N.Y. / L.A.
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
The faint rapping on the door, then the gently spoken “Five minutes to make-up, guv’nor!” ended his half-hour slumber; so pleasant, so important.
…”I’ll be there, Roger. Thanks.”
He climbed off the bunk, stretched fully three times, taking deep breaths. For nearly twenty years now he’d remained faithful to this and other disciplines he’d been taught during his British indoctrination to the craft in his late teens. While the pre-performance nap wasn’t a formal requisite of that training, every visiting graduate or guest, from Gielgud and Olivier to Richardson and Scofield, had advised it. Matthew Fleming followed their heeding, finding the forced rest an invaluable aid to clearing the way for a focused interpretation of the character, especially after the fiftieth performance.
Although he was about to go before a camera now, not a live audience, he’d already put in a long day and the upcoming scene was, for him, the major reason for his being here. Full energy, complete concentration were called for. Of course he could repeat the monologue if he flubbed a line or missed a mark or wanted to try something different, but he was intent on getting it right out of the gate. Two takes at most. Ah, the fucking camera. How he detested the whole filmmaking process but begrudgingly admired the remarkable achievements it had produced. But so what? He still hated having to act before an inanimate piece of machinery rather than the ninety-nine souls he could sense in an Off-Broadway theater’s darkness or the thousand on Broadway itself. They had fed back to him during dramas and comedies unguarded emotions of delight, terror, joy and pity, as well as, if it were that rare tragedy, their anguish, heartbreak or communion with their own mortality. And certainly missed was the affection-filled ambrosia that wafted over the footlights toward the actors, which kept their otherwise fragile personas keyed up for the next night’s attempt to elevate everyone’s spirits.
“Oh, Christ, cut it out, asshole!” he muttered under his breath as he poured a slug of vodka into an empty teacup, then downed it. The casual seeming indulgence of booze was yet another ritual of thespians, he knew, from time immemorial perhaps, yet one he’d avoided until the last picture. Adjusting his dark tan tights, he flashed on the moment back in his youth when he donned his first pair of leotards for his class at the Academy, in ‘movement’, taught by that prim lavedriver, Miss Beckingham. He suppressed what he knew would be a bout of giggling—another occupational hazard—if he dwelt further on those halcyon days.
He half-smiled at his reflection in the full-length mirror in recognition of a dream partially realized: he finally was playing Prince Hal. Not on the stage, to be sure, but that still could be in his cards. Oh yes, much was going to change in the months and years ahead, no matter what David said, threatened or tried to manipulate. Little did the prick suspect how much Matt had gotten his act together—his off-stage act—and was close to pulling the plug, definitively. He had sworn to himself to begin this new century the master of his own life.
He darted a glance at the table to confirm the package had been taken away while he’d been working earlier, as he’d instructed a production assistant. It was gone. Good. Sutter should be getting it within the week. Ah…Charley Sutter. Come through for me, old man, come through, he muttered while splashing a little more Ketel into the cup. Master of his fate, ha! He had a way to go, he’d say. And what about Laura, pray tell? Removing her from his life was going to be as perilous as his other partner, David, if not more so, because of little Harry, who made Matt laugh in a way he never thought possible since that night…that ‘fateful’ night, he thought it fair to call it…
…”Enough!” he declaimed, full voice.
Returning to face his mirrored image, he let the exquisitely designed costume, rich-textured simplicity itself, and his modified Fifteenth Century period haircut again aid in supporting his characterizations of the Peck’s bad boy of Shakespeare’s masterwork. He then directed one more run-through of his lines to the blank look door before dashing off for make-up touch-up and the tricky staging being prepared for him.
