Marabelle, p.33
Marabelle, page 33
I got the bobby pins, three slender white cardboard sheets with pins inserted in gleaming black rows. Bobby pins, like nylons, were worth their weight in gold these days. I staggered out of the department, straightened my tie and, locating a pay telephone nearby, dialed Marabelle’s number. I had to wait an inordinately long time before she answered in that startling baritone voice.
“May I speak to Miss Lawrence?” I said.
“This is Miss Lawrence, you son of a bitch, and you damn well know it, I’m getting weary of all these jokes about my voice. What the hell are you doing in New York, darling, and how long will you be here?”
“I had to come in to get some very important papers signed by a very important general who’s just flown in from Washington and is staying at the Plaza Hotel on taxpayers’ money, the best suite, naturally, he’s got at least three stars. I don’t have to be back at the base until tomorrow afternoon. There’s not time to get to Connecticut to see Julie and Robin so I thought I’d—”
“Darling, that’s marvelous, get your attractive little ass over here at once, I haven’t seen you in months and I’ve never seen you in uniform, Eddie, I’m dying to. You’ll spend the night, of course, I wouldn’t hear of you checking into a hotel, you couldn’t get a room anyway, darling, it’s impossible unless you’re on a priority list or something, I’m always taking people in, last week there were cots in the hall but tonight there’ll just be you and me, darling, and you can tell me all about those divine training films you and Frank have been making on Long Island. I saw the one on VD, darling, did you actually write that?”
“It happens to be one of my best scripts.”
“All those close-ups, darling. I won’t be performing tonight. Pandora finally closed, it was wildly successful and still selling out but enough’s enough, how long can you play a Park Avenue sophisticate who goes to work in a parachute factory in New Jersey? I start rehearsing the new play next week, it’s an update of Dulcy, actually, I play a marvelously rowdy actress who goes to stay with her brother in Washington, he’s a bigwig at the Pentagon and I wreak havoc among the military brass, darling. There’re some tremendously funny lines and it’s wonderfully patriotic, I give up my fur coat in the last act and join the WAVES.”
“It sounds like a winner,” I said dryly.
“What I’m trying to tell you, darling, if you’d shut up for half a minute, is that I don’t have to go to the theater tonight but I do have to go to the Canteen and you can tag along, we can always use an extra pair of hands in the dishwater, Kate and Dennis will be delighted. Get on over here and I’ll give you a Coke, darling, I’ve given up liquor for the duration, publicly vowed I wouldn’t touch another drop until our boys come home, you can’t get decent Scotch anyway. It’s what, four-thirty? We’ll have plenty of time to chat, I don’t have to be at the Canteen until eight or so—”
“I have an appointment with the general at six, Marabelle. I’m not sure how long it’ll take. It shouldn’t take over five minutes but you never know, if they have more than one star they have to maintain their sense of importance and keep people waiting.”
“Don’t I know it, darling. When I was traveling all over the country, selling War Bonds, I had to deal with those people, I sold millions of dollars’ worth, darling, the only celebrity who did better was poor darling Carole. She sold over two million the night before the plane crash, F.D.R. awarded her a posthumous medal as the first woman to be killed in action in defense of her country, but you know that, of course. I cried buckets, darling. Carole was an example for us all. I only wish I could do more.”
“We all feel that way, Marabelle,” I said. “Listen, if I don’t get through with the general in time I can—”
“Marlene is bumping all over Europe in a jeep, wearing fatigues and dropping into foxholes and eating chow with the boys and singing “La Vie en Rose” in pup tents, they actually fired on her once, the jerries, I mean, and Gertie landed on Normandy beach with Ivor and Bobby and Diana Wynyard, they’re over there at this very moment, boosting morale. I begged the USO to let me go over and sing for the boys, darling, and do you know what the son of a bitch in charge said, he said, ‘My dear Miss Lawrence, we want to encourage the boys, not depress them.’ Clarissa is driving an ambulance in London, gave up Hollywood to go back to her beloved England in its hour of need, I feel so useless.”
