‘The part for the payment amount is blank,’ I said, glancing at André. It was careless of Ziegfeld to have done that.
André gave me a wry smile. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier, the space is blank because you are an artiste. You simply fill in the amount that you want to be paid.’
As much as Ziegfeld’s method of working amused us in the beginning, after six weeks of no score, no rehearsals and no word from the impresario, André and I became impatient. Ziegfeld had paid my fee and was footing the bill for our hotel room, so we weren’t disgruntled over money. We were madly in love with each other and every moment we spent together was bliss, but there were only so many nightclubs, zoos, museums and galleries that we could visit before we wanted some routine back in our lives. We were annoyed that we were biding our time when both of us were itching to be working. For all the time Ziegfeld had wasted, I could have made another record in France.
By the seventh week, André was telephoning Ziegfeld twice a day. Each time Goldie told him that the impresario was out of the office.
‘You try,’ André said to me. ‘I have the feeling that he is there, he just doesn’t want to talk to me.’
Goldie put me straight through to Ziegfeld. ‘Now, don’t you worry, Mademoiselle Fleurier,’ he reassured me. ‘Your costume and the set—ah, they will be magnificent!’
I asked when I would start rehearsing.
‘I’ll give you plenty of notice,’ he told me. ‘Now, you get as much rest as possible. People pay a lot of money to see my shows and they don’t want any of our ladies looking tired.’
‘The problem is the writer,’ André told me, after doing some checking himself. ‘The Gershwins are complaining that McGuire turns up hoping to be inspired by their songs. The only problem is, they don’t know what to write about until they see the script.’
‘But the story is from a book,’ I said. ‘It’s about a girl from Brooklyn who wants to become a Ziegfeld chorus girl. Why is it so difficult to write a script about that? What does McGuire need to be “inspired” for?’
André shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought Lebaron and Minot were crazy, but at least in the end we had a schedule and we had a show.’
Another two weeks passed and nothing happened. André and I resigned ourselves to the fact that if Ziegfeld didn’t call us in by the end of the week, we should leave for South America. The following day, after dutifully phoning Ziegfeld and being told he was out, André suggested that we go to Brooklyn. We went on the rides at Coney Island and spent the afternoon walking along the promenade.
We were surprised at the mix of nationalities of the people around us. Not just Americans, but Italians, Russians, Poles, Spaniards and Puerto Ricans.
‘If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?’ I asked André.
He pulled me close so I could feel his warm breath on my cheek and pressed his palm against my heart. ‘I would be happy living anywhere as long as I always belonged here.’
I yielded to his touch. I am the luckiest woman in the world, I thought. I not only have the love of a man I adore but I respect him too. Part of me knew that in New York, away from the society pressures of Paris, André and I were living in a safe harbour. But I kept thoughts of trouble out of my mind and let myself tumble into love without hesitation or safeguards.
‘You always will belong in my heart,’ I said, reaching up to kiss his lips. ‘Always.’
We returned to the hotel intending to make love, but instead found twenty telegrams from Ziegfeld demanding to know where we were. Some were several paragraphs long and written in such convoluted English that I could barely understand them. ‘Come to the theatre as soon as you receive this,’ the last one read.
‘Couldn’t he just leave a telephone message?’ asked André. ‘These must have cost him a fortune.’
We changed our clothes and caught a cab to Fifty-Fourth Street. ‘Something tells me this isn’t going to get easier,’ I said.
‘Do you want to pull out?’ André asked. ‘I am happy to if you want to. We can refund the money. I am in no mood to be treated like a dog on a leash.’
André was right, of course, but I told him we should at least see what happened when we got to the theatre that afternoon.
We arrived to find Urban and the set designers at work. The technicians were trying out the lights on a set of night-time Montmartre. The scene was breathtaking and André and I stopped short when we saw it. Urban used a method called pointillage to create the colours on his backdrops. It was the same painstaking technique Impressionist painters used: proportions of pure colour laid side by side so that when the lights were directed at them the hues mixed into one shade. The effect was a more vibrant and lifelike set than could be achieved using flat colours.
