Chap­ter 8 marks a piv­otal point in my career, where Lit­tle Women became an entic­ing promise that remained just out of reach. Instead of being grant­ed the role I longed for, I was pushed into a series of sen­ti­men­tal come­dies, films designed to mold me into the quin­tes­sen­tial Hol­ly­wood blonde. Sun­set Stu­dios saw my ris­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to keep me in a spe­cif­ic lane, ensur­ing that my image was care­ful­ly curat­ed to fit their vision. Though I yearned for more chal­leng­ing roles, I quick­ly real­ized that resist­ing the studio’s demands would be futile, and so I played along, embrac­ing my new­found star­dom as best as I could.

My first lead­ing role came in Father and Daugh­ter, a touch­ing dra­ma where Ed Bak­er played my wid­owed father, and togeth­er, we nav­i­gat­ed new love and loss. This film solid­i­fied my place as a bank­able actress, though I knew that my path to true artis­tic ful­fill­ment would be a long one. In the midst of film­ing, Har­ry, ever the strate­gist, encour­aged me to attend high-pro­file dates with Brick Thomas, a for­mer child star whose ego was large enough to fill the entire Sun­set lot. These out­ings, care­ful­ly orches­trat­ed by the stu­dio, were meant to gen­er­ate pub­lic­i­ty and craft a roman­tic nar­ra­tive around me. Though I played my part, smil­ing through staged inter­ac­tions and per­fect­ly timed laugh­ter, the real­i­ty was far from glam­orous.

One par­tic­u­lar night, I accom­pa­nied Brick to Chasen’s, dressed to per­fec­tion while he showed up in casu­al clothes, only to be redressed by the stu­dio styl­ist. Paparazzi swarmed us, cam­eras flash­ing as we pre­tend­ed to be engrossed in each other’s com­pa­ny. Brick, always self-absorbed, assumed I had idol­ized him as a teenag­er and smug­ly asked if I had posters of him on my walls. Resist­ing the urge to roll my eyes, I played along, know­ing the game I had to par­tic­i­pate in. Lat­er that night, as we changed back into our every­day clothes, he leaned in, hint­ing that we could turn the rumors into real­i­ty. I laughed it off, brush­ing him aside, real­iz­ing just how trans­ac­tion­al Hol­ly­wood rela­tion­ships could be.

Despite my dis­taste for these emp­ty encoun­ters, I con­tin­ued the cha­rade with oth­er actors, endur­ing dull con­ver­sa­tions and lack­lus­ter chem­istry. Then, every­thing changed when Har­ry arranged a date with Don Adler. Unlike the oth­ers, Don exud­ed a charm that felt both effort­less and mag­net­ic. He arrived at my apart­ment hold­ing a bou­quet of lilies, his smile warm and invit­ing. The sin­cer­i­ty in his ges­ture caught me off guard—after so many staged inter­ac­tions, it was refresh­ing to meet some­one who seemed gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in me, beyond what the cam­eras cap­tured.

Don took me to Mocam­bo, the most exclu­sive night­club in town, where we danced under the soft glow of chan­de­liers, sur­round­ed by Hollywood’s elite. Unlike oth­er men who sought to pos­sess me, Don sim­ply appre­ci­at­ed my pres­ence, treat­ing me as some­one to admire rather than con­trol. His con­fi­dence, his wit, and his unwa­ver­ing atten­tion made me feel seen in a way I hadn’t before. As we danced the night away, I found myself drawn to him, the lines between per­for­mance and real­i­ty blur­ring. By the end of the evening, as he walked me to my door, he asked when he could see me again. For the first time in my care­ful­ly man­aged Hol­ly­wood life, I didn’t need to fab­ri­cate an answer—I want­ed to see him just as much as he want­ed to see me.

The moment felt dif­fer­ent, more real than any of the orches­trat­ed dates I had endured before. Don was­n’t just anoth­er indus­try pawn look­ing to ele­vate his own status—he made me feel spe­cial, as though I was more than just a ris­ing star. Per­haps, I thought, this was what love was sup­posed to feel like. Yet, even as I let myself believe in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­thing real, I knew that in Hol­ly­wood, love and ambi­tion were often inter­twined in ways that could be both exhil­a­rat­ing and dan­ger­ous.