Death of a Showman Read online

  “Only he has a problem,” said Leo. “He loves two women. One, a society lady far above him, the other, a poor factory girl with a heart of gold.”

  “That is a problem,” said Louise, glancing at me. “How will he solve it?”

  “Just wait and see, Mrs. Tyler.”

  The lovers left the stage and Louise gave a cry of delight as a small brown-and-white dog trotted out, followed by a portly disaster of a man. As he staggered after the dog, bellowing “Pea-nut!” I thought he was either actually drunk or a supremely good actor. Part man, part basset hound, he had a heavy, reddened face that sagged from bloodshot eyes to jowl. He had an odd hitch in his walk, and to watch him sway and lurch about the stage was to see a sailor dance on the deck of a ship that had wrecked long ago. You felt horribly sorry for him—and yet you couldn’t stop laughing and just when it seemed our little audience would collapse, Nedda Fiske stepped on to sing, “I Want a New Man Who’s Nothing Like My Old Man.”

  As more numbers followed, even I couldn’t deny that Leo Hirschfeld had done it. The songs ran the gamut from clever, infectious rags to swooningly beautiful melodies. As a matter of philosophical inquiry, I wondered if a lady like Blanche Arden’s socialite had occupied Leo’s Tuesdays or if Nedda Fiske’s plucky factory girl bore any resemblance to Clara. And there was another mystery: where was Mrs. Hirschfeld?

  Then a set piece of a staircase was rolled onstage and Violet Tempest appeared at the top in the shortest, tightest maid’s uniform I had ever seen.

  “Oh, dear,” murmured Louise, sinking slightly in her seat.

  She knew how to descend, I gave her that. Every step was negotiated with a tremulous uncertainty that allowed for the artful display of delicate ankle, adorable knee, and quivering bosom. In a song called “One Smart Gal,” Claude Arden sang of “Your insights on Voltaire / Appreciation of Molière,” while Violet leaned over the railing, “unaware” that she was exposing a lot of herself in the process. It was a splendid backside, one could not fault it, even in the lengthy time one had to examine it. The voluptuous, dim-witted servant, I thought. How very true to life.

  Last came a five-part rendition of “But on Fridays,” which I might have found exquisite had I not been contemplating the many and varied ways to dismember a songwriter. When it was all over, I brought my hands together—once. But Leo was too busy being praised by Louise to notice. The show was just … my, and the songs were oh, and the Ardens such, and Nedda Fiske … well!

  When she had caught her breath, she said, “But it’s your songs, Mr. Hirschfeld. You must be so proud. And Mrs. Hirschfeld is quite…”

  Louise blushed, unable to utter the adjective “risqué,” much less the ones I might have chosen: vulgar, tasteless, insulting.

  “The stairs are Miss Tempest’s métier; her fans will love it.” The little silver-haired man had joined us from the balcony. He leaned on his cane and crossed his feet, revealing a rather startling pair of yellow spats. Then he showed his teeth. “Introduce me, Leo.”

  Leo paused just long enough for discomfort, then said, “May I present the great Sidney Warburton, owner of the theater.”

  “And the producer of the show,” said Mr. Warburton.

  Extending her hand, Louise was startled to find it kissed. “It’s a wonderful show, Mr. Warburton. I’m sure it’ll be an enormous success.”

  “How would you like to be part of that success, Mrs. Tyler?” Leo wondered.

  * * *

  That evening, there was a spirited discussion between husband and wife. The subject: family finances, spending thereof. The first party, hereafter to be known as William, posited that a theatrical venture was a poor investment. The second party, hereafter known as Louise, disagreed. William asked on what grounds did she disagree? On the grounds, said Louise, that it was a very, very good show. Also, the Ardens were in it. Also, Nedda Fiske. William said he had never heard of the Ardens nor Nedda Fiske, so their participation could not be offered in evidence. Louise said he hadn’t even seen the thing so his opinion on the matter was entirely irrelevant. After a long pause, William answered that his opinion on their finances was very much relevant. This led Louise to observe that it might be their finances, but it was her money. There followed a pause. Which grew into silence. And was punctuated with a slammed door.

