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Summary
Evelyn Hugo Divorces Harry Cameron, to Marry Director Max Girard
This 1982 article in Now This says that Evelyn divorced Harry after 15 years of marriage claiming that they’d been separated for a while. The article notes that she’s also marrying Max and wonders if this sixth marriage will be the key to happiness for Evelyn.
Chapter 52
Evelyn and Max marry in Joshua Tree. After the ceremony, Max talks about Evelyn’s future as an action film star. Evelyn feels relieved to be with Max given that she feels like Celia will never come back. In the morning, Max asks to leave early. While on the plane, he can’t stop talking about the press photos of them together and of Evelyn’s fame. It breaks Evelyn’s heart that he is so fixated on her public image and not on her as a person. She says Max is in love with the idea of her.
Chapter 53
Evelyn believes her time in Hollywood is ending because she is older. She would rather stay home with Harry and Connor instead of going to the Academy Awards. When Celia wins an Oscar for playing Lady Macbeth, she alludes to Evelyn chipping her tooth when she kissed the tv screen all those years ago. Evelyn is moved. She writes Celia a letter congratulating her, and they begin a correspondence. Celia apologizes and confesses that she still thinks about Evelyn even though they haven’t spoken for a decade. Celia stops responding when Evelyn tells Celia that her relationship with Max isn’t a publicity stunt.
Chapter 54
Evelyn and Celia talk on the phone. Evelyn tells Celia she doesn’t love Max and that she’s ready to give up acting and the spotlight to be with her. Celia agrees to meet her for dinner. Just as Evelyn is about to fly to Los Angeles to meet with Celia, Max finds the romantic letters between Evelyn and Celia and threatens to out Evelyn if she leaves him. Evelyn goes anyway. She says she’s leaving him no matter what. Evelyn leaves to go meet Celia, whom she calls the love of her life.
Chapter 55
At dinner, Celia and Evelyn talk about getting back together. Evelyn insists she’s ready to give it all up for Celia, and Celia pushes back. Evelyn could lose Connor if she comes out as gay. Evelyn says she feels like she can’t win with Celia. Celia relents but then tells Evelyn that she’s dying of emphysema and that she has about a decade left to live. Evelyn begins to cry. Celia asks Evelyn if she can handle getting back together only to lose her again forever. Evelyn says she can’t handle it, but she wants to do it anyway. They go home and sleep together.
The next morning, Celia comes up with a plan. Celia wants to move to Spain with Evelyn to live out her last years on the beach. She says Evelyn should pretend to have an affair with a much younger man to get in the papers. She says no one will believe anything Max says if they think he’s jealous of the younger man. Then, Evelyn will marry Celia’s brother Robert so that everything Celia owns will go to Evelyn when Celia dies. Evelyn is impressed at Celia’s scheming. Evelyn and Celia feel like they are finally home together.
Evelyn Hugo and Max Girard Divorce Turns Ugly Amid Reports of Hugo Cheating
This 1982 article in Now This says that Evelyn is cheating on Max with a young congressman who is more than 20 years younger than her. It dismisses Max’s rumors that Evelyn is a lesbian as sour grapes because he’s so heartbroken about their divorce.
Chapter 56
Harry resists the idea of moving to Spain because he doesn’t want to uproot Connor’s life or stop working. Connor, now a teenager, pulls away from Evelyn, and though Evelyn wants to spend time with her, she finds it more pleasant to be with Celia in Los Angeles.
Harry reveals that he has met a new romantic interest. He wants Celia to marry the man he’s seeing so that the four of them can be together with Connor in Los Angeles. Evelyn is happy for Harry, who thought he couldn’t love again after John died. Evelyn tells Harry she wants to stop acting. Harry and Evelyn tell each other how much they love each other.
Later, Evelyn comes upon a car crash and finds Harry and another man inside, injured and bleeding. Evelyn and her driver Nick help Harry out of the car and Evelyn tries to revive Harry. She can smell the alcohol all over him. Nick says the other man is dead. Evelyn instructs Nick to put the other man in the driver’s seat to make it look like it was his fault. She wants to protect Harry from manslaughter charges and her family from public scrutiny. Evelyn takes Harry to the hospital, where he dies. Evelyn offers Nick, an aspiring actor, the opportunity to become famous in exchange for his silence.
Producer Harry Cameron Has Died
This 1989 article in Now This article is Harry’s obituary.
Wild Child
This 1989 article in Now This article describes an unnamed 14-year-old, a daughter of a star, and her descent into partying. It’s clear the article is about Connor.
Chapter 57
Because of the trouble that Connor has been getting into, Evelyn decides she needs to leave town. Celia suggests Aldiz in Spain. She asks Evelyn if she’s ready to be unknown there, and Evelyn says she can’t wait. Evelyn tells Connor that she was retiring from acting, in a relationship with Celia, and marrying Robert for legal and public reasons. Connor, deep in grief, says she doesn’t care and just wants to be left alone.
Chapter 58
Back at the interview, Evelyn’s eyes are filled with tears. Monique praises her for telling a hard story. Evelyn tells her not to say she admires her and that by tomorrow Monique will know who Evelyn really is.
Analysis
Though Evelyn has experience in enduring men’s misperceptions of her and using them to her advantage, she is truly hurt when she finds out that Max fell in love not with her, but with the image she created for the public. Because of her creative partnership with Max and their two decades of friendship, Evelyn believes Max truly loves her and is heartbroken to discover that she’s married someone who objectifies her and sees her as Evelyn Hugo the film legend rather than Evelyn the person. Both Don and Max, the two husbands that Evelyn marries for romantic love rather than publicity, struggle to see Evelyn as a person outside the glare of her fame and beauty.
As Evelyn confronts mortality, she loses interest in performance both on- and off-screen. Evelyn’s confrontation with her perceived loss of beauty coincides with the death of her career and a reorganization of her priorities. In wanting to skip the Academy Awards, Evelyn reflects that she values time with her family more than time in the spotlight. When Evelyn reunites with Celia and learns that Celia is terminally ill, her transformation deepens and she begins to let go of her tight grip on her reputation. In doing so, she tells Celia she doesn’t care if she’s outed. The fact that she can’t stop crying in public suggests that she cares more about Celia than controlling her image. This is the level of devotion Celia has always wanted in their entire relationship. Confronting mortality lifts the veil for Evelyn. The illusory prizes she’s been striving for her whole are meaningless in the face of her lover’s impending death, and Evelyn realizes that love and family are far more important than fame and fortune.
Nick serves as Evelyn’s foil and emphasizes how much the pursuit of fame has cost her. Nick is self-focused, driven, and opportunistic, much like Evelyn was when she was a young actor just starting out in Hollywood. He participates with Evelyn in the terrible act of framing James for the car accident and sells his silence to Evelyn for the promise of fame, thereby indirectly profiting from Harry’s and James’s deaths. Evelyn, observing Nick’s drive and arrogance in the midst of her own grief, feels weak and exhausted. She recognizes that her younger self might have seen something to admire in Nick’s ruthlessness, and this throws into relief how much she has changed. Just before Harry dies, she has it in her mind to tell Nick how much fame costs. Through her interactions with Nick, Evelyn gains a deeper understanding of what truly matters to her.
