Modern Screen (Dec 1936 - Nov 1937 (assorted issues))

Along Came Fate bt'tter. It lasted a week. Long enough for Frank Gregory, the director, to become interested in Beverly's work. He was, it seemed, going to do a production in London. If she went over he'd give her a role. But how to get to London? You must, perforce, take a boat. And boats cost money. "We can't let a small thing like that stop you!" protested Wanda Lydwell. Wanda was like that, a grand pal. Beverly grinned because they were pretty much two of a kind. Only Wanda had the price of a boat ticket and ten dollars a week spending money from her family. And Bev didn't. Suddenly the honey eyes flickered. "I have it ! We'll give a benefit performance !" Two girls, barely eighteen, launched on a mad lark. They went to the management of the Hotel Sutton and explained that they wanted a room in which to give a charity performance (but they neglected to say for what charity). They hired a two-piece orchestra, made five gallons of very terrible punch and invited everybody in New York, including the English consul. At five a. m. they sent the crowd home. Beverly was richer by $130, most of which was spent for a third-class passage. Then, with Wanda, she sailed with thirty dollars in her pocket. Like two slim little ghosts they ploughed through London to find Frank Gregory. He was most cordial, most encouraging about the part but, of course, the play was not going to be produced until fall ! In the meantime they had five months to live through somehow. "I might make a good milk maid," said Beverly hopefully. "Have pity on the cows !" chuckled Wanda. So they settled in a mews, one of those converted stables that can be had for a song, off Marble Arch. And soon famous people began to gather at that mews. Epstein, the sculptor. Emma Goldman, the anarchist. Dynamic, brilliant Paul Robeson, whose glorious voice rang out on many an evening so that the tenants tip-toed through the halls to listen ecstatically. IT was a gay inspired life, but they were still jobless. Even the small rent became too much for the girls. "If we could only stretch this ten dollars a week that I get!" Wanda mourned. It was Emma Goldman who offered a solution. They could come to live in her apartment in Paris until fall. An excellent idea with one drawback — their two months' lease on the mews. English leases are hard to break, but not when a couple of ingenious American girls put their heads together. They gave a party. They gave a party that practically raised the roof off the old place because the girls had asked their friends to be as noisy as possible and the friends were most obliging. Needless to say, the landlord came the next day. "We're so glad you're here !" they assured him to his complete bewilderment. Within five minutes he was so overcome he forgot he intended to put them out. He asked them to tea. For once charm had proved a boomerang. They explained the situation and he graciously tore up the lease, and they left for France. There are times when Paris can be a wanton witch. This was one of them. Emma Goldman not only failed to meet {Continued from page 55) their boat train but she wasn't even in town. She had, it appeared, gone to the south of France to help Paul Robeson write his book, quite forgetting her offer. It was an inky black night, they had fifty francs between them and no place to go. Beverly began to whistle. She always whistles when she is frightened. She was to do a great deal of it in Paris. "Where next?" shivered Wanda. "A hotel that costs next to nothing," said Beverly firmly. They found it in the Montmartre district. There were cabbage roses on the wall and the man in the room below beat his wife at six every morning. Lovely atmosphere. And yet, this was the spot where Necessity (some call it Fate) opened a new door to Beverly. She had never done much singing, never knew she had a voice. But somewhere she had picked up a few cute French songs. One evening, driven by hunger, she sang them for the "patron"" of the Noctambules Cafe nearby. She put on an act. It was a good act. Thereafter she sang at the Noctambules for five francs a night and two meals. The same people came time after time. French shopkeepers and artisans. Often they sang along with her. After Beverly had finished work one night, the two of them walked across to the Seine. It had been hatefully stuffy in the cafe. The cool night air felt soft and bracing. Paris at night— there was something fascinating about it even when seen from the seamy side. Under the shadow of the great Notre Dame Cathedral, they saw a man bending low over the river. Both girls raced for