Winter in June (5 page)

“This is going to be fantastic, girls,” said Gilda. “I can't wait to get onstage with you.”

“It's going to be a far cry from Hollywood,” said Violet. “No sets, no costumes, no money.”

“What's it like in Hollywood?” asked Jayne.

“Efficient,” said Gilda. “Very, very efficient.”

I think I got what she meant. While Hollywood's depiction of itself often contained caricatures of bumbling studio heads and inept directors, the reality was one studio could churn out a hundred movies a year. Movie-making was a well-oiled machine that knew from the get-go that while you needed the right script, star, and
timing, only having two of those three elements would still allow you to succeed.

Gilda told us about the studio that used to be her home, where she not only went each day to work but also did her banking, signed for a house loan, had her hair done, got her insurance papers notarized, had her annual dental exam, and took her dry cleaning. The studios were mini-cities that understood it was much more cost-effective to bring everything to the talent rather than to waste time by making the talent leave the lot to take care of their daily drudgeries.

“The department stores even come to us,” said Gilda. “Last year I did my Christmas shopping on the lot by picking out what I wanted to buy from an array of things the Saks Fifth Avenue gal brought us.”

“It sounds like they own you and they want to make sure they get their money's worth,” I said.

Gilda tilted her head to the left, showing her good side to full advantage. “I suppose they do in some ways. I worked six days a week, fourteen hours a day, and when I got home at night, I spent another hour or two memorizing scripts before making sure I got enough sleep to look decent on the set the next day. I couldn't turn down any part because I'm contractually obligated to do whatever they tell me to do, which explains some of the duds I've been in. I had to go where they said when they said, wearing the clothes they picked out and in the company of whomever they wanted me to be seen with. I wasn't even supposed to get married without their permission.”

“But apparently you had no problem bending that rule,” I said.

She winked at me. “In retrospect, I probably should've listened to them.”

“If you think it's so awful, why do you stay?” asked Violet. I looked for hidden venom in the question, but I didn't see any. She really wanted an answer.

“Because deep down I love it. And because, honestly, given who I am and where I've come from, this is the best possible life I could achieve on my own. I'm just a small-town Texas girl raised by a
single mother who took in washing to pay for my dance lessons. I'm never going to be a doctor or a lawyer, but a movie star—that I can be. And people will remember me.”

It was an honest answer, but it made me terribly sad. I was an actress because I loved to act. Sure I took lousy jobs sometimes so I could keep acting, but I made those sacrifices because I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. Gilda didn't do what she did for the love of performing, even though, despite what Violet said, she was remarkably good at it. She did it because she wanted the fame and recognition that came with stardom, and all the little perks like department stores bringing her presents to the set.

Maybe that was the difference between Hollywood and Broadway. On Broadway you could still convince yourself that you were doing it for the art.

“I'll never forget the first article I read about you,” said Kay. “They included pictures of you on a sweet little farm, and in one of them, you were milking a cow. Where was that?”

“Probably
Movie Scene
,” said Gilda.

“No I mean the place,” said Kay.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Is it true you were discovered at a malt shop?” asked Jayne.

Violet snorted. Gilda threw her head back and laughed. She was sitting next to me, and I found myself scrutinizing her roots. Was Violet right? Was even her honey-colored hair and high forehead something the studio had ordered? “No. No. Absolutely no. I was a contract player for years before I got a good role.”

“So why do all the magazines say otherwise?” asked Kay.

“Because it's more interesting, I would imagine,” said Gilda. “Nobody wants to hear about a girl from Texas who worked her way through the system until the bigwigs thought she was ready for a break.” I did. At least it let the rest of us know what it would realistically take to get where she was. “The whole myth started when I was in
Moon over Madrid
. I remember giving my first interview, and instead of printing anything I said, the press made it sound like I had just appeared out of nowhere and become this big star. But the
thing was, I'd been in development for three years at that point. I'd probably been in a dozen films.”

