Category Archives: Bodyguards

Sundown At Sundance
Part Two

by Duane Byrge

Actors, Bodyguards, Fiction, Film, Film Critics, Film Festivals, Publicists Leave a comment

A film critic at the Sundance Film Festival finds himself the target of a payoff plot. 2,231 words. Part One. Illustrations by John Donald Carlucci.

“De-lish-a,” the sound came tripping off his tongue, à la Lo-li-ta.

Hollywood film critic Ryan Cromwell wound 8547D799-C475-4659-B563-17A9A283F8B3his way around the fireplace at the Eating Establishment for Saturday breakfast. He was meeting his friend Delisha at one of his favorite restaurants on Park City’s Main Street. Delisha wrapped her two-iPhone-holding arms around Ryan. She looked him up-and-down. “Is that your Viking film-critic look?” she asked about his Norwegian ski sweater.

“I left my helmet with the horns back at the hotel,” he said. Then Ryan noticed he had buttoned his sweater wrong. When he undid the top connections, his hands shook. He gulped water and noticed his right fingers trembled on the glass. He put it down and placed his hands in his lap. He shifted in his seat.

“You seem edgy,” Delisha said. “Is everything okay?”

“This festival is going haywire for me already,” he said, looking around and lowering his voice. “My second suitcase with mainly my underwear, socks and shaving stuff is all gone.”

“Someone stole your underwear?”

“No, but they’re missing. When I opened the suitcase this morning, it was filled with stacks of $20 bills,” he said. “I was going to call the police, but I thought I’d better do it in person.”

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A Great Bad Year
Part Three

by Anne Goursaud

Actors, Bodyguards, Directors, Editors, Fiction, Film, Indieprods, Managers, Producers, Screenwriters, Short Story 1

The director wraps her film by punishing and praising those who deserve it. 2,474 words. Part One. Part Two. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

Fed up with my lead actress Brittany, I decided to pay a visit to Rex Durand in his suite. The famous actor in my movie Lost Encounter, now shooting,  was not feeling well. His bodyguard was at his side. His dresser was also there. Everyone confided that Brittany was sleeping with the screenwriter. I had to wonder how much rehearsal had really been going on between them. Obviously, very little. For an actress already on shaky ground, would this affair be the final blow? I had to talk to the scripter. I was sworn to secrecy not to reveal my sources, as the lovers did not want me to know.

The following day another six hours were los because of Brittany. Once more, we did the best we could by shooting around her. I had had enough. At first, the screenwriter denied anything was going on. I told him I knew the truth and it was pointless to deny it. And if her work kept suffering, they ultimately were hurting the film. He promised to keep the situation under control. I was still naïve enough to believe that he would help the film by making sure Brittany was prepared.

On our schedule the following week was the fashion show and that was when the film’s producer Lawrence Perlman arrived. He was to be a first row extra. We had secured a very large space with plenty of room to build a stage and a walkway as well as the biggest Atlas crane to make the most of the expanse. Inspired by Chanel, I had asked for a series of multiple mirrors on the stage and liked the results. And my costume supervisor pulled off a miracle with the clothes and all the accoutrements and secrets of a great stylist. The difficulty had been to make the fashion believable and she had done so a thousand times over.

My personal challenge at this point was physical. I became sick on the very first day of the shoot. The pressure of it all, and the very cold weather, had gotten the best of me. By the third day, I was barely conscious. Between takes, I wrapped myself in blankets, doped myself with flu medicine, drank a lot of hot liquid and prayed that lighting would take a little longer before I had to spring back into action.

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Guarding Gable
Part One

by Nat Segaloff

Actors, Bodyguards, Book Excerpt, Executives, Fiction, Film, Momagers, Publicists, Studios 4

The entire MGM studio springs into action to protect a grief-stricken Clark Gable from everyone but himself. 3,031 words. Part Two. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

The King paced his throne room with deeply un-royal anxiety. He longed for his queen with a passion known only to royals, or so the fairy tales say. Since their celebrated marriage barely twenty months earlier, the two of them had been out of each other’s sight only when affairs of State commanded their separation. And so it was for the past fortnight when he had been compelled by royal obligation to remain within easy traveling distance of the castle while his queen journeyed to the far heartland of their realm on a mission of great diplomacy. For there was a great war. The kingdom was being attacked by forces of evil, and the King and Queen had drawn their country together in spirit even as the details of fighting it tore the royal couple apart.

