Hollywood (1940)

Her Heart Belongs To Hollywood ■ Fame is a hussy. Ask Mary Martin. For years she tried desperately to catch up with the jade. No. dice. She followed Horace Greeley's advice to Hollywood. She made the Seven Dwarfs look like playboy idlers by comparison. She practiced her pretty head off at the dancing studios of Fanchon and Marco, convinced she was destined to be as great as Pavlowa and Powell put together, ine hooked on to a sustaining program on a local radio station (without pay) hoping someone important would hear her. She poured out her lonely heart at cocktail hour at n swanky bar and sang The Way You Look Tonight" and "Mr. Paganmnl. She warbled for the coast Cafe Society at a sporty night club. She gave a recital, of classical songs, no less. She swung grand opera. She took n half dozen screen tests and the Poon l.nhs ■ I she photographed like Fu Monchu. She came to New York, landed a fair-to-middlin' spot In a musical tagged LeoiH It to Me, and on opening night before 11 house that wns long on "economic royalists" she peeled off her garments at a Siberian railway station called "Irkutsk and trilled "My Heart Belongs to Daddy. Tho audience as one man gave her a tumultuous welcome. Even the critics crawled out of their igloos and spouted like miniature Mt. Vesuvius over the new arrival and murmured such phrases as "The Toast of the Town" in their columns the next day. At last Mary Martin had caught up with her elusive destiny. I IS a hussy. The Texas Ihrush is back 111 Hollywood. N„ mimic rhapsodic!; nl bars. No more gratis radio work. No more enroling at the nlghl clubs, Mary Martin Is now a dim star. Big doings ore afoot. Her first picture will Bnd her playing opposite Allan Jones in '">•■ ''■'"'< V"'""' Herbert. After that Paramount has other plans. The puss department Is already sounding I),,. ;,!,,,„,.. li,,,,'! hi surprised ton much ii v..n hear the phrase, "The Sagebrush ,l,.„ny I ,lnd." It will still be Mary Martin. Only yesterday— back in 1935, if you ,,,, n> fol II itlatlcl she was an operator ,,i ., ,trlng "i dance studios in Texas, A town wag called her "e Terpslehorean lliisl Mini oiii'.lil lo he in\ limited fin poly" The Mnrlhi gonfalon Hew over the little temples ol the dance in no I,,... tlioi live Texas hanilels, with li.-i na in, Weatherford as the center of operation*. II wns ii I,, rlii lift-, leaching NlJInsky tntrechuU here and Bill Robinson tap routines there. She was so successful thai I,, became studenl poor A mere babe ,1 I kkoeplng, she did well to collect half her tuition fees. Deep down in her li.snt she was Interested only In being a dance missionary and devil ink,, the profits He did Exactly whal caused hei to throw In Hollywood turned her down .old the fir* six times she knocked at the gates, b« Mary Martin knew what she wanted, and she got It JOHN B. FRANCHEY By the sponge that eventful year of 35 is a moo point. What may have contributed to her decision to leave the purp e sage was the burning issue of Liberalism vs Conservatism, the very problem then en gaging Ae White Father in Washington, Sigh he had things under better con.ro' At least, no one burned down the White House. The unvarnished truth is that some neoPuritans set fire to her studio at Weatherford, convinced that dancing was an abomination and a pitfall for the young. "That's how it is in small towns; at least that's how it was back in Weatherford," she grins. "It really didn t matter very much because I had the place insured. We built it up again real pretty." This by way of philosophic postscript. Make no mistake about it. The lady harbors no ill-will toward her native heath. Hear her out, will you? , "Why, my gosh, Weatherford is more famous than . . . well . . . Anyway, do you realize that one of the original Flora dora girls came from Weatherford? Pdid all right by herself, too. She went North and married a Yankee— a millionaire. And another one of our belles did right hand page ads when it's in the mood. In fact, even the four other units of the late Martin dance empire manage to unleash kiyi-yippees on account of auld lang syne. Why, even now and then Mr. Farley's agents bring her a glowing letter, and a check on-account, from one of her exscholars. ■ But in 1935, she was just a feminine Dick Whittington with a southern accent. She had set her soul on the big, western Metropolis. Her London was Hollywood. Way inside of her there was a longing to become a great dancer. She loved ballet. But she had an unquestionable flare for the modern dance. Why not become a genius at classical tap, she asked herself. Across the great plains she roared to Hollywood. There were top-flight teachers here. And here Fame hung out, if you could find her. Before you could say "Eleanor Powell," she was enrolled in the Fanchon and { < \ I more , do '°Sne it up some. She landed the Prince of Liechtenstein. She's real happy, I hear. In fact, all of our girls marry them rich and cute." She catches her breath. "And do you know that Walter Huston once ran a power plant up there?" If Mary is gaga over Weatherford, the town is hers, right up to the last road-bond issue. The town's Chamber of Commerce gurgles over the fact that she was cradled here. The local electric light company whoops it up about her in full Marco school of the dance. She began her chores in dead earnest. Days without end she rehearsed. While the lackadaisical piano-player thumped out the choruses, she did her pirouettes, leaps, kicks. Between lessons she scoured the town looking for engagements. She found none. She refused to be discouraged. After all, she consoled herself, wasn't she also a singer? Why, of course! Hadn't she sung in chapel at Ward Belmont 'way back in 1930, in her final season at that educational spa? Come to think of it, hadn't she made a recording at the age of 7 of that wheezy