by Frank Deford
“Just the girls?”
“No, the girls and the men.”
“Mother, you know I haven’t got the foggiest idea in the world.”
“They called us ‘dorsal swimmers.’”
“Excuse me?”
“Dorsal swimmers. Dorsal means the back or something like that.”
“There’s dorsal fins on, like, sharks, aren’t there?”
Mom nodded. “I don’t know whether it was the fin or just the back in general, but they called us dorsal swimmers. It was pretty dopey.” I nodded in agreement. “We never called ourselves dorsal swimmers, that’s for sure.”
It was, however, evidently going to be awhile before the swimmers came on. Instead, NBC was showing the girls’ gymnastics. The floor exercises were on, and it was terribly boring. At Mom’s request, I muted the sound. “They’re so little they’re creepy,” she said, scrunching up her nose. “None of ’em have any boobs or heinies.”
“I haven’t heard anybody say ‘heinie’ for a long time,” I noted.
“Well, it’s better than ‘butts,’ don’t you think? You say heinie, you know exactly what you’re talking about. Butts are cigarette butts and gun butts and butt in and butt out and all that. Heinie’s a good old word that isn’t ambiguous. Anyway, those little gymnasts don’t have any, whatever you want to call ’em.”
I let that pass. It was not a subject that had previously engaged me. Anyway, suddenly Mom clapped her hands and cried out, “Let’s get the damn swimmers out here. They look like real women.” Natalie Coughlin was the favorite in mother’s race, and since she was an American, Mom was particularly interested. “That Natalie, she could even give Eleanor a run for her money in the looks department.”
“She is good looking,” I said, agreeably, remembering her from the trial heats.
“Get outta town, Teddy. Are you losin’ it in your old age? She’s a real fox, that girl.”
“Nice heinie,” I said.
“There you go,” Mom said. “You’re still my red-blooded American boy.”
“Okay, so to really get my blood racing, tell me more about Eleanor,” I said. It was like she was just waiting for her cue.
Well, Teddy, never mind how pretty she was, she was also the nicest thing to me before my first big race. Did I tell you about Chicago?
I shook my head.
Well, if I was gonna try for the Olympics I needed one major meet under my belt, so to speak. There were really only two big ones each year during the Depression. There was the national indoors and the national outdoors, and that was about it. For us girls, anyway. The outdoors were usually at Jones Beach, and the indoors were always in Chicago in April, and in ’36 I had to go out there. I simply had to. I couldn’t start off and try to compete nationally the first time in the Olympic Trials themselves.
But, of course, Chicago was a long way from the Shore, and it cost a lot of money. Mr. Foster was wonderful. He couldn’t afford to go himself, but he had an old friend who lived in Chicago, and they agreed to put me up, so all we needed was my train fare. And I remember: I had $18 spending money.
“That’s all?”
Broke the piggy bank. My mother gave me ten bucks and some sandwiches and a thermos, and Mr. Foster, bless his heart, gave me a five-dollar bill—a Lincoln, we called it. Of course, in the Depression, money went a long ways. You remember that song, “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” Can you imagine that, anyone panhandling for a thin dime?
I was scared to death. I mean, for me, Chicago was like going to, uh—she glanced at the screen—Athens. Why, I’d never even been on a train before except to go up to Wilmington.
“They had a train station in Chestertown?”
Sure, most every town did then. It’s like every town worth its salt nowadays has a mall. Mr. Culver was the station master, and twice a day there was a train to Wilmington. We called it “The Bullet.” Facetiously, you understand. So off I started for Chicago on the Bullet.
Mr. Foster’s friends in Chicago—they were named Simms—they met me at the station, and the next day Mrs. Simms took me down to where we swam. It was downtown, smack on Lake Shore Drive. In fact, it was called the Lake Shore Athletic Club. It was this absolutely gorgeous building, in Beaux Arts style. I mean, Teddy, I was used to swimming pools. This was like swimming in the Taj Mahal. My gracious, you came into the lobby, and there was this huge foyer. The ceiling must’ve been forty feet high, with marble steps. I could imagine Bojangles himself dancing down those steps. When I got back to Chestertown, I think I bored poor Carter to tears just describing the lobby. And the pool—Teddy, the pool was on an upstairs floor. In all my life, I’d never heard of that—an upstairs pool.
