“Is that new?” Lani asked. In an obvious attempt to change the topic, she pointed toward a black-and-chrome entertainment center that looked as though it could have come from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
“It just arrived yesterday,” the elderly woman confirmed with a broad smile. “This little baby just happens to be cable equipped for 380 channels. And surround sound. It also has editing capability for video.”
Her laugh was rich and delighted as she rubbed her beringed hands together. “Old Sturm und Drang will die from envy when he sees this.” Her sparkling eyes laughed up at the thirty-something man standing beside her, who thus far had remained silent. “Won’t he, Kai?”
“We’ll hear the explosion from here,” he answered with a nod of his dark head.
“Sturm und Drang is Tutu’s nickname for Maximilian Heinrich von Schiller,” Lani explained in answer to Donovan’s questioning glance. “He was one of her early directors. In fact, Max took credit for launching her to stardom.”
Despite her advanced years, Lani’s grandmother proved her hearing was still that of a young girl by overhearing Lani’s murmured explanation.
“Which is ludicrous!” she spat out, banging an intricately carved cane imperiously on the floor. “If anything, it was I who saved Max from drowning in that trashy stew he was making of Island Girl .”
Even before Donovan had met Margaret Breslin, he’d known about her, having watched two of her movies in a college film class. Her star had taken off like a blazing comet when she’d appeared on the screen swimming supposedly nude in a lagoon not that different from the one he was staying on.
Given that the studios found it far easier to jump on a bandwagon than build one, her next movie, The Sailor and the Island Girl , a mild, innocuous romance by today’s standards, between a marooned sailor and the curvaceous, scantily dressed Polynesian girl who’d found him unconscious on her beach and hidden him from enemy soldiers, put her in the pantheon of actresses who became known as sex goddesses.
Margaret’s voluptuous curves, clad in a clinging silk flowered sarong, had even appeared as a Pinup Girl on the nose of a World War II bomber. Exuding sex appeal from every pore, she’d proven the perfect fantasy girl for GIs who’d lived day-to-day, never knowing if it would be their last. She’d also worked tirelessly for war bond drives and had accompanied Bob Hope on a tour of the South Pacific Islands racking up thousands of often dangerous miles entertaining the troops.
After the war, Sam Goldwyn signed her to MGM, casting her in World War II dramas, where she’d usually play a sarong-wearing island girl. She’d also appeared in a western where she’d been cast as a scantily clad Native American who’d tempted a cavalry officer, only to end up dying by a soldier’s bullet during the inevitable battle. Then, finally, in the early fifties, she’d appeared in a rash of musicals and sudsy “women’s dramas” in an attempt to stem the tide of movie-goers who’d begun turning to TV.
While the movie studios never regained the entertainment monopoly they’d once held, Margaret had continued to fill theaters, causing the movie mogul to tell famed Hollywood gossip maven Hedda Hopper, that “When Margaret Breslin waves her curvaceous hips in a Technicolor film, the box office instantly doubles.”
Margaret had continued to work into the early sixties, when movies became more realistic, darker, and gritty. And the actresses, with their no-makeup looks and long, unstyled hair, looked a lot more like the girl next door than the too-hot-to-handle femme fatale a guy might dream of living next door. Savvy enough to quit before casting directors no longer came calling, she’d retired, becoming more reclusive as she grew older.
“I’ll bet you’re surprised I’m still alive,” Margaret added with the forthrightness usually attributed to either the very young or the very elderly.
“Of course not,” Donovan responded on cue, as he slipped the purple orchid lei he’d bought at a roadside stand around her neck and bent to brush his lips against each of the former actress’s weathered cheeks. “Nate says you’re still as strong as a Thoroughbred.”
“And I’ll bet he adds that I’m also still as stubborn as a mule,” she said on a husky laugh as she touched her finger to one of those cheeks as if to savor the light kiss. “Now here you are, face-to-face with this very silly old woman who observes the world through a satellite dish and telescope.”
“I thought Donovan would enjoy seeing you again,” Lani cut in before he could respond.