“They put me in the cake,” Corky said, offering Mira a warm can of soda. “Buddy would tell a joke about his mother-in-law, the band would hit a sting, and I’d pop out. The audience laughed. Not at the joke. At the surprise of me. Like a jack-in-the-box with freckles.”
She drove back to Vegas and gave Corky a hard drive with the final cut. He watched it on his laptop in the back of the storage locker, surrounded by the guts of a 1950s Wurlitzer. When the credits rolled, he didn’t speak for a long time.
The living legends refused. “Too soon,” said one geriatric producer who hadn’t had a credit since 1998. “I’ve already sold my memoir,” said another. So Mira went deeper. She chased the footnote. The sound guy. The cue card holder. The third assistant to the bandleader’s tailor.
Mira set up her camera. She didn’t ask about Buddy’s affairs or the network backstabbing. She asked about the cake.
“What?” Mira asked.
The documentary premiered at a small theater in Silver Lake. Twenty-three people attended. One of them was a development executive from a streaming giant who offered Mira seven figures to turn it into a six-part series with reenactments and a celebrity narrator.
Then he said, “You know what the problem is with the entertainment industry?”
“They put me in the cake,” Corky said, offering Mira a warm can of soda. “Buddy would tell a joke about his mother-in-law, the band would hit a sting, and I’d pop out. The audience laughed. Not at the joke. At the surprise of me. Like a jack-in-the-box with freckles.”
She drove back to Vegas and gave Corky a hard drive with the final cut. He watched it on his laptop in the back of the storage locker, surrounded by the guts of a 1950s Wurlitzer. When the credits rolled, he didn’t speak for a long time.
The living legends refused. “Too soon,” said one geriatric producer who hadn’t had a credit since 1998. “I’ve already sold my memoir,” said another. So Mira went deeper. She chased the footnote. The sound guy. The cue card holder. The third assistant to the bandleader’s tailor.
Mira set up her camera. She didn’t ask about Buddy’s affairs or the network backstabbing. She asked about the cake.
“What?” Mira asked.
The documentary premiered at a small theater in Silver Lake. Twenty-three people attended. One of them was a development executive from a streaming giant who offered Mira seven figures to turn it into a six-part series with reenactments and a celebrity narrator.
Then he said, “You know what the problem is with the entertainment industry?”