572
PARTISAN REVIEW
ask: "What makes you say
that,
John?" or, "Do you
really
think so,
dear?"; just like that, as if it were the most natural and the most sophis–
ticated question in the world. Perhaps more bewildering and misleading,
however, was another set of questions she had at her disposal. She
would simply ask for an explanation of what is ordinarily taken for
granted, even in Hollywood. When somebody mentioned B-girls, she
would ask innocently: "What are B-girls, dear?"; and then, when this
was explained, just for good measure, "Are there
really
such people in
the world?"; when somebody else (just back from Rome) held forth
on the culture, art, and beauty of Italy, she would ask: "What's the
Quattrocento,
dear?"; or again, when somebody talked about Dreiser's
The American Tragedy
(another forthcoming movie), the girl from
T he New Yorker,
again listening intently, would suddenly interrupt to
ask the momentous question: "What's 'The American Tragedy,' Sam?"
Sometimes, if you didn't know that this was
The New Yorker,
these
questions might be quite distracting. Thus they seem to have affected
the Israeli Consul when, during a lively discussion of anti-Semitism
throughout the world, she popped up with the question: "What is anti–
Semitism, Mr. Dafni?" Mr. Dafni, the Consul, it seems, was quite up–
set. Perhaps he would have been even more bewildered if he had
learned, a few nights later, that the same reporter reluctantly declined
an invitation to a dinner party because it was the night for observing
jahrzeit.
And thus she moved through an interminable succession of dinner
parties-as if she didn't quite belong anywhere, just looking around
and listening, and occasionally asking a few harmless, innocent ques–
tions. Ordinarily, as I was saying, she would have appeared strictly
dull and "uninteresting"; and nobody in Hollywood would have had
anything to do with her. Yet, invariably she was the center of attention
and attraction, for this was no ordinary situation.
Journalists are a mighty power anywhere, but especially in Holly–
wood where publicity is, as everybody knows, both a profitable busi–
ness and a veritable mania. Reviews make and break contracts; and if
Hedda Hopper has got something on you, you'd better go and see your
chaplain. The press prospers and flourishes even if the movie industry
doesn't. The journalists find open doors, glad handshakes, ready puh–
licity handouts, free tickets for Santa Anita, and a round of drinks
anywhere along the regular beat.
But none of them ever became the center of the social life in Holly–
wood as did the
girl
from
The New Yorker.
Which isn't surprising
since she was more than a journalist, much more. And the only time I
