My Days Page 6

  In the early 1950s, drinking was simply a part of the culture. Even the image of the hardworking husband and father of the era was a man who would have lunchtime cocktails with his business associates and then be welcomed home with a pitcher of freshly mixed martinis and an after-dinner Scotch. Just as they smoked cigarettes, everyone seemed to drink at that time. Everyone but me, that is. I didn’t drink, but it didn’t bother me, because it was such an accepted part of what seemingly was the all-American lifestyle.

  Because the use of alcohol was so prevalent, I never gave any thought to the fact that Effie drank a lot every day. When I think back on the early years of our life together, he was always moody and often didn’t feel well. He would wake in the morning with a bad headache, go through periods of depression and, with the exception of those rare moments of motivation (usually fueled by alcohol), had no real plan for achieving any sort of career goals. He was very likely an alcoholic at the time, but I was totally unaware that such a problem existed. To our friends and others he interacted with, he acted like a tough guy, but he wasn’t one—at all.

  He and I were polar opposites when it came to career motivation, but that was all right with me. I was totally driven and worked so hard at finding work, pursuing roles anywhere I could find them. But Effie, while he talked about being an actor, did nothing to find work. He would always say he didn’t feel like looking for work, and I thought that was fine. I liked being with this sensitive and brooding guy who some thought was a big, tough bad boy, and so for the most part, I just thought it was adorable when he said he didn’t “feel like” doing this or that.

  When I think back on this time, I can’t for the life of me remember how exactly we thought we would manage to live or eat. It just wasn’t anything that was important to me. Yes, I was a newly married young woman, but the idea of being a “wife” occupied as little thought as I gave to my impromptu trip to Yuma during which I became a wife. The only thing that occupied my mind was that I had to complete my courses and get on with my career. That was when I started to think I should go to Los Angeles. My plan was to enroll in the University of California, Los Angeles, in order to finish school, and to live in a dorm with a bunch of girls.

  My decision to go to Los Angeles was bolstered by Rosa Choplin, a Spanish teacher at San Diego State who had Hollywood connections that included Tyrone Power’s manager. I barely knew Rosa, but Effie had been one of her students, and she had seen me in many plays and, for some reason, believed in me. Rosa knew I was thinking of finishing my classes at UCLA, and one day she called to tell me that she was going to take me to Los Angeles on the train and that we were going to be visiting with her connections at 20th Century Fox studios. Which is just what we did.

  That journey to Hollywood was all kind of a blur. We got off the train, into a cab, and before I knew it, we were passing through the West Pico Boulevard gates of 20th Century Fox, where I first set foot on the grounds of a major film studio. We then met this lovely man who was very elegant, well dressed and well spoken. He was just delightful and took us around the studio, showing us various things and introducing us to people.

  If my day at that storied studio, where I walked through all these office building corridors that had been walked by Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Carmen Miranda, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Sonja Henie, Betty Grable and even Shirley Temple, was to be one that would be seared into my soul as a pivotal moment of destiny, the lightning bolt revelation of kismet never struck. I was, of course, excited and was hugely grateful to Rosa for the opportunity she gave me, but, again, I thought of working in the film industry as, at best, just a possible vehicle to help get me to my real destination: Broadway.

  Still, it was all very exciting to be in Los Angeles for the first time. I recall going to a movie with Rosa after we left the studio and then heading back to the train station for our trip back to San Diego. In the days following our Los Angeles visit, Rosa made repeated calls to her contact at 20th Century Fox, inquiring about what exactly their plans were for their next big star, whom she had discovered and introduced them to.

  “What do you want to do about Marion?” I once heard her say with an air of indignation over their not dropping everything and focusing on their stunning new prospect (namely, me). “What are your plans for her?” she demanded to know.

  I may have always had a healthy belief in myself, but during that time, I couldn’t hold a candle to Rosa, who was convinced I was on the fast-track path to stardom.

  Rosa’s deep conviction of my pending success, however, began to wane just a bit when her studio contact said, “Well, to begin with, she has to live up here in Los Angeles.” And then, perhaps, it really crashed when she learned that Effie and I had taken off in the dead of night to tie the knot.

  I think Rosa may have had more of an agenda in my becoming a star than she ever revealed to me. What that agenda may have been—to act as my agent or manager or something—who knows? But she did really believe in me, and I will always be grateful to her for doing what she did for me. If nothing else, Rosa took away any apprehension I may have had about venturing up to Los Angeles on my own to complete my studies—which is what I did.

  Rooming with a bunch of girls while wrapping up my necessary courses was not a conventional life for a young wife, but, again, it was something I never gave much thought to. Effie was completing his studies in San Diego as I was doing the same in L.A. Once that was over . . . Well, I can’t say I had that thought out. What did happen is we both finished college. As soon as Effie completed the last day of his courses, he joined me in L.A., and we leased a room in a house that offered us kitchen privileges.

  Within days of Effie’s arrival in L.A., in what could be described only as a scene from some sappy drama, the woman who owned the house where we were living knocked on our door, announced that a letter had arrived for a Freeman Meskimen, and handed him an official-looking envelope. After ripping open the letter, he read a few lines. Looked up with a stunned expression on his face and handed the letter to me. As a member of the Navy Reserve, he was being called back to active duty.

