Certainly I wanted to be included. I wouldn’t have liked to find food and sustenance for myself. Shag that! Still, there was this need to give “normalcy” a chance, even though I wasn’t sure what that was. Doing things for others would help to a degree. Maybe that was a start, but it wasn’t my fault that others – maybe all others – would be far better suited to that than I, than me. How the hell would I ever have time to look outward? When would I have time and the interest to look inward, where the “I” was, that no one understood? Or had an interest in deciphering? But somehow I steadfastly gave the impression that I was only fascinated in me.
Mind you, I had had feelings at times that I might have been no more important than a nickname.
Fine. Inside me, I knew the roads, and the rocks, and the hideouts, caves, yes, and stalactites, to throw off those who could, impossibly, have reason to call me to supper. Where I couldn’t be as foolish as I wanted.
I wish I could tell you more about my father. I can’t, but I wish I could, because then I would know so much more about him than I actually do. I could have asked him, of course; should have asked him, no question about that now. But what was the rush? Fathers live forever, and he was only in his fifties. No need to store up memories of him; he was here just a minute ago. And then he was gone. I was nine years old, and when my father’s Oddfellow cronies brought food baskets to us, as brand-new survivors of one of their members, I thought we’d won the lottery. Harry, who was ten years older but still only nineteen, was horrified by this gesture of charity, as any grown man would be when reminded that he couldn’t take care of his own family.
I couldn’t wait to be ten. I wore bobskates all year long, hoping to get there faster. I was racing ahead now, and by the time I was twelve I was such a fan of Harry James that I joined the Church Lads Brigade and discovered, to my utter delight, that I could play the bugle better lying down. Which didn’t help a lot in parades.
That’s okay, I had other talents. I was already cute as hell. With dimples, for God’s sake! I couldn’t think of anyone, not a single kid uptown or downtown, far and wide, who possessed dimples. Not this side of Hollywood, anyway.
There’d be no stopping me later on, when I’d hit thirteen, say.
Dimples. They should’ve counted for something, dammit! Not that they would have the girls from Grade Eight onward tripping over their laces at the sight of me – I’d have to create a newer persona to fit the moment. And that moment was coming up fast. I’d soon be turning that last corner, where I would be overawed by “the big white house” named – suitably – high school!
Jesus, what a smack across the face and a kick in the arse that was, at first sight; curdling what had previously been ingested so that I had to nip the cheeks together for longer than I should have.
The high school spoke to me. Right away. It said:
Run, you little bastard! You dumpy, pee-smelling, heart-thumping little downtown shagger! Run from what you don’t understand! My name is the Grand Falls Academy! And you don’t come anywhere near me in the way of importance! Dimples, what dimples? I don’t see dimples! Oh yes. Them. Don’t mean a thing. A boot in the bum. Worth nothing more. Now, if you manage to get the heavy front doors open on your own, you might be able to stand at the back of the assembly hall where no one will be tempted to see your irrationally pathetic self.
“Hello,” I’d say to myself a few times, before fulfilling my secret mission in case there were spies from the upper grades about. “Hello, back,” I’d say, in a voice that someday I’d be paid for.
That’s better. Tight little fists. Determined strides of a much older me, soon brushing against higher high schoolers, with the courage of Ernest Hemingway, whom I’d never heard of yet. I was fine now. With a desk of my own, almost. Ink in the inkwell. No one staring at me. Couldn’t see me maybe. That’s fine. Getting older by the minute. And bigger too. And smarter. Smart enough to have an opinion. Just not pushy enough to feel like outsmarting any of them.
Main thing was: I felt stronger, with me to lean me on. It seemed natural. And I’d always be closer than the closest friend, maybe, which was way better than feeling useless next to these others, engaged in a huge brain-exchange. Aryan-like mama’s boys and girls, who were already “on their way” out the main door, diplomas held high, beribboned no less. Another secret I would only dream of. All of them legitimate!
