The Brand
Former men's fashion model Craig Sorensen nonchalantly removed his Platinum Visa card from his Gucci wallet and handed it to the salesclerk at Saint Laurent, never expecting it to be declined.
"I'm sorry, sir, but this card didn't go through," the stylish young man behind the counter informed him.
"There must be some mistake. Can you try again?"
The salesclerk swiped the card a second time and received the same result.
"Do have another card you'd like to use? Or perhaps you'd prefer to pay with cash?"
"No," Craig replied, his face reddening with embarrassment. "I'm afraid I don't have any cash on me. I haven't had the opportunity to get to an ATM yet. I'll tell you what. I'll just come back for these things tomorrow after I've had a chance to straighten the matter out with my bank."
I've never been so humiliated, he thought as he left the shop on Beverly Hills' celebrated Rodeo Drive and headed for his Bugatti Chiron parked nearby.
It would be hard for most people to believe that he had never experienced humiliation before given that he was, quite frankly, a "kept" man. It could not be said that he was an actual gigolo because he had the benefit of a marriage certificate and wedding ring. Wed to an actress twenty-four years his senior, he could more aptly be described in the parlance of our day as a trophy husband.
The gated driveway to Dixie Fay's Hollywood Hills mansion was already in sight when Craig remembered his wife's last comment as he was leaving the house: "On your way home, will you be a dear and stop by the pharmacy?" After the incident with his credit card, he wanted to ignore her request.
Let her pick up her own damned sleeping pills! he thought angrily.
Then he recalled the words of his father, a notorious platitudinarian: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you, son."
Dixie's hand not only fed him; it also clothed him and put a roof over his head. Not wanting to jeopardize his only source of income, Craig turned the Bugatti around and headed back toward the pharmacy.
Twenty minutes later he returned to the mansion with the filled prescription and the latest issue of Celebrity magazine.
"Is that you, sweetheart?" Dixie called when she heard the front door open. Then without waiting for a reply, she asked, "Did you pick up my pills?"
"I've got them right here," he answered and walked into the living room where his wife was watching one of her old movies on television.
"You're such a sweetheart! I don't know what I'd do without you," she said, handing him her empty wineglass and expecting him to refill it.
"A funny thing happened to me today," Craig announced as he walked over to the bar, careful to keep any hint of annoyance out of his voice. "I stopped by Saint Laurent's to do some shopping, and my credit card was declined."
"I've been meaning to talk to you about that. It seems we're in a bit of a financial bind, and my accountant suggested we both tighten our belts."
"Why on earth are we having money problems? You made five million on your last picture."
"That was more than two years ago. How long do you think five million lasts in this town? Why, the expenses on this house alone are ... well, I don't know exactly how much they are, but they're quite high. Then there are the cars, the artwork, our clothes, servants' wages, taxes and God knows what other bills we have."
Having married a two-time Oscar winner, Craig had assumed money would never be a problem. It now seemed he was wrong.
"Your accountant says so, huh? Can you trust this guy? How do you know he doesn't have his hand in the till?"
"Don't be ridiculous! Dickie is an old and trusted friend of the family. He'd never cheat me. Besides, he's got more money that I'll ever have. He only takes care of my affairs as a personal favor. But you needn't worry. My agent is looking for another picture for me. Until then, we'll simply have to economize."
Craig turned his head to hide his frown. Dixie may have faith in her agent, but he knew good roles for women her age were rare and the competition was tough. Disheartened by the news of their ailing finances, he poured himself a drink and headed outside where he sat in a lounge chair beside the pool with his copy of Celebrity.
"Tighten our belts," he mumbled as he thumbed through the pages of the magazine. "Economize! What next? Clip coupons? Shop at Walmart? Why not just give me a weekly allowance while you're at it?"
