atta girl: Tales from a Life in the Trenches of Show Business (5 page)

Learning Curves: The Elegance of Lisping 

I had a year of Latin at the Kimberley Day School for Girls. Educare is a Latin verb that means “to lead out.” What a wonderful way to look at learning: A good teacher can open a door and lead you out of your “not knowing.”

In the beginning was my kindergarten teacher, Miss Sargent—tall and beautiful, a ready smile, the sound of her voice like a song, a lullaby of reassurance that she would always be there to take care of us. Even the goldfish on the bookcase stopped swimming to look at her when she was teaching. I have no memory of what she taught us. It could have been calculus and we would have learned it. We loved her so and would have done anything for her. She loved us, too, we thought, but she pulled the rug out from under us after spring vacation when she showed us her engagement ring and said she was leaving us at the end of the month. It seemed she was just passing through on her way to a better life that wouldn’t include us. She couldn’t wait to be rid of us. Betrayal and abandonment! We could get that at home.

One day she took off her engagement ring to wash her hands and left it on the sink in the school bathroom. It sparkled; it beckoned; it practically danced. When Cynthia Youngman picked it up to look at it, she accidentally dropped it, and as I watched, it rolled down the drain. Later, when Miss Sargent asked the class if any of us had seen it, whether we had been at the scene of the crime, we all said no. Why should we help her find it? We wanted revenge. She didn’t want to play with us anymore? Well, she wasn’t our friend. In the slang of the day, we “fixed her wagon.” She was going to have a lot of explaining to do that night. Miss Sargent had not led us out. She had led us on, a good teacher gone bad.

In fifth grade, an ancient Alice Woodward had a passion for teaching so strong that she drooled when she taught Macbeth. Inspired by her enthusiasm and the play’s blood and gore, I wrote a story in her class about shooting and killing a pheasant while hunting with my father. I told how I had shot the bird in its left wing and it had jerked in the air and swerved and coasted down into a grove of trees, where we never found it. My father said, “Better to kill him immediately. You don’t want to make him suffer.” I was haunted by what I had done. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was a current of shame running through my days, and my story sprang from that.

Miss Woodward loved the tale and urged me to send it to Junior Scholastic magazine. It was published. I was startled by this event. She told me to write more, but I never could. I didn’t know how I’d done it, so I didn’t know how to do it again. And Miss Woodward didn’t have a clue. Her method of passing on knowledge was no help with the creative process. She didn’t know about art. She only knew what she liked. The craft of tapping into my intuition and writing and the task of leading me out of my writer’s block were beyond her.

So I kept my achievement a secret. I had revealed personal stuff—feelings, vulnerability—stuff I couldn’t deal with. Was I too different? Did it show? Was there something wrong with me? I wanted to be like everybody else with a normal family. My mother, coming across my published story years later, said to me, “I never knew you felt that way.” But hadn’t she told me, “If you don’t give voice to something, it will go away”? Of course, she’d been talking about gossip—or had she? Between Miss Woodward and my mother and the memory of my father’s world philosophy, I developed a major neurosis called Sit on Everything. Rage walked in to fill in the blanks.

At the Kimberley Day School for Girls, we wore the school uniform: green skirts, matching sweaters, yellow blouses with Peter Pan collars, and saddle shoes or loafers. We looked more or less alike. (Weezy Rudd recently sent me a class picture to try to persuade me to come to a reunion, and I couldn’t find myself in it.)

One spring feverish day, I sat amid this sea of green and yellow, a part of it and yet not, at a wooden desk with a raise-up lid. Miss Flannery, our seventh grade teacher, a big woman with sagging skin and jowls that flapped when she shook her head, was talking about I-don’t-know-what in a voice that sounded like Jell-O. She had created a boredom so deep in the room that my attention drifted to the window and the chain-link fence surrounding the school outside.

