by Vanda
During the day, to look serious to the men at business meetings, I wore suit jackets and school marm blouses like Dorothy Arzner, the picture director. Only I didn’t wear a tie like she did. Max would’ve bounced me out of our place for sure if I ever wore a tie.
As part of my job, I met with agents and personal managers of nightclub talent that included singers, dancers, comics, and jugglers. Max regularly introduced me to Senators, Congressmen, Broadway and Hollywood stars—Lucille Ball came in with a male friend one night. I loved her in that radio program, “My Favorite Husband,” so I got her autograph even though Max told me never to do that. I met jazz celebrities and gangsters. Moose Mantelli was there most nights with his crowd and a different lavishly-dressed lady. Next to him was always his cousin, Jimmy. The legless Vet told me that in certain circles, Jimmy was known as Jimmy “the Crusher” Mantelli.
One night, during the dinner hour, our doorman came looking for Max. He always stayed outside under the awning in his black jacket with the gold epaulets, greeting our guests, so it was strange seeing him inside. “What is it, Georgio? Max is having drinks with Mayor O’Dwyer.”
“Coppers. Outta side. They wanna him.” Georgio had an Italian accent, and a headful of gray ringlets. “Missa Al, I needa this job. The coppers say he needa bringa his papers.”
“He’ll be right there.” My heart beat in my throat as I practically ran to the bar. “Max!” I pushed myself between him and Mayor O’Dwyer.
“Al, what are you doing?” Max admonished. “I’m having a conversation. With the mayor.”
“I’m sorry.” I bowed to the mayor. “Max, it’s important.”
“You go ahead, Max,” the mayor said. “You don’t want to upset this sweet young thing.” He patted my rear. “I’ve gotta go after this shot anyway.”
Max slid from his stool. “Al, what’s so important you’d interrupt me with Mayor O’Dwyer? We need him.”
“The police!” I whispered. “They wanna see your papers. Outside in the squad car.”
“It’s nothing. You gotta be calm about these things. They only want to see our cabaret and liquor licenses.”
“But your name isn’t on those. They’re gonna close us down.”
I hurried beside Max as he sprinted to his office. “Where are you going? The cops are in the other direction.”
Max lifted a wood panel from the wall near the molding and reached into a safe in there. He counted out a fistful of large bills. “No. They’re not,” he said, placing the bills in an envelope.
“What?”
“You asked if they’re going to close us down. They’re not.” He locked the safe and stood. “I suppose it’s time for you to know about this, but I don’t ever want you to have anything to do with it. You have clean hands. Keep them that way. We need to make regular payments to the cops so that no one asks to look at those licenses up close.”
He hurried from the office and pushed through our heavy double doors. Calm. He told me to be calm. Oh gosh, I’m gonna die.
A few minutes later, Max came back with …
Walter Winchell! Was I really seeing him? I’d only seen him in magazine pictures. His mostly-bald head had strings of hair crisscrossing his scalp. I didn’t know he was bald. In the magazine pictures, he always had his hat on. There he is! The real Walter Winchell! Walking toward me!
“Walter, I’d like you to meet my assistant, Alice Huffman,” Max said as the two men approached. “Alice, this is Walter Winchell.”
“Uh, uh, yes, I—I …”
“Nice meeting you,” he said. “Assistant? But she’s a girl.”
“Yes, yes, I—I …” I blathered.
“She’s not usually so tongue tied,” Max said. “You’ve got her starstruck, Walter. Let me show you to our table. Will June be joining us?”
“No, the old ball and chain set me loose tonight.”
I stared as the two men ambled down to the front tables. I couldn’t believe I was in the same room with … and I sounded like a jerk. Dang! What was the matter with me?
He was a hero in my neighborhood. My father adored him. When Winchell came on the radio, you didn’t talk on the phone, or eat dinner, or go to a movie. You listened. He was a champion of the poor.
