Good Time Girl
There’s love on camera, but what’s going on behind the scenes?Popular soap opera The McMasters, set in the international art world, has been drawing huge audiences for nearly a decade, but ratings have started to slip.Beautiful and talented Claire Jenner is brought into the series and makes an instant hit. Recently recovered from a disastrous relationship, she embarks on a red-hot affair with Geoffrey Armitage, star of the show. Geoff is dazzled, but not so the rest of the cast. Cast aside by the philandering (and married) Geoff is the gorgeous but untalented Patsy. Seething with jealousy, she plots her revenge.Centred on the turbulent private lives of the cast of a long-running series, Kate O’Mara’s sizzling novel gives us an insider’s close-up on the world of television soap opera.
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KATA O’MARA
Good Time Girl
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Kate O’Mara 1993
Kate O’Mara asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006472599
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2017 ISBN: 9780008252687
Version: 2017-03-27
To Ted Rhodes, in happy memory
CONTENTS
The studio was dark, silent and tense. The crew, technicians and production team were shrouded in shadow. Only the actors in their little world of a make-believe art gallery were illuminated in a bright pool of light. They stood poised ready to spring into life at a given cue – a flamboyant wave of a white handkerchief from Larry Matthews, the highly eccentric, camp floor manager/PA/script editor/general right-hand man to Hugh Travis, the producer. Larry always used this rather overt method of cueing, claiming that the actors could see it easily in their peripheral line of vision. He was right, of course; the slightest movement from anyone on the studio floor could be misinterpreted as a cue by an actor already fraught with nerves. Larry was usually right about most things. He ran the studio, and indeed the series, like a tight ship, loved and feared by actors and technicians alike. Now he stood, his head encased by ‘cans’, keeping an ever-vigilant eye on the monitor that was suspended above his head. The cameramen adjusted focus. The boom operators pushed the microphones in and out of the set, paying them out and winding them in again like trout flies, checking and rechecking for shadows. It was the soundmen’s difficult task to position the booms so as to be able to pick up every nuance from the actors. They had to achieve this without getting into shot, yet be near enough to hear even the most inaudible player. There was no difficulty with the experienced performers but the newcomers and those who had not had theatrical experience always posed problems.
Larry, ever watchful, glanced briefly around the studio, then up again at the monitor. Where -
A tall fine figure of a man, with a remarkably even golden tan and deep-set vivid blue eyes was threading his way through the hustle and bustle of Mayfair. His silver hair was a touch too long for a banker or a barrister, and proclaimed him at once a man connected with the arts. Women’s heads turned as he strode confidently along, his gaze firmly fixed ahead, a slightly worried look on his handsome chiselled features.
Back on the studio floor, Larry suddenly yelled, ‘Coming out of telecine in two minutes,’ thereby quelling even the faintest murmur of chatter and quiver of movement. The brightly lit actors braced themselves for the fray. The trick was to look and act perfectly naturally in a completely unnatural situation, the actor having to start exactly on Larry’s cue. In this instance, the responsibility lay with Geoffrey Armitage, an old hand at the game, who played Paul McMaster in the series, and Amy Brindle, a relative newcomer, who played Sophie, his receptionist, and who was learning fast.
Paul arrived at his destination and glanced up briefly with an air of ill-concealed pride at the name displayed above the premises. ‘McMasters’ it announced in discreet gold roman lettering on a very dark green ground. He paused for a moment to glance at the superb seventeenth-century Flemish painting that was the sole exhibit in the window, then pressed the intercom. A distorted voice responded immediately.
‘Good morning, sir.’ A buzzing sound indicated that he was given admittance.
‘Stand by, studio. Coming out of telecine in one minute!’ Larry’s voice was now lower both in volume and pitch, and had the effect of concentrating everyone wonderfully. His eyes were staring at the monitor.
