Hold the Roses (21 page)

I was home quite a bit and loving every minute of it. I did some guest
shots- The Rudy Vallee Show, Bing's show. I wanted to do some dramatic
TV. I got a call about Gunsmoke. It was the top TV show at the time.

I went into the offices and the girl said, "Have you seen a script?"

I said, "No."

She handed me one and said, "The part is Mrs. Monger."

Here I was, cute figure, little black and white cotton dress, and short
white gloves-just adorable. I read the part. It was a sixty-year-old woman
sawing wood on a ranch! At first I thought it was a mistake, but no, the girl
insisted that the part was Mrs. Monger. I figured, What the hell, In not
gonna get this part, but I'll go in and read for it anyway.

I met Lynn Stalmaster, the casting man and producer. I also met the
director John Rich (the wheel goes round-I would work with him later
on The Dick Van Dyke Show). I sat down and Lynn Stalmaster read with
me. I put my voice even lower and I was going to clown my way through
it, thinking of every Western I had ever seen. We read from the script:
Lynn: "Howdy, Mrs. Monger."

Me: "Howdee, Sheriff."

Lynn: "How ya feeling today?"

Me: "Poorly, thank ye." (The script had said "Thank you.")

When I said "ye," they all started to get up, which meant that the
reading was over. I said, "Thank you, gentlemen," and started to walk out,
knowing I hadn't gotten the job before they said anything to me.

John Rich came to the door with me and said, "Would you mind
cutting your nails?"

I said, "Why?"

John said, "I don't think a woman sawing wood would have nails that
long."

I said, "You want me for this part?"

John said, "Yes, I think you'll be great."

I almost died. The shoot was wonderful and I enjoyed every minute
of it. One day we were shooting a scene with these guys sitting around a
table. I was supposed to ladle them some stew from a pot I was holding.
We did a take-they were delivering their lines, and I began putting stew
on their plates.

John said, "Cut," and called me over. He said, "If you're going to spoon
that stew like you are, nobody will even look at the guys! You're giving me
comedy timing and nobody will even know what they're saying."

I said, "I'm sorry. I was just trying to do my best and not interfere
with their lines. I didn't know I was doing comedy timing. Sorry, I'll try it
again. I was just trying to pad my part." We both laughed and we finished
the show. My first dramatic show-Gunsmoke with James Arness. Not bad!

Bill Loeb called and told me about a date in Florida, at the Clover
Club in Miami. All the big stars played Miami Beach, but this was Miami.
I wasn't too thrilled about it. The Vagabonds and Jan Murray were on the
bill, and the money was lousy for four weeks. But I wasn't getting any calls
for my dramatic work-ha ha-so I figured, What the hell. They wanted
me to open in December. I told them that I didn't work on Christmas, so
the date was set for January.

Bobby and me at waterskiing school in Florida

What started out as four weeks turned into eleven weeks. We were
breaking all of the records-we were the hottest act in town. Martha Raye
was at the 500 Club, Sophie Tucker and Joe E. Lewis were at another club,
as was Jerry Lester-all in Miami Beach. We were the only hot spot in
Miami itself. We did three shows a night: 8:00 P.M., midnight, and 2:30
A.M. They would line up outside an hour before each show-it was amazing. The Vagabonds, with whom I had worked before, were a great act,
and we had a lot of fun together. I've known Jan Murray since I was a kid.
It was a happy group and we were doing great business. Woody Woodbury
was the lounge act and he became my big brother. He was so much fun to
be with. We have remained good friends to this day.

We all worked until 3:30 A.M., and then we'd get up at 10:00 A.M. and
go to waterskiing school. The Vagabonds started it-and soon enough,
every star in Miami Beach was showing up at 10 o'clock in the morning:
Martha Raye, Jerry Lester, Jack E. Leonard, and Woody Woodbury. Of
course, some of "the boys" were there Joe Frechetti; his brother, Charlie; Jack Goldman, from the Clover Club-all of us acting like kids, waterskiing.
If you didn't know how, they taught you. You had to water ski! The laughs
and the jokes were going all the time. I have home movies of this.