Nancy Hollenbeck, who may have grown up to be a football coach, sat behind me. We were close enough that I was always able to get any information I needed from her quickly and unobtrusively. “Nancy, what are those birds doing on that fence?” I asked her. “One of them is on top of the other. What’s going on?” I was alarmed for them, especially the one on the bottom.

I can’t remember exactly what she said or how she said it, but I was horrified to hear it. I felt trapped. I couldn’t take it in. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t know if I should keep watching. I didn’t know if Nancy Hollenbeck was telling me the truth.

“What?” I said.

“They’re fucking,” she said out loud while Miss Flannery wrote on the blackboard.

“What, dear?” said Miss Flannery, turning but unable to identify anyone in the green-and-yellow blur. The room was silent. Alas, learning in Miss Flannery’s class always happened by accident.

It was spring, and I suddenly didn’t want to learn anything more, ever. At recess, the teachers were having their weekly faculty meeting in the Latin teachers’ room, and as I walked by the closed door, I saw a brass key sticking out of it. I turned and walked by it again. On the third pass, I stopped and locked all those terrible teachers in the room where the blackboards were covered with Latin. We had an extended recess that day, and I used the time to pull myself together. If the gym teacher hadn’t climbed out the window, if the room had been on the second floor, they’d still be there, rotting away, their teeth falling out. They knew better than to ask who did it. They knew they had lost the day.

Then it occurred to me that if I lowered my sights just a hair, I could be Rosalind Russell, who had played Amelia Earhart in the movie. I could be an actress! When I was grown up, when I was twenty-one, I could go to New York just across the river and be somebody else there, not the dreary Gloomy Gus I felt I had become. An actress! That’s the ticket. Actresses can be all sorts of people. I could be a hero on a stage! I could hide there.

When I was sixteen, I got a part in the local drama club’s production of The Night of January 16th. It was a small part, as a witness at a murder trial. It didn’t matter; I was in a show. However, after a few rehearsals, I discovered that the short role of a witness on a stand wasn’t very interesting. Then, out of nowhere, it came to me: What if it was really hard for her to sit in this chair and answer questions in front of a group of strangers? Why would that be? Is there something special, something special about… How about… What if she… What if she had a lisp?

When I lisped during the next rehearsal, it was so funny that everybody in the room cracked up. The rehearsal came to a halt, and the director shouted, “This is a murder trial, not a comedy! Cut that out.”

Yet it was so much fun while it lasted that I thought later, I’ve never had such a good time. That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. It felt like flying. I felt like someone else. I felt like this lispy witness and me at the same time. It was almost like being possessed. I felt no responsibility for what I said or did. It was all being taken care of for me. And that’s what can happen; one simple adjustment in the body or the attitude can do all that. What a pleasure!

In my final year of high school, I had the opportunity to meet and learn about boys. At Miss Sawyer’s Dancing School, the students from the Montclair Academy for Boys were our partners one Saturday night a month for ten months. It was too late in life for me to get the hang of it. I tried. I read The Ethel Cotton Course in Conversation that my sister, Adeline, had sent away for and used a few years earlier. But it didn’t help. Ethel Cotton was living in an Edith Wharton novel. She suggested I read the newspaper and introduce topics from there, but I needed smart banter and lively comebacks. I didn’t realize this until I heard myself saying once during a slow fox-trot, “So what do you think of the war?” My partner just stared at me. Another dance step in the wrong direction.

My mother had taken me shopping for an evening gown at Best and Company in East Orange, and between us we had picked something in a taffeta plaid because it seemed “cheerful.” Everyone else was in soft, flowing pastels. I felt like Ida Lupino in reverse, when she went to that picnic on the farm in an evening dress.

Having to hang around near the wall and wait to be asked to dance was agony mixed with shame. Years later I was ranting about this over supper at a summer share in a beach house when a man yelled at me, “How do you think it felt for us? All night long I had to schlep across that floor, go up to a girl and ask, ‘May I have this dance?’ She’d bray out a ‘No!’ you could hear all over the room,
and I hadda murble the whole way back where I came from and start over again.”

