Читать книгу Goddess of Love Incarnate - Leslie Zemeckis - Страница 22

CHAPTER TWELVE

It cost 25 cents to cross the Bay Bridge into San Francisco in 1941, the year Lili arrived alone in November. She found a room in a boarding house that looked clean and decent. Before she even undressed she perused the phone book for local theatrical agents. She found one not far away and set out to conquer San Francisco.

Showing up unannounced she threw her nude picture on the desk and told him she was a dancer from the world-famous Florentine Gardens and she would soon be working with Lou Walters, but . . . she needed work now.

The woman standing before the agent was stunning, with a wide smile, a face that could stop traffic, slim, seemingly as tall as the tallest building. He called the Music Box and sent his new client over for an interview.

Twenty-three-year-old Lili got the job.

The Music Box Theatre was the most dazzling theatre Lili had ever seen. It would remain a loving memory for her among dozens of venues. Smaller than the Florentine, it had a capacity for only six hundred on its two tiers. There were three bars painted blue and gold with a band at one end and a dance floor in the middle of the ground floor. Tall marble columns held a balcony that wrapped around the second floor. To Lili it was like pictures she had seen of European opera houses. It was a luxurious, bejeweled candy box.

The burlesque theatre located at 859 O’Farrell Street was not an “ideal location for a club.”¹⁶⁴ It had opened in October 16, 1940, backed by Frank and Clarence Herman. After a year it shuttered while the Duncan Sisters, who took over management, ran the nearby Lido. It was small and ornate, like its operators.

The once-famous Duncan Sisters had triumphed in a winning act that had wowed the country in the twenties. Rosetta and her younger sibling Vivian were two petite veterans of vaudeville. They had been performing since they were kids. Vivian played the pretty dumb blonde. Rosetta had performed for years in blackface in their $1-million-making act “Topsy and Eva,” an Uncle Tom’s Cabin–ish musical written specifically for them. The music was a “riot of success” and had been enormously popular.¹⁶⁵ It was an act they would regularly regurgitate well into the 1950s.

Lili’s employers, The Duncan Sisters

The two women, no longer charming young ingenues, were now in their forties, standing a mere five two. Once vivacious and popular, they were now irrelevant with their antiquated act, yet they valiantly trooped on, oblivious to the changing times. They refused to believe the world was moving on from their dated form of entertainment where it was acceptable for a beautiful young white girl to sing and act in blackface.

THE VETERAN TROOPERS TREATED THE SHOWGIRLS THAT WORKED for them like daughters. Where Vivian was sweet and resembled Barbara Cartland, Rosette was completely different, “rude” and a “lesbian.”¹⁶⁶

Lili loved San Francisco. She loved the Chinese restaurants, pork noodles for 35 cents. Great carts parked along Powell Street; with a riot of fresh flowers for sale. Fisherman’s Wharf was crowded with boats, most of the Italian sailors sat mending nets, singing in their native language. What Lili loved most was the cool temperatures. She walked around the city, jumping into restaurants or bars. Without Dick and her family, Lili had no one to answer to. San Francisco was freedom and would hold fond memories for her. She would return time and again throughout her career, appreciating the invigorating breezes.

The Music Box had a revue-type show much like the Florentine Gardens. Vivian played the piano, though one reviewer complained the sisters “seemed tired.”¹⁶⁷ A hot dance team called Harger and Maye appeared to much applause. It was one of the Duncan’s idea for Lili to be the “Girl of the Hour.”

Lili was to come out every hour wearing something spectacular and walk among the crowd. She could smile or chat briefly. Then she was to remove a piece of clothing. Her first proper tease to date. Lili would exit and leave the audience waiting until the next hour, when she would return to remove another item of clothing.

Presumably it would keep the men in the club buying more drinks throughout the night, waiting to see the nubile blonde until she was revealed in all her glory.

At the top Lili removed a fur, revealing her beautiful white shoulders in a strapless gown. Smile. Turn. Leave them wanting more.

The next hour she peeled off a glove. She left them wanting more.

By the end of the night she was naked except for a tiny sequined G-string, satin pumps, and a gardenia behind one ear. She looks wildly happy and in her element. Experiencing her first taste of success.

LILI LIKED THE SPECIAL ATTENTION. TERRIFIED AND EXCITED AT THE same time, she would hold her head high and smile. All eyes were on her.