Craig never believed in fate, destiny, karma or even in divine intervention. If events seemed to follow a predetermined pattern, he attributed it to mere coincidence. Thus, when he turned the page and saw an article on the amount of money earned by the estates of deceased celebrities, it never occurred to him that a force beyond his control had put that magazine in his hands at that very moment.
"Unbelievable!" he exclaimed as he read Forbes's list of the highest-earning celebrities in 2016. "Elvis Presley died forty years ago, and he earned $27 million last year! How the hell is that possible? John Lennon, gone since 1980, made $12 million. Prince, $25 million and Michael Jackson $825 million. It seems that celebrities are worth more dead than alive."
It didn't seem fair to him. Their heirs would never have to worry about money simply because of an accident of birth.
I'll bet Lisa Marie Presley and 'Blanket' Jackson will never have their credit cards declined, he mused with mounting bitterness.
Images began to flash through his brain. The look of pity on the salesclerk's face as he returned Craig's Visa card followed rapidly by the desperation in Dixie's eyes as she spoke of her next movie role, one that might never come. These two faces blended in with the photographs from the Celebrity article: Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Prince, David Bowie and Elvis Presley. The final image—the one that was to seal his fate—was of the bottle of sleeping pills he had picked up at the pharmacy.
* * *
"God helps them that help themselves" was another one of his Craig Sorensen's late father's platitudes. Unfortunately, in this case, if his son did choose to help himself, he would do so not only by biting the hand that fed him but by devouring his keeper altogether.
What should I do? Craig asked his reflection.
As he stared at his handsome face in the mirror, the forty-nine-year-old noticed the first signs of encroaching age. Despite the hair dye and the facelifts, his youthful sex appeal was slipping away. He never tried to kid himself; his physical appearance was his greatest asset. It always had been.
I have to see to my financial security before my looks are completely gone.
His choices were limited, however. The best hope for the future would be a revival of Dixie's career. Perhaps she would forget about movies and land a steady role in a television series. After all, Betty White was still going strong at ninety-five. There was also the possibility of his leaving his wife and looking for someone else to pay his bills, but finding another Dixie could be difficult, if not downright impossible. Besides, he might find a divorce difficult to obtain as well as expensive. He had no desire to cut off his nose to spite his face—another of his dad's favorite expressions.
There was a third option, one that required his taking the ultimate gamble. Craig would have to risk not only his comfortable position as the husband of a Hollywood actress but also his freedom, possibly his very life. Yet if the gamble paid off, he would have his own source of income and never have to rely on the generosity of an older woman again. It wouldn't matter if he got old.
I would be the one holding the purse strings this time, he realized. Why, I could even get myself a trophy wife.
It was the tantalizing thought of being married to a desirable young woman that tipped the scales in favor of his decision to put the entire bottle of sleeping pills into Dixie's nightcap.
The following morning, when Craig phoned the police to report his wife's death, the empty pill bottle was on the night table beside an empty wine glass, one he substituted for the glass that had contained the lethal drink.
When detectives questioned him as to Dixie's state of mind, the widower told them of the star's despondency over her waning career and her dwindling finances.
"My poor wife was always worrying about getting old and losing her looks," he added, pretending to hold back tears of grief. "I begged her not to get discouraged. I was sure something would turn up eventually. She was still an attractive woman, after all, and so talented."
With no evidence pointing to foul play, Dixie Fay's death was ruled a suicide.
Craig's relief at having gotten away with murder was negated by his discovery that his wife's finances were far worse than he had previously imagined. While he was the sole beneficiary of her estate, there was nothing to inherit but debts.
"You mean Dixie didn't even have a life insurance policy?" he asked Dickie, the accountant, as the two men discussed funeral arrangements.
"No, she didn't."
"What about the house? It must be worth several million."
"True, but it's heavily mortgaged. The best you can hope for is that when you sell it, you'll be able to pay off the other debts and break even. The same goes for the cars, artwork, jewels and furs. Dixie owned very little outright. Everything was financed."