“If I don’t get through with the general in time I’ll go directly to the Canteen and meet you there, is that all right?”
“That’ll be fine, darling, she has a divine tailored uniform and wears a gas mask hooked to her belt and is absolutely fearless, dodging bombs and pulling the wounded out of bomb craters and giving patriotic talks on the BBC, she’s a certified heroine, darling, risking her life daily and—Eddie, darling, what is that noise I keep hearing in the background, have the Japs finally landed?”
“I’m calling from Macy’s. They’re selling bobby pins today. I’d better get off the phone, Marabelle.”
She kept right on talking, of course, but I finally managed to get “Good-bye” in edgewise and hung up the phone and made my way out of the store. My driver was waiting patiently on Thirty-fourth Street, leaning against the hood of the olive green sedan. He snapped to attention and saluted and I told him to be at ease. He was a lanky, freckled youth from Kansas with straw-colored hair, thoroughly discontented with his job. He felt it unmanly to be driving Hollywood Big Shots to and from New York while his buddies were getting themselves killed in the Pacific, and I sympathized with him. I wasn’t blissfully happy writing propaganda and training films in a snug office on Long Island, but Frank Capra had requested my services, and I told myself I was making as important a contribution as I would have had I been marching through the mud in Europe or plowing through jungles in the Philippines.
“The Plaza, Davis,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
I climbed into the front seat beside him, which invariably made him nervous, but I couldn’t bring myself to loll in the back seat like some pompous official, military custom be damned. Private Davis drove with great caution, no doubt wishing he were in a jeep driving down a steamy jungle road mined by the enemy. I wondered what Julie was doing. Today was Saturday. She’d be at the airplane factory in overalls and steel and glass helmet, soldering iron in hand. She worked all day on Saturdays while a plump fifteen-year-old bobby-soxer took care of our son, worked from ten to four on weekdays while Robin attended school. On Sundays she rolled bandages and gave impassioned speeches about hoarding, leading newspaper drives in her spare time. She was an inspiration to everyone who knew her, and I was very proud of her. We were damned lucky. I got to Connecticut at least once a month, spending most of my time hauling newspapers around in the station wagon or pulling weeds out of the Victory Garden with Robin underfoot.
“Here we are, sir,” Davis said.
Lost in thought, I was startled to see that we had already reached the Plaza. Davis leaped out and scurried around to open the door for me. I gripped the briefcase that contained the papers and frowned when I saw the bobby pins, wondering if I should put them in the briefcase or ask Davis to take charge of them. I finally sighed and slipped them into my jacket pocket.
“Want I should wait, sir?” Davis asked.
“No, I plan to spend the night in the city. Take the car on back to the Motor Pool and then enjoy yourself. Have some beers. See a movie. Find yourself a girl.”
Davis actually blushed. I grinned.
“Want me to come back for you tomorrow, sir?”
“That won’t be necessary, Davis. I’ll get back to the base on my own steam. You’re relieved of duty for the rest of the weekend.”
We exchanged salutes and I went on into the lobby to wait. At five minutes to six I had the desk clerk phone the general’s room to announce me. The general informed the desk clerk that he would phone the desk when he was ready to see me. I settled back in my chair for another wait, watching the people in the lobby. A mournful-looking sailor walked over to the desk with a sad-eyed brunette who had a high pompadour, an orchid pinned to the lapel of the gray cloth coat she wore over her print dress. The sailor inquired about a room. The desk clerk shook his head. The girl with the pompadour began to cry quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks as they left the lobby. Years of writing Hollywood screenplays enabled me to run their story in my mind.
