CHAPTER THREE
THAT TODDLIN’ TOWN
1915–1917
I arrive in Chicago • Befriended at the station • A “horseless carriage” ride • Mrs. Palmer
Potter’s salon • Youthful hijinks • An unfortunate misunderstanding with the law • My name in
the newspapers! • A home away from home • “Winnie” • Escape • On stage at last!
ONLY THE OTHER DAY Billie Divine, my great friend and constant companion, was playing a “bouncy” old record on her phonograph. (Billie is an unreconstructed jazz “buff.”) Passing by her door, I could plainly hear that old lyric—“Chicago, Chicago, toddlin’ town.” I have never been able to think dispassionately about Chicago, for the very name of that metropolis on the lake evokes so many memories, happy and sad, gay and wistful. To little me, Chicago is a city of “firsts”—the first World War, my first husband, my first real trouble and my first job in that wonderful, wonderful world of show business.
It was a clear, crisp morning in early October when I set foot on the soil of Chicago. Oh, the hustle and bustle of that busy station, the acrid smells, the shouts of conductors and “Red Caps,” the scurrying of passengers arriving at and departing from the Railroad Capital of the World! I was terrified. True, I had some pretty new frocks neatly folded in a dress box from an exclusive Peoria modiste. I had a hundred dollars in cash—a farewell gift from Mr. Hooper—and hope in my heart for the future. Yet I was frightened to be all by myself in the big city—just a naïve “green” kid from Venezuela, Illinois. A fatherly old “darky” offered to carry my box for me, but in my panic, I thought that he was trying to wrest my only worldly goods from me. I snatched the box from him and, in so doing, broke the string that held it. Horror of horrors, there were all of my new pretties strewn across the floor of the station, including even my chemises and similar “unmentionables” that were not made for other eyes to see!
“Oh!” I gasped and scrambled to pick up my few belongings.
“May I help you, dearie?” a cultivated voice said.
There, in front of me on the marble floor, I saw a pair of bronze kid shoes with beautiful beige gaiters. Then a brilliant peacock blue walking suit trimmed with red fox that billowed about an aristocratic face surrounded by the reddest hair I have ever seen. Topping it all off was a towering edifice of peacock feathers.
“Oh, no, mum,” I blurted. “Thank you, mum. I can manage.”
“Oh, but do let me help, dearie,” this grand lady said. “Packing is such a nuisance and I can never get my personal maids to do it properly.” In a twinkling she was beside me on the floor, scooping up my new finery. “These are very pretty garments,” she said, “but a little out of style.”
“Out of style?” I said. “They just yesterday were bought brand new in Peoria.” Then I flushed at being so forward to such a fine lady.
“As I thought,” the lady said. “You’re just in from the country.”
I admitted that I was.
Then, as this “walking fashion plate” neatly folded my poor possessions and packed them away in their box, she asked me all sorts of questions. Had I ever been to Chicago before? Had I any friends or relatives in the city? Had I a position waiting for me? Had I secured a place to live? To them all I answered “No.” The lady then asked if I had eaten breakfast, and my reply was once again in the negative. “Then you must have it with me,” this grande dame said, “in my stately mansion on Prairie Avenue. But first, let us go to the station buffet for a little cocktail.”
I certainly understood the meaning of cock and the meaning of tail— rooster and appendage—but I hadn’t the slightest notion of what this woman was talking about. Unwilling to show my naïveté, I followed her to the ladies parlor of the station saloon, where she order two sloe gin fizzes. It was my first taste of liquor and I thought it delicious.
The lady introduced herself as Mrs. Palmer Potter, leader of Chicago’s haute monde. She then asked me all about myself: when and where I was born; what my mother was like; what I was interested in. I blurted everything out to this comforting older woman who seemed quite pleased. Mrs. Potter then told me that, as a hobby, she ran a “salon.” I hadn’t the dimmest idea of what she meant. But she explained that it was a sort of finishing school for girls of excellent family where they could meet eligible men and learn the social graces. She said that she just happened to have a vacancy that morning. In fact she had been at the station to bid adieu to one of her graduates who was sailing to Europe to marry a Spanish duke. I could, if I liked, have the lucky girl’s room. If I liked! But I told Mrs. Potter that I had no money—neglecting to mention Mr. Hooper’s gift—and that I would never be able to afford anything so nice. But Mrs. Potter would not take “No” for an answer. She quickly ordered another round of gin fizzes and before I knew it, I was seated in the tonneau of her beautiful new Pierce-Arrow limousine—my first ride in a “horseless carriage”—driving along the magnificent shore of Lake Michigan while Mrs. Potter told me of the lovely gowns I would soon own, of the dashing men I was to meet. And it would cost me nothing! It all seemed too good to be true.
