To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie

by Ellen Conford

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright Page

  To Dennis Bernstein,

  Fran Chernowsky,

  and Susan Pfeffer,

  whom I’d love even

  if I didn’t have to

  Chapter 1

  June 10, 1956

  Dear Mom,

  Even though you will probably never get this, like you never got any of the other letters I wrote you because I never mailed them, I am writing anyway to tell you I am finally going to “take the plunge” and set out for Hollywood.

  As you know—well, I guess you don’t know, but you would if you had gotten my letters—people have always told me I ought to be in the movies because I am so pretty. I am not bragging or anything, I am just saying what people tell me. Anyway, I can’t stay here anymore because of certain reasons which I cannot go into, but they are the same reasons why I had trouble in the two other places and I don’t see that it is going to get any better even if they move me again.

  I made a very careful plan about how I am going to get to California, so don’t think I am just rushing into this without knowing what I’m doing. I am fifteen now and when I’m all dressed up I look at least eighteen or nineteen and I can take care of myself.

  Well, when you go to the movies, or if they have movies where you are, look for me on the silver screen. Only don’t look for the name Sylvie Krail, because I am changing it. I have not definitely decided on my stage name yet but I hope you will recognize my face, even though you haven’t seen me since I was

  I crumpled up the letter and threw my pen down on the desk. I don’t know why I bother writing to my mother. I don’t even have her address. All I know is that she’s locked up someplace in a home for drunk people and has been there since I was three years old. At least, that’s what everyone always told me. Not in those exact words, but I figured it out.

  But sometimes I need somebody to talk to and there isn’t anybody, so I write to my mother, and while I’m writing I can pretend she’s really listening and will write back and give me advice about the problems I’m having.

  I pulled out the bottom drawer of my desk and reached all the way back in to make sure the envelope was still there. My fingers touched it, I could feel the bulge of it, nice and fat because it was stuffed with mostly small bills. $137. It took me almost three years to save that money.

  “Sylvie!”

  I slammed the drawer shut just in time. Uncle Ted walked into my room without knocking, like he always does. It took me a while, but I learned that the only safe place to undress was in the bathroom with the door locked. Even in my own room on the hottest days I can’t just sit around in shortie pajamas like other people do. So even though it was June, I had my flannel bathrobe wrapped around me, tied good and tight.

  “Are you sure you won’t come to church with us, Sylvie?” Uncle Ted stood over me, looking even taller than six feet, because I was sitting down and had to crane my neck to look up at him.

  “I can’t today,” I said, making my voice sound weak and sick. “I’m really not feeling very well.”

  “Poor Sylvie.” Uncle Ted put his hand on my forehead like he was feeling if I had a fever. He moved his hand down the side of my face to my neck. My whole body clenched up.

  “Maybe I’d better stay home with you,” he said softly. “In case you need something.”

  “No!” I said too loudly. “I mean, you have to drive Aunt Grace and the twins to church. How will they get there if you don’t go?”

  His gray eyes seemed to look right through me. He dropped his hand to his side.

  “What are you writing?” he asked suddenly, his voice now all hearty and cheerful. He reached for the crumpled paper on my desk. I grabbed it and stuck it in my pocket.

  “A fan letter. To James Dean.”

  “James Dean is dead,” Uncle Ted said, frowning. “He’s been dead for almost a year.”

  “But he still gets more fan mail than any other star in Hollywood.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why are you writing a letter to a dead person?”

  Why was I writing a letter to my mother? Writing to a dead actor made just as much sense.

  “Because he’s my favorite star,” I said.

  “But—”

  “Ted!” Aunt Grace’s voice was sharp under my window. “We’ll be late for church.”

  Uncle Ted walked over to the window and waved. “Be right down, hon. Just checking on Sylvie.”

  “You better go,” I said. I put my hand against my stomach as if it hurt. “I’m just going to lie down and rest.”

  “I hope you feel better. Remember, Uncle Ted’s famous barbecued hamburgers when we get back.”

  I made a face, like the thought of eating made me sick. “Gee, I don’t know. . .

  “Here, come on, I’ll tuck you into bed.” Uncle Ted took my arm and pushed me toward the bed.

  “I can get into bed myself,” I said. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  “You certainly aren’t,” he muttered.

  “TED!”

  I dived into bed and pulled the sheet up to my chin.

  “Coming, Grace!” he yelled. He leaned over me. “A little good-bye kiss for Uncle Ted?” he asked teasingly.

  I turned my head away. “I might be catching,” I said, and then groaned like I was in pain.

  He brushed my ear with his lips and patted my hip. “See you later.”

  I pulled my knees up to my chest and mumbled good-bye into the pillow. I didn’t relax until I heard the front door slam. Even though I was nearly sweating to death under the covers in my flannel bathrobe, I didn’t move a muscle until I heard the Chevrolet pull out of the driveway, brake, and squeal off down the block.

  I breathed out with a whoosh. I felt like I’d been holding my breath for the last five minutes. And even if I hadn’t actually been holding it in my chest, I was holding it in my head.