She was his childhood sweetheart and this was his last day on shore and she had come all the way from Cincinnati to spend it with him. She had cried when he gave her the orchid. They had lunched in an expensive restaurant and she looked into his eyes and realized she might never see him again and he realized the same thing, and she said let’s get married, let’s do it right now and they found a justice of the peace—never mind the formalities, blood tests, so on, this is Hollywood—and now they couldn’t find a room. Joan Leslie would play the girl, of course, Lon MacAllister the sailor, and in the last reel a brittle society woman in fox furs and chic hat (Agnes Moorehead) would see their plight, scowl and give them her suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. Fade-out and swelling Max Steiner score as they look out the window at the cold, heartless city and then look into each other’s eyes and embrace tenderly, very tenderly, Joan’s not old enough for real passion.
Jesus, I thought, Warner Brothers would snap it up in a minute.
The tedium of army life and the boredom of writing training films had caused me to lapse into mental scenarios of late, a habit I needed to break. Julie suggested I do something sensible, another novel, for example. I had constant access to a typewriter, reams and reams of army-issue paper on hand and, not being one to stalk the girls who worked at the PX or swap lies with fellow officers at the Officers’ Club, I had plenty of time on my hands in the evenings. Writing a novel might help pass the time, but I would have felt guilty doing something profitable when I was, in fact, still young enough to have my balls shot off in combat. The novel would have to wait and I would have to work twice as hard to convince myself that doing scripts about tanks and tents and venereal disease was a valid contribution to the War Effort.
It was after seven before the general called down for me. The door to his suite was opened by a blonde in dark blue jersey who looked exactly like Lana Turner, but then all blondes looked like Lana these days, the lipstick, the hairdo, the pout. The general was even more brusque and officious than I had expected. I knew the type well, hell on his men, hell on the ladies, drunk on power, relishing the luxury of rank. He’d never be without Scotch. His wife would never need nylons. The blonde in blue jersey was definitely not his wife, but that was a scenario I had no interest in writing. He cleared his throat and scowled at the papers and eventually condescended to sign them, making quite a show of it. His signature meant official approval which meant we could go ahead with the film on Japanese prison camps which meant several more months of tedium producing propaganda for the troops.
The general told me that you men are doing a fine job, a damn fine job, and then, to prove that he was democratic, asked if I would have a drink. I refused politely and the blonde looked disappointed for some reason and the general said you men are doing important work, damn important work, and I put the papers back in the briefcase and took my leave. It was cool and crisp outside, with a promise of snow in the air, but I decided to walk anyway. There was an intense, invigorating feeling on the streets, the noise, the color, the bustle somehow heightened by wartime, and there was a friendliness, too, not unlike that at a football game with everyone rooting for the same team. We’re all Americans and we’re all in this together and we’re going to win, by golly, buckle down.
The streets were swarming with servicemen, noisy, rowdy, pink-cheeked lads having a roistering time with their girls, hearty lasses in snoods and shoulder pads and platform shoes with ankle straps, lasses liberated by the war and giving their all. Couples spilled out of the movie theaters and bars and arcades, and most of the boys were tipsy, drunk with excitement as much as beer, out on the town for maybe the last time. Reaching the theater district, I studied the marquees. Celeste Holm in Bloomer Girl, Josephine Hull in Harvey, Mady Christians in I Remember Mama were all enormous hits, but light comedies featuring servicemen prevailed: Dear Ruth, Soldier’s Wife, Snafu, The Voice of the Turtle, Over 21.
I smiled to myself, remembering an anecdote about the latter. Dorothy Parker’s husband had had a difficult time in Officers’ School because he couldn’t learn as quickly as the younger men. Dottie had coached him, and Ruth Gordon had taken the premise and written Over 21, which prompted Dottie to say she’d never write a play about herself because Ruth would sue her for plagiarism. I suddenly remembered a party Marabelle and I had attended in the twenties, both of us painfully young. Dorothy Parker had been there and—yes, that was the night Marabelle did her imitation of Mabel Hampton. It seemed so very long ago, and so much had happened since that night. I was going to become a great writer. I hadn’t. Marabelle was going to become a great actress. She had, instead, elected to become a great personality.