“What's ‘development'?” asked Jayne.

“It's a trial by fire,” said Violet. “They're making a product, so they test you out in small parts, track the audience response, and try to figure out where you'll fit in the studio. Sometimes they decide you don't, and they drop your option.”

“And sometimes they decide you do,” said Gilda. “And the parts get bigger and your name gets higher until eventually it's directly above the title.”

“Why do you think they decided you were ready to become a star after all those years?” I asked.

“I don't know. Maybe it was just the luck of the draw. Someone somewhere realized they needed fresh blood, and they decided I was a serviceable performer and that I'd paid my dues long enough to be it. They do that, you know, hiring on girls who might one day be able to fill a void they have because a star leaves or public taste changes. Everyone is replaceable.”

“But why you?” asked Violet. There was something sad in her question. What she was really asking was, Why you instead of me?

Gilda shrugged. “I think because I did everything they asked me to. Every time I was criticized, I took it to heart. If I was too fat, I lost weight. Too ethnic, I changed my name.”

“So why didn't you ever tell the press that story?” asked Jayne.

Gilda laughed again, flashing that brilliant grin of capped white teeth toward Jayne. What had her smile been like before Hollywood? “Because it's an old story that a thousand other girls had already been through. Nobody wants to hear about that. They want to hear how you're just like them and that everyone has an equal shot at fame. And so that's what I gave them. Hollywood is about manufacturing legends and myths. No one's that lucky or beautiful or witty in real life. Believe me. I've spent time with these people, and there's not one of them who's accurately depicted on screen. Clark Gable is dull, Norma Shearer is short, and Olivia DeHavilland would cut her own mother's throat to get ahead.” While her words initially seemed
directed at all of us, her focus seemed to shift to Violet. She knew, I think, the grudge Violet carried, and she wanted her to understand that she wasn't the one who made the choice about who succeeded and who failed. “I understand that the decisions I've made aren't for everyone. We shouldn't have to make them, but here's the thing: they're not going to change the system for us. And I honestly don't think it's MGM or Twentieth Century Fox, or any other studio's fault that an actress has to change herself to fit the mold. That's what the people want, and so the suits are smart enough to know that that's what they need to give them. And frankly, if you want to be part of this business, you have to be part of the system.”

Over the course of our week and a half on the ship, our schedule went like this: wake up at seven and enjoy a leisurely breakfast with the officers. Once the mess was cleared, we rehearsed until one. The enlisted men were given only two meals a day—breakfast and dinner—so rather than staying in the mess hall for our midday meal, we joined the officers in a smaller room in another part of the ship. After lunch, we had two hours to ourselves, which, weather permitting, we spent on the sundeck. Then we had another two hours of rehearsal. We usually retreated to our cabins after that to relax, nap, write letters, and take showers. We would start the evening off with another dinner with the officers, and then we spent the remainder of the night in the canteen. There we'd dance and chat with the men while a ragtag group of enlisted musicians serenaded us with whatever popular song they'd figured out how to play.

The nights at the canteen, by necessity, ran late. As much as we wanted to go to bed, we knew that there was an unspoken rule that
we be there until the bitter end. If the captain was obligated to go down with the ship, the five of us were expected to leave with the band.

During my first night in the club, the evening's activities were interrupted by a burgeoning chant. By the time it reached us, I crabbed what the men were saying, “Gilda, Gilda, Gilda!” When they had her attention, the chant changed to a song sung in four-part harmony that I later learned was called “I Want a Girl Like Gilda DeVane.” It was a silly little ditty, with a catchy chorus that went:

When they finished singing, Gilda rewarded them with enthusiastic applause, and they plied her with requests for an impromptu performance.

“Oh no,” she said. “There's no way I could follow that. Besides, the band is doing a fabulous job.”

The men wouldn't listen to her excuses. When it became clear that the only way she was moving was by force, two sailors took her by the arms and playfully pulled her onto the stage.