‘He wanted you to see it,’ said Goldie, greeting us at the door to her office. ‘It’s the set Miss Fleurier will be singing in front of.’
‘Is Mister Ziegfeld here?’ André asked. ‘We will tell him how much we like it.’
‘No,’ said Goldie. ‘His wife called and he had to go home. It’s his favourite dessert tonight: chocolate mousse with strawberries.’
With as much patience as he could muster, André asked if the rehearsals would begin soon.
‘Try-outs are tomorrow,’ Goldie told him. ‘You’ll start rehearsals in the afternoon.’
Over the next week, André and I were called in every day for the promised rehearsal but all we ended up doing was sitting through other cast members rehearsing or endless chorus girl drills. I couldn’t understand Ruby Keeler. She was a beauty with big eyes and pert features. She was also a dancer with a technical agility that would be hard to match anywhere. But whenever she appeared on stage, she seemed nervous and distracted. In one rehearsal, she was overcome with stage fright and froze at the top of the staircase. Her husband, Al Jolson, who was sitting next to Ziegfeld, stood up and began singing her song for her. He performed the melodic twists perfectly.
‘That’s great!’ cried Ziegfeld. ‘We’ll use you in the show.’
It was a good ploy on Ziegfeld’s part. Al Jolson was one of America’s favourite entertainers. He had also been the first man to speak in the first sound feature film, The Jazz Singer. The inclusion of Jolson, however, only seemed to make Ruby more nervous.
‘What is it with that girl?’ André asked me. ‘I know you get nervous before an audience, but not at rehearsals. Given that “Show Girl” is to be her first big role, I don’t understand why she doesn’t seem more excited.’
I could understand her nerves. I was lucky that for my opening show I’d had Minot, André and Odette to support me. ‘Maybe Ziegfeld has worn her down,’ I said. ‘Or she’s tired of always been shown up against her husband. The gossips say she only got the part because of him.’
‘I think it is her husband that is the problem,’ said André. ‘I don’t like him. He is too old for her and he dominates her.’
André didn’t elaborate on that and I didn’t ask. We had enough troubles of our own. In my scene, an American tourist wandered around Paris, dreaming of returning home. I was to play a singing street urchin who transforms into a beautiful goddess. Performing alongside me would be the ballerina Harriet Hoctor and the Albertina Rasch ballet dancers. When the Gershwins finally gave me the song sheets, it was a week before opening night and some of my rehearsals lasted ten or twelve hours or took place late at night and ran into the early hours of the morning. So much for not tiring myself out.
At the first full dress rehearsal, the orchestra played my music at the wrong tempo and a light that had not been properly secured crashed to the floor a few feet away from where the technical director was sitting. But Ziegfeld didn’t notice. He stood up from his seat, his arms folded across his chest and a frown on his face.
‘Bring me the costume designer!’ he bellowed.
‘I think he might be in bed,’ one of the stagehands offered.
‘I don’t care,’ sho
uted Ziegfeld, his face turning purple. ‘Bring me someone from wardrobe then.’
A while later the stagehand returned with a young man whose bleary eyes were not amused. ‘What’s the problem, Mister Ziegfeld?’ he asked.
‘Look at the sleeves on Mademoiselle Fleurier’s dress,’ said Ziegfeld.
I held my arms up from my body so everyone could see my sleeves. The chiffon gown had seemed fine to me when I put it on. I glanced at André, who shook his head.
‘What about them?’ asked the young man. ‘They are three-quarter length, like you wanted them.’
Ziegfeld’s face turned a shade darker. ‘Three-quarter length they may be but they taper towards her elbows when they should fan out like bells! She’s supposed to be a celestial being not a peasant girl!’
‘That’s what you ordered,’ the young man retorted.
Clearly he had not been employed at the Ziegfeld Theatre for long to give that kind of answer. And I feared from the way Ziegfeld’s hands shook that he wasn’t going to stay much longer either.
