Mira said no.
She drove back to Vegas and gave Corky a hard drive with the final cut. He watched it on his laptop in the back of the storage locker, surrounded by the guts of a 1950s Wurlitzer. When the credits rolled, he didn’t speak for a long time.
Mira set up her camera. She didn’t ask about Buddy’s affairs or the network backstabbing. She asked about the cake. -GirlsDoPorn- 18 Years Old -Episode 359- SD --N...
“It smelled like burnt vanilla and mold,” Corky said. “Every Thursday for three years. The first time, I was twelve. The last time, I was fifteen and I’d grown four inches. My knees hit the inside of the cake. I heard Buddy tell the producer, ‘The kid’s too tall. The pop is losing its pop.’ The next week, they replaced me with a trained parrot who could say ‘I like Ike.’”
The documentary premiered at a small theater in Silver Lake. Twenty-three people attended. One of them was a development executive from a streaming giant who offered Mira seven figures to turn it into a six-part series with reenactments and a celebrity narrator. Mira said no
The living legends refused. “Too soon,” said one geriatric producer who hadn’t had a credit since 1998. “I’ve already sold my memoir,” said another. So Mira went deeper. She chased the footnote. The sound guy. The cue card holder. The third assistant to the bandleader’s tailor.
He didn’t say a word. He just nodded.
“Too many people trying to be the cake,” Corky said. “Not enough people willing to be the kid who climbs inside.”
He turned off the jukebox, and for the first time in the interview, he smiled. Not a show-business smile. A real one. Mira left her camera running. When the credits rolled, he didn’t speak for a long time
Then he said, “You know what the problem is with the entertainment industry?”