Craig couldn't believe that he had killed the golden goose for nothing, that he would walk away from his marriage without a cent to his name.
"I don't know what to do. I'm ...."
Words failed to convey his misery.
"Look, Sorensen, I've always been very fond of your wife. I'll handle the funeral arrangements and take care of settling the estate. You'll be able to stay in the house for a couple of months, but my advice is to start looking for a job, a used car and a cheap place to live."
* * *
Three days after his wife was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Craig Sorensen was sitting beside the pool contemplating suicide by drowning when an unknown car pulled into the driveway.
Who can that be? he wondered.
His initial instinct was to ignore the visitor, but then, thinking it might be a realtor come about putting the house on the market, he answered the door.
"Hi, Mr. Fay, my name is Tammy Burleigh."
Craig was so captivated by the vivacious and beautiful redhead that he did not bother to correct her mistake in calling him by the wrong name.
"First, let me extend my sincere condolences for your loss. Your wife was an incredible actress, and I was a big fan of hers."
"Thank you. Won't you come in?"
"Second," Tammy continued after taking a seat opposite Craig in the mansion's formal living room, "I apologize for showing up on your doorstep at what must be such a difficult time for you."
"What can I do for you, Miss Burleigh?"
"Call me Tammy, please. And it's what I can do for you that brings me here, Mr. Fay."
"Fay was my wife's name. My name is Mr. Sorensen, but you can call me Craig."
"All right, Craig. I'm here about your late wife's estate."
"Did she owe you money, too?" the widower asked with a disgusted frown. "If she did, I'm afraid you'll have to stand in line."
"So the rumors are true? Your wife was in debt?"
"Excuse me if I sound rude, but what is your concern with my financial worries?"
"I'm here to hopefully make them go away. I'm a publicist—or rather I'm trying to be," the redhead admitted. "I just graduated from college this spring."
"And how do you propose to help me?"
"You think you didn't inherit much from your wife, right?"
"That's an understatement!"
"But you're wrong. You own the rights to her name and her image. You can go into a gift shop in Hollywood and see the likeness of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean on everything from tee shirts to coffee cups to cell phone cases. And the money from all that merchandising goes to the stars' estates."
Craig recalled Forbes's report that Michael Jackson's estate earned $825 million in 2016 alone.
"And you can help me earn money by having Dixie's picture on similar items?"
"Yes."
"Great. Where do I sign?"
"Hold on. It's not going to be that easy. Your wife was a great actress, but she needs something to set her apart from the others. James Dean was the young rebel who died a tragic death at a young age. Monroe was an international sex symbol who allegedly committed suicide, also at a relatively young age—and the gossip about her clandestine relationship with the Kennedys didn't hurt."
"Well, my wife's death was suicide, too," Craig said hopefully.
"That might help sell her brand, but ...."
"Her brand? What are you talking about?"
"Personal branding. A celebrity's brand is a marketable product just like a car, a breakfast cereal or a hamburger chain. Take Coca-Cola, for instance. A sweet, carbonated drink loaded with caffeine. It's high in calories, with little or no nutritional value, and yet put it in an iconic bottle and use clever advertising to peddle it to the public and you've got the number one bestselling soft drink in the world."
"So how do we sell Dixie as a brand?"
"First, you've got to reveal her deepest secret to the public."
"What secret is that?"
"She was madly in love with her former costar, Chet Langdale."
"What? I don't think she even liked him very much."
"Just listen. He was one of the hottest leading men of the Sixties and Seventies, and although he was married with four kids, he was a well-known womanizer. He also starred in three movies with your late wife. You are going to tell the world that not only did the two of them have a mad, passionate love affair, but that your wife became pregnant with Chet Langdale's child, who, sadly, died at birth."
"It's nothing but a lie."
"This is Hollywood. People will eat that kind of story up. Besides, neither one of them is alive to refute your claim. Come on. Take a chance. What have you got to lose?"
