennial Pictures, and the premiere of
Margin of Error
nearly caused a riot when it opened at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. It is quite inaccurate to insinuate that I was somehow overlooked—I could not have asked for a higher degree of fame.”
Bellinger paused for just a moment. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“I know that’s all true. I didn’t mean to imply … what I mean is, this article could be a way for
modern
audiences to learn of your accomplishments. Certainly your work could be more …
appreciated
today.”
I tried not to sound angry when I replied. “I do not need you, young man, to tell me what
could
happen or what I should do. I thank you for your interest in my career, but I am content with my life, and do not wish to endure any further interruptions.” With that, I hung the phone up, then went over to the window to look out for Mr. Gomez.
About twenty minutes later, Mr. Gomez and his two young workers arrived. I stayed with them for an hour, supervising as they moved the couch and armchairs away from the walls, taped off the fioorboards, and covered all the furniture with drop cloths. Once they had completed this preliminary work, Mr. Gomez gave me a patient look, which indicated that he wished me to leave. Since I could do nothing in the kitchen or my bedroom while this commotion was occurring, I changed into walking shoes and stepped outside.
As I do at least three mornings of every week, I walked two blocks to the entrance of Runyan Canyon Park. There is a lovely path that hugs the canyon walls and winds up into the hills; with each turn, more of the city disappears. One gains elevation at a surprisingly rapid rate, so that by fifteen minutes into the walk, when the path curves out toward the city again, one is startled by the smallness of the buildings below. It takes roughly half an hour to reach the summit, and it still surprises me that the Hollywood Hills—which seem daunting from the ground—are so painless and easy to climb.
For some reason, few people seem to know about the path. This morning, the conversation with Bellinger still fresh in my mind, I walked briskly up into the hills and saw only two other walkers. At the top I sat on a split log bench and looked out in all directions at the city. To my left, the majestic San Gabriel Mountains, which would be covered in a month or two with snow. To my right, the endless chain of the Santa Monica mountains, of which the Hollywood Hills are the final descending link. Behind me, the San Fernando Valley, fiat and full of bungalows and greenery. And in front of me, spread all the way from the hills to the ocean, lay the city of Los Angeles proper. The few tall buildings of downtown stood in a clump to the left; the ocean created a lovely, sparkling blue border to the right. And in between, a vast tableau of humanity. One can easily identify Wilshire Boulevard, for it is marked by a steady line of high-rise buildings straight across the center of the landscape. Hancock Park is recognizable as well—not because of its lovely mansions, which are too far away to distinguish, but because of the lush green foliage, sustained by imported water and hired care, that marks all wealthy areas of Los Angeles. The arches of Mann’s Chinese Theater are visible from behind; Lake Hollywood lies above it, in the hills.
On many mornings, from this bench, I have watched the sun rise from behind the San Gabriel Mountains; on many evenings, I’ve watched it set over the ocean. I have been here when the neon signs atop the DuBarry and the Argyle light up at the first hint of darkness. I have been here, too, on evenings of movie premieres, when spotlights spring up from Hollywood Boulevard and shoot beams, like crossing swords, into the sky. When I first started taking this walk, in the 1920s, the landscape was full of barley fields, orange groves, and trees; there were only a few office buildings and scattered clumps of houses, and then the self-contained compounds of the studios. The green hills were pristine and almost totally free of structures, and miles of horse-back trails meandered through the brush. That open, new, bucolic place has long since vanished now. I have watched this city grow from farmland into a vibrant metropolis.
This spot—the very top of the Hollywood Hills—is where I always go to clear my head. As a young man, before I came to America, I spent a week at a Zen Buddhist temple in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture, and those seven days of silence and meditation, of oneness with the world around me, I now remember as the most peaceful of my life. Now, the only time I ever achieve the sense of emptiness, awareness, and oneness I so yearn for is up on top of the hills, looking out at the rest of humanity. There, I feel both part of, and removed from, the everyday world of man. There, I am completely at peace with my own insignificance.
After an hour of looking out at the city, I made my way down the hill and onto the Boulevard. It was 11:30 now, and I suspected that Mrs. Bradford would be in one of two restaurants, where she often took her lunch at this pre-
noon hour to arrive in advance of the crowd. These res-
taurants are on the eastern end of the Boulevard, past the countless gift shops and souvenir stands that have sprung up in the last ten years. It is popular now to say that Hollywood is a state of mind more than an actual place, since the Boulevard itself has become as tasteless and as subject to bad elements as that other den of American excess, Times Square. But in the ’20s and ’30s—indeed, all the way through the early ’50s—the physical Hollywood, the actual place, was as real and glamorous as its image. It housed the best restaurants, the finest nightclubs and cafés, and sleek limousines were always pulling up in front of elegant doorways to deposit this or that star or director. The cheap knickknacks, the litter, the desperate people trading in fiesh—they did not appear until the 1950s, and did not take the Boulevard over completely until the dawn of this present decade. These days, only a scattering of the old establishments remain, and it goes without saying that the clientele is different. Only a few people with links to the old Hollywood still frequent such places. The rest of the customers are local businessmen who are largely ignorant of the restaurants’ history.