America was at war. January 16, 1942 was five weeks into a declaration against the Axis powers, and Hollywood was already strutting its patriotism. Every star that wasn’t currently shooting pictures was crisscrossing the country bolstering unanimity and asking the citizenry to pay money beyond their taxes to keep their nation alive and stave off the collapse of the free world. Carole Lombard’s mission took her to the town of Indianapolis for an appearance that drew thousands of people. Clark Gable was the unquestioned king of Hollywood, and, since marrying him, Carole had become the town’s queen. They had been an item even before they got married, but, once their union became official, what belonged to one belonged to the other, including their retinues.

Back in Culver City, Gable was locked into a production schedule on Somewhere I’ll Find You when Lombard boarded the Douglas DC3-382 Skycub prop-liner to depart Indianapolis at 4 a.m. Flight TWA-3 took off as scheduled and then made several stops before the flight resumed from Las Vegas Airport at 7 p.m. The flight gained altitude, yawing slightly in the updrafts that blew up from Potosi mountain, then leveled at 7,770 feet when the aircraft, its fuel, and all 22 passengers and crew aboard slammed nose-first without warning into the side of the peak. The aircraft was going at two hundred miles an hour when its freshly refilled fuel tanks exploded on impact. The shattering fuselage repelled off the steep cliff, accelerated by the fireball. The cold January weather had brought a snowfall that cushioned the sound of falling debris.

The news that Flight 3 had failed to contact the control tower at Burbank airport reached Gable who was waiting at the Lockheed terminal to greet Lombard. He heard the mumbled conversation of gate personnel and asked if there was some kind of trouble. When told that Lombard’s flight was missing, he immediately chartered a plane for Las Vegas where he learned there were no survivors.

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The Invisible

by Richard Natale

Big Media, Bodyguards, Fiction, Film, Lawyers, Moguls, Networks, Publishing, Short Story, Studios, TV 1

As protector and pal to a Hollywood VIP, he did everything the boss asked. Everything. 3,470 words. Illustration by John Donald Carlucci.

If you look at any photo of the famous media mogul Magnus Byers taken over the past thirty years, chances are I’m in it. Not my face. No, never my face. But my arm, my shoulder or my flank. Right there next to the boss (I always call him boss, never Mr. Byers, and for sure not Magnus).

I’m there but at the same time invisible. And indispensable.

I’m not tooting my horn here. Just stating the facts. I contributed to his success from the very start and in ways that only he can appreciate. I know the boss better than anybody, better than my parents – and they gave birth to me. I know the good stuff and the bad stuff and he knows I know. But he trusts me. And I never gave him reason not to.

Hardly anybody outside Magnus Byers’ close circle knows my name or exactly what my responsibilities are. Most of them think I’m his bodyguard, just some big tough who doesn’t say much probably because I’m a little soft in the head. And that suits me fine. Keeps them from asking questions. Annoying questions. Awkward questions.

I don’t like being asked questions.

Except for some hoax kidnapping threat about twenty years ago, keeping people out of the boss’s face is the least of my duties. I just step out front, fold my arms and give them the old stare down. They back off pretty quick. Just the same, I always keep a sidearm handy. Perfectly legit. Got a permit and everything. Practice firing it every week at the Beverly Hills Gun Club. My aim is still dead-on, even after all these years. Yeah, I’d take a bullet for him. What of it?

The boss created, bought and sold newspapers, TV and radio stations, movie theaters, casinos, resorts, satellite and internet. His finger in every pie and made more dough out of it than any of his competitors. Men looked up to him, wanted to be him. Women were impressed by him, even the ones who eventually tried to suck him dry. He was feared and respected but rarely loved. Even by his own kids. Especially by his own kids. Five of them. By three different wives. They barely tolerated each other. Their only common goal was waiting for him to kick the bucket and destroying everything he built. Talk about a lack of respect.

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