Browning in Buckskin Read online

  Browning in

  Buckskin

  From the tapes and

  papers of Richard

  Browning

  Transcribed and edited

  by Peter Corris

  Copyright © 2014, Peter Corris

  First published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1991

  For

  JOHN BAXTER

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  BROWNING IN BUCKSKIN

  APPENDIX: The reliability of film star memoirs

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  The fourth volume of Richard Browning's memoirs has required more editorial intervention than previously. Browning was evidently employing a flashback technique when he made these recordings. This is not surprising in one who spent a good deal of his life in the film industry, but Browning was not a reader (see page 133 for his discussion on the matter with Gary Cooper), and he had very little idea of how the technique is best employed in literature. After several taping sessions, he appears to have become aware of this and abandoned the attempt. As a result, the tapes are a jumble of recollections in flashback and in the present time with interpolations that are hard to locate chronologically.

  I have endeavoured to present a coherent narrative and, as far as possible, to preserve Browning's notion of how it should be structured, remembering that it was his intention that the memoirs should be published. No decipherable material has been omitted and no words that are not Browning's have been introduced. However, there has been considerable rearrangement.

  The enterprise continues to receive generous support from Mr Richard Kelly Featherstone of New York City. Mr Featherstone advises me that he becomes more convinced that Richard Browning was his father as more transcripts become available. He has embarked on his own research into the life of Bonnie Dalton, Browning's lover (see 'Beverly Hills' Browning), whom he believes to have been his mother. Those interested in Browning's life will await the results of Mr Featherstone's enquiries with keen interest.

  Unhappily, others have responded to the publication of the memoirs in less generous ways. I have received letters from three men and two women in the United States and Canada who purport to be Browning's children. Their motives are obvious – to lay claim to any profits that may derive from the sale of these volumes. I am happy to take this opportunity to head off such approaches: any revenue from the books will be used to finance a film based on Richard Browning's life. This seems to be the most appropriate memorial. In the unlikely event that the film makes a profit, this money will be devoted to a charitable purpose which is yet to be determined. No individual can expect to profit.

  In this connection, Browning's second, and probably bigamous, marriage to Coral Smith, which is described in this volume, is of particular interest. It is noteworthy that he makes no mention of the possibility of issue from this relationship. Indeed, he expresses satisfaction with the sterility of the next woman he associated with, Glenda Barrow. At this stage of the Browning saga, only two references to children have been made. Browning is alleged to have fathered a child with Katie Ryan, the farmer's daughter with whom he had a brief fling in 1917 (see 'Box Office' Browning, pp. 56–60, 193). His brother-in-law, Rupert MacKnight, made mention of the pregnancy of Browning's first wife, Elizabeth (see Browning Takes Off, p. 191). However, both of these references are made in an accusatory and punitive spirit and solid evidence testifying to the existence of any children, legitimate or otherwise is still lacking.

  Remarkably little of the considerable volume of mail I have received since the publication of 'Box Office' Browning offers significant corrections to Dick's testimony. Melbourne broadcaster Terry Lane has pointed out that the Leica camera which Browning claims to have employed in 1919 was not yet in production. Such a slip is excusable in a man of Browning's years and habits, but editorial vigilance should have picked it up. Subsequent editions of the memoirs will make amends on this and other small points of fact.

  The work goes on. The tapes are often faint, sometimes incoherent. Increasingly, Browning used the cassettes on which he was recording his memoirs to tape songs he liked from the radio. Consequently, the text is frequently interrupted by snatches of song by such artists as Rudy Vallee, Nelson Eddy, Beniamino Gigli and Al Martino. At one point, preliminary to a recording session, it seems as if Browning is about to burst into song, but he has a drink instead and mutters imprecations about Broadway and Dan Dailey. As there is no evidence that Browning ever considered a career on the stage, the likelihood is that he had hopes of securing a role in the 1948 musical Give My Regards to Broadway which starred Dan Dailey. The transcription of further tapes may throw light on this piece of trivia.

