All That Glitters (3 page)

Weekdays, the movies were definitely out, but that firmly stated parental ukase never deterred me. At “Rise and shine,” I’d sometimes report in sick, claiming to have a sore throat and a headache, I couldn’t possibly make it to school. No sooner was my mother out of the house, however, leaving me in Jessie’s care, than I was up and dressed and out on the yellow trolley car, heading uptown to catch the latest “Gold Diggers” when the movie house opened at ten o’clock. Twenty minutes to town, ninety for the picture, twenty minutes back, I’d be safely tucked in bed by the time Jessie appeared with lunch on a tray, and nobody the wiser. That’s how smartass kids got to the movies in 1935. If this kind of illicit traffic had ever been discovered by my father, the consequences are unthinkable.

Actually, there were moments when he did own up to having enjoyed the performances of, say, an Irene Dunne, maybe a Claudette Colbert—not as in
Cleopatra
with her snaky hips and cast-iron bra, not as in
Sign of the Cross
, either, with her asses’-milk baths, but as in
It Happened One Night.
Irene might act a little jazzy, as in
Theodora Goes Wild
, but everyone could see she was a lady, he said, and she did a neat little trick with her teeth that he liked. Once he even admitted to liking Roz Russell, who hailed from nearby Waterbury, and he certainly enjoyed Maude Antrim a lot. Maude was his latter-day Bernhardt, and if
she’d
ever come to town he might even have asked for her autograph. (She did but he didn’t.) Maude Antrim, he claimed, always reminded him of Mother—ours, not his—and he admired Cary Grant extravagantly, especially Cary’s swank wardrobe—the two-tone spectators, pleated slacks, swing-back jackets, Prince of Wales plaids, pencil stripes in his shirtings. Babe Austrian movies, of course, were anathema.

But the time was fast approaching when not only Babe’s movies but the lady herself were to take an important part, not merely in my education, but in my life. Later, Dad was heard to bemoan the fact that it was Babe Austrian who’d come to town and not Maude Antrim. (They said, untruthfully, that I’d assaulted her and shouldn’t be let loose on the community without a collar and leash. Not true.)

It had recently become the weekly parental practice to dispatch my older brother and me to art classes at the Hartford Atheneum, where each Saturday morning, in company with twenty-five or thirty other students, we would perch on stools with charcoal stubs, sketching from the “undraped” form. Undraped
plaster
form. The Atheneum was a good (bad?) example of the dolorous Gothic style that was in flower when the building had been erected over a century earlier, with ivy-covered stone and mullioned windows, but it was nevertheless just
there
that I had my first live sight of the Babe. And it was at this point that I discovered to my amazement that even the Babe Austrians of the world had their woes. It was along about this time, the spring of 1938, that Babe’s name made that notorious list put out by the motion-picture theatre owners of the country and published in
Variety
, the so-called Box Office Poison list, which should have written
finis
to her movie career. Truth to tell, it did her no end of harm, even though she had plenty of elite company—Dietrich was on that same list, so were Katharine Hepburn and Fred Astaire, as well as Claire Regrett. Garbo would probably have been eligible, except she had
Camille
in second runs around the country and
Camille
was doing well. (
Camellia
, Babe’s famous parody, would do even better, but that came much later on.)

But if you ever knew Babe, you knew she wasn’t about to be flattened by a bunch of cigar-chomping, pot-bellied Kiwanis chiefs from Terre Haute and points west. When her latest picture,
The Girl from Windy City
, went into release, to sorry reviews and sorrier box-office receipts, she simply faced the music—and in the most literal sense. Against his better judgment, she persuaded Frankie Adano to book her into whatever vaudeville houses survived in that mid-Depression era of radio’s Jack Benny and Amos ’n’ Andy. And, of all things, she took up playing the trap drums. No kidding, you can check the newspaper files in any large city around the country and you’ll see that in the year 1938 Babe Austrian was indeed playing a new live act, seated up on a platform with that peroxided hair, beating out double paradiddles, and chewing hell out of her trademark bubble gum while she flashed her teeth, beat the dumbo with her foot, and rolled the sticks between her fingers. Oh
yeah
!

And she sang her famous “Windy City Blues”:

“
Oh I got those Windy City blues
,

They send a chill right down my spine
,

Oh I got those Windy City blues
,

’Cause I lost that man of mine
….”

