DRY MARTINI
6 parts gin
1 part dry white vermouth
cocktail olives
ice cubes

Blend the alcohol and ice in a shaker, mixing until it frosts over. Serve in a cocktail glass. Garnish with an olive on a toothpick. Enjoy while listening to Frank Sinatra sing “Witchcraft.”

The origin of the martini is subject to debate. It was invented in 1870 in California. Some contend that it comes from San Francisco and was created by a barman named Martinez. Others believe it was first served in the city of Martinez, a small town also in California . Therein the distinctive name. The martini used to be sweeter, with components in equal parts. It became popular during Prohibition because of the relative ease in distilling gin.

The less vermouth used, the drier the martini. Winston Churchill believed that taking one look at a bottle of vermouth was enough. The olive provides the final touch. Perhaps it’s merely decorative, but to mixologists -- modern alchemists-- it’s what absorbs the evil spirits in gin.

The most well-known cocktail in the world. American par excellence, the symbol of soirées, style and class, the martini has been the drink preferred by stars, writers, and presidents: from Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Parker, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy to Luis Buñuel or Humphrey Bogart: some call it by the elegant nickname “silver bullet.” Its simplicity is what makes it so marvelous: only two ingredients are required to create something so sublime.

The last take of the day on a movie set is known as the “martini shot”. ©

He wasn’t as tall as he looked in his photographs, just slightly shorter than a palm tree. His voice wasn’t so deep either, just one notch lower than a lawn mower. The movie director puffed on a cigar the size of a rolling pin, perfuming the entire set. His face, underneath a Panama hat jammed down over his ears, carried the expression of a god looking down upon mere mortals. Seeing him, it occurred to me he reflected power, the kind possessed by those who run the movie business. And that’s the only power that matters.

The director gave instructions to his people: technicians, assistants, actors, producers, locals hired as extras and dozens of onlookers surrounding the cameras. A group working to make his dream, his film, a reality.

I felt sorry for them, soaked in sweat because of the enervating climate. I was drinking a martini so dry, it drove away the humidity. Richard Burton, who was sitting next to me, finished his. He ordered another. A double.

I asked myself which leg he stored all the booze in. He was carrying more fuel than the gas plant that powered electricity on the set. He’d spent so much time in the bar, he looked like they’d planted him there a hundred years ago. As long as they kept the drinks coming he’d stick around for a hundred more. His role in the film was that of an alcoholic minister. Given how much he drank, Richard Burton deserved an Oscar for his realism, not his acting.

A reporter with a face like a cockatoo’s asked him if it bothered Elizabeth Taylor to have to accompanied him to a remote Mexican town, among all the insects, snakes, tarantulas, mosquitoes and scorpions.

“She’s one tough cookie. But she’s Liz. Her walk is so dainty, she looks like a French tart,” he answered with his Scottish brogue while chewing on an olive, his lunch for the day.

I turned to look at the scene they were filming. It was a dialogue between Lolita and the God-fearing Woman. To me and to the rest of the world as well, Sue Lyon would always be Lolita, her most recent role. But she was more renowned for playing the lead in every man’s erotic fantasies. Her childish body, crowned with that wicked angel face, smelled of pederast sex so much you could almost expect twenty years of prison. But it was just a front. That chick was more baked than last year’s Christmas turkey.

I never liked Deborah Kerr’s acting. Now, as the God-fearing Woman, I liked her even less. She reminded me of my mother's side of the family. We have a saying in Mexico about people from Puebla, something to the effect of not touching them with a 10-foot pole because they're vermin. There's a kernel of truth to it.

Ava Gardner was the only one missing to complete a group photo of all the stars from the film The Night of the Iguana. This time, Gardner was playing a mature woman, a former lover of Richard Burton’s character, determined to have sex with all the macho men in town. To that end, Miss Gardner was in her bungalow rehearsing her role. She’d locked herself in with the crooner from a local bar. It would seem she’d found her motivation; her cries were so embarrassing that Gabriel Figueroa, the famous Mexican cinematographer, had to turn up the volume on his gramophone. The opera Carmen could be heard everywhere, seasoned by Miss Gardner’s climax and the cinematographer’s off-tune tenor warbling.

My boss, producer Ray Stark, watched me with a smile as if trying to tell me that this scenery built on Mismaloya beach was paradise. But I misread his eyes: They were welcoming me to hell.

All of the actors hated each other, and there was more sexual tension on the set than in a mixed-gender high school. The director was so sure they would end up killing each other that he’d had five golden pistols made, each with five silver bullets with a different name engraved on each one. Including the producer’s. The director was a cautious man, so he didn’t include a bullet with his own name. Even so, my boss, Mr. Ray Stark, seemed happy with everybody and everything. I didn’t know why he was happy with me. We were all so different, we must have descended from different apes. He’d done everything in his life, was famous and a millionaire. All he had left to do was write a book.

As for me, well, I didn’t know what I was yet. For that, you need an entire lifetime. I’m just a beatnik bloodhound by the name of Sunny Pascal. Half everything: half Mexican, half gringo, half alcoholic, half surfer, half dead, half alive. Someone who spoke half Español, mitad English.

And I was in hell.

Two days earlier, they’d found one of the silver bullets in a body so dead, that not even flies would settle on it. One of the actors had killed him. My job was to keep everyone out of jail. Let the dead dog lie.

A noise distracted everyone in the bar. A motorboat had arrived at the filming site of The Night of the Iguana. A glowing Elizabeth Taylor disembarked in a pink bikini. She was the spitting image of a woman who’d been excommunicated by the Pope for being a libertine. If she was the incarnation of sin, this was the juiciest flesh that had existed since Mary Magdalene.
Richard Burton, without releasing his glass, lusted at her outfit.

“See! Now she’s dressed like a French tart!” he told the reporter.

The gossip rag photographers didn’t stop shooting their cameras at the world’s most famous couple. I finished my martini looking out at the four-ring circus they’d put on.

The panorama of the Mismaloya set was truly beautiful from any angle: the mountains, the sea, the deserted beach, the dawns and sunsets framed by still virgin jungle vegetation. Too bad about the tangle of cables and lights. Modernity had overtaken this place, raping it like a tough sailor would an innocent girl.

The director stood next to me.

“Keep an eye on them, Sunny. There are more reporters in Puerto Vallarta than iguanas.” He threw his cigar into the sea, where tiny, listless waves crashed onto the rocks.

I didn’t say anything. Hardly anybody can say anything to John Huston.