by Lee René
All of a sudden, the doors opened and Chick strolled in. Without the heavy screen makeup, his skin glowed, his hair looked blonder and his eyes bluer. He’d dressed in an elegant wool suit and wore spats over his English oxfords. From the moment he entered, he didn’t take those baby blues off me, and how they sparkled. He sauntered over and put his arm around my waist.
“Mitzi, you look swell. Let’s get the show on the road so Mr. Roth can hear what you can do.”
Our host’s telephone conversation still engaged him. “So what if Metro has Garbo? We’ve got Helga Nielson. Nice kid, works cheap, speaks good English, and, unlike dear Greta, she can ice skate.”
Chick ushered me over to the piano. “Mr. Roth is always on the phone, but he hears everything.” He turned to Miss Cohen. “Gee, Ida, I wish she had some head shots. She’s got such a pretty face.”
Did Chick Hagan say I had a pretty face? I’m sure my skin turned a deeper shade of pink than my lipstick.
Miss Cohen patted my shoulder. “With a puss like hers, you don’t need headshots. It’s time to see if she’s got the pipes. Ben isn’t too keen about musicals right now, but don’t worry, there’s always a place for a song or two in our films—that is, if she can sing.”
Her words cued Leah to tickle the keys of Mr. Roth’s crummy old upright. The piano looked like a rickety mess, but it had a marvelous tone and, thank goodness, I was in voice. We got off to a rousing start with “I Got Rhythm.”
Miss Cohen put down her cigarette holder and began snapping her fingers in time to the music. Mr. Roth ignored us. We slowed down the tempo with “Embraceable You” and then “But Not for Me.” Chick applauded, Miss Cohen beamed, but Mr. Roth continued barking into the phone. “Joe Breen, the censor? He can kiss my ass!”
Could the gods be pouring ice water on our dreams? I murmured my fear to Miss Cohen. “I don’t think Mr. Roth likes the way I sing.”
She murmured back. “He likes you, all right, or you’d be out on your ear by now. Nothing gets past Benny. He hears and sees everything. Believe me, he can listen to music and talk on the phone at the same time. He used to juggle plates while selling candy during intermission in his father’s Nickelodeon. Keep singing.”
I belted out two songs I’d regularly performed at the Ritz, “Ten Cents a Dance” and “Sing, You Sinners.” I threw in as much razzmatazz as I could, but Mr. Roth ignored me. He swiveled his chair away from the piano and continued his conversation.
Chick joined me in “Time on My Hands.” Even without a rehearsal, our voices harmonized perfectly and couldn’t have sounded any better with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra behind us. Unfortunately, Mr. Roth blabbed away. “Are you bellyaching about those crumbs in the Hays office again? They’re a bunch of penny-ante dictators. Aw, we can handle those bums.”
I looked down at Leah. It seemed the time to give up the ghost. Perhaps the idea of work at Regal was just a pipe dream. Miss Cohen, however, had other ideas and asked the magic question. “Do you know any Yiddish songs?”
Leah nodded and began the opening vamp of “My Yiddishe Momme.”
I took a deep breath, then threw in everything but the kitchen sink. I added trills and vocal acrobatics like the singers from the Yiddish theater. I remembered all the Jews who’d fled the shtetls of Poland and Russia only to end up in filthy, disease-ridden New York tenements. I thought of my family, of Pops and Uncle Baron, and wrung every ounce of emotion I possessed into the song.
A miracle happened. Mr. Roth finally looked up. He hung up the telephone, his attention on me, me alone, and his eyes like two aquamarine klieg lights. Silence. Then he burst into tears and bawled so hard no one could hear me above his caterwauling.
Leah spurred me on to the climax, and I finished, belting out as big a finish as I could. Talk about razzmatazz! Afterward, I doubted I could sing another note. I leaned against the piano, exhausted yet relieved my ordeal had ended. Except for Mr. Roth’s sobbing, silence enveloped the room.
Mr. Roth looked so sorrowful that I thought I’d start crying too. “You’re that kid from the train, aren’t you?”
He picked up the phone and barked into the receiver. “Come to my office. Now.”
He slammed the telephone down, rose to his feet, and walked over to Miss Cohen. “Well, Ida, I think we can do something with her. With that voice, we can use her for shorts, radio, and personal appearances. Sign her up at seventy a week.”
Seventy dollars a week! I couldn’t suppress a yelp. Mr. Roth glared at me.
