CHAPTER 1
BILL LENNOX looked at the blonde. She was a very nice blonde with long willowy legs and big, purple eyes. She made twenty-five hundred a week which she split with a husband, an agent, a couple of publicity men, a brother and an unmindful government.
Her name was constantly in the gossip columns, her picture in the magazines. Fan clubs all across the country worshiped her, the exhibitors voted her the second best box-office attraction of the year, and the studio thought her wonderful.
No one claimed she was a great actress, but she had that certain something which brought crowds into the theaters.
Renee Wilson had been born Mary McKosky. She'd grown up in a carnival and it had been in a carnival where Lennox first saw her.
Something about the purple eyes and the long legs caught his attention. He'd hired her. He'd made her from a "carney" into an actress. He'd done it for fun.
She wasn't the first actress he'd helped discover; she wasn't the first he'd sent to a good agent, to a dramatic school, to the right hairdresser, the right dressmaker.
All these things had helped, but it was that certain something she had which made her a star.
For every girl discovered, a dozen failed. Some had it, some didn't. No one knew why, including Lennox, and he probably knew as much about the industry as any living man.
No one, including himself, knew exactly what Lennox's job was. He was called an executive vice president, and on the sprawling lot of General-Consolidated's west coast studios he exercised more power than anyone save Sol Spurck himself.
But he had no definite job. He was at once producer, a member of the executive committee, an expert on publicity. But mostly he was a trouble shooter, ready to quiet a beef on anything from labor to government interference.
In his own words, he was hired to blow things down. For the rest, at thirty, he drank too much, slept too little and knew too many women.
Genre: Mystery
BILL LENNOX looked at the blonde. She was a very nice blonde with long willowy legs and big, purple eyes. She made twenty-five hundred a week which she split with a husband, an agent, a couple of publicity men, a brother and an unmindful government.
Her name was constantly in the gossip columns, her picture in the magazines. Fan clubs all across the country worshiped her, the exhibitors voted her the second best box-office attraction of the year, and the studio thought her wonderful.
No one claimed she was a great actress, but she had that certain something which brought crowds into the theaters.
Renee Wilson had been born Mary McKosky. She'd grown up in a carnival and it had been in a carnival where Lennox first saw her.
Something about the purple eyes and the long legs caught his attention. He'd hired her. He'd made her from a "carney" into an actress. He'd done it for fun.
She wasn't the first actress he'd helped discover; she wasn't the first he'd sent to a good agent, to a dramatic school, to the right hairdresser, the right dressmaker.
All these things had helped, but it was that certain something she had which made her a star.
For every girl discovered, a dozen failed. Some had it, some didn't. No one knew why, including Lennox, and he probably knew as much about the industry as any living man.
No one, including himself, knew exactly what Lennox's job was. He was called an executive vice president, and on the sprawling lot of General-Consolidated's west coast studios he exercised more power than anyone save Sol Spurck himself.
But he had no definite job. He was at once producer, a member of the executive committee, an expert on publicity. But mostly he was a trouble shooter, ready to quiet a beef on anything from labor to government interference.
In his own words, he was hired to blow things down. For the rest, at thirty, he drank too much, slept too little and knew too many women.
Genre: Mystery
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