Tales of a Hollywood Housewife Read online

  Daddy, Faye, and I at Earl Carroll’s nightclub, 1945

  ***

  My father was nothing like I had imagined. I had seen him only once during my childhood, on his singular visit to his wealthy family in Burlington, five miles from where I lived with my mother’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Rundquist.

  Waiting with my brother, Dickey, to meet Daddy, 1937

  His sister, my aunt Rella, was there, which made his pending arrival less stressful. I loved Rella, decked out in her outlandish costume jewelry and bleached bobbed hairdo. She was a light in my childhood—always had treats and hugs for me, and when we were together, she made me feel important, listened to, and acknowledged.

  Aunt Rella

  “You look adorable!” she exclaimed that afternoon, whirling me around in the pink taffeta dress she’d bought for the occasion. “He’ll love you.” Rella bit her lip and corrected herself. “He already does, honey.”

  When my father walked through the door, I wanted to look at him, to take him in. Instead, I found myself distracted by the presence of a strange woman who hung on his arm. She didn’t say much to our family, and we didn’t say much to her. At one point she took out a mother-of-pearl compact and checked her lipstick. My father was there so briefly he was more of a shadow than a man. I don’t think we spoke. He kissed my cheek and then disappeared.

  “Come on, baby, let’s have some cake,” Aunt Rella said as soon as he was gone, hustling me into the kitchen, where the chocolate cake she’d baked for the occasion sat untouched. “Then I’ll play some ragtime.”

  Rella was a bright, talented concert pianist who had paid for her education by playing for silent movies. Listening to Rella on the piano always made me want to sing and dance.

  “Do you think he’ll come back?” I found the nerve to ask a little while later, my mouth full of cake.

  “My brother’s a strange man,” said Rella. “I couldn’t have left you to begin with.” Then she changed the subject.

  I often wished I were Rella’s child. Years later, I found out she had felt the same. Although she had two children of her own, she had wanted to adopt me, but my mother wouldn’t allow it, despite having left me to be raised by her parents. Aunt Rella always let me know she felt a special connection to me. She saw in me something nobody else in my scattered upbringing seemed to notice—perhaps a talent, or a spark of intelligence, I never knew. I just knew I had someone in my corner.

  The rest of my father’s family made me feel like the poor relative, which, in truth, I was. My mother’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Rundquist, had no use for them, given my father’s early abandonment of my older brother, Dickey, and myself; but we were permitted, for some reason, to see our other grandparents, and we spent much of our childhoods being shuffled back and forth between the two families. Wherever I was, I felt like a traitor to the other.

  My father’s mother, Grandma Ebeling, was a strict German Lutheran who put the fear of God into anyone who crossed her path. Her three-story Victorian house, where she reigned over church socials and large gatherings like a queen, was furnished with beautiful antiques, Oriental rugs, and fine paintings. A well-educated, accomplished painter, tailor, cook, and musician, she took it upon herself to tutor me in piano. She wasn’t any fun, but the time I spent with her changed my perception of the world.

  On many Saturday mornings she would come to get me in a long, black Packard touring sedan wearing a hat, gloves, mink paw stole, and a dour expression, and I would ride off into my other life.

  Over one particular Christmas with the extended Ebeling family, I shared my cousin Barbara’s bedroom. She had a white carpet, pink floral wallpaper, and drapes to match. I lay on one of the two canopied beds with ruffled chintz spreads and matching pillow shams listening to Barbara’s chattering on about her private school, summer camp, and what fun it was to cruise through the San Juan Islands, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her mouth. Braces! I had been to a dentist only once in my life. Those metal wires over her teeth summed up everything she had that I was missing.

  I didn’t like most of my father’s family, but I wanted what they had.

  Aunt Rella and I didn’t mention my father again for a long time. But one afternoon she mentioned casually that she’d heard my father was living in Bellingham, an hour from my home.

  “What’s he doing there?” I asked, looking at myself in the mirror. I loved the clothes Aunt Rella gave me. It was the only time I’d get new things rather than hand-me-downs.

