BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD

Episode 20. Jane was steaming out a gown that was draping, gathered, a form fitting sheath with a train and veil that looked like it had been stored pristinely, waiting for this day, since the 1930s. “Madeleine Vionnet,” Jane explained, “she did this
Chapter 18 begins with a quote from Bette Davis:
I’d marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he’d be dead within a year.
On a Saturday following the first week of shooting, I woke, and for a few brief moments didn’t know how old I was, what house I was in, where my parents were, if I was married, or had a child; I was just Billie, waking. Light was streaming into the windows, and I felt buoyant, rising, free. I stretched. I filled my lungs and splayed my fingers, watching the wavering silhouette of a branch on the illuminated bright white weave of the curtains — just beyond my reach — and then with a tangible rush and cognitive snap I was anchored again in my body, three decades of life accounted for, and a son asleep across the hall. Film hours can do odd things to your brain.
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