  Within a short time, my life in L.A. was over and we were on our way to Vallejo, California, north of San Francisco, where Effie was stationed for a few months before being sent to Korea. When I think back to the start of my senior year at San Diego State, my life and my five-year career plan seemed to be so straightforward. But nowhere in that plan was there a marriage, a move to Vallejo, a husband being called to serve in Korea, and me having no idea what to do next.

  What I did do was the only thing a young woman with no money could do—go back to living with my parents in San Diego. While I viewed this as a huge setback for me, my mother was, surprisingly, very wonderful and supportive during this time. She even provided the money for Effie and me to have a little weekend getaway at Lake Arrowhead, California, before his departure to Korea. When that weekend was over, Effie left, I settled in with my parents, and my father helped me find a job as a file clerk at Convair, an aircraft manufacturing company, where all I had to know was the alphabet.

  Here I am, a college graduate with a degree in drama, and all I need to know is the alphabet, I would think to myself as I begrudgingly filed hundreds of sales slips each day and wrote and responded to what would become stacks and stacks of letters from and to Effie. While my work at Convair was depressing, my saving grace was that my evenings and weekends were free to audition and do plays with various local groups, including the one at my old stomping grounds of the Old Globe.

  Although I felt my life and career were on hold, the year of Effie’s service in Korea seemed to pass relatively quickly, and when he returned, we decided to once again move to Los Angeles and pick up where we had left off in pursuing our respective acting careers. Money was, of course, tight, but someway we always managed to get by. When I made the rounds at various studios, I would check their bulletin boards that had listings of people looking for people to do small jobs, usually waiting
tables at dinner parties. It was during one of those dinner party gigs that for the first time, I encountered that dark underbelly of Hollywood known as “the casting couch.”

  During that party, which was hosted by someone associated with the film industry in some way, a comment was passed around that I was “a young lady who wants to be an actress.” Soon after, as I was working in the kitchen, a man came in, handed me his card, and told me to come see him—which I did. If anyone in Hollywood had been looking for the poster girl for naïveté, I was the perfect selection, and so when I showed up at the address on his card, to find it wasn’t an office but his apartment, I only shrugged and rang the bell.

  Once I was inside his apartment, he made some small talk and then asked me, “How do you think you are going to get anywhere in this town?”

  I told him I was a really good actress, and he laughed.

  “This town is filled with good actresses, and they’re lined up ten deep for every role. So, just what girl do you think is going to get that part?”

  I began to feel uncomfortable. I mean, I was naïve but not completely stupid. But still, it took me forever to “get” what was happening. “I would say they will cast the one they like the best,” I responded rather curtly, with this air of indignant aplomb.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “And why exactly would they like one better than the others?”

  That did it! I could feel my face flushing and my blood pushing on the walls of my veins.

  “I’m married, and you have no character,” I blurted out as I stood up.

  While my heart was pounding, his face went blank, and he seemed to be perplexed and embarrassed. He seemed to be at a total loss for words and didn’t quite know what to do with me.

  What he did do was offer me the use of his Cadillac, although I had never owned a car and didn’t know how to drive, and he also gave me a job. It wasn’t an acting job, but it did provide me with a little of the much-needed money we needed to scrape by. My job was to promote a product called the Scarfinet, which was this lady’s scarf you could tie in many different ways and make into all sorts of turbans. I would take my supply of Scarfinets and go to stores like Sears, where I would stand on a little platform with a light on me and demonstrate all the ways the Scarfinet could be tied.

  During my Scarfinet days, I once again found myself questioning if anything like this had ever been in the five-year plan once I had that coveted drama degree secured. I, of course, knew it hadn’t, and that fact found me constantly fighting off a depression that was fueled by frustration. But being the pragmatist in our marriage, I was aware we needed the money. I took the Scarfinet gig seriously, and while I sold very few of them, the shoppers (whom I always viewed as audiences) who watched my demonstrations always seemed to be fascinated. But, alas, I often thought as I dramatically did my twists and turns with the fabric, This is what I’m doing with my degree?

  During those early days in L.A., I wasn’t just trying to hawk a fashion accessory that would never quite catch on. I was also constantly making the rounds of casting directors, agents, people who knew people (or who said they knew people)—trying to make connections in what all too often felt like an impenetrable wall. During this time, I also went back to 20th Century Fox, hoping to have another meeting with the elegant chap I had met with Rosa. Alas, that idea died when I learned that he himself had died.

  While all these dead ends did sometimes leave me feeling depressed and discouraged, I was never dissuaded—not in the least. My dream, my goal and my five-year plan may have had moments when they were a bit dim by the end of a frustrating day, but by the next morning, they would be rekindled and again burning brightly.

  While I was proving to be a living embodiment of determination and resilience when it came to my career—or, rather, the pursuit of my career—Effie continued to be just the opposite. He also still wanted to pursue an acting career, but he didn’t seemingly have any drive at all to make that happen. While I was constantly out looking to meet people and get auditions, Effie rarely ventured out at all and did nothing in the way of seeking connections or auditions or any sort of employment.

