Les,” said the other, and with several waves of camaraderie, they went out the door.
Les uncovered the mouthpiece. “Okay, Eddie, now what the hell happened?”
Eddie Rhinebeck was the studio’s head of publicity. For the past two months his exclusive concern had been Angela Sterling and their sixteen-point-five biggie, Until She Screams, promotion of which he was handling personally. And to this end he had recently engineered what promised to be a PR coup of the very first magnitude. Through an elaborate process of fête and cajolery, he had managed to persuade a state senator and a rear admiral to allow, even insist, that the men and officers who were to serve aboard the newly commissioned battleship California “elect” the lady who would christen their ship. The choice, to be determined by popular vote, was between: (1) Dr. Rose Harkness, most recent American female Nobel Prize winner, (2) Mrs. Hannah Bove, bereaved “Gold Star Mother of the Year,” who lost three sons in Vietnam,
(3) Storm Rogers, attractive wife of the governor of California, and (4) the perfect Angela Sterling.
Studio heads (including Dad Harrison) were apprehensive about the possible outcome. (“Why take the chance—who needs it?”), but Eddie was adamant, and Les went along.
“The prestige bit can’t hurt us,” he said, “should be good for a Life cover story.”
“Yeah?” asked Dad, “so what if she loses?”
“Aw, come on, Dad, Eddie’s got the vote in his pocket, for Chrissake, he knows where it’s at.”
The old man sighed, shook his head, whistled softly: “So what if Eddie’s wrong?”
Les smiled, faint and knowing. “Eddie’s not wrong, Dad—not when his head is on the line.”
Still, there had been a certain tension, a certain malaise, while they awaited the outcome—and ample relief when it was announced that Angela had won by a veritable landslide, garnering more votes than the other three ladies combined.
Naturally this was a boss feather in Eddie’s proverbial cap, vis-à-vis Les—as likewise it was for Les, vis-à-vis Dad and the New York office. So there had been an abundance of backpatting all around in anticipation of the great day—which was finally at hand, on San Francisco’s big Pier 97, with the 6,000 men and officers of the California standing at attention in full parade regalia, while on the pier itself, seated in a festively draped grandstand, not far from the beribboned bottle of bubbly, a host of notables—including three admirals, the mayor of San Francisco, the governor of the state, and the Secretary of the Navy. Ranged about them, as in ambush, was an army of newsmen and photographers, and on the periphery sat three TV camera trucks.
In order to fully exploit the event, Les had shut down production on Until She Screams for the entire day, at, needless to say, considerable expense to the studio. It would be difficult then, to exaggerate his pique in learning that Miss Sterling, the fabulous object of all these arrangements, had, in fact, failed to show.
After waiting for more than an hour, there was no alternative to getting on with it, so a substitute was chosen. Trying to replace the boss beauty simply with an everyday run-of-the-mill beauty would have been folly. Instead they chose, and quite wisely, a very pretty little girl of seven, with a pink ribbon in her hair.
This substitution might have proved satisfactory, though far from ideal, granted, had not the girl, in her inexperience, and nervousness, missed with the ribboned bottle, and worse, was carried forward by her own momentum, lost her footing, and fell from the pier and into the water below, very nearly drowning before she was pulled out. All in all, the christening and the launching had been a fiasco—the worst, according to some, in naval history.
“I’ll kill her,” Les said to Eddie, “as God is my witness, I will kill her!” Then, very softly, he began to weep. “It’s not fair, Eddie,” he said,
Les uncovered the mouthpiece. “Okay, Eddie, now what the hell happened?”
Eddie Rhinebeck was the studio’s head of publicity. For the past two months his exclusive concern had been Angela Sterling and their sixteen-point-five biggie, Until She Screams, promotion of which he was handling personally. And to this end he had recently engineered what promised to be a PR coup of the very first magnitude. Through an elaborate process of fête and cajolery, he had managed to persuade a state senator and a rear admiral to allow, even insist, that the men and officers who were to serve aboard the newly commissioned battleship California “elect” the lady who would christen their ship. The choice, to be determined by popular vote, was between: (1) Dr. Rose Harkness, most recent American female Nobel Prize winner, (2) Mrs. Hannah Bove, bereaved “Gold Star Mother of the Year,” who lost three sons in Vietnam,
(3) Storm Rogers, attractive wife of the governor of California, and (4) the perfect Angela Sterling.
Studio heads (including Dad Harrison) were apprehensive about the possible outcome. (“Why take the chance—who needs it?”), but Eddie was adamant, and Les went along.
“The prestige bit can’t hurt us,” he said, “should be good for a Life cover story.”
“Yeah?” asked Dad, “so what if she loses?”
“Aw, come on, Dad, Eddie’s got the vote in his pocket, for Chrissake, he knows where it’s at.”
The old man sighed, shook his head, whistled softly: “So what if Eddie’s wrong?”
Les smiled, faint and knowing. “Eddie’s not wrong, Dad—not when his head is on the line.”
Still, there had been a certain tension, a certain malaise, while they awaited the outcome—and ample relief when it was announced that Angela had won by a veritable landslide, garnering more votes than the other three ladies combined.
Naturally this was a boss feather in Eddie’s proverbial cap, vis-à-vis Les—as likewise it was for Les, vis-à-vis Dad and the New York office. So there had been an abundance of backpatting all around in anticipation of the great day—which was finally at hand, on San Francisco’s big Pier 97, with the 6,000 men and officers of the California standing at attention in full parade regalia, while on the pier itself, seated in a festively draped grandstand, not far from the beribboned bottle of bubbly, a host of notables—including three admirals, the mayor of San Francisco, the governor of the state, and the Secretary of the Navy. Ranged about them, as in ambush, was an army of newsmen and photographers, and on the periphery sat three TV camera trucks.
In order to fully exploit the event, Les had shut down production on Until She Screams for the entire day, at, needless to say, considerable expense to the studio. It would be difficult then, to exaggerate his pique in learning that Miss Sterling, the fabulous object of all these arrangements, had, in fact, failed to show.
After waiting for more than an hour, there was no alternative to getting on with it, so a substitute was chosen. Trying to replace the boss beauty simply with an everyday run-of-the-mill beauty would have been folly. Instead they chose, and quite wisely, a very pretty little girl of seven, with a pink ribbon in her hair.
This substitution might have proved satisfactory, though far from ideal, granted, had not the girl, in her inexperience, and nervousness, missed with the ribboned bottle, and worse, was carried forward by her own momentum, lost her footing, and fell from the pier and into the water below, very nearly drowning before she was pulled out. All in all, the christening and the launching had been a fiasco—the worst, according to some, in naval history.
“I’ll kill her,” Les said to Eddie, “as God is my witness, I will kill her!” Then, very softly, he began to weep. “It’s not fair, Eddie,” he said,
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