The self-enchanted : Mae Murray : image of an era (1959)

"And my hair," she said. "Mrs. Castle wears her hair bobbed," Stella said severely, as she brought a scarf. Berlin was running through the one-step as she came out in her crazy rig. The stage seemed strangely large and empty, the theatre quiet as if it slept. No line of girls, no bedlam. Vernon, humming softly, showed her the steps. He was tall and lithe, graceful as a cat. "Which part do you want to try, little Murray?" "I think I can try it all." Then she was in his arms, whirling into a butterfly, pliant, quick. Berlin played poorly but the beat was there. Vernon turned her this way and that, a long slow slide, a syncopated chasse, and she clung to him like a vapor, unresisting, effortless. "How in the world do you know these routines, Mae?" "I've seen every matinee." He laughed as if he were pixie. "Irene would die, wouldn't she, Irving? She'd never dream Let's try the Syncopated Walk." "Who makes her clothes? Her clothes?" "Who makes your clothes, Mae?" Berlin called, in his hollow, far-off voice. What luck she could say "Lucille." "Great. She makes Irene's. Let's get her crew over here and see what can be done." Vernon was walking her backward now to the quick catchy pace of the Turkey Trot. The stage tilted like a wobbly balloon, whirling them and the piano round and round. It grew hotter and hotter. A prompter read dialogue. Lucille's fitters came to submerge her in huge chiffon and satin sacks. Irene's clothes were ludicrously big, a new wardrobe must be made from scratch. Dressmakers ran around the balloon dragging yards and yards of tangled silk. "Not too tight, please, around my waist." Six o'clock . . . six-thirty . . . she stopped dancing long enough to mop her face with a towel. Freshly shaved, pink-cheeked 8