This noontime, I stopped first at the Café Figaro, a fine establishment where Clark Gable used to dine. The interior was dark and intimate, with wood paneling and heavy, leather-covered chairs. Even at midday it was difficult to see; the lights were dim and the waitstaff moved around in a hush. One could imagine what it looked like in the 1940s, when groups of thick-bellied men, smoking cigars and drinking port, would talk and laugh well into the endless nights. After a moment, my eyes adjusted to the lights and I looked around the restaurant. I was in luck—Mrs. Bradford was seated at a small table near the window— and, as she had not yet been served her meal, she waved me over and invited me to join her. After a few pleasantries about the weather and a recent visit from her daughter, she paused and then looked at me curiously. “You seem rather harried today, Mr. Nakayama. Is something bothering you?”
I was surprised by her observation; she didn’t normally remark upon my demeanor. “No, Mrs. Bradford. What gives you that idea?”
She looked at me closely. Although she is nearing seventy herself, she is quick-witted and energetic, and her eyes, by the light of the window, were still piercingly blue. “I’m not sure,” she said. “But you look agitated. Like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I gave a small laugh and took the heavy, folded napkin off the table. “Well, to be quite honest, Mrs. Bradford, I received a surprising phone call this morning. As a matter of fact, it was the second such phone call in as many days.
A young man who is working with the new silent movie theater has discovered that I am the actor he has seen in several films.”
Mrs. Bradford leaned back, her smooth, unspotted hands spread fiat on the table. “Why, that’s marvelous, Mr. Nakayama! You have a fan!”
“But it is
not
marvelous, Mrs. Bradford. You see, he is also a reporter. Frankly, I have no interest in dredging up memories of my career, and this young man—it appears he will not easily be discouraged.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Mrs. Bradford, and there was no mistaking the scolding tone of her voice. “You know you love the attention. You can’t stand that you’ve been forgotten—that’s why you finally told
me
. I don’t believe your modest act for a minute.”
I was, of course, taken aback by her assertion, and while I knew that she meant it in a good-hearted fashion, I still found myself rather annoyed. This bluntness is a characteristic of American women to which I have never grown accustomed. I am certain that it is part of the reason why, despite a significant courtship with an American woman and several other minor liaisons, I never chose to marry one. But Mrs. Bradford was not yet finished.
“And you were a sex symbol too,” she said teasingly. “That makes it even worse. I don’t care if you’re Japanese, German, or from Dayton, Ohio. If a man was ever desirable to women, he thinks that everyone had better well remember it.”
“Mrs. Bradford, you’re gravely mistaken,” I said, and I was about to embark on a more impassioned defense. Just at that moment, however, the waiter appeared, a diminutive and ageless man named Franco who has been employed at the restaurant for as long as I’ve been a customer.
“Would you like to order something, Mr. Nakayama?”
he asked. “Mrs. Bradford didn’t tell me she was expecting a lunch companion.”
“I wasn’t,” said Mrs. Bradford. “But Mr. Nakayama here is full of surprises.”
“Oh?” said Franco disinterestedly.
“Yes, full of
many
surprises. For example, do you know what he revealed to me a few months ago, Franco? He revealed that he was once an actor. A veritable star, in fact, who appeared in many films during the silent era.”
“I see,” said Franco. He fiipped to a blank sheet of his notepad, pen poised to take my order. It was clear from his look of indifference that he didn’t believe her.
“He was written about in all the magazines,” Mrs. Bradford continued. She leaned toward Franco conspiratorially. “And apparently, he was quite a ladies’ man.”
At this, the waiter let out a sharp, short laugh. “I’ll bet,” he said. “A real Casanova.”
Franco’s casual disbelief provoked something in me, and I pulled myself up straight. “She is not joking, Mr. Franco. Although I do not often discuss it, I was once indeed a well-known actor.”
“Oh, I believe you, sir,” said Franco, bowing slightly in his bright red coat. “I’m sure you were the toast of the town.”
“Haven’t you heard of
Sleight of Hand
?” My anger was rising. “It was the top-grossing film of 1915. Or
The Stand
or
The Noble Servant
? In each of these classic silent films, I played the male lead.”