Stage fright is a paralyzing feeling. The stomach cramps, the mouth dries, hands become numb, and the heart races. It can be sheer terror. Yet there is no better reminder that one is fully alive, fully in the moment. There is no conquering the feeling. There is only the stepping into it and walking through it. For some performers they cannot endure the terror; for others it is intoxicating. Despite the agony she felt, Lili always managed to go on. Always.

Lili said she worked with an alter ego. Was it Greta Garbo she hid behind? She mentions her constantly in her Canadian biography, asking herself what Garbo would do to help her make a decision.

The nights were long but fruitful. Lili would slowly glide down the staircase to the main part of the room, her fur dragging elegantly behind her. Underneath the crystal chandeliers Lili glittered among the patrons. She felt beautiful and powerful and she knew she had them in the palm of her hand.

Down to the bare essentials

As a final tease she would unpin the gardenia behind her ear and toss it into the audience. She was irresistible. Yet with her attitude she created a barrier between herself and the audience. She was an “untouchable beauty.”¹⁶⁸ Maybe her alter ego allowed her distance yet desirability, à la Garbo. Lili’s version of Garbo was far more lush and feminine, her body more inviting.

Lili was supremely comfortable with her body. It was exhilarating being naked in front of applauding strangers who oohed and awed at her mere presence. NTG wrote that for Lili, “clothes were unimportant.” And “she had an aversion to wearing anything” on the stage.¹⁶⁹

Vivian chided Lili for not mingling with the guests. Lili wanted to remain mysterious. Vivian continued to protest until reporters called wanting to know the Girl of the Hour’s name. Lili got her way.

Lili was an unpolished performer, winning kudos for her sheer beauty. She had something, but it was largely unproven. In fact the whole Music Box show was rough. The sisters hired a new choreographer by the end of November.

Ivan Fehnova had previously worked with Mike Todd at the New York World’s Fair. He stepped in to whip the show into shape.¹⁷⁰

In his midforties, Ivan was a flamboyant, homosexual Russian who wore black silk shirts with high upturned collars. His thinning black hair was parted in the middle and slicked back. He carried large white handkerchiefs. He was chubby yet elegant, impossibly glamorous and rigidly disciplined, prone to whacking dancers on the back of their legs with his six-foot staff made out of polished wood. Of course, not too hard. He didn’t want to inflict damage.

FEHNOVA WOULD BECOME A GREAT FRIEND TO LILI. HE SAW HER potential though he declared her hopeless as a dancer. “She had absolutely nothing,” he declared.¹⁷¹ But Lili was willing to follow his every direction. She would always warm to having a mentor, eager to improve herself.

The Russian had an idea that would cause a sensation. He had her change into her G-string and stand on the empty stage. He hooked a fishing wire onto the side of her panties. The wire was attached to a fishing rod that was held by a stagehand standing up in the rafters. Before Lili knew what was happening she felt a tug and her G-string went flying off into the balcony.

Next Fehnova had the G-string coated with radium paint, used mostly on watches that glowed in the dark.¹⁷²

At the evening show Lili stripped down to her G-string, the stagehand pulled on the wire as the lights were hit, and the phosphorescent G-string flew through the air, landing in one lucky man’s lap. The audience went crazy.

Fehnova “disciplining” Dardy

Lili might tremble backstage, yet once she stepped in front of the audience she had a confidence that was unflappable. If she stumbled, and she did in the beginning, she would spend more time rehearsing with Fehnova, who drilled her hard.

“It was the presence of the women in the audience that gave me butterflies in my stomach.”¹⁷³ Where she felt confident and took “pleasure in tantalizing and intriguing” her male audience, she felt the women judging her and they terrified her.¹⁷⁴ Preshow jitters would plague her for the rest of her professional life. “I hate the audiences,” she would explain. “Anyone hates anything that frightens them.”¹⁷⁵

Under Ivan’s tough and persistent tutelage she mastered a fluid gait. “I walked her until I thought she would drop but before we were through Lili knew how to walk across a stage, believe me.”¹⁷⁶ She dance-walked across the stage, her head held high, shoulders back. She appeared sensuous and inviting, enticing from the sway of her hips to the arch of her back, her uniquely “pigeon breast” jutting forward. Lili became calm and confident. Fehnova was proud of her, declaring her “intrinsically graceful.” He had spotted her “natural grace and poise that many ballet dancers work years to get. . . . She radiated personality.”¹⁷⁷

Under Fehnova’s tutelage she danced for hours. They developed acts she would repeat for years, such as “The Love Bird” and “The Chinese Chastity Belt.” With each new daring invention she received more notice in the papers. The demand for her grew. San Franciscans wanted to see the new sensation.

