Most scenes together: Esther Blodgett / Vicki Lester & Norman Maine (3)
Friends, my eye! Listen. I got you out of your jams because it was my job, not because I was your friend. I don't like you. I never did like you. And nothing made me happier than to see all those cute little pranks of yours catch up with you and land you on your celebrated face.
Pretty work, Libby. Always wait till they're down, then kick them.
You know Libby you missed a lot not knowing Norman Maine.
Not knowing him? I spent my life knowing him. I knew what he was going to do before he did it. I knew him backwards.
You didn't know him at all. He was quite a guy.
He's in a sanitarium. He really wants to stop drinking, Oliver. He's trying very hard. I know he is. What is it? What is it that makes him want to destroy himself? You've known him longer than anyone else. Tell me what it is. Please. I don't care but just tell me.
Don't you think I've tried through the years to know why, to help him? I don't know, Esther. I don't know what the answer is.
Well, I've got to find the answer. You don't know what it's like to watch somebody you love just crumble away bit by bit and day by day in front of your eyes and stand there helpless. Love isn't enough. I thought it was. I thought I was the answer for Norman. But love isn't enough for him. And I'm afraid of what's beginning to happen within me... because... sometimes I hate him. I hate his promises to stop and then the watching and waiting to see it begin again. I hate to go home to him at night and listen to his lies. My heart goes out to him because he tries - he does try. But I hate him for failing. I hate me, too. I hate me cause I've failed, too. I have. I don't know what's going to happen to us, Oliver. No matter how much you love somebody... how do you live out the days?
Don't I now?
And you're cold sober.
Well, you'd better make the most of it!
You know as much about me as I do myself. But...you see how long it's taken me to get this far. Now, all I need is just a little luck.
What kind of luck?
Oh, the kind of luck that every girl singer with a band dreams of--one night a big talent scout from a big record company might come in and he'll let me make a record.
Yes, and then?
Well, the record will become number one on the Hit Parade, it'll be played on the jukeboxes all over the country...and I'll be made. [laughs] End of dream.
There's only one thing wrong with that.
I know--it won't happen!
No, it might happen pretty easily--but the dream isn't big enough.
Do you ever go fishing?
Well, do you like prizefi--have you ever watched a great fighter?
I-I uh--
I'm trying to tell you how you sing.
Do you mean like a prizefighter or a fish?
Look...em--
There are certain pleasures you get, little-little jabs of pleasure when a swordfish take a hook, or-or when you see a great fighter get in right for the kill, see?
No, not yet. Why don't you try bullfights?
When something like this happens to you and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I didn't keep hoping it would happen. All the speeches that you've made up in your bedroom or in the bathtub go out of your mind completely and you find that, out of all the words in the world, just two stick in your mind - thank you. And all I can do is say them to you from my heart and...
Congratulations, my dear. I made it just in time, didn't I? May I borrow the end of your speech to make a speech of my own? My method for gaining your attention may seem a little uncon-unconventional, but, uh, hard times call for harsh measures. My - I had my speech all prepared, but I - it's gone right out of my head. Let me see - why, it's silly to be so formal, isn't it? I-I know most of you sitting out there by your first names, don't I? I made a lot o' money for you gentlemen in my time through the years, didn't I? Well, I need a job now. Yeah, that's it. That-that-that-that's the speech. That's the - I need a job. That's what I wanted to say. I - I need a job. It's as simple as that. I - I need a job, that's all. My talents, I may say, are not confined to dramatic parts. I can play comedy, too.
Norman, don't you know how I feel about you?
Yes, yes I do.
Well, then dear, don't you know that nothing about you could make any difference?
It's too late.
No, it isn't.
It is, I tell you...Now listen to me. I destroy everything I touch. I always have. Forget me. I'm a bad loss.
I don't believe that.
You've come too late.
You've got that little something extra that Ellen Terry talked about. Ellen Terry, a great actress long before you were born. She said that that was what star quality was - that little something extra. Well, you've got it.
Sympathy? That's not what you're getting from me, baby. You don't deserve it. You're a great monument to Norman Maine, you are. He was a drunk, and he wasted his life, but he loved you. And he took enormous pride in the one thing in his life that wasn't a waste, you. His love for you and your success. That was the one thing in his life that wasn't a waste. And he knew it. Maybe he was wrong to do what he did, I don't know. But he didn't want to destroy that, destroy the only thing he took pride in. And now you're doing the one thing he was terrified of, you're wiping it out! You're tossing aside the one thing he had left. You're tossing it right back into the ocean after him. You're the only thing that remains of him now. And if you just kick it away, it's like he never existed, like there never was a Norman Maine at all.
He gave me a look at myself I've never had before. He saw something in me nobody else ever did. He made me see it too. He made me believe it.
I can remember my first job singing with the band. And then one night stands clear across country by bus. Putting on nail polish in the ladies rooms of gas stations, waiting on tables. Wow! That was a low point. I'll never forget it. And I'll never never do that again, no matter what. But I had to sing. I somehow feel most alive when I'm singing.
I shall have to introduce myself all over again to a lot of people. They won't know me when I'm not drinking.
If you'll be kind enough to glance between my shoulder blades, Mr. and Mrs. Gubbins, you'll find there a knife buried to the hilt. On its handle are your initials.