  Research into this period of Browning's life has been greatly helped by film critic and historian, novelist and scriptwriter John Baxter. Bill Collins, film presenter extraordinaire on Network Ten, Australia, and Bob Larkins, writer and researcher attached to the Bill Collins' office, provided invaluable material.

  P.C.

  Sydney

  1991

  1

  Being on the run is no fun. Your clothes stink, your beard itches and your teeth feel as if you've borrowed them from someone else. I should know, I've been in this condition more times than I care to remember. I suppose deserting from the army in 1918 would have been my biggest and riskiest flit, but running out on a pregnant Australian wife four years later and giving myself a permanent discharge from the Canadian Mounties in 1922, have to rate pretty high. In some ways, though, the powder I took in California in 1928 after working for Howard Hughes, having my air transport business stolen from under me and evading a lawsuit brought by my first wife which would have put me in the poorhouse for life,1 sticks just as horribly in my memory.

  I joined a grape-picking gang to get clear of Los Angeles, where my job, friends, money and prospects had evaporated like smoke. Later, I came to understand that life in Hollywood was just like that – constructed of dreams and fantasies on a foundation of flattery (I can't see why David Niven should have a monopoly on this sort of writing; I went through much worse experiences than him) – but then I thought I was the only man in California to suffer terminal bad luck.

  Looking back on it now, from a perspective of half a century, I realise that Hollywood did tell the truth from time to time. There is one movie that gets it right. Remember Paul Muni in I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang? I saw it a few years after the time I'm talking about and it hit me hard. 'I steal,' Muni hisses at the end when Helen Vinson asks him how he lives. That's right! That's how it was!

  I hitched a ride on a hay truck to leave the grape-picking and slept for I don't know how long, waking up itchy and sore (I mean in the English sense of pain, not the American sense of angry, although I was that too) and spoiling for a fight. That is, one I could win. I squinted through the dusty back window of the truck and saw that the driver was a little guy, sucking on a toothpick. A hayseed, pure and simple. I hammered on the glass.

  'Stop the truck!' I yelled.

  The road was narrow, twisting and rutted. The strip of tar down the middle had been eroded by water, wind and a million wheels. The driver ignored me and his big, red-knuckled hands gripped the steering wheel as if he was propelling the truck with them rather than with his foot on the gas pedal. He kept the left side wheels on the road and let the right side bump along in the dirt. The jolting hurt my hungover head and the dust and crap coming out of the hay bales made me sneeze. What with this and bashing at the glass and swearing, I was exhausted by the time the truck stopped.

  'You c'n get down, buddy,' the driver said. 'An' you git no marks for grat'tude at all.'

  I climbed down onto the road. As the dust cleared I saw that he wa
sn't so small after all – maybe a welterweight, and some welterweights have been able to handle light-heavies, which is what I was. Think of Mickey Walker2. I concentrated on clearing my throat and rubbing my eyes and let him drive off with his bloody hay to wherever he was going. Bugger him. After that cloud of dust had cleared I looked around.

  The road straightened out for a mile or so at this point, which is why he'd dropped me here. There couldn't have been any other reason because there was nothing to see – just dried-out fields, tumbledown fences, a few scrubby trees and some blue hills in the far distance. It was one of those roads, and I've been on a few of them in my time, where it made no difference which direction you walked in.

  But you walk. I stumbled along the dusty track, vaguely aware that I was heading east because the sun was on my back, and bloody hot it was, too. A few rattletrap pickups travelled the road in the opposite direction. From the grim looks on the drivers' faces I judged that I was going the wrong way in their estimation. No east-bound vehicles appeared. I was light-headed from hunger, thirst and exhaustion when the road suddenly took a bend and a drop and I found myself headed towards a narrow bridge over a struggling creek. Water, I thought. That's good. Then I saw the buildings; not many, a cluster of shacks with iron roofs, two clapboard stores with skimpy verandahs and one larger structure that looked as if it had actually had a coat of paint since the war. Civilisation, I thought. Maybe even food, drink and tobacco. You can see that I was starting to feel better from that moment.