  Later that night, William came to the cellar where I was putting Louise’s delicates up to dry. It was a surprising visit for the gentleman of the house, yet I was not surprised. I had known William since I was thirteen years old; even then, he had a habit of wandering to the servants’ side of the house. The Tylers were one of New York’s oldest families, yet William had never been entirely at ease in the affluent world to which he had been born. Enthusiastic about his fellow man, instinctively kind, he trampled social barriers as a hound puppy might trample a flower bed. I think he even disliked my calling him Mr. Tyler. Wearing a navy silk robe and slippers, he apologized for disturbing me. I said that was not possible. Then we went upstairs to the kitchen and I poured him a glass of milk.

  He took a long swallow, then said, “My mother called this morning. She’s upset that Louise hasn’t come to Oyster Bay. Now Louise says she has to stay in the city to attend rehearsals. Apparently, Mr. Hirschfeld is keen to hear her opinions.”

  Yes, Leo had been extravagant in his praise for Louise’s insights. “She did enjoy it,” I said.

  William’s glum nod indicated he knew how little Louise had enjoyed since their return. “That’s why I said she could go. But I insisted you go with her.”

  The word “insisted” meant Louise did not welcome my presence. “Mr. Tyler…”

  William hurried to add, “I can’t let her spend her days in some music hall without a chaperone, Mother would have a fit. Or … an even greater fit. If that’s possible. Louise says she’s only promised the show a little money, but she can be…”

  “Naïve,” was the word he wanted. I thought to say, Yes, and perhaps she doesn’t want to be any longer. Still, he was calling on our old alliance and I found it hard to refuse.

  “I mean, you know Mr. Hirschfeld,” he said.

  “Yes, I know Mr. Hirschfeld.”

  “Would you, then? Just so there’s no trouble?”

  And so it was that I witnessed the creation of Two Loves Have I. Unfortunately, in my charge of preventing trouble, I failed quite spectacularly.

  4

  Having spent my career working for the extremely wealthy, I thought myself well acquainted with people who confused luxury with necessity. To deny the perennially indulged so much as a strawberry out of season could be seen as an affront bordering on assault. My first employer, Mrs. Armslow, had a cousin, a Mrs. Montrose, for whom a single misplaced hand towel was a sign the social order had collapsed. Unless the culprit was screamed at, threatened with dismissal and possibly arrest, anarchy would follow.

  But Mrs. Montrose was a lamb compared to the denizens of the Sidney Theater. Unlike that delicate lady, they did labor and they were talented. But it seemed those talents could only thrive if certain needs were met, the primary need being the worshipful subservience of everyone around them. The worst of all was the little silver-haired producer, Sidney Warburton.

  The name Sidney Warburton is not now much remembered; even his own theater bears a different title. But at the time, he had every intention of joining the ranks of Diaghilev and D’Oyly Carte. Small, impeccably dressed, never without his yellow spats or silver-topped cane, he certainly looked the part of an impresario. There were many apocryphal stories about how he started in show business: cheating the fleas in his childhood circus, revenge for a Punch and Judy show where he had been mistaken for one of the puppets. The mere facts were, he had started in vaudeville, managing acts on the circuit. He had prospered and bought his own theater, going up against the powerful syndicate that controlled the theater world until 1910. His shows had grown more elaborate and sophisticated. Ziegfeld had his Follies, Warburton his Spectaculars.

 
But his partnership with Leo signaled that he was ready to leave the variety show and launch into a new kind of theater: the musical. And not just a musical, but a ragtime musical. To the papers, he said Leo Hirschfeld was the future. To Leo, he said he was a no-talent nobody who’d struck lucky and would do what he was told. To the papers, Leo proclaimed Warburton a giant, a legend, and mentor. The same day, he would wonder why Warburton didn’t go back to bearded ladies and goldfish swallowers and let him handle the actual show.

  The two men fought about the beginning of the show, the end of the show, and everything in between. The action could not progress above a minute without one of them calling a halt and reworking some bit of business agreed to the minute before. Warburton liked the graceful dance that opened the show, Leo found it hopelessly old-fashioned. It was a ragtime show, he argued, it should jolt, shock, make people move. Staging was changed, songs were shifted, cuts suggested, and additions requested. I didn’t see how they managed to remember anything, but all the changes were recorded by Mr. Warburton’s assistant, Harriet Biederman, a young woman with auburn hair and a light Austrian accent who kept the entire history of the show in her notebook and seemed to be the only rational person in the building.