I recall, at the same school, having the most gripping crush on the most comely girl in evidence there. There wasn’t, of course, a chance for me. Could not have been. Not with the far more uptowned, moneyed, fashionably attired and handsome swain around. So, with not a favourite marble to lose, I picked my nose, wiped it down my faded, rustic pants, and shouted “FUCK” all the way home; which, as it turned out, was the first time anyone had used the phrase, right out that way, since it had been swept in on the wings of the first American contingent, now set up at the fringe of town. I recall one of our more outgoing local girls, known for the growing habit of being on occasion “seen” with those crisp, razor-sharped gabardine Yanks, saying to me: “I hates that word. I hates them when they says it. I don’t mind the other word, which means the same thing; but I hates the sound of that one starting with a capital F!”
Some kids my age were getting religion. Me? If I’d known the Catholics had a drama club at their school, I’d have converted. The Anglicans had one, but they would take long, long breaks, and that simply wouldn’t do. So I continued to rehearse my greatest roles in the family woodshed.
I rehearsed for all my girlfriends too, the ones I was too shy to talk to at school, by coming home and kissing the side of the house. And waited for that first kiss. And waited. And waited. It finally happened on a Saturday night in the summer of ’42 and a bit.
My plan was to reach greatness. Any kind of greatness. That was the plan, at least, and, dreaming my way through the tail end of the Depression, I turned that corner into my teens, and dressed myself for the world at large. I knew that only then would I be brave enough to walk by a stranger’s dog. Yes, I was afraid of dogs as well, though you would never know it, not when a decent-sized audience was around.
I was sketching now. The step after sketching is watercolours, but it depends on what your parents can afford, which may not be very much. So you really had to depend on the schools, and what they could provide, and their will to provide it. I just kept illustrating. I did a lot of illustrating before I left home. It sounds fancy, but it wasn’t fancy at all. No one in the world of illustration was saying, Well, we really need someone like him. I thought my illustrations were pretty good, but they meant nothing on the mainland, nothing in Toronto or Montreal or anywhere else. I was aware, to some degree, that it was a talent of sorts. But the concern, the priority, was about developing a talent that would put food on the table. So yes, Porky could sketch, Porky could draw, but that was hardly paramount to our existence. We just didn’t think about it all that much.
What was this time all about? What really, if I was of no use to anyone at this age and time? Barely fixed in the family album by corner stickers, like everyone else. Old aunts would finger their way through, proudly sharpening their memories: “Now, who’s that? Oh yes, Flossie, née Cooper, Stephen Arthur, the sisters, Nita Hilda, Hazel Winnifred, Lilith Leah, and the brothers Harry Thomas, and Haig Alonzo, and who’s that?” – pointing to some small blur, who’d moved and spoiled the picture – “Oh yes, must be Gordon Edward, already on his way off the margin to God-knows-where!”
The blur had places to go and things to do that would not identify themselves until he came to a full stop.
I began to say “Yes, I can” alongside just about anyone. But the truth was that, with a sliver of the earlier insecurity still lodged in the root cellar of my character, I’d never considered myself high on life’s roster for consideration for anything. Besides, the family woodshed was one theatre that I didn’t have to pay to get into, because there was no one taking tickets.
Because
, you see, by now – had you guessed? – I had discovered the movies. And the movies had found their greatest fan: Me.
lost in celluloid
ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR EXPRESSIONS I RECALL from my earliest days – or teens, from peers, I guess – happened to be:
Who do you think you are?
Now, it must be said that this was not aimed at me exclusively. Everyone got it at one time or another. But it was perfect for me – that, and Get out of my sight! That was big. My brother’s nickname for me was Go ’way boy! And let’s not forget Go to the woodshed ’til supper’s ready! That was big too. But the question Who do you think you are? just always hung there, meaning more than any of these other tossed-off lines, because that was one I sure couldn’t answer.
The whole school – my whole world – seemed to be obligated to choose what they were going to do in the way of a life’s work. This frightened me. I would be the only one to not be ready. Indeed, I’d be thrown out of house, island, country, world, for having gone against the grain.
I know, I said. I’ll be an actor. I’ll be so completely lost in the realm of imagined characters that they’ll never find me. I’ll drive the census people nuts.
In Grand Falls Mom never knew who was coming through the door, because I had seen a movie with someone else in it and I was already impersonating my way around town.
