The Cinderella Killer (2 page)

‘No, no. The character of Baron Hardup is a man, and he's played by a man.'

‘Thank the Lord for that. And where does he fit into the story?'

Charles was surprised by how little Kenny seemed to know about the job he'd agreed to take on. ‘He's Cinderella's father. And of course stepfather to the Ugly Sisters too.'

‘Is he one of the good guys?'

‘Yes. I've played the part. It's quite fun.'

‘When did you play it?'

‘Oh, years ago.' Charles thought nostalgically of that production in Worthing. And of Jacqui, the dancer who was playing A Villager, White Mouse and Court Lady (for the Finale). He had fond memories of the time they'd spent together back then. No commitment on either side, just very nice sex for the duration of the run. He had less fond memories of the review his performance had received from the
Worthing Herald
. ‘Charles Paris played Baron Hardup, and lost.'

‘So what does the Baron do?' asked Kenny.

‘He often gets involved in the slapstick routines with the Ugly Sisters.'

‘Slapstick? Hell, I thought that went out with the Three Stooges.'

‘It lives on in pantomime. It's one of the traditions.'

‘Are there a lot of these traditions, Charles?'

‘You bet. Built up over three centuries. Where shall I start? As I said, there's the slapstick scene. Then there's the transformation scene, and at the end you have special costumes for the Walkdown. And there's the audience-participation song, for which the song sheet is brought down from the flies. The Good Fairy always enters stage right, the Demon stage left. Then there'll be a “Behind you!” exchange with the audience, and at least one “Oh yes, it is!/Oh no, it isn't!” routine. And of course don't let's forget the pantomime horse, where one person's the front and one's the back.'

‘You're kidding me,' said Kenny Polizzi.

Charles Paris didn't normally watch chat shows. He found that the guests rarely had anything interesting to say, and when they were actors it just rubbed in how much more successful than his their careers were.

But he did watch the
Johnny Martin Show
that evening. He wanted to see how much Kenny Polizzi had taken in from his crash course in the mysteries of pantomime.

In the event Johnny and his star guest said very little about the subject. There was a statutory plug in the intro, the news that Kenny Polizzi would be opening in
Cinderella
at the Empire Theatre, Eastbourne on Friday the seventh of December, running till the middle of January, but that was it. There was much more interest in the glory days of
The Dwight House
.

Johnny Martin was a very straight, almost old-fashioned, interviewer. The vogue for outlandish gay comedians fronting chat shows – and making the encounters more about them than about their guests – seemed to be on the wane. Which was very good news as far as Charles Paris was concerned. Johnny Martin's approach, by contrast, was in the traditional style pioneered by David Frost, Michael Parkinson and Terry Wogan. His research was impeccable, he cued his guests seamlessly to wheel out their well-oiled anecdotes and could almost be said to take a back seat during his interviews. It was a refreshing change after the rash of egotistical exhibitionists who seemed to Charles to have commandeered the air waves recently.

But Johnny Martin was not a complete pussy cat. He was very good at soft-soaping his guests, lulling them into a sense of serene bonhomie and then snapping a controversial question at them. Whatever agreements might have been made before about the subject-matter for interview, Johnny would disregard them. He was particularly adept at this method with politicians. He knew all MPs love appearing on television and love even more talking about things other than politics, their hobbies and little quirks that make them come across as regular, normal, even nice people.

Then, just when the discussion was at its cosiest, Johnny would throw in a barbed dart of a question which really got under his interviewee's skin. Some issue of an expenses irregularity, a well-paid consultancy with a company of dubious morality, an inappropriate closeness to a lobbyist, the hint of a sexual misdemeanour … these would suddenly be raised without any change in the mask of the interviewer's bland smile.

As a result, though politicians always preferred appearances on chat shows to programmes of serious debate like
Newsnight
, quite a few of them chose never to appear on
The
Johnny Martin Show
for a second time.

