When
aspiring actress Dolores Davenport's face is destroyed in an accident,
there's nothing the doctors can do. Plastic surgery has its limits. A
face transplant would take years, and cost more than she can come up
with. Proposed cast: Fiona Georgiadi
So she goes veiled, and earns her keep by posing for lesbian painter Virgy, who's in love with her.
Proposed cast: MariaCristina Heller
Dolores
doesn't return Virgy's love, only her friendship, and while she poses,
she works on a screenplay. If she can't make it as a star, she'll make
it as a writer. But how can she sell a script when she can’t even show
her face?
At
an exhibition of Virgy's paintings, Dolores meets French movie star
Louis Bertrand, who's been collecting Virgy's pictures of Dolores, and, already in love with those—
—falls in love with her.
Proposed cast: Jean Reno
Here
is someone who can open doors for her, and he does, but his passion,
his obsession, is to see behind her veil. That, she tells him, he will
never do. She won't even sleep with him. But he doesn't give up. He arranges an interview for her with cold ruthless studio producer Perry Zabrowski.
Proposed cast: Tom Malloy
She
pitches Perry an idea based on his private life, which Louis has filled
her in on, and Perry buys it, and wants to shape it, but only if they attach a star—Louis.
Impossible. But when she pitches it to Louis he agrees! "You’re going to make this movie?" "Of course I am! And do you know why? Because if you do not sleep with me this instant I won’t do it! Et voila!" She refuses. He shrugs. She relents, but he must never touch her
veil. If he does that, they're through. It's love without kissing.
She is now a writer-producer. But Perry won't proceed unless his wife Suzanne has a role. Suzanne is not
a star, and Louis says no: his reputation won't stand it, and besides,
Suzanne is one of his many ex-lovers, perhaps the most delicious of
them. He doesn't want to go there again.
The deal is off, and Dolores spurns Louis until his passion gets the better of him and he relents. But neurotic Suzanne can't work with the director Perry assigns; she'll only work with Dolores. So Dolores directs.
They're
shooting on a yacht in Marina del Rey, and Perry comes aboard to check
on his wife, and to have Dolores. The five of them spend the night
there—Virgy is co-writer—and Dolores wakes up in a red bed: Perry's
throat has been cut. It matters very much to her who did this, but her
friends aren't talking, in fact no one seems to mind, and it's the last
day of the schedule so they should really get these shots before the
police come in and delay them interminably, shouldn't they?
Because
of a gap in the cast Dolores takes the role of a pirate pleading for
her life, and at the moment of truth rips off her mask—she won't show her face to Louis, but she'll
show it to the world if her film needs it. Not being a stunt man,
Louis blows up the wrong boat, and Perry's corpse along with it, so the
murderer is off the hook. Oscars. Louis takes Dolores back to France,
but she still won't show him her face.
"I have nothing. I owe much. I leave the rest to the poor."—Francois Rabelais
“You are living on my money,” said Haze.
“No he’s not,” said Marcie, “he’s living on my money.”
Haze looked at her. He couldn’t afford to offend her because she is the mother of his nine-year-old granddaughter, the only human being in the world he loves, if you can call the child a human being. It is A.I., the child. Undead. But Haze loves it. And the child loves its gwampa.
American billionaire cheapskate—they’re all cheapskates—Hazelton Turnbull “Hard Turd” Harding IV had summoned us from the beach at Ostia to an art store in downtown Rome to show us how he was diverting Marcie’s allowance into the purchase of a fragment of marble from Michelangelo’s workshop—at least that’s what the salesman said it was.
It was mounted, rough edges and all, in a brass stand, and looked like an erect and distinctly dangerous dildo. Which it sort of was. Very pricey.
“Can you plug it in?” I said. “You could put a lampshade on it.”
“Next time you’re at a hospital,” said Haze, “get them to measure your brain. Find out how much it weighs. They can probably take it out and put it on a scale. You won’t miss it. Your conversation will be just as interesting.”
“I have other qualities,” I said.
“No,” he said, “you don’t.”
I stood up. “Well, look, I’d better go.”
“Toby!” sad Marcie. “Don’t leave me here!”
I sat down. It breaks my heart what I do for this woman.
