Chapters (64)
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- CHAPTER1
- CHAPTER2
- CHAPTER3
- CHAPTER4
- CHAPTER5
- CHAPTER6
- CHAPTER7
- CHAPTER8
- CHAPTER9
- CHAPTER10
- CHAPTER11
- CHAPTER12
- CHAPTER13
- CHAPTER14
- CHAPTER15
- CHAPTER16
- CHAPTER17
- CHAPTER18
- CHAPTER19
- CHAPTER20
- CHAPTER21
- CHAPTER22
- CHAPTER23
- CHAPTER24
- CHAPTER25
- CHAPTER26
- CHAPTER27
- CHAPTER28
- CHAPTER29
- CHAPTER30
- CHAPTER31
- CHAPTER32
- CHAPTER33
- CHAPTER34
- CHAPTER35
- CHAPTER36
- CHAPTER37
- CHAPTER38
- CHAPTER39
- CHAPTER40
- CHAPTER41
- CHAPTER42
- CHAPTER43
- CHAPTER44
- CHAPTER45
- CHAPTER46
- CHAPTER47
- CHAPTER48
- CHAPTER49
- CHAPTER50
- CHAPTER51
- CHAPTER52
- CHAPTER53
- CHAPTER54
- CHAPTER55
- CHAPTER56
- CHAPTER57
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Books by Jonathan Kellerman
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Once on the set, Rumples caught the eye of a female assistant director. The following day he’d moved into her Venice apartment. Weeks after that, he traded up to the Encino compound of her boss, the male director. Months later he was the toy of a studio executive with a spread in Bel Air who got him an agent. That led to a speaking part in a dog food commercial. The spot sold a lot of kibble and Donald scored a speaking part in an action film and a legal name change. His face and physique were adored by the camera and if he had enough time he could memorize a few lines.
The action flick was marketed to teenage boys but women loved it and marketing surveys revealed the reason: “strong but sensitive” black-haired, black-eyed Ranger Hemos, played by Donny Rader. A curious slurred delivery that would have been judged clumsy in a homely man was labeled sexy by legions of female admirers.
One of those admirers was Prema Moon, now thirty-four and an established star. She summoned the younger man with the strangely appealing mumble to her compound off Coldwater Canyon. Donny had just begun living with his last costar, a sweet-tempered B-list actress with the IQ of adobe. Prema couldn’t have cared less about prior commitments. In what People termed “a disarming burst of candor” she described the courtship as “the boy was fresh meat. I swooped down like a raptor.”
Donny moved to the estate. Bigger and better roles came his way. Two years into their relationship, he and Prema were each pulling twenty million a picture and lending new meaning to the term “power couple.” Paparazzi got rich peddling candid shots of the duo. Donny and Prema took it to the next level, costarring in three pictures. Two stylish comedies tanked but the dystopian sci-fi epic Wizardine grossed north of two billion internationally.
At age thirty-seven, Prema Moon announced her desire for a quieter life, adopted an orphan from Africa and two from Asia, became the spokesperson for a slew of human rights organizations, caused diplomats to squirm as their shorts rode up when she addressed the U.N. in her trademark sultry voice.
At forty, she added a baby girl to her “tribe.”
Donny Rader, ten years his wife’s junior, dropped out of the limelight.
The couple’s net worth was rumored at three hundred million. Everyone figured they’d resurface. A hack at The Hollywood Reporter termed them “far greater than the sum of their parts,” and dubbed them Premadonny.
The sobriquet stuck. How could it not?
Milo said, “CAPD, Creative Aura of Prema and Donny. Sounds like something you’d doodle while zoning out in class.”
I said, “Along with goofy drawings of rocket ships. Robin’s source says it used to be one of their holding companies but it got dissolved, something to do with changes in the tax code.”