The host's early questions about
The Dwight House
were predictably lightweight. Johnny catalogued the show's amazing statistics, the awards it had won, the stars whose careers had been quick-started by appearances as Dwight Bredon's children, the number of countries round the world it had been sold to.

Kenny Polizzi was used to this routine. He had a few finely honed humorous responses to these familiar facts. He said what a privilege it had been to work on the show, how no one knew at the start the huge showbiz phenomenon it would become, how the whole company had been like one happy family, and how
The Dwight House
's success had had nothing to do with him. It had been a team effort and though he was the show's figurehead, he would never forget the important contribution made by every single individual connected with it.

This was all standard stuff, much of which Kenny had wheeled out in various award-collecting moments. It was bland and self-congratulatory, but he managed to inject a little of the bewilderment which had been so much part of his character in the show. Dwight Bredon was a lovable goofball, a man to whom things happened, who was in a state of constant surprise at events erupting around him. Cleverly, Kenny gave the impression that that was what had happened to him too. He's just been standing there, doing nothing in his usual way, and he'd been offered the part. And he was still a little in shock from all the wonderful things that had followed from that initial piece of good fortune.

What came across to the audience of
The
Johnny Martin Show
was exactly what was intended to come across. Kenny Polizzi was a regular guy who you'd happily meet in a bar and have a beer with. There was no side to him. And given the scale of his international success, he remained a very modest man.

It was then, just when interviewer, interviewee and audience had achieved the cosy warmth of a friendly chat, that Johnny Martin threw in the first of his loaded questions.

‘Kenny, I must say you're looking very fit.'

‘Well, thank you for that, Johnny. I have been working out a bit. I have this very good personal trainer back in the States, and he's worked out a programme that I'll be following while I'm over here. Yes, I'm glad to say I am very fit.'

‘And very clean?' asked Johnny slyly.

But Kenny wasn't going to be caught out that easily. ‘Perfectly clean, thank you. I shower regularly – as I hope you do too.'

This got a friendly laugh from the audience, but it did not divert Johnny from his line of questioning. ‘I was meaning “clean” in the sense of “clean from all substance abuse”.'

‘Well, I'm clean that way too.'

‘Good news.' A little pause. ‘Because that wasn't always the case, was it, Kenny?'

That he was annoyed by this was shown by the slightest change of expression, so minimal that only a behavioural psychologist – or a fellow actor – would have picked up.

‘What're you saying here?' asked Kenny Polizzi.

‘Just that you had a reputation in the past for being a bit of a hellraiser.'

‘I don't know about a hellraiser. I did have a reputation in the past for being considerably younger than I am now. But I guess that goes for all of us, Johnny boy.'

‘So how long have you been completely free of drugs?'

It was a question so leading that it would not have been allowed in any British court of law, but Kenny was wise to it. ‘I've been free of any but prescription drugs since I emerged from my mother's womb.'

‘What about alcohol?'

‘I don't recall there being any around in the maternity suite.'

That got a big laugh. Unusually, Johnny Martin was being turned over in the contest. And he didn't like it. ‘Kenny, there were lots of rumours in the gossip columns about you partying rather heavily and—'

‘Sure, I liked to party. Name me an actor who doesn't. I dare say even you in your time have been something of a party animal, Johnny boy.' Having coined the diminishing nickname, Kenny was going to stick with it.

‘Well, I, er …'

‘Anyway, do you believe stuff you read in the gossip columns? If you believed everything that's been written about me, then you'd think I was a drug fiend and alcoholic who's been to bed with every woman in Hollywood.'

‘Is that not true?'

‘No, I couldn't manage
all
of them.'

It was a good riposte. Again it made Johnny look silly. And the implication was there that, although Kenny hadn't bedded
every
woman in Hollywood, he'd had his way with a good many of them.

‘So your hellraising days are behind you, are they, Kenny?'

‘You could say that …'

‘I just did.'

‘… but because there never were any hellraising days, it's kinda hard to put them behind me.' There was a twinkle in the actor's eye; he was actually teasing his inquisitor.