As it happened, a bunch of us went to see
Windy City
on the afternoon of the day it opened, and you could have shot moose in the theatre and never hit an antler. The place was plenty empty, and we saw the theatre manager gnashing his teeth when we came out into the lobby after the Coming Attractions. He did his gnashing with good reason, too; the picture really stank, one of the worst Babe ever made. But there she was, big and brassy as ever, in the “My Idea of Heaven” number, sashaying about a celluloid paradise, switching those hips and tossing one-liners at the colored actors, who wore big white wings and played golden harps while a celestial choir kept going “
Yeah
Babe,
oh
Babe.”

By now everyone in the Greater Metropolitan Area was more or less aware not only that this turkey was limping along at the local theatre but that Babe herself was also set to appear “In Person” at the State Theatre up on North Main. To promote both the movie and her live stage appearance, she was scheduled to arrive on Saturday morning at the municipal train station, where she would be met by the Mayor, who’d present her with the official key to the city, and afterward there would be a motor cavalcade from the depot up to Main Street and right through the center of town.

Ah, for the feverish thoughts that swam through the air of my room that night, like so many fishes in the sea, and, oh, for the fetid dreams my perverted fancy concocted as I slept. That doll-like face my eyes knew so well, those platinum ringlets, those bejeweled fingers, those twitching lips and rolling hips, that inviting honkytonk voice—did I really sleep that night? I wonder. And, oh God, the tits… I wasn’t fourteen for nothing!

Next noontime, at the Atheneum, when the bell rang releasing us from our two hours’ enslavement to the Muses, we stampeded from the place into the bright sunlight and exciting holiday pandemonium of Main Street. Few scenes in my life have ever made such a dent on my impressionable mind as my first taste of what the Hollywood brand of hoopla and ballyhoo was and still is capable of. Bands played, flags waved, crowds cheered, there were photographers, reporters, policemen, remote units from the local radio stations. Both sides of Main Street were lined with a horde of screaming, bawling, shouting, gesticulating, popeyed gawkers standing tiptoe to see—what? Little, so far as I could tell, since I saw nothing but a beef trust of backs in front of me. A rusted drainpipe ran up one wall at the Atheneum entrance, and by some adroit maneuvering I managed to elevate myself above the heads of those in front, where I beheld a sight I shall never forget.

Out in the street, proceeding at a measured rate of speed along the thoroughfare, was an automobile—the automobile of our mayor, George Allen. I recognized him from his pictures in the paper, as well as the fact that he occasionally played golf with my father. The windows of the long, dark green automobile were rolled down, and behind his trademark pince-nez on a black silk ribbon he sat beaming and nodding, and at his side sat—BABE!!! Oh
yeah
!

If the Virgin Mary herself had been sitting beside Mayor Allen in his hammer-claw morning coat, his top hat, pearl spats, and spectacles, I for one could not have been more impressed. Less, actually, because I never really imagined the Virgin to possess breasts, while Babe—oh, there they were, those twin headlights, that gorgeous set of clydes sticking out to
there.
She was wearing a big cartwheel hat of black Milan straw (once or twice she turned her head and you could see it was a cut-out; her hair showed in the back). Her dress was shiny, cut low, with diamond clips in the corners, and she had ice on her arm up to the elbow. That was the arm she waved with; the other hand lay anchored in her muff—a silver fox muff that matched the fur chubby that was tossed over those shoulders—and it was hot that day. Hot, I’ll say.

She smiled. Those pearly-whites flashed as if there were diamonds set between them, and you could see her eyes as they rolled about in her head like bb-shot. I felt myself stricken, then I went berserk on the spot. Heedless of my brother or our schoolmates, I leaped down from my perch and in seconds was shoving my way through the crowd, feeling hot and cold, as if I might burst or faint dead away. The slow-to-move were ruthlessly pushed from my path, the immobile became suddenly active as I weaseled my way through the press of bodies until I emerged at curbside just as the official vehicle, preceded by a marching brass band, drew abreast.

Looking neither left nor right, I plunged from curb to street, launching myself in a beeline for the main attraction. I saw nothing else, I had eyes only for her and the cartwheel hat, the flashy dress, the agreeably demonstrated pulchritude, that darling pink-and-white face, those flaxen curls. Nearer I came and nearer to the goddess; perhaps I was reaching out with my hands as though to
grab
—something!—I don’t remember, but
forward
I went, closer, until I was
beside
the car, onto whose
running board
I, without so much as a by-your-leave,
sprang
! I wrapped one arm around the doorpost and stuck my head
inside
the
car
! I could
smell
her! Jesus, what a whiff! What a
scent
! Was it “Midnight in Paris,” the dimestore perfume in the dark blue bottle, or the one with the man bending the lady backward in her ball gown over the piano? I stared for what seemed minutes. I was aware of eyelashes about a foot long and curled like the tines on a hayraker. I saw a coat of heavy orange stage makeup, and a startling nakedness, an alarming vulnerability in the person of the goddess, as if mere mortals such as I were not supposed to be seeing her in such close proximity.