I was flabbergasted to think that this had never occurred to me, that life might be excruciating for everybody.

The Loony Bin 

Back in the fifties, one rain-filled February afternoon, Lynn Anderson surprised me. She said to Annie, Dee, Biz Greenman, and me, all actresses in the Smith College theater department, that she’d like to go over to the VA hospital and meet the men in the psychiatric ward.

“It occurred to me,” she said as she folded up the ground cloth that kept the costumes clean while she pinned them on us, “that it might be a good thing to do a play with them.” She let that sink in, and then she said. “Not for them. With them.”

We never questioned why she wanted to put on a play in a loony bin. We got on the bus and went with her because our thirst for acting was not being slaked at Smith. Playing Romeo to Lorna Landis’s Juliet in Miss Sickles’s speech class was not paying off for me.

We knew the hospital from driving by it on our way from Smith to parties at Amherst on the weekends. It was an isolated building, hugging the ground behind a chain-link fence, a war scar on a Massachusetts back road. It was full of damaged men that Uncle Sam no longer wanted.

Each time we passed it, someone would call out, “Loony bin!” like a conductor on an express bus passing a local stop that nobody needed—and I would wonder what went on in there. Was it a Charles Addams cartoon place where men like Uncle Fester swept the halls? Did patients getting shock treatments scream behind locked doors? Was the man I was destined to have married among them, in there weaving baskets?

And then we’d be at the dreaded frat house, where the awkward lechery of the Eligible Young Men from Good Families would be released upon us. Young chaps chug-a-lugging beer, honing their drinking abilities, were waiting for us, their ids at attention, waiting to pounce.

Lynn rescued us from this hospitality. A grad student on a grant, getting a degree in costume design, she had chosen not to patronize the “Amherst zoo.” She preferred to spend her weekends in the basement workroom of the theater building in service to her art, her lanky frame hunched over a sewing machine. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and rarely combed her mouse-brown hair. She never wore makeup. Fabric and watercolor sketches covered the table and walls. A headless manikin oversaw the creation of costumes for the shows.

On occasion, a fellow grad student would drop by, desperate for a cigarette. Lynn didn’t smoke, although Annie thought it would be a good idea if she did, especially during costume fittings. Her passion for her work was accompanied by a temper and it didn’t help when we would argue with her as we picked through her offerings. We never considered the period of the play. We were concerned with how we looked in the mirror. A higher heel, a shorter skirt, a lower neckline was what we wanted, as well as an upswept hairdo—not some dumb hat.

The veterans were waiting for us in the main hall. Dull light from the barred windows near the ceiling shafted through the dust of the tall room. Swaths of plaster waved to us as they peeled from the walls, and giant spider webs draped the corners. Two broken-down wheelchairs were propped against each other at the entrance. A card table and a chair sat by the door that led into the entrails of the building.

The men looked like a ragtag bunch of overtall children, eager to play with us. Some had been there for years. They made me think of my Uncle Paul, who had become shell-shocked in World War I. He had spells of violence that were unpredictable and had to be “sent away” until he got over them, sent to a place like this, maybe. He used to visit us sometimes in Montclair. He looked like Teddy Roosevelt—huge, in a brown tweed suit. He would sit on the Queen Anne ladies chair in the living room, his hands holding each other as if to keep himself from flying apart. He never said much. If you mentioned to him that he had been in the war, he would say, “Was I?”

Then he’d rub his temples with the heels of his hands as if to bring back the memory. When he couldn’t do it, he’d drift off again into a cloud of lost interest.

I had told Lynn about Uncle Paul. “Because of him,” I said, “although I was only eight or nine at the time, I feel especially qualified for this project. Doing a play with mental patients would be right up my alley.”

She looked at me for a long moment, at the end of which she said, “Oh, good.”

A woman wearing a nurse’s cap, a print dress, and low-heeled shoes had assembled our cast for us.

“Here we are, boys,” she said. “This is your contingent, Miss Anderson.”