  I was more concerned with the tensions between a different pair: namely, myself and Louise. As I had predicted, she did not welcome my chaperonage. She was silent on our rides to and from the theater; our exchanges at home were stilted and perfunctory. She knew it wasn’t my choice, but still, she felt spied on. I could think of no way to apologize without criticizing her husband, and so we were stuck. During rehearsals, I sat three rows behind Louise and tried to be inconspicuous while she chatted gaily with the actors eager to make the acquaintance of their new patroness. Leo, I ignored. But then he ignored me.

  At the end of the week, as Louise sat enraptured by Mr. Arden’s recitation of his footwear requirements, I heard a woman shout, “Utterly revolting, and I will not do it.”

  Keeping one step ahead of her, Warburton said: “Claude and Blanche want you on costumes, Adele, that means costumes. Everyone’s costumes.”

  “This isn’t costumes, it’s bottom wiping. I am not a nursemaid and I am not a laundress,” she said in an accent somewhere between Boston and Windsor.

  At this, Louise looked up. “Do you need assistance, Mrs. St. John? Perhaps my maid could help, she’s tremendously capable.” Glancing at me, she added, “It would be nice for her to have something to occupy her time.”

  Meeting her gaze, I asked, Was she sure? Truly, she didn’t need me for anything? No, said Louise, she was quite certain: she did not need me.

  So dismissed, I presented myself to Mrs. St. John, who led me upstairs to a small, cramped corridor that led to several dressing rooms. Knocking on the third door, she got a high-pitched bark in response. Mrs. St. John gave the knob a vicious twist and the door swung wide to reveal the actor who played Nedda Fiske’s father snoring in a chair. There was the sharp tang of accident in the air. I looked at the dog; it yapped a firm denial.

  “Congratulations,” she said. “You are now in charge of Mr. Roland Harney.”

  Being “in charge” of Roland Harney was a very different prospect than managing Louise Tyler. His wardrobe was far more limited, but far more filthy. I learned quickly: hold all garments at arm’s length. In addition to keeping the comic hygienic, I was also charged with keeping him off the gin. I began with an earnest appeal; surely an artist of his gifts would want to show respect to his fellow actors by rehearsing sober?

  I held up his flask. “Why don’t I hold on to this and return it at the end of the day?”

  To my surprise, he gazed mournfully at the flask, then said, “I suppose that’s best. Thank you, my dear. Thank you.”

  I felt extremely smug—managing actors was no difficulty, you just had to be firm with them—until the next day when I found a gin bottle hidden under seat twenty-four in row H.

  And so I spent my days wandering the Sidney Theater, collecting bottles, soiled clothes, and Peanut when he ran off in search of rodent life. The inside of a theater was strangely public; yet there were many hidden spots where untoward things might happen. I heard a great deal that supported the senior Mrs. Tyler’s suspicion that the theater was a place of greed and lax morals. For instance, Nedda Fiske was not married, but a gentleman often kept her company at the theater. One day outside her dressing room, I chanced to hear, “I need it, Nedda!”

  “And I’m telling you, I don’t have it!”

  The gentleman called her a liar in abusive terms. Nedda returned the compliment in language even more colorful. There was a short scream, a crash, and the tinkling sound of breakage. Hurrying to the door, I knocked and called, “Miss Fiske?”

  The door opened just enough for me to see the actress, her face grim set as she said, “We’re fine, Jane. Thank you.” Then she shut the door in my face.

  I asked Mr. Harney if he knew Miss Fiske’s companion. Blowing out his cheeks, he said, “Floyd Lombardo. She keeps him in jewels and silks and what he doesn’t gamble away, he spends on other women. Poor Nedda’s besotted with him. Ziegfeld barred him from the theater when he started bullying stagehands into lending him money. Nedda refused to work without him and signed with Sidney. Steer clear of him, my dear, if you don’t want your bottom pinched or your pocket picked.”

  Mr. Harney proved correct. I was often in the wings ready with ice for Mr. Harney or to catch Peanut as he came offstage. From this vantage point, I saw that the moment Miss Fiske’s back was turned, Floyd Lombardo’s covetous gaze slid elsewhere. Blanche Arden was too big a star to tolerate such familiarity, so he settled for the celebrated shape of Violet Tempest. In this, he was no different from 99 percent of the men on the show, including and especially Leo.