“Okay, okay, seventy-five, but not a nickel more until we see how you look on the screen. I’m not worried about the acting. Anybody who can sing like her has to be able to act.”
He moved a bit closer, gazed into my face, and turned back to Miss Cohen.
“Send her to Factor’s, but don’t let them tart her up too much. If we decide to team her with Chick, she can’t look like a chippie.”
Miss Cohen nodded. “Yes, Ben, she’s a find, all right, but don’t you think we should work on her accent?”
Mr. Roth looked at me and smiled for the first time that morning. The oversized room suddenly took on a toasty glow. “Nobody’s worked with Stanwyck or Clara Bow, have they? The way she talks is okay by me.”
There was a knock, and Mr. Roth marched to the door. “Mitzi, I want to introduce you to the man who’ll be guiding your career. His office has been calling your number all week to set up a test. The guy’s been talking about you for months and said he’d finally figured out how to get you onto the lot. Can you believe it? A year ago he told me about this kid he’d met in New York who sang like a canary and played the organ at the Ritz. He swore you were a natural, but musical movies were in the crapper, and I wasn’t interested.”
Miss Cohen put her arm around me. “The minute you told me your name I knew you were the gal he’d been talking about. It was in the bag from the first.”
Right then I heard the voice I’d prayed never to hear again. “Hi, Mitzi, it’s been a little while, hasn’t it?”
I turned and looked into David Stein’s smirking face.
Chapter Fifteen
Mr. Stein
Mr. Roth pushed me toward David Stein. “I bet you thought you’d escaped him, didn’t you?”
Mr. Stein bounded over and wrapped his arms around me like a vise. I couldn’t break free, and it took every bit of my self-control to keep from screaming in disgust. The bastard blabbed away to Mr. Roth while I stood imprisoned in his embrace.
“Yes, Ben, Mitzi and I go back a long way. We met in New York before she headed west. When she came out to Los Angeles, she played the Wurlitzer at the Ritz, before you and I made our deal, you pirate.” He grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Ben, I told you she had what it takes. Gosh, Mitzi, I thought I’d have to hogtie you to get you here.”
When he finally released me, he sauntered over to Leah, his hand extended, his smile so bright he managed to outshine Chick. In the year I worked at the Ritz, I rarely saw a glimmer of humanity. Now he put on the charm, acted like a regular Maurice Chevalier, and did everything but kiss Leah’s hand.
“You must be Mitzi’s sister. She always talked about you. It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Leah.” Then he did kiss her hand, and I wanted to puke. He turned back to me, an icy grin pasted on his mug. “I see the family resemblance.”
When Leah tittered like a twelve-year-old, I knew the crumb had pulled the wool over her eyes. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Stein. You’re so kind. I can’t tell you how much Mitzi valued her time at the Ritz.”
Chick brushed my cheek with his lips and, once again, I thought I’d plotz in front of everyone. “I have to be on my way, doll, but I’ll be seeing you soon, real soon.”
From the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Stein shoot Chick the same no-trespassing fish-eye he used to give the twins back at the Ritz. The nerve of the bum. Chick must have noticed, because he vamoosed before I could beg him to stay. Mr. Roth and Mr. Stein spent the next few minutes schmoozing with Leah. Mr
. Roth mentioned our brush with destiny once again.
“Isn’t it a small world? David’s been raving about Mitzi for months, and now she’s here.”
Mr. Stein nodded in agreement, then glanced my way, the smirk gone. “As a very wise little girl once said, ‘It was fate.’ I kept telling Mitzi that I had connections, but I don’t think she believed me. Of course, with all the phonies in Los Angeles, why should she? I had to talk her landlady into bringing her to the lot, and it worked, didn’t it?”
Everyone laughed except me. He may have taken the rest of them in, but I knew the truth about David Stein—he was a fink and a sex-fiend. I now knew a rat, not a “little bird” had conned Mrs. LaRue into bringing me to Regal. I bit my tongue, smiled like a ninny, and didn’t say a word.
Mr. Roth dismissed us with a flick of his hand and picked up the phone. On our way out, he shouted, “We’ll sign up the sister too. Girlie, you can sure tickle the ivories! Now all of you, scram!”
Publicity photographs of Regal’s stars covered the wall just outside Mr. Roth’s office. One jumped out from the rest, an exquisite portrait of Clarice Dumont inscribed, “To Benny—my friend and savior, Your Clarice.”