Across the table the child looked at me. Andrea. Between us, the marble icicle.
“Haze,” said Marcie, “it’s not fair to use my money to buy this.”
“It has value,” he said. “It’s a Michelangelo. He,” he said, indicating myself, “has no value.”
“I don’t have time for money,” I said.
He scowled at me. “Where’s the rat poison?”
“At your age, Hazelton, your primary concern should be your bowel movements.”
He went off to talk to the dealer, Marcie went off to talk to Haze, and the child and I were left looking at each other.
The child does not approve of me. It doesn’t respect my intelligence. Who does? And mentally Marcie isn’t even in the game. But it loves its mommy, and it sees that its mommy loves me. Tricky.
What I wanted was to get back to the beach, get drunk and go swimming, eat tagliatelle and prosciutto with sand between our toes.
“I think Haze is being cheated,” I said.
“No he’s not. It’s a Michelangelo.”
“How does he know?”
“He just does.”
“Well, I guess your mommy and I won’t be together anymore.”
“She’ll get by.”
“She’ll cry.”
“Get real, Toby.”
“I’ll miss you. You’ll go back to school in Switzerland, and you won’t have anybody to come down here and visit anymore.”
“What will you do?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“You could come and see us in Boston.”
“Too cold.” And I owe too much money.
During this exchange I discovered that crossing my legs brought my upper thigh into contact with the table, and that by flexing it I could slightly and imperceptibly raise my side such that the dingus stirred, wobbled, teetered, righted itself and, with skillful modulations of the tilt, slid, sauntered, ambled, baby-stepped toward the edge.
“Toby,” the child said. “Don’t.”
“What? I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes you are.”
And indeed the article was now peering over the precipice, daring itself to look a little further.
“Oh, I’ll probably wind up dumpster-diving. And your mommy will be all alone.”
“Except for me.”
“You’ll be in Geneva.”
“And Grandfather.”
“Huh. I could weep. All for a piece of marble.”
The child looked at the exhibit. It was clearly in a suicidal mood, hovering trembling, entranced as it were by the vertiginous possibility. “If you do that I’m telling.”
“OK, I won’t do it.”
But I let the table town with a touch too much of a jar, and the marble smashed on the floor. I composed my hands so as to distance them from the crime as Haze rushed over, followed by Marcie and the merchant.
“Oops,” I said.
“What did you do?” Haze screamed at me.
“Excuse me. Was I invited here to be shouted at?”
“Haze!” said Marcie.
“Do you have to contort like that?” I said.
“You destroyed it!”
I shook my head. “Andrea did it.”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Did not!”
“Did so.”
“Did not!”
“Did so! You made me!”
Haze sank onto a chair. “Was it insured?” he said.
The pitch man, a gray-beard in half-moon jeweler’s glasses for archeological scrutiny, shook his head sadly.
I said, “It doesn’t have to be insured, Hazelton. He’s got a closet full of them. When I was a tour guide I brought my clients to places like this. I know the con.”
Gray-beard retreated as if wounded.
“Better sweep this up,” I called after him. “If it perforates my shoes you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
“It was dated!” Haze insisted.
“You can’t date something made of marble, Grandfather. Marble’s just always the same.”
“You shouldn’t be so stupid,” I said.
He bared his teeth at me.
“So there’ll be no need to embezzle the widow’s funds,” I smiled.
Snakes struck at me in his eyes.
“Come to the beach with us, Gwampa!”
“Let’s see if you float,” I said.
He sagged miserably and contemplated the futility of his existence. “Oh, all right,” he said.
A Beverly Hills woman wakes up middle-aged and finds her life with a younger man undignified.
The stage version was performed in New York at the Creative Place Theatre. Think of...
...only this is her movie, and she gets the younger guy.
Diana, a woman of a certain age, deals with a birthday by throwing out her younger live-in Jim.
They're
right for each other, and she regrets it immediately, but she
can't take him back: her daughter Jackie, who idolizes and competes
with her, tells her Jim has seduced her, and Diana believes it.
So she makes do with the respectable but empty new life she'd thought she needed—with older lawyer Griff.
Jim gives a driving lesson to
frantic neurotic Betsy, who almost shoots them off a cliff. He
calms her down and she takes him home. But he can't forget Diana.
