Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron Page A

#2: Miss Hellman, did Hammett help you with your writing?
    INTERVIEWER #1, #2, AND #3:
[Together.]
Tell us—
    INTERVIEWER #1: —about Sophronia—
    INTERVIEWER #2: —about your imaginary playmate—
    INTERVIEWER #3: —what “pentimento” means—
    INTERVIEWER #1: This ad—advertising ranch mink—what in the world is that about?
    LILLIAN : I don’t know.
[Laughs.]
I don’t know.
    On the scrim we see a photograph of
LILLIAN
as the legend in the “What Becomes a Legend Most” Blackglama mink ad, as
LILLIAN
poses and preens for the camera and the photographers shout—
    INTERVIEWER #1: This way—
    INTERVIEWER #2: This way—
    INTERVIEWER #3: Over here—
    INTERVIEWER #1: I want to know why you did that ad.
    LILLIAN :
[Laughs.]
I got talked into it one bad afternoon. Why? Do you object to it?
    INTERVIEWER #1: No, but I don’t quite know what to make of it.
    LILLIAN : I don’t blame you.
    LILLIAN
now sits for a television interview, smoking a cigarette. We see her image projected onto the scrim behind her as the interview progresses
.
    INTERVIEWER : Miss Hellman, the story of you and your friend Julia is about to be made into a movie. Tell us about her.
    LILLIAN : Julia was a childhood friend who moved to Vienna to study with Freud and became active in the anti-fascist underground. In 1936 she called and asked me to bring money—fifty thousand dollars—to Berlin.
    INTERVIEWER : Money that was to be used to save people from the Nazis.
    LILLIAN : Yes. She knew that I was afraid of being afraid and might be willing to do something dangerous. So I brought her the money.
    INTERVIEWER : In the lining of a fur hat.
    LILLIAN : Yes. I met Julia in a restaurant near the Berlin train station. I knew she’d been wounded in a demonstration, but when I saw her, and I saw the crutches, I realized she’d lost a leg.…
    INTERVIEWER : Did you ever see her alive after that day?
    LILLIAN : Never. She was murdered by the Nazis. I went to London and brought her body home to America. She’d left her daughter for safekeeping with friends in Alsace, and I never went looking for her—
    INTERVIEWER : Her daughter, Lilly.
    LILLIAN : Yes. I suffered terribly for not looking for the child. Hammett always said I got my worst nightmares from not looking for the child.
[She starts to cry.]
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This has never happened to me.
    All the technicians and makeup people rush in with boxes of Kleenex
. LILLIAN
dries her eyes, and more makeup is applied
.
    INTERVIEWER : Are you all right, Miss Hellman? Do you want to stop—
    LILLIAN : No. I’ll be fine.
    And now we see
MARY ,
in the café in Paris, being interviewed by a very young
REPORTER
with a very low-tech tape recorder. This
PARIS REPORTER
puts a cassette into the recorder and presses record
.
    PARIS REPORTER : Just a second.
[Into the machine.]
Testing one two three four. Sorry about this. I always do this because I’m sure it’s not going to work.
    The
PARIS REPORTER
presses the rewind button, and the machine rewinds. The
PARIS REPORTER
presses the play button. The machine says: “Testing one two three four.”
    I once interviewed Leslie Caron, and the machine didn’t work, so I lost the whole thing. Which is why I bring a notebook, just in case, but then I usually forget to take notes.
[Pressing the record button.]
All right. All set.
[Picks up the recorder to make sure the tape is spinning, sets it down.]
You are not at all what I imagined—
    MARY : Really. What did you imagine?
    PARIS REPORTER : I don’t know. I mean, I saw
Julia
recently.
    MARY : Who is Julia?
    PARIS REPORTER : The movie. It’s based on this Lillian Hellman story. Jane Fonda, Jason Robards. And I thought you were going to be more like—
    MARY : Like Jane Fonda?
    PARIS REPORTER : No, no. But—
    MARY : Surely not like Lillian Hellman?
    PARIS REPORTER : I don’t know. You’re so ladylike … you’d hardly guess … you’re Mary McCarthy, if you know what I mean.
    MARY
lights a