  I threw the covers off, jumped out of bed, and untied the cord of the bathrobe. I was dripping with sweat. I wiped my face and neck on one sleeve, then threw the robe on the floor and kicked it under the bed. Hollywood is warm and sunny. I’d never need flannel bathrobes there. Not to keep out the cold, and not to protect me from “uncles” either.

  Uncle Ted and Aunt Grace aren’t my real aunt and uncle, of course. They just told me to call them that because Mr. and Mrs. Tyson sounded too formal, when I was going to be part of their family, just like their daughter.

  I figured I had about an hour and a half before they came back from church. I wished I could take a nice, cool shower, but there wasn’t time. Everything had to be packed and my hatbox and suitcase had to be hidden before they got back from church.

  Church. That was a laugh. Uncle Ted going to church and singing the hymns and praying to God and looking all Christian and holy five minutes after trying to tuck me into bed. What if they knew what he was really like? What if Aunt Grace knew? I bet she’d drop dead right in the middle of her paint-by-numbers oil picture of the Last Supper.

  But maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d look straight at me and say, “Sylvie, you must be imagining things.” That’s what had h
appened the first time, when I was twelve.

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” Mr. Framer had told the social worker, holding his hands spread out wide as if to show her he had nothing to hide. “It must be some sort of misunderstanding.”

  “The child has such a vivid imagination,” Mrs. Framer said. “You know how she’s always playacting, doing impersonations. And of course, she’s not used to the natural affection of a father for a daughter. That’s why she’s here, after all.”

  Even though I was only twelve, I knew I wasn’t imagining things. Maybe I wasn’t used to the natural affection of a father for a daughter, but I knew darned well that wasn’t what Mr. Framer wanted. I was mature for my age. That’s really why all the trouble started. That’s why I had to get out. Right then. Before it was too late.

  One thing I learned from the Framers was that no one was going to take my word over the word of a perfectly respectable-looking foster father. They didn’t believe me that time, and they would never believe me.

  Everyone agreed that even if I’d been making up the story about Mr. Framer trying to get his hands on me, it was probably the best thing all around for me to be placed with another family.

  Which is what happened. Which is how I got to the O’Connors’. Which is where the whole thing started all over again.

  “Come see what I’ve got, Sylvie. Come see what old Dad has for you.”

  “What?” I’d ask suspiciously.

  It would never turn out to be anything that great, but for some reason, whatever it was he wanted to show me, I’d have to sit on his lap to see it.

  It didn’t take me a long time to catch on.

  I spent a whole year making sure I was never alone in the house with Mr. O’Connor, never alone in the same room with him, unless Mrs. O’Connor was nearby, and never, never getting undressed unless I was in the bathroom with the door locked. Mr. O’Connor had walked into my room without knocking at least three different times while I was getting ready for bed. A decent person would have said, “Oh, excuse me, I should have knocked,” and gone right out and shut the door behind him.

  Not Mr. O’Connor. All three times he just stood there, staring, licking his lips, while I grabbed for something to cover myself with. And then he’d say something like, “My, my, aren’t you getting to be a big girl?”

  He was horrible. He was disgusting. And old. He must have been at least forty-five, though I’m not very good at figuring out ages. He had a big beer belly and no hair on the front of his chest and he chewed with his mouth open and talked at the same time.

  There were two other foster children there too. Brothers. Georgie and Ernie. They were younger than I was, and I think Mrs. O’Connor took me to be a built-in baby-sitter for them. But they were no trouble. They were kind of quiet and watched television a lot, and since the O’Connors didn’t go out very much, there wasn’t a lot of baby-sitting to do.

  Not for the O’Connors, anyway. But I found there were other people who needed baby-sitters, and I started right in three weeks after I saw how it was going to be with Mr. O’Connor. I sat for people almost every Friday and Saturday night, unless I had to stay with Georgie and Ernie, and I saved everything I could in a red-plaid rayon change purse that I kept pinned to my pajamas when I was asleep and inside my underpants when I went out.

  What else could I do? If I went and told the social worker that Mr. O’Connor was exactly the same as Mr. Framer, would she believe me? She didn’t believe me before, and if I told the same story again she’d probably be convinced I was a troublemaking liar.

  I pulled the suitcase down from the top shelf of my closet. It was the color of straw, with brown bands and a brown handle, and even with nothing in it, it was heavy. A neighbor had packed it with my things after my grandmother died and the social worker came to take me to the Framers’.

  I was only seven, and too little to carry it myself. The social worker took the suitcase in one hand and held me with the other as we went out to her car. I took the suitcase with me when I left the Framers’ for the O’Connors’. That time, the social worker didn’t carry it for me. She didn’t hold my hand, either.

  Now I knew I had to take only the most absolutely necessary things with me, but since I didn’t have that many clothes anyway, it wasn’t a big deal deciding what to pack. I was going to take only the clothes that made me look eighteen, and my cosmetics, of course, but they would go in my hatbox.

