Sometime in November of that year I met an English writer named Timothy Brooke. He was very tall, very thin, very charming and funny – a good deal older than I, but we got along well. There was no attraction on my part, I just enjoyed his company tremendously, I’d never met anyone like him. He’d lived in America for many years, knew all sorts of people like Evalyn Walsh McLean, who owned the Hope Diamond, Mabel Mercer, Nicolas de Gunzburg, who was an editor of Harper’s Bazaar. That fact and his growing attachment to me started the chain of circumstances that would reshape my life. Timothy didn’t have much money, but enough to take me to Tony’s, a little club in the east Fifties where Mabel Mercer sang. It was a very popular club, and she was adored by Europeans, Americans, anyone who knew Paris, anyone romantic, all musicians. She would sit on a wooden stool with a piano behind her, a light on her, and bouquets and tables all around. That was my first taste of nostalgia.
One night at Tony’s, Timothy said he had told Nicky de Gunzburg about me. Perhaps I could be used in photographic modeling. Tim thought Nicky might be there that evening, so I should be prepared. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I thought. Not a nine-to-five job, but I’d make enough money and still be free to pound those theatrical pavements. As promised, Nicky de Gunzburg did turn up – a dapper, friendly, charming man – a baron! Another first for me.
He came over to the table and Tim introduced me – ‘This is the girl I’ve been talking to you about.’ Nicky (he wasn’t Nicky to me for a long time) said, ‘If you will come to my office tomorrow, I’ll send you over to one of our fashion editors to see if she can use you.’ I thanked him fervently (I did everything fervently) and said I’d see him the following day.
The following day I was just as nervous as if I were trying out for a play. Nicky told me the fashion editor’s name was Diana Vreeland – he’d mentioned me to her and we would go over to her office. A secretary said we could go in to where an extraordinary-looking woman sat at a desk covered with papers, photographs, boxes with bits and pieces of jewelry, scarves. She was very thin. Black hair combed straight back, turned under and held in place by a black net snood with a flat band on top. She was wearing a black skirt, a black sweater, and black ankle boots. She had white skin, brown eyes, red mouth, long nose, pink cheeks, lovely teeth, long fingernails painted dark red. Definitely an original. Very direct in manner and speech. She stood up, shook my hand, looked at my face – with her hand under my chin, turned it to the right and to the left. She saw I was awkward, not made up, far from the perfect model. She asked me what I’d done before, I told her – it was practically nothing and some time back. She said, ‘I’d like Louise Dahl-Wolfe to see you. We’re having a sitting tomorrow – could you come to the studio? It won’t take long.’ I said, ‘Of course I could.’ I was scared to death. The efficiency and matter-of-factness of the whole magazine operation and particularly of Mrs Vreeland were intimidating. I’d never been in the offices of so grand and powerful a fashion magazine as Harper’s Bazaar. I hadn’t a clue what Mrs Vreeland’s reaction to me had been. I knew I felt like a gawk – never thought I was a beauty, so I never really expected too much. I just hoped.
The next day I went to the appointed studio at the appointed time. There was a sort of dressing room, rather like the theatre – make-up lights around mirrors, canvas chairs, clothes on hangers, and boxes of accessories, all of which, I was to learn, were permanent fixtures at fashion sittings. The studio was a large room with lights, backings – and Dahl-Wolfe and her cameras. She was a rather short, stocky woman whose sandy hair was pulled up tight in a bun or braid on the top of her head. A friendly, open woman who was number one in her profession. Diana Vreeland was there and brought me in to meet her. Dahl-Wolfe said, ‘Let’s take a few shots first.’ She wanted to see what her camera could catch. I had no makeup on, but she said this wasn’t a serious sitting, it was just for her, really. She had me stand in the middle of the studio floor. I was a basket case of nerves. She had her Rolleiflex camera around her neck – that was her favorite camera – and another one on a tripod. She put the lights where she wanted them and through my twitching said, ‘Look left … look right … turn to the right and look over your shoulder … left profile.’ She asked me about myself, snapping away very quickly as she talked. There was no real posing, she just caught me as I fell and as she wanted it. It was much less painful than any other modeling I had done. I was still shaking – I couldn’t seem to find a way out of that. The only thing that ever helped was for me to talk – to make jokes – and to not stand still for too long. I didn’t dare go too far, as I was a stranger in those parts and wasn’t sure what their reaction would be. But it was my nature to try to make people laugh or at least smile, and it eased my twitching mouth, made me feel more an actress, less a model.