She read from her clipboard as if it were a laundry list. “Irving. Tom. George—” She looked up, caught them all gazing at us, and said, “Step forward when I call your name, boys. Irving. Tom. George. Sam—” Sam didn’t budge. Sam, in overalls and a dark, long-sleeved work shirt, stood by himself staring at something that wasn’t there. He looked like a scarecrow in a field of scattered cornstalks.

“Never mind, Sam,” said the nurse, going right on. “Dave, Alec, and Fish. There may be a few more next time if you need them. They may come and go. We’ll see.”

Irving took a second step forward. He looked and sounded like Jimmie Durante, with the same big nose and gravelly voice.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I, personally, am staying.”

“Oh, good,” said Lynn. “I’m going to put you in charge, my second in command. Is that okay with you, Irving?”

“Definitely. At your service. What’s your name?” he said. He had dressed for the event: khakis, a blue sweater, and a lapel pin—a tiny eagle that the Army gave soldiers when they were discharged. The soldiers called it a ruptured duck, and Irving had polished his till it gleamed.

“Oh, excuse me. I’m so sorry.” Lynn immediately introduced herself and us, and the men brightened. Irving caught me watching Sam, who hadn’t spoken.

“Don’t worry about Sam,” said Irving. “He’s okay. He’s the best. He’ll grow on you.”

“Do you have an auditorium?” Lynn asked the nurse.

“Yes, we do,” said the nurse. “This used to be a school, you know, until someone decided it was ready to fall down and unsafe for children. Follow me.”

We walked through a maze of hallways to a dusty and unused auditorium. There was no curtain or wings or backstage, just a large, raised rectangle stuck in one end of the room. On it, a podium, an upright piano, and a bunch of chairs stood at odd angles to one another. A crushed volleyball lay in the far corner. A ragged center aisle was suggested by straight-backed chairs, which we guessed we would probably have to dust off ourselves.

“This is wonderful,” said Lynn. “Let’s get to work.”

“I’ll be leaving you, then,” said the nurse,

Without thinking, Lynn said, “Oh, please do!”

When the nurse pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, Lynn kept going.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I am so sorry. I mean, ah, um… Thank you so much. You’ve been so, um—”

“I’ll be back later to see how it’s working out,” the nurse said before she walked away, sniffing.

Lynn took a deep breath to even herself out and said, “Oh-kaay. I’ve got a bunch of scripts here, but let me just tell you what this story’s about.”

“Yeah, what’s it about?” said Irving.

“Good idea. All aboard,” said Dave, a wiry elf of a fellow. He had a scruffy white beard and was a wearing a trainman’s hat.

“It’s about Johnny Appleseed, a folk hero.”

“Johnny Appleseed?” Tom said. He had a round, ruddy face framed by white hair, although he could have been my age.

“Yes,” said Lynn. “He walked across the country with a bag of apple seeds on his back.”

“Excellent,” said Fish, thin and gangly, a head taller than the rest.

They began to gather around, caught up in her enthusiasm.

“Yes! A man with a dream,” said Lynn, and she told them how after the American Revolution, he had walked all the way from New York to Illinois, planting apple seeds. All by himself. He was a legend. He cleared land in the wilderness. He made friends with the Indians. He made friends with wild animals. He had to. One winter it was so cold that he shared a cave with a bear. In the spring, he sold the seedlings to the settlers for whatever they wanted to give him. Great orchards that are still alive today sprang up.

Lynn raised her arms and made tiny circles in the air with her hands as she spoke.

“Orchards. What a good idea.” said Fish. “What’s your name again?”

“Come on over here, Sam. Join us,” said Irving, drawing him into the group. Sam held on to Irving’s coat.

“Meet my friends, three Indians and a wild bear,” said Dave, pulling on his beard. He and Fish started to do Indian war whoops, and young Tom, playing a bear, growled at them.

“I give you Johnny Appleseed. A legend in his own mind,” said Tom.