I sauntered down to the front to watch Max having a drink with him. I wished I was a waiter, so I could wait on him. I stood near the mobsters’ table at ringside, trying to catch Mr. Winchell’s words. I knew they’d be brilliant. I couldn’t hear a thing. Moose’s voice bellowed through the dining room. “I heard he’s musical.”
Frank Costello laughed, “No kiddin’? Dat guy’s a for-real faggot? I can’t stand dem guys. Shoulda shot their gawddamn balls off.”
“I’d do dat for ya myself, Mr. Costello,” Moose said, “Wit’ pleasure. If one dem comes anywheres near youse guys—Pow!”
Frank said, “I hate dem dames day go wit, too. Ya know da ones dat wear dem ‘comfor’able shoes.’”
They laughed. The woman choking Moose’s arm giggled. “I t’ought you liked dem bull dykes, sweetie.”
“Only if dere da softer variety,” Moose said, “and dere’s two of dem, and they invite me to jern in.”
They laughed again, but Mr. Miniaci stopped them. “Gentlemen! Dere’s ladies present. I am glad my Rose ain’t here tonight listenin’ to dis fowlness.”
“Sorry, Mr. Miniaci, I swear to Gawd on my mudder’s grave,” Moose said, bowing. “I woulda never bring no fowlness to your dearest Rose, the soil of dis eart’. Forgiveness ladies.”
“Ah, fuhget it,” his date said. “Day got any beer here?”
I stopped trying to listen to Walter Winchell. Now, I was worried they were talking about Max.
Even though I traveled in these circles, I knew I wasn’t a part of it all. I ached for Juliana, and tried to follow her career. She appeared in small clubs around the country and did gigs in Indiana, North Dakota, and once in Okefenokie, Georgia. Max got a big laugh out of Okefenokie. He couldn’t believe her dope of a husband would book her there. He grumbled as he read one of her New York reviews in the Daily Compass. “Juliana is a delight with the funny, cute songs, but she never seems able to shake up a ballad …”
“What does this guy know?” Max said, slapping the newspaper. “He used to bus tables for me in the thirties. Now, he thinks he’s a critic?”
“He’s right,” I mumbled to myself.
For a while I continued to go to Juliana’s rehearsals, but it got too painful watching her husband direct her wrong. It was like watching a car crash over and over into a brick wall with my beautiful Juliana inside being mangled in the wreckage. Finally, I stopped going. I didn’t go to her local engagements, either. I wondered if she noticed I wasn’t there anymore. Maybe she replaced me with some cuter eighteen-year-old from the country like I’d once been. It wouldn’t be long before I surprised her with my plan to make her a star. I was learning as fast as I could. I hoped by the time I was ready she’d still want me.
I got invited to exclusive parties, but, to Max’s dismay, I rarely went. No matter how much I charmed these people, I knew I would never truly be one of them. My favorite thing about being the assistant manager at the Mt. Olympus was leaving work at two in the morning, four on Fridays and Saturdays when the city still burst with life and color. I liked returning home to my Greenwich Village apartment when the light was just starting to break through the night sky, and no one walked on the streets but me.
Chapter 10
March 1948
AS PART OF my training, Max took me around to meet the top club owners on Swing Street, or as they called it, “The Street.” The Street was where Max wanted to be. Fifty-Second between 5th and 6th Avenues, or thereabouts. Most, but not all, were jazz clubs. There was Jules Podell at the Copa Cabana, Sherman Billingsly at the Stork Club, Jimmy Ryan at Jimmy Ryans’, and Joe Helbock at The Onyx. They all had been palsy-walsy with Max back in the “old days” and were glad he was coming back. They didn’t have much to say
to me. A girl club owner? Really? Max kept telling me someday I’d show them. Yeah, I would! When I made Juliana a star.
There was a light snow falling the night Max and I dressed up and took a cab to Café Society, Uptown. When Max couldn’t convince the Rogers-Hammerstein Office to take a look at Tommie, my friend from the Stage Door Canteen, for the chorus of Annie Get Your Gun, he knew he had to do something. Max’s reputation from the late thirties was getting in his way.