I would call home and tell Bobby what was going on and say to him,
"Come on down. You can take your vacation now. We'll have a ball and
just wait till you see the show and the business we're doing."

So he came down. All the people from the waterskiing school, the
chorus girls from our club, everyone went to the airport to meet his plane.
Everybody thought a big celebrity was on the plane. Bobby got a big kick
out of it, and he joined the waterskiing school set. He didn't know how to
water ski, so everybody taught him. God, what fun we had.

Bobby went back home, and after the eleventh week, I went home.
The so-called act-the Vagabonds, Jan Murray, and I-went to Vegas, where
we broke all records. Following that, we went to the Riviera in Jersey, and
all the Jersey mob and the Frechetti boys came down for our openingTommy Brown, Frank Costello, Willie Morretti... just about everybody.
We were the "pets" of "the boys." After all, we had all been water skiing
together! It was a helluva date. I stayed at my mother's house because it was
so close. When I arrived there, I found out that when my brother was out
of the service, that he had gotten married to Marion, his high-school sweetheart, and that they had moved to Florida. They had the big wedding!

My mother cooked up a big Italian dinner and the Vagabonds came
over: Dom, Al, Tillio, and Pete. We were like family; we had worked together for so long. My father was there and he was pleasant, but that's
about it. I was still sending money home, but I wondered if my father had
done anything about making money on his own. From what I could tell,
he hadn't, and I was still supporting them. However, I gave the money to
my mother this time!

Back home, Bobby and I had become part of the Hollywood crowd. I had
played Ciro's for six weeks. Everybody and his brother came to see the
show. The reviews were great. Bobby was doing the Alice Faye-Phil Harris
Show and we all became good friends. We spent some wonderful times
over at their house. One Easter "Noop" went with us.

"Noop" was Georgiana. Bobby had a nickname for everyone. Once
he was feeding our daughter some prunes and she got them all over her
face. Bobby said, "Oh, look what you did to your noop [nose]. Poor Noopy."
It's been "Noopy" from that minute on. Of course she was and is an exact
replica of Bobby.

She was all dressed up for Easter, and she looked like a doll. Alice fell
in love with her and gave her a beautiful Easter bunny. Walter Scharf and
his wife Betty were there. Walter was the musical director at 20th Century
Fox. He and Betty were close friends of Alice and Phil. We were having a
wonderful Easter brunch. I was fooling around and started to imitate
Sheldon Leonard, who played "The Tout" on Phil's show. Phil laughed
and thought it would be a good idea if I played the Tout's sister, who talked
like Sheldon. I wound up doing a few of the shows and Bobby became Walter's
first trumpet. Everything Walter did, Bobby was on the date, including movies
like Guys and Dolls, Funny Girl, Top Banana, and many more.

While we were at Ciro's, we met Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. They
came backstage after the show, and they were both so wonderful.

Lucy said, "We want to do a TV show for you."

I couldn't talk, I was so excited. We became very good friends. We did a pilot called 2 Girls on Broadway. Peggy Ryan played my sister and Ray McDonald
played the boyfriend. Desi and Lucy were making another pilot at the same
time called Those Whiting Girls, with Margaret and her sister Barbara. They
sold Those Whiting Girls, and our little pilot got lost in the shuffle.

Noopy and Daddy

However, our friendship with Lucy and Desi was getting stronger.
We'd go over to one another's house for dinner. Lucy loved our house and
said, "Don't ever sell it, I love it here." One night they came over for dinner
after working all day on The Long, Long Trailer. I thought they would cancel because they had worked all day, but they didn't. They came over, we
had dinner and Lucy said, "Do you want to see the scene we did today?
Desi was just wonderful." So there we were, in the living room: Lucy and
Desi on the couch, Bobby, Noopy, my mother-in-law, and me. Just like we
were at the movies. They went through this scene, just like they did it in
the movie. What a night! To think we had America's top couple in our
living room doing a scene from the movie they were just shooting.