The Lioness

An excerpt from The Hollywood Reporter reports on the wedding of actress Katie Barstow to gallery owner David Hill and lists those accompanying them on a safari for their honeymoon. The reporter notes that the group has nicknamed themselves “the Lions of Hollywood” and acknowledges Katie as the lioness of the pride (7).

Four days into their safari, Katie is watching giraffes at the watering hole. It is morning, and she anticipates that their group of nine will climb into the Land Rovers and take the day to drive to the next camp, pausing to watch the animals of the Serengeti. She reflects on a lioness with cubs that they saw the day before. She and David speak of the ranch they bought—Katie paid for it, as she earns more money than he does—and she wonders if he will want children. She doesn’t. Katie observes her brother, Billy, and reflects on how he was abused by their parents, who were involved with theater in New York City. Their father, Roman Stepanov, died a year ago, but he was less a father figure to Katie than her publicist, Reggie Stout.

Katie is enjoying the safari, with its crew of men from Kenya and Tanzania. Juma Sykes, their older guide, educates them on the animals they see. Their outfitter, Charlie Patton, is one of the last “great white hunters” but now leads photo safaris (13). David thanks Katie for bringing him; she paid for everyone to come. David was friends with Billy back in New York, and Katie reconnected with him when he moved to Los Angeles. They hear gunshots in the camp.

Back at the camp, David Hill witnesses the arrival of white men carrying guns.

A flashback reveals his history with Katie. The Stepanovs, Katie’s family, lived above the Hills in Central Park West. David knew Gloria Stepanov drank and would sometimes lock Billy in a closet. Katie began acting at age 12, and her mother obsessed over Katie’s career. David’s father works for the Office of Strategic Services, based in Washington, DC, but David doesn’t know exactly what he does for the CIA. He and Katie had dinner when he arrived in California, and he shared something his father had told him: “[D]on’t underestimate the Russians” (19). Katie explained why she had changed her name from Stepanov: The studio wanted something more “American” sounding. She talked of the animals to be seen in Africa, and when he mentioned the revolutions unfolding across the continent, she replied that the animals “don’t care about borders” (22).

Billy sees three white men approaching their camp. One shoots one of the Black rangers and orders the porter to lie on the ground. One of the men carries a gun meant to shoot elephants. Billy, who is now a therapist in Los Angeles, thinks of the flight to Africa and his hatred of flying.

On the plane, he recalled how Dag Hammarskjöld had died in a plane crash in Africa. Tanganyika and Zanzibar recently renamed themselves Tanzania, and this new country struck Billy as a safer place than the Congo, with its ongoing rebellion. His thoughts turned to his four-year-old son, Marc, and his ex-wife. He recalled a disastrous night when his and Katie’s mother, who was drunk, woke the children up after bedtime to try to take them trick-or-treating the night before Halloween. He felt the people in the building could see that his mother “was a toxic mixture of mania and gin” (29).

In the present, Juma, their guide, hurries the Americans into the Land Rovers. He is driving the one holding Billy and his wife, Margie, who is pregnant, along with Terrance Dutton, Katie’s Black co-star and friend, and Katie and David. Billy thinks, “They [are] running away like terrified zebras, racing like impalas that had spotted a lion” (30). One of the attackers shoots out a tire, and when Juma exits the vehicle, hands raised, the man shoots him with the elephant gun.

The Hollywood Reporter excerpt notes that Charlie Patton, the safari guide, used to work with hunters like Ernest Hemingway.

Benjamin, one of the porters, watches from the ground as the white man shoots Juma. Benjamin wonders where Charlie is. Benjamin’s father once worked for him as a gunbearer. Benjamin’s father would take him to the movies on his birthday. When Benjamin saw the movie Barabbas, he compared its depiction of the crucifixion to the painting in the Catholic Church in his town; the painting included an African witch doctor in the background.

Benjamin has found Katie Barstow an undemanding client; she didn’t fuss when there was a leak in the canvas tub that was supposed to provide her bath. She also knows the names of the staff. At one point, Benjamin realized that he’d seen a movie with Terrance Dutton, who spoke to him of the work his parents did in Memphis, Tennessee. Dutton was watching a bird, a purple grenadier, and asked Benjamin not to call him bwana. Benjamin is shocked when Juma is shot.

Hearing Felix, the husband of actress Carmen Tedesco, whimpering, Reggie recalls being in Okinawa in 1945. He thinks that the men kidnapping them are Russian. Charlie has brought guns along because Katie’s agent, Peter Merrick, is planning to stay an extra week to hunt.

Reggie was surprised but pleased when Katie invited him on the safari. One of their early walks gave him a chance to chat with Carmen, who surprised Reggie with her intelligence and sense of humor. Reggie asked one of the rangers with them if he had climbed Kilimanjaro, and the ranger said that he had given up at 18,000 feet due to altitude sickness. Carmen mentioned Hemingway’s story, and the ranger asked if she had read Chinua Achebe. Now, with all of them on the ground, Felix starts vomiting, and the ranger Reggie spoke with is killed when he tries to fire at the attackers.

The Hollywood Reporter relates an anecdote about Carmen being stuffed into a locker by her ninth-grade cheerleading team.

As she watches the shootings, Carmen thinks of the Hemingway story with Margot Macomber, a woman who realizes that her husband is pathetic. Carmen also recalls the movie Hanging Rock, where she and Katie met. The women are the same age, and both grew up on the West Coast; Carmen saw Katie perform once in the theater. Carmen isn’t a top actress, but she’s glad for the roles she has. She recalls how Felix tried to ingratiate himself with her father when they met by name-dropping Clayton Moore, who played the Lone Ranger, and whom Carmen’s father had worked with. Felix can’t seem to help but boast that his father is an A-list director. Carmen hadn’t thought that was the man she married, but now she is disgusted by his reaction to the crisis.

Terrance Dutton is known in Hollywood for being outspoken, and he has been involved in the civil rights movement. Terrance considers their captors and doesn’t think that they’re like the racist white Southerners he’s met. One of the men is now driving their Land Rover, and a guard sits in the back seat. Terrance feels angry and wonders, “Was there no place in the world where he wasn’t going to—in this case, quite literally—have to fight to survive?” (58). He reflects that he never again wants to film in the American South and recalls how his family had a pet dog that someone killed when he was young. He was a good artist as a young man, but his work was never displayed because he was Black.

Terrance recently received death threats when the press learned he was invited to Katie and David’s wedding. Katie once went with Terrance on a freedom ride, the only one of his friends who did so. There was a scene in their movie Tender Madness where he and Katie kissed, but the studio knew it was too controversial to include in the movie. Terrance went alone to Katie’s wedding and felt “absolutely invisible and an awkward, flagrant outsider” at the reception (63). He tries talking to the guard in the Rover, who tells him to stop talking. Terrance watches the elephants watch them pass.