"Even if I agree to this harebrained scheme of yours, it will take time. I've got maybe a month or two before this house is sold and I'm turned out on the street."
"You can stay with me until the royalty checks start coming in," Tammy offered.
"You don't even know me," he said ironically. "I could be a murderer."
"That's true, but I plan on the two of us making a great deal of money together, so I'd like to start off by trusting you."
* * *
Over the next six months, Craig and Tammy carefully crafted the romance between Dixie Fay and her former costar, who fortuitously passed away a month before the actress took her own life. During that time, the widower and the fledgling publicist worked closely to manufacture a plausible scenario for the movie star's suicide.
"When your wife learned of Langdale's death, it brought back all the pain of their passionate but short-lived love affair," Tammy declared. "She could no longer bear living in a world without him."
"That doesn't say a whole lot about me," Craig complained.
"If you want to cash in on your wife's name, you'll need to forget the bovarism. Regardless of how you really see yourself and your role in your marriage, you have to be willing to admit publicly that you were little more than a boy toy to Dixie, a piece of arm candy who could run her errands as well as help assuage her loneliness."
Once their fabricated tale was fully formulated, Craig rehearsed his delivery for weeks. No actor ever prepared as hard for a role.
"You know your lines," the redhead announced over a spaghetti dinner in her apartment. "Now it's time to appear before the cameras and perform. I've booked you on Ellen."
"So soon?"
"We want to strike while the memory of your wife's death is still in the public's mind. The cable stations have already stopped featuring her movies, and the tabloids, for some reason, don't find her suicide scandal enough to sell papers."
Once Craig told Ellen DeGeneres's audience about his wife's tragic love for Chet Langdale, however, all that changed. The day after the show aired, reporters from People, Us Weekly, Vanity Fair and the supermarket tabloids clamored for an interview. Both E! and Reelz networks wanted to produce primetime television specials about the fictional romance. Not long after, Dixie Fay merchandise hit the market, and the money started pouring in.
"I suppose I can now afford to get my own place," Craig told Tammy as they celebrated the signing of a book deal with a night out on the town.
"I have a better idea," the redhead replied with an unspoken invitation in her smile. "Why don't we get a house together?"
Craig's eyebrows rose in surprise. He had no idea the gorgeous publicist was interested in him as anything other than a business client. Doing a quick mental calculation, he realized that the age difference between them was the same as the one that had existed between him and Dixie.
But this is different, he told himself. My late wife was my meal ticket. Tammy has her own career. She's not interested in me for my money.
Not long after Craig's book was released and Dixie Fay memorabilia began to saturate the dead celebrities market, the widower married the fledgling publicist. Was it a love match? Possibly. But it was definitely an ego boost for the middle-aged Romeo to have a beautiful young Juliet at his side.
* * *
"Have you seen this month's issue of Forbes?" Tammy asked her husband as he sat beside the pool of their Brentwood mansion, sipping a piña colada. "Dixie Fay made the list of the top-earning deceased celebrities."
"What number?"
"Ten, but I'm sure next year we can do better."
"Did she at least rank higher than Marilyn Monroe?"
"Monroe's not even on the list this year."
"Wouldn't Dixie have loved to hear that! She always had an inferiority complex when it came to Miss Monroe. Maybe it had something to do with my wife's image as a blond bombshell when her career began. Critics called her a poor man's Marilyn."
"Speaking of Dixie, I had an interesting phone call today. Chet Langdale's widow wants to hire me."
"Don't you find this all so amusing?" Craig laughed. "Now she also wants to make a buck on a relationship that never even existed. I hope you told her no."
"Why should I?"
"Because we did all the grunt work; that's why. We concocted the whole story. I peddled it from tabloid to tabloid and from one TV talk show to another. And let's not forget all those book signings I had to do! Give me one good reason why we should allow her to jump on the bandwagon now?"