Since the Florentine, Lili had begun experimenting with pseudonyms. Often she was Marie Van Schaack, which few seemed to know how to pronounce or spell. Ivan suggested “Fehnova” and then “Lili.” She remembered Marlene Dietrich’s character Shanghai Lily. Alternatively she tried Lili Marie. Ivan informed the publicity manager at the Music Box that from now on she would be known as Lili Fehnova should any members of the press ask who the tall cool blonde was. And they were asking.

Fehnova began shaping the show. There was a ten-girl lineup, a dance duo, singer, Vivian Duncan on the piano. During the December 3 show Lili had the good fortune to have her flying G-string land in a reporter’s receptive lap. Variety singled out Lili, noting her “G-string takes the air.”¹⁷⁸

Lili made friends with the dance duo Harger and Maye. Burt Harger and Charlotte Maye were café dancers and “one of the strongest teams” working.¹⁷⁹ “Their varied sets arrest attention” and Lili was impressed.¹⁸⁰ Of course she would have observed and taken from the dancers as she did with others.¹⁸¹ She was close enough to sleep on the couch of Harger, whose life would have a tragic end.

Lili said she was “infatuated” by the handsome Burt but he did not reciprocate her advances. Finally he set Lili down and explained he was gay.¹⁸²

Puzzling that Lili misnames the duo in her biography (as she would so many), but just the mere mention of them means they had an influence on her (she mentioned so few). Lili wrote they went on to enjoy a “long friendship.”¹⁸³

Burt Harger’s career was cut short in 1945 at age thirty-nine. His dismembered torso was found washed ashore in New York, while an arm and leg were found in the Hudson River. Maye had become worried when her dance partner missed a rehearsal. Police would discover Harger had been murdered with multiple blows from a hammer, then cut in pieces with a razor by his lover and roommate of fourteen months, who was upset over the news that the dancer was set to marry. The murderer took multiple trips on ferries dumping body parts wrapped in sheets into the water.¹⁸⁴

Newspapers at the time called it the “Torso Murder Case.” Lili had to have known about it, as she was in New York herself, but she makes no mention of her murdered ex-crush.

Back in Los Angeles, Barbara was working hard-to-conquer Hollywood, still dancing at the Florentine. Signed with RKO, she was pursuing an acting career with Idella’s encouragement.

Dardy was finally allowed to work and landed a job dancing for vaudeville producer Harry Howard.¹⁸⁵ The show would take her to San Francisco.

At the LA train station Ian helped his youngest daughter with her suitcase while she wrung her gloved hands, nervous, prepared to head north. At sixteen she had never been away from her family.

Gray streaked Ian’s auburn hair. He still suffered debilitating headaches and was particularly close with his youngest daughter. She was brave and fearless on the horses, high-spirited and saucy. Organized, capable, sharp-tongued when she had to be. Dardy adored her dad.

In San Francisco, Dardy and the rest of the dancers in the show were put up at the Grand Hotel, directly across from the Golden Gate Theatre where she would be performing. She had begun the oftentimes harsh life of a showgirl. It was a noon curtain; four shows, bed by three, up and at the theatre again by ten.

Contrary to what most believed, the grind in a showgirl’s life was in the travel, not on the stage.

Exhausted from the pace, Dardy would fall asleep backstage, fully and elaborately dressed, to awaken to the sounds of her overture being played by the orchestra and she would dash to make her curtain.

Stripper Betty Rowland with gas mask

DECEMBER 7, 1941. WAS A COLD DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO. ARRIVING AT the theatre early, Lili busied herself getting ready. The dressing room was eerily quiet. Girls and crew began showing up walking around in tears, somber faced.

The Duncan Sisters were even whiter under their ghost-like pancake. Vivian stood onstage and in great theatrical style told the cast that the Japanese had dropped bombs on Hawaii.

In the coming days there was palpable fear in the air as police patrolled the waters off San Francisco bay. The city was dark by sunset. The mayor declared a state of emergency. Attendance dropped. Just as she had been garnering good press, Lili’s dreams would have to be postponed.