‘You idiot!’ Ziegfeld screamed, his voice booming around the auditorium. ‘Get out! Get out! I said “celestial” not “peasant”!’
The young man gave a disgruntled shrug and bolted out of the theatre. An enraged bull was less frightening than Ziegfeld when he was angry.
The impresario ran up the stairs and onto the stage, his eyes fixed on me. I had muddled some of the words in the song. ‘Eyes’ was next to impossible for me to pronounce. It always came out ‘aizzes’. Paris is a feast for the aizzes. Come here and look into my aizzes. I froze on the spot, awaiting his rebuke.
He stopped, took my hand in his and spoke in a tender voice. ‘I’m wondering, Mademoiselle Fleurier, how you feel about this song? I’m wondering what the words say to you?’
His manner was soothing and such a contrast to his outburst that I was sure he was being sarcastic. I stared back at him. But he seemed oblivious to my confusion and fixed his intense eyes on me. ‘What I want to know, Mademoiselle Fleurier, is what the song says to you. As an artiste.’
I was saved from having to answer by the director calling the comedy trio of Lou Clayton, Eddie Jackson and Jimmy Durante onto the stage.
‘Show Mister Ziegfeld what you’ve put together,’ he told them.
But the comedians had barely made it through their first sketch, in which they played stagehands between the scenes, before Ziegfeld told them to get off.
‘Enough of that! Bring on the girls again!’ he shouted, then turning to me said, ‘I never understand comedians. I don’t get their jokes. I’d get rid of them if I could but the audience loves them.’
My nerves were no better on the opening night of ‘Show Girl’ than they had been in Paris. If anything, they were worse. Ziegfeld had been so adamant that I sing my part with reserve and poise that I had nothing of my real self, my French flamboyancy, to draw on. By seven o’clock my hands were trembling, and when I warmed up my voice I could barely keep it under control. I asked André to stay in my dressing room with me until the stage call.
‘Simone,’ he said, picking up Kira and placing her in my lap, ‘you shouldn’t get yourself so worked up. You know that the Ziegfeld opening night audience always comes twice: first to take in the sets and the costumes, and the second time to enjoy the performers.’
The music from the show, which had already started, surged up loudly then died away. Someone knocked on the door. André opened it and a man dressed in tails swept into the room. He had a round stomach like a pumpkin and his beard was shaved in three stripes down his chin. I didn’t like the look of him. There was something sinister in his eyes.
‘Can I help you?’ André asked him.
The man shook his head and gave a snarling grimace. André and I exchanged glances.
‘There is some mistake,’ said André, assuming the man was a minor act who had come to the wrong dressing room.
‘No mistake,’ answered the man, inclining his head so that the light reflected in his sleek hair. He reached into his jacket and pulled out something long and black. For one terrifying moment I thought he had taken out a gun, and then I saw that he held a slim balloon in his hand. He pinched the balloon in sections between his fingers before twisting the sections so that the balloon resembled a string of sausages. The rubber squeaked under his touch but his fingers moved as nimbly as those of an origami master. André and I were mesmerised. The man folded the balloon and twisted the parts together, forming a neck and ears, two front legs, two hind legs and a tail. André and I let out a synchronised ‘ahh’ when he placed the figure of a cat on the dressing table.
The man gave us an idiotic smile and pulled a card with a ribbon in the corner from his pocket and hung it around the cat’s neck. Good luck, the card read.
‘The Zeigfeld Theatre wishes Mademoiselle Fleurier a wonderful performance,’ said the man, giving us a bow before retreating out the door.
Kira slipped from my arms onto the dressing table and sniffed the rubber cat. André burst into laughter. ‘He was a stooge,’ he said. ‘It is an American tradition. He is a special performer sent in to make the stars laugh so they are relaxed before they appear on stage.’
‘Mon Dieu,’ I said, sinking back onto my stool. ‘I don’t feel relaxed at all. I thought he was going to kill us.’