  “He’s a sign painter, sweetie—here, let me fix that collar—he has a business making outdoor ads.”

  That image must have been buried in my mind, for not long afterward, I was walking down the street when I noticed a sign on the side of a parked truck: SUNSET OUTDOOR ADVERTISING. I was sure, very sure, that I was looking at my father’s truck. I imagined waiting around to surprise him when he came back from wherever he was. I could still envision the scene as I walked on by, not looking back. I never heard a word from my father until I was fourteen.

  Out of the blue, an envelope arrived. He had sent me a birthday card, although it wasn’t my birthday. Inside was a photograph of himself in an army uniform and a note. I memorized it. “Hi, kiddo. After your Daddy wins the war, you’ll come live with me in sunny California. I’ll send you to UCLA, the best college in the world.” I put his picture under my pillow and studied it every night. He resembled a blond Clark Gable.

  “Come live with me in sunny California.” I repeated those words to myself silently as I worked secretly to impress him, even though we were not really in contact. I practiced the piano two hours a day, playing everything from Bach to boogie-woogie. I sang my heart out in the school chorus. I taught myself every popular dance step, tapping and jitterbugging my way to local fame. I graduated early, at sixteen, from Sedro-Woolley High, earning four stripes and three stars for sports, which I proudly wore on my letter sweater. I was full of ambition, ready to take on the world and ready to greet the man of my dreams, my father.

  ***

  2

  Dressed to Pledge

  IF YOU WERE a coed in 1945, you probably wore a pleated skirt, a blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and maybe a cardigan with pearl buttons. Not me. On my first day at UCLA I showed up in my bright blue and gold letter sweater with an SW for Sedro-Woolley High School. I didn’t get very far when I greeted the girls click-clacking in their perfect penny loafers up and down the halls. They just responded with amused indifference and quickly moved on. The only exception was Beverly Dixon, whom I met on the bus going to campus. She was cute, friendly, and seemed to know everyone on campus. I was grateful to her for introducing me to her pals. Also, my social life was hopefully being worked out for me by my father, who’d set me up to join his sister’s sorority, Tri Delt, one of the most popular at UCLA. I went home and told Daddy I needed new clothes, particularly an outfit for the first day of “rushing,” where I would meet my Tri Delt “sisters.”

  “That’s Faye’s department, kiddo,” he said, not looking up from his racing form. The horses were serious business for my father.

  “I’ll take you shopping, honey,” said Faye. “I know all the best stores. You leave it to me.”

  So off we went to Frederick’s of Hollywood.

  I stood in front of the store window blushing at the sight almost naked mannequins wearing teeny sequined panties and spangled, hot pink halter tops zipped down to there. There was nothing like Frederick‘s in the little town where I’d grown up. I don’t think anyone in Sedro-Woolley had ever seen a push-up bra.

  “Aren’t they gorgeous?” Faye sighed.

  We went in and I looked around in amazement. There were plastic pink torsos sporting brassieres that looked like torpedoes ready to fire. “Look at this skirt!” Faye gushed, handling a piece of sequined fabric the size of a hankie, the hem dripping with feathers.

  “Faye, I don’t think—,” I began, but she was off to grab a salesgirl.

  After an hour
of makeover madness, I was all decked out in a skintight, deeply low-cut, black rayon cocktail dress, perfect for showing off the breasts and hips I didn’t have. Falsies forced on me helped the upper half. My long, skinny legs were covered in black stockings with seams that defied being straight, and my feet were crammed into black patent four-inch high heels. As a final touch, Faye had added a pillbox black hat with a little, black Swiss polka-dot veil. Swaying on my heels, barely able to see through the veil, I faced myself in the mirror. Faye had painted my lips with her favorite Flaming Coral lipstick.

  “You’re almost there,” she purred, looking at me admiringly.

  Faye was suddenly squealing. “Ooooh! Lookit that!” as she dashed across the room, practically dragging the salesgirl with her.