Lili was at her dressing table pulling bottles from a beautiful white leather makeup case. As soon as she started earning money Lili began to spend it on beautiful things. Things she had dreamed of owning. She had great taste; expensive taste.

Dardy trawled through Lili’s treasure trove of liquid and powder and lipsticks, bleach and perfume.

“What’s this?” Dardy held up a scary green mask with a long tube that ran down to the ground.

“It’s a gas mask and you better get yourself one, babe.”¹⁸⁶ Lili was perfectly serious as she penciled in her eyebrows. One never knew when the bomb was going to be dropped and “we had to look our best.”¹⁸⁷

HYSTERIA WAS IN THE AIR. ROSETTA ANNOUNCED TO CAST AND CREW that they were moving to the River House in Reno.

With the Latin Quarter temporarily shut due to the war Lili was grateful for the Reno engagement. With several weeks to fill Lili returned to Los Angeles to help Alice pack an emergency kit in case the Japanese attacked.

Unable to remain idle Lili booked gigs dancing at both the Merry-Go-Round and Sugar Hill clubs on Vine between Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard.

In general the Mafia had a hand both directly and indirectly in many burlesque clubs. They watched the customers, made sure the girls stayed in line, and themselves were often loyal customers. At the Florentine Gardens, if they didn’t actually run the club, many Mafioso certainly attended. Bugsy Siegel was a regular. Lili would, as would Dardy and Barbara, make friends with many over the years. They “loved gangsters.”¹⁸⁸

Lili arranged through her friend Jack Dragna, the “Capone of Los Angeles,” for Alice to have enough ration coupons.¹⁸⁹ Dragna was the boss of the LA crime family from 1931 until his death from a heart attack in 1956. Lili probably met him in one of the clubs after a show and was familiar enough to telephone him for a favor.

Lili packed emergency luggage for Alice, who was living in Long Beach before boarding a train to Nevada for the January 1942 debut.

The River House was located five minutes outside of Reno in Lawton’s Hot Springs. The casino and restaurant boasted a large outdoor pool conveniently located on Highway 40, the main route from Sacramento to Salt Lake City.

Nearby was a granite outcropping where warm mineral water sprang and the tourists soaked, hoping to cure everything from serious diseases to natural ailments caused by aging.

Sam Lawton had built his railway station and home for himself next to the spring in the late 1800s. Eventually the station was enlarged and an inn added. In early 1930 a bar faced the river with a large sitting area, fireplace, and dining room for weary travelers who either stopped to bathe and imbibe or settled in for the six-week divorces available in Nevada. Because of the latter the River House was always packed.

Lili, ripe for romance, fell in love with another tall, dark, and handsome man, the bartender, Eddie.

Lili before her dramatic transformation

To Lili, Eddie appeared sophisticated with a seemingly endless array of Cadillacs at the snap of his fingers. He spent money freely and lavishly. She didn’t think to question where his free-flowing income stemmed from.

Lili found the desert’s remoteness charming. The sunsets in particular were spectacular. It was a cool time of year and the weather was bracing in the late-night hours.

Lili once again wowed the audiences with her “Girl of the Hour” number, though attendance was poor.

After about a month in the desert her romance looked to be going well. She was happy and tranquil, confident in herself.

Cuddling with Eddie, who was rubbing her shoulders late one night after her last show, she rested her head on his chest. She wondered if tonight was the night he was going to propose. She had decided she was going to ask him if he didn’t bring it up. At this stage of her life marriage still meant she was wanted.

Quietly Eddie suggested Lili could make a lot of money for the both of them. If she joined his stable of call girls. Lili was shocked. Devastated.

“How dare you?” she squeaked.

“I’ve had offers for you. You can start tonight. Now.”¹⁹⁰

She left him and his offer and cried for hours in her room.

In her Canadian biography she would admit she knew what prostitutes were but before Eddie’s offer she had never thought about the “reality” of them. Forty years later she would still feel the sting of humiliation.

She went to Vivian and quit that night. Vivian admitted she knew about Eddie but couldn’t tell Lili.

Lili left for Los Angeles, running again. Perhaps in her mind she was determined to create someone—an image—no one would ever again mistake for a prostitute. She was determined to outclass them all.