After about half an hour Mrs Vreeland thanked me and asked me to leave my phone number. Did I work through an agency? Not anymore. ‘We’ll call you as soon as we go over our layouts.’ I made some stunning remark like ‘I hope the camera will still work after it’s looked at me.’ Knocking myself out of the box before anyone else did. I didn’t much like the idea of modeling, though it might be fun for a while, but I did like the two women – even though they’d frightened me a little.
A couple of days later Diana Vreeland called and asked if I could come in the next Tuesday to pose. I had the weekend ahead of me – to rest up and talk about this until I drove everyone mad. My mother always said, ‘The trouble with you is you have a one-track mind. When you make up your mind about one thing, you erase everything else.’ But Tuesday came at last and off I went. Mrs Wolfe was there – and Mrs Vreeland. She put a suit on me, told me which make-up to use – but very little. ‘Betty, I don’t want to change your look.’ (Whatever that was.) When all was done she put a scarf round my neck – knew just how to tie it, a little off-center – and I was ready for my first sitting for Harper’s Bazaar. From that day on, my life would take a different course.
It was fun working with those two ladies. Diana would be there through the sitting, making sure the clothes were on straight, that the hair was the way she wanted it. Louise would snap away. They worked perfectly together.
I’d say almost anything that came into my head – about acting, the theatre, my being an usher. A lot of it made them laugh – though all through it, Dahl-Wolfe never looked up from the camera, never really took her mind off what she was doing. A total professional. I asked what issue the pictures might be in – they thought probably January. Almost two months ahead – that was the way those magazines worked.
The pictures were okay, I was told. Good enough to use. Then things began to move. I posed in glorious apartments – one was Helena Rubinstein’s; on a bathtub in a one-piece jersey undergarment looking over my shoulder; on a sofa in a jumpsuit (a jumpsuit in 1942!); sewing; standing by a window in a slip; wearing hats in an antique shop; in a printer’s shop. I loved being with Louise and Diana – felt comfortable – and I was getting paid ten dollars an hour.
Once I was sent to Hoyningen-Huené, one of the great fashion photographers of the day. His work methods could not have been more different from Dahl-Wolfe’s. I was standing in a tailored suit; he posed me like a statue. ‘Put your left foot forward a bit – turn the toe out – shoulders straight and out front – head down, a little to the right. Hold very still.’ Agony, every part of my body was going in a different direction. Whenever he said, ‘Hold still,’ I started to shake. I was a disaster. He was not pleased. I was not pleased. Not pleased? I was suffering. I hated him. The tenser I became, the more strained my facial expression. ‘I’ll never work again – I couldn’t be a model, not this kind of model.’ I was not a mannequin. Somehow the sitting came to a close. I doubted that Huené had got even one picture he could use. Certainly I’d never work for him again – wait till Diana Vreeland heard from him! I wanted to tell her first, but didn’t feel secure enough with her; I’d just have to wait and see what happened. Years later I met Georges Huené ag
ain at George Cukor’s house and reminded him of that day. He turned out to be a very pleasant man, and we laughed about my fright and my inability to cope. We could then – it was over for both of us.
Diana asked me if I could go to St Augustine, Florida, for two weeks of pictures for the May issue. She’d take another girl along – Eileen McLory, a nice girl and good model whom I knew a little – and Dahl-Wolfe. Would I ask my mother? Diana would be happy to explain it all to her.