  Well, Three Cedars was nobody's idea of an oasis. The town consisted of the Three Cedars Auto Camp, the Three Cedars General Store and Pop's Grain Store, Livery Stable & Gas. The general store handled the mail and banking, what there was of it; Pop handled the smashed windscreens, busted axles and liquor, and the auto camp handled the food, laundry and sex. I didn't take all this in at first sight, of course. You'll hardly believe it, but I stayed in that backwater place for almost . . . I guess it must have been a couple of months. Occasionally, I look back on these periods of calm in my life and think they were the good times. Occasionally. A stiff drink usually sets me right.

  Some instinct made me turn off the road and make my way down to the settlement. I used the cover afforded by the trees that grew along the side of the creek and a couple of abandoned buildings that indicated the place had seen better days. I squatted in the creek bed, below the road level, washed my hands and face and took a long drink. I doubt you could find running water anywhere in the United States that tasted as cool and fresh and pure as Three Cedars creek. It revived, comforted and relaxed me at the same time. I took a long piss in the bushes and lay down with my tired back supported by the grassy bank. God knows I had enough worries on my mind – creditors for sure, a lawyer who'd been robbed of a fee (there's no worse enemy than that) and maybe even the US Immigration Office – but in the clear, warm southern Californian air I fell asleep.

  The sun had set when I woke up, and the warmth of the day had gone. I was wearing slacks with rents in the knees, a thin cotton shirt and a blazer which had had a fashionable cut until my recent activities had crumpled it beyond recognition. The blazer was unlined. My shoes were made more for sitting around swimming pools than tramping country roads; my feet inside them and the silk socks were blistered, sore and cold. Worse than the cold was the hunger. I couldn't remember when I'd last eaten, and as soon as I worked out who and where I was – no comfort in either fact – I could think of nothing else except food.

  You have to remember that this was California in 1929, it was only about twenty years3 since Geronimo died for God's sake, and many a man still put a pistol in his pocket right after putting on his hat. You didn't go sneaking around little townships at night. The cemeteries in these towns are full of graves of men shot by trigger-happy citizens. I've seen 'em – the wooden marker usually says 'Stranger' and gives the date of death. Blacks, Chinks and Indians didn't even rate a marker. As I say, you didn't sneak around trying to steal food, not unless you were desperate. I was.

  I waited until the lights went out in the windows and then I waited some more before I left the creek bed and crossed the road, bent low. I ducked into the shadows beside a water tank and waited there until I was sure there was nothing moving. After firearms, my biggest worry was dogs, but there's nothing much you can do about dogs and, usually, I had a way with them. Mind you, I've got some tooth scars that say different. There were a couple of dusty cars parked near the auto camp shacks and even one old wagon. I could hear the horse that pulled it chomping on grass in a nearby paddock. Los Angeles was less than thirty miles away but Three Cedars looked to be about thirty years behind it.

  Eventually the township was quiet and dark, but there was enough moonlight to see by. I was hoping to find a vegetable patch or an orchard. Sometimes serious drinkers left bottles of beer outside to cool overnight, so they could go to bed and dream of the first good cold one in the morning. The thought of that nearly made my throat seize and I had to stifle a cough.

  I moved from the water tank towards the back of the stable cum gas station and drew a blank. The back of the place was a car and farm machinery graveyard that smelt of oil, gas and rotting rubber. I doubt that anything could have grown within a hundred yards of it. Over to the auto camp, scuttling, bent over, all senses alert. I hadn't had a cigarette in twenty-four hours (another thought which produced painful physical sensations) and my sense of smell was sharp. The aroma hit me from fifty yards away. Bread was baking. Yeast was rising, thick crusts were forming. The smell almost drove me mad. I followed my nose and fetched up outside a small brick building at the end of a path that led back to the main section of the auto camp.