  Effie had adopted this odd belief that at some point in time, in some miraculous way, someone in Hollywood would come to their senses and come looking for the elusive Freeman Meskimen and cast him in a play or a film or a television show. Most young and ambitious wives would not have put up with a husband like that, but as for me, I never really gave it a thought other than it was just Effie being Effie. We had taken a personality test together once, right after our quickie marriage, and I scored 87 percent in ambition, while Effie scored 6 percent. But that didn’t bother me. In fact, in some odd way, it was kind of what I liked about him! I still found a certain charm in his brooding and mysterious Garboesque ways, which were completely the opposite of my personality traits. It is what had attracted me to him in the first place, what had made me throw all caution (and perhaps my future and career) to the wind and marry him on a whim. He was so very different than me, and as odd as it may seem, I loved that about him. Who, I used to think, would ever want to be with someone who is just like themselves?

  And so Effie spent time in our meager abode, playing his guitar and on occasion talking about going back to school to get a master’s degree. I, on the other hand, was always on the go—optimistic, determined and embracing each new day with anticipation. And then, one day, bolstered by my optimistic determination, I found myself in the Sunset Boulevard office of a man of small stature by the name of Jack Weiner.

  While I didn’t know anything about Weiner at the time, I would later learn he had been a child star who, back in the 1920s, was a member of singer Gus Edwards’s vaudeville troupe, which was the early stage-stomping grounds for a very young cast of performers that included Groucho Marx, Walter Winchell, George Jessel, Phil Silvers, Eleanor Powell, Hildegarde, Ray Bolger and others who would go on to international fame. As time went by, Weiner eventually gave up performing and established a talent agency, first representing various vaudeville headliners and then film stars, including Jack Albertson, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Mae West, Butterfly McQueen and Linda Darnell.

  But on that day, as I sat across from him, the only thing I knew about Jack Weiner was that someone who knew someone who knew Weiner had suggested I meet with him.

  “Stand up and turn around,” Weiner said to me after a few moments of small talk. “Jeez, you got a big can on you there, huh?” he continued as I followed his instructions. “Okay, let me see your legs,” he added. “Let me see your teeth.”

  As I complied with each one of his requests, slightly lifting my dress and opening my mouth as wide as I could, as if I were visiting a dentist, he proceeded to tear me to pieces.

  Oh, brother, I thought. Is this going to be another one of those situations in which I’m going to have to indignantly put another guy in his place?

  But before I could even begin to let that thought process itself, Weiner told me to sit back down. He leaned back in his chair, looked me over again, and then said, “I’m not going to sign you, but I want you to feel free to use my name in any way you think may help you.”

  Weiner actually did more than just let me use his name. We kept in touch, and he would, ultimately, come to play an important role in my career. In the meantime, while I was doing a daily performance—as a store file clerk at Bullock’s Westwood department store—I got a call from my old friend Craig Noel, who was the founding director of the Old Globe Theatre. He told me about a play that was going to be produced by the Pasadena Playhouse, and he felt very strongly that I should audition for it.

  “Hollywood casting agents will need to know you are in Los Angeles and to see you in something,” Craig told me. “This company has a great reputation, and you would be perfect for the role,” he continued adamantly.

  While I wasn’t aware of it at the time, my getting to know Weiner, coupled with that call from Craig, would prove to be pivotal factors in the pieces falling i
n place that would make my secret dream become a reality.

  Chapter 8

  My Studio Contract

  The play Craig Noel wanted me to audition for was Maxwell Anderson’s Journey to Jerusalem. Written in 1940, the play tells the tale of Mary, Joseph and a twelve-year-old Jesus, who is about to learn of his destiny as the Messiah. I auditioned for and got the role of the Virgin Mary (my first “mother” role), with the part of Jesus going to Sylvie Drake, who went on to become a theater critic and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, the director of publications for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and a good friend.

  While I don’t know this for sure, I have always believed that Craig spoke with some of his contacts at the Pasadena Playhouse, called in a favor, pulled some strings or, at the very least, gave their casting people a heads-up about me. He never copped to doing that, but it would have been typical of him, especially after being so adamant that I audition for this show.

  While it wasn’t Broadway, I was excited to be working at the legendary Pasadena Playhouse, which had been established in 1916 by Gilmor Brown, an actor and director who had formed the Community Playhouse Association of Pasadena, which would evolve into the Pasadena Playhouse Association. As the founder and artistic director of the Gilmor Brown Players, Brown played an instrumental role in spearheading fund-raising efforts to build a new home for his productions. Those efforts paid off, and in 1925 the ribbon was cut on a new Elmer Grey–designed theater, located on South El Molino Avenue in Pasadena.

  Built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, the Pasadena Playhouse soon became home to a school of theatrical arts, one that would go on to become an accredited college in 1937. Among the impressive list of actors who trained there over the years are Raymond Burr, Victor Mature, Ernest Borgnine, Eleanor Parker, Charles Bronson, Jamie Farr, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Sally Struthers. Along with being a respected teaching facility, the playhouse drew theatergoers from all over Southern California for its critically acclaimed performances.