Yet she had no confidence. Each time she had to perform she came forward trembling as if it were the first time, and that would be her doom. She was nineteen or twenty then, and already you could see the doom in her. The most beautiful girl in the class, and yet the least talented of us could crush her with a word, a glance, the hint of a sneer. Or by ignoring her when she glanced up, smiling hopefully. Our acting instructor got impatient with her when she stammered answering his questions, and often she took minutes getting into a scene, like she was on a high diving board summoning the courage to dive and that courage came from a place deep inside her she had to grope for. We punished her the only way we knew. Letting her understand We don’t love you. You don’t belong. You’d be more convincing as a tramp, a slut. You aren’t what we want. You aren’t what The Studio wants. Your insides don’t match your outside. You’re a freak.
HUMMINGBIRD
Divine love always has met and always will meet every human need.
—Mary Baker Eddy,
Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures
Sept 1947 Hollywood Cal.
Woke early! couldn’t sleep past 6 AM & all last night waking & sweating & hearing voices of excitement & warning This would be the day to determine my FUTURE & already my heart was beating against my ribs like something small & feathered was trapped inside! But this is a good happy feeling I think
Birds singing outside my window at the Studio Club a good omen in the tall grass & jimson weed orioles, that liquidy call, & scrub jays harsh & wakeful & a remembered voice that dream of a man (a stranger) warning me something urgent in my life & I’m scared I cant hear or dont know the actual words as if they are in a foreign language
Today I am scheduled to be shown Mr Z’s famed AVIARY his prized collection of birds only the privileged have seen & later my audition Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! starring June Haver Mr Shinn says I am prettier & more talented than June Haver, I would like to believe him It’s a fact I’m the only girl in my acting class invited to audition for this movie just a minor role of course
Pink plastic curlers covering my head 36 of them! a torture to position my head on a pillow my scalp aches & burns but I will not take sleeping pills like I’m advised Shook out my “new” hair brushed & sprayed not yet accustomed to it What has happened, my hair has turned white as with a terrible shock
Sick with nerves & worry have not visited Mother in 5 months & must send $$$ A good thing Bucky cant see me now he’d be disgusted I dont blame the Glazers its a shock to catch sight of myself unexpected a kewpie doll with such fluffed blond hair & the red lipstick & tight clothes Mr Shinn says I must wear
Mother once said Fear is born of hope if you could excise hope from your life you would excise fear these 20 anxious minutes applying makeup botched it & wiped everything off with cold cream & began again Oh Christ these brown eyebrows flaring out & not inward like my own & how could I have brown eyebrows with such silver-platinum hair its so FAKE if Dr Mittelstadt could see me now or Mr Haring Bess Glazer Id be ASHAMED
On Hollywood Boulevard so many trees cut down & Wilshire, & Sunset L.A. is a new city now since the War Grandma Della would not know it, even Venice Beach after the War, Otto says there will be new wars capitalism requires new wars always there is a War except enemies change These new buildings/ streets/ sidewalks/ pavement Clattering & whining & the earth quivering like an aftershock Bulldozers/ cranes/ cement mixers/ drills the hills out in Westwood leveled & new buildings & streets “This used to be a country town” Otto says he’d lived there when he first came to L.A. You can hear L.A. ticking almost I LOVE IT I am L.A.-born & a daughter of this city & nobody need know more than that I WILL INVENT MYSELF LIKE THIS CITY INVENTING ITSELF & no backward look
At Schwab’s for breakfast & their eyes on me as I enter in acting class you must learn to be “blind” to the audience though paradoxically you are “seeing” through the eye of the audience & there above the fountain & grill the long mirror & my reflection inside always it seems jerky like a silent film not graceful oh God the girl in the mirror at Mayer’s Im thinking of Aunt Elsie who loved me & betrayed me Yet: that girl in the mirror shy & fearful of seeing herself
oh God the life behind me I have lost
It’s a mystery those tiny hummingbirds youd think were bumblebees at first seeing them this morning behind the Studio Club & I was hearing Grandma Della again & she has forgiven me I think she loves me A hummingbird is my favorite bird: so small & so hardy & bold & fearless (But wouldnt hawks kill them? crows? jays etc.) sticking their long needle beaks into trumpet flowers to suck out the sweet juice you cant feed them by hand like other birds three Ana’s hummingbirds this morning they must eat continuously or burn out & die tiny wings beating so fast you cant see the wings a whirring, a blur & their heartbeats so fast & they can fly sideways & backward I said Grandma it’s like thinking your thoughts can fly anywhere
Do I love Otto Öse
do I love hurt/ fear
(Yet he would not hurt me Im sure not truly Through his camera lens regarding me with more gentleness lately as I am earning $$$ for him tho’ that is not the only reason!)
