Will the Real Avatar Please Stand Up

  I SUPPOSE GODS in human form may well have dropped in on this blue marble from time to time, but I strongly doubt that one has ever tooled around Rodeo Drive in a T-bird with the aplomb and good looks of Warren Beatty. Reading Star, the new biography by Peter Biskind, one can’t help but be blown away by the actor’s overwhelming accomplishments. Think of the movies, the grosses, the reviews, the Oscars, the endless nominations springing from this quadruple-threat voracious reader and marketing maven, who is nimble at the Steinway, savvy in the ways of politics, and a full-time Adonis, with accolades accruing from divers ones who believe he belongs not just up on the silver screen but in the Oval Office. More spectacular than a Tinseltown résumé that would humble Orson Welles are the star’s legendary exploits on the bedsprings. Here recounted are innumerable love affairs, with women of every heft and feel and station in life, from actresses to models, hatcheck girls to First Ladies. It seems that endless varieties of pulchritude salivated to plunge into the kip with this virtuoso of the percales. “How many women were there?” asks the author. “Easier to count the stars in the sky…. Beatty used to say that he couldn’t get to sleep at night without having sex. It was part of his routine, like flossing…. Allowing for the stretches when he was with the same woman, more or less, we can arrive at a figure of 12,775 women, give or take.” As a supplicant who has yet to achieve double digits when it comes to bedding the juicy gender, and those conquests requiring the aid of my Hypno-disk, I could not help imagining the following account of one gal’s irresistible swoon into the Guinness Book. But let her speak for herself.

  What a morning. I had to pop two Valiums to zone out the monarchs, graylings, and cecropia moths that were using my stomach to practice aerial maneuvers. My first actual assignment as a reporter, and it’s this fantastic coup. Why would Hollywood’s most charismatic actor, Bolt Upright, who eschews the limelight à la Howard Hughes, grant an interview to an unknown nineteen-year-old with shoulder-length blond hair, long tanned legs, Ming Dynasty cheekbones, a great top shelf, and an overbite that wreaks havoc with the Y-chromosome crowd? If this Sun Belt Casanova has any idea of hitting on me like the myriad hapless starstruck tomatoes he’s drilled, he’s got another think coming. My goal in life is serious reportage, and I’d frankly rather go one on one with Joe Biden or the Dalai Lama, except those highfalutin face cards never wrote back, while Bolt, who accidentally lamped me last month in Playboy’s nude spread on the best-built Columbia Journalism majors, not only answered but scented his reply.

  Just to make sure his industrial-strength libido wouldn’t give him the wrong idea I was careful to dress conservatively, in an unprovocative micro-skirt, black mesh hose, and a tight but tasteful see-through blouse. Covering my lips, which are rather pillowy and sensual, with a discreet suggestion of dark-ruby lipstick, I felt sufficiently mousey to discourage any little familiarities Mister Testosterone might toss my way. All this fussing caused my fiancé some apprehension, but Hamish knows there’s nothing to worry about, despite the fact that no man, not even one as rodentine as Hamish, could ever compete with Lotusland’s greatest stud.

  I pulled up at Bolt Upright’s Bel Air home, which is modest by neighborhood standards, built to duplicate the Parthenon with a few architectural flourishes cribbed from Notre Dame and the Sydney Opera House. Bolt, who not only acts but writes, directs, and produces, had just opened his latest film, Requiem for a Schnorrer, to raves. He has total artistic freedom and has been dubbed a cinematic genius by both Variety and The Poultryman’s Journal. One Hollywood mogul said, “If this guy wants to burn down the studio, I’ll give him the matches.” Ironically, when he tried, they called Security.

  As I parked, I noticed several young starlets coming out the front door, giggling, their faces radiant with fulfillment. “I’m still vibrating,” the brunette said. “He made passionate love to me while at the same time accompanying himself on the piano.”

  “All I know is I showed up early,” the redhead said. “I was given a number and waited my turn, and when I was called we had sex again and again and again. Next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room and a nurse was giving me tea.”