ditty, "When Apples Grow on Lilac Trees?" Of course, she had. Why, even the Episcopal Church back home had paid her good money, 20 berries a month, for lifting her well-tempered coloratura in sacred cantatas and chorales. Did anyone want a singer, someone "real different?" It seems that a certain Hollywood establishment called the Cinegrill needed that very thing for its cocktail hour. "I sold 'em a bill of goods," Mary chortles. Before long she was booked at the Casanova Club, too. All the while she kept making passes at the top position in the dance then, as now, roundly contested by Miles. Rogers and Powell. Nothing beautiful ever came of these gestures. Sing a song of six pence, a pocket full of blasted dreams The impasse was bridged by the arrival of news from one of her spies that Buddy Rogers air-show starring those anUc mft.es, Victor Moore and Helen Broderick, needed a new love interest, preferably an mterest in diminished sevenths in short, a singer on the hot side The downcast one joined the horde of applicants and got an audition. She was picked A weekly trip to the cashier's window for important money was an intoxicating delight. When the thirteen weeks of the original booking were over, Rogers renewed her contract. At the end of this trick, the program was discontinued Once more the lady was at loose ends. ■ With a revived enthusiasm, she plunged into her dance studies again As Christmas time began to approach she found Texas yanking her pigtails. She called time out. She flew away home A winter in Texas with her home folks and the old nostalgia came over her. In Weatherford she was getting nowhere. Far away she heard the familiar call When the dandelions came, she bought herself a little yellow roadster and set out to make her fortune. Back in Hollywood, and back again to the eternal one-two-three-four-five, the machine-gun taps, the dips, the whirls. For months it went on. Came the June brides and the suspicion began to take hold of her that perhaps she wasn't a sen i sational dancer. An excellent dancer, yes. But that was all. She kneeled down beside her Rubicon, rattled the dice. Then she plunged in. There was no turning back. Henceforth she would be a singer, the likes of which Hollywood had never seen or heard. "I'll show 'em," she promised. It behooves us to mention here that this rash promise was more than she had bargained for. Mostly no one cared to listen, — important, at any rate. She got herself an agent. But he found no spots for her. She changed to another. Results: identical. She tried a third. His labors were epic, unfruitful. She parted company with all agents, pro tern. "I still believe in you," Number Three said. "And I'll be talking Mary Martin every chance I get." "So long." "So long." The Great Victor Herbert is Mary Martin's first picture and it gives her plenty of opportunity to sing as well as dance lo the gay familiar tunes of _ the popular noiig ■ If life had been grim up to this time, now it became grimmer Things were now at an impossible low Mary's real daddy, a judge out in Texas, had had a stroke, and Mary decided to die rather than write to him for money. One night she decided to sing for her supper at an audition at the Trocadero. famous Hollywood oasis. Instead of an evening get-up. she wore an accordion-pleated skirt with a red belt, set oft bv a batiste blouse with raffles. Anyhow, she stood there in the wings waiting for her cue knees wobbling, while that merry emcee Joe Lewis, rattled off a nice introduction! Banked on all sides were dinner jackets and tails; smart Lelongs, Patous, Vlonnets and Schiaparellis. She signaled to Unhand leader. The orchestra struck up the opening bars of "II Bacio," or "The Kiss." For half a chorus she poured out her golden, dramatic-soprano. All of a sudden she turned on that impish smile. Her eyes danced. Her body began to Sway And for the first tune on record "II Bacio" was in the groove, swinging like mud. The house burst into applause Cheai rang out. When she came out to take a bow Jack Benny stood up in a eh. or and yelled "More! More!" Tyrone Power and Don Ameche led a miniature cheei Lng sec tion. It was a minor riot. For forty-five minutes she sang encores, until the man agement made the announcement: "Mary Martin will appear at the Trocadero for a regular two-weeks' engagement beginning . . ." The din was terrific The next day was a jubilee. Every film company in town called up and asked her if she would make a screen test. They had all forgotten that locked up in their vaults were tests she made several years back. She said, "No. thank you." More importantly, Agent Number Three called up, all agog. He had good news Lawrence Schwab, the producer, had heard her at the Trocadero and wanted her to star in a musical he was planning for the fall, something to be called Ring Out the New. She said, yes. To top it all off, a radio impresario shoved a contract under her nose for a 13-weeks' engagement on the "Good News" program for the largest salary she had ever earned in her life. "It was colossal," she chirps. "I took it." In the fall, as per schedule, she came to New York to make Mr. Schwab rich and herself famous. Here she learned that Mr. Schwab had had a change of heart. He had postponed ringing out the new— indefinitely. ■ As the rain fell on the windowpanes of her hotel room overlooking Central Park that very night, she wondered what the good people of Weatherford would say when she returned in disgrace. She had burned her bridges in Hollywood. She cried a little. On the third day, as she was "fixing to go back home," Mr. Schwab called up to say that he knew a spot for her. A lady named June Knight had just quit a show labeled Leave It To Me, about to undrapc in a fortnight or so. The music was by Cole Porter, Would she like to try out? Ho could fix it up. [Continued on paye 64]