"Not only will I make a good deal of money off her, but it will be a feather in my cap to land another major client. You see, I've decided to specialize in promoting dead celebrities. It's much more interesting and financially rewarding than sending out press releases for a movie studio or organizing public relations events for pop stars."
"Do you have the time to handle more clients?"
"I hired an assistant, a friend of mine from college."
"You did?" Craig asked with surprise. "This is the first I heard of it."
"You'll like him. In fact, he's coming over here tonight. We've got some urgent business to take care of. Speaking of which, I've got work to do."
"What about dinner?"
"Oh, I hope you don't mind. I stopped at the drive-thru on the way home."
"Hamburgers?" he asked with disappointment.
"You can't expect to eat steak and lobster every night, can you? Besides, I got you a chocolate milkshake. I know how much you like them."
A childlike smile came to his lips, revealing the dimples that his first wife had adored. When he was married to Dixie, he would never have dreamed of indulging in such a high-calorie beverage. He always had to watch his weight. Now a few extra pounds wouldn't matter.
Craig was just finishing up the heavily salted French fries when Stefan Kranz came to the door. The fact that his wife's assistant was young and handsome did not surprise him, neither was it cause for alarm. It was Hollywood, after all, and handsome young faces were the norm.
"Hi," he greeted Stefan from the kitchen table, not bothering to extend his hand.
Why should I shake hands with him? he reasoned. He's not a guest; he's hired help.
After Tammy and her assistant disappeared into the home office, he continued sipping his milkshake until the sound of air rushing through the plastic straw indicated the cup was empty.
Left alone to entertain himself, he headed for the home theater in the basement.
What do I feel like watching? he asked himself as he scanned the titles of available movies. Definitely not some chick flick. I have to watch enough of those with my wife. No Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Hanks either. Where's a good man's movie? One with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Vin Diesel or Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson.
After considering his choices, he opted for Dirty Harry.
"You can't beat Clint Eastwood with a .44 magnum."
Halfway through the movie, Craig's eyes became heavy, and he began to nod his head.
Why am I so tired? It isn't even eight o'clock yet.
Despite his best effort to remain awake, he soon closed his eyes and fell asleep. As the credits rolled on the large screen, he was awakened by the sound of his wife's voice.
"Is he ...?"
"Not yet," Stefan replied. "He's still breathing."
"What's ... going ... on?" Craig managed to utter.
"Nothing, darling," Tammy answered. "Just close your eyes and go back to sleep."
"You have the empty pill bottle and the water glass?" her assistant asked.
"Right here. Make sure to put them in his hand in case the police check for fingerprints."
Even in his state of exhaustion, Craig knew that his wife and her assistant planned on murdering him. Worse yet, they were using the same method he himself had used to kill Dixie Fay.
"Never ... get ... away ... with ... it."
"I think we will," Tammy argued. "When I tell the police that I found irrefutable proof you murdered your first wife and that I was going to turn you in, they'll understand why you would prefer to take your own life rather than go to jail or, worse, risk getting the death penalty."
There were tears in Craig's eyes as he asked his final question.
"Why?"
"You really need to ask?" the redhead said with cruel laughter. "For the money, of course. You ought to understand that. I created a brand, but you got most of the money while I got only a small percentage. It didn't seem fair to me. Then Stefan pointed out that if we were married, I would inherit it all should something happen to you."
Craig closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, never to wake again. In his final moments, he understood that Tammy and her lover had schemed to make a fortune on him from the beginning, and he had played right into their hands.
After Craig Sorensen breathed his last, his murderers finished staging the scene. As a final touch, his widow put on one of the movies Dixie Fay had starred in with Chet Langdale.
"When the tabloids get hold of this particular tidbit, it ought to increase the earnings of our brand even more!" she said with satisfaction.
Salem made himself a brand years ago. His image appears on everything from coffee cups to refrigerator magnets. With all this merchandising, he's almost as well-known as the Kardashians. (No comment!)