I could feel the air pulsing. Lynn kept us going.

“Okay, okay, calm down, everybody,” she said. “I see you all can act. Now listen to these songs and see which ones you like.”

Annie slammed right into “Greensleeves” on a piano so out of tune it made us howl. She played on, and Tom, his white hair flying, sang out in a strong, musical voice. George, a fat, high baritone, and Fish, a rich bass in a long body, joined him. Irving could talk-sing anything. We were all singing. We had to. We had to drown out the piano. That is, all except for Sam, who stayed by Irving, quietly listening, staring.

Our rehearsal time came to an end. Lynn gave out the scripts and said, “Don’t lose them. I had to type them all myself. Are there any questions?”

“Yeah,” said George. “What do you eat at Smith?”

Of all the veterans we had met, he reminded me the most of Uncle Paul, if a bit heavier and able to ask a question—especially if it was about food. He was particularly interested in desserts. I told him our favorite dessert was called Football.

“What’s that?” he said.

“It’s a sweet, brown cake,” I said, “with the texture of a muffin and the size of a football, with chocolate seams. But it’s only as good as the amount of whipped cream you put on it. And that’s usually gone before it’s halfway round the table.”

“Oh, could you bring me some?” he said. “With a lot of whipped cream?”

“You bet.” I had a feeling that we were on the verge of becoming best friends.

As we left, thinking we were out of earshot, I said to Lynn, “What about Sam?”

But Irving was right behind us.

“Sam can sing,” he said, making me jump. “He just takes some warming up. He should have a solo.”

“A solo?” said Lynn.

“I’ve heard him many times. Alec plays the guitar. Sam sings when Alec plays.”

“I see,” said Lynn

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

“Peggy!” Lynn glared at me.

“He’s what they call catatonic,” said Irving. “He’s been like that for a few years. He’ll pull out of it one of these days. He had a bad experience in the war.”

He looked back down the hall and saw the nurse waving at him.

“To be continued,” he said. “Adios.”

On our way back in the bus, Dee, who was minoring in French, said in her solid New York accent, “Well, that was très intéressant.”

“We better get that piano tuned before they learn the wrong melodies,” said Annie.

“And what about Sam?” I said. “He’s kind of scary, isn’t he? He looks like an ax murderer.”

“Don’t worry, Peggy,” said Lynn. “It’s going to work out.” Then she sighed, put her head against the window, and fell asleep. We kept quiet after that. I don’t know about the others, but in the silence, it came to me that for a loner, Lynn had been pretty impressive that day and deserved more respect from us.

*       *       *

I saw the show as a vehicle for me. I played Pocahontas, dancing and singing in a performance that would take your breath away. I saw it as the launching of a major career. I would stop the show in my orange-and-white beaded outfit, the top elegantly reaching to mid-thigh, an eagle with out-spread wings across the back of the tunic, the skirt ending at a sexy curve in my calf. Add a beaded headband with obligatory feather: Fabulous! Nobody in this loony bin would guess it came from the twenties, mis-catalogued by the Smith wardrobe department. This was turning into a very freeing experience for me.

A producer on a weekend getaway would be in the audience. He would discover me, and I would excuse myself early from college to go to New York to be in his show. “Pack up all my care and woe. Hang on, Broadway, here I go. Blackbird, bye-bye!”

The veterans took to the story of Johnny Appleseed and fell in love with us. They couldn’t do enough for us. At one early rehearsal, Fish offered us a pumped-up volleyball and a neatly folded net.

“Can we use these in the show?”

“Maybe,” said Lynn, her face clouding over. Then she grinned. “Sure, why not?”

“There was a guy used to come here,” said Fish. “He was writing a thesis. He brought us this volleyball and net and organized a game every week.”

“What happened to him?” said Lynn.

“He got his degree and left for a while.”

“That’s too bad,” said Lynn.

“Then the net disappeared. Yeah, I’ve been looking for this net for some time.”

“Where was it?”