TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1963)

KITTY KALLEN (Continued from page 56) had been scheduled to record an album while in England, and that was the only time available. Without pausing to take off her stage makeup, she rushed directly from the theater (where another audience had rustled uneasily through her anguished performance) to the recording studio. Standing in front of the microphone, Kitty wondered miserably how many times she would have to struggle through each number before everyone gave up on her. Then she opened her mouth and sang. And, with a shock, heard the tones pour out easily, clearly, beautifully. She was singing like a bird. Like Kitty Kallen. Afterward, the studio technicians congratulated her. But Kitty could only stare at them with huge, dazed eyes. There was no comfort in her triumph here. She knew, beyond a doubt, that tomorrow — when she walked out onto the Palladium stage — there would be another dreadful performance. Her voice, now vibrant and lustrous, would once more emerge harsh and dreary. Kitty knew, too, that she could no longer fool herself with talk of laryngitis. There was nothing physically wrong with her voice; the trouble was deep inside herself. Something had slithered silently from a dark hiding place to tell her, "You can't sing for people any more" ... to strangle her each time she faced an audience. The trouble was in her mind. When the disastrous engagement was over, Kitty fled home, across the Atlantic, carrying her terrible secret with her. She told no one except her husband (and manager) Budd Granoff. It was, they knew, possible for Kitty to continue her career without ever facing an audience again. She could go on making records and movies. But Kitty loved her audience, drew strength from their affection for her. Besides, what if a single victory did not satisfy this demon within her? What if he took Kitty's voice away altogether? What would life be like for her — a professional since the age of seven — if she couldn't sing at all? "We'll fight it," she and Budd decided, together. The demon within Discreetly, they inquired about psychiatrists, decided finally on a wellknown Freudian analyst. He was located in Pennsylvania, but Kitty willingly commuted from her New Jersey home. Five times a week, she went to her doctor's office in the hope of unmasking and driving out her demon. She reviewed her past life in great detail, recalled how painfully she had grown up in a South Philadelphia slum, how everyone called her "Monkey" because she was the homeliest, sallowest, awkwardest child in the neighborhood. Her father, struggling to support his six children through the Depression, had been so embarrassed by her looks that he wouldn't be seen with her on the street. The analyst decided that it was because of her humiliation and rejection that Kitty had developed the tremendous drive for success which made her the neighborhood's toughest kid, an outstanding school athlete, and — finally — a professional singer. At twelve, she had her own radio show, "The Little Girl with the Big Voice," ... at sixteen, her first important band job, with Jack Teagarden's Sixteen Men and a Girl ... at seventeen, a Hollywood apartment (shared with Dinah Shore) and a gold record for "Besame Mucho," with Jimmy Dorsey. Two years after, she married; "nine months to the day" later, her son Jonathan was born. And there, Kitty's psychiatrist theorized, her troubles began. "My analyst claimed my husband was the 'irritant' causing all my problems. He encouraged me to feel 'put upon' because I had to work, and urged me to leave Budd. "He said I ought to feel single, feel free." Baffled, Kitty took stock of the situation. She had fallen in love with and married Budd Granoff when she was nineteen. A successful press agent and talent manager, it was he who guided her to a Broadway success, to a fine movie performance, to top night-club stardom. Of course, they had problems — who didn't? — but their home was a happy one. Maybe Kitty did sometimes feel the pressure of trying to do the work she loved without skimping on the home she loved. Maybe she did mind being a celebrity, while Budd was not. Maybe it mattered that she sometimes earned more in one night than Budd did in a week. Under the psychiatrist's guidance, Kitty began to see how all this might contribute to her sudden vocal paralysis. But . . . give up Budd? Break up her home? Sick at heart, Kitty finally agreed to take a stab at "feeling free." She made a trip alone to Florida and the Bahamas. Now there were no pressures. No need to sing. No husband, no son to care for. But she didn't feel free at all. She felt lonely and frightened and lost. She ran back to Budd, filled with love for him, with gratitude for his patience and unchanging affection. She never returned to that first psychiatrist. But she still couldn't sing. And so she tried another doctor. And another. And still another. That is, most were doctors — one was a "practitioner" with no name on his door, no degree on his wall. One was a hypnotist who put her into trances. One gave her "weird" treatments using a method Kitty later learned had been discredited for years. Guilty— or not guilty? They all had theories. Kitty's trouble was that she earned too much money — more than the President of the United States, more than scientists whose work she felt was so much more important than hers. Or she felt guilty because she received preferential treatment in restaurants, hotels, even at the super STOP PMN INSTANTLY COMBAT INFECTION PROMOTE HEAUNG WITH ANTISEPTIC CamphoPhenique {pronounced cam-fo-f/n-eek) USE IT FOR MMORBURRSsCUTS, SGMTGHESMEES Phenique' Quick! Apply CamphoPhenique at once to minor burns, cuts, scratches, sores . . . stops paininstantly, promotes rapid healing. Campho-Phenique is a Broad Spectrum Antiseptic. It kills the many kinds of bacteria and fungi that most often cause infection. 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