Franco grinned now, wearing a look of mirth that didn’t fit his hangdog face. “
Sleight of Hand
,” he said. “Yes, I think I’ve heard of that picture. But wasn’t that Douglas Fairbanks?”
“It was I,” I insisted, with a force that surprised me. “It was I, Jun Nakayama. If you do not believe me, consult the history books. Or ask Mrs. Bradford. She herself has read accounts of my career.”
I appealed to her for help, but all she did was shake her head and laugh.
“Oh, Mr. Nakayama,” said Franco. “Please, stop teasing me already. I’ve got a long shift ahead. Now, what can I bring you for lunch?”
He faced me with an expression of patient indulgence, which sent Mrs. Bradford into another fit of laughter. I was so frustrated that I got up and stormed out of the restaurant without speaking another word. I could hear Mrs. Bradford calling after me, but I refused to turn back. The whole episode had been extremely disconcerting. I did not see why these revelations regarding my past were so difficult for Franco to believe. He must have gathered over the years that I was a man of intelligence and refinement, and if he had happened to overhear even a few of my conversations, he would have been aware of my encyclopedic knowledge of early film. Perhaps his disbelief was heightened because of the fact that I’m Japanese, which I admit is quite unusual for a Hollywood actor. But none of this assuaged my displeasure.
When I returned to the town house, I found a message on the pad beside my phone, taken by Mr. Gomez
28 v Nina Revoyr while I was gone. It was Nick Bellinger’s number—he had called again—and without thinking about what I was doing, I picked up the receiver and dialed. After three rings, a young man answered. “Mr. Bellinger,” I said. “This is Jun Nakayama. I’ve reconsidered your request for an interview.”
September 29, 1964
T
his morning, as I waited for Mr. Bellinger on a bench in Plummer Park, I had the pleasure of observing a most delightful family. A Negro couple in their fifties, dressed as if for church, passed by with a gaggle of little girls. The children—there were three of them—ranged in age from perhaps three years old to seven or eight, and they too wore Sunday outfits, with the tiniest carrying a backpack that was nearly as large as she. The girls were all holding hands but they kept losing their grip, the chain unlinking and then reattaching itself again. The two adults— who I assumed were the children’s grandparents—were trying to keep them together, but the girls were fast losing patience with each other, and bickering sweetly, each attempting to disengage from her sisters. They made their way slowly across the park, but when they were twenty feet away from me the entire chain broke, and all three girls sprung loose in different directions. At this point, instead of scolding them or running off to get them, the adults threw their hands up and laughed. They shook their heads in exasperation and shared a look of amusement, and then moved off to collect their charges. Just when everyone was gathered again, the oldest girl looked around and wailed, “Where’s my dolly?” The man slapped a hand to his forehead, and the woman rolled her eyes. “Oh Lord,” he said, smiling, “we must have left it in the restaurant.” And so slowly, carefully, they all turned around and made their way back down the path.
This tableau made me think of my own advancing years, and the fact that, at the age of seventy-three, I do not have any grandchildren. The absence of grandchildren relates directly to my lack of immediate family. While there was, as I’ve said, an American woman with whom I was close, as well as a Japanese woman who played a significant role in my early career, the vagaries of Hollywood, and of American social norms, made all such unions impossible. My failure to marry is not something that pleases me—indeed, the absence of a family is my greatest regret. But, as with so many things that turned out differently than I’d hoped, there is nothing to be done at this late hour, and it does me no good to second-guess my choices. I cannot deny, however, that my life would now be richer if there were grown children as well as little ones, like those I saw this morning, to give my days purpose and joy.
In my youth and early adulthood, I never entertained such thoughts. My early days in Hollywood were unpredictable and heady. There was no future, only the present, and the project of the moment was everything. One tried to stay as uncommitted as one possibly could, in order to be prepared for the next development. And for the young, rising players in the early days of film, there was always a next development.
The great irony of my success in the motion picture world is that I never set out to become an actor. Such an existence seemed utterly frivolous to me. Indeed, other than my lifelong love of literature, I had no connection to the arts at all as a boy, and certainly no premonition that I myself would one day become a figure that other people paid to see. My intention when I came to America for schooling in 1907, all the way up until two days before my ship was scheduled to sail for Tokyo, was to return to Nagano Prefecture and become a schoolteacher. I had arranged to take a post at my old secondary school and teach courses in English and literature, and my time in America only added to my value as a legitimate instructor in these subjects. At the University of Wisconsin, where I was an English major, I studied the literature of Britain and France; I developed a particular love for Hardy, Eliot, Dickens, and Forster, as well as a passable knowledge of Balzac and Flaubert. I loved the Russians, whose work I read in Japanese translation—Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky. And I read plays and watched every theater company that passed through Madison, particularly those who performed Shakespeare and other classics of the English stage. Once, I even had the good fortune to see the Kyoto Players, the Japanese company led by the young actress and playwright Hanako Minatoya, when they performed
Spring Blossom
at the university theater. I was able to arrange my studies to include modern Japanese authors as well, such as Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki; it was my dream to eventually do my own translations.