To me actors were faraway Dream People. When movies played at the Nickel in Grand Falls – a.k.a. Paddy Edwards’ Palace of Dreams – they played only two nights, so everyone went one night or the other. As kids we went to the matinees, of course, because we weren’t old enough to go at night. But whenever we could we would sneak into the evening shows to see Bogart and Cagney.
The Nickel was short for the Nickelodeon, and kids could get in for a nickel. If you were accompanied by your parents, you could get in free. Most of the time I was a nickel short but a dollar smart. I would walk into those late afternoon shows with a new set of parents each time – even though their fresh-eyed “offspring” bore a striking resemblance to the kid who was at the matinee three hours earlier. I was lucky, because the ticket taker at the Nickel was tragically nearsighted.
The movies were a magical elixir for me. Every time I left the cinema I felt stronger, physically, mentally, creatively – stronger in every way. I would walk the streets of our small town, singing up a storm after an Al Jolson or Fred Astaire movie, and the good people of Grand Falls still made room for me. Just smiled and waved and treated me like I was next to normal.
All those amazing people on the screen. And I started to resemble them. I took steps to prove it. One week I looked like Walter Hampton. The next I looked like Turhan Bey. My first moustache? Rakish, no two ways about it. And then Alan Ladd came on the screen. We learned from American movie magazines that Alan Ladd had married Sue Carroll, who had been an actress in the twenties, and she managed his career. In some photographs he looked quite slight, and I was quite slight, and yet he looked big and strong and sturdy onscreen.
As far as I was concerned, these movies were being made just for me. I wanted to believe that these lives were being lived, that these dramas were being played out in real life. And I fitted myself in there – I cast myself in every story I could. Watching the flickering light on the screen, I’d come close to hearing my name mentioned during scenes by the actors.
Casablanca:
YOU AND PORKY ARE GETTING ON THAT PLANE!
The Grapes of Wrath:
WHEREVER THERE’S A FIGHT SO HUNGRY PEOPLE CAN EAT,
PORKY WILL BE THERE!
WHENEVER THERE’S A COP BEATIN’ UP A GUY,
PORKY WILL BE THERE!
Sometimes I’d get so involved, I’d cry, until the people next to me – who would know me as the kid who had delivered their Christmas turkey – would think I needed help. But I wasn’t there. I was either in a Flying Tiger with John Wayne, or lighting a cigarette for Bette Davis, or delivering mail for the Pony Express, happy to be answering for lives I would never have.
When I was in this peculiar space, I always thought I was on a train I didn’t have a ticket for, but doing a remarkable service for the entertainment industry, with fans in all the great capitals of the world. I kind of thought of myself as belonging to this tremendous club, hanging out with the best of them. An important part of it all; being a limb on this enormous tree called MGM, or at the very least, Republic. On a first-name basis with some of the cowboy heroes of the time: Tom Mix, Buck Jones, and Don “Red” Barry.
I saw nothing wrong with showing a human frailty or two. I probably would have played a great quisling in war films, if I couldn’t be the hero or, at the very least, the hero’s sidekick. I went so far into celluloid that no one knew me. And if it wasn’t for Mom and the smell of her freshly baked raisin bread, I would’ve been married to Lana Turner or splitting the loot with James Cagney.
I knew that I wanted a certain kind of life, but I did not know how to acquire it, so I certainly did not expect it. And I could not put a scholastic wrap around it. So I went for the fanciful, the imaginary. I had been everywhere in the movies – Sherwood Forest, China, Treasure Island, to India with Sabu, in Alcatraz with Humphrey Bogart. I was in Africa last Saturday with Stanley and Livingstone by way of Spencer Tracy and Cedric Hardwicke. Next Saturday I might meet up with Clark Gable, Regis Toomey, Gale Sondergaard, Leo Gorcey, Maria Ouspenskaya, Loretta Young, or Brian Donlevy.
