Screenland (Nov 1929-Apr 1930)

118 SCREENLAND Hello, Public — Continued from page 31 into bed — dead to the world, but not for long. On that bed there was what I learned to call a musical spring. Every time I turned over the coils, in these springs snapped and gave out a sound like a circus calliope. So when I finally fell asleep around seven o'clock it seemed only a moment until my maid had knocked on the door and said: "We're due for rehearsal at the theater in twenty-five minutes." When I got to the little theater, I found there was no orchestra. "But I've got to have an orchestra for this act. I've just naturally got to," my manager said. The theater manager who had had a pretty tough year was willing to do anything in his power to help us, so out into town he went and within an hour had organized an orchestra. And what an orchestra! The first member I saw was the trombonist. He walked in in overalls, carrying an old trombone, all taped up. And I heard him mutter as he sat down where the pit is supposed to be: "Well, this is better than greasing cars in the garage at ten above zero." I afterwards learned that he was a mechanic from the local garage, taking time off to hold up the orchestra. Next in was the violinist. He sold electric light fixtures. The piano player followed after him. And this man was a pianist, with a love for his art which almost proved disastrous. As I shall tell you later. In ordinary life, the pianist was the soda squirter, at the big time drug store on main street. We were all ready for rehearsal but there was no piano for the stage. My manager conferred with the movie theater manager. "But we've got to have a baby grand. With the backdrops and beautiful costumes, an upright piano will throw everything out of proportion." "But there isn't but one in town. And that belongs to the undertaker," the harassed theater manager replied. "Get it," my manager answered. "Get it — at any cost!" By this time, it was almost the hour of the evening performance. My maid and I hurried down under the stage where the kind manager had rigged up a dressing room of sorts. It was pretty cold for my California blood. And there was no hot water. However, on a little electric heater, my maid warmed some for me to wash in. And I was just heading for the bathroom with a pail of warm water in my hand when the largest rat in captivity skidded out of the bath room door. I have always heard that rats will attack people. And I was literally frozen with fear. But instead of that rat attacking me, he must have thought I was going to attack him — for he turned a flipflop and ran. My nerves, by this time, had the better of me. And if I could have found a fast freight outside of that stage door, I would certainly have hopped it back to Hollywood. I was literally sick with fear. Perhaps, you all don't realize how it is learning to sing. Your teacher stands by you. And just her physical presence is a great moral help. She acts as a Svengali to your Trilby. Well, I couldn't bring my teacher with me, and here I was alone on the Iowa prairie. And if I didn't make good — well, that would be the end of little Estelle! My, how you can pray when you get in a tight place. And believe me I did. With cold fingers and a trembling tongue I gave Amy Macpherson a race for her money. Somehow, my maid poured me into my white lace dress and I hobbled up the dark steps to the stage. I heard the orchestra playing the overture. But strangely enough I didn't hear my accompanist play the opening bars of my first song — which was the cue for me to come on. But I did hear a strange whisper, "Come on, come on!" he was shouting as he sat behind the baby grand, perspiration streaming down his face. I made my entrance, had a nice little round of warm applause, and waited for the opening bars of my song. Nothing happened. I saw the accompanist pressing down the keys — still nothing happened. Finally with a mighty effort, he played the first few bars of my song, and how they jangled, and I opened my mouth to sing. But before I could get out a single note, I heard an awful crash. The piano had fallen to pieces! "Don't leave the stage," the accompanist hissed. "Stay where you are." And I did. trying to smile, while giggles were mounting rapidly in the audience. The accompanist rushed off of the stage, down into the orchestra pit, leaped onto the piano seat and started to play my song from there. But the local pianist clung to his art. He refused to leave the piano bench. And so while two large bodies struggled to occupy the same spot at the same time, I put on my first professional song. How, what or why, I don't know, but finally it was over. The audience applauded and whistled — I took eight encores. And then fell back in the wings, crying with laughter and fright and nerves. My poor accompanist was little better. And I learned what had happened. When the theater manager went to the undertaker to hire the piano for the performance, the undertaker was tuning it. Nothing loathe to make a few extra dollars, he let the theater manager have it, neglecting to say, however, that part of the instrument was tuned in the upper register and part in the lower. Also that he had taken the screws out of the pedals. When my unfortunate accompanist hit the first few bars, the resulting sound was awful. When he tried the pedal to see if he could sustain the chords once struck, the whole piano dissolved in his lap — -the pedals came off, the piano lurched to the side and it was then that he made his flying leap for the orchestra pit. After three days in Atlantic, we played Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Sioux City, and points south north and east, working gradually towards New York where I played the Palace Theater, following it with engagements in Yonkers, Brooklyn, Flushing and Newark. It didn't take me long to settle down into the life of a vaudevillian. We used to make all our jumps by motor car because often in the middle west it was the quickest way between two points. After we closed out in one town, we would get into the automobile about twelve o'clock at night and motor to our next week's or splitweek's engagement. This night driving I enjoyed most of all. Sometimes it would be through the wheat, belt. Again through the dairy country. And as we got south, we came to the oil fields. There, all day and all night, like sentinels, the oil derricks would be outlined against the skies, with their sturdy little pop engines chucking away, and once or twice we had the great luck to see a big gusher of crude black oil burst over the top of the derrick and flood the countryside. A flood which oftentimes meant untold riches to farmers who a week before had been scratching the soil to make a bare living. I enjoyed shopping on my tour, too. Since I left Hollywood when it was very warm, I had no heavy coat. The first night out motoring in Iowa I almost froze. So early the next morning I went down to the main emporium in Atlantic to buy a coat. The best coat in the house was forty dollars. And it was a fine, thick warm coat trimmed with good black fox fur. That was a revelation to me! A movie actress becomes so accustomed tj luxury, to paying high prices and shopping in smart shops, that to discover a fine substantial coat at such a reasonable sum rather restored my sense of values. And that's what a movie star needs most of all — to have her sense of values restored; to keep in actual daily touch with the millions of people before whom she hopes to bring her pictures. Often, at night, or early in the morning, as I would arrive at various little towns, I would find it hard to sleep. I had a temporary attack of what the doctor called a nervous heart, brought on, I suppose, by nerves and worry. In Hollywood, I always feel well and as healthy as a horse, but with these new conditions, not being sure of myself or my voice or my stage training, at unexpected intervals my heart would start to pump most disquietingly. The only way I could stop it, would be to lie quietly in bed. And read. I have always loved poetry. There is a warm, lush beauty about words which fascinates me. And as I would lie on those hard Iowa or Kansas beds, there was one particular poem from which I often used to read. I'm sure you remember the words from "John Brown's Body" by Benet: "Since I was begotten My father's grown wise But he has forgotten The wind in the skies. I shall not grow wise. . . . For money is sullen And wisdom is sly, But youth is the pollen That blows through the sky And does not ask why." It was on this tour that I peculiarly realized that money, and fame and worldly wisdom are not necessarily the levers which lift people to happiness. I saw — I encountered thousands of people with no fame, little worldly wisdom and less money. But they had achieved a certain durable kind of happiness from doing their daily job well. They taught me how to do my stage job well. For often I was tempted to quit — right off short — and go back to the Hollywood I love better than any place on earth, to the movies which mean more to me than any single quality in life. But I stuck it out because the tradition of the stage is 'on with the show.' And these Iowa and Kansas people were teaching me an even better tradition — is was 'on with life.' That's what we need to learn in Hollywood— on with life. Changes come, shifts,