So it was with the intention of boarding a ship back to Tokyo that I took a train across the country to Los Angeles. This was in the spring of 1911, just after my twentieth birthday, and I faced my trip to Japan with apprehension. Although I looked forward to seeing my homeland and my family for the first time in four years, there had been many changes while I was away. My father had died during my second year at university, and I was afraid that his sickness and passing had aged my fragile mother as well. My older brother, Akira, who was managing the farm, had married a year previously, and his wife had borne a sickly child. My younger sister, Miya, had just turned seventeen; she was finished with school and there were apparently no prospects for marriage. And my little brother, Toru, who had been a mischievous and amusing boy of eight when I left, was twelve now, and driving everyone mad with his rebellions and declarations of autonomy. My presence, although I was only the second son, was expected to bring stability. Indeed, I had always been somewhat of a calming figure in the family, despite the fact that I often lived outside of it. My mother wrote me many letters during the spring of my senior year, urging me to come home as quickly as I could.
But fate, I suppose, had something different in mind. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I stayed at the home of a Japanese-American friend, a classmate from the University of Wisconsin. His family, the Yamadas, lived in Boyle Heights, and they insisted that I experience some of the pleasures of the city and visit the center of its Japanese community. I was to spend five days in Los Angeles, and on each day they showed me a new wonder of the city: the ocean, the mountains, the orange groves. And on each of these nights we dined at an establishment owned by one of their friends—always in Boyle Heights or Little Tokyo, of course, the only parts of town where Japanese were welcome. By the end of the third evening, I was feeling so indulged and so tired of socializing that I asked my host, John Yamada, if we could strike out on our own. I wished to do nothing more than have a quiet meal and perhaps take in a performance. As a fellow English major and lover of the arts, John knew exactly where to take us.
The place was named simply, the Little Tokyo Theater. It was a small, plain structure, recently built, which held about a hundred people. It was located just off of First Street, walking distance from the many bars, and so John and I stopped for sake and snacks before rushing into our seats just as the lights went down. Perhaps we had consumed too much of the sake, for I can think of no other reason why I behaved as I did, which was, to say the least, uncharacteristic. But when the play began—a work so minor and forgettable I don’t recall its name—it was so awful I couldn’t mask my displeasure. Everything about it was wrong: The writing was awkward, the acting overwrought, the stage direction, sets, and lighting looked like the work of total amateurs. I was so offended by the poor quality of the production, and by the fact that I had squandered one of my final nights in America on such a piece of rubbish, that I unleashed a stream of criticism, pointed but whispered, to John, who suffered beside me. No one, including us, was rude enough to walk out of the theater, but I could tell from the pursed lips and sagging eyelids that other people were as miserable as we. When the play ended, mercifully, a full two hours later, I stormed into the back hallways with a reluctant John behind me and demanded to see the manager. John pleaded with me to stop, but I was not to be denied, and I stood in the hallway complaining until a rumpled gentleman in his fifties finally stepped out of a doorway.
“I am Okamoto, the owner,” he said to us, bowing. “And what can I do for you, young sirs?”
I bowed back quickly, introducing myself, and then forsook the usual pleasantries. “My friend and I just saw the play this evening, and it smells worse than the manure on my family’s farm.”
The man looked stunned. “I beg your pardon?”
“It was terrible,” I said. “Badly written, badly acted, and an utter waste of my time and money. Excuse me for saying so, but if this is the kind of fare you usually offer at your theater, I would not be surprised to see it fail within the year.”
Behind me, I could feel John shrinking in embarrassment. Okamoto’s lips worked madly, and his glasses slid down his nose. “Well, I suppose
you
could do better, Mr… .”
“Nakabayashi,” I said, “Junichiro Nakabayashi. And indeed I
could
do better! My friend John and I could put up a play that would keep your theater full for a month. Couldn’t we, John?” I turned toward him for confirmation, but he looked away.
Okamoto, shifting in his too-large suit, considered me as if I were a madman. “What play do you propose to put on?” he asked.
“I have one in mind,” I assured him, although in fact I had no idea.
“And exactly what kind of experience do you have in the theater?”
