– Yes.
– They’ll still come. Maybe a signature will make them love us more, but the lack of one won’t make them love us less. If you start thinking any other way, you’ll be calling on each one in person to shake his hand.
– Perhaps you’re right.
But he signs the photographs after Babe leaves, and knows that Babe will eventually add a signature alongside his own, even if the studio publicist has to put a gun to Babe’s head.
But Babe is right. He would, if he were able, go to every picture house and personally thank each member of the Audience. He might even offer to buy them all a drink. Because he does not want it to end, and he fears that if his concentration lapses, even for a moment, the whole edifice will collapse, and his obituary will read:
Formerly in pictures.
Sometimes he replies to letters while sitting on his balcony, gazing out on Ocean Avenue and the Pacific. He knows that he is fortunate to have such a view, just as he and Ida are lucky to have secured a good deal on the apartment.
Each morning he dresses in a shirt and tie, with a handkerchief folded carefully into the pocket of his jacket. He takes care of his appearance, because visitors often arrive, sometimes unexpectedly. Every guest is invited to sit, even the ones who neglected to call first. He does not mind. He is happy that he has not been forgotten.
Like Larry Semon.
He has not thought of Larry Semon in many years. He associates Larry Semon with Babe, because Babe, too, accepts supporting roles with Vitagraph, and works there alongside the man they call The Comedy King.
Larry Semon comes from a family of magicians. His grandfather, Emanuel Semon, emigrates to the United States from Amsterdam and teaches the business to his son Zerubabel Semon, Larry Semon’s father. Zerubabel Semon tours the East Coast and Canada circuits as a magician named Zera the Great. Zera the Great has one leg shorter than the other. For the tougher crowds, Zera plays up the limp. Nobody wants to be seen to give a hard time to a cripple.
Zera the Great.
Zera the Wonderful.
Zera the Marvelous.
Zera the Unrivaled.
Zera Semon has more names than a war memorial, but Zera Semon tries to live up to all of them. Zera Semon is a conjuror. Zera Semon is a ventriloquist. Zera Semon dances with marionettes. Zera Semon works up a phony spiritualist act with his wife, Irene. Zera Semon promises a gift to every member of the Audience, and Zera Semon delivers: a set of knives, a slab of ham, a sack of flour. No one has any idea how Zera Semon manages to make a dollar on the circuit, Zera Semon gives away so much. Zera Semon is the only magician who pays the Audience to show up, although Zera Semon is not above stiffing his suppliers when times are tough.
Zera Semon dies when Larry Semon is still only a child, but Zera Semon doesn’t die great. Zera Semon dies forgotten in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the odor of fish on him from the factory in which Zera Semon works. Zera Semon dies poor, and his son watches him die poor.
Larry Semon does not wish to die poor.
Larry Semon does not wish to die forgotten.
Larry Semon wishes to be immortal.
29
He meets Larry Semon at the Vitagraph Studios: two daylight stages, innumerable exterior sets, all working. He thinks that he has never seen such bustle, not even on Broadway. Larry Semon makes a picture every two weeks, which is why Vitagraph is rumored to be offering him a contract worth more than a million dollars a year. This is what Chaplin earns, but Larry Semon makes Chaplin look like a slouch.
Larry Semon learns his trade in the shadow of Hughie Mack, and this is no small shadow. Hughie Mack is a mortician recruited by Vitagraph as an understudy to their resident fat man, John Bunny, the prick. John Bunny is fat, but Hughie Mack is very fat. Hughie Mack weighs three hundred and sixty seven pounds. Hughie Mack can barely walk.
When John Bunny dies, Hughie Mack is waiting to take his place, but Hughie Mack is no actor. This is a town built on gossip, and the gossip says that Larry Semon made Hughie Mack. Larry Semon wrote for him, directed him, produced his pictures, and cast himself only in minor roles, while all the time watching, learning, waiting. When Hughie Mack departs, Larry Semon stays.
Now Larry Semon is a star.
He is sixteen months younger than Larry Semon, and six figures poorer, but there is, he decides, a passing resemblance between them. Larry Semon wears a derby hat that is the wrong size for his head. It accentuates the size of Larry Semon’s ears. Larry Semon favors whiteface, and painted eyebrows.
But Larry Semon has also never met a dollar that Larry Semon does not feel impelled to burn. Larry Semon likes stunts, chases, and explosions, although the studio now prefers others to do the more dangerous work for him, as Larry Semon is such a cash cow.
I saw the Rolin pictures, Larry Semon tells him.
He does not know how, as they remain unreleased, but he imagines that what Larry Semon wants, Larry Semon gets.
He waits. He regards Larry Semon more closely. Larry Semon looks older than his years. Anyone being paid a million dollars in this town should put by three-quarters for the Internal Revenue Bureau, a little for high living, and save the rest for hospital bills. Here, a man earns a million dollars.
British, right? says Larry Semon.
– English.
The distinction seems important to him.
– You know Chaplin?
– No.
He corrects himself.
– I knew Chaplin. I worked with him.
– Where?
– The circuit.
– Not in pictures?
– No.
– I didn’t think so. I’d have heard otherwise. Why not?
He shrugs.
– The opportunity didn’t arise.
– You never asked him for a favor?
– It didn’t seem right.
He almost says ‘proper’, but resists. He is not certain that Larry Semon knows the meaning of ‘proper’.
– Some people might say you were a chump for not asking.
He acknowledges the truth of this.
– Some people might.
– Pride?
– Perhaps.
– I know a lot of proud people. Most of them are poor. You like Chaplin?
– I haven’t spoken to him in a while.
– I mean, the pictures. You like his pictures?
Step carefully here. He has no illusions about Larry Semon. Larry Semon wears whiteface and exaggerated smiles for a reason: Because no one would laugh at the real Larry Semon.
But Larry Semon is still good. Not great, not like Buster Keaton or Chaplin – Larry Semon has not been touched by God, and knows this, which is part of what fuels his ambition – but Larry Semon has charisma on the screen, and a certain vision. Larry Semon, though, is no collaborator: you do not work with Larry Semon, but for him.
Chaplin is good, he tells Larry Semon. Chaplin was always good.