THAT'S ME IN THE SECOND ROW
PART 1
This is not going to be a "Tell All" book. I am not going to name names, and "Out" anyone. I have no right to "out" anyone, that is their decision. In this autobiography, I will not name the Studio I worked for because I am sure that some readers can do detective work and figure out who was who. Therefore I will not name the company I worked for. For the same reason I refer to my paramour, an "A" film director, as "my Amaretto", and the male films star I worked with is here referred to as BROADWAY BOY! I did work with major stars, for what was to become a major studio.
I don't care about that. The main reason I am writing is because I was there! I was in the right place at the right time. I started working in "Hollywood" during the "Silent Era." I was working there when movies learned to talk, and the advent of color. I was there before the advent of the Studio System. I watched the Birth of the Studio System, and later its death. I witnessed the rise of Independent films and the demise of Hollywood in the face of television. I saw it all.
As this is a memory book. I may mix up my terms and use modern words that were not used years ago. Gay is a modern term. "Homosexuality" was a word that did not come into common usage untill the 1930's. Before that there was "Queer." In my memories, the words are interchangeable!
Where to begin?
My father ran away and joined the circus when he was 12 (at the turn of the century). From the circus, he moved over to Road Shows and Vaudeville. There he met George M. Cohan. They hit it off and they became good friends. Cohan taught my father how to dance, and he became a "Hoofer" dancing behind Cohan in many musicals. We grew up with "Uncle George." My father graduated to small rolls and became a character actor. He acted in shows that Cohan produced, and other shows. He became a "Regular" in the Broadway scene. This was before the Union (Actors Equity) and before the income tax. My father made a good living working on Broadway.
He married a good Irish Catholic girl and had two children, myself and my sister. My father had a good nose for money and business. In addition to buying our house in New Rochelle (down the street from the Cohan house,) he accumulated cash, and bought vast tracts of open land in Long Island, Westchester, and northern New Jersey. This was to be his "retirement".
He started me off at age three, with "Irish Step Dancing." Through his being in many Cohan musicals, he taught me to "Tap."I learned all the latest dances popular on Broadway. He taught me everything to know about popular dancing. He never found out that I was gay. I visited him in one of his Broadway shows, and I struck up a friendship with an Assistant Stage Manager who took my virginity. I grew up a good looking Irish male. I was not flamboyant, myself. I was definitely male, but not effeminate. I was butch! My sister knew I was gay, and it didn't bother her. She was my rehearsal dance partner, and I passed on to her everything I learned.
Things started happening, when my father received a letter from his brother, my Uncle Jack, who was in Hollywood. Through my father's connections, he got Uncle Jack a job with a movie studio in Long Island City, New York. Uncle Jack became a cameraman. He was very good! His biggest claim to fame was that he was the cameraman for Valentino's "The Sheik." Unfortunately, all documentation on that movie has disappeared, and Uncle Jack's participation in that movie is only known in our family stories. I am pleased to say there is another "Claim to Fame." Uncle Jack was working as cameraman on a silent film version of "The Last of the Mohegians," starring Wallace Beary. The film was made in "Napier Park" in Yonkers, New York (a suburb of the city, in Westchester County.) The movie called for a girl to run through the woods, carrying a baby and pursued by Indians. My Aunt May had just had a baby, and my cousin, baby May, is in that movie. When the Movie Business moved to California, Uncle Jack moved with his company, with plans to have my Aunt and cousins join him at a later date.
In the letter, My Uncle Jack said the Broadway theatre was dying, and that the future was making movies in California. He urged my father to send me to Los Angeles, and he would get me a job as an extra. Any advancement in my career was up to me. He would give me a start. At that point my sister, Dorothy, said that if I was going, she wanted to go, too. This caused a family meeting and my father turned to my mother and asked her opinion. This surprised us, as my Father was the nominal head of the family. In those days, most women were subservient to their husbands.
My sister and I knew that, actually, my mother ran the family. We all waited for my mother's thoughts. She was not used to speaking up and was very nervous. Eventually, she said: "The world is changing.The role of women is changing. Dorthy is very solid and will not be tempted by "loose living." If Jack will act as a "Chaperone," I have no objections to her going to California."
My father absorbed her words and then said: "I will write Jack and see if the invitation extends to Dorthy."
That night both my sister and I wrote Uncle Jack and said that we were both looking forward to going to California. For the next few weeks, we were on "Pins and Needles" waiting for a return letter. Finally it came, and my father called a family meeting. We gathered at the kitchen table, and my father read (what we later learned was an edited version of) the letter from Uncle jack. Uncle Jack said he would be delighted for Dorothy to come. We discussed the logistics of such a move, and a decision was made that we both could go. Many years later we learned that Uncle Jack had mentioned Dorthy's and my letters, in his letter. This was the part of my father had edited out. He was not upset that we had "gone behind his back," but was pleased with the independence we had shown.
The next day, my father went to the new Grand Central Terminal" and purchased a RailRoad Compartment, ending up in Glendale CA. That night my father amazed us all by phoning my Uncle in California, and gave him all the transit details. After the call, My father told us many of the tricks of Railroad travel that he had learned in his days on the road. That night, we packed our belongings in suitcases. The next day, my mother bought a large hamper, into which she put a block of ice on the bottom, and filled it up with sandwiches. The next day, we left for California. We were off!