Tommie was hurting for dough, so Max got him a job waiting tables with his friend, Barney Josephson, owner of Café Society, Uptown and Downtown. Tommie wasn’t too happy about that, but he needed the cash, so he took the job. But Max put Tommie there for a reason. He knew Barney gave newcomers a chance. He’d given Billie Holiday her start at the downtown club, on Sheridan Square in the late thirties. Juliana had appeared downtown before the war. Max told me Barney was a good person for me to know. That snowy night, when Max and I stood under The Café Society, Uptown awning waiting in line to enter, we knew this was it—Tommie’s big chance. He wasn’t going to be waiting tables that night.
Inside, white and Negro couples bebopped around the tables. It was a little before the ten o’clock show, and the place was packed. We had to wait in line to get to the hatcheck girl. Standing there, watching the dancing couples, I thought how strange it was to see colored customers sitting and dancing right alongside white customers. Café Society, Up and Downtown, were about the only nightclubs to let colored customers in; but Negroes were allowed to entertain in all the clubs.
The ceiling was cathedral-high with balconies and elaborately painted murals around the perimeter. The colors were a swirling thrill of aliveness.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? Not like Barney’s downtown place. That place is much more casual.”
“Juliana appeared there.”
“I know. When Barney bought this place, he hadn’t dug the other place out of hock yet, but he was a big risk-taker. The risk paid off. Both places are going great guns.”
“Like us. In a few years. Maybe we should let Negro customers into our club too.”
“You don’t think we’re taking on enough risk with my little ‘army discharge’ secret? We need another thing for them to get us on?”
“Oh.”
As we neared the hatcheck girl’s booth, Max helped me out of my stole and took off his own hat and overcoat, handing them to the girl. As soon as we moved away from hatcheck, Barney Josephson came dashing up to us. “Max!” He shook Max’s hand vigorously. “It’s good to have you back with us.”
Barney Josephson was a slender man with gray hair receding from his forehead. He wore, what was obviously an expensive three-piece suit—not a tuxedo like Max—and brown and white, two-toned shoes.
“You’re here for your boy,” Barney continued. “The rehearsal with the band this afternoon was flawless, and he told me he’s been cast in Garson Kanin’s new one, Born Yesterday.”
“That’s right,” Max said. “Gar and I go way back. He’s opening the day after tomorrow. I want you to meet my assistant manager, Miss Alice Huffman.”
“Assistant? That’s a fancy title for a secretary.”
“She’s not a secretary; she’s a manager. She’s also part owner of the Mt. Olympus.”
“The war sure brought on lots of changes.” He stuck out his hand to me. “You think you’re up for the job, Miss Huffman?”
“I have to be. I have a lot to lose.”
“Good. Having something to lose will keep you sharp. I didn’t have two dimes to rub together when I started this place, and now look.”
“I hope I’m as lucky, Mr. Josephson.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it. Oh, what am I saying? Of course it did. Without luck, Miss Huffman, you’ll never get here, to The Street. And without luck, you’ll never stay here.”
“Barney knows what he’s talking about,” Max said. “We better go to our table, Barn. Nice seeing—”
“Mr. Josephson,” I said, resisting Max’s attempt to pull me away. “Do you remember Juliana? She sang in Café Society, Downtown before the war.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well …?” I waited, expecting him to say more; he didn’t.
“Let’s go, Al.” Max pulled on my sleeve. As we weaved in and out of the dancers circulating around the tables, he asked. “You’re still thinking about Juliana? Forget her.”
He might as well have asked me to forget breathing.
“That’s so strange,” I said to Max, as we sat at a table. Edmund Hall and his sextet were playing the pre-show music.
“What’s strange?” Max asked, fitting a cigarette into his holder. “Oh, look, Tommie’s first on the bill.” He pushed the program toward me and lit his cigarette. “He’s going by his real name—Tom Clanton. My boy is growing up.”
“Juliana sang in Barney Josephson’s downtown cafe back in ’41, but he didn’t have much to say about her.”
“What’s strange about that? That was six years ago. Barney sees hundreds of singers. He probably barely remembers her.”
