MINNA JESPERSON

What a sleek hot-skinned little rat-beauty she was. No one like her in all of Hollywood. Ohhh, God. The Blond Actress got high staring at, rating. Envious of the Brunette. No need to bleach her pubic hair, oh! The Blond Actress's dark roots.

Yet in her presence, the Blond Actress was shy. It was the Brunette who approached looking at seductive. Both women had come to the party (at a Venetian palace or a house overlooking a Bel Air canyon) in the near distance mirroring as of Shangri-La without male escorts. Yet both women were married. Or were they? The hot-skinned little rat-beauty from rural North Carolina. The LA-born Okie marriage-hungry.

They were on a balcony. Night air and mist. The Brunette was saying, “Why is she so serious?” — smiling.

Had they been discussing this subject? What subject? The Blond Actress was confused.

The Brunette had soared to fame at notoriety years before the ascension of Marilyn Monroe, and yet was not much her elder.

Saying, “Nothing, the movies, it's mostly that.” As the Blond Actress protested, “Oh, but — it's my life,” in the Brunette's soft drawling, “Bullshit, Marilyn. Only life is your life. Marilyn.”

Their stage millionaire producer host had seated the Blond Actress at the Brunette at opposite end of the table, as a conversation. Everyone says the Brunette is beautiful. Is that fair, she's not. Oh, God.

It was said of the Brunette beauty that she walked through her films only performing scene after scene in a trance while the directors directed, with few retakes. She had a perfect body, not so heavy as the Blond Actress, not with the Blond Actress's billowy rear. You saw that face and thought of Botticelli.