****
Leah and I would be in the money, but a big fat fly had just plopped into the ointment, namely Mr. David Stein. Although I couldn’t let my feelings about him or the lousy way he’d acted that horrible night get in our way, I didn’t have to like it.
Leah was over the moon, so cheerful I thought she’d leap into the air and click her heels together. “I feel much better knowing Mr. Stein, that is, David, will be taking care of you. You never mentioned how handsome he is.”
I rolled my eyes at her words. Maybe the guy had leading-man looks, but a skunk lay underneath. “Gee, Leah, I never noticed him. He spent most of his time in New York, and besides, he was a married man.”
She shook her head and began to tear up. “But not anymore, Mitzi. Miss Cohen told me that his poor wife died.”
How could I forget? “Yes, I knew she’d passed away.”
Leah dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “She died two months ago, Mr. Roth’s niece, very young and quite sickly. Oh, the pain that poor guy must be feeling.”
I kept my lips buttoned, but I was willing to bet poor Mrs. Stein got wind of her husband’s Romeo ways and he bumped her off. Maybe he laced her chicken soup with arsenic.
Omar insisted we celebrate my triumph and invited us to dinner that evening. When he stopped by our flat, Leah, the mistress of kvelling, pulled out our childhood photos, the ones she kept next to her bed. I stifled a scream and prayed, “Don’t let her drag out my baby pictures!” She did, but thankfully not the naked ones.
“This was Mitzi at three, already reading and playing the piano. Such a beautiful baby. Did I ever tell you she sang before she spoke?”
I’d have been mortified if it had been anyone but Omar. He’d become so much a member of the family I didn’t really mind.
That evening, the three of us celebrated my triumph with a dinner at Clifton’s Pacific Seas Cafeteria of the Tropics, a fancy automat. Clifton’s served colored people, one of the few downtown eateries that did. Omar insisted on paying for dinner.
We sat under a neon palm tree scented with coconut perfume and tropical flowers. The three of us dined on Clifton’s signature meat loaf and toasted my good fortune with limeade as we enjoyed the waterfall and a Hawaiian band replete with ukuleles. A musician plucked out “When I Take My Sugar to Tea,” then burst into song. My heart sang along with him. The ukuleles reminded me of Chick, and I’d soon be working with the real thing.
Leah’s attention never strayed from Omar. “Dearest, tell Mitzi your story, please.”
He looked at me, a shy grin on his face. He looked around our table, then spoke in a whisper. “There’s not much to tell. I’m from New Orleans. Daddy raised me to be a hard worker. I did a little of everything, including bootlegging with my uncle and playing the saxophone in a jazz band. A cousin got me the job on the train. I met Mr. Stein, and he introduced me to Mr. Roth. I drive for Mr. Roth sometimes, bring him ‘medicinal wine’ when he entertains, and do odd jobs.”
Leah and Omar held hands and cooed like turtledoves throughout dinner. How could I have been so blind? I tried to ignore them but couldn’t. Some celebration of my success this turned out to be.
When we returned to the Dorchester, Omar walked us to the door. Leah took his face in her hands, and they shared a long, passionate kiss.
“Omar, my dear, sweet Omar.”
Her charm bracelet jingled from her wrist. So that’s how she got it out of hock. Not that I minded at all. The Schectors were Bolsheviks who treated everyone the same. I knew Pops would have approved of anyone who made Leah happy.
I guessed our lives would now include Omar Fournier.
****
Two days after our celebratory dinner, Leah and I stood at the entrance of the renowned Max Factor & Company. Mr. Factor had located his beauty factory inside a concrete bunker near Hollywood Boulevard. Inside this bustling temple of feminine pulchritude, Mr. Factor and his minions would pluck, shear, and paint me, transforming Mitzi Schector from schnook to ravishing beauty.
Before we crossed the threshold, however, I exacted a promise from Leah.
“Whatever they do to me, even if you think I look like a hussy, don’t make a peep. I need this job—we need this job. Not only will we now have three square meals a day, but I can find out more about Uncle Baron. Swear to me you won’t say anything.”
Before she gave me the Look, I gave her one of my own. She nodded with a pout. “All right already, I swear.”