Mrs. Simms appreciated how nervous I was, so that first day, when we could practice in the pool, she not only rode with me on the streetcar to the club, but she stayed with me till I got registered. And she promised to wait down in the lobby till I was finished practicing, too.
But after I left Mrs. Simms, there I was, Teddy, all alone in this beautiful locker room, and I didn’t know a soul. And these were the crème de la crème of the girl swimmers in America. I told you I’d been to the Shoreham Hotel AC in Washington and the Broadwood AC in Philadelphia, but the girls swimming there were mostly, you know, just local yokels. These were the indoor nationals.
Well, I found a place over in the corner, and I think I was blushing all over as soon as I even contemplated taking my clothes off. And this, even though I was turned away from everybody. Probably none of them so much as noticed I was there, either. I mean, of course, it was just girls, but girls aren’t like boys. I know the way you all are, a bunch of exhibitionists, all runnin’ around with your whatzits flyin’ in the breeze, thinkin’ you’re Greek gods, snappin’ towels at each other’s behinds and so forth, but girls . . . well, we value a certain amount of privacy. We don’t parade around, showing off our private parts to one another. Now, maybe they do now. Things have changed so much. Girls have become so much more assertive nowadays, so I couldn’t attest to what it’s like in a girls’ locker room today, but in my time, it was a place where modesty prevailed.
So, you’ve got to picture this. I am in the corner, and after I took off my shoes, I took my bathing suit out of my little traveling bag and laid it at my feet.
“Why would you do that?”
I was preparing for a record-setting quick dress.
“Okay, I’m catching on. You’re shy.”
Shy is not a word that would have done me justice.
So, with my bathing suit perfectly positioned on the floor, I then discreetly sat down on the bench and reached up under my dress—because no respectable girl would be seen in a city such as Chicago in anything but a dress—to undo my stockings—
“Stockings?”
Of course I had stockings on, Teddy. I doubt very seriously whether Mrs. Simms would’ve even agreed to take a girl out in downtown Chicago if she didn’t have stockings on. Of course I had stockings on. This is 1936, Teddy. For goodness’ sake.
“Mother, remember, I wasn’t born yet in 1936.”
Well, yes, you do have that as an excuse. But anyway, after I rolled down my stockings, I unbuttoned my dress, and when I was absolutely ready, I stood up and turned away, like a child who was being disciplined in the classroom, and I pulled off my dress, and without looking, laid it back on the bench behind me, and then, just as quickly, pulled off my slip. Yes, a proper young lady in downtown Chicago on Lake Shore Drive in 1936 would have most certainly had a slip on. And that accomplished, I reached round to unhook my bra. Teddy, now we are approaching the moment of truth. I hang onto my bra—although we still called them brassieres at this point in time—I cling to my brassiere, then drop it and grab for my panties. I am prepared to take off my panties—we referred to them as unmentionables then.
“Unmentionables? I won’t ask.”
Thank you. I am prepared to strip myself of my panties, then to quickly scoop up my bathing suit, yank i
t on, stuff my bazooms in and then turn around as casually as if I was standing on the street corner waiting for the red light to change. And so it was, that at that exact instant, at that one moment when my unmentionables no longer covered this earthly vessel of mine, in that split second before I could toss them aside and pull up my bathing suit, in that one unguarded moment, I felt a hand upon my back and heard the words clear and loud enough for the whole locker room to hear:
“Hey, Sydney, how are ya?”
It was, of course, Eleanor Holm. Well now, naturally, I should’ve immediately just reached down and pulled up my bathing suit, but I was so discombobulated, I felt like I had to be polite and say hello, which I did, and that would have been mortifying enough, but then Eleanor took it upon herself to introduce me to everyone.
There I am, standing there in my birthday suit, blushing all over—I mean all over, I’m sure—and Eleanor is saying, “Girls, say hello to Sydney—” Only then she couldn’t remember my last name, so it prolonged the agony.
“But, Mother, why didn’t you just reach down and pull up your suit?”
I really don’t know, Teddy. I just froze. Eleanor didn’t seem to be fazed by me being naked, so I figured I better just go along. I don’t know, maybe I thought it was sophisticated. After all, Eleanor was the very height of sophistication. So I just stood there—
“What did you do with your hands?”