Mrs. Palmer Potter
Mrs. Palmer Potter’s home on South Prairie Avenue was indeed a stately mansion, making even Madam Louise’s house suffer by comparison. The façade was of pink marble and brownstone with large plate-glass windows, discreetly veiled by genuine Brussels lace curtains. A man whom I mistook for one of Mrs. Potter’s eligible gentlemen opened the great oaken front doors to us. (I found out later that he was only the butler.) A trim mulatto maid showed me to my room—a beautiful circular chamber in a tower on the third floor. It was all decorated in pink and the huge brass bedstead had a canopy of pointe de Venise lace. I had never seen such luxury!
Refreshed, I went downstairs to the parlor to meet Mrs. Palmer Potter’s other students. It was then that I realized that my simple dresses from Peoria— pretty though they had seemed in the store—would never do in Mrs. Palmer Potter’s salon. Her other students were all lounging about the golden parlor in the most elaborate négligées—cloth-of-gold, brocade, velvet and trimmed with plumes, with seed pearls, even with sable! I felt like the proverbial “country mouse.” But Mrs. Palmer Potter said to never mind, my wardrobe could be supplemented later. She introduced me to the rest of her student body and a merry lot they seemed—always ready for a lark and never at a loss for the pert rejoinder! Although it was not yet noon, champagne was served. I had eaten no breakfast and I confess to feeling quite “tipsy.” But the girls were so pretty and gay that I soon lost my shyness and joined in the fun.
As I have said, never before had I seen such splendor. Unlike Madam Louise’s comparatively modest social club, Mrs. Palmer Potter’s mansion contained not one, but three parlors—“drawing rooms,” as she referred to them in her aristocratic fashion. The front room was all done in gold damask with delicate gilded furnishings of the French persuasion. The second drawing room was a symphony in blue furnished entirely with deep, downy sofas. In the rear room—all done in plum velvet—was a low stage where, I soon learned, the girls put on amateur theatricals for Mrs. Palmer Potter’s guests every evening at nine o’clock. Electric chandeliers, lovely handpainted oil pictures and marble statues of nymphs and satyrs were everywhere.
I was extremely interested in the theatricals and confided to the girls my ambition to become a great actress. They laughed delightedly and said that I would have many opportunities. As the “new girl” in Mrs. Palmer Potter’s school I would enact a bride—it was a tradition. Others of the student body were cast more or less to type. Little Midge (the other girls called her, affectionately, “Midget”), who was only four-foot-eight, always played a child, wearing dainty white pinafores and her lovely golden hair arranged in “sausage” curls. “Big Jo” (an extremely tall girl named Josephine) was perpetually cast as a young military cadet, wearing high-heeled red boots (to increase her already considerable height, I imagine), a braided jacket, shako a
nd a smart whip. Others of the girls were given more opportunities to display their histrionic versatility.
After a delicious luncheon, a few gentlemen callers began to arrive. I was anxious to meet them, but Mrs. Palmer Potter said that she was “saving” me for the evening and that I would make my début on the stage in the plum velvet drawing room. She escorted me to my lovely little bedchamber, told me to take a nap and locked the door so that I would not be disturbed.
Effie, the “high yaller” maid, brought me a tempting supper on a tray that evening and then Mrs. Palmer Potter appeared with my “costume,” a lovely satin bridal gown in virginal white. I fell in love with it at first sight, and I have had a “weakness” for wedding dresses ever since.