Factor’s exterior wasn’t much, but inside the place rivaled the grandeur of a movie palace. We entered a salon as grand as the court of Louis XIV. Gilded mirrors reflected the light from coffered ceilings, blazing crystal chandeliers illuminated trompe l’oeil columns, niches, and recessed walls. A small perfumery adjoined the grand salon and filled the air with vanilla, rose, lavender, and a hundred other scents. A beveled-glass showcase displayed everything from toupees to powder puffs.
“Hello, Mitzi. Hello, Leah.”
Miss Cohen stood in wait in front of our destination, the consultation room, a broad smile on her face. A few of Mr. Factor’s patrons left the place, all made-up like kewpie dolls. The Factor team had bleached a young lady’s marcelled head to match Jill Carpenter’s platinum tones, dyed another girl’s hair banana yellow, and turned another’s tresses cherry red. All had used the newest Factor product—lip-gloss—and their mouths looked shellacked. Mr. Factor’s patrons all sported pencil-thin eyebrows. Oh, the horror of it—I might end up looking like Mrs. LaRue.
Miss Cohen took the arm of the doe-eyed young lady I’d seen with Chick. The girl carried a camera and a bag of flash bulbs. “Good day, Mitzi, and glad to see you again, Leah. Let me introduce you to my niece, Miss Rose Amelia Dupree.”
Rose extended her hand. “How you doing?”
The moment Rose opened her mouth, her Brooklyn roots spilled out. Leah and I exchanged a look, and Miss Cohen chortled.
“I know what you girls are thinking. Her name is really Rose Cohen, and yeah, the name Rose Amelia Dupree was one of my brainstorms. When you’re in the glamour business, you better have a glamorous name. If Ruth Goldstein can call herself Ruth Harriet Louise, my Rose can be Rose Amelia Dupree.”
A diminutive, bespectacled gentleman strolled into the room, kissing the hand of every lady he passed. He spied Ida and called out to her, “Hello, Ida. It is good to see you.”
Miss Cohen rushed over to him, hand extended. “Max, my old friend!”
Could this nebbish be Max Factor, the master of Hollywood glamour? With his heavy accent, he sounded like some greenhorn just off the boat. In fact, Mr. Factor was the spit and image of the tailor who had made Pops’ shirts. Mr. Factor kissed Miss Cohen’s hand, then scrutinized me through thick glasses. He mused out loud as Rose’s camera flashed.
&nbs
p; “Interesting face, a child turning into a woman, and the hair, marvelous, so thick, so glossy. Too bad it’s not blonde. Her eyes are dramatic, but we must thin the brows.”
I suddenly had a vision of Mrs. LaRue’s shaved forehead. Luckily, Miss Cohen interceded.
“Max, no. David Stein nixed waxing off her eyebrows. He hates the penciled-in look.”
Mr. Factor seemed exasperated. “Factor does mystery, glamour, and eyebrows, but we will try to make Mr. Stein happy.”
For my pre-glamour photograph, Rose positioned me between Leah and Mr. Factor. Flash, pop. Then Mr. Factor, followed by his underlings, led me into the Consultation Room. After the opulence of the grand salon, its white-walled sterility reminded me of a hospital surgery. Instead of perfume, the place smelled of astringent, ammonia, and cold cream. Beauticians in white smocks spoke in the hushed tones of operating room nurses.
I disrobed and donned a special gown. A beautician trimmed my hair before washing it with Mr. Factor’s special shampoo. He arranged it into a shoulder-length bob and gave me the same tousled look, minus the red dye, that Clara Bow currently sported. Rose flashed her camera while I stared into a mirror and focused on my image. Not bad. Good, in fact. I thought my coiffure quite becoming.
The pop of flash bulbs accompanied each step in my transformation. Another cosmetologist shaped my eyebrows but left enough so I wouldn’t have to pencil them back on. Why girls plucked away their brows only to draw them back on again had always eluded me. I pondered that question as a member of the white-smocked squad examined every inch of my face under a magnifying glass. Mr. Factor had one mantra: “Clean skin is the foundation on which beauty is built.”
His lackeys took those words literally. After one technician squeezed my imperfections into non-existence, another fellow drenched my face with astringent, and then tested every shade of Society Make-Up on my skin. He sponged the winning color on my face, then began working on my eyes. The Factor folks tried shades of eye shadow from lilac to emerald green. I thought the shadow gave me a dramatic look, but Leah shook her head, finally, breaking her oath. “You look like one of those chippies from Dreamland.”