You know, it’s odd that would occur to you, Teddy, but I’ll admit: it’s a good question. I really don’t remember, though. Maybe I used them to cover something up, like Botticelli had Venus do. I just don’t remember.
“Maybe you fiddled with your hair. Women are always concerned about their hair.”
Well, yes, that’s fair. We are hair-conscious, but that’s when we have our clothes on. At this particular juncture, though, my hair was not the paramount body part on my mind. I just said, “Stringfellow.”
“Yeah,” Eleanor said. “This is Sydney Stringfellow.” Then she swept her arm around, pointing out the other girls. “This is Mary Lou Petty and this is Dorothy Forbes and this is Katherine Rawls and this is Margie Smith . . .” and so forth. It seemed to take an eternity. It was like those introductions at the head table of some luncheon that can go on forever, although, to this point in my life, Teddy, I don’t believe I had ever attended any function fancy enough to have a head table.
But I finally got my wits about me and began to pull up my suit. I was still so rattled, though, it’s amazing I got my legs in the right holes. And, anyway, Eleanor made it worse, because she lit a cigarette then and started going on about how great I was, how I was going to replace her as the queen of the backstroke—she actually said that: “the Queen of the Backstroke”—when she left the amateurs after Berlin. And I know a couple of these girls, like Dorothy and Margie, are also backstrokers
“Dorsal swimmers.”
Exactly. You’re paying good attention, Teddy. I knew some of them were my putative rivals, and you can just imagine how that made them feel having Eleanor introduce this kid they never heard of before as her annointed successor—her heiress, for God’s sake!—especially with me standing there, buck naked, like an idiot. I mean, in all my life, I’ve never been so mortified.
But, I’ll say this for the girls. They were very nice to me. Probably from sympathy. Mary Lou Petty even went out of her way to take me out to the pool. She was a freestyler, so it probably didn’t offend her when Eleanor announced that I was the budding queen of the backstroke. So we all practiced, and I even grew a smidgen more comfortable. Then, after practice, Eleanor asked me where I was staying, and I told her, and also how Mrs. Simms was waitin’ in the lobby, so she came down with me and introduced herself.
“What are you and Mr. Simms and Sydney doing for entertainment tonight?” she asked. I think Eleanor assumed that everybody did something every night in the entertainment line.
Mrs. Simms replied that there was actually no organized entertainment on their plate this particular evening, that we would probably just listen to the radio. She said, “Sydney needs her beauty sleep if she’s gonna be ready to swim her best.”
And Eleanor replied, “Oh, we don’t have the meet for another two days, so Sydney oughta paint the town red tonight. I want you all to come to the Palmer House and be my guest for the show at the Empire Room.”
Now, Teddy, let me back up a minute. Here is what had transpired since I’d first met Eleanor in Philadelphia, when her husband was performing with Ted Weems in Atlantic City. Her husband—do you remember his name?
“Well,” I said, “it was Jarrett. Because Eleanor was Mrs. Jarrett.”
That’s correct. And his first name was Art. He was a vocalist.
“I thought he was a whistler.”
No, no, no. That was another fellow, the whistler. Art Jarrett was just a vocalist. We didn’t call them crooners yet. I forget when vocalists became crooners. But, in any event, by now Art Jarrett had left Ted Weems to form his own band. This was, by the way, the best thing that ever happened to Ted Weems, because Art Jarrett was no better than your garden variety, run-of-the-mill vocalist, and to replace him, Mr. Weems hired an unknown—an absolute nobody —named Perry Como, and the rest is history. But that’s another story and doesn’t involve me.
What did involve me was that now that Art Jarrett had his own band, he could have Eleanor sing regularly, too. Probably, in fact, she was an even bigger name than he was. And so on this occasion, the Art Jarrett Orchestra was performing at the Empire Room of the Palmer House, which was generally thought of as the grand dame of Chicago hotels, right off the Miracle Mile itself, and here Eleanor was inviting us to be her guest.
