Claudia Ryan gazed over the sound stage looking in vain for Aldo Marchetti. “Christ, Joan,” Claudia questioned her chief assistant, Joan Walker, “didn’t you tell Harry to make sure that Aldo would be an extra during this shoot!?!” Joan staring at the nearly empty sound stage herself replied quickly, “Of course I did, I practically made Harry sign a blood oath that he would have Aldo here for the entire shoot, I have no idea where he is!” “Goddam it,” spat Claudia, “get Harry on the fucking phone and find out for me, I’m not gonna do one scene until he’s here, got it!?!” Joan nodded her head and made a beeline for the phone back in Claudia Ryan’s trailer. It was only eight in the morning and already Claudia had given her a splitting headache! “Do this, do that,” she thought grimly, “why can’t the old bat do something on her own for a change, you’d think her leg was broken by the way she acted!” Joan dialed Harry’s number, and in a few moments he was on the phone. “Well,” he greeted her warmly, “what can I do for you today, Joan, is the boss acting up again!?!” As executive producer, Harry Berson made just about every major decision connected with the movie, including the hiring of Aldo Marchetti as a personal favor to Claudia Ryan. “Jesus, Harry,” Joan said, getting right to the point, “Marchetti’s nowhere to be seen, and Claudia’s throwing a hissy fit, says she won’t do a scene until he shows!!!” Calm down, babe,” Harry replied smoothly, Marchetti isn’t needed until scene number four, so he won’t be showing up until later this afternoon, no problem, he just won’t be there this morning!” Joan knew that Claudia would be upset over this new bit of news, but thought that if she was assured Aldo would be there later that day she would hopefully do her opening scenes. “Okay, Harry,” Joan sighed, “I’ll try getting her to go ahead, but there are no guarantees!” “You tell Claudia that Marchetti won’t show until scene four is ready to shoot, so the longer she procrastinates, the longer it will be until he gets here,” Harry replied flatly, “so you tell the old bag she’d better get her ass on that stage and knock off those first three scenes, capiche???” “Yeah,” Joan answered tiredly, “capiche.”
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