Thinking of what she had done to herself these past three years, I grimaced. From These Roots had finally brought her the recognition she deserved as a superb actress. It had run throughout 1939, and then she had taken it on tour. Her position in the theater was unassailable and had been reinforced by her next play, a bizarre philosophical farce about Woman through the ages, in which she played twelve different roles, dazzling audiences and wowing the critics. Infinite Variety had run almost as long as the Bradshaw play, and then, instead of waiting for another suitable vehicle, she had thrown herself into a series of rowdy comedies in which she played Marabelle Lawrence, squandering her talents and becoming a gigantic box-office attraction. Her name assured success, and she had been in some incredible atrocities, most of them SRO as long as she chose to continue in them. She was wildly flamboyant, larger than life, and audiences loved her, but the Great Actress had fallen by the wayside.
Snow began to fall in light flurries as I turned on West Forty-fourth, and I quickened my step, hurrying toward the large round globe burning over a doorway and announcing the STAGE DOOR CANTEEN. The American Theater Wing had established the center for enlisted servicemen at the beginning of the war and promised that the globe would continue to burn Until Victory. The center was a mecca for lonely servicemen, for, in addition to theater greats serving as waiters and dishwashers and entertainers, there were dozens of beautiful young hostesses who danced with the boys, sat at the tables with them and provided company for the evening. The girls were carefully screened and worked under a rigid set of rules. It was strictly forbidden for them to see any of the men outside the Canteen, and any girl caught breaking the rule was promptly dismissed.
“Just a minute, soldier!” a crisp, authoritative and world-famous voice called as I stepped inside and started across the foyer.
Katharine Hepburn put down her clipboard, got up from her table and started toward me in a brisk, no-nonsense stride. Her beautiful, bony face wore an expression of stern disapproval. Her long dark hair was brushed back, bouncing on her shoulders, and she was wearing a chic, simple black crepe dress with a short pleated skirt, wide shoulder pads and long sleeves, a small gold brooch her only ornament.
“You can’t go in there, Captain. The Canteen’s for enlisted men. You people have your own places.”
Her voice was harsh. Her eyes were fierce. No drill sergeant ever inspired more terror. She was prepared to throw me out by force if necessary, and she was just the lady to do it.
“I—uh—know that, Miss Hepburn,” I began, “but—”
“Don’t I know you?” she barked.
“We met a couple of times at Metro, but you wouldn’t remem—”
“Edward Hunt. The writer. Marabelle’s friend. You should know better than to try to crash your way in here, Hunt!”
“I’ve come to see Marabelle,” I said lamely. “She—uh—said I could help wash dishes or something.”
Miss Hepburn eyed me suspiciously, not certain whether to believe me or not. I felt about ten years old. Benny Goodman and his band were playing tonight. The music spilled into the foyer along with sounds of festivity. Miss Hepburn hesitated a moment longer and finally relented.
“Very well!” she snapped. “You’ll have to take off that jacket and put on an apron. Give me the briefcase, I’ll check it, the jacket, too, Hunt, be quick about it. Wait here, I’ll get you an apron.”
I obeyed and the actress took my briefcase and jacket and vanished with them, returning a few moments later with a long apron which she slipped over my neck and tied in back, brisk, efficient, wasting no time on small talk. She turned me over to Cornelia Otis Skinner who smiled warmly and squeezed my hand as she led me to the kitchen area. I caught glimpses of a vast room with crowded tables and a huge dance floor mobbed with couples jiving to Goodman’s music. Servicemen moved in an orderly line past buffet tables where Martha Scott and Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell distributed cakes and sandwiches and fruit. Ray Bolger hurried by with a tray of glasses, weaving through the crowd on rubbery legs.
“Is Marabelle here?” I asked.
“She’s all over the place,” Cornelia replied. “They adore her, the boys, I mean. She sasses them and teases them and tells them naughty jokes and they adore it. She works very, very hard, Marabelle does, none of the rest of us can keep up with her.”