Stepping out of the Mercedes motor home parked adjacent to a stage door, he found the bon-chilling dampness and darkness of the English late afternoon at January’s end comforting; it further supported what Prince Hal was about to say. The ostentatious luxury vehicle was one of several gratuitous contractual points he let David force on the producer, a friend and colleague, in order to expedite their mutual goal.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
The colorful, morally complex life of Matthew Fleming, an actor of rare talent, from an impoverished but work-filled decade in Off-Broadway theaters through his 'overnight' success on Broadway - then on to international acclaim as a charismatic movie star - is the 'stuff of this gripping novel.Matt is haunted by the belief his leap from obscurity to fame wasn't due to his gift alone but also to the death of a wealthy lover, Andrea Whittaker. He is convinced her drowning, considered accidental, was, in fact, a murder and that he knows the perpetrator. Yet for reasons he's long repressed, he never sought justice for the killer.A lesser anguish gnawing at Matt Fleming's emotional core is his need to express himself on stage before live audiences. To make the break from his domineering manager/partner, David Whittaker -Andrea's widowed husband - who insists he stick with movies, and Laura Fleming, his glamor-struck wife who would never leave Malibu with Harry, their young son, to return to gritty N. Y., he jumps at an offer to make an 'art' film in England. He hopes it will provide the distance he needs in order to decide how he can rid himself of real and imagined demons...The narrative begins and ends in the winter of 2000. A youthful forty, Matt is playing Prince Hal in director Kenneth Branagh's version of Shakespeare's Henry IV. A role he's always aspired to, his London experience is further buoyed by a serious, surreptitious love affair with Beth Winters, the Lady Percy of the film. But he dare not make her privy to the dilemmas which by now are causing him to have terrifying nightmares.Re-enter Charley Sutter. A retired New York Homicide detective turned insurance investigator, he first met Matt ten years before when assessing whether Andrea's death possibly could have been a suicide. Despite their brief encounters since Matt moved to L. A., a strong father-son bond developed between the two men.It is to Sutter he finally confesses his weighty secret, flying to New York for an intense weekend with him. At first shocked by Mart’s charge of murder and who he intuitively believes to be the killer, bit-by-bit the sage cop buys into the actor’s far-fetched notion, while remarking the odds are against ever proving the case. Sutter then raises a more daunting question: if Matt pursues his accusation and even succeeds in what must be a major public trial, won’t his long, inexcusable silence mean the end of his storied career? Matt’s love of his art, Beth and Harry are all at stake if he permits his conscience to dictate his next step. What judgement will prevail to take him into the third act of this compelling drama...?
About the Author
Born to European emigrants, William Kronick grew up in Amsterdam, New York. He won a scholarship to Columbia College where he was active in the Columbia Players’ stage productions. He also helped form The Gilbert and Sullivan Society at Barnard College.
While at Columbia, William Kronick was deeply impressed by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, especially by his major work, "Miss Julie," which had been made into a movie directed by Alf Sjoberg.
After graduation William Kronick was drafted into the U.S. Navy where he became a Photographer’s Mate. During a North Atlantic exercise, his ship anchored at Stockholm. Kronick took this opportunity to contact Alf Sjoberg, who agreed to meet with him.
Kronick asked Sjoberg about an apprenticeship. Sjoberg suggested that his protégé, Ingmar Bergman, might be a more rewarding filmmaker to observe and made the arrangements with Svenskfilmindustri Studios for Kronick, once out of the Navy, to be part of Bergman’s next film "The Magician." He was the first foreigner to be granted such entree.
Upon returning to New York Kronick found a job as Production Assistant with Louis de Rochemont Associates. So began his four-decade career as a writer, director and producer.
Kronick's first film was a twenty-seven minute comedy-satire called "A Bowl of Cherries" (1961). The film, which played in nearly a thousand art theaters in the U.S. and Europe, was seen in L.A. by a producer of TV documentaries, David L. Wolper. He offered Kronick the directing/writing position on a new reality series, "Story of…"
Over a period of decades, Kronick, with total creative control, would write and direct some of Wolper’s highest-rated Network Specials, ranging from "Alaska!" (National Geographic) to "Plimpton!" to "The Five-Hundred Pound Jerk" (A Movie-of-the Week, Director only) to "Mysteries of the Great Pyramid."
His first feature, independently financed, was "A Likely Story" (a.k.a. "The Dublin Murders"). Kronick also did long-term stints as Second Unit Director on features such as "King Kong" (1976) and "Flash Gordon" (1980), on which he was responsible for many action and special effects sequences.
In 2000 he devoted himself to writing novels. The tales are contemporary morality stories, dealing mainly with film and theater.
He has been married and divorced twice and has a son, Max, by his second wife. Kronick resides in Los Angeles.