Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

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"She's a orphan!" she yelled. The kids ringed around me, a stealthy, menacing, yelling mob, jumping up and down and chanting: "Yas, yah, yah! Orphant, orohant, orphant!" I gritted my teeth, salt stinging my eyes. I stared them down as long as I could keep the tears from spilling. I hid for the rest of the afternoon in the darkest hallway I could find. On Sunday afternoons, sometimes, Millie would take me to a movie. Pearl White serials, The Perils Of Pauline, The Exploits Of Elaine, were my passion. From these sessions with dazzling adventure in hot and stuffy neighborhood theatres, I emerged, no longer Ruby Stevens, the orphan drab and desolate, but the counterpart of my idol. In all my life, in all the parts I've played, I have never forgotten Pearl White. I'm bedeviled by the urgency, whenever one of my pictures has any kind of a stunt scene, not to have a double. True, the double is hired and gets her check but I have to ride over that cliff or under that waterfall or run through that burning building or scream through that train wreck — all in the best tradition ' of my intrepid Pearl. The Reverend William Carter, Pastor of the little Dutch Reformed Church in Flatbush, always smiled at me whenever I walked by, and one day, he spoke to me. He asked me if I'd ever been baptized. I told him no, and he looked so sorrowful that I asked him to baptize me. I've always kept the New Testament Reverend Carter gave to me on my twelfth birthday. Whenever Millie took me backstage for a Saturday matinee at whatever theatre she was working, I stood in the wings, promising myself, passionately, that I would, someday, be a great dancer — another Isadora Duncan! When I was thirteen, I got a job as a clerk for the telephone company and got myself fired almost as soon as I was hired. An irate subscriber confronted me with a mistake in her bill. Where I came from — somebody yelled at you, you yelled back louder. I was out of my job in nothing flat. I trudged from one place to another, in answer to every likely ad in the helpwanted columns and finally landed in the pattern department of Conde Nast. One day a lady came to me for instructions in cutting some expensive material to the pattern I'd sold her. With the superb authority of utter stupidity, I gave her explicit directions. The lady trustingly followed them. The management struck me from the payroll. This time, I bounced happily down the stairs. Now I knew where I was going. Show business. That was my business! As for trying to be anything but a dancer, I'd had it. Confidence and the example of an indomitable serial queen are ripe assets in a teenster. I was fifteen — a statistic to be denied. I went winging my way in and out of casting offices, my hair plastered in "dips," mouth painted, eyes heavily, unskilfully outlined, my lashes loaded with mascara. I'm sure the man who hired line dancers for the Strand Roof knew how young and green I was, but he hired me. I was a hoofer! In my sole compatibility with the neighborhood kids, I had danced for "hat money" — small change tossed by passersby. The ruthlessness I'd developed as a part of my survival equipment, because my fists were as important as my feet in getting my share of the tossed coins, was priceless. When the Strand Roof closed, I shuttled from one chorus job to another. I loved going through the battered stage doors. I loved the scramble for places before curtain time; the music, the excitement, the color. I even loved the hazards. I didn't pa lie when I was broke between jobs, and like the rest of us hoofers, acted filthy rich when I had any salary coming in. Between jobs, we all shared one precious resource. That was Billy LaHiff, our father confessor; Mr. LaHiff, my Good Samaritan. He owned The Tavern on 48th Street and a heart as big as a circus tent. He never refused a meal to a hungry chorine nor to an out-of-work actor. And he had no memory at all for what you owed him if your luck was slow. Mae Clarke, Wanda Mansfield and I shared a cold-water, walk-up room. We were short on cash and tall on dreams in our "Three Musketeer" relationship. If one got a job we all ate; if we were all "at liberty" we shared our lack of resources just as thoroughly. We laughed a lot and kept worry a stranger. One night Billy LaHiff collared me and said, "Ruby, I think I can get you a job. Willard Mack's casting — looking for a chorus girl. Come meet him." Willard Mack! A top "legit" producer, actor, playwright, director. I was not awed. Legit had little to do with my beloved branch of show business. Mr. LaHiff said, "Name's Ruby Stevens, Bill. Helluva little hoofer — sweet pair o' gams, too." Mr. Mack said, after giving Vincent Lopez, the bandleader, recalls the time he discovered little Betty Hutton in Detroit. "After she joined my band, I took her to breakfast. She ordered steak. She had iunch and ordered steak. At dinner she had steak again. And at a midnight party she ate steak again. Finally I asked her how she could eat steak four times a day. She explained, "I've never had steak in my life. And I promised mysetf that when I ever got it, I'd stuff myself!" — Paul Denis me a sharp-eyed inspection, that, yes, I could have the chorine bit in The Noose. "There are three of us hoofers, Mr. Mack," I said. "I don't accept any job except it's one for all of us." Wrinkle^ of amusement splashed the corners of his eyes. "All right, Ruby," he said, "bring your friends." The tryout of The Noose in Philadelphia was as dreary as a wake. It was a turkey. Mr. Mack went to work again. He rewrote, re-cast and rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed. When he changed the story, he became possessed of the conviction that Ruby Stevens could be trained into an actress! I was never so shocked in my whole life. I felt like Pearl V/hite, in a real big peril. But by now, I kept my mouth shut when Mr. Mack gave any orders. Day and night he drilled, drilled, drilled me to play one of the most poignant dramatic roles he ever wrote. After a week made up of days and nights of endless work, work, work, it was again curtain time for The Noose. In Pittsburgh. When the curtain fell on that second