the bank. But apparently he had no thought of committing suicide; he was washing his shirt. A tramp. But a tremendously intelligent "tramp" who had been an engineer in Marseilles before the depression caught up with him. Other "tramps" came from under the bridge. An ace flyer, an artist, a chap who spoke seven languages and knew New York like a book. They were all sitting there talking rapidly when the great bell tolled midnight and two gendarmes wandered down to investigate. There was a sharp word, a command. One of the pompous little French officers was brutal, ugly. He knocked down the engineer. Afterwards they never could tell who actually did it, but one of the girls struck the officer. "Insulting the law and disturbing the peace" were the charges brought against them when the girls were hustled into night court. The whole thing was preposterous but, when you know only about a hundred and fifty words of a foreign language, it's not easy to explain. Beverly and Wanda found themselves looking through the bars of the Place Vendome jail! INSIDE the bars they saw dope fiends, thieves, murderers. One old hag tried to teach them her trade of picking pockets. Gendarmes came by, pretending to offer them drinks of cold water, spilling it before they could take it. Their trial was postponed and they were transferred to the women's prison of La Roquette. You could, thought Beverly, rot in a French jail before anyone found out. She lost six pounds and grew six years in experience during those nine days in jail. And then Wanda got word to a business associate of her father's and her family went into action. Mr. Lydwell was a respresentative of the Shepherd Hotels in Egypt. He had considerable influence. It ended with the French government apologizing to the girls, and they returned to England. No more mews. No more cabbage roses on the walls. This time the Lydwells had arrived and taken things in hand. Beverly was ensconced in a suite at the Hotel Savoy ! "Now," she told Wanda expressively, "I know how Cinderella felt ! From prunes to princes — that's us!" And it was. Quite literally. Instead of going into the Frank Gregory production she maneuvered a part in "Service" with Percy Marmont. Shortly after it closed the Lydwells decided to fly to Paris. Beverly went to see them off and at the last minute flew with them. She is probably the only woman in existence who ever stayed four days at the fashionable St. Meurice without so much as an overnight bag. And it was during those four days that she met the Prince. The gentleman now known as King Edward VIII. It was at the Crillon Bar. Wanda's people had known him for years because he kept his favorite dog at their kennels at Biarritz. Beverly saw a rather tired young man sitting there and then Mr. Lydwell was introducing her to him. They talked. They went for a ride with the Prince himself driving. And as they passed the Place Vendome jail she thought, "Life is certainly queerish !" BUT the queerest twist of all was yet to come. Back in New York again she attended a cocktail party at which Maurice Chalone, noted decorator of night clubs, was also a guest. He was just opening a new one, Boeuf Sur le Toit. During the evening Beverly sang the French songs she'd sung at the Noctambules. Sang them with the flair she'd learned to put in them there. She did it only for a laugh, but at the end Chalone was saying, "I'll give you a contract. I'll give you $150 a week to sing those songs that way at 'Le Toil' " She sang there for six months. Then moved on to the Town Casino. That was where Mildred Webber, talent scout for Warner Brothers, saw her. Within a week Beverly Roberts was on her way to Hollywood. She never has been married. Never been in love, except once. That was with a famous neurologist who had a daughter four years older than herself. "That couldn't work out," said Beverly to Beverly. "I shan't see him again." And she hasn't. "You know the character of Conway in 'Lost Horizon'?" she asks. "That's my man !" So far she has found him only in a book. Once in Hollywood she went directly into "The Singing Kid" with Al Jolson. In nine months she has made five pictures, her most recent one was "China Clipper." The part in "God's Country and the Woman" came almost as an anticlimax. She'd been so sure she wouldn't get it. Beverly has her parents, brother and even the little family cat with_ her now. "It's grand to be together again. But I wouldn't give up my experiences during the last four years — and some of them have been pretty terrible — for anything in the world. Everything that's happened to me has been part of a definite pattern leading here." 70