Screenland (Nov 1940-Apr 1941)

Nancy Kelly will make her singing debut in "Caribbean Holiday," Allan Jones' new romantic comedy film, and she will introduce one of the five new numbers which the noted composer, Jerome Kern, pictured above with Nancy, wrote for the picture Romero Rides Again! Continued from page 54 a trifle, first one, then another, although the curtains themselves remained still. Nonsense, I told myself. I shut my eyes. But on opening them again I saw more flowers growing larger and going into action. I tried to laugh it off, but it was no go. The next moment I was scared stiff. For, right before my eyes, those flowers were changing into faces ! "Was I going nuts? Of course, most of us have seen what we are pleased to call a flowerlike face. But these were nothing like that. They were set, grim, relentless. I held on to the bed with both hands. Then they came right out at me! I yelled and pulled the clothes over my head. 'What is it?' asked a nurse, rushing into the room. I didn't have the nerve to tell her. But I shot a wild glance over her shoulder at those infernal flowers. They were back where they belonged and behaving properly. It struck me as smart of them to keep the nurse from catching them in the act. But the moment she was gone they were up to their old tricks. And day after day, when I was alone, those faces made straight for me, their grimaces threatening, and the only way I could save myself was by ducking. I'd got to the stage where it didn't seem possible to hold them off any longer, sure they were intent upon dragging me to my doom, when there was a change for the better. The faces they now made at me didn't seem quite so horrible. Then, gradually, they became pleasant, even smiling. Finally, I woke up one morning to find they had turned back into flowers and settled down on the curtains again. What had really happened, of course, was that I was getting better and coming out of my delirium. But those demon faces certainly gave me a run for my fever." Anyway, his ingenious hospital perform|rs surely had put on a great flower show. Whatever its lasting effect may have been, 90 I now noticed that Romero quietly moved away from a gorgeous blossom swaying in the breeze just outside of the open window where he had been sitting. A seeking for further experiences brought out: "What struck me later was that everything was going by while I was standing, or rather lying, still. Life seemed too short for that sort of thing. I used to sneak the nurse's thermometer out of a drawer at the bedside and take my own temperature. It upset me terribly to find that it was still 'way above normal. I wanted desperately to get well in time for 'Down Argentine Way.' They waited for me as long as was possible^ but I couldn't make it. When I found I'd been put on suspension by the studio^ that didn't help, either. It wasn't that I'd lose my contract, simply that it would be made to run five weeks later. But all the time I'd lie there and think of myself as an active person with responsibilities, as being well again— that's what counts." It seemed probable he had thought of other things. "Plenty. I thought of the things I'd done and the things I had failed to do. _ Marching through my mind, they were like a long panorama. I don't think I'd ever been any ball of fire, but somehow there had happened to be a steady rise from nothing, and now I realized I'd been thankful for it. Often I had thought of giving it all up, but now I was glad I hadn't. For the first time, many things became clear to me. For example, I saw what a big part luck had played in it all. Luckwas right with me from the start, though I didn't know it. It began with my learning to dance when only three or four years old. Our family had a Porto-Rican cook who taught my sister, a year older, and me to dance in the kitchen. With her pots and pans steaming on the stove, she would start up an old phonograph, and away we'd go hotfooting it in Spanish dances. I'm not so good any more— the old knees creak a bit — but I'd probably never have been any good at all if it hadn't been for that dancemad cook." Here, then, was disclosed for the first time the beginning of Cesar Romero's dancing and dashing career in, of all places a kitchen ! "But my first practical leg-work was done as a Wall Street messenger for the National City Bank. I'd be handcuffed to a bag stuffed with bonds and other securities, then sent on my rounds. Not so good. 1 was glad to get out of it. A friend took me to John Murray Anderson, who wanted a dancing partner for Lisbeth Higgins. We started hoofing at the Belmar Country Club. Then, in 1926, we went into a musical comedy called 'Lady Do.' We ourselves didn't do so well. After opening in Brooklyn, we got no farther. Instead, we got fired. So I decided to give up dancing and try my luck at acting. This brought small parts in 'The Street Singer,' 'The Social Register,' 'Spring in Autumn' and 'Dinner at Eight.' Before long, I was lucky to have dinner at any hour." ' A hungry look gnawed at his lean face. "Whenever the nurse at the hospital brought me something to eat I'd think of the meals I'd missed in New York. A bunch of us, mostly actors and writers, lived in Paillard's in Forty-fourth Street. I'd go up old creaking wooden stairs to a dingy room where I washed my own clothes "and mended them as best I could. It was the same with all the others. But eating was our great problem. We'd pool our money — when we had any — and one of us would go over to Paddy's Market on Ninth Avenue and buy a lot of vegetables for a few cents. These we made into what might be called a community salad. We ate salad till we were green in the face. But when I went out. at night, without a nickel in my pocket, I looked like a million dollars. With my tails, I was very social. I was asked to all the deb parties of girls I'd known while living at home. When I sallied forth on those occasions, my top hat was the enw of the whole gang at Paillard's. John O'Hara had a dark back room there, and that's about all, for he had not yet written 'Appointment in Samara' and was earning only what he could get for a few squibs. One day he said he would give me five dollars if I'd lend him my top hat for the evening. One night years later a regular swell in soup-and-fish came over to my table at the Trocadero in Hollywood and said, T owe you five bucks.' It was O'Hara. Times had changed, so had we. Back in New York we'd go around in the daytime looking like a couple of tramps. In the hot summer months the less we wore the better. At Paillard's it was stifling. To get a breath of air, I used to walk to the Paramount Theater on Broadway and stand in the shade under the marquee." Was it possible Cesar Romero had imagined at that time he would one day see his name on a theater marquee? _ "There's only one answer — no. Of course, like all actors in New York who were out of work most of the time, I hoped some day to get into pictures. It meant the only possible security for me. When I think back to those days, I wonder how I ever got by. Just the same, I had more fun batting around then than I've ever had since. Dancing, when I started it professionally at nineteen, was a lot of fun. But I never saved any money. Broke again, I was urged by a friend one night to go with him to a party that Cholly Knickerbocker was giving at the Plaza. When I argued that I had neither an invitation nor a cent, he said, 'That's okay. I'll get you in, and that may get you a job. Knickerbocker's looking for someone to dance in a floor show with a girl he knows.' Arriving, on foot, I t