Hollywood (1942)

t%Olll€lll Dc*liiii€l ■»oi olliy Lamonr By DOHA ALBERT ■ The two women faced each other across the narrow table. The older woman looked cool and immaculate in her smart tailored suit, with her white hair framing her face. But her eyes were shrewd. • If she had not been so horribly tired, the younger woman would have looked beautiful. But her dark brown eyes were smudged with weariness, and her hands trembled with nervousness. "You're not being fair to yourself or to Dorothy,'' the older woman said. "What can you really do for the child? She can sing and dance. But you'll never be able to develop her talent. From your salary as a cashier, you can barely manage to pay her board. "If you'll let me adopt my granddaughter, I'll see to it that Dorothy gets dancing and singing lessons and whatever else she needs." The younger woman rose from her seat, fists clenched. She was seeing a picture she couldn't stand, of Dorothy and herself separated forever. "No, you can't have Dorothy. I know you'd be kind to her. But you'd never be able to make up to her for my having deserted her. You may have plans for my daughter. Well, I have plans, too. My child will live with me." She walked out, and for a moment it seemed as if the tired lines in her back straightened. She was conscious of a great sense of inner triumph. That was the real beginning of the Cinderella story of Hollywood's queen of sarongs. If it had not been for the sacrifices made by Dorothy's mother, now Mrs. Castleberry, Dorothy would never have gotten started on her career. To understand Dorothy, you must first understand her mother Carmen, for the story of Dorothy is inextricably woven together with the story of her gallant mother. A deep strain of romance runs in Dorothy's family. For four generations its members have faced a dramatic choice between love and great wealth, and each time have made the same choice. 75 Dorothy's story begins properly lour generations ago when her greatgrandfather, Jean Duvaquie, Marquis of Toulouse, France, faced his parents with flashing eyes. They had found out that he planned to marry a peasant girl, and they were horrified. If he dared marry her, they would disinherit him. The Marquis stood his ground defiantly, and gave up his title to marry the peasant girl. Never to the day of his death did he regret his choice. "The Marquis was my mother's father," Carmen told me. "The peasant wife he loved so well died soon after my mother's birth. A very wealthy woman took care of my mother. It was her dearest wish that when my mother grew up she marry her son. Naturally, he was very wealthy, as he would inherit all his mother's wealth. "But my mother. Marie Duvaquie, did not love her foster-brother. Instead she loved a poor boy, and disregarding the wishes of her fostermother, she married him. Though they had very little money, they found happiness together." Carmen Laporte, Dorothy's mother, had heard the romantic history of her family. She was determined that she would not fall in love, but would instead win for herself a career as an actress or a concert singer. As Carmen matured, the same motif that had occurred in her family for two generations was repeated. Although a wealthy Frenchman fell madly in love with her and proposed to her, she turned him down to elope, at seventeen, with a young American, who had been carrying her books home from school for years. About twenty-seven years ago, Dorothy was born with her mother's dark hair and her father's blue eyes. Now for the first time. Carmen was glad that she had given up her career dreams, for she felt that this tiny baby with the clinging, shapelyhands meant infinitely more to her than any career. When World War I broke out, Dorothy Lamour's father was offered a government job in Anniston, Alabama. Five hundred camps were set up as living quarters for the workmen — rude structures with wooden floors and narrow, uncomfortable cots. Without hesitation. Carmen decided that her place was beside her husband; but they couldn't take Dorothy with them, since the quarters weren't fit for a child. Dorothy must be left with her father's people — the very same people who had opposed Carmen's marriage. But this was no time for counting personal grievances. Dorothy's welfare was what counted. In crude Tent No. 1, Carmen tried to make a home for her husband, while twenty miles away was the child she adored. "Week-ends, I would travel to Birmingham to see Dorothy," Carmen told me. "Sometimes her grandmother would bring Dorothy to visit us for a day or two. Even then, Dorothy, though only a tot, sang and danced. Often on the train, going to Anniston, she would sing for the soldiers in the front car, and they would buy her toy pistols made of candy." Even to this day, Carmen will not say what went wrong with her marriage. While her husband needed her, during those hectic World War days, she stayed by his side, but after the War, they drifted apart. It was then that Carmen took the cashier's job in Birmingham, Alabama; and shortly after that. Dorothy's grandmother offered to adopt the child. The strange story of Dorothy Lamour is inextricably woven with the past. For four generations the women of her family have been confronted with the same dramatic decision. Neither Dorothy nor her mother, Mrs. Carmen Castleberry, below, regrets the choice she made. Dotty has just returned from a sensationally successful defense bond selling lour. Her new film is Beyond the Blue Horizon