Proposed cast: Greta Scacchi (Diana)
DIANA,
the Hamlet at the heart of this comedy, is a clothes designer with
a boutique on Rodeo Drive, a house in Beverly Hills, and a younger
lover, Jim, her kept man for two years now. There’s nothing she
can’t handle—except getting older.
Proposed cast: Eion Bailey (Jim)
JIM
is happy with a champagne-and-sports-car life, but he’s also a
talented script-writer who’s postponing seriousness into a future that
never comes. Together they’re fast company. They must have been
brilliant at her birthday party last night.
This morning, though, even while he’s making love to her, she’s
spooked. She tells him he has to go. She wants something more
presentable, more—respectable—before it’s too late.
Which shocks him. He takes life as it comes, but this is a bit violent.
Proposed cast: Kathy Bates (Betsy)
BETSY,
the suicidal widow of a husband she drove to suicide, is too
scattered to pass a driving test, takes a lesson with Jim, spins the
car onto a Mulholland Drive cliff and is ready to gun it and take
him with her.
Proposed cast: Graham Beckel (Griff)
Diana's
lawyer GRIFF, more her age and on her success level, has been in
love with her for years. Now’s his chance. When Jackie tells Diana
the lie that Jim has seduced her Diana gives up on Jim and tries
to make a go of it with Griff.
Proposed cast: Halle Charlton (Jackie)
JACKIE,
Diana’s daughter, idolizes her and so misses no chance to pick at
and defy her. Inwardly shaky, she is outwardly impish and sexy.
She thinks she’s in love with Jim; in fact what she needs is a
father.
Proposed cast: Jack Roth (Dylan)
Betsy's
son DYLAN—eccentric hair, psychotic eyes, twitches constantly and
rhythmically as if keeping time to music he doesn’t much enjoy—is
in the same class at UCLA with Jackie, over whom he moans
uncontrollably. He disgusts her.
Proposed cast: Rosie Perez (Maria)
MARIA,
Diana's housekeeper, is the deadpan foil to Diana's Hamlet, secret
ally to Jim, and the one person Diana doesn't dare defy.
Proposed cast: Linda Emond (Gwen)
GWEN is Diana's mischievous best friend and alter-ego. She'll
take Jim if Diana doesn't want him! Just kidding. In an attempt to
bring them back together she throws a party and invites both of them,
but it turns into a confrontation....
And the final character is Beverly Hills—
—the tone, the climate, the village size and ambiance that make it inevitable for these people to collide.
The stage version of Chocolate and Champagne was produced by Love Creek at the Creative Place Theatre in New York.
Pretentious Pictures presents a comedy with a dark center.
She
pitches Perry an idea based on his private life, which Louis has filled
her in on, and Perry buys it, and wants to shape it, but only if they attach a star—Louis. 
Impossible. But when she pitches it to Louis he agrees! "You’re going to make this movie?" "Of course I am! And do you know why? Because if you do not sleep with me this instant I won’t do it! Et voila!" She refuses. He shrugs. She relents, but he must never touch her
veil. If he does that, they're through. It's love without kissing.
The deal is off, and Dolores spurns Louis until his passion gets the better of him and he relents. But neurotic Suzanne can't work with the director Perry assigns; she'll only work with Dolores. So Dolores directs.
They're
shooting on a yacht in Marina del Rey, and Perry comes aboard to check
on his wife, and to have Dolores. The five of them spend the night
there—Virgy is co-writer—and Dolores wakes up in a red bed: Perry's
throat has been cut. It matters very much to her who did this, but her
friends aren't talking, in fact no one seems to mind, and it's the last
day of the schedule so they should really get these shots before the
police come in and delay them interminably, shouldn't they?
Because
of a gap in the cast Dolores takes the role of a pirate pleading for
her life, and at the moment of truth rips off her mask—she won't show her face to Louis, but she'll
show it to the world if her film needs it. Not being a stunt man,
Louis blows up the wrong boat, and Perry's corpse along with it, so the
murderer is off the hook. Oscars. Louis takes Dolores back to France,
but she still won't show him her face.
Pretentious Pictures presents a serious comedy.
Reg’d © Library of Congress
