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On the Golden Stairs
55
I told her "no" and gave her my address. She called the next day and told my mother she had never heard a voice that promised so much. The lady was a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music. She insisted that I become her pupil for gratuitous lessons.
In looking back this incident seems of fairy lore. At the time, I accepted it as natural. You see I had visioned so much that I actually believed in my dreams. My future was clearly pictured. I saw myself, a tiny figure with arms outflung — in opera. When I was sixteen, my sister, then in Paris, wrote for me to come to her. For two years I studied at the Paris Conservatory. Music, languages, dancing, literature — I studied constantly. I read the French classics on my way to and from school. Then a longing for my sweet little mother brought me back to America.
Shortly afterward there were financial reverses. My mother, a widow, had made unfortunate investments. We lost everything, even our beauti
She still lives somewhat in a kingdom of dreams.
ful home. It was for me to support the two of us. Then I penetrated my picture ! I went behind the scenes to become an actress.
WTiat disillusionment ! — the dirty brick walls, the boarded dressing rooms smudged with grease paint, the cracked mirrors, the electric bulbs in wire protectors, the vulgar people swearing and quarreling. It was just a vaudeville engagement on one of the poorest of circuits. The death of my sister soon brought an end to this tour. When that tragedy lifted from my mind, I again sought work. Day after day I wearily interviewed pert little office boys and flippant girls, endeavoring to see vaudeville agents or stage producers. Finally I forced my way to Oliver Morosco. I said I had a letter to him. He was very nice.
"You said you had a letter?" he remarked with interrogative inflection. I blushed.
"Oh, no, you must have misunderstood," I lied. "I have no letter. But I must have work."
He referred me to his assistant, who told me to report the next day. I came — with Sudermann's "Magda" under my arm. I always read — in the street cars, walking, at home, everywhere. Jwas given a part in the chorus. That shocked me. I felt myself fitted to do something better than that, and above associating with the others of the chorus. And' then we were sent to the wardrobe department for our costumes. Something was
flung at me. I looked at it and blushed with Even now she ghame
aZved'Tr that all?" I quavered.
visions_ "What do you expect," shouted the man,
Photo by Apeda "a sealskin coat?" Continued on page 91