Dressed in my nuptial finery, I was waiting impatiently on the stairs to make my first appearance. From the plum drawing room I could hear appreciative applause of the girls’ efforts and I hoped that I, too, would please the gentlemen who called upon Mrs. Palmer Potter. The electric pianola was playing “School Days,” and I was informed that Midge (or “Midget”) was performing on the dais when there was a dreadful hammering in Mrs. Palmer Potter’s lovely golden oak vestibule. The great doors burst open and swarms of policemen surged into the house. “The cops!” called Ruby, the girl who was to play my “bridegroom.” “Run!” Ruby said. I ran, but in my bewilderment, I dashed straight into the arms of a policeman.
A “Black Maria” was waiting out on Prairie Avenue, and I, along with the students who had not been able to escape this unwarranted invasion of the sanctity of a private home, found myself being hauled off to jail. For the first time in my life, I “made” the front pages of all the newspapers. What an eventful day!
I was booked on charges so horrendous, so unfair and so patently false that I will not, even today, lend dignity to them by writing them down on paper. Along with Ruby, Midge and “Big Jo,” I was thrust rudely into a large cell, occupied by two extremely common “streetwalkers.” Terrified and bewildered, I languished in that draughty cell until the following Monday morning when I was unceremoniously shoved into a courtroom to be given a “fair” trial. Oh, the humiliation of that experience! Instead of admiring the delicate workmanship of my bridal costume, the spectators in the courtroom—a motley crowd of idlers, curiosity-seekers and uncouth “news-hawks”—burst into rude guffaws when I made my entrance. Called before the magistrate, I told, with as much dignity as possible, my simple true story: That I was a girl from out of town; that I had met Mrs. Palmer Potter in the station; that she had asked me to enroll in her school; and that I had been carried off against my will by the brutal Chicago police force. Although I saw nothing mirthful in my sorry tale, again laughter resounded through the courtroom with Homeric sonority. His “honor” the judge pounded for order and then said, with a vicious chuckle, that he was going to send me to a different “school”—a boarding establishment in a westerly banlieu of Chicago. He added that if it had not been for my extreme youth and the fact that this was my first offense in Chicago, he would have sent me to a women’s prison! I was too stunned to reply.
Later, of course, I learned how tragically I had been duped. Mrs. Palmer Potter was not really named Mrs. Palmer Potter at all. In fact, she was not even married! Her establishment on Prairie Avenue was not a school at all but, rather, a den of the blackest iniquity, and her “students”—girls of “excellent family,” as she had described them—were nothing but filles de joie! It had long been her custom, I learned, to “scout” the various railway stations of Chicago for innocent victims to press into bondage in her loathsome calling. I had been tragically victimized by this human vampire! How many other guileless young girls, I often wonder, have been so ill used by Fate simply because they are as friendly and trusting as little me? My detractors have often accused me of being “overly familiar” with strangers. Perhaps they are correct, but I doubt it. I have always had a sunny and outgoing nature, and who am I to try to curb the natural buoyancy with which I was endowed by the Almighty? Yet, because of my God-given warmth, I was forced to pay a terrible price—my name on the police “blotter” and my liberty forfeited for the next two years.
Of the boarding school the judge selected for me, I am still unable to speak rationally. It housed twelve hundred girls, two to a cubicle. We wore ugly gray uniforms. Pretty coiffures and harmless touches of artifice were strictly forbidden. We marched in silent lines, two by two, to meals, to recreation, to work, to chapel—even to the bathroom! The food was frightful, the discipline unbearable, the working hours long and arduous. Because my darling Momma had taught me to “sew a fine seam”—as every gentlewoman then could do—I was put to work in the dressmaking department of the school where we made uniforms, nightgowns and “undies.” One can readily imagine how onerous a task it was for a young girl with my inordinate fondness for pretty things. Every time I attempted to add a little “friv” to the school’s costume—a higher hemline, a lower neckline—I was sternly rebuked by the supervisor and forced to undo all that I had done to improve the lot of my hapless classmates. I have a natural bent for design; indeed, my own clothes have always attracted wide comment. Many have said that, if I cared to, I could become a couturière of the first rank. However, I have always been satisfied to take a “back seat” and design unusual creations only for my exclusive use.