I was excited – I’d never been to St Augustine, the oldest, and one of the quaintest cities in America. I rushed to tell Mother, who, of course, was pleased for me but who, of course, wanted to be assured by Mrs Vreeland that I would be well looked after. There was a war on, St Augustine was on the sea, and there’d be a lot of servicemen around. Still so protected at eighteen. My old-fashioned mother. She spoke with Mrs Vreeland and, having had her fears and apprehensions put to rest, agreed that I could go.
So I packed for my first location work – it was the first week in December and we’d be returning to New York by the 20th or 21st. We boarded the train – Diana Vreeland, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and her husband, Mike, Eileen McLory and myself, plus boxes of film, reflectors, Louise’s cameras. Everything very compactly put together for travel. All pictures were to be shot outside in natural light, so we’d have to start early in the morning.
In Florida the air was balmy, palm trees everywhere, tropical in feeling, so different from New York. We arrived at the recommended hotel, which turned out to be the ninth-best hotel in St Augustine. It and all the others were being taken over by the Seabees. Eileen and I shared one room. Diana had hers – the Wolfes theirs. The town was charming – horses and carriages, great, burly, friendly black men with top hats driving them. The place had not been spoiled by what is laughingly known as progress – all the old torn down to make way for the new, the shiny, the ugly.
I remember going into Diana Vreeland’s room one evening as she was sitting in her one-piece undergarment – not a girdle, it was all easy, like thin knitted cotton or wool. She was rolling her hair with eau de cologne – she found it dried quickly, worked well. We talked of how the work was going. I talked more of my ambitions, my dreams. We talked of the hotel. More Seabees were moving in – she said to pay no attention to the young freckled-faced porter who seemed drunk on sherry. Eileen and I were not to wander around on our own, especially as the evening approached.
The work was finally done and we were to leave the next evening on the night train for New York. Diana told me I was to pretend to be her pregnant daughter – that was the only way we’d got our tickets, because servicemen had priority. I didn’t know until years later that she’d been sitting in the hotel bar near the president of the railroad and overheard his name. And the next day she’d walked two and a half miles in the rain to the train station and told her sad story to someone there – her little girl was going to have a baby; the railroad president, a good friend, had told her to mention his name when necessary, and of course she realized the Armed Forces had priority – there was a war on – there were five of us – it was so important for her little girl. Talk of acting – what a character! She got the tickets. They must have bumped someone. All Diana knew was that she’d told my mother she’d get me back and that’s what she aimed to do. That’s why she flourished. Talent – her gift of creativity – is not enough – determintion, perseverance, resolution, that’s what makes the difference.
It was a very funny scene. The train jammed with servicemen heading home for Christmas, not too many civilians in sight. Our group boarding the train – me leaning on Diana for benefit of porters, conductors, God knows who – playing the death scene from Camille – trying to be brave – feeling a bit faint – where did I ever get that idea of pregnancy? Diana saying, ‘There, there, dear. Take it easy now, you have to rest.’ Not the best acting I’d ever seen – we were both overdoing it. Finally got into a seat – berths were going to be made up before dinner or during. Dinner was a mess. As the train was so jammed, we didn’t dare leave all the seats untended, so I sat in my ‘weakened’ condition while Diana and Eileen scrounged for food. Diana could certainly function. She did what had to be done. No wonder she had so much clout in the fashion-magazine world. They came up with something finally – enough – and word was passing through the train that Martha Raye was in the club car entertaining the servicemen. She had been traveling overseas to do that. I was dying to see her – anybody connected with show business gave me a boost. I was determined to get to that club car. Diana was determined that I shouldn’t – ‘Remember you are not very well, Betty – you must think of the baby.’ We might be put off the train at any stop if we were discovered. ‘I need to get my mind off myself for a while, Mother.’ I got to that club car. Martha Raye was sitting with a drink in her hand, talking to everyone in the car, cracking jokes, singing songs. I huddled in a corner and never took my eyes off her until finally, not to press my luck, I consented to go back to the berth with Diana. It must have been about two in the morning when I got to bed, being carefully and noisily, for the porters’ benefit, tucked in by my ‘mother.’