Clad in a simple dress she had brought from the States, her honey hair pinned back with a barette on one side and falling in a cascade of waves on the other, she slinked up to the microphone and, with a wink at the band, started a song in a low luscious voice that certainly seemed like it wouldn't need to be dubbed for the movies. Nobody danced; we were all too far under her spell for movement. Her pipes may not have been as good as Kay's, or her hoofing as polished as Jayne's and Violet's, but she was an expert performer, directing that song to each and every man in the room until they all had to feel as if they were alone with her in that marvelous moment.

I knew much of what Gilda did was manufactured. She wasn't
so humble that she didn't want to sing. She didn't care for each of the men who stood wide-eyed as she performed. But I still found everything about her magical, even after spending untold hours rehearsing at her side.

Jayne fell under her sway too. As we sat on barstools at the back of the room, we whispered our praise of Gilda back and forth like two small children who were amazed to see their normally plain-clothed mother dolled up for a night on the town. Her song reached its conclusion, and the men yelled for a repeat performance. Rather than giving in to their demands, she announced, “I want my girls up here with me.” The crowd parted and the four of us made our way onto the stage.

Gilda gestured for us to huddle around her. “How about ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy'?” she asked. It was a song we'd practiced in rehearsal, a sure crowd pleaser that relied on all of our voices. We agreed it was a good choice, and she asked us to put our hands in the middle of the circle we made. With a squeeze that managed to encompass us all, she instructed us to enjoy ourselves. The pianist plucked out a note, and my body instantly snapped to attention. As we invoked the harmonies we'd practiced that morning and the steps none of us had mastered, the crowd stood rapt. I'm sure we missed notes and forgot moves, but for three and half minutes I felt like we were channeling the Andrews Sisters.

Never had I felt that kind of energy onstage before. As I'd witnessed when I volunteered at the Stage Door Canteen back in New York, we could've read the phone book and the men would've been grateful for the time and diversion. But as their eagerness for our performance pulsed across the room, I found myself wanting to give them everything I had. I sold the song like I didn't have a dime to my name and my rent was due the next day. As my commitment to the performance grew, strangely, so did my skill, causing me to hit notes and execute moves I was certain I didn't have the stuff for. When Kay finished up the song with her solo, “He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B” the crowd went wild with hooting and hollering. We sang two more songs, to even greater response,
before turning it back over to the band and dispersing into the crowd. After that night, Gilda wasn't the only star in the room. We had all arrived.

 

The remaining time on the ship passed quickly and quietly. My stomach grew used to the sea, I focused on rehearsal, and I enjoyed the amenities that were being offered to us. I was starting to think I could stay on the
Queen of the Ocean
forever when, the day before we were scheduled to land at our destination, we were awakened by the eerie call of “Now hear this. All men to general quarters,” on the loudspeaker. As we lay in our beds trying to make sense of the message assaulting us, it became clear that the ship—and everyone on it—was in danger. A submarine had been spotted in the distance, and we were all to take our posts with our Mae Wests in hand. For the five of us, that meant heading to the mess hall to await further instruction.

There we sat at our dinner table drinking coffee and taking in the scene around us. The room was filled with enlisted men who had no direct role on the ship, though you could tell it was killing them that they didn't have something to do. They sat in clusters conversing in low, tense tones that made the air crackle with excitement. The anticipation made my stomach burn. Our ship was a target, and that meant that at any moment it could be ripped apart by enemy fire. And what would we do if it were? At least the other men and women had training. The five of us were as impotent as the bed-bound injured men aboard
The Centurian
.

Did people who were about to die know what was going to occur? I liked to think you were in the dark until the moment it happened, if only because that meant my even contemplating that we could be killed assured us that we wouldn't be. But I knew that wasn't likely. After all, men standing before a firing squad had to know what was about to pass.

