TNT readers met Maddie Ellis in our long-running Storyland serial. “The Coastwatchers”, which concluded last December. We invite our readers to travel back in time with us to 1928, when Maddie was at the start of her career as a screenwriter. This new serial is set in the Malibu Movie Colony, a quirky, complex community, filled with social drama, hidden secrets, and personal struggles, and set against the backdrop of the film industry at the end of the silent era. Maddie finds herself caught up in the lives and mysteries of the people around her while also trying to make her own place in this world. This time, the story has an element of mystery, in the spirit of the golden age of detective fiction. Please join us for chapter one of Maddie Ellis and the Malibu Movie Colony.
Prologue
The houses stood alone in a row along the shore. From a distance they looked like fishermen’s shacks, but these were the beach homes of the Hollywood set. They were newly built, but that was the only thing they had in common. Each was in a different style, depending on the whim of the builders. In places they crowded together, blocking the view, but there were also gaps, where nothing had been built yet, and through those gaps one could see the ocean, blue and serene.
The woman paused before the door of the house that was to be her home for the next three months. The house, sandwiched between a Cape Cod cottage and a small bungalow, was English Tudor. It loomed above its neighbors, a tall, narrow rectangle, bedizened with chimney pots, half-timber beams and eccentric gables. A sign in gothic script above the door proclaimed the name “Waverley Manor.” She turned the key and stepped inside.
The door opened on a narrow foyer that led into a large living room. It was dark. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Sheets covered the furniture. The woman abandoned her luggage, walked across the room, and pulled open the drapes. She raised an eyebrow in amused astonishment as sunlight poured in revealing the decor. The floor was parquet so new that it still smelled of wood and varnish and it creaked with each step, as if it had not yet settled. The walls were covered in dark, wooden wainscoting, with dark red wallpaper above. They bristled with taxidermy antlers and taxidermy deer heads, and were accented by crossed swords, and gloomy oil paintings of Scottish castles in ornate gold gilt frames. One wall was dominated by a vast stone fireplace big enough to roast an ox in.
Beneath the sheets that covered the furnishings there was a suite of massive, gothic-style furniture. Everything was lavishly carved with heraldic devices and mythical creatures—unicorns, griffins, and something vaguely chicken-like. A cockatrice, perhaps? There was even a small suit of armor. The decor seemed entirely incongruous for a cottage perched just feet from the Pacific, but the ocean gleamed enticingly through the diamond panes of the casement windows. There was a strong smell of fresh paint, and stale air, undercut by a hint of ocean dampness.
The woman opened the back door and stepped out onto the beach. A white picket fence enclosed a patch of sand instead of a garden, white, and smooth, and empty of everything except the ripples left by the wind. Beyond the gate lay the sea. The woman pulled off her motoring gloves and her elegant cloche hat. The wind tugged at her hair, transforming the sleek bob into a wild tangle of dark curls. She looked up and down the row of houses. All of them seemingly empty on this bright January afternoon. She smiled to herself.
“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!” she said. Edna Saint Vincent Millay had it exactly right.
Chapter One: The Palm Court
Madeleine Ellis turned back to the cottage that was her new home. She had traveled five thousand miles to this remote beach in Malibu, returning to a different Los Angeles, a different Hollywood, than the one she had left five years before to chase a different dream. Finding her way around a city nearly twice as populous as it was when she left was a challenge, but at least she had a place to call home and a job waiting for her. That was a start.
The job was the result of years of hard work, beginning as one of the writers hired to turn motion picture scripts into stories for newspapers and film magazines, moving on to write the title cards that were an essential part of storytelling in those first years of the film industry, and then to writing film scenarios and finally scripts. Five years of travel and working abroad on British films had landed her a ticket back to Hollywood, and the promise of a film contract with a big new Hollywood studio. The house was a piece of pure luck.
“Why don’t you take our new beach cottage, Maddie dear?” Cristabelle Harrington had urged. “You’d be doing us a favor. Daniel and I have been fretting about it.”
Cristabelle was a friend from the early days of Hollywood, when Maddie was just starting out as a writer and Cristabelle had been Belle Sullivan, an aspiring film actress who had her start in vaudeville and was just beginning to get noticed and cast in supporting roles. In those days the two women had been neighbors, sharing their tribulations and successes, and sometimes also their scant wardrobes, if one had something the other could use to make a good impression at an audition or interview.
Belle had been “discovered” by film producer Daniel Harrington and cast as Rebecca in a production of Ivanhoe, and appeared in several more starring roles before marrying Daniel and retiring from acting. She was elegant now in diamonds and unlikely to ever again have to tread the boards or take a pratfall, but she was still the same kind, impulsive, and thoughtful friend that Maddie remembered from their hungry days.
Daniel Harrington was jovial and good-natured. He towered over his petite wife like a gentle giant. He towered above Maddie, too, engulfing her small hand in one twice the size and smiling with evident delight. You would not think to look at him that he was a rising movie mogul, the cofounder of Mammoth Studios. It was thanks to the Harringtons that Maddie had this opportunity to return to Hollywood. When Daniel’s studio needed a writer to rewrite the script for an ailing production, her old friends thought of her, but not just because she was a friend. Instead, it was because of years of hard—and good—work.