At Schwab’s it’s a stage at all times say to yourself I am an actress I am proud of being an actress for the secret of acting is control & I’m self-conscious & hesitate their alert & hopeful eyes swinging upon me as upon anyone who enters & a few smiles & hellos heads turning at my new hair & figure in this white sharkskin suit so carefully ironed this morning Oh it’s just her whats her name Norma jeane only a contract player at The Studio & of no significance no influence the female eyes narrowing & two or three men frankly staring but mostly the eyes fall away disappointed that spark of hope fading like a flame blown out
Last Friday at Schwab’s I’d come in after my morning exercises & the color was up in my face & I was feeling so good & not-anxious & who was at the counter having coffee & a cigarette but Richard Widmark & he stared at me & smiled asking my name & was I at The Studio he’d seen me there, maybe & we got to talking & I was breathless but didnt stammer & his eyes piercing as in his movies & I began to tremble I could see this man wanted more of me than I could give backing away with a smile & my new laugh which is light & bell-like when I remember Well Norma Jeane! says Widmark with his lopsided smile maybe we’ll work together someday & I say Oh I’d like that very much Richard (he’d asked me to call him Richard & he’d asked my agent’s name)
This morning in Schwab’s nobody’s here quickly I scanned the counter & the tables & booths & in the mirror tremulous & shy the girl in the white sharkskin suit not-there, a ghost
Thank God then Mr Shinn came & I’m safe my agent, I adore him Otto brought me to him little humped man like a gnome with heavy eyebrows & a dented forehead & nearly bald & he’s combed a half-dozen dyed-brown hairs across the crown Rumpelstiltskin in the old fairy tale Della told me the ugly little dwarf-man who taught the miller’s daughter to spin gold out of straw Ha! ha! ha! Mr Shinn’s laugh is a shovel striking rock yet his eyes intelligent & strange/beautiful for a man, I think he is so restless drumming fingers on the tabletop red carnation he always wears in his lapel (fresh each morning!) Norma Jeane the future may be very interesting for us both don’t forget your appointment with Z at 11 yes?
as if I wld forget my God
Who’s that blonde looking like a tramp one of my so-called friends reported to me Mr Z had said of me I’d come to The Studio in slacks & sweater & he happened to see me I guess not knowing my name he’d forget by now, I hope
My “arty” feature in U.S. Camera, Otto is proud of A photograph is composition/ light & dark gradations it’s not a pretty face
Otto has given me Human Anatomy to study & drawings by Michelangelo & an artist of the 16th century Andreas Vesalius he says to memorize Men desire you with their souls accessible only through the body
(But Otto does not touch me now only as a photographer posing his “model”)
Mr Z is of an age you
cant guess like certain of the older European immigrants not so terribly old, I think In the executive lounge where I’ve served drinks I’ve stolen looks at him & pondered him there are rumors of him, of course once I saw (I thought I saw) Debra Mae/ Lizbeth Short with Mr Z in dark glasses & a hat hiding half her face & they were in Mr Z’s Alfa Romeo exiting the lot Mr Z is famous in California now yet he was born in a small village in Poland & emigrated to this country w/ his parents when he was only a child his father was a peddler in NYC yet Mr Z by the age of only 20 (which is younger than me, now) had built & managed Coney Island Amusement Park & later Carnival Mr Z’s genius it’s said is for building talent & creating an audience for something that was not there previously & not anticipated In his carnival Mr Z had an Indian fire-eater & a “yogin” (from India) who could walk & sit on burning coals & Tom Thumb & a Giant & a Dancing Hog & some poor Negro with certain of his insides on the exterior of his body & by the age of only 22 Mr Z was a millionaire & began making silent films in a warehouse on the Lower East Side & moved to Hollywood in 1928 & went into partnership to found The Studio creating such stars as Sonja Henie the champion ice skater & the Dionne Quintuplets & the German police dog Rin Tin Tin & Myrna Loy & Alice Faye & Nelson Eddy & Jeanette MacDonald & June Haver & so many others it left me dizzy to be told (for tales are told of Mr Z & other Hollywood pioneers like fairy tales & old legends) Mr Z’s secretary stared coldly at me making me repeat my name, & I stammered & inside Mr Z was on the phone & called out Come in & shut the door! in the voice you’d speak to a dog & so I came inside trembling & smiling