She was a lot smaller than I’d imagined (Babe was only five-two without her platforms); Mayor Allen, not so tall himself, dwarfed her. But I was hardly aware of him as I stared at my quarry. She had a jeweled bag in her lap, and gloves, and the rocks on her free arm gleamed and coruscated like crazy. Her eyes were large and china blue and reminded me of the eyes in a doll. But though the eyes may have been large, the hands and feet were small. Teeny-tiny. I saw this right away. And—gad!—her little shoes were toeless, with tiny bows and spike heels.

She showed no alarm at my incursion, only a measure of mild surprise mixed with amusement. What was this dumb squirt-gun going to do to
her
? She smiled at me, that gleaming, porcelain smile that was hers, all hers. This was heady stuff and I had the feeling I was going to pass out. I didn’t faint, however, but leaned farther inside, saw those snaky hips in that shiny black stuff, caught the sheen of sheer silken hosiery; I was suffocating from my passion and, reaching into the car with my fingers begrimed with charcoal from school, I—

pinched her!

God’s truth. I pinched her on the thigh. Today people tell it that I pinched her on her ass; I didn’t. She was sitting on her ass. But I do remember putting my index finger and thumb together and squeezing that holy flesh. It seared my pads and burned away my fingerprints forever; I leave none wherever I touch, that index finger and thumb are blistered but absolutely without whorls, only smudges. Believe that as you believe in a heaven yet to come.

I heard an exclamation of horror from Mayor Allen, and was aware of his indignant stare behind his pince-nez, and his mouth, open like a fish out of water, gulping air. Then, as I took my hand away, I
saw
Babe pat her cartwheel hat or maybe just her hair, and roll her eyes, and I
heard
her say:

“S’aw right, sonny, help yourself.”

It’s true, every word. I heard it with my own ears and Mayor Allen later verified it, though Babe herself later claimed not to remember having said it, which may be regarded as odd, considering how she could always recognize a good line when she heard it.

There was no time for more. I’d had all I was going to get of Babe Austrian for this and many a year to come. A burly arm seized me about my middle and I was torn bodily from the running board, and while the car rolled forward in the procession, I was left in the toils of John Q. Law, three feet off the ground, swimming in the air. I saw faces—staring, laughing, ridiculing faces. As I was plunked down on my two feet with no ceremony whatever, I saw, protruding from the window of the mayoral vehicle, one little baby hand, languidly, eloquently waving—itty-bitty waves. Then it was gone.

The effects of this minor escapade were manifold. I made the evening edition, my picture was plastered on page three, my name was set down in the annals for posterity (wrongly spelled, my age falsely reported), my father was obliged to draft a letter of apology to the Mayor, while I was sternly forbidden the inside of any movie house for a period of two whole months. And I commenced a lifelong association with Babe Austrian. Oh
yeah
!

Babe’s story is one of the Plain Tales from the Hollywood Hills, the legends that star the great ones of Hollywood’s Golden Age, those blinding, glitzy, rhinestone days of platinum hair, of lamé gowns, white fox furs, belted polo coats and pale fedoras, bearskin rugs, glass brick and chrome by the acre, of oversized upholstered furniture, tinted mirrors, and white rococo plaster, of wide shoulder pads, top hat, white tie, and tails, of silver cocktail shakers and satin mules and swimming pools shaped like Acapulco Bay, of running boards and white sidewall tires, of klieg-light premieres and Medici mansions, of Deco and dating and Coconut Groves and eating inside the crowns of Brown Derbys, of the pogrom-sent moguls of Panatella and Casting Couchdom, of toe-tapping, finger-snapping, Busby-crapping Bakelite and Mickey Mouse (before Disneyland), of rat-a-tat gangsters and Gary Cooper tall as stilts and Carole Lombard acting screwy, in a time when the inmates did not run the asylum but were kept where they belonged, in padded cells, when if youth ever had its fling it was only at the whim of its elders, when the very worst product the majors could crank out was somehow more satisfying than most of what’s squeezed today from the Melrose Avenue sausage factories.