The offer was made in person, almost the moment the Harringtons arrived in London.
“The film is my partner’s baby,” Daniel confided in Maddie over tea in the Palm Court in the Ritz Hotel, a world away from Hollywood.
“Isaac is simply mad about it. He loves the idea of an Arabian Nights fantasy, and the idea is good, I agree, but it’s been plagued with setbacks and overruns. We’ve had fires and floods.” Daniel sighed. “We keep losing people. Leon Verlaine, who plays the Sultan, broke his leg, and then there was the accident with Isabel Flores.
“Every time something goes wrong it means setbacks and reshoots,” Belle added. “It’s a mess. Daniel is awfully worried. Neither of us expected things to fall apart so completely, or we would never have left for London. “Poor Isaac is sick over it all. He’s a lovely man and Daniel’s good friend, but this is more than any of us bargained for.”
“The script stopped making sense two rewrites ago,” Daniel confided. “Isaac just cabled to say he’s sacked the latest writer and that the director just quit—he’s the second one. Every delay is costing the studio money.”
“We are counting on you, Maddie, to salvage as much as you can,” Belle told her.
“Your rewrites of I Will Repay saved that film for Lyon Studios here in London last year,” Daniel said. “I hear that was practically a miracle, and a miracle is exactly what we need.”
Maddie looked up from the screenplay Daniel had handed her. “I Will Repay was a good story, Daniel,” she said. Her voice was deep and soft. Five years in London had worn the edges off of her American accent.
“All the pieces were there, they just needed to be reassembled,” she explained. “What you are saying suggests that there may be pieces missing from this puzzle, but I would like to try. I dreamed of Arabian Nights adventures when I was a child, with a flour sack for a magic carpet and an old pewter teapot for a magic lamp to make wishes on.” Behind her round, owlish spectacles her dark eyes were filled with amusement. “One really ought to be careful what one wishes for.”
Daniel Harrington beamed at her. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” he said.
“Belle and I will be tied up here in London for at least three months,” he explained. “And, as she said, the moment we left things began to go wrong. Isaac has been burning up the telegraph lines, while the film languishes and the bills multiply. It’s weighing heavy on my mind.”
He offered Maddie the job on the spot. It included a generous sum to fix the script and first-class travel expenses for the trip back to Los Angeles. Then Belle chimed in with the offer of the beach house.
“It’s all film people, so you’ll be right at home,” Belle told her. “A lot of them are working on our film, so you will get to observe them in the wild, and the best part is that most of them are only there on the weekends, so you’ll have plenty of quiet during the week to write.”
Maddie knew that Belle was remembering her struggle in the early years to find the time and quiet to write. Back then, she was caring for her two younger siblings and her ailing mother in a tiny apartment in a lively, noisy, chaotic Los Angeles neighborhood adjacent to Hollywood. Now there was too much silence. Maddie’s brother had died in the war and was buried in France. Her mother died during the Spanish influenza epidemic that followed the war. She was buried beside Maddie’s father in a quiet Los Angeles cemetery, where it never snowed and the sun shone most of the year. Maddie’s sister was married now with a daughter of her own and the busy life of a naval surgeon’s wife. Maddie’s time was her own, but a quiet place to write was still desirable.
“The Colony feels like it’s on the absolute edge of the known world—it is, too, because there’s nothing beyond it—just more beach, but it’s not that far from town, not really,” Belle said. “You’ll love it there!”
Maddie looked at the potted palms, elegant in tasteful terra cotta pots, and tried to imagine what life would be like on that secluded and exclusive beach at the “edge of the world.”
“I’ve heard of it,” she said. “It made headlines even here when that woman who owns the Malibu Rancho decided to open that stretch of beach last year, after she lost her big fight to keep the coast road from being built across her land.”
“Everyone heard about that,” Belle said. “She took her case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and lost.”
“I didn’t know there were houses there,” Maddie said. “Aren’t the lots only leased?
“Yes, but that’s part of the fun,” Belle told her. “Nothing has to last, and most of the houses—they are cottages really—have been built by studio men using leftover bits of lumber and things from film productions—we bought all of the material for our little cottage at absolute bargain prices. They can be anything you want, anything at all. Some of them are simply wild. That handsome actor Richard Dix has a house on stilts at the end of the row, so he can keep an eye on the rest of us. He’s painted it red and keeps a pet chicken.”
Maddie had a vision of Baba Yaga, the witch whose house had chicken’s feet in the old stories her mother used to tell her when she was young. Belle continued to ramble on energetically.
“…And that Irishman who directed Peter Pan is building a Wendy House, like in the movie, it’s a dream, but while it’s being built he’s living in the garage.”
“When were the first houses built?” Maddie asked, after a lull occasioned by the waiter arriving with a tiered tray filled with dainty sandwiches, muffins, and little pink and white cakes, and a steaming silver teapot full of fragrant, amber-colored tea. “It can’t have been very long ago.”