  That hatbox was one of the very few things I’d bought for myself out of my savings. It was beautiful, ivory-colored simulated leather, and even though it cost $14.99 on sale, I knew I had to have it. I’m very realistic and practical, and I knew it might take me a while after I got to Hollywood to get my first break in the movies, so I figured I would do some modeling until I was discovered. A lot of movie stars start that way, and models make sometimes $35 to $50 an hour. And all the models go from job to job with their stuff in a hatbox, just like mine. It’s a model’s trademark, her hatbox, and if I had one, they’d know I was a professional just by looking at me.

  The only things I regretted leaving behind were my movie magazines. I’d read them already, of course, and they were all cut up where I had clipped out pictures of my favorite stars, but I still liked to go back and look at them and read the articles about how the stars live.

  They’re very helpful, some of those articles. I’ve learned everything I know about how to be a star from movie magazines. That’s why I look so much older than fifteen, and why I’m more sophisticated than other girls my age. Every month at least one of the magazines has an article on “Makeup Tips from the Stars,” and I practically study those articles.

  So I looked at the pile of magazines on the floor of my closet and sighed. First, I thought I might just take the ones with stories about James Dean and Natalie Wood. She’s my ideal. We have practically identical eyebrows. The first thing I’m going to buy when I get my break in the movies is a gold slave bracelet, like she has. She’s always photographed with that slave bracelet on. It’s sort of her trademark.

  We’re a lot alike in other ways, besides just having the same eyebrows. She’s only a couple of years older than me, but she’s also very mature for her age, and very sophisticated. She says her biggest problem is that she smokes too much. I don’t smoke yet, but I guess I’m going to have to start pretty soon.

  Anyway, I started going through the pile of magazines, and realized that almost every one of them had a story on James Dean and a lot of them had articles on Natalie Wood. That’s why I’d bought them in the first place. So I gave up on the idea of taking any of them, and just put my scrapbook on the bottom of the suitcase.

  All the best pictures were in there anyway. Lots of James Dean, all the ones of Natalie, plus Tab Hunter, Rock Hudson, Elvis, William Holden, etc. Besides, I told myself, once I started being in the movies I’d have plenty of money to buy all the magazines I wanted. I’d probably even be in some of them!

  I packed my underwear and shoes on top of the scrapbook. I didn’t have any tissue paper, which was too bad, because in this article on “How to Pack for Traveling” by Joan Crawford, she said tissue paper is an absolute must for keeping things from wrinkling and for wrapping shoes in. I only had two pairs of shoes that I was going to pack and one that I was going to wear, so I went downstairs to the kitchen and got some wax paper to wrap them in.

  I unplugged Aunt Grace’s white plastic radio that she-keeps on the kitchen counter and took it upstairs with me so I could have some music while I worked. Another thing I wanted more than anything in the world was my own portable radio, but I just couldn’t afford to spend $19.95 on a luxury like that. When I was famous I would have a radio in every room. The Photoplay story about me would explain, “So she can have music wherever she goes.” Maybe that could be my trademark.

  I plugged the radio in next to my bed and finished packing my suitcase.

  Elvis was singing “Blue Suede Shoes” when I started packing the hatbox. I sort of bounced
around the room, picking up my stuff, opening drawers, singing the words along with him. I knew them by heart, of course.

  I had to take all my cosmetics and makeup with me. Those were the only other things besides magazines that I spent money on, but I knew they were worth it. The right makeup can transform a merely pretty girl into a true beauty, and there are lots of merely pretty girls who think they can get into the movies. I would be competing with them for my big break, and like I said, I’m realistic enough to know I have to be as beautiful as possible to make it in Hollywood.

  But I also planned to live out of that hatbox on my trip to California, so I had to get some underwear and a pair of shortie pajamas and a change of clothes in there too. I couldn’t keep opening and closing the big suitcase every time I needed something. With all those bottles and jars and compacts and things, I was a little worried about stuff breaking, but I wrapped some of the breakables in my thick white crew socks and hoped for the best.

  I glanced at the clock on my night table. It was noon already! Aunt Grace and Uncle Ted would be back in fifteen minutes. I looked around the little room trying to see if I had forgotten anything.

  I pulled the desk chair over to the closet and hauled the big suitcase up to the top shelf. I nearly broke my arms trying to wedge it back on the shelf where it belonged, but I got it. I pushed the chair back under the desk and stuck the hatbox all the way over to one side of the closet behind my crinolines, where you couldn’t see it when you opened the door.

  The crinolines were another problem, but I had solved that very cleverly, I thought. I absolutely had to take them with me, because I needed them to wear under my best dress, which was a pink Teena Paige with a square neck and a beautiful full skirt. Naturally I had to take that, for interviews and dates and things, and naturally I couldn’t wear it without three crinolines underneath it so the skirt would stand out right.

  So I decided to wear it on my trip, then I wouldn’t have to worry about fitting the crinolines in my suitcase because I’d be wearing them under the dress.