A blond girl entering a gentleman’s office w/ tall draped windows & furniture gleaming teakwood & glass & the gentleman behind the desk lifting his eyes suspicious & assessing I listened for the music of this scene to cue me & heard nothing
Behind Mr Z’s office which is spacious as you’d imagine there is his private apartment few persons are allowed to enter (Mr Shinn has never been inside, for instance meeting with the great man only in his office or in the executive dining room) & he led me across the threshold into this new place & I was afraid suddenly I hoped he would not notice I’d prepared my words to speak of course but was forgetting for in such a situation I did not know Mr Z’s lines as you would in a script in acting class so knowing your own lines is inadequate I was smiling seeing the blonde in a dark-tinted mirror above a sofa in white sharkskin suit that showed her young shapely figure & she looked good & this was what Mr Z was seeing I smiled happily hoping the panic wld not show in my eyes tripped on the edge of a carpet & Mr Z laughed Are you doing this deliberately d’you think this is a Marx Brothers movie I laughed though I did not comprehend the joke if it was a joke
Mr Z is so revered at The Studio it’s a surprise to see him at close range not a tall man, & his expensive clothes loose-fitting Mr Z’s eyes behind his tinted bifocal glasses were bloodshot & yellow as with jaundice he smelled of liquor & his Cuban cigars (some of us selected girls would present to Mr Z & his fellow executives & their guests in the Studio private lounge drinks & cigars & we were costumed like nightclub girls & it was a privilege, for we received tips & there was the threat always that your contract wld not be renewed if you refused & yet Mr Z had not seemed to favor me then, but redheads) But still he’d invited me to see the AVIARY which was a more rare privilege
He nudged me into the farther room & shut the door What d’you think of my AVIARY This is but a fraction of my collection of course & what a shock, Mr Z’s AVIARY was not of living birds as I had expected but of dead stuffed birds! Many hundreds of them behind glass so far as I could see I stared not knowing what to say (though the birds were beautiful I suppose when you looked carefully through the pane of glass as in a museum) Proudly Mr Z was speaking of his collection set in a simulacrum of natural habitats nests & rock formations & twisted tree limbs & driftwood grasses, wildflowers, sand, earth & a strange sepia light like looking into the past the AVIARY had no windows but was wood-paneled with little painted sets to make you believe you were in a forest or a jungle or desert or on a mountainside yet at the same time underground, as in a cave inside a box or a coffin Yet I saw the AVIARY was fascinating the more I stared for the birds were beautiful & lifelike not seeming to grasp that they were dead I seemed to hear a voice like Mother’s All dead birds are female, there is something female about being dead
Mr Z seemed pleased at my interest & was not so impatient with me explaining he’d begun his collection as a young man just moved to California & for years he searched out & captured the birds himself on expeditions & eventually had to delegate to others for his life became too complicated & so forth, & so on he was talking rapidly & the blond girl listening avidly & smiling & wide-eyed The prize specimens of the AVIARY were rare & near-extinct birds it was explained Amazon parrots big as turkeys they seemed & gorgeously plumed green, red, yellow & their beaks curved like comical blunt noses made of bone & South American songbirds of fantastical colors & near-extinct North American goshawks & a great golden eagle & a bald eagle & smaller falcons, all of them noble & powerful birds I had never seen before except in pictures
My eye was drawn to the smaller birds in another display amid wildflowers & grasses a flame-feathered tanager cedar waxwings & silky flycatchers the tanager reminded me of one of Mr Z’s silent film stars she’d been so beautiful & her career long over & even her name near-lost I think Mother had driven us past her house in Beverly Hills KATHRYN MCGUIRE it was! & the shock of it made me smile & another bird, a small owl with heartshaped face & feathers that looked curled & folded wings like arms the face was that of MAY MCAVOY another silent screen star of Mr Z’s & in my confusion & fear I believed I saw the face of JEAN HARLOW in a mockingbird posed with widespread silver-gray wings as if in flight
