The Eternal Triangle
The year was 1939; the place was Hollywood, California, the indisputable movie capital of the world. In a tragic example of life imitating art, actress Lenore Taylor and her husband, actor Roderick Kane, were filming a movie based on a bestselling novel of the time by author Ina Parker. The screenplay told the fictional story of a famous actress who, while starring in a movie with her equally famous husband, had a brief affair with a young, aspiring supporting actor. In a fit of jealousy, the fictitious husband strangles his unfaithful wife and then seeks out his cuckolding co-star and shoots and kills him before finally putting the barrel of the gun to his own head and pulling the trigger.
Ironically, Lenore Taylor, while filming the tragic love story, had a real-life scandalous liaison with Derek Scott, the handsome young actor cast to play her on-screen lover. Her husband, Roderick Kane, completed the deadly triangle, which paralleled the one in Ina Parker's novel.
One night, only three weeks into the filming of the ill-fated movie, Roderick came home from the studio to find his wife alone with Derek Scott in the couple's bedroom. It has since been suggested that it was the script of the movie that planted the seed of his deadly actions in the fertile soil of Roderick Kane's imagination, but we can only surmise what actually took place among the three thespians that fatal night. All that is known for certain is that Lenore Taylor was found dead the following morning by her personal maid. Later, when police searched the house, they found the bodies of Roderick Kane and Derek Scott. Apparently, Kane, after strangling his wife, shot Scott twice before turning the gun on himself and blowing his brains out.
* * *
"It's a great script," manager Mac Brewster told his client, Academy Award and Tony-winning actor Brent Andrews during a long-distance telephone conversation.
"I agree with you," the actor replied. "Under other circumstances, I would jump at the opportunity to play the role of Roderick Kane. But with Jade cast as Lenore Taylor and Luke playing Derek Scott, there is no way in hell I'll accept the part."
"Oh, come on, Brent, you and Jade have been divorced for more than two years already. Don't tell me you're still sore about her leaving you for Luke Chambers."
"I'm not a forgive-and-forget type of guy. In fact, I haven't spoken to either of them since she moved in with him."
"Brent, you're one of the best actors I've ever known," Mac said, trying to persuade his client to see reason, "but you're over fifty already, and most movies today are being made for young audiences. They're about young characters who are being played by young stars. Good roles for guys your age are few and far between. What makes matters even worse is that there are dozens of top-name middle-aged actors fighting over every one of those roles. Let's face it, Brent, the main reason the producer wants you so badly for this part is because of your relationship with Jade and Luke. The fact that the three of you were once embroiled in a highly publicized, real-life romantic triangle fits in with his idea of art imitating life, imitating art, etc., etc. Besides, that show you're in now is due to close soon, isn't it? Wouldn't you like to take a break from Broadway and do some movie work again?"
There was an uncomfortable silence at the other end of the line. Finally, Brent spoke.
"I don't know, Mac. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted. Did the producer tell Jade about wanting me to co-star opposite her and Luke?"
"He would never have approached you before speaking to her. After all, with Jade's uncanny resemblance to Lenore Taylor, the studio wants to be sure to keep her happy at all costs. Anyway, she thinks you're perfect for the part. She also said she doesn't hold any grudges about your breakup."
"How generous of her!" Brent exclaimed sarcastically. "Considering she's the one who cheated on me."
"Brent ...."
"Okay. If you really think I should play the part, I'll do it," the actor reluctantly agreed. "But I just hope that bastard she's living with stays as far away from me as possible."
* * *
Jade O'Neil and Luke Chambers followed director Sol Goldman into the carefully restored master bedroom of the former Taylor-Kane Beverly Hills mansion where lighting technicians, set decorators, sound engineers and a host of others were busy setting up equipment and preparing sets for the following day's shoot.
"So this is where it happened?" Jade asked no one in particular.
"This was where Roderick strangled his wife. The shootings occurred out there," explained Goldman, pointing to the French doors that led out to the balcony.