  I rang the bell and the sleek, white-jacketed continental valet, Hock Tooey, let me in. The house is furnished in masculine dark woods, with signed photos of adoring females on the walls of the den. Actresses and models hang at eye level; congresswomen, TV anchors, and a photo of Golda Meir on a bearskin rug are above. The bottom row is reserved for dental hygienists, airline stewardesses, and a group of gratefully moist-eyed women from a leper colony. There were some tchotchkes, too, like a pair of gold handcuffs on the coffee table, a gift from Margaret Thatcher. The star’s proudest possession, I learned, is the engraved Rolex he was given for Valentine’s Day by Mother Teresa.

  As I browsed I suddenly felt two burning orbs scoping out my anatomy and turned to see America’s No. 1 box-office attraction clocking my callipygian.

  “Great wheels,” he said, his gaze segueing to my legs. “Clearly you work out. Can I sell you a little aperitif? To lubricate the abs?” He was gorgeous. It was easy to see why his hair and makeup people have both been recipients of the Irving Thalberg humanitarian award. “The vibrations I get from that shade of Revlon and the subtle hint of Anaïs you’re wearing tell me your beverage of choice would be a Stoli Martini with a twist of lemon. Tell me if I’m warm,” he inquired.

  “But how could you know I go totally ape over that precise admixture?” I asked as a primitive sense of arousal kicked in at the base of my medulla.

  “Call it intuition,” he replied. “Let’s just say I can feel a woman’s deepest desires. It’s how I know your favorite poem is ‘Recuerdo,’ your favorite painter Caravaggio, and your favorite song ‘Goofus.’”

  “Variety’s right,” I said. “You do look like a young Alain Delon.”

  “Only because I’m just getting over stomach flu,” he said, handing me my vodka.

  “Actually, I’ve modeled my looks on Michelangelo’s ‘David.’”

  When somebody phoned, I could pick up enough of the talk to hear that it was one of Bolt’s political cronies. The star, whose insight and sagacity are not confined to creating celluloid masterpieces, is also known to be the wily puppet master behind some of our highest government officials. Here certain key Democrats vetting a woman for a Justice Department job had called to check with Bolt about whether she was lying about the location of her G-spot.

  “I loved your film version of Macbeth,” I said when he hung up. “Did you ever settle that business with the Guild over the writing credit?”

  “Thurston Lamphead, my lawyer, got into it with all those carping microbes from Stratford-upon-Avon,” he replied. “Finally agreed on co-authorship.” Draining a second Stoli, I took out my pad and pencil, and adjusted my garter belt, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “I’ll cut right to the chase,” I said. “How are you able to be incredibly productive artistically and still find time to go to bed with so many women?”

  “At first it was difficult,” he confessed. “It wasn’t so much the actual sex that infringed on my schedule. It was after—the postcoital cigarette and the pillow chat. The day it dawned on me I could hire somebody to take my place for the cuddling time everything changed. Not having to lie there and listen to all that maudlin drivel about how the earth shook freed me up to work on film scripts and develop new breakthrough concepts.”

  Just then Hock Tooey entered and announced that a bus had arrived from Seattle carrying a group of young suburban housewives, apparently contest winners. “Put them upstairs,” Bolt told him. “Have them remove all their clothes and give them each a paper gown. Tell them to tie it in the front. I’ll be up in a while.”

  “And to what do you attribute your inordinate sex drive?” I asked. “I mean, more than twelve thousand women. Sometimes several a day.”

  “Basically I do it to prevent cavities,” he told me. “It’s like flossing. Years ago, I noticed that if I go to bed without sex I begin to pick up some decay along the gum line.”

  “You must be an incredible mechanic in the boudoir,” I persisted, trying to imagine just for a nanosecond what it would be like to be made love to by a combination of Heathcliff and Secretariat.

  “Try me,” he said, taking me in his arms and signaling for a mariachi band to enter.

  “I have a fiancé,” I protested.

  “Yes, but can your fiancé do this?” he said, executing a perfect back somersault and landing on his feet with a grin.