  I pressed myself flat against the brick wall that seemed warm from the cooking inside. No lights in the cabins. Some washing flapping gently on a clothes line behind the general store. No other movement. I tried the door to the cookhouse and felt the handle turn. I eased the door from the frame, and the smell became richer and more tantalising. Bread, for certain, maybe even pies and biscuits4. Butter, perhaps. I opened the door and went inside. The smells were overpowering; it was like having gone without sex for a year and suddenly finding yourself inside a French brothel. I had to take the risk. I fumbled a box of matches from my pocket and lit one. In its flickering light I saw the ovens and the loaves that were sitting on top of them. I could see a big butter pot and jars of preserves and chutneys.

  I lit another match and marked where everything I wanted was. Then, in the darkness I snatched a loaf, dug a hole in it and shoved in a fistful of butter. I took a jar of preserves and cramed it into my blazer pocket, ripping the stitching. There was nothing to drink but I had the creek. I crammed the hunk of warm bread I pulled out into my mouth and stepped through the door.

  The lantern beam hit me in the eyes, blinding me. I guess I blinked, I know I kept on chewing because I could feel the crumbs and suddenly-released saliva dripping down my chin.

  'You sure are a messy eater.'

  A woman's voice. Relief flooded through me.

  'I can explain,' I said through a mouthful of bread.

  'Stop right there, mister! This is a twelve gauge, double barrel.'

  I squinted, raised my free hand and tried to shield myself from the unwavering light. I saw the business end of a shotgun centered on my chest. Instinctively, I covered the spot with the loaf of bread. This drew an amused snort.

  'That won't save you.'

  Young or old? I thought desperately. How do I look? Probably terrible, but surely not dangerous. If only I can swallow the bread I can smile. That'll give me a chance. I chewed and gasped for breath.

  'You're the hungriest dead man I ever saw.'

  The voice was youngish, I was sure of it. I got the bread down and flashed the famous Browning choppers. 'Madam, I want to apologise . . .'

  There was a roar and a spurting flame. I felt red hot needles pierce my body and then everything went black. I tried to hang onto the loaf of bread but it weighe
d a ton and was pushing me down to the cold, hard ground.

  2

  I woke up in a soft, clean bed in a warm, dry room. A woman was sitting in a chair by the bed. At first I thought it was my mother, then I recognised her. I lifted my head from the pillow with a sharp jerk that sent pinpricks of pain through my body. I sank back and would have moaned if my throat hadn't been so dry. She poured a glass of water from a jug on the bedside table. Her hands were strong and comforting as she lifted my head and supported it while I drank. The water oiled the voice box.

  'You shot me!'

  'Bird shot,' she said. 'Hardly touched you. I picked the lead out of your legs while you were in your faint.'

  I closed my eyes. It was a relief to know I still had my legs and other accessories; her tone was a bit hard to take though. 'I was exhausted. Starving. I've been ill. I . . .'

  She took a flask of pale amber fluid from the pocket of her dress, poured a measure into the glass and added the same amount of water. Suddenly I wanted that drink more than my pride or my manhood or anything else. She read the message in my eyes.

  'Just you have a little drink of this here and get back to sleep. We'll talk some in the morning. My, the way you got that bread down.' A smile spread across her face making it almost pretty. Without the smile it was what you'd call strong, if you were being kind. 'Want something to eat?'

  I lifted my head for the drink and took it down in a couple of long gulps. The whisky warmed and soothed my mouth, throat, belly, every part of me. It was like a warm oil massage from the inside out. I smiled as she lowered my head. 'No, thank you, Ma'm.'

  'I like a polite man. We'll get along fine.' She rose and moved to the door. I could see that she was medium-sized with thick dark hair tied back. She wore a plain blue dress with a light shawl around her shoulders. Pretty good body from the waist up; I resisted the impulse to lift my head and get a look at her legs.