The Girl at the End of the Line (7 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl at the End of the Line
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Nell nodded absently, leafing through the current issue of
Backstage,
the showbiz weekly, that somebody had left on the table. She had long ago learned to amuse herself at libraries while Molly was digging out obscure facts about this antique or that.
Molly turned to the brief biographies of “Popular Broadway Players” included at the back of the
Theatre World.
Margaret Jellinek wasn't listed. Nor was Tuck Wittington who played her fiance
in
Without Reservations
, or the actors who played the Doctor, Aunt Tillie, Gramps, and Bart the Handyman. Only the parents—Lillian St. Germaine and Arthur Page Anderson, who were married to each other in real life—rated mention. Each had numerous Broadway credits, including plenty of Shakespeare.
Apparently you had to be pretty well established to get a bio, Molly realized, which meant that Margaret Jellinek must have been something less than a full-fledged Broadway star when she had won the lead in
Without Reservations.
Of course, there was nothing wrong in being a newcomer, Molly told herself—or to star in a show that didn't have a long run. Anthony Quinn had starred that same year in a play that hadn't lasted even as long as Grandma's. And he hadn't rated a bio, either.
“Wait here,” said Molly to Nell, then walked over to the card catalogue and filled out call slips for any archival materials that might be available for
Without Reservations.
She also picked up more
Theatre World
annuals for the years before and after
Without Reservations.
Two hours later Molly had pieced together the whole story of her grandmother's Broadway career. It was not what she had been expecting.
From the dates in the reference volumes it was clear that Margaret Jellinek must have managed to land a part in the chorus of a Broadway musical almost as soon as she had arrived in New York at the age of seventeen. To Molly's surprise Richard Jellinek had been an actor, too. He had made his debut in the same musical—his name had appeared right next to Margaret's in the chorus listing.
“We're from a whole theatrical family, how do you like that?” Molly had whispered to her sister, who didn't seem impressed.
The Jellineks had performed in various shows over the next
six years—sometimes together though usually apart, sometimes in the chorus of musicals, sometimes in walk-on roles in straight plays. One musical in which both Margaret and Richard had sung and danced had gone on to a three-year run, but the Jellineks had both left after only a few months for small speaking parts in other shows that quickly closed.
Then, when Margaret Jellinek was twenty-three by Molly's calculations, she had landed her first leading role: Linda Blake, the doomed young composer in
Without Reservations.
Calling her performance a failure was too kind a word, however. Molly's grandmother had bombed.
“Last night at the Booth Margaret Jellinek may have given the worst performance not only of this disappointing season, but possibly in the history of the world,” wrote the critic from the
Herald Tribune
, capturing the spirit of the reviews.
No one was spared. The playwright was ridiculed. Tuck Wittington, who was making his Broadway debut in the play was savaged (one reviewer called him a “shaky-voiced pipsqueak”). Arthur Page Anderson and Lillian St. Germaine were chided for betraying their talents by participating in such garbage. Even the dog was panned.
The brunt of the blame, however, was heaped on Margaret Jellinek, whose role had to carry the show. Brooks Atkinson said it all in his review for the
Times
:
Without Reservations,
which opened at the Booth Theatre last night seemed to conjure up not the spirit of Edwin Booth, the Prince of Players, for whom the theatre is named, but that of his infamous brother, John Wilkes. After enduring three hours of Margaret Jellinek's pathetic screeching and yowling, I was ready to shoot Lincoln, myself.
Molly closed the box of reviews, unable to read any more.
No wonder Margaret Jellinek's name did not appear again in the
Theatre World
annuals after that year. How many people would be brave enough to show their faces in public after such a humiliation? Two years later she had made her way to North Carolina with her baby, Evangeline. Richard Jellinek's name had vanished from the Broadway listings at about the same time.
“She was hiding,” whispered Molly to Nell. “That's what Grandma was doing in Pelletreau. She was licking her wounds and hiding where no one would have heard of that stupid play.”
Nell looked up from a picture of Yul Brynner in the original production of
The King and I
and smiled a sweet, open smile. Did she understand, Molly wondered, what it meant to spend your whole life broken and fearful in a backwater town? Or did she understand too well?
“Come on,” said Molly, picking up the folders and boxes that contained the evidence of Margaret Jellinek's shame. They took these to the return window, then walked back to the librarian's desk. Just because Grandma hadn't been a success didn't mean Molly was going to give up trying to find out about her.
“Is there some organization or association that professional actors have to belong to, somewhere that would have information about its members?” asked Molly, her stomach still in knots from the reviews.
“Equity,” said the librarian.
“Equity?” repeated Molly.
“Actor's Equity. The union.”
It hadn't occurred to her that actors would have their own labor union, but why not? A union was perfect.
The address for Actor's Equity ironically turned out to be on Forty-sixth Street, just across Times Square from the Gotham Arms Hotel.
As they left Lincoln Center, Nell reveled again in the noisy, crowded streets. Molly tried to sort out her feelings. Her anger at her grandmother had dissipated after reading the reviews, but so many questions were still unanswered. Where had Margaret Gale originally come from? Why had Richard Jellinek deserted her and his child, and what had happened to him? Why hadn't Grandma sold the emerald ring?
At least they were making progress, Molly thought ruefully.
“At the rate we're going we might be able to take the bus home tomorrow,” said Molly, stopping as a traffic light changed from green to red. “Wouldn't you like that?”