  “The truth is Hamish and I have an arrangement,” I whispered. “I’m free to sleep with whomever I choose and he gets to hold the channel changer.”

  The next thing I knew, he’d pressed his lips to mine and my underpants were removed arthroscopically. After that everything was a blur. I recall someone, either Bolt or his assistant, nibbling my ear. Later I learned that in addition to a cuddling stand-in Bolt uses a warm-up boy so that he doesn’t have to squander precious minutes on foreplay. I remember being locked in Bolt’s embrace while he ravaged me and for the first time in my life during sex I actually saw fireworks. Hamish called on my cell while I was making love. I lied and said I was working, but when he said, “I hear fireworks, are you in Chinatown?” somehow I knew he knew. After our lovemaking, Bolt told me how special the experience had been for him and that of all his women I was the one he truly cared for. Then I was told to please sit in a chair by an open window while he pressed something marked “Seat Ejector Button.” I exited the premises rather rapidly, but not before I was handed a Lucite globe as a memento, which someone had engraved quite romantically with the number 12,989.

  A Little Face Work Never Hurt

  EASTER ISLAND POLICE SAY TOURIST BROKE OFF STATUE’S EAR

  A Finnish tourist was detained after the police said he broke off a piece of rock from the ear lobe of one of the mysterious ancient giant statues…. A resident told authorities that she witnessed … the tourist fleeing with a piece of the statue in his hand.

  New York Times, March 26, 2008

  IT IS ROUTINELY spun by those who relish miracles that Harry Houdini took the stage one night at the Victoria, snapped his fingers, and caused six tons of African pachyderm to evanesce into the local ether. Not to be outdone by this high-end hocus-pocus, the Great Kellar stood nonchalantly on the Hippodrome stage while a rifle bullet was fired point-blank at him, the fatal slug caught deftly by the wizard between his front teeth with no visible insult to his system short of perhaps some scuffed enamel. And yet, spellbinding as these effects may be, for sheer astonishment nothing beats an uncanny bit of prestidigitation perpetuated by a neurasthenic homunculus with black-framed glasses, imposing crown baldness, and a romantic presence to rival the late Arnold Stang. Yes, folks, I alone amongst sorcerers can at will cause my telephone to ring. This tour de force of legerdemain required merely that I undress, step into the shower, adjust the water to a comfortable temperature, and lather my body. It is at that precise moment, with the inevitability of a harp solo in a Marx Brothers movie, my area code and number will be dialed by some human, be he or she known to me or as alien as the honey dripper calling from Mombasa who bled me with some Ponzi scheme. And so it came to pass, six weeks ago with the aforementioned prerequisites in conjunction, the old Ameche predictably tintinnabulated on cue, causing me to bound naked and dripping from my glass stall and slide headfirst like Pete Rose toward the hall phone lest some lush financial windfall or unique erotic offer go unclaimed.

  “It’s Jay Butterfat,” the voice on the other end said. “Did I get you at a bad time?”

  “Not at all,” I said, recognizing the deviated septum of the veteran Broadway huckster. “I was just sitting by the phone studying its remarkable contours.”

  “Good. Lemme bring you up to speed. I’m in Boston with a scalding drama that looks to be the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Death of a Salesman. All it needs is some beveling—to smooth out a few rough edges. First-time playwright. One of those sensitive myopics who hollers infanticide every time you ask for a line change. Wound up having him committed. Not so easy to do without the person’s consent. Anyhow, the nitty-gritty is that I’m this close to a Megaball hit if I can just get in a fresh mind to do a little re-juxta.”

  “How was the opening night reaction?” I queried, smelling burning sulfur despite the mileage between us.

  “Basically, the press was positive.” Butterfat opined. “Naturally, there were some cavils. They took issue with the plot, dialogue, staging, some uncalled-for sarcasm over costumes and sets. I have to say, the critics were right about the performances being way over the top.”

