Close-Up [antikvár]

The heavy blue notepaper crackled as the man signed his name.The signature was an actorvs: a dashing autograph, biggerby far than any of the text. It began well, rushing forwardboldly before halting suddenly enough to split the supply ofink. Then it retreated to strangle itself in loops. The sur-name began gently, but then that too became a complex ofarcades so that the whole name was all but deleted by well-considered decorative scrolls. The signature was a diagramof the man.Marshall Stone. It was easy to recognize the hero of LastVaquero, the film that had made the young English actorfamous in 1949. He'd sat at this same desk in the last reel,reflecting upon a wasted life and steeling himself to face thebullets. For that final sequence he'd required two hours* workon his face. Now he would not need it.A lifetime of heavy make-up had ravaged his complexion sothat it needed the expensive facials with which he provided it.Around his eyes the wrinkles were leathery and the skin acrosshis cheeks and under his jaw was unnaturally tightened. Theshape of his face and its bone structure would have littleappeal to a portraitist, and yet its plainness could be changedby the smallest of pads, tooth clamps or hairpieces, or by a dabof colour over the eyes or a shadow down the bone of the nose.Just the blunt military moustache, grown for his latest role,ensured that some of his dearest fans and nearest friendsneeded a second look to identify him.Nor had the ageing process provided Stone with morecharacter. Like many of his contemporaries, he'd grown his