"They claim this place is haunted," Luke interjected. "That's why the current owners haven't been able to sell in over fifteen years."
"Haunted by whom?" Jade asked. "Roderick Kane, Lenore Taylor or Derek Scott?"
Luke shrugged.
"Maybe by all three. Who knows?"
Sol Goldman shook his head. He did not want rumors of ghostly sightings interfering with his filming schedule.
"We're not here to make a ghost story," the director stressed, "so let's not begin looking for signs of paranormal activity."
"Oh, shit!" Luke suddenly groaned. "Here he comes."
Jade turned and saw with a quickening heartbeat that her ex-husband had walked into the room.
"Hello, Jade. Sol. Nice to see you both again," the actor greeted them, intentionally ignoring Luke.
"Hi, Brent. You're a little early, aren't you?" Sol asked, hoping there would not be an unpleasant scene. "The meeting isn't scheduled to start for another forty minutes yet."
"I wanted to look around the house and soak up the atmosphere. Get a feel for the place before we actually begin working."
Brent walked around the room, examining the furnishings and trying not to look at his ex-wife and her boyfriend. Even after all this time, it was still painful to see them together.
The producers certainly knew what they were doing when they chose me to play Roderick Kane, he thought bitterly. God knows I can sympathize with my character. I wouldn't mind putting a couple of bullets into Luke Chambers.
As he opened the French doors and stepped out onto the balcony, Brent suddenly felt a wave of dizziness so strong he had to grab onto the railing to prevent himself from falling.
"Brent, are you okay?" cried Jade who had followed him out onto the balcony.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, but it wasn't true; he felt as though he were losing consciousness
Although perspiration was forming on his brow, the middle-aged actor began to shiver. Then his ears started to ring, and his vision blurred. He was breathing rapidly, his skin was icy to the touch and he was sweating profusely.
I'm dying, he thought, as he fell to his knees, clutching the railing.
Jade called out to Sol for help, and the two of them helped Brent onto the bed.
"Thanks. I'm feeling better now," the actor insisted.
In a matter of minutes, he was back to normal. The crowd of people who had gathered around him started to disperse. Only Jade remained, staring down at him with concern.
* * *
Despite Brent's near collapse, filming started on schedule the following day. There were two primary locations for the movie: the Taylor-Kane mansion and a recreation of the 1939 sound stage where the ill-fated threesome had been filming their movie at the time of the murders. Since they were paying an exorbitant amount of money for the use of the house, Sol Goldman had scheduled all the mansion shots first. Jade and Brent would do their scenes during the first few weeks, and then Luke would join them when it was time to film the murder scene.
One day during the third week of shooting, Jade decided to join Brent, who was eating his lunch on the back lawn of the mansion. After several minutes of small talk, Jade noticed that Brent was preoccupied, staring up at the balcony.
"Are you thinking about the murders," she asked, "or are you being quiet, hoping I'll go away?"
"It just doesn't make any sense to me," he replied. "I went to the library and checked out a few books on the murders—something I don't think our screenwriter did."
"Why do you say that?"
"According to our script, Roderick Kane came home from the studio one night and found Scott in bed with his wife. Enraged, Kane shot him once. Then, assuming Scott was dead, he went to the bed and strangled Lenore. Meanwhile, Derek Scott managed to crawl out the French doors. After Kane murdered his wife, he then followed Scott out onto the balcony, shot him a second time, finally killing him, before turning the gun on himself."
"That's pretty close to what was written in the police report, isn't it?"
"Yes, but the official story doesn't agree with the facts that were presented in the books. For one thing, Derek Scott's body was fully clothed right down to his socks, shoes, cuff links and tie tack."
"I take it he didn't have sufficient time to get dressed before crawling out onto the balcony," Jade laughed.
"Hardly. Besides, his clothes had two bullet holes in them; that proves he was wearing them when he was shot."
"Okay. So Roderick walked in on the two of them after Derek had already gotten dressed. Still, seeing any man—even a fully clothed one—in his wife's bedroom could drive a jealous husband to murder."
