Life Is Not a Stage (5 page)

I realized very early on that the choice was mine how I was going to respond to my circumstances. I never wanted to be perceived as a victim. And I never wanted people to feel sorry for me. When you come from a disadvantaged and deprived situation you have a tendency to either become hateful and mean or end up as a type of person who is more giving in nature—giving, in fact, in compensation for what you didn’t receive yourself. I chose the latter. I also made another conscious decision: to be in the company of achievers rather than losers. I was attracted to role models like my teachers and Ruth Helen, people whom I wanted to be like or whose achievement I felt could be within my grasp someday.

CHAPTER 4

Wide-Eyed and Confident

T
he burning question on the lips of all of my classmates the last year of high school was, “Where are you going to college?” The girls I knew best were mostly from affluent families, and having the financial wherewithal to go to college was a nonissue. The very fact that they asked me about my plans was proof that none of them knew of my impoverished reality. It also helped that we all wore uniforms. What little they did know was that I lived in another town on the other side of the river. I had never invited anyone to visit because I was ashamed of my house and my father’s condition. The only exceptions on both counts, of course, were Oscar and Ruth Helen. Ruth Helen came to my home on a few occasions to pick me up or drop me off. But even she respected my situation. She didn’t ask to come in but stayed in the car.

There was more to it than just saving face when I told them with assurance, “I’m going to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.” I had first learned about the school while leafing through the thick college guidebook in the school library. “Founded in 1884, it was the first conservatory for actors in the English-speaking world…its mission is to provide students with the tools needed to make acting their profession.” Immediately, I was certain that this was the place for me. But as good of an imagination as I had, I did not see any possible way of getting there. It was more in the category of a wild hope.

Ruth Helen knew of my dream and decided to take initiative on her own. Her family was very wealthy, and she was extra sensitive to my circumstances because of her father’s alcoholism. She also loved music, and at her house I had heard a recording of opera for the first time, a performance by a Brazilian soprano named Bidú Sayão. Ruth Helen decided to talk to her family and explain how badly I wanted to go to New York. They knew me, but why would they want to help me? Ruth Helen and I had talked about it, and of course, I felt a little uncomfortable simply because I needed help. But I trusted her (and still do), and I was honored that she believed in me enough to take action.

“She’s the lead in the school musical. Please come and hear her,” Ruth Helen told them. So her family agreed to come see me in
Jerry of Jericho Road
, a popular operetta in school performance repertory at the time.

“She’s good,” they said after the performance, but they had another thought in mind. They knew Christine Johnson, a very successful singer who had recently moved back from New York to Owensboro to marry her childhood sweetheart. Christine had created the role of Aunt Nettie in the original Broadway production of
Carousel
and was the first to sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” which became popular standards. She was also a distinguished operatic singer with the Met. So Ruth Helen’s parents took me to sing for her to find out what she thought.

Christine was very tall with a powerful and imposing presence complemented by a very open face. She was also pregnant with her first child at the time. Christine took me through some vocal exercises, a type of training totally new to me that I really enjoyed. She also spent time talking to me and asking me questions. “What do you know about New York?” she inquired. I told her what little I had learned from going to the movies. She listened and set me straight with good advice on what I should expect if I ended up going there. For example, she told me how the streets ran, the avenues from north to south and streets from east to west, and how the subways and buses worked.

But her questions had a more serious purpose. She had heard me sing and was impressed sufficiently enough to want to work further with me and put in the time. She wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just some silly girl with unreasonable expectations. “And what are your goals?” I told her that I wanted to be an entertainer, a good singer, and a good actress. From the time we spent together, about ten sessions or so in total, she saw that my desire and dedication were rock solid.

I remember how Christine always smelled so good, an impression made stronger by the fact that perfume and cologne were luxuries that had not existed in my world. The other delightful smell in her house came from the kitchen. She loved to bake and made sure I had a piece of her apple pie or anything else she might have on hand.

On one occasion, I came to her door in the cold pouring rain with neither raincoat nor scarf to protect my throat, which in her world was unthinkable. “If you want to be a singer, you can’t go out like this,” she admonished me. I did not volunteer that I owned no raincoat, scarf, nor umbrella.

During our visits, she would sing with me. She had a magnificent voice, a beautiful and unforgettable mezzo-soprano. William Hawkins, a distinguished critic at the time and a friend of hers, told me that she had so much talent but that her voice was even more beautiful when he heard her sing in the kitchen rather than on the stage. This same writer—who became a good friend of mine as well—in an otherwise glowing review later made a comment about how he had first met me when I was a student. Hearing my thick country accent at the time, he had felt sure I would soon be back on the farm taking care of the pigs. Oink, oink.

One day, Christine called Ruth Helen’s family and gave her verdict. “I think this child has talent, and her head is screwed on straight. She deserves a break.” If Christine had said no, things would have been very different. She remained a mentor and an inspiration to me because she was such an incredibly positive person. Through the years, she came to see me in various shows, and even in her nineties she still wrote me long handwritten letters. She passed away in 2010 at the age of ninety-seven.

I do not remember squealing, jumping up and down, or yelling, “Oh my gosh” when I got the news. Don’t get me wrong, I was extremely grateful and very happy. But my mind was already focused on the concrete tasks ahead, no different than I am today when a new project comes my way. This was really happening! There was much to do to prepare over the next few weeks before moving in September. What to pack? Would I have enough clothes for the winter?

Since the time I had walked home singing the songs from the movie musicals I saw in the local theater, I had always felt it as a kind of destiny, a calling, a vocation. I never wavered in my desire to entertain people and make them feel happier. When I was very young, I thought for a while that I would enter a convent to become a nun. But when I found out that nuns in those days were not allowed to drive a car and couldn’t go out on dates, I changed my mind. However, getting the sponsorship from Ruth Helen’s family reinforced that deep faith I had as a child. Miracles did happen. Prayers were answered.