  “Oh, this is perfect!” Faye beamed, back at my side. “Hold out your hands.” I extended my arms, encased in slinky, elbow-length black gloves. Faye slid a rhinestone the size of a golf ball onto my left ring finger. It sent out blinding, shimmering lights. This can’t be happening, I kept thinking. “You’re gonna knock ’em dead, honey,” she said in a hushed tone. “You look real… elegant.”

  That night I modeled my new look for Daddy and he, in his cups, said, “Ya look swell, kiddo, ” then turned his attention back to Oscar, sitting in his lap, whom he was attempting to hypnotize.

  The first rushing invitation was for Saturday afternoon tea. My father sent me off alone to drive his black Lincoln Continental from one end of Sunset to the other, all the way to the campus. I wanted to leave the car as far away as possible from the Tri Delt house so no one there could witness my many attempts to parallel park. I finally left the monster on a side street, two feet from the curb. I teetered awkwardly up the block in my patent leather high heels, the underarms of my black dress wet with sweat.

  I rang the doorbell while trying to adjust my veil, which was fluttering in the light breeze, tickling my nose. A trim little sorority girl in a navy blue skirt and crisp white blouse, buttoned all the way to the top, opened the door to welcome me.The high heels made me six foot, two inches, putting my pointy, fake breasts in line with her nose. We both stood there open mouthed, staring at each other.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, her voice overly sweet.

  I managed to explain who I was, and she, attempting to be gracious, invited me into the empty formal dining room. I was unfashionably early and therefore the only pledge in the room, surrounded by Tri Delts in their pastel cashmeres and single strands of pearls. I stepped in and was greeted by complete silence.

  I sat down in a chair against the wall and crossed my seam-stockinged legs, trying to smile and speak, but all of the girls had turned away from me and were talking to each other. Eventually other properly dressed pledges began to arrive, each one coming in, introducing herself in a most genteel fashion, giving me a glance, then happily joining the proper party.

  High tea was served. Balancing the cup and saucer on my lap, I took my first bite of a petit four, forgetting the veil covering my mouth. Crumbs fell everywhere. In a desperate move to be casual, I brushed the crumbs onto the plush rug, lifted my veil, and sipped my tea. One of the sorority girls passed a silver box of cigarettes. Never having smoked, I took one, lit up, inhaled, and had a horrendous coughing spasm. I hacked away as bridge tables were being set up. Called over to play, I removed my gloves, put my rhinestone back on, and dealt. I did fairly well until I got the bid and had no idea how to play the hand. Under the table, I slipped the rhinestone ring into my bag.

  “I’ve lost my diamond!” I cried, holding up my left hand for all to see. Then I jumped up and ran out the door.

  “Well, that’s it for Tri Delt,” I sighed. Alone in the car, I cried all the way home, feeling the sting of mascara for the first time.

  3

  Alone on My Own in L.A.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK the Tri Delts spotted me having lunch in the commissary with two classmates—Joanne Davis, a bright, sophisticated Jewish girl from Brooklyn, and Bill Duffy, a black scholarship student from Inglewood. The cute hostess from rushing strolled over.

  “Betty, could you come with me? We’d like to talk to you.” The Tri Delt table fell silent as we approached. Tammy, the sorority president, pointed to a chair. “Why don’t you sit with us?”

  “I’m sitting with my friends,” I said.

  “Now that you’re a Tri Delt pledge, it’s important whom you’re seen with.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s very simple. Our sorority is closed.”

  “Closed?”

  “We do not take Jews and Negroes,” a sorority sister said.

  Tammy hushed her and took over. “You realize, don’t you, because of a legacy we had to take you in.” I was taken aback. I got up to leave as she continued. “And another thing—you forgot to follow the dress code.” I hadn’t bothered reading the booklet given me earlier in the week. “We don’t want you wearing that letter sweater anymore. We wear pastel cashmeres over blouses with Peter Pan collars.” The Tri Delt look-alikes nodded simultaneously.