"True. However, Kane couldn't have shot Derek Scott in the bedroom at all. There was no blood found there."
Jade thought about this and proposed another scenario.
"Suppose Roderick Kane came home from the studio and found Derek Scott in his wife's room fully dressed. Scott panicked and tried to make a run for it. Kane pursued him out onto the balcony, shot him twice and then came back inside and strangled his wife."
"Do you really think Lenore Taylor would have stayed in the bedroom while her husband was on the balcony killing her lover? She must have known Kane would turn his anger on her once he had killed Scott. Yet she made no attempt to flee, to call the police or even to defend herself. It just doesn't make sense to me."
"Perhaps she was in shock or just too scared to move."
"Let's assume Lenore was so terrified that she just sat there like a sacrificial lamb waiting for the slaughter. Why would Kane strangle her? He already had the gun in his hand; why didn't he simply shoot her?"
"Maybe he didn't plan on killing her," Jade suggested. "He could have shot Derek, laid the gun down, argued with Lenore and then strangled her in a fit of passion. Afterward, he went back, got the gun and shot himself."
"Then why did he go back out onto the balcony? Why not just shoot himself there in the bedroom?"
"He probably left the gun out there after he shot Derek."
"I guess it could have happened that way," Brent said doubtfully. "But it just doesn't seem plausible to me."
* * *
Luke Chambers reported to the set on the day the murder scene was scheduled to begin shooting. As he watched Jade and Brent rehearsing the argument between Taylor and Kane, his worst fears were confirmed. He had known all along that Brent had never gotten over his feelings for Jade, even after they were divorced. And by the way the actress looked at her ex-husband, it was pretty obvious to Luke that Jade was still in love with Brent.
At the director's request, Luke took his position in the oversized antique bed next to Jade. When Sol Goldman gave the cue, he and Jade slipped into their roles of Derek Scott and Lenore Taylor. Brent, as Roderick Kane, came in through the bedroom door, surprised and furious at his wife's infidelity. Seething with jealousy, Brent withdrew a gun from his jacket pocket and fired a blank at Luke, who then fell to the floor. Artificial blood seeped from his simulated wound.
When Brent threw the gun on the bed and turned on Jade, Luke began his slow, torturous crawl to the balcony. Then Brent and Jade started to reenact the alleged fatal argument between Taylor and Kane. But as his hands clasped around his ex-wife's throat, another wave of dizziness struck Brent, and he fell to the floor in a faint.
"Brent!" Jade screamed.
His eyes opened several minutes later.
"Lenore?" he asked in a voice that sounded more like Roderick Kane's than his own. "No, you're not Lenore, but you do resemble her."
Brent turned to look at the klieg lights, cameras, microphones and technicians.
"You're making a movie, aren't you? A movie about Lenore and me—and Derek," he added when he saw Luke with the fake wound in his chest.
The people on the set were dumbfounded. Had Roderick Kane's spirit possessed Brent Andrews' body or had their lead actor suddenly lost his mind?
"May I please see a copy of the script?" Brent asked once he had recovered from his lightheadedness.
Sol was torn between a desire to send his male star to see a doctor and the need to get his film completed on budget. The director's business sense won out.
"Here's a script. This is the scene we're doing now," he said, pointing to the one in which Kane strangles his wife.
The actor quickly scanned several pages of the screenplay.
"This is all wrong!" he announced with profound sadness. "I never caught Lenore with Derek. And I certainly didn't strangle her. I would never have hurt her."
He swallowed, desperately trying to hold back his tears.
"I feared something was wrong when I pulled into the driveway that night. Whenever I worked late, Lenore left the lights on, but that night the house was dark. When I opened the bedroom door, I saw her lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I asked her if she was all right, but she didn't answer. I walked over to the bed, afraid that she was ill. That's when I saw the bruises on her neck, and I knew that she'd been murdered—strangled.