“It's going to be fine,” whispered Jayne. She put her hand on my leg, attempting to calm me. It might have worked if her arm wasn't vibrating with fear.

I scanned the hundreds of other people in the room. “Why aren't they scared?”

“I think they're just grateful for the change,” said Kay. “You spend so much time waiting for something to happen that when it finally does you're just excited for the activity, never mind the danger. Being in the armed forces is a whole lot of waiting.”

It seemed like a rotten way to live.

“Now hear this,” came the mysterious voice over the loudspeaker again. “All nonessential personnel are ordered back to their cabins, where they shall remain for the duration of the trip. From this point forward, no one is permitted on deck without orders from the captain. All nonessential activities are canceled.”

I didn't need Kay to explain that message to me. We were headed into enemy waters. Our days of performing late into the night and sunning on the deck were over.

 

We were permitted one final excursion out of our cabin before arriving on land: we each had to have a physical or, as the sailor taking us to the infirmary described it, we were going to the “pecker checker.”

“Come again?” we said in unison.

He flashed us a wide grin peppered with missing teeth. He was probably a victim of biscuit blast: the unfortunate side effect of eating the stale crackers that came in K rations. “You know—‘the penis machinist.'” Our soundless gawks made it clear we still didn't know what we were in for. “They're going to check you for VD,” he said at last. “Every time you go somewhere new they make you drop your pants first.”

We didn't bother to explain that we lacked the required equipment to make such an examination useful. Our physician was a hundred and eighty years old. He took us one at a time, examining our eyes for scurvy, our hair for bugs, and our skin for any number of rashes that would signal our imminent demise. It seemed to me that if we'd just spent a week on ship with these maladies, the entire population was at risk.

Rather than asking us to strip down to our unmentionables, he instead trusted us to be honest about what we'd been doing and what we might've caught in the process. It was clear he was as uncomfortable asking us the questions as we were answering them.

“Have you recently engaged in intercourse?”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. “No.”

“Have you ever been pregnant?”

“Not that I know of.”

He squeezed the skin on my right hand. It turned red before sinking back into its usual flesh color. “Do you have an itching or burning sensation in your private parts?”

Another bite. My poor tongue wasn't long for this world. “Um, no.”

On his wall was a hand-drawn cartoon depicting a physician with his finger paternally raised. “Flies breed disease,” he instructed in his cartoon air bubble. “So keep yours zipped!”

“Have you noticed any sores or discolored skin on your privates?” the doctor asked.

“No, sir.” Who were these women who had enough time to look for this sort of thing? And how the hell did they have that kind of flexibility?

He attempted to hit my knee with his hammer, but the tremors in his hand caused him to miss. He swung a second time, landing on his target. My leg kicked into the air, narrowly missing his groin. “Have you experienced any sort of discharge, especially one that could be described as emitting an unpleasant odor?”

“Definitely not.”

Satisfied that I was as healthy as could be expected, he handed me a bottle of Atabrine tablets, the military's cheap, synthetic version of quinine, which we were supposed to take to ward off malaria.

“It'll turn you yellow,” Violet told us back in the cabin. Gilda was with us as we exchanged our tales of the grilling we'd each been subjected to. “Trust me: I've had to take it before, and it turns almost everyone yellow.”

Jayne examined the smooth, pale skin of her arm. “Almost everyone?”

“There are a lucky few who don't change color at all. I'm not one of them.” Violet chucked the unopened vial into her purse.

Jayne fished out a lemon-colored pill and stared at it as though she hoped she could figure out a way to separate its pigmentation properties from its medicinal benefits. “We'll change back, right?”

“If we're lucky.”

Gilda slid her own pills into her pocket, clearly debating whether or not prevention was worth a blazing new skintone.

“We're going to a tropical region,” said Kay. “Malaria is everywhere.”

“And so are men,” said Violet. “I don't know about you, but I'd rather be sick than lonely.”