Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

ington. Then south down Lex . . . from Sixty-first Street, through the Fifties, through most of the Forties . . . block after block after block . . . the wind hitting hard against her face, blurring her eyes, dishevelling her hair . . . not caring, though; walking still . . . block after block after block ... in search of an oasis with a neon sign over it, all lit and inviting, with a sticker on its front door marked 'Open.' But none of the liquor stores was open. Not one. And, by the time she reached Fortysecond Street, she was exhausted. And she turned and walked into Grand Central Station and went to a phone booth there and called a friend. "Isn't there anyplace in this town," she asked, "where I can buy a bottle?" "Diana," her friend said, "you sound as if you've already had enough." "Don't holler," she said. "I'm going to die — " "Diana!" "Yes," she said. "I know it. I can feel it. My time is running out . . . I've been running . . . And so is time." "Where are you, Diana?" "And all I want," she went on, ignoring the questions, "is a bottle!" "Diana, where are you?" "Do you have a black hat," she asked, "and a black dress? For my funeral. You'll be needing them ... if you come." "Diana — where are you?" She didn't answer. She didn't say anything this time. She simply dropped the receiver and left it dangling and muttered the word funeral again, as she ran from the booth and back outside, into the street, and hailed a cab to take her home. In her building again, a little while later, she began to climb the stairs to her apartment. She lived on the third floor. She stopped on the second. She walked to a door, and she knocked. A young man, in a sweater and slacks, opened the door. "You don't know me," she said to him, quickly, "but my name is Diana Barrymore. I'm a neighbor of yours ... I wonder if you would sell me a bottle of liquor." The young man looked at her. Silently. He turned and disappeared for a moment. Then he returned. "This is vermouth," he said, handing her what he was holding. "There were a few people over last night, for drinks. It's all I've got left. It's dry vermouth. I hope that's all right." "Dry vermouth," Diana said. She smiled. Then, opening her purse, she said, "Here, please let me pay you for this. I owe you a lot for this." "No," the young man said, still looking at her, trying to smile back. "It's on the house." "Oh?" Diana said. She clutched the bottle. Without another word, she turned and she began to climb the stairs again. . . . Last act Eva had left. Some friends who'd come to visit, two men and a woman, disgusted with the way she'd been drinking, with her talk of impending death, had left, too. She was alone now, in the living room, standing near the big mirror, the glass in her hand, the bottle nearby. She stared over at the clock. It was nearly 11:05 p.m. "This was always the worst part of the day, for Diana, those last days," a friend has said. "At eleven o'clock every night she would begin imagining that she was at the Martin Beck Theater, over on Fortyfifth Street, where Sweet Bird of Youth was playing. That she was just finishing her performance in the play. She would rise from wherever she was sitting and walk across the room, to a spot she pretended was the stage, the mirror in front of her the theater. She would stand there, stiffly, for five full minutes. And then, at 11:05, she would imagine that the curtain was coming down and that her perform ance was over and that the applause was beginning." It was nearly that time now — eleven — this night. And Diana, in front of the mirror, looked from the clock to a photograph on the fireplace, which she'd had framed and which she'd placed there a few months earlier. It wasn't much of a photograph. Just her and a man standing together, on a pier in some sunny place, the man looking over at her and she looking at the man, and holding the small bouquet of violets he had just bought for her. She stared at the photograph for a moment. And then she stared, again, at the clock. She watched its big hand, carefully as it went from three minutes after, to four, to five. And when it hit the five-mark, she faced the mirror once more and she bowed. "I am The Princess Kosmonopolis," she whispered, rising, looking at herself in the mirror. "I." She looked at her face, the lines, the paleness, as she repeated the words. "I am The Princess Kosmonopolis ... I am ... 7 am .../...." She bowed again. Then she turned. She walked from the living room, into her bedroom. As she approached the bed, she dropped the glass she was still holding. " On God," she said. She threw herself onto the bed. "Oh, God," she said. "Please. "I'm so tired. "Please . . . give me sleep. . . ." Diana Barrymore died in her sleep, sometime early the next morning — victim of a long-range combination of liquor and barbiturates. At her funeral, four days later, her casket was covered completely with violets. The card that accompanied the flowers was signed, simply, "Tom." end America's First Negro Teen Idol (Continued from page 40) This is his story. Johnny began singing when he was very young, but it wasn't show business then, it was for his church, his school, his family. His childhood was humble, simple, happy. His mother and father loved gospel and spiritual singing. Their home had a strong religious feeling. They went to church together, they said grace at every meal, and his mother read from the Bible every day. The church missionary group met frequently at their house. And young Johnny was always singing, because "only singing gives me such a wonderful feeling." Out of respect for his church and his folks, he avoided blues, but he did enjoy spirituals and inspirational songs. Everybody told him he had a "God-given voice. . . ." But Johnny didn't realize he could charm the birds off a tree with his singing until he was five and attending Harrison Kindergarten down the street from his home. It was then — in white pants, white shirt, white cape — that he sang his first solo, Away in the Manger, in the school's Christmas show, and won his first prize, a coloring book. As he grew older, he sang everywhere they tolerated him. But he didn't earn money until he competed on Trummie Cain's radio Talent Show on station KCOH. 76 He won $15 each time, for a month, and then $50 for the grand prize. That's when he got his first press notice, his photo in a local colored weekly. The Informer. The family liked the recognition, but didn't buy any extra copies or do any showing off. Immodesty was not a Christian virtue, they felt. Johnny's mother was pleased when Johnny offered to sing for the Christian Society missionary group that met in the Nash house. So Johnny sang, Yes, God Is Real, and later the minister said Johnny had the makings of a fine minister. "We would be pleased if he felt he had such a call. But he has to make the decision himself," said Johnny's mother. Rules and miracles At home, life was God-fearing yet warm and good. Johnny loved to gaze quietly out of the big picture window of the house he had been born in. The planter box underneath the window and the natty awning framed the lovely view of the world outside. The magnolia tree in front, the nice lawn and the flowers along the yellow cyclone fence, set the borders of their little world of gospel singing, Bible meetings, marvelous kitchen smells ("oh the fried chicken and apple pie that Mother baked!"), the relatives and friends who crowded the house on festive days. Outside of their familiar neighborhood was the touchy world of segregation; but Johnny knew the rules and did not transgress. But, in spite of the edginess of the times, Johnny kept finding outstretched hands of friendship from white folk as well as his own. "It is a miracle," his mother would sigh. "A true miracle . . . !" One of the miracles in Johnny's life began the day he was caddying at the Houston Municipal Golf Course and got a special request to sing for a certain distinguished-looking, white-haired gentleman, right there on the clubhouse patio. The man listened intently to the boy's lyric baritone (he was singing Because) and took careful note of the handsome thirteen-year-old's poise and neat way of dressing. Then he told Johnny he'd like to bring him to the local television station for an audition sometime. Johnny thanked him and went back to work. . . . Mr. Frank Stockton, he found out from other caddies, was a retired real estate broker, whose only son had been killed in an automobile accident just after his return from the Service. He certainly seemed like a kindhearted gentleman, Johnny decided, but it was not the first time someone had heard him sing, and promised him something. . . . When Johnny got home and told his dad, John Lester Nash, Sr., and his mother, and his older sister Dorothy Jean, they cautioned, "Don't be disappointed if nothing happens." But his mother added, "If it is the will of the Lord, then it will happen." The phone rang. It was Mr. Stockton,