Page 65 of Mazywood

“I know it’s not a pretty story. But I fight any way I can. Why did I want the part of Mammy so much I read that book three times? Because Mammy runs that place. She tells Scarlett all about herself. She’s not afraid of nobody. The NAACP and these seditty reporters don’t know how mad the Southern markets get when I mouth off and show I’ve got a brain in my head. You should’ve heard the fuss after The Mad Miss Manton, when I threw that pitcher of water in Henry Fonda’s face.”

Otis chuckled, remembering that scene, and his laugh broke the melancholy that had settled over Mazelle. Miss Hattie’s recipe for success had a bitter taste. She was sure Mother would say she should call Dark Dream Pictures and try out for that teacher role. Even if it didn’t pay as much, having a choice comedy role like that might help her get better-paying work.

But to get better work, would she have to play a maid too? Was she the right “type” to play a maid? Even in the race pictures she’d seen like Micheaux’s Birthright last year, leading woman Ethel Moses, dubbed “the Black Jean Harlow,” had much lighter skin than hers—the opposite of what the studios wanted. Miss Hattie recognized the sad questions in Mazelle’s eyes and offered her another scoop of macaroni and cheese as consolation.

Miss Hattie gave Mazelle a motherly smile. “If I do a good enough job as Mammy and show them I’m as good at dramatic acting as any of the rest of them? God willing, maybe one day none of us will ever have to play a maid again.”

Mazelle’s hands trembled slightly as she held a thin sheaf of pink script pages. It felt so strange to have such a valuable script in her hands, covered in scribbles and marks, while she stood encased within the giant soundstage. Beyond the partitions, a racket of industry was just out of sight: men calling to each other urgently, pounding hammers, whirring machinery.

Mazelle was hidden, but around the corner she’d glimpsed the opulent set: the gigantic portrait of actress Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in a bright blue dress, the thick curtains in rich red fabric draping an imaginary windowpane. Color was a spectacle in Gone with the Wind. The bright colors on the set had surprised Mazelle, since the sets of Li’l Gumshoes had been so bland because Mr. Lorenzo never shot in color. The set was a bright, immaculate island ringed by shadows. And she, of course, was in the shadows.

But she was here with Miss Hattie, who was nervous and fretting about her lines after more last-minute script changes, so she had invited Mazelle to meet her on the set early to run lines with her. Miss Hattie already had been fitted in her full costume for the day’s shoot—a black dress with an awkwardly wide white skirt apron, and her white head wrap. For today’s scene, she was wearing a red skirt beneath the visible one, a gift from Rhett Butler she was hiding from him. The costume was heavy, so a sheen of sweat glimmered across her face. Miss Hattie fanned herself with a folded California Eagle.

“You control yourself, Mr. Rhett, you’ll be seeing it for a long time…” Miss Hattie said, rehearsing her dialogue for her upcoming scene with Clark Gable, celebrating the birth of Rhett’s baby. Then Miss Hattie paused, frustrated. She had forgotten the next line, and Miss Hattie hated forgetting. Mazelle had never known such a perfectionist, except Mother—and the producer, Mr. Selznick, from the stories everyone told.

“I’d like to apologize…” Mazelle prompted.

“I’d like to apologize, Mr. Rhett, about it’s not being a boy.”

Mazelle read the next lines, marked Rhett: “Oh, hush your mouth, Mammy. Who wants a boy? Boys aren’t any use to anybody. Don’t you think I’m proof of that? Have a drink of sherry, Mammy. Mammy, she is beautiful, isn’t she?”

“She sure is,” Miss Hattie said with a wide, happy grin. But she wasn’t satisfied with that reading, so she shed her grin and repeated the dialogue with sober earnestness instead: “She sure is.” Mazelle studied Miss Hattie’s every facial expression, marveling at her craft.

An authoritative man’s voice rang from the soundstage beyond the thin plywood partition. “Where’d Mammy run off to?” It sounded like Victor Fleming, the director. Mazelle cringed, realizing that Miss Hattie’s director called her by her character’s name, not her real name.

“I just wish they didn’t change these pages every time I sneeze,” Miss Hattie whispered. “I’ve never seen a picture shooting before the script’s done. They just won’t let it alone.”

“You know it better than you think,” Mazelle assured her, hoping that was true.

Miss Hattie almost looked convinced. “Just stay out of sight. If anyone asks, tell ’em you’re an extra and you’re my guest. But don’t get in anyone’s way—hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mazelle said.

Miss Hattie had brought Mazelle to that morning’s shoot although Mazelle had no business being here, so Mazelle was determined to keep out of sight and bring her no trouble. She was wearing the tattered dress she’d worn during her Atlanta evacuation scene weeks earlier, her head wrapped like Miss Hattie’s. Mazelle figured she would bring less attention to herself if she blended in like a prop. A slave costume made her invisible.

But as soon as Miss Hattie left her to join the director on the set, a white crewman breezed toward Mazelle, startling her. She parted her lips to explain herself, but he only handed her a long-handled broom. “Put that away somewhere, will ya?” he said, barely looking at her. Mazelle hesitated, and the crewman shot her an impatient look.

“Yessir.” Grudgingly, Mazelle took the broom. Served her right for dressing the part! But hell, she might get offered screen time if she held the broom, making her costume complete. She just hoped no one would make her start sweeping.

Mazelle forgot her irritation when a man’s voice boomed from beyond the partition, deep and familiar. “Tell Selznick they finally got the fit right. All he had to do was call my tailor.”

Clark Gable! She would know his voice in the dark. Mazelle couldn’t resist a peek around the corner. Everyone called Gable the King of Hollywood, and he cut an impressive figure with his height, mustache, and dark hair slicked back. She was surprised at how honeyed Gable’s skin looked against his white shirt collar. His heavy smoking jacket was a deep sangria red, with a slightly lighter quilted collar.

“Thank God—I’m drowning in memos,” Mr. Fleming said, striding to Gable to examine the fit. They were the same height, taller than six feet. Fleming’s hair was streaked with white.

Miss Hattie had her own chair with her name printed on it near the set, but now she was standing beneath the portrait of Vivien Leigh, literally overshadowed as she awaited her instructions. Mazelle hadn’t heard the director address Miss Hattie when she walked on the set after he called for her, but Miss Hattie was preoccupied, her brow knitted, her lips moving slightly. She was still mentally running her lines.

“There she is,” Clark Gable said, greeting Miss Hattie warmly. “My favorite gal!”

Mazelle thought of how envious most women would be at the way Clark Gable was grinning at Miss Hattie. Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers was more handsome to Mazelle, but she couldn’t deny the electricity in Clark Gable’s smile. He exuded a gentlemanly grace he might have worked years to refine. Mazelle realized she was holding her breath.

“Guess we can start now that you finally showed up,” Miss Hattie teased him.

Mr. Fleming said he wanted to work on the blocking one more time, and Mazelle ducked out of sight when they turned to walk closer to her. Clinging to her broom with excitement, Mazelle stole gazes at the rehearsal as Mr. Fleming walked Clark Gable through how and when he should pick up and light his cigar, then cross to the portrait to grab the beveled bottle and offer Miss Hattie a matching glass of the brown tea doubling as sherry. Mazelle heard her mutter she wished the tea had sugar like her sweet tea at home.

Then it was time to shoot. The set went tomb-quiet and Fleming said, “Action!”

“… I’d like to apologize, Mr. Rhett, about it’s not being a boy.” Mazelle heaved a relieved sigh when Miss Hattie remembered the line that had tripped her up.