The unfeeling magistrate had arranged to have me enrolled in the boarding school until I was eighteen years of age—an eternity to a young lass of my high spirits. However, I was fortunate in my choice of a roommate. My little cubicle was shared with a vivacious minx from Steubenville, Ohio, a Miss D. Winifred (“Winnie”) Erskine. “Winnie” had been booked on charges as totally unfounded as my own—shoplifting in Mandel Brothers when she had simply been taking that fur coat out onto State Street to examine it by daylight. Like little me, “Winnie” rankled under the injustice of it all. But, unlike me, “Winnie” was less crushed and more frankly rebellious. And it was she who engineered our thrilling escape on New Year’s Eve of 1917. Because of the Yuletide holidays, we girls had been grudgingly allowed to have a little celebration to “see the New Year in.” I had been commissioned by the head-mistress to decorate the recreation hall, which I had done with tasteful streamers of pink, yellow and eau de nil crêpe paper. Just as our pathetic little “party” was in full swing, “Winnie” touched a match to the decorations and extinguished the lights. The conflagration was considerable, as was the hysteria which it created. In the “hubbub” of the fire, I felt someone grasp my arm and a gruff voice saying hoarsely, “C’mon, kid.” I followed blindly. It was good old “Winnie.” We dashed out past the guards and spent that memorable New Year’s Eve in a dense nettle bed some miles away where we were still afforded an excellent view of our hated alma mater burning to the ground.
At boarding school with “Winnie,” 1916
At dusk the next day we set out, hand in hand, for Chicago. “Winnie” explained to me that her closest friend, Lola, was “going with” a theatrical producer and that she was sure we could obtain positions as ladies of the ensemble in the theatre where Lola was employed. After all, reasoned “Winnie,” would the juvenile detention officers ever think of looking for two “fugitives” right out on the stage of the Cameo Theatre? Time proved her to be correct.
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning when we sought refuge in Lola’s little flat on Cottage Grove Avenue. As luck would have it, her friend, Mr. Flinchy, happened to be visiting her at the time. Seeing our uniforms, he was dubious at first, but “Winnie,” Lola and I soon convinced him. Miraculously we were hired!
In one short day we found our freedom and I, at least, had found a lifelong career. I was on the stage at last!
My Patriot Tableaux
The Kaiser
Belgium Ravished by the Hun
Home Fires Burning
Gold Star Mother
Safe for Democracy
CHAPTER FOUR
WAR!
1917
/> Burlesque, the commedia dell’arte of America • On stage! • Backstage frolics
Doing my bit for our boys • The Colonel’s Lady • My first taste of high life
Deceived, disgraced, destitute • Fred
THE VERY NEXT DAY, freed at last from our hated gray boarding school uniforms and preening ourselves in the “fine feathers” borrowed from Lola, “Winnie” and I were taken to the Cameo Theatre to watch the show in progress and to learn as much as we could about it. I had never attended the legitimate theatre before. (The only attractions that had found it “worthwhile” to stop at Venezuela were “tent” shows such as Black O’Brien’s Mississippi Minstrels and the Herman Beulahfield Circus.) What a thrill it was! I sat there in the darkened auditorium clutching “Winnie’s” hand in excitement as the ladies of the ensemble paraded down the runway garbed as snowflakes, saucy soldiers and dainty fairies. I gasped at the splendor of their costumes— the diamonds, the ermine, the sumptuous velvets. To think that such fine raiment would soon be mine! Even when I watched the last show of the day from the “wings” and I discovered that the “diamonds” were glass, the “ermine” cotton batting and the “velvet” but humble flannelette, the léger de main of the theatre still had me in its thrall.
When the midnight show was over (the Cameo did three shows a day, interspersed by an installment of The Perils of Pauline), Lola took “Winnie” and little me to the dressing rooms and introduced us to the ladies of the ensemble whose “co-troupers” we were soon to be. And a merry lot they were! When they inquired as to how old I was, I told them twenty-one, although I was little more than a child at the time. It is possible that I have this “little white lie” to thank for some of the wild speculations as to my true age. Although I have never made a secret of my years, many actresses who have been less successful than I are still ruled by the “green-eyed monster” of envy and have been spiteful enough to broadcast “vital statistics” about me too risible to be believed by anyone. This has always afforded me a certain amount of amusement.
Little Me Page 4