  Butterfat was an ex slip-and-fall lawyer who had produced everything from girlie shows to puppet plays. His Broadway output consisted mostly of black holes, yet despite transmogrifying countless wealthy angels into sharecroppers, he sporadically managed to fabricate quote ads with sufficient flimflam to keep his own professional lower lip a millimeter above sea level.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m a facile man with comedy, but this sounds like Arthur Miller territory or even Eugene O’Neill.”

  “I agree completely,” Butterfat said. “But for some reason the audience can’t stop laughing, and my gut tells me if we stay flexible and go broad rather than vainly try to butt heads with Aeschylus, there’s a beautiful dollar to be gleaned come eventide.”

  Quickly computing my caloric needs against current financial prospects and amazingly coming up with a figure identical to the address of debtors’ prison, I found myself motoring up to Beantown. Sensing the show was in trouble and that I could write my own ticket, I held out for stiff terms and, while there was no actual front money, I was able to extract a percent of future profits, which Butterfat vowed would be pari passu with the contractor’s overage for Raj Jahan.

  To an experienced play doctor like myself, the structural lapses of Memoirs of a Flounder were not difficult to pinpoint, although they seemed more abundant than the producer had soft-soaped me into believing. The curtain rose on a veritable typhoon of incoherence, the stage chockablock with meandering, unexplained characters, some carrying parasols, others with blowguns or in jockey silks. The early scenes were filled with irrational behavior, introducing no discernible protagonists or plot line, and sandbagged by domestics on phone call after phone call disgorging exposition with the sleep-inducing potency of phenobarbital. Apparently, there was some tsimus about a ruby bracelet that was cursed and some purloined moose antlers. Also, a band of gypsies at a leper colony. For some garbled reason, possibly the invention of forceps by Chamberlin, a convention of egg candlers become mysteriously stranded in Jixi, where there was much anxious reference to a talking mynah bird. While it was true that after the audience’s initial aphasia a certain muttering did occur, which Butterfat, in a state of denial, heard as laughter, it seemed premature to panic and redeploy as farce.

  With my work clearly cut out, the first thing I did was set about paring the piece down to its dramatic essentials. Then, gradually imbuing each character with fresh psychological insight, I limned a suspenseful plot that virtually crackled with conflict. Trying always to remain faithful to the author’s original intent, I nevertheless obeyed my muse and changed the sous-chef to a mortician. This enabled me to meticulously and with lapidary craftsmanship separate the wheat from the chaff and bring the intellectual content’s searing indictment of force-feeding geese into taut focus. Yes, the play did have some laughs, but now the humor came from character, throwing climax after shattering climax into bold bas-relief. Butterfat and the cast did everything but lift me on a chair and carry me around the rehearsal hall. Even the stagehands at the Colonial, wizened Paddys who’d seen it all, marveled at my professional acumen. The leading lady, a blissfully articulated platinum blonde whose tectonic plates shifted torridly with every cross she made, let me know that should my typing muscles require rejuvenation after so strenuous a rewrite she was available in her hotel room to administer a Hollywood-style massage with all the passementeries.

  In the end, I suppose the show was probably just too challenging for a gaggle of vindictive critics, because when we opened in Philadelphia there seemed to be no other rational explanation for their Hun-like appraisals. The usually mild-mannered Bulletin suggested everyone connected with the project be trussed up, executed gangland style, and cast into lime pits. The other papers were less favorable and suggested that instead of an opening night party there should be an auto-da-fé. Butterfat and I commiserated together in a dark bar, draining gimlets and scanning the notices for snippets that taken out of context might create a fraud of entertainment, but it was no use. We railed at the crassness of the provincial philistines and kept upping our analgesics from vodka to gin to scotch and finally Butterfat’s personal formula for boilermakers, a blending of valences so potent the bartender was terrified, should one fall, it would detonate. Suddenly, with a burst of vituperation that would cause a Parris Island drill instructor to blush, Butterfat decided his integrity demanded vengeance on the press and, dragging me from our blind pig, he sought out the offices of the Philadelphia Bulletin, pausing only to score a stray brick from some construction site. I stumbled along by his side, marinated by the rainbow coalition of grain and grape, seconding his lunatic objurgations.