“No. I’ve talked to people. If he hired her he had to like her, and talent he likes, he keeps on, sometimes months, even years, like Edmund Hammond on stage now. He’s not like the other owners who keep a singer for a few days and then throw them out like yesterday’s fish. Plus, Juliana’s gorgeous, and Barney is known for … you know.”
A spotlight rose to follow Tommie onto the stage. Please God, don’t let Tommie forget the words. He wore black tails and a stiff-collared tuxedo shirt with a black tie. He sang into the microphone, “Fly Me to the Moon.” I knew Max had been working with him, but I couldn’t believe how polished he looked on stage. I always saw him as the kid who helped me at the Stage Door Canteen, the kid who flapped his hands around, never trying to hide his limp wrists. Now he was masculine, no limp wrists. The piano player and drummer picked up the pace, and Tommie moved to the faster rhythm. He stepped off the stage, and the girls at the front tables sitting with their dates sighed. He winked at them as he exited.
The audience went nuts with clapping, including me. Max looked so proud. Bobbysoxers sitting in the balcony flopped over the bannister, screaming; their dates didn’t look pleased. If only they knew.
Tommie came back for an encore, singing and snapping his fingers to “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby.” Practically the whole audience was on its feet dancing.
“Well, Miss Huffman,” Max said, “will you do me the honor?”
“You mean you and me?”
“Unless you have someone else you want me to dance with.” He took my hand and led me to an open space. Dancing with Max made me feel like I was a good dancer too.
After Tommie left the stage, Café Society regular, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a colored gospel singer, came out singing her special combination of gospel and blues while she played the guitar.
As the house lights came up, Tommie gracefully snaked around the tables, flapping his hands in his usual way. “Well?” he asked, as he slid into a chair at our table, gracefully placing one leg over the other. He’d changed into a tan jacket and tie.
“You were terrific,” I said.
He grinned, looking like the sweet Tommie I’d always known. “So, Max?” This was the person whose opinion counted most.
“You were good, kid.”
“Yeah?” he squealed. “Tell me again.”
Max ruffled his hair. “You were good, Tom Clanton. Darn good.”
Tommie grabbed Max’s hand and kissed his thumb.
“Need a lift home?”
“I made a friend here. He’s walking me home in the moonlight.” He nodded toward the corner of the room. A thin young man in glasses and a blue suit with wide lapels leaned against the wall.
While we waited in line at hatcheck, I saw Barney near the exit surrounded by patrons telling him they’d loved the show; one of them was the brilliant actress Eve Le Galliene, who I saw in Hedda Gabler on Broadway in February. Ma
x had told me once she was “that way.”
“Al,” Max said, “go and say hello to Miss LeGalliene.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Introduce yourself. Invite her to the club. That’s how you get successful in this business. Hobnobbing with celebrities.”
I took a few tentative steps toward her. She was such a famous actress. What would I say to her? “Miss, Miss …” I whispered to the floor and ran back to Max. “That’s not something I do.”
“You’re going to have to—”
“Al! Al!” Angela Lansbury came running toward me. “Al, how simply brilliant to see you after all these years,” she said in her English accent. I ran to her and we embraced. Flash from cameras danced around us.
“How have you been?” I asked. “What am I saying? You’ve been terrific. Two Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe. I loved you in The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
“Yes, but I simply must thank you for the kindness you showed me when I was new to the States and first came to the Stage Door Canteen. I didn’t know a soul. A babe in a foreign land, and you welcomed me.”
“I didn’t do much.”
“Oh, but you did. I must be on my way, but let’s meet for lunch.”
Max cleared his throat from behind me.
“Oh! Angela, this is Max Harlington, owner of the Mt. Olympus.”
“Hello, Mr. Harlington. I’ve heard many nice things about your club.” She shook his hand. “Al, didn’t I hear something about you being the manager over there?”
“Assistant.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be chief in no time. Won’t she, Mr. Harlington?”
“Yes, of course. And I hope while you’re in town you’ll be my guest at the Mt. Olympus.”