‘Really?’ said André, clasping my wrists. My hands were steady and my palms were dry. He laughed. ‘I think I know what to get you next time you appear in Paris.’
Despite my fears, my performance was well received by the Americans. The Broadway audience was as sophisticated as the Parisians, although they applauded more easily and shouted out their approval before I had finished my number.
‘Thank you,’ I called out to them. ‘It is wonderful to be here in your exciting city.’
I had forgotten myself. This was a musical, not the music hall, and I had stepped out of my character. But the audience loved it and I received a standing ovation.
Ziegfeld had been right: the Americans wanted sentiment not humour from a French singer. I was exhilarated when the New York Times reviewer described my voice as ‘a liquid instrument with the notes spun from gold’.
Sadly, however, the show was not a success. While the comedy trio—especially Durante who was affectionately labelled ‘Schnozzola’ because of his enormous nose—along with dancers Eddie Foy, Harriet Hoctor, the ballerinas and myself were praised for our performances, the critics panned everyone else, including Ruby Keeler. ‘She limps along with as much fire as a box of wet matchsticks rather than a gal from Brooklyn determined to make the big time,’ said one review. Only a few weeks later, Ruby pulled out of the show, claiming ill health, and was replaced by Dorothy Stone. The Hollywood movie star upped the pace a bit but the show was pretty much as the critics described it—a slow, rambling farce where nothing much happens.
Ziegfeld blamed the Gershwins’ ‘hackneyed lyrics’ for the show’s failure and refused to pay them. The brothers sued him, but by the time the case came before a court the stock market had crashed and there was no money to take from Ziegfeld anyway. He and most of New York were ruined.
As André and I left for South America, the newspaper boys were screaming headlines like: ‘Stocks Collapse: Nationwide stampede to unload’; ‘Unexpected torrent of liquidation’; and ‘Two and a half billion in savings lost’. The worst part was the stories of ruined businessmen leaping from windows thirty storeys high and from the Brooklyn Bridge.
‘If they calmed down things would stabilise faster. They might even see opportunities for fortunes to be made,’ said André.
I nodded my agreement. But I knew something that André didn’t; something those businessmen might have known too. I knew what it was like to be poor—and that once you had become rich, anything was better than being poor again.
TWENTY-TWO
The Paris André and I returned to in January 1930 was anything but depressed. The economy was good, the war reconstruction work w
as completed and the franc had stabilised. The only noticeable effect of the Great Depression on the city was that the American tourists had disappeared. But the Parisians were as lively as ever and in the mood to amuse themselves.
André had some business to attend to in Lyon with his father, and left for the south the day after we returned from Le Havre. The first person I went to see was Monsieur Etienne, who I had left in charge of business matters while André and I were away. When I had left for Berlin, Monsieur Etienne had agreed that, while he would continue to handle my business affairs in Paris—including publicity—André could seek out engagements for me. Whether Monsieur Etienne had been happy with that arrangement in the beginning, I couldn’t say. But things had worked out well for all of us after the Adriana shows, and the relationship between him and André was harmonious and cooperative.
‘You look well, Mademoiselle Fleurier,’ he said, opening the door to the office. ‘And you have come back just in time. I have offers for you coming out of my ears.’
There was a dark-haired girl sitting at Odette’s desk. She seemed familiar to me and I remembered that she was the daughter of the concierge. Not the one who had been rude to me on my first day in Paris, but her replacement. I looked around for Odette and saw that she was filing some papers in Monsieur Etienne’s office.
‘New staff?’ I asked.
Monsieur Etienne’s face turned glum. ‘Oh, there have been changes here,’ he said. ‘Odette tried to reach you at the Ziegfeld Theatre, but I don’t think her letter was passed on to you.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ I said. ‘What has happened?’
‘She is getting married.’
Odette came out of the office and placed some files on the desk. She stepped towards me and we kissed each other’s cheeks. ‘Married? To whom?’ I asked, arching my eyebrows in mock surprise.
‘To an old friend of the family,’ said Monsieur Etienne. ‘Joseph Braunstein.’
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