Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1941)

But he must be, by the girl I was going to be— the girl I already was in my dreams. My resolve to be that girl in reality, at that moment outgrew mere hope or stubbornness, becoming fierce, passionate purpose. It may be he felt that resolve. More likely he felt me looking at him. His eyes rose to meet my eyes. In the same instant he flung down the music on the piano, and swung round like a person suddenly galvanized, all at once arrived at a decision, an unchangeable, unrhallengeable decision. All his decisions, I felt, were like that. NO," he said, to the piano player. "She isn't what we want. She has an — orchid voice. That isn't what we want on this program. We want a brave voice, sweet, a little defiant, a — a wild rose kind of voice. But wait a second. There's some one out there looking for some one." He came to meet me. He had brown eyes, like Dad. But also he had a strange look of unbelief. Faith in him and doubt of him mingled with my feeling that I was being rapidly — and relentlessly — appraised, by the world of strength and success which he represented. I felt my face color with the intensity of my determination not to be afraid — of him — of anything. With something like the amusement that had showed in the girl's face, he smiled. But there was more than amusement in his smile. There was — recognition, as if a sign and countersign had passed between us. "I — may be in the wrong studio," I faltered. Surely I could not have found my way so soon. Surely so much good fortune could not come all at once. "I'm looking for Mr. Stephen Langley." "You're not at all wrong, then," he said. "On the contrary. I'm Langley. And I imagine you're the little girl Ken Dixon made me send for." I in." I answered. "I'm Betty Rand." I couldn't find breath enough to say more than that. Stephen Langley said, "Dixon tells me that you've sung into a mike." "At my teacher's, and on amateur and children's tms," I replied. "I'm not afraid of one." Bui his attention was not on what we were saying. Itwasonirrj eyi .and hair, and the curve of my cheek, in. I the way the comers of my lips go when I smile. ingely enough, it disappointed me. to see him thinking only of how I looked, just like any boy at 1,1 ehow 1 wanted his eyes to be looking king oi ong i and audiences, and the power II radio. And when he seemed to feel my change of toward him, and tried a little awkwardly to hang his own expression, I wondered in dismay rang with me, to make me call that : "' attention. In that suddenly galvanized way I"' had, he went back to the music on the piano. 'We want songs that will inspire people," he said looking Eoi some her,-. Have you any to offer'" [h ""■ « hutting mi out now, as if I hardly i as what I had expected at first but 11 I a boy having made love to you 1 '"" '"'" with i girl he was engaged to h id al m, but he had cared " "■' didn I , It's a let-down some So I smiled purposely this time, and mad v voire <mi!» „„ i,.,m , rtenl fh^neSt f °rt t0' 3nd *at y°U d0"'t h^e to deal with the qualities you hate or despise in a person. ™n f'"rt bettei' «J"ali«es by using your own better qualities. Our songs must carry out this idea. Do you ""'■ ',n<l mad J 'Oio ,e'd know^ »v», » t And still he wouldn't look I knew it And i «L ,u™ ered eager,y "It sounds like my Dad." was there" gl,WaS '" rigM tHen' aS S°°" ™ Dad to »v t mST u gh only in my memory "He used or me % i "Jff" She lost Patience with my sister It's onlvT • ^ the girl Wants is rjght enough. ™«sx* :z:t-emne about getti^ what she 'had forgotten to sparkle. I was only loving Dad iteful to him. I hadn't realized I'd brought -t. „ke being hungry, and ; n" ' "id. "tries to make people beautiful in '" I -lion." He was concen "We think That you can ... . TELEVISION MIRROR back Stephen Langley's eyes to their appreciation of me, or noticed until I stopped speaking that they were warm and friendly for a moment. He laughed. "I wish he'd written that in songs," he said. "But no one has. We have to be content with our script writer's idea that our songs must bring results, along the line of each day's program. I mean that if you sing, 'Lover, Come Back to Me,' thousands of letters must come in the next day, saying, 'Last night, after hearing your program, I called up the girl I once was engaged to. I told her I was sorry for whatever it was we had quarreled about. Now we're engaged again.' Could you sing that for us now — in a way to make the man in the control room call up some girl Th'da, 2 f01" the way he treate" her?" Id never had hef l""^"18 S°ng witn an emo,"»> Pianist ■ St6phen turned and sai« to the "Well—we've found her " progUrammneer!ia,telKV "e rea'Ued that 1 was the girl his s^swsssr toward me chan/ed and sponsors atcTin^' f°"0Wed' WniIe we auditioned for eonLrred wth rhT'eWld advertising agency men and sWl detach^ SCr'Pt WHter and m"sicians, he was I hid fdt the TPZS°naL The mome"tary desolation of mfnd \ urSt day' be«an to be a mood, a frame I tried to™ hUft th3t WaS Settlin8 int° "y hear.. I tried to argue myself out of it. What in heaven's ?u^TweU T* ^ ™? Fd Wa"ted a *anc a success. Well, I was having it. Stephen Langley was ahead of me h ^TTi the ''°ad to f°'tune ^^ and I ,ov^ t °ad,anlClea' A" ' had to do wa* work, have oeen the 7' ^ dayS °f P™P»a«on should nave been the happlest and most exciting of my life with h0roeh0W',th»ey were"'t-s™ply because a "man d ose t„T'. ^al ^ and a Purposeful manne, chose to pretend that I was not a person, but only ,, cog in his success machine. |NHSJW,CuTS~fIminine instiMt* 'hat had nothing to do with my desire to sing and be successful at my tharioner„sft"'rinB ii memaking me iong i° see that look of interest and appraisal that had been in his eyes at our first meeting. Oh. I knew that I'd been disappointed at the time, seeing it there. But it had told me he was a man and I was a woman. It had been heady, exciting, and I couldn't forget it I don't mean that I reasoned all this out 1 didn't I was too confused and hurt at his brisk unawareness But I found myself watching other girls in the studio building, trying to dress and act more like them I borrowed clever clothes, and I persuaded Marion (even now, I can t imagine how) to let me use the credit she could get on her steady job to buy more clothes When all the tests and proofs were over, and we had agreed on a salary which sounded like a fortune to me, I finally received word that a contract was ready, in his office, to be signed. I used Marion's charge account to buy a special outfit—a tailored suit with a jacket that had soft, fluffy fur along the sleeves, and ten-fifty shoes, and stocking! that must have been about one-half-thread, and clevei gloves and hat. Now, surely, he'd look al me! He did look. But, as he looked, I saw an expression of amused confidence come into his eyes. Even in mj pleasure at being admired, that expression made me vaguely uneasy. Two other men were with us, to see the contract signed. Then they went away. Men were always disappearing out of his office, leaving us alone there That day, for the first time, I thought I saw that their leaving had been his suggestion. He glanced through my contract again, then folded it and put it into an envelope. In the act of offering it to me. his arm went about my waist. "There it is — the first step to all you want, starring on a nationwide hookup, maybe Hollywood. Is it to be sealed with a kiss?" he said easily. His faint smile was a challenge. It was his world of success and strength mocking me. He expected to buy me, so much for so much, a kiss now, and by and by whatever he might care to claim. I flared up in a fury of disappointment. "No!" I cried, my blazing eyes on his face, like claws unsheathed to scratch its complacent handsomeness. "Can't a girl have a career — (Continued on paoe (>4) 11