The January issue of Harper’s Bazaar was on the stands at the end of December and many copies were sold to the Bacalls and Weinsteins of the world. Only one picture, but it was my first in a national magazine and everyone cared about that. There would be more in the February issue. Diana had told me I’d be very happy with those. I had posed in white blouses. It was to be a double-page spread – the other models were Martha Scott, who’d had a great success in Our Town, and Margaret Hayes, a promising young actress.
In January I posed in a blue suit with an off-the-face hat, standing before a window with ‘American Red Cross Blood Donor Service’ lettered on it. It was a color picture and would be a full page.
Mid-January Diana showed me the February issue of Bazaar. There on the double-page spread of the two actresses and me in blouses, alongside one of my pictures was printed: ‘Worn by the young actress, Betty Becall’ (my name misspelled, but who cared?).
I almost fainted, I was so happy. I hugged Diana – hugged everyone in sight. You’d have thought my name was up in lights – it was my name, in print, even spelled wrong, and that would do for the time being.
About mid-February Diana called my mother to tell her there were stacks of letters on her desk asking who I was and where I could be reached. She said, ‘Listen, Mrs Bacall, I think Betty’s too young to make these decisions, so I’m sending it all on to you.’ Diana was always terrific to me and about me. She was so smart, had such wisdom. Also it turned out that the Blood Donor picture was going to be on the March cover. The cover! I couldn’t believe it when I heard; there’d be no living with me now.
Mother showed all the letters she thought might be important to my Uncle Jack. He did represent Look magazine – he was the wisest lawyer in the family for business and the entertainment world. Charlie was involved in city-government law.
There was an inquiry from David O. Selznick’s office. Someone who worked for him had told him there was this girl who looked something like K. T. Stevens, whom he had discovered – he ought to take a look at her, possibly test her. They asked for more photographs of me. Then Howard Hughes had made an inquiry. Jack felt we should move very carefully on all this. Obviously there’d be other inquiries as a result of the Bazaar cover, let’s work slowly, wait awhile. He talked to Mother first before I heard anything, wanting to make sure she understood it all. He also knew I’d be so hysterical that I might accept the first offer made, not knowing anything about the movie world.
An appointment was made with Selznick – not with him personally, since he was in California, but with his number-one man. I went to the man’s office, talked with him for a while, gave him what little history there was of my no accomplishments. The interview didn’t last long about half an hour. Mr Selznick would be given all this information together with photographs and I’d hear from them.
Columbia Pi
ctures was making a movie starring Rita Hayworth – title, Cover Girl. An inquiry came from Columbia Pictures – there were going to be eight or ten actual cover girls in the film. Would I be the Harper’s Bazaar cover girl? The catch was – isn’t there always a catch? – Columbia insisted on my signing a year’s contract with options in case they wanted to use me in something else.
At the same time there was another inquiry. Howard Hawks wanted to know about me. One day in the Look office Jack and I sat down and talked it all out. I had never heard of Howard Hawks. Jack had, and listed his movies. He had directed some really outstanding films, including Twentieth Century, Only Angels Have Wings, Air Force, Bringing Up Baby. Charles K. Feldman, his agent and partner, wanted to know if I would come to California to make a screen test – it would mean staying in California for six to eight weeks. If they liked the test, Hawks would sign me to a personal contract.
All of these offers were from unknown people – unknown to me – who lived in an unknown place. This was the first design in a pattern of work that was to continue all my life. Either everything at once or nothing – feast or famine. One had to say ‘yes’ to one, ‘no’ to all the others. I had no way of knowing, nor did Jack really, and certainly Mother didn’t, how to make the right choice.
Diana Vreeland and Carmel Snow were more than happy about the Columbia offer. They wanted me to be the Harper’s Bazaar cover girl. I told Diana of the Hawks offer. She said, ‘Of course you must do what is best for you. We would adore it if you’d represent us in the movie biz, but if you must accept his offer, you must.’
By Myself and Then Some Page 10