Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

CONNIE FRANCIS Continued from page 56 thinking how funny it is how when your head’s in the dryer and you can’t hear, you think you have to shout. “Say, have you seen this story on that new singer, Tommy Isn’t he the greatest!” My hand shook for just a second when I heard his name again. I nodded at the girl to let her know I agreed. Then I found a tissue to wipe off the lipstick where I'd smeared the outline when she startled me. I dabbed at my nose with a puff, threw my makeup kit in my bag and picked up my coat. I didn’t realize that I was almost running till I heard the girl at the cash register call out after me. “Say, Connie, what’s your hurry?” she teased. “Don’t you want to pay your bill first?” “Sorry,” I said. “I just realized how late . . . Here you are.” I didn’t even bother to put the change in my wallet. I just jammed it into my purse and walked out quickly. It took me almost three blocks to realize that I had no reason to hurry . . . that I had almost an hour before my father was to meet me and drive me home to Belleville, New Jersey. There was a Walgreen’s drug store on the corner and I turned into it. I sat there, my elbow propped up on the lunch counter, not drinking the coffee I’d ordered, just trying to understand how, after all this time, just the sudden mention of his name could make my heart go flip-flop. I wondered if all your life that’s the way you feel when someone mentions the name of the first boy you love. Tommy’s not his real name, of course. I call him that ’cause he’s a famous singer today and you’d recognize his real name. But he wasn’t famous that day we first met two years ago . . . I didn’t like him that day. My manager, Mr. Scheck, and I had an appointment with Tommy to listen to some songs he’d written. When I got to the office, my manager led me into the bare rehearsal room where Tommy’s partner was seated at the scarred upright piano and Tommy was slouched on a wooden folding chair with his feet propped up on the only other chair there. He didn’t get up. He just raised his hand, moved his palm around in a slow circle and said, “Greetings. You’re late!” But as they played the first song, I watched him and I thought, “He’d be nice-looking if he wouldn’t scowl.” The first song wasn’t my style and I said so. Tommy dropped his feet off the chair with a thud and stood up. “C’mon,” he said to his partner. “Let’s go.” “But don’t you have any other songs?” I asked. They played three other songs and they were very good. “Gosh,” I said, “they’re great. They could almost have been written just for me.” “Well they weren’t, doll, they weren’t.” “I’d like to record them, especially that one you call ‘My First Real Love.’ ” “Sure you would,” he said. “I’ve heard that before.” “I’ll set up the recording date,” Mr. Scheck interrupted. “You boys wait here, I’ll be right back.” And he ushered me out of the room. “He’s a very talented boy,” he whispered. “That’s no excuse,” I answered. But a week later I saw Tommy again, when he and three of his friends sang along for vocal background when I recorded Tommy’s song. Making a record is like taking a final exam at school. You study and prepare and you do your best — and then you hope you’ll pass. And when it s over viierc s a lei-ucvvn feeling. Sometimes, if you’re alone, you want to sit down and cry. But this time, I wasn’t alone. Pushing back the blond hair that kept falling over onto his forehead, Tommy put his arms around my waist and we both jumped up and down in a crazy sort of a jig, laughing. Then Tommy pulled me over to a corner of the room. “Connie, you’re one of the nicest girls I ever met,” he said quietly. “I want to thank you for giving me so much help. I hope you’ll forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude.” “Oh, that’s all right,” I told him. “I know you didn’t mean it. I ... I wonder if you and your friends would like to come to a party I’m giving next week?” “Sure,” he said. “Thanks.” In the short week till my party. Tommy had been on a roller coaster. One of the big record companies had given him a contract and he’d sung on the most popular musical show on television. In that crazy week, he’d even found time to make a record, and he brought me a copy of it when he came to the party. I put it on the top of the panel I'd stacked next to the phonograph in the pine-paneled den. Then, busy passing the Cokes and a cheese-dip for the potato chips, I heard someone start the phonograph and it was Tommy’s record. I wanted to dance it with him, but a boy I’d dated — when I was a senior at Belleville High and my father let me begin going out on dates — asked me before 1 had a chance to look around and find Tommy. It was eleven-thirty before I realized that I hadn’t seen him all night. He wasn’t there in the den, but when I went upstairs to look, I spotted him through the open kitchen door, leaning across our new gray formica table, talking away with his friends. But my father saw him first. “Aren’t you boys having a good time?” he asked. “Why don’t you go down to the den and dance?” “We’re busy talking,” Tommy snapped, twisting around in his chair. I walked back to my party and started picking up the used paper cups, just for something to do. About fifteen minutes later, Tommy appeared. “Well,” I said, “don’t you dance?” “When a gentleman wants to dance,” he said, screwing up one eye to hold an invisible monocle and bowing from his waist, “he does the asking.” My anger fled when he put his arm around me and we danced out to the center of the room. We glided slowly around the room and I felt Tommy’s hand tighten at my waist as I closed my eyes and hummed along with the record, “The Nearness of You.” When the record was almost over, Tommy danced over near the phonograph, picked up the needle and put it back at the beginning. I opened my eyes and smiled at him. He is good-looking, I thought, and I even liked the way one eyebrow always seemed to be raised in a question. Then suddenly, in a hoarse voice, I heard him whisper, “I love you, Connie.” And I was so startled I stopped dancing, stepping on his toes till I was able to find the beat of the music again. “We just met,” I protested. “You just mean you like me. You can’t mean what you said . . . You shouldn’t say that to » “Well, it’s true,” he said, “so believe what you will.” And then another boy cut in before I could say no to him and over his shoulder I saw Tommy leave. After that, I saw him almost every day. We’d meet at my manager’s office and then we’d sit for hours in a drug store, drinking hot chocolate and talking. But we never talked about what Tommy had told me at my party. Some days, my father would come into Manhattan with me, and on those days I’d see Tommy at the office but I’d always have to go straight home with my father. I knew he didn’t like Tommy, that he thought he was too flip, too “show business.” Even though my father had taught me music — he’d really guided my career ever since I was twelve and I won first prize on Arthur Godfrey’s “Talent Scouts” — Dad has never really felt at home with “show people.” But he didn’t say too much until one Saturday night about a month later, when Tommy and I were going to a party in Newark. “A nice boy doesn’t come late to take a girl to a party,” my father began when the clock on the walnut sideboard showed eight and Tommy was already an hour late. “It’s snowing,” I said, “and traffic’s probably all tied up at the tunnel.” “If the weather’s that bad,” he answered, “it might be better if you didn’t go out — especially with that boy.” At nine o’clock, Tommy still hadn’t come. At ten o’clock, we heard a loud chugging noise outside and I ran to the window again. A battered, gasping Chevy pulled up before the house and Tommy ran out. I opened the front door. “I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly. “The traffic ...” I heard a door slam and I knew my father had stalked off to the den. I noticed Tommy’s wet shoes were making a puddle on the carpet as my mother P 85