  I shook my head in disbelief and walked away. As I made my way back to Joanne and Bill, I made eye contact with one of the guys sitting with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, behind the Tri Delts. He was a beautiful sight. And he smiled at me. That took some of the sting out of my brief encounter with the Peter Pan Collars.

  Back at the commissary for lunch the next day, I could feel cool air on the back of my neck as I passed by and purposefully ignored the Tri Delt table. Sitting down with Joanne and Bill, I heard a voice at my shoulder almost as soon as I picked up my sandwich.

  “Why aren’t you with your sorority sisters?

  I turned and saw the handsome guy I’d spotted at the SAE table. He sat down next to me.

  “Ha. I’ve been disowned,” I told him. “Are you allowed to fraternize with a ‘Non-Org’?”

  “I’ll take my chances,” he smiled, extending his hand to me. “Nice to meet you, Miss Non-Org. I’m Jerry Rogers.”

  Jerry and I had an almost instantaneous friendship. We shared a mutual love of music and would hang out on campus before my voice classes and sing show tunes together. He’d drive me home and we’d sit there, parked, singing obscure musical numbers in harmony. Acoustics are great in a parked car.

  “You’ve really got a great voice, Betty,” he said one afternoon. “There’s a friend of mine you’ve got to meet. Come to a party with me tonight?”

  “Sure,” I said, getting out of the car.

  “I’ll pick you up at nine,” Jerry called after me, “and dig out a party dress!”

  I borrowed my pal Joanne’s black beaded sweater to wear with my white sharkskin pleated skirt and black patent heels.

  “Wow, Jerry, who lives here?” I said as we pulled up to a beautiful Mediterranean estate in the Pacific Palisades overlooking the sea.

  “Roger Edens. I’ve known him forever. You’ll love him.”

  “What’s not to love?” I said as we entered the elegant home furnished in perfect taste, full of beautiful people. The party was in full swing.

  There was a crowd drinking and smoking around the open bar, others laughing and chatting on low sofas, and another group gathered around a grand piano singing. Jerry, a couple of drinks in, joined them.

  “Betty! Get over here!”

  I made my way through the crowd to the Steinway.

  “Come on, honey, just pretend we’re in my car,” Jerry teased, cajoling me into joining him in one of our favorites, “We’re a Couple of Swells.” We got a round of applause, and the refined gentleman who had accompanied us looked up and smiled, still noodling the keys.

  “Hey, Roger,” Jerry greeted him, “this is my friend I was telling you about.” Roger began chords leading into the verse of “But Not for Me” in my mezzo soprano key and encouraged me to join him. I didn’t know then that I was singing for the head music producer at MGM, the genius behind Judy Garland and Lena Horne. I probably would have
blown it if I had known. Instead, I just let loose. When the song ended and the applause died down, Roger took my hand and led me to the bar. He poured each of us a glass of champagne and tipped his glass. “I’d like to coach you.”

  After that night my life revolved around my classical music studies at UCLA and working with Roger, who brought out a different side of my singing. We became easy friends, and one evening I found myself sitting at a table in the Club Gala on Sunset with Jerry, Roger, and Lena Horne, listening to Bobby Short. Lena, looking beautiful in a black picture hat, got up, leaned between two Steinway Grand pianos, and sang “Stormy Weather” while Bobby played. Later we all went to Lena’s house in the hills. Bobby played piano, and I sang “Little Girl Blue,” and “Last Night When We Were Young” while Lena Horne danced.

  To hell with the Tri-Delts. I was in heaven.

  After the Tri-Delts had given me their final warning, I returned home from school one afternoon and could not get Daddy’s black hearse of a car into the garage, so I parked on the street in front of the house. I opened the front door and was confronted by Daddy in a rage. “What the hell’s goin’ on at school?” he shouted. “Hangin’ out with kikes and niggers!” He waved a letter from the Delta Delta Delta Sorority in my face. “Well, no Tri Delt for you, kiddo.”