Once a Star
By Ellie Dauber © 2020
Silent movie start Ashley Templeton gets a chance to restore his failed career after the advent of sound. But there's a price.
Once a Star
By Ellie Dauber © 2020
“Five minutes, Princess,” someone yelled.
Ashley Templeton, the being that had been Ashley Templeton, snorted in disgust.
* * * * *
How had he come to this? He’d been a rising star, a dramatic leading man. ‘Yes,’ he thought to himself, he was a star, a star of “the Silents. ”M-m-my d-damned st-stutter; as soon as sound came to the movies, I was over.”
He’d had a few comic roles, the point of which was to use that stutter. To laugh at him. Years of therapists, acting coaches, whatever, “Cou-couldn’t do a-a-a d-damned th-thing for me.”
“And dhat is vhy you comb to me,” Sonya Karpinyi had said. Sonya, smoldering Sonya, as good in bed as she was on the screne. He knew that much to be true; they’d starred together in four movies, happily sleeping together during the shooting of all four. They’d separated with a shrug and a handshake. They were movie stars, after all.
Before SOUND.
Sonya’s problem with "Talkies" had been different, a thick “Hongar-ri-yin aggzent” that limited her to minor parts at best. She’d had the courage to quit. She had a bit of money saved, and she’d set herself up as hostess of a tearoom/restaurant, a place where her accent only added an extra touch of glamour.
“Th-That’s why. I-I-I’m told y-you ca-can help m-m-m…” He took a breath. “Me.”
“I cahn, Before I levdt home to play at zer moffies, I studied the oldt va-iys. If you ahrre villing to pa-iy the prize, I cahn mayg you a shtar again,”
“W-W-Won’t p-people w-wonder h-how…”
“How you losht yurr shtudder. Dhey vill noht vonder, becawse you vill noht be you.”
“What!”
“It vill noht be Ashlay Templetun dhey szee. Reality vill change. You – the pearson you vill becomb -- vill alreddy be a shtar.”
“Th-that’s c-c-crazy.”
“True, bot it vill habben.” She smiled and held out her hand to offer a cup of an odd-smelling grayish drink. “Comb on, vhat you haff got to lose?”
“N-Not a d-d-d-damned th-thing.” He took the cup and swallowed whatever the stuff was in a single gulp.
A moment later, fade to black. He never noticed Sonya's rather smug smile.
* * * * *
It had been a week since he’d woken to his new life. It was hardly what he’d expected, but, he sighed, he was a star. That made up for a lot. Even… Well, there was no going back.
“We’re ready for you.” The third assistant director – a polite word for a gofer – stepped into Ashley’s trailer.
Ashley climbed out of his – no, call a spade a spade -- her chair. She followed the man out of the trailer and onto the set.
“Sound ready!”
“Cameras ready!”
“Okay, this is a take.” A pause, and then, “Roll ‘em!”
Ashley Templeton, now a curly, blonde-haired child of five, picked up the hem of her party dress, showing the starched petticoats beneath. She began tap dancing as she sang, “On the Good Ship Lollypop…”
Comments
very cute
made me giggle
ShirleyTemple
and Bojangles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtHvetGnOdM
This was the first ever movie scene where a black male danced with a white female.
Different Movie
The movie with Shirley and the great Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was The Little Colonel, which was filmed some time after her debut movie, Bright Eyes, where she sang "On the Good Ship Lollypop." Much later, she starred as the title character in the movie The Little Princess.
Oh my goo-ness!!!
When I noticed the similarity in their names I thought: "OMG she's not going there, is she?!!" But yep, you sure did. LOL
And while I've always that when it comes to portraying accents in print via the misspelling of words less tends to be more (I love Mark Twain, but I swear I need a cornpone decoder ring for some of his dialogue!!) Sonya's accent as written here was Mel Brooks hilarious.
This short story was cute, to the point and from what I hear it actually was true about some big silent stars having voices that proved a career-ending liability when the talkies came in.
~hugs, Veronica
.
Oddly, I did a story a few years back about Boris Karloff turning into Shirley Temple,
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/24971/alchemy-and-ess...
though I changed their names to Max Grosz and Tammy Kirby
(a/k/a "America's Princess". Weird, huh?! Although in my tale
it wasn't particularly reluctant...)
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Accents
I agree with you about Mark Twain. Jim's dialog in Huckleberry Finn is almost painful to read. I try to keep that in mind when I write Shamus and Molly's Irish brogue.
Sonya's accent is highly exaggerated deliberately. It bears the same relationship to a real Hungarian accent that Inspector Cleuseau's accent does to a real French accent.
Besides the problems that Sherwood and Sonya had, other silent screen stars had other problems. Some male leading men had high, squeaky voices, some women had thin, reedy voices or talked like Jean Hagan's Lola Lamont character in Singing in the Rain.
Dubbing in 'Singing in the Rain'
The irony of Debbie Reynolds' numbers in 'Singing in the Rain' was that Debbie Reynolds did not have a good singing voice, so some of her numbers are dubbed by Jean Hagen who actually had a great voice. A sequence where Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) is supposed to be dubbing for Lina, that's actually Jean Hagen speaking, dubbing for Debbie!. In the final scene where Kathy is supposed to be dubbing for Lina, the voice you hear is that of Betty Noyes, another great singer. That's the ultimate insider joke! None of the dubbing appeared in the credits of course.
Written Accents
"less tends to be more" -- I agree fully. The worst way to portray someone as a country bumpkin or equivalent, is to misspell the actual standard pronunciation: "wimmin" "uv" "yer".
Boris Karloff becoming Shirley Temple? The mind boggles.
-- Daphne Xu
:)
Very silly, thank you :D
Speaker
Reality Shift?
"...vill alreddy be a shtar." Is this a reality-shift, in that history was overwritten and everyone remembered Shirley Temple? If so, it seems as if his old movie-star history (and films) would have been shifted out of existence. Sonya might never have been a movie star. (So many other things would have changed as well. Directors working on different movies with different actors and actresses instead, etc.)
Someone expressed that "Sherman Templeton" was too obvious. I think it was meant to be obvious -- a good chunk of the story would have been lost otherwise.
If their history hadn't been overwritten, Sonya might have made a comeback in the next decades, playing off Dracula, for example. Especially with Bela Lugosi as Dracula.
-- Daphne Xu
Diffeences
Sherwood's movie history was lost. A previously unknown Italian actor, Rodolfo di Valentina d'Antonguella, shortened his name and got the parts that originally went to Sherwood. At least until his untimely death in 1926, shortly after breaking up with Sonya.
"Sherman" might have been too obvious, but I named him "Sherwood." Actually, I'm changing his name to "Ashley", which still works.
Sonya would have still been a star in silent movies. She didn't interact with Sherwood until they co-starred in a movie and became lovers. For an example of what happens to an actor because of a thick accent, consider a man who was a dramatic leading man in Hungary and a renowned Shakespearian actor in that country. When he came to America to be in the movies, that actor -- Bela Legosi -- appeared in very different roles.
Did not
see that one coming.