The Greatest Star Of All

Once, you won't remember If you said Hollywood Hers was the face you’d think of Her face on every billboard In just a single week She'd get ten thousand letters Men would offer fortunes For a bloom from her corsage Or a few strands of her hair Today, she's half-forgotten But it’s the pictures that got small She is the greatest star of all Then, you can't imagine The way fans sacrificed themselves To touch her shadow There was a maharajah Who hanged himself With one of her discarded stockings She's immortal Caught inside that flickering light beam Is a youth which cannot fade Madame's a living legend I've seen so many idols fall She is the greatest star of all[JOE, spoken] When he'd gone, I stood looking out of the window a while There was the ghost of a tennis court with faded markings and a sagging net There was an empty swimming pool where so many silent movie stars of the past must have swum 10,000 midnights ago And there was something else The chimp's last rites, as if she were laying a child to rest Was her life really as empty as that?