Then like a magician Mr Z threw a hidden switch & suddenly there came birds songs into the silent cavernous room how many dozens, hundreds of birds singing & each song lovely & yearning & heart-rending & yet the effect of so many songs at once was that of mere noise & frantic pleading Look at me! Hear my song! Here I am! Here! My eyes flooded with tears of pity & horror Mr Z laughed at me yet was flattered, & liked me
Stroking the nape of my neck & my hairs stirred in fright he confided in me he’d learned taxidermy & found it the most restful of his hobbies someday he would show me maybe his laboratory not here on the lot but elsewhere in the desert Oh I’d like that Mr Z thank you this is so beautiful and so mysterious
Like a child tapping my red-painted nails on the glass amid the birds frenzied songs almost it seemed there was a stellar’s jay on an evergreen branch only a few inches from me seeing me & with that look of a fellow captive Help! help me I was relieved I did not see a single hummingbird in the AVIARY
How long we remained in the AVIARY amid the birds songs I cld not say afterward
How long I remained in Mr Z’s company I cld not say afterward
How long the blonde smiled, smiled, smiled her mouth aching as a happy-mask wld ache if it had flesh & nerves there’s a horror in happy-masks, no one will acknowledge (& my teeth aching from the retainer I must wear at night for my front teeth protruded a tenth of a tenth of an inch & must be corrected The Studio informed me for profile shots wld be “sabotaged” & my contract cld not be renewed I was sent to the studio dentist & fitted with an ugly wire retainer to wear & $8 deducted from my salary each week a bargain it was explained to me & I suppose it was for if I’d gone to a private dentist I cld not afford it & my career would end)
Mr Z laughed saying Enough of the Aviary, it bores you I see & I was surprised for I had not been bored, nor behaved that way & wondered if Mr Z must always play against the script a moviemaker would wish to take others by surprise for he alone is in possession of the script Which one of them are you Blondie but dont tell me your name what’s your specialty? Staring at me now with dislike as if a bad smell emanated from me! I was so hurt, & surprised wanting to protest I have showered just this morning of course I woke early & did my exe
rcises & ironed this suit & showered only afterward & applied Arrid to my underarms which are clean-shaven daily (though I know I have a tendency to grow moist when I am anxious) I have powdered myself with talcum powder smelling of lilac I have spent 40 minutes on my makeup & this sharkskin suit is not a tramp’s costume is it? How cld you say such a thing of me not knowing me My hands are soft from lotion & my nails manicured & glamorous yet not showy, I think It is not my fault about the peroxide I was ordered by The Studio to have my hair bleached “platinum blond” it was not my decision but I said nothing of course Mr Z regarded me bemused as you wld regard a trained dog or elephant or any freak removing his tinted glasses & revealing his eyes so naked, lashless He was of my height if I was not wearing these spike shoes Not fifty years old is he? which isn’t old for a man Cmon let’s drop the goo-goo routine you cant be as dumb as you look We’d left the AVIARY & were now in Mr Z’s private apartment behind his office he’d switched off the AVIARY lights & the birds songs abruptly ended as if all species were struck extinct
Mr Z pushed me toward a white fur rug saying Get down Blondie & only then it came to me Mr Z is my father—is he? The secret heartbreak of Gladys Mortensen’s life yet the only happiness of her life
In bed that night past midnight unable to sleep I wld grope for one of Mother’s old watersoaked books from years ago the TIME TRAVELER by H. G. Wells & the Time Traveler as he is solely called takes his seat with courage & apprehension on the Time Machine of his invention & presses a lever & plunges into the Future seeing suns & moons spin overhead I’d read it so many times, yet I’d move my finger along the printed lines in dread of what must come & my eyes misting over with tears