  I did not want to dislike Violet Tempest—Violet Hirschfeld, rather. I told myself it was petty to bear ill will toward the woman Leo had married. But if I didn’t dislike Violet Hirschfeld, I can’t say I enjoyed being around her. Comparisons were pointless and irresistible. No matter how hard I tried, the inevitable question of Leo’s choice presented itself. Why her? Why her and not…? The answer was depressingly obvious. Oh, we were alike in some ways. I was a woman, she was a woman, but there the similarities ended. On her, all parts that distinguished male from female were buoyantly, generously … present. She was Eve, après pomme. And where’er she went, Leo’s moony gaze followed. Rehearsals sometimes came to a halt because husband and wife had suddenly disappeared. This did not endear Violet to the rest of the cast, who felt the show could do without her even if Leo couldn’t. Her talents were limited and, as the composer’s wife and a former chorus girl, she was resented.

  Leo had given her a lovely song called “Why Not Me?” One afternoon, Warburton announced that it should be sung by Mr. Arden.

  “She doesn’t have the voice to put it across,” said Warburton. “Arden will make it a hit. Look what he did with ‘But on Fridays.’”

  “Yeah, I saw exactly what he did,” said Leo. “And how much you and he made off it.”

  Waiting in the wings, I glanced at Mr. Harney. He passed a finger along his lips.

  Then Warburton offered, “Maybe Violet can sing the song if we cut ‘One Smart Gal.’ That song makes the fellow look like a drooling chimp. Know what I mean?”

  Leo did know what he meant, as evidenced by the fact that his hands became fists.

  Warburton was fond of belittling nicknames. Louise was the debutante, Harney the has-been. Mrs. St. John was Horse Face, Nedda Fiske was Big Mouth (she called Warburton the Dwarf). Violet was referred to in anatomical terms, and I cannot repeat what he called Mr. Lombardo. The Ardens were generally exempt, but I once heard Warburton refer to “the Duchess” and when Miss Biederman tentatively inquired if he meant Blanche, he said, “Claude, Blanche—either one.”

  No one received more abuse than Miss Biederman herself. His malice toward her was casual, a matter of habit; he almost never addressed her without sc
reaming. Most of the time, she seemed distressingly used to it. But not always.

  Once as I passed Warburton’s office, I heard the predictable bellows of “idiot,” “imbecile,” and “useless.” Soon after, a red-eyed Harriet Biederman exited. Shutting the door behind her, she dabbed at her eyes. Small and pleasantly rounded, she gave the brief impression of being a child. Then she gathered her notebook and pen to her bosom, shook her auburn curls, and took a deep breath.

  “If I were you,” I told her, “I’d take that gentleman’s fancy silver cane and stick it right up his backside.”

  She gasped. Then smiled.

  “Come,” I said. “Let’s tidy up.”

  In the ladies’ room, as Miss Biederman washed her face, I burst forth with a litany of complaints. The Ardens were unbearably arrogant, Nedda Fiske delusional, Floyd Lombardo a menace. And dear God, the compulsively amorous Mr. and Mrs. Hirschfeld …

  Harriet met my gaze in the mirror. I had the sense I had revealed rather too much. Quickly, I changed subjects. “And I don’t see how you can work for that insufferable bully.”

  “He is a great man with many pressures on him,” she said. “My father was like him. He also shouted and said cruel things. But he was an artist and when he played the violin, you heard only the beauty of the music.”

  I thought to say that there were many great men in the world—and great women—who did not use creation as an excuse to be cruel. I settled for the observation that the “artists” seemed like a pack of overindulged brats to me.

  “They are childish because what they do is terrifying. Think of their courage, to stand there alone, to take what is in here.” She put a small fist to her lower midsection. “And show it to the world.”

  She was so earnest, I found it impossible to argue. “Well, Mr. Warburton is lucky to have you.”

  “He will lose me in September,” she said sadly. “I am getting married, and my fiancé wants me to work in his butcher shop. But I love the theater. When the lights go down and the curtains open, I get…” She rubbed her arms to suggest chills. “But perhaps it is for the best. One day, I might take your advice—and that would be the end of a very fine silver cane!”