Well, Mrs. Simms hemmed and hawed, said she and Mr. Simms couldn’t possibly, etc., etc. But Eleanor said she wouldn’t take no for an answer, which was what Mrs. Simms was hoping to hear her say, so Mrs. Simms pretended to say yes reluctantly, and we all put on our Sunday best and after dinner, off the three of us hied to the Palmer House. There was a table reserved for us right up front. Of course, Teddy, while I didn’t know the first thing about the Simmses, I could tell this was not their usual night out. I think an evening at the neighborhood bowling alley would’ve been more their idea of an occasion. Let’s just say that they were overwhelmed, but trying not to show it.
“Sort of like you standing there in the buff amid all the other girls in the locker room.”
Yes, Teddy, that would be an apt analogy. Very good. And hardly had we taken our seats when the waiter appears with a bottle of champagne, compliments of Mrs. Jarrett. The waiter pours me a glass, too. Honestly, I don’t know if there was a drinking age in Chicago, but if you recall, Chicago was a pretty lawless town back then—home of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, for example—and so I think it’s fair to say that none of the gendarmes in the Windy City were particularly concerned with teen-age girls drinking champagne in the Empire Room. So Mr. Simms said, “Go on, Sydney, you may take a sip.”
Well, of course, I’d heard plenty about champagne, but it was not the beverage of choice on the Shore, so I was surprised when it burned so. Champagne is very sharp, you know. You’d think something with bubbles would be sweet, but, of course, that isn’t the case at all. So I believe I made a face, but luckily, the lights dimmed and here came Art Jarrett and his orchestra, taking their places—and, well, there was a little dance floor, but the whole band was no more than spittin’ distance from our table.
Then right away, after the opening number, Art Jarrett came over to our table and, leaning in very closely to Mrs. Simms, he sang “You’re The Top.” You know, you’re the Louvre Museum, you’re the Tower of Pisa—
“‘You’re a melody by Strauss.’”
Very good. And Mrs. Simms just swooned. As we used to say then, she didn’t know whether to spit or wind her watch, and everybody in the Empire Room was looking at her, figuring she must be somebody famous. Art Jarrett just laid it on thicker. “You’re the top . . .You’re Mahatma Gh
andi, you’re Napolean Brandy—”
“‘You’re Mickey Mouse.’”
Teddy, you and I could give Art Jarrett a run for his money. But, trust me, it was a sketch, and I believe Mrs. Simms would’ve fainted dead away with the attention if Art Jarrett finally didn’t finish “You’re The Top”—
“‘You’re cellophane—’”
All right, all right. This is still my story. Because then he finished singing and turned to me and introduced me as—well, you can see this coming: “the princess of the backstroke.” Eleanor wasn’t going to let that go. So I had to actually stand up, and Art Jarrett took my hand and kissed it, which was absolutely the first time anybody had ever done that, and everybody cheered to beat the band, even if they didn’t know me from Nutsy Fagan. I sat back down and dove back into that champagne.
“How’d it taste this time?”
Lemme tell you, Teddy, a girl could get to like that stuff. So peace and quiet reigned at our table again, and the band played a couple more numbers, and then Art Jarrett took the mic once more, and he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve met the princess of the backstroke, who will be swimming at the Lake Shore Athletic Club this Saturday, but now we’re gonna raise the bar, and introduce you to the queen of the backstroke, a lady you know as the Olympic gold medalist named . . .”
Mom moved her hands up and down.
Drum roll. And then he all but shouted, “Eleanor Holm . . . but whom I’m proud to call . . . Mrs. Art Jarrett.” The Empire Room exploded in applause. And here came Eleanor.
Teddy, she was all in white. She had on white high heels and a white bathing suit and a little white shawl kinda thing, and a huge white cowboy hat.
“Cowboy hat?”
Ten gallons. Because you see, this was her signature opening number, “I’m An Old Cowhand From the Rio Grande.” It was pretty rousing. But as the wags would say: as a singer, she made a good naiad. Not bad, Teddy. Not all that bad. But let’s face it: I think it’s fair to say that it was the outfit that sold the song. I mean, the Empire Room, or any other respectable night club, was probably not used to having any girl singer dressed so skimpily. Gowns. You wore long, beautiful slinky gowns if you were a girl vocalist. If Ted Weems, for example, had brought out a girl vocalist dressed like a stripteaser, it would’ve been a scandal for sure, but since Eleanor was a swimmer, no one batted an eye. Especially the men. And she got rid of the hat and sang a couple more numbers. One was “On The Good Ship Lollipop.”