It was just a start, eighteen-year-old Brian's acting coach said, but "If you play your cards right, it will be a beginning of getting into the movies. You'll have to do what you have to do, though." Brian understood what that meant. He'd done what he had to do to get Andre Giroux as his acting coach and for Giroux to ferret out this movie opportunity for him. It's hard to claim you won't do what needs to be done to get favor from a man who is on top of you and inside you whenever he wants to be.
The movie was to be called
Big Sky
, which was the name of the big ranch in Oklahoma that the main setting for a movie about the advent of the oil empires was to be. This wasn't Oklahoma, though. This was the first scene in the movie set in the horse country of Kentucky, at a thoroughbred stable in the rolling hills to the east of Lexington. This was the scene where the young, hunky Oklahoma rancher, Bret Emerson, was coming to buy a former champion racehorse for stud and wound up finding a southern belle to marry and take back to Oklahoma.
The stars playing Bret, Ray Fritz, and the movie character's wife-to-be, Sissy, Laurie Tyler, were top box office stars of the day. Both were beautiful people who would burn up the screen with the sizzle they would display for each other in the movie. It didn't matter that, off the screen, Ray preferred men and Laurie preferred women. This was the fantasy world of Hollywood. The minor, heartthrob lead, a ranch hand who would be something of a rival of Bret's for Sissy's attentions, was no more than a year older than Brian. Kyle Sheen was nineteen, a sultry and sulky rebel, and sex on a stick.
Brian had studied every moved Sheen had made on the silver screen so far. He wanted to be the sultry, bad-boy star and saw no reason why he shouldn't be able to do so soon. Sheen was only a year older than he was. All Brian needed was a well-placed mentor and a break. He had pretty much gotten all he could out of Andre Giroux, and it was time for him to move up.
Brian would only be seen in this one take, which was totally separate from the bulk of the movie set that would be filmed in Oklahoma. He had been recruited for this small, nonspeaking part because of Ray Fritz's needs and the film studios desire to keep its leading man in this film happy. The two had become acquainted and comfortable with each other before the filming of the scene, although to this point it had been suggestive talk and a bit of touching and fondling. It was all a stepping-stone progression. If Brian hadn't put out for Andre Giroux, when Giroux was contacted for recommendations on extras for the movie, he wouldn't have been able to reveal what extra services Brian would be willing to give.
Brian's appearance before the cameras was a short one. The filming had come to Kentucky because the movie's director, Carlos Stainer, wanted to be as authentic as possible. The Linden Hall stables housed the former racing champion, War Chief, who had been put out to stud. Stainer insisted on using a real thoroughbred race horse in the film. Also, Linden Hall had the typical antebellum southern mansion look that would contrast with what Sissy would find on the dusty Oklahoma ranch Bret took her to before it too was made magnificent over the years as oil made the family filthy rich.
Brian, trim, blond, bare-chested, tanned, and achingly handsome as an eighteen-year-old stable boy and jockey in the film, led War Chief out of the stables and into a large horse ring, set in a rolling, lush, green Kentucky setting. Bret and Sissy stood at the pristine-white-painted fence surrounding the ring.
"Show him what he will do still," Sissy, a gorgeous, trim, but buxom young woman with mesmerizing violet eyes, called out, and Brian mounted the horse and rode around the ring, providing hazed-out background, while the close-up cameras caught the conversation between Sissy and Bret that presaged that these two would be married and would be dynamite in bed and power partners through life. Young, handsome, bare-chested, and horse-mounted Brian circled the ring in the background, ever in the suggestive view of the camera.
When the conversation had threatened to become too steamy for a southern belle on her first meeting with the man of her dreams, Sissy suddenly called out, "That's enough, Johnny. Bring him over here."
The tableau became the young jockey and horse approaching the somewhat embarrassed couple at the fence who both realized that more than the purchase of a stud horse was unfolding here. Sexy, bare-chested Brian became the center of attention of both man and woman to avoid eye contact between them long enough for the camera to catch what was happening here. The cameras couldn't devote many frames to Bret looking at the Johnny character, though, because, as good an actor as Ray Fritz was, the camera could not hide his lust for the young man. The camera swung to Sissy feeding a carrot to War Chief and the delivery of her, "Take him back to the stable now, Johnny, and brush him down good." Sissy's look at the Johnny character was no less lusty and speculating as Ray Fritz's had been.
As Brian led War Chief back to the stables, and Brian's movie debut came to an end, the sulky rebel second lead sauntered up to segue into the next scene and to add another dynamic in the love interests in the movie.
That was it. That was the totality of Brian's first movie role. His murmured "Yes ma'am," was all he said in the movie. There was a brief effort by Ray Fritz to have his role expanded--to have him accompany War Chief to Oklahoma to continue to be the horse's groom, but the writers and the director didn't bite. Brian's sexy, bare-chested role in the movie was there to establish the lusts of the two principle characters. Any carry through of these two with the stable groomer was left to the viewer's imagination--at least in the movie version. The actors, Ray Fritz and Laurie were free to pursue their interests with Brian outside of the confines of the movie script.
This brief screen appearance was more than enough for Brian in starting his movie career, though. He'd been smitten with the looks both Ray and Laurie had graced him with through the three takes of the scene snippet that Carson Stainer had insisted on, but he was more smitten with Ray's eye contact. He had good reason to know that Ray was already smitten with him--and that Laurie had no idea at all how and why Brian had gotten this small part in the movie--not that she cared. Although she too looked at Brian with lust, she had eyes more for the mannish actress cast to play Bret's sister back at the ranch in Oklahoma.
Standing off behind the cameras, Carlos Stainer and Ray Fritz's agent, Eddie Evans, were nodding their heads, pleased with how well the scene--and Brian's and War Chief's role in it--had gone. There would be sizzle for the secretly gay theater goers to revel in as well as the usual arousal of those liking to see the two leads together. Eddie Evans looked at eighteen-year-old Brian with a speculative eye. The acting coach had been right about the young man. He was as worthy to be studded and created into a movie legend as War Chief was in going to stud.
The young man was showing as much star potential has Ray Fritz had done when Evans discovered and recreated him.
* * * *
Brian juggled the cold six-pack of beer in one hand while perching precariously on the narrow steps up to the door of the dressing room trailer and knocking on the door with the other hand. Ray Fritz, just wearing athletic shorts and sandals opened the trailer door. His face lit up into a smile.
"Mr. Evans asked me to bring this beer to you," Brian said.
"Ah, gift of the gods," Fritz said, with a grin. "And I'm talking about the beer too. Eddie knows how to take care of his clients. It's hot as hell in here. But don't stand there for the world to see"--ever mindful of the curious press, he looked in all directions to see if they were being observed--"Come on in. Come on in." He reached out, put an arm around the young man's shoulders, pulled him into the trailer, and, giving the area another sweep of his eyes, shut the door.
"Here, Ben--"
"I'm Brian. Do you want me to go get Ben?"
"Brian. Whatever. I have script meeting this afternoon. I can't possibly drink all of this beer myself. Have one and take a load off on the couch over there."
"I really can't. I'm only eighteen." Brian knew, of course, that he was establishing more than a drinking age.
"But you're such a mature eighteen. You're old enough to mess around like we did yesterday, so you're old enough to drink a beer. I'm king here, and the king says it's fine."