Nell shook her head in a definite no, then nonchalantly jaywalked through traffic like all the other New Yorkers.
Twenty minutes later they had completed the descent back down Broadway and entered the Actor's Equity building.
The polished gray granite lobby wasn't crowded, but Molly immediately noticed that there was something different about the people who came and went: the way they moved, the way they spoke to one another, the way they looked.
Three tall, thin, and fit women in summer dresses swept past and walked up a staircase at the rear of the lobby. Suddenly Molly was conscious for the first time of the silly print blouses she and Nell had on, their worn blue jeans. Everyone here looked so together, so full of sparkle, so … noticeable.
There was a podium directly in front of the lobby doors where one might expect to find an attendant or receptionist, but no one seemed to be on duty. Feeling out of place and uncomfortable, Molly walked over to the address board on one of the gray granite walls and looked at the many listings for different departments of the actors union, trying to figure out where to go.
A young blond woman came in carrying a straw basket from
which Molly could see the title on the playscript poking out. It was by David Mamet. The woman was not much taller than Molly and not exactly pretty, but she carried herself with the same confidence that everyone else in the lobby seemed to have. As she passed she gave Molly a quizzical but friendly look. Molly leaped at the invitation.
“Is there a main reception area for Actor's Equity?” she asked.
“Certainly,” said the girl in a voice that was surprisingly rich, round, and resonant, considering her small size. “Up those stairs at the back of the lobby. Come on. You can follow me.”
“Thanks,” said Molly and fell in line behind her with Nell bringing up the rear.
At the top of the stairs it was crowded confusion, a hallway filled with poised, intense-looking people, some seated on the floor, some leaning against walls. Most were young, but there were a few middle-aged faces. On a door to the left was posted a sign that read, PLEASE BE QUIET, CALLBACKS IN SESSION. Inside somebody was singing at the top of his lungs. Everywhere were bulletin boards full of incomprehensible postings.
“Were you looking for something in particular?” asked the young woman who had given Molly directions.
“My grandparents performed on Broadway, years ago,” said Molly staring over the girl's shoulder at a window marked TICKETS AVAILABLE where a crowd had gathered. “I need to find out some information about them, but I guess I'm in the wrong place. Is this some kind of box office?”
“Oh, they don't sell any tickets here,” said the young woman following Molly's gaze. “We get comps.”
“Comps?”
“Complimentary tickets. Producers like to paper the house with actors when there aren't enough paying customers, so they
give us freebies. Actors make great audiences. We whistle and stamp for everybody on stage, figuring they'll do the same for us one day.”
“Are all these people here for … comps?” asked Molly.
“Oh, no,” laughed the girl. “There are job listings posted in the other room. There's some casting done here. But basically it's just a place where you can come in between auditions, check the boards, get off your feet, go to the bathroom, talk with your friends. They might have the kind of information you're looking for up in Membership, on the fourteenth floor.”
She indicated a bank of elevators through an archway.
“Thanks,” said Molly.
“Good luck,” answered the young woman, disappearing into the crowded hallway.
Molly led Nell to the elevators, feeling more out of place than she ever had in her life. Everyone seemed to be staring at them in the same strange way—as if they were watching her but not watching her. Was it so obvious she didn't belong here? It was a relief when the elevator came and they got in alone.
It was only as they climbed to the fourteenth floor that Molly finally realized that the actors downstairs hadn't been staring at her at all—they were just aware of
her
looking at
them.
It was what their profession was all about, after all: being seen, controlling what you look like to other people, living your life in deliberate and perpetual self-consciousness. How did they stand it?
Before Molly could even begin to understand what being an actor must be like and why anyone would want to live that way, the elevator doors opened. She and Nell walked out into an open area with people lined up at a windows marked ACTOR'S CREDIT UNION on one side of the room, and a counter marked MEMBERSHIP on the other. Behind the counter informally dressed people sat at desks, typing and filing. It looked like an insurance agency.
Marveling at the strange new world she had landed in, Molly took her place in the short line with Nell beside her. After a few minutes they found themselves facing a pleasant, compact young man.
“Can I help ya?” he said in the deese-dem-and-dose dialect of New York.
He wore shiny pants that might have come from Kmart and had none of the sparkle of the people downstairs. Why was Molly surprised? Had she expected out-of-work actors to be staffing the membership office? Unions were businesses. They probably paid minimum wage and specifically avoided performers as being bad employment risks.
“My grandparents acted in Broadway plays years ago,” said Molly. “I'm wondering if you might still have some information about them.”
“You a member?”
“No, but as I said, my grandparents performed on Broadway, so I imagine they were.”
Molly spelled Jellinek. The clerk poked a computer terminal in front of him, then shook his head.
“Sorry, we don't got no Jellineks registered with Equity.”
“Maybe not now,” said Molly. “This would have been almost fifty years ago.”
“Well, then there's your problem. The computer don't go back before about nineteen eighty.”
“What about records from before that? Where are they?”
“Yeah, people ax that sometimes, but we don't really need that kinda stuff. They're stored away, I don't even know where.”
After a few more questions it was painfully apparent that the priorities of a union were a lot different than a library's. If Molly had been looking for a steamfitter or plumber who had once worked in New York, how much luck would she have had at those unions?
And even if Equity's old records could be found, the only information that had been recorded was the agent's name and a local address, not where they had come from originally.

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