"I looked around the room for signs of a burglary, and I noticed the French doors were slightly ajar. So I grabbed the gun Lenore and I kept in the drawer of the night table and tiptoed across the room. When I stepped out onto the balcony, Derek attacked me from behind and we struggled. I turned the gun on him and pulled the trigger, but I was only trying to wound him. When he persisted in trying to strangle me, I had no choice but to shoot him again."
The spirit of Roderick Kane was silent for some time, staring out at the balcony and reliving the horror of that fateful night in 1939.
Finally, he continued, "I knew I would be blamed for both deaths. No one would ever believe me, no matter what I said. They'd think I killed the two of them in a jealous rage."
"Why didn't you run?" asked Luke, who was a firm believer in ghosts and spiritual possession. "You had plenty of money. You could have made it out of the country before anyone discovered the bodies."
"My wife, my career—everything I loved was lost to me. What did I have to live for?"
Jade, who had been at Brent's side throughout the strange paranormal incident, began to shake. She seemed to be suffering from the same ailment Brent had experienced the first time he had gone out onto the balcony.
"Don't fight it, my dear," Roderick urged her gently. "Just let go. Someone is trying to get through."
Jade swooned and her body stiffened.
"Rod? Is that you?" she asked in Lenore Taylor's voice.
"Lenore?" Roderick asked.
"Oh, Rod. I've waited for you for so long. Where have you been?"
"After I committed suicide, my soul went into limbo."
"But you're here now. That's all that matters."
What followed was a love scene that surpassed any written by the authors of romantic fiction or produced on the sound stages of Hollywood. But was it Roderick and Lenore or Jade and Brent locked in that passionate embrace?
"All these people here believe I killed you." Roderick managed to utter between hungry kisses.
"I know, darling. But I don't care what they think. It's what you think that saddens me. I know there were so many ugly rumors about Derek and me, but they were just that: only rumors. There was never anything between us."
"Then what was he doing in our room that night?" Roderick demanded to know.
"One day on the set, he stole my keys, had copies made and then returned the originals to my coat pocket. He learned you would be working late that night, and he came to the house and let himself in. I was here in bed reading when Derek came upstairs and tried to seduce me. I laughed at him, and he became furious, calling me all sorts of vile names. I told him to leave and threatened to call the police. He said if he were caught in our bedroom, it would only confirm all the rumors about the two of us. Then he tried to force himself upon me, but I fought back. The next thing I knew he had his hands around my throat and I couldn't breathe."
"Oh, my love," Roderick moaned, holding Lenore tightly. "How could I ever have doubted you?"
Their kiss was long and sweet, and when it was over, Jade and Brent, once more in command of their own bodies, found themselves locked in the embrace begun by Lenore and Roderick.
Jade looked deeply into Brent's eyes and admitted, "I never really loved Luke."
She did not care who heard her confession, least of all Luke, who was standing only a few feet away. As far as she was concerned, this was one apology that was long overdue.
"You seemed to be losing interest in me, and I was getting older and feeling unwanted. Luke was young and handsome, and he made me feel desirable again. But I never intended it to be anything more than a brief fling. If I had known how deeply it was going to hurt you, that it was going to destroy our marriage, I never would have let it happen."
Brent smiled down at his wife, and Jade knew that after two years, her wronged husband had finally forgiven her.
"It's never too late to find happiness, Jade, darling. Not for Roderick and Lenore and not for us either."
Luke Chambers turned away from the heartrending sight and walked off the set with his pride damaged but his good sense still intact.
Let Jade go back to her husband, he thought. There are lots of other fish in the sea.
With the potentially explosive Jade-Brent-Luke love triangle permanently diffused, the reunited souls of Lenore Taylor and Roderick Kane departed for more peaceful environs, grateful that another tragedy had been avoided. After all, their old mansion in Beverly Hills had seen enough death in its time.
The image in the upper left corner is of Vivien Leigh and Clark Cable in a scene from Gone With the Wind.
No, Salem, I wasn't thinking about you and the two redheads when I wrote this story.
