[StLee]

Today in the CBO

Settlements Today

by Nat Wright-Kowalski

11 August 2296 - Gilda Broscoe: A Movie Star in the Flesh; Well, Sort Of

In continuing this post due to our terminal restrictions on attaching photographs, I am now going to feature Gilda Broscoe, who was instrumental in not only the collection of these movies, but some of their backstories, too. It is noted that we do not have any notes as to whether or not what Broscoe said is true, but it seems that "Hollywood Gossip" was its own entertainment in the pre-War world.

Gilda Broscoe was a movie actress before the Great War. Today, she still lives, though she is no longer the beautiful redhead of the silver screen. Instead she had her brain transplanted into a robobrain, just like the body of John-Caleb Bradberton.


Gilda Broscoe - 2288 - There were no pictures of Broscoe available pre-war

Piper met Broscoe where she lives in Vault 118 beneath the Cliff's Edge Hotel on Mount Desert Island. Piper recorded information about Broscoe on a terminal. Piper noted that Broscoe mostly spoke about herself, but she did reveal a bit of gossip about some of the other stars in the Pre-War movies. Piper also noted that Nate Howard was present for the interview. Nate had mentioned he always had a "thing" for Broscoe, and he flirted with the robot like she was still the starlet of more than 200 years ago.
"That was . . . gross," Piper said. "Gilda Broscoe loved the attention, though."

We do not have any movie reels with Broscoe in them, but Piper did find out one tidbit of a movie we found where she was supposed to be the lead in Love Sets Sail. Another movie star whom we do have a movie reel of is Keith McKinney. Like Broscoe, he is in Vault 118, and he and Broscoe are a couple. McKinney starred in The Fightin's Furies: Last Stand at Fort McGee.

Piper's terminal entries below:

"Once a redhead with literal movie star looks, Gilda Broscoe was a famous actress before the Great War, acting in many movies. She also was in musicals when they were in fashion, such as The Beautiful Cigar Girl, Wagons on the Plain and A Woman of the Royal Navy. According to her, Gilda would have gotten the leading female role in Love Sets Sail!, but Vera Keyes got it instead due to her uncle being the producer; for this, she holds a grudge against Ms. Keyes. While on set, she was privy to many Hollywood scandals and rumors and attended lavish Hollywood parties. She first met Keith McKinney when they co-starred in the major movie Empire on the Nile; she played Cleopatra VII Philopator and Keith played Marcus Antonius Creticus. From then, she developed feelings towards him, though this was an unrequited affair as Keith is homosexual and still in the closet. However, she refuses to acknowledge the situation, believing it to be just part of the movie star life she chose. She even went as far as trying to convince Keith that the feelings he had towards Ezra were false. Because she was embittered, she occasionally sought out affairs of her own. She once had an affair with Santiago Avida for "a few dozen years," though speaks very lightly about it, mostly due to Santiago's obsessiveness, which she describes as even a little much for her. With such surroundings for the past two centuries, she is quite desperate for attention and open to an affair with the Sole Survivor.


Vera Keyes - a photograph

After Piper and Nate discovered Vault 118, they had a wild ride through pre-War elites and their perpetual lives before the fallout. Piper wrote, "Before the war, she along with the other denizens of Vault 118 were enticed by the privilege and exclusivity into accepting a paid spot in the vault by Ezra Parker. The deciding factor for her, however, wasn't the opulence, it was Keith's insistence, having fallen for Ezra's manipulations becoming its first investors. Unbeknownst to them, it was an experiment by Vault-Tec and a scam by Ezra. Although she was taken for quite a large sum of money from Mr. Parker, this had the side effect of saving them all from the experiments that would have been conducted.

"It was here that she and the rest of the residents of Vault 118 were convinced to extend their lives by both Doctor Bert Riggs and his wife Julianna using Dr. Riggs' robobrain research. This was successful, as she and the rest of the denizens of the vault survived for the next two centuries. However, this was not without its side effects; one cost not readily apparent was derangement. Although Doctor Riggs was able to solve the problem of the robobrains losing their identity in his development, he was not able to save their sanity. She, like the rest of her compatriots of Vault 118, lost their sense of time, and their isolation helped them lose their sense of reality. Already having a high opinion of herself, she believed that once the Sino-American War was over, she would be able to return to acting and usher in a new golden age of cinema. She, along with Keith, continued to practice their art long into the next few centuries.

"This was the state of things until Ezra was murdered in the vault. Before he was discovered dead, Gilda overheard Julianna Riggs argue with Ezra over the state of the vault. Although Keith's baseball bat was the murder weapon, she refuses to believe that Keith was the murderer."

For the record, Nick Valentine was brought in to complete the investigation, where he found Ezra was the actual murderer, having faked his death by murdering Julianna and then pretending to be her.

About McKinney, Piper wrote, "Keith McKinney used to be a famous Hollywood actor. Before the Great War, he was selected as a participant for the Vault 118 social experiment. He was then convinced by Bert Riggs and his wife to transfer his brain into a robobrain. Since the Great War, he has been the partner of Gilda Broscoe.


Keith McKinney - 2288

"He stars in the film The Fightin’ Furies: Last Stand at Fort McGee . . . as well as several unseen films titled Empires of the Nile and Dutch Diggers of Dusseldorf.Keith has a secret love for Ezra, but implies that Ezra already knows and ignores him."

McKinney was not interviewed by Piper. One thing that Piper is still seeking is another movie starring McKinney that she hopes to gift to Nate. That movie is Swing for the Fence. According to Piper, "Very little is known about the film, other than that it involved baseball, and that McKinney kept a prop baseball bat called Fencebuster from the movie in his room in Vault 118."


McKinney as one of the Fightin' Furies - movie artwork