“Anna Nilsson was the first,” Belle said, skipping the sandwiches and going right to the iced cakes on the top tier of the display. “Everyone is always dieting in Hollywood,” she said with a sigh. “You have no idea what a relief it is to be served cakes and not have anyone telling you that they eat nothing but consumé and Melba toast. Where was I?”
“Anna Nilsson is something.” Daniel said, selecting a handful of sandwiches. “She heard about the land being leased before it was made public, and she pounced on it, then told her friends. That’s how it ended up being all movie people.”
“Most of us are happy with our little slices of paradise—each lot is just thirty feet by a hundred, so they really are slices,” Belle said. “Gloria Swanson snapped up three lots and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford have leased ten. They were out there all summer playing tennis with Charlie Chaplin or ping pong at Raoul Walsh’s place, or volleyball over at Allan Dwan’s.”
“I know Allan!” Maddie said. All of the names were familiar, but this was the first she knew personally. “He was extremely kind to a struggling young writer when I was just starting out. l shall look forward to renewing his acquaintance.”
“He’s a good man, always helping everyone out. I think it must be a Canadian virtue.” Daniel smiled fondly at Belle, who was also Canadian-born. She smiled back and squeezed his hand, the one that wasn’t holding a sandwich.
“The leads for this pet project of Isaac’s have places there, too,” he added.
“Yes, Johnny Roberts is building a Moorish castle,” Belle said. “It’s still only half finished. It’s supposed to look like the Alhambra, of all things, but when we last were there, it resembled nothing so much as a cracker box with columns in front. Isabel Flores has a place, too. Hers is a sweet little cottage, and I don’t think you’ll find her there. Not for a long time. She’s recovering from the accident that happened on the set—such a tragic turn of events, my dear, so unfortunate.”
“I read that she had been injured, but the papers didn’t have any details,” Maddie said. “Just speculation, and most of it extremely…imaginative. What really happened?”
“Part of the set fell on her,” Daniel said. “It wasn’t supposed to, but something went wrong. Thank God she wasn’t killed, but she was badly hurt. She broke a lot of bones—Nothing that won’t mend, but the timing couldn’t be worse.”
“Danny is worried that it will affect her ability to finish shooting the film,” Belle said.
“I’m more worried about Roberts,” Daniel grumbled. “He’s become erratic, manic, and he appears completely besotted with our little ingenue, and she’s no help—won’t leave him alone.”
“It’s a schoolgirl crush,” Belle said. “She’ll get over it.”
“Yes, but will he?” said Daniel.
Isn’t Roberts engaged to Miss Flores?” Maddie asked.
“Not anymore, apparently,” Daniel said.
“I’ve seen Roberts in several films, but I’m not familiar with your ingenue,” Maddie said. “What is her name?”
“Clarice, my dear,” Belle volunteered. “Clarice Auclair. She was the little sister in that film about the chorus girl and the millionaire that what’s-his-name made last year, and that plot was more truth than fiction I suspect. Danny calls her “Eclair,” out of her hearing, of course, because she’s all sweetness and fluffiness, and her head is stuffed with crème pâtissière instead of brains, but she is rather sweet, really she is.”
“She’s a bloody nuisance,” her husband growled. “She distracts everyone.”
“She’s the one playing the handmaiden to Isabel Flores’ princess, isn’t she?” Maddie asked, interested. “I confess, I’m rather at a loss for how her role helps to advance the plot.”
“It’s because Isaac wants to give her a break,” Daniel said. “He’s gone all paternal over her. It’s not romantic, he assures me. She’s so innocent she needs a patron to protect her, he says.”
“Unfortunately, both Roberts and Marco Malgari seem to feel that way, too,” Belle said. “Malgari is the good-looking man who played the highwayman in that big costume drama, The Vanquisher, last year—so dashing, my dear!”
“I only hope they can resist making a scene or having a scandal until the film is in the can,” Daniel said. “Malgari replaces our original villain—Verlaine—who tripped and broke his leg during filming. Bad luck. We were fortunate to get Verlaine, and now he’s out of commission for who knows how long.
“Then our costume department caught fire—no one was hurt, but the wardrobe people had to start from scratch. We were able to pick up an odd lot from an old production of Thief of Bagdad at a good price, but it was a setback. And then the oasis sprung a leak and flooded two of the other sets.”
“And the actor playing the king had heart trouble just before principal photography started and is recovering in the south of France,” Belle added. “And the Jinn couldn’t tolerate the makeup used to make him metallic—he broke out in hives.”
“All of that was, of course, leaked to the tabloids, so when Miss Flores’ accident happened, well, the tabloids were eager to call it a curse,” Daniel said.
“The ‘Curse of Afar,’” Belle told Maddie. “Too ridiculous, but it stuck.”
“Publicity of any kind is usually good, but this time it didn’t help,” Daniel complained.
“Maddie will fix it,” Belle reassured her husband. “You will, won’t you, Maddie, dear? Our Malibu place is all furnished and completely perfect, so you can get to work as soon as you’re settled. It’s a bit rustic—there isn’t a phone, and there is only one little shop—but you won’t mind that, will you? And you’ll be doing Danny and me such a favor by staying there and looking after it for us. You’ll love it, you really will. The only things you’ll need are your typewriter, an automobile, and a swim costume.”
