[Writing Prompt] In an alternate universe, movie effects are all practical. If a character dies in the movie, the actor dies as well. Despite this, being an actor on the big screen is still a dream for millions of people.
Pulling A Zagrin
“Marty!”
Marty Ferman stepped into his agents office. Jerry waited behind his large mahogany desk. His hands were outstretched. His broad, toothy smile primed to eat or spew shit, as circumstances dictated.
“You took your time, huh Marty? Is that the respect I get?” Jerry paused for not even a second and then gave a false laugh. “Nah, I’m joking kiddo! How’re you? How’s the fam?”
Marty knew it was not a joke. But Marty also didn’t care. It had taken all the will power he could muster to attend this meeting at all. “Yeah, sorry bout that Jer, traffic.”
Jerry nodded and shrugged. “LA”, he said, as if that was the explanation for all bad and evil things that happened in the world. In a sense he was not wrong.
Jerry’s demeanor changed on a dime. “So, Marty, I’ve got a part. Amazing script, big pay, amazing director – Getrude Klaus, Marty, real top talent – it’s perfect for you.”
Jerry’s face didn’t betray a hint of what Marty knew was the real news here. Marty had a connection inside Klaus’s production company. He had been clued into this offer two weeks earlier.
Marty sat in rueful silence. He wondered how Jerry’s reptilian eyes could be so absent of concern. After all, they’d worked together for twenty years.
When Marty spoke, there was venom in his voice. “Sounds great Jer. What’s the catch?”
Jerry pursed his lips and gave a solemn nod of the head. Then he sucked at his front teeth and gave an abashed look down at his desk. As he went through these motions Marty couldn’t help but feel they were each rehearsed. It felt like this was a conversation Jerry had had many times before.
“Well, Kiddo, there *is* a catch. You kick it in this one.”
The words lingered in the air. Jerry continued, “Seminal dramatic moment. End of the film. Hero saves the day. Sacrifices himself. Lives on in legend,” Jerry hooked his eyes to Marty’s before he said the final word, “forever. Forever, Marty.”
*So it’s true,* Marty thought. Everything Marty had heard was true. This was *that* moment for him, the moment every movie actor had to come to grips with, sooner or later.
For some, most, it happened near the beginning. Extras mowed down by a storm of bullets in a shootout scene. Or blown up in a “fake” terrorist attack. Strangled in a slasher flick. Hit by cars, stabbed, burned, and drowned.
This was the fate of most movie “actors.” They came to Hollywood from far and wide in the hopes of fame, only to die gruesome deaths on the sets of shitty horror movies.
But Marty was one of the few who made it. He survived the early hazings, drew the eyes of the right people at the right times and built a real career. Twenty years of steady work without a serious injury, so popular he was never even offered a death scene.
Then his most recent film bombed. A singular misstep in a career of hits, and yet, here Marty was being offered his final role.
The calculus was brutal. Of course, Marty *could* say no, turn it down, wait for something else to come along. And it would, some hack film or another, two or three, if Marty was lucky.
But no big name, no real artist would ever work with him again and, inevitably, Marty would “pull a Zagrin.”
Herman Zagrin. A legendary actor in his time. He was the first to rise to true stardom in the age of literal effects – actual bullets, real violence. He worked for thirty years and had only a single failed venture, a sci-fi film entitled “The Heart Of Mars.”
Heart of Mars ruined Zagrin. Afterwards no one would work with him, and no production company would fund him. He was offered one shot at redemption – a final role in a multi-billion dollar remake of Spartacus.
It would have been a grand send off, the grandest send off in Hollywood history.
But Zagrin turned it down. Spartacus went on to be the highest grossing film ever made. The relative nobody who landed the lead role has a posthumous star on the Hollywood walk of fame.
After Spartacus, Zagrin’s career rotted from the inside out. He delayed his death scene as long as he possibly could. For a while he subsisted on local TV spots. Eventually he couldn’t even book those. So he degraded himself with home shopping presentations and late night infomercials. Then later student films and low budget soft-core porn. His fall from grace was infamous.
Eventually,the once great Herman Zagrin couldn’t find any work at all. He was paid $500 to be shot in the head as background extra on a bit horror movie. He wasn’t even credited for the role.
In the years since, actors who followed Zagrin’s sad route to ignominious death were said to be “pulling a Zagrin.” An actor’s career could not come to a more shameful end.
Which left Marty with a choice, and yet, no choice at all. Gertrude Kraus was at the very top of her game. Marty had word the script was exceptional. And, under Kraus’s deft eye, Marty was all but assured a death that would live on in movie legend.
To seal the deal, in silence, Jerry slid over a slip of paper with the proposed salary written on it. Marty picked up the paper, unfolded it, saw all the zeros, and breathed a sigh. His family, at least, would be well taken care of.
Standing up, his legs shaking a little, but otherwise the face of bravery, Marty Ferman offered his hand, and Jerry took it with false solemnity.
“You’re makin’ the right choice, kid,” Jerry said.
Marty swallowed a lump in his throat, “It’s been good working with you Jerry.”
In truth, all Jerry’s insipid qualities aside, it really had been.
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