‘So how long is it since you last had a drink, Kenny?'

‘If you'd been looking, Johnny boy, you'd have noticed that I've just had a sip from your excellent water on the table right here.'

‘I meant an alcoholic drink.'

‘Well, you should have said that, shouldn't you, rather than confusing me?'

‘How long is it, Kenny, since you had an alcoholic drink?'

‘It'll be two years on Thursday.'

The directness and the seriousness with which this was said almost threw Johnny. The audience applauding the feat did little to settle him either. He stumbled a little over saying, ‘Congratulations,' then moved on. ‘And may I ask your current marital status, Kenny …?'

‘I am currently unmarried.' He turned to face his public. ‘Footloose and fancy-free. On the market once again.
Available.
' This was greeted by some raucous shouts and cheers from the female members of the audience.

‘But you have been married?'

‘Don't know why you bother asking me that question, Johnny boy. You know the answer. Or if you don't, it doesn't say much for your researchers.' Kenny was virtually taking over the interview now. ‘Yep, I've had four marriages. I should be getting good at it by now.'

‘And have you got a fifth Mrs Polizzi lined up?'

‘Still sorting out the final paperwork on the divorce from the fourth.'

‘That being Lilith Greenstone?'

‘Yes, your researchers have been doing their stuff.'

‘She's almost as big a star as you are.' Polizzi shrugged. ‘And seems to be rather busier than you are at the moment. Was that one of the problems with the marriage – that her career was doing rather better than—?'

‘I'm not going to say anything about Lilith in public. If I do one of her lawyers might hear it and screw another coupla million dollars out of me.'

‘You say you're currently fancy-free, but you have been seen at some Hollywood events recently escorting the lovely British actress Ann Jordan. Is there anything there?'

‘There's a very pretty girl there. Who I happen to know. But if I married every pretty girl I happen to know … hell, I'd have to have a camp bed at the wedding chapel.'

‘So you're not going to tell us any more about you and Ann Jordan?'

‘Dead right I'm not, Johnny boy.'

‘Hmm.' The host recognized he wasn't going to get any further there, and did something almost unprecedented. He looked at his notes before starting on a new tack. ‘Kenny, there's been a lot of controversy recently over American gun laws.'

‘Sure.' His expression showed he was ready for this one too.

‘And you know that over here we have rather different views on the right of citizens to bear arms.'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘You have your Constitution …'

‘And the Second Amendment, yeah.'

‘And you have spoken out in public in support of your current gun laws …'

‘I have.'

‘And I believe you have quite an extensive collection of guns …'

‘Yup. With some folks it's stamps or butterflies. With me it's guns.'

‘Well, Kenny, now you're in England, do you wish you had the right to carry a gun here?'

It was a good question, just controversial enough to allow Kenny Polizzi to show himself up. His reply could have quite an effect on his image this side of the pond.

‘Well, there's a bit of me – a bit of most Americans, Johnny boy,' he said, ‘that always feels kinda naked without a gun. But the United States, I'm sorry to say, is still quite a violent place. The only reason I need a gun over there is because everyone else I meet will also have a gun.' Ingenuously, he spread his hands wide. ‘Self-protection. Whereas here in this cute little island of yours it's only the bad guys who got guns. What use would I have with a gun over here? What could I use it for? To stir my afternoon tea with before I make a start on the cucumber sandwiches – what-ho?'

He said this last sentence in the English accent of a Wodehousian silly ass. The
Johnny Martin Show
audience loved it.

And back in his digs in Eastbourne, Charles was also impressed by Kenny Polizzi's media savvy.

FAIRY GODMOTHER: Now I will use my magic arts

To summon help from foreign parts.

A
s he was about to enter the rehearsal room, Charles Paris looked at the new
Cinderella
poster with practised cynicism. Since time immemorial ‘billing' – literally where your name appears on the playbill and in what size lettering – has been very important to actors. It's the kind of detail their agents wrangle about endlessly with managements (or they do if their agent is someone other than Charles's – Maurice Skellern).