Mick Boyle is about to have a heart attack. He has to scream, even though he cannot allow himself to, given his age and high blood pressure. “How dare you! Yeah, how dare you! You want to be clear? O.K., let’s be clear. If it wasn’t for me – who was, is and always will be a gentleman – you’d still be on your knees under the desks of those producers way back then. Fifty-three years ago I pulled you out of the boxer shorts of those flabby producers and made you a star.”

Brenda is incandescent. She also screams at the top of her voice. “You piece of shit! I was fine inside those boxer shorts! And you know why? Because I wanted to be there. I don’t have to thank anybody. I’ve done everything myself. I paid for the Actors Studio by cleaning every last john in Brooklyn. My mother went into debt for me. And I walked into Hollywood through the main gate thanks to me and myself alone. Marilyn, Rita and Grace all shit themselves when they saw me coming. It’s all there in my autobiography. You read it?”

“Yes, I have, unfortunately. But it wasn’t you who wrote it. And it was a crap autobiography, just like it’s a crap T.V. series you’re now off to do.”

Brenda gasps, as if struggling for air, and then surprisingly, she stops shouting. She is calm. She begins to talk quietly and this makes her even more pitiless than when she was screaming. “No, it’s your film that’s crap, Mick. I know the movies and you know I do. It’s you who doesn’t get it anymore, because you’re old, you’re tired, and you don’t know how to see the world anymore, because all you can see is your own death, waiting for you just around the corner. Your career’s over, Mick. I’m telling you straight because I’m fond of you. No-one’s interested in your last will and testament of a film and it risks wiping out all the decent films you made. And that would be inexcusable. It was only going to be made because I was in it. So I’m going to save your life by not being in it. And your dignity.”

Mick, exhausted, has no more strength. He manages a barbed whisper. “You’re ungrateful. Ungrateful and a moron. And that’s how you made your career.”

The insults no longer affect Brenda. Or perhaps she simply does not believe them to be true. Instead she stretches out a hand dripping with diamonds and does something out-rageous. With Mick on the verge of tears, she caresses his cheek and says, “Yes, Mick, that’s true. You’re right.”

Vengeful and full of venom, Mick hisses, “I’m going to make this film anyway. Even without you.”

Now Mick is crying. She continues to brush his cheek. “There, there, Mick, life goes on. Even without the bullshit movies.”

But Mick has lost heart, he puts his head in his hands.

And the last of the old Hollywood stars gets to her feet, straightens out the little creases in her dress, grabs hold of her thirty thousand dollar handbag and, with controlled regal poise, walks out of the hotel lounge.