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plot (poor boy from Down South makes the Big Time and loses his Soul), the
songs gauged to pre-puberty intellects and the rather pedestrian
performances of the supporting cast, we are left only with Mr. Preston and
his talent. Happily, this is more than enough. Stag Preston is definitely
not another squawker-turnedactor. He has a remarkable grasp of matters
thespic, a very sure comedic touch, and a personality that at once commands
Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 160 and repels. This critic views Mr.
Preston as a troubling shadowy resonance of that vitality and je ne sais
quoi, that salt-lick of anti-social renegade behavior only briefly glimpsed,
yet deified, in James Dean. But there is much more than the surly
restlessness of a Dean in Preston. The singer has a driving personality
dichotomously self-destructive yet vastly appealing. His manner with
essentially carbon-copied dialogue from endless  B movies is miraculous;
nuances, subtleties, depths we usually only see in the best imported films.
Even when singing, in an area of music long lost to maturity and any depth
of perception, Stag Preston manages to capture a sensitivity that marks him a
performer of rare gifts. This is Stag Preston s show, from first to last, and
he runs it with assurance, skill and verve. As they say in the trade, he
plays like a baby doll. Give this one 3 1/2 stars, and cover any side bets
about Oscar nominations. That might have been a composite review. And, in
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point of fact, with the exception of the final paragraph, one columnist
wrote it just that way. Stag was a hit. Rockabilly was a hit. .My Sad Dog
Heart".the ballad Stag sang in the picture. was a hit. Shelly paid himself a
stock dividend.the Mercedes was rebored. Again. Stag bought his own music
publishing company, and spent whatever profits the enterprise might make in
the next eighty years on a free-for-all party that caromed between The Plaza,
Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 161 The Stork Club, a rented mansion on
Long Island and a villa in Coldwater Canyon, on the
San-Fernando-Valley-side-ofthe- hill, California. The party went on for five
days, and Stag was forced to turn over half the bills to Freeport s Hollywood
accountants for payment. Freeport had them paid, but noted the total
expenditure in a little green-leather notebook he had begun carrying in his
jacket pocket. Stag began going on the town with a group of smallername
contract players and starlets, a few bogus-titled European expatriates, a
wealthy playboy with a penchant for sports cars and heavy drinking, and
various easy-lays attracted to the neon glitter set. They soon became known
as .The Ginchy Set.. Shelly tried to keep a close rein on Stag, but when he
was surrounded by his devotees in .The Ginchy Set. it was virtually
impossible. One night they left Googie s after a wild round of hot fudge
sundaes, went off into the Hollywood Hills in their identical Dual-Ghias (or
Porsche Speedsters, for those who wanted .in. but hadn t yet built the
marquee-name to afford the more exotic vehicle), and only four escaped when
Stag and the others were arrested for holding a .chickie-run. against an
electrified fence. Shelly was able to get Stag out of jail after only three
hours of incarceration, but it seemed no warning to the singer. Three nights
later Shelly was again called to bail Stag out. The boy and three starlets
had been arrested driving through the center of Los Angeles; this had not
upset Shelly until he had learned the charge was Indecent Exposure, Spider
Kiss by Harlan Ellison 162 abetted by minor charges of Inciting to Riot,
Insulting an Officer of the Law, Assaulting an Officer of the Law, Running a
Stop Light, Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road, Reckless Driving and
$1906 damage to the plate glass windows and showcases of the gift shop into
which Stag had piled the Dual-Ghia. Trial was set for the 18th of the
following month. Before it came to a jury, Freeport had had charges
dismissed. That cost money. The figures went down in the small green-leather
notebook. Finally, it came to a head. It had to end, and Shelly knew
Freeport would see it end this way and no other; he had worked for him for
too long to expect anything else. It happened, however, a bit more messily
than Shelly would have imagined. Porter Hackett was glib. However few charms
he possessed.aside from the sheaf of bills omnipresent in his wallet at all
times.glibness was his most endearing. Two memorable things were said of
Porter Hackett. The first was that he could sell sandboxes to Bedouins, and
the second was that he had rubber pockets so he could steal soup. The first
was improbable, and the second he had discarded early in life as being
improper for a cultured conman. Porter Hackett was thirty-two years old,
looked twenty-six, had been run out of every major city on the Eastern
seaboard and was steadily working his way inland when he was added to the
entourage of a wealthy but aging ex-actress who was having nymphomaniacal
difficulties with her menopause. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 163 This
daughter of Eve, in an attempt to scuttle the demands of the flesh, imported
Porter Hackett and several other young studs to her Beverly Hills home and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]