Eventually it dawned on me that there could be some money in this. There could be a future in this. Other people were becoming doctors and lawyers. But I was so immersed as a child in the world of movies that of course it affected my thinking. Answering for fictional lives that would last only the length of a matinee, and sensing one’s own fallibility when hitting the street outside. It made me not appreciate a moment exactly when experiencing it; not being on time with my own being, discounting the reality of the home town and the car wheels not owned by John Garfield or Bogart. Meanwhile, somewhere between my burnt toast and Jell-O, World War II had begun. My brother Harry had already enlisted. Our phone number in Grand Falls was 301-R, and I would sit under the wall phone, waiting for the call that would tell us that the trains were coming in and Harry was coming home. We wouldn’t get that call for quite a while. Still, was there any place more strategically important to the war effort than Grand Falls? Not if my imagination had anything to do with it!
By now Gander’s airport was the largest on the planet, essential to the war effort in getting aircraft from North America to Britain. First place a plane could land was Gander on this side of the ocean, and Shannon, Ireland, on the other side. The inhabitants of the town of Gander, the homes and shops in the surrounding area, were the families of all the people who worked at the airport, and their grocers and butchers and so on. There was no other significant industry to speak of.
By now American movie stars were flying overseas on USO tours to entertain the troops. To get there they had to stop in Gander to refuel. We were all suitably impressed, but I was downright dazzled. The Dream People, the heroes and heroines of our weekend fantasies, were coming to Newfoundland.
At fifteen I made my first major journey. I boarded The Bullet in Grand Falls and, about an hour later, got off in Gander to stay with my sister Hazel. Hazel had married Cecil Bishop, an able-bodied seaman who worked in communications. She was the sweetest, fairest woman I ever knew – and she was my champion. “It wasn’t Gord’s fault!” she’d insist, even when it was. But Hazel wasn’t the reason I went to Gander. I went to Gander because I had applied for, and won, the highly coveted (by me) job of busboy at the then-legendary Airlines Hotel.
One night the word was out that, because of the weather, none of the planes could take off. So the actors and all the others were all around us, sitting in the bars, and I thought, My God, I’ve died and gone to heaven. I paid twenty-five cents to another busboy to borrow his white jacket and I walked around emptying ashtrays. I think Barry Fitzgerald was there, and Edgar Berg
en with Charlie McCarthy, and I was walking around them, in this other world of fancy china and crystal, thinking I was King Tut, happy to be emptying ashtrays as long as I could see actors go by. I wasn’t entirely sure they were real, and once I convinced myself that they were, I did a little better with it, but I still didn’t sleep for nights. Ginny Simms. Mel Tormé, Deanna Durbin, all coming or going. And Jean-Pierre Aumont. And Maria Montez – I was only a busboy, but I got to dance a few steps with her!
Churchill would come to Botwood, which was a seaplane port in the Bay of Exploits, between Gander and Grand Falls, on his way to make speeches in New York. And I got to see where he stayed, and where he slept. At least, the room where they said he might have slept. Next to a wireless room. Incredible.
They were camouflagin’ stardust
only half the world was free
and while Gander was havin’ its way with you
you were havin’ your way with me
Did ever we have madness then
did ever we have trouble
and when our champagne heads had cleared
did ever we have rubble*
If movie stars were coming by sea they’d also come to Botwood, and then sometimes to our town, Grand Falls. That’s how one of Hollywood’s most illustrious citizens, Bob Hope, ended up making a visit to our local bakery with Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, and Les Brown. As you might imagine, the four of them were barely in the door when word-of-mouth started travelling faster than a Justin Bieber video on YouTube. “Bob Hope’s at the bake shop!” And so he was.
I had it in my head that this was it. It’s all gonna happen to me today. It’s Bob and me, me and Bob. He’s going to throw me into his car, give me a contract, and I’ll be in Hollywood in a week. And when I saw him at the bake shop I was sure I heard him say, “Go home and wash your face, kid.” Although fourteen other young lads will tell you that that’s what he said to them. But I insist it was me he said it to. Blessing me, in a sense. “Go on, kid, go on. Come on down to Hollywood and join us as soon as you can.” And that’s all I needed to hear. Because there was always that feeling of something else. I always felt I was supposed to be part of something larger. I just didn’t know what it was.
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