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I grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge and filled a glass with Mr. Beam to keep it company. After cobbling together a pastrami sandwich, I put it and a bag of chips on a footstool, picked up the copy of the Reporter, and leafed through it. I certainly don’t pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the Hollywood scene, but I try and keep up with who’s doing what to whom in the biz.

As I took a bite of the sandwich, my eye caught a story on one of the inside pages. The headline read: WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN SWIMMING POOL.

The story went on to say that Janice Ebersole, girlfriend of Mike Ford, had been discovered nude, floating in the actor’s Los Feliz swimming pool. It had happened last night. Police said the preliminary investigation was inconclusive. The victim apparently had slipped and struck her head on the edge of the pool. Death appeared to be from drowning.

My sandwich sat untouched in front of me. The story hit home. I knew Mike Ford. We had worked together years ago doing summer stock. Both of us had subsequently come to Hollywood, albeit a few years apart. We’d remained good friends, catching ball games together and enjoying the occasional poker night. He’d even provided me with employment a time or two over the years. A mere month ago, he’d invited me along on a trip to Magic Mountain with his daughter and Janice.

I picked up the remote and channel-surfed until I saw local news footage on the story. On the screen Mike was seen leaving his house on Nottingham and crawling into a black SUV. Reporters hounded him, but he had nothing to say. I was stunned. Mike was a great guy and a fine actor. He’d been handed a couple of good breaks and had capitalized on them to the point where he now commanded top dollar. He’d also gone on to direct some of his pictures. His success as an actor had even garnered a handful of awards, the most noteworthy being the little golden guy called Oscar.

The reporter tossed the story back to the studio and they went to commercial—another irritating shot of a couple sitting in separate bathtubs gazing into a sunset.

I nibbled on the pastrami sandwich, which tasted like Play-Doh. I sipped my beer and absentmindedly surfed through a few channels, finally landing on Turner Classic Movies. All of a sudden, coincidence exploded from the screen. There in front of me was William Holden floating face down in a swimming pool. The scene was from Billy Wilder’s classic, Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond’s delusion eventually led to the demise of Holden’s Joe Gillis.

As I listened to Holden’s voiceover, the similarities between reel and real life came cascading into my head. Art imitating reality? Not quite. Unlike Norma Desmond, Mike Ford hadn’t lost his senses. Of that I was certain. What he had lost was a girlfriend.