There was also the matter that I had the lead in a local musical in Owensboro. I had to tell the director that I was going to New York. He was very excited for me. Everything was set except for one important step: I was not officially enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts until I passed their audition. Being so busy helped dampen any fear and anxiety as my departure for New York neared.

Suitcase packed with some new clothes that Babby had bought me, I said goodbye to my father and my sister. Although Babby was three years older, I felt like I was the big sister as she started crying. I knew that I was leaving her alone with our father, who by this time was becoming noticeably ill with the swelling on his face. But nobody said, “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t do that,” or “Please, don’t go.” I reassured my sister, telling her, “Don’t worry, I’ll come back for you.” And I would fulfill that promise in the coming months.

“Be careful, Gal,” my father said to me. “Remember your character.” He was always cautioning me to look out for a certain suspicious person and how he or she was up to no good. He was usually right. Despite his limited experience, he could read people fairly well. He wanted me to be safe, but truthfully, I was more concerned about his well-being. I had some guilt about leaving my father and Babby, since abandonment had been such a high-impact issue in my life.

I can imagine I was a funny sight, the look of astonishment on my face staring out the window at the skyline of New York City as the airplane made its approach for landing. It was a strange mix of emotions, excitement, and terror, but at the same time absurdly familiar, as if I were coming home. I must have been in such a state of shock, because I cannot recall the slightest memory of how I made it from the airport to the Barbizon Hotel for Women where I was booked to stay for just the first night.

As I rode up higher and higher in the hotel elevator with the bellman, I remembered Christine’s advice that I should be sure to give him a tip. When we got to the room and I went to give him the money, he reached out his hand but asked for a little something more. He put his arm around me. I thought, “Uh-oh, this is going to be terrible.” He was being overfriendly, to put it mildly. My self-protective mechanism kicked in, but it was still disturbing and made me feel all the more vulnerable as I was newly arrived in this big city. Because of my experiences with my father, there has always been a disturbing ambiguity when someone is overly attentive or inappropriate to me. On one side, it is an obvious and clear violation that feels awful. On the other side, it is hard for me to say, “No, don’t do that,” or “How dare you!” It is a strange combination of not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings and also not being totally confident and experienced in knowing what to do.

The next morning I visited the school for the first time. It was not your traditional ivy-covered brick edifice or a classroom building of any sort, but rather was housed in the Carnegie Hall building. The school occupied rooms on different floors.

I reported for my audition to the office of Charles Jehlinger, a distinguished-looking man with a mane of gray hair, who was sitting behind his desk waiting for me to show what I could do. Dr. Jehlinger was a noted expert in the Stanislavski system, an intricate way of creating highly realistic characters, which was a precursor to the “Method acting” that actors like Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and James Dean under teacher Lee Strasberg made commonplace later in the 1950s. Such a background makes the degree of patience and kindness Dr. Jehlinger must have summoned during my audition all the more remarkable.

The school had sent me a book before I left Rockport of short scenes culled from contemporary plays. For some reason, I chose an excerpt from
The Subway
by Elmer Rice. I had never seen nor ridden on a subway, much less had any way of knowing how its barreling locomotive was expressionist symbolism for a cold and inhumane new age of technology. My character, Sophie, was seduced and pregnant, betrayed and abandoned by her lover, who was going off to Europe. “Eugene! Eugene!” I wailed with all the dramatic effect I could muster before pretending to throw myself down on the tracks of the oncoming subway train.

It could have just as well been over right there. Dr. Jehlinger could have said, “Sorry, Miss Henderson, you are not material for us.” Jump a train back to Rockport and go to Plan B. Become a nurse. Or Plan Z—oink. But failure was not an option that day. I had set a goal: I had come to New York, and I was going to give it three years. “If I don’t land a job in my chosen profession in that time period, then maybe it’s not for me,” I rationalized. Deep down, I didn’t think it was going to take me that long, and ultimately, it didn’t. But now when I talk to people about this time of my life, I tell them that once I was in it, there was no way Dr. Jehlinger or anybody could have stopped me short of throwing me down on those tracks and running me over. I was hypercritical of myself even as a beginner, in the kind of insecurity that drives artists not to rest on their laurels. So I thought I was awful as the distraught and suicidal Sophie. But fortunately, Dr. Jehlinger saw some potential in me, or perhaps he was influenced by Christine Johnson’s letter of recommendation. At best, Dr. Jehlinger must have admired the guts of a kid from the country choosing such a scene. I made the cut. One remarkable postscript to this story happened when I appeared on a recent talk show. One of the hosts had somehow located a copy of Dr. Jehlinger’s hand-scribbled evaluation form from that audition and presented it to me. At the bottom, he wrote, “This girl has some promising qualities. Possible to become a promising actress.”

The next order of business was finding affordable housing and right away, since my one night budgeted at the Barbizon was history. The school arranged for a room at the Three Arts Club for Women on West 85th Street. It was established in 1906 to provide women pursuing careers in music, drama, and the fine arts with a place to stay. It had eighty-seven rooms in total and a supportive and safe social environment.

My room was the size of a walk-in closet. There was no window, the only light coming from a light bulb on the ceiling. There was a linoleum floor, a tiny closet, and a desk. The bathroom and communal shower were down the hall. And even though the bed was little and narrow, it was the first one in my life that I didn’t have to share. The place was clean, with not a cockroach to be found. Back in Rockport, I’d get up at night to go to the bathroom and the floor would be covered with them. It was not pleasant to have creepy-crawlies on you. The chiggers, mosquitoes, head lice, and you-name-it were also great motivation to leave home. So I loved the Three Arts Club. It felt good and safe.