“None.”
“None? Never acted? Never directed?”
“No. But I have seen enough theater to know what makes a good play. Give me a chance, Okamoto-san. Certainly a play that I produced couldn’t be any worse than what I saw tonight.”
Okamoto’s eyebrows wiggled as if they had a life of their own. “Well, I
am
searching for another new play this season,” he said, more to himself than to us. “And the last three productions have not been well-attended.”
I sensed my opening, and forged ahead. “You won’t be sorry, Okamoto-san. And besides, you have nothing to lose.”
After another moment of hand-wringing, Okamoto beckoned us to join him in his office. John continued to shake his head in disbelief, and I was fully aware that he had little time to devote to my sudden project, as he was due to start working in his father’s dry goods company the following Monday. But he sat patiently as Okamoto and I conversed. The owner told me about the history of the theater, which had opened two years earlier with the backing of several of Little Tokyo’s most prominent businessmen; and about the daily challenges of running an artistic enterprise with actors, directors, and stagehands who all had regular full-time jobs. Apparently, after sellouts of the theater’s first three productions, attendance had dropped off markedly—that night the theater had been half-f—and Okamoto and his backers were at a loss to explain why. When he told me the plays they’d put up there, I immediately saw the reason. They were all old Japanese dramas, tales that people had seen before, and probably to much greater effect.
“You have to engage people,” I argued. “The people who came to America are the ones who were brave enough to leave everything behind. They don’t want to see the same old stories. You need to excite them, give them something that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So what do you propose?”
By this time, an idea had come to me. There was a novel, published ten years earlier, entitled
The Indifferent Sea
, about a naval officer who falls in love with a girl in the town where he is stationed. The officer is promised to another young woman from his hometown, and to make matters worse, he discovers that the girl he loves is actually the daughter of his superior, the naval commander. Because she belongs to a higher social class than he, neither family would approve of their match. The lovers bemoan the cruelty of fate, but after several months of meeting secretly, they decide to do the proper thing and part. Within a year the young officer is married to the woman from his hometown—but then she passes away during child-birth. By the time he locates the commander’s daughter, she is already married to someone else. He is left with neither the woman he loved nor the woman he married, and with a child he must raise by himself. By letting himself get caught between duty and desire, he gains nothing and loses all that he cares for.
It was a story whose themes of responsibility and social duty would appeal to the transplanted Japanese audience. But it was also a story with enough of a romantic twist to satisfy their desire for intrigue. I first encountered this novel when I was twelve; I surprised a classmate who was crying over a book on his stoop one afternoon as I passed him on my way home from school. After teasing him for his sensitivity, I asked what was having such a deep effect on him. He wordlessly handed over the book, and I started reading it right there, so engrossed in the story of young Officer Kubota that I forgot my friend was present. Later, after he finished the book, he passed it on to me. Because my family would have disapproved of me reading something so frivolous as a novel, I kept the book out in the chicken coop and read it in bits when I went out to feed the animals. For several days, when I came back into the house, it was obvious I had been crying, until one day my mother looked at me and shook her head. “Jun-chan, you are growing too attached to the chickens. Don’t mourn for them. We may have to kill them soon, but I promise there will always be more.”
This novel had a tremendous effect on me—indeed, I could go so far as to say that it ignited my love for the arts— and it was one of the few items I had brought from Japan that was not a strict necessity. I had playacted all the parts as a boy hundreds of times, and knew almost every line in the book. It was clear to me that this was my opportunity to
really
play Kubota, and I already had an actress in mind for the crucial part of Emiko, the commander’s daughter—the least terrible of the players from that night’s performance.
I explained the story line to Okamoto and saw his eyes brighten with excitement. “Young man,” he said, “you are a gift from Buddha. I hand you the fate of my theater.”
Although this may seem like a large burden to place on the shoulders of a twenty-year-old with no experience, I was—perhaps because of my youth—undaunted. In fact, I was enthused about the prospect of putting on an entire production, and after postponing my passage to Tokyo and sending a telegram to my mother, I quickly got down to business. The play was scheduled to open in exactly six weeks, but there was not yet an actual play. The novel had never been adapted—a detail I had neglected to share with Okamoto—so while I spent the evenings holding auditions and arranging the construction of the set, I passed the days furiously transforming the story of Kubota into the dialogue and stage directions of a play. This could have been tedious work, but since I had committed nearly the entire book to memory, and was energized by the prospect of bringing it to an audience, the hours fiew quickly by. Within two weeks, the transformation was complete, and after four more frantic weeks of set design, fittings, advertisements, and rehearsals, the play opened on a Friday in the June of 1911.