by Elizabeth Rosen
I was considering the shapewear my agent had sent me when Richard Chamberlain knocked on my patio door. He rapped three times on the glass, twice hard and the third time after a short pause, like a code to let me know he was an okay guy. I knew that about him already, so I went to let him in.
He looked his best Seventies self, somewhere between his Three Musketeers and Centennial days, before the deeply-bearded roles of the Eighties. Even though the temperatures were already warm, he wore a thin black turtleneck with white linen trousers. He had a katana stuck through his belt. He kept pulling the hilt up in order to get close enough to the glass to stack his hands around his eyes and see inside.
I slid the door open for him. “What are you doing with that thing?”
“This?” he said, touching the sword. “It goes everywhere with me.”
I shrugged and offered him a glass of iced tea. He ambled in, dropping a practiced, platonic peck on my cheek as he passed. You could tell it was a skill he’d perfected in his day greeting people at wild parties.
I filled two glasses to heaping with ice cubes and tea, and we carried them back out to the pool where I arranged myself in a lounge chair. I took a sip of my drink and watched as Richard lowered himself into a seiza. It couldn’t have been terribly comfortable like that on the pool deck, but he made no complaint.
“You can sit in a chair if you want,” I said.
He shook his head. “This keeps my knees limber.”
He had the deeply etched face of a sun worshipper, which only made him more handsome and I was a little surprised I hadn’t immediately put the moves on him, his Father Ralph de Bricassart having been such a staple of my teenage sexual fantasies, but at this stage of my career in Hollywood I knew enough to recognize that his homosexuality was probably a big part of his seeming beyond the love of a good woman like Meggie Cleary in The Thornbirds. Which reminded me.
“What are you doing here?” I said. “I thought you were dead.”
He shrugged. “I was. I am. But they’ve remade Shōgun, so I’m back.” He had the transatlantic accent of an American who had spent a lot of time in England, which he had.
“It’s different this time. Real Japanese people play the Japanese roles.” I avoided looking at him, knowing from experience that no one likes to hear their work has been superseded by new casting.
The sun scattered diamonds of light across the pool surface. Richard shaded his eyes and looked at me. “This is the cultural sensitivity everyone talks about?”
“Pretty much. The cast is really good, though,” I said. “You should watch it.” I stirred my ice with one of my fake nails. My agent had insisted on a total make-over for the awards ceremony tomorrow, since I was nominated and there would at least be a close-up to see my reaction. I was dreading the Spanx and designer dress my stylist had arranged, both so unlike me in reality. I just hoped I could pull it off.
A wistful look crossed Richard’s face. Or possibly it was just joint pain as he rose stiffly to his feet. He indicated the lounge chair next to me. “May I?” he asked.
“Be my guest.”
He slid the katana from his belt and settled himself with the sword across his lap, crossing his graceful legs at the ankles. I was surprised he wasn’t uncomfortably warm, what with the turtleneck, but I guess when you have a role to play, even when the role is “yourself” and you’re dead, you learn to deal.
“I suppose I never would have gotten a part like that today,” Richard said, staring pensively into his glass.
The pool-sweep screeched as it climbed out of the water, then dropped back under with a gurgle, one tentacle splashing out behind it. It sprayed a single arc of water high into the air. The water fell back and hit the deck.
“It’s not all bad,” I told him. “No one cares that you’re gay anymore. That’s not a thing now. Mostly.”
He nodded. I supposed he was thinking about how he’d had to hide it most of his career.
I noticed his drink was almost gone.
“Another?” I asked, rising.
“Gin and tonic, please.” I took the glass while he closed his eyes, lifting his face to the sky. “I saw they got Matt Damon to re-do the Bourne things after me,” he said. “I wonder who they’ll get when they remake Centennial.”
“I’m rooting for Ryan Gosling,” I said, “but I’m betting on Bradley Cooper.” I found headshots of both actors on my phone and handed it to Richard while I went to make his drink.
Richard called through the door after a moment. “Gosling may not have the gravitas. I don’t think he can carry off the beard.”
The tonic popped and fizzed as I poured it over the gin. I dropped a slice of lime in, watching it bob among the ice cubes, the lone circle among the squares. Richard was almost certainly right about Ryan; sometimes no matter how good an actor you are, you can’t make people believe you are something you are not.
Before heading out, I pushed the Spanx package off the counter and into the trash compactor. “You might be right,” I say, exiting the patio door and handing Richard his drink. “It’s not everyone who can wear a beard.”
A child of the 70s, Liz has a fondness for New Wave, epic mini-series, candy with (deadly) red dyes in them, and bell bottom jeans. She remembers collecting money in orange Unicef boxes on Halloween, and the advent of MTV. Colorwise, Liz is an autumn. Learn more at www.thewritelifeliz.
Featured image Richard-Chamberlain.webp
