BOFF
TWELVE
Every month we sent money to Dilys with instructions to make sure Mam had everything she needed. She was still holding out against the upheaval of getting a bathroom, but she did agree to a gas fire and a new mattress.
I said, ‘Get her a telephone. We’ll pay.’
Dilys said, ‘She doesn’t want one.’
I wondered how we’d ever lived without one. Me and Minnie talked most days when the band was on the road.
Dilys said, ‘She doesn’t want one because everybody in Ninevah Street’d expect to use it. I’m not bringing it up again, Cled. I go over twice a week. I dry her sheets if the weather’s bad. I do look after her. But she’s so bloody cussed.’
I said, ‘I know. That’s why we want to do our bit.’
Dilys said, ‘Don’t worry. She’s all right. And you’ll have plenty of time for doing things. She’s going to live to be a hundred. Unless I strangle her first.’
I said, ‘There’s talk of us getting our own show.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Mam told me. She’s very proud, you know?’
I said, ‘I know. It’s all I hear: “My Selwyn, the star”.’
Dilys said, ‘No, I meant Mam’s very proud of you. She might not say it, but she is. We all are. And that’s another thing to consider, now you’re both doing so well. If Dad ever thought Mam’d got money he’d be back like a shot, I guarantee it. Sel’s already had a mention in the Evening News. All it needs is for Gypsy to read something. You don’t want him getting any ideas.’
I said, ‘I don’t think Dad ever read the papers, did he?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He certainly never read the Situations Vacant.’
‘We’re looking into buying property. You’ll all be able to come and visit.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, Cled,’ she said. ‘I can’t see that happening. I do miss you, though. Perhaps you’ll be able to get back soon, have a little holiday?’
I said, ‘We’re very busy. Things are really on the up for us. And it’s beautiful weather here. Every day feels like a holiday here.’
‘Does it?’ she said. ‘That’s nice.’
Houses were easy to find in Los Angeles. Clean new places with picture windows and lawns and fitted carpets throughout. They were building them as fast as they could pour concrete, all along the San Fernando Valley. And then there were the other places, for people who couldn’t afford a house: caravans, but not just for holidays, like at Weston or Burnham-on-Sea. People were living in these, permanent. They were hooked up to the electric light and running water, but they were still only vans, taken off their wheels and resting on cinder blocks. Trailer parks. They fascinated Sel. ‘Stop the car,’ he’d say. ‘I want to sit and look. ‘Look at all those telly aerials,’ he ’d say. Every van had one.
‘These people are my audience, Cled,’ he said. ‘Regular folks trying to get by. Nice ladies who’ll never get taken to a supper club in their lives. Never have a gent hold their hand or buy them a gardenia. And I’m there, inside their houses. They know if they switch on at a certain time I’ll be there, like family, only more reliable. That’s what makes television special. People feel as though they know you, because you’ve been in their front room.’
I said, ‘So?’
‘So,’ he said, ‘you have to keep that in mind. You have to speak their language, put them at their case, but you’ve got to look like a star. Friendliness combined with glamour. It’s a balancing act. Get that right, Cled, and we’ve got a licence to print money.’
That was the first ‘we’ I’d heard in a long time.
We bought a two-storey house on Mission Avenue, with a garden and a row of Monterey pines behind it that sheltered it from the wind. I’d have bought a place of my own, only Minnie wasn’t ready to settle down. ‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘I’m a modern girl.’
I said, ‘And I’m offering you a modern house. Fitted kitchen, car port, everything. Just say the word.’
‘Honey,’ she said, ‘we’ll have more fun if I just visit. Know what I mean?’
Sel turned out to be quite a homemaker. He went shopping with Kaye and picked out cushions and crystal ashtrays, and some lovely oil paintings: sunsets, horses galloping along a beach. Sometimes he’d buy a length of material and not bother getting it made up. He’d just throw it over the settee or drape it over a curtain rail. ‘I’m experimenting,’ he’d say.
We had a party to celebrate moving in: salted nuts, stuffed eggs, cheese and pineapple chunks on sticks. Sel spent all day rearranging the furniture, checking the glasses didn’t have smears, making sure everything was just so.
Kaye said, ‘That boy is going to make some girl very happy.’
Minnie said, ‘You reckon? I dunno. He never showed no interest in me.’
We were only at Mission Avenue a year, but it was a good year. We were hardly off the television screen and Sel started to become known for his costumes again. He’d design them himself and then have them made by a lady called Celeste Strong. ‘Not lamé,’ he said. ‘Lamé’s for girls. Rhinestones are what I want to get into. Gorgeous detailing that catches the light.’
Kaycee Productions had a better set-up by then. They had a camera that ran on tracks, so Sel could move around and flash his rhinestones. And the two of us were getting on very well. If Minnie was in town, Sel’d make himself scarce so we could have the house to ourselves. And if he was having a pal over for beer and backgammon I’d go to the pictures or visit the Conroys. They were all nice enough lads, like the Mexicon boy who did our garden, but they didn’t have a lot to say for themselves. They’d just smile. I think a lot of them were overwhelmed, getting invited into the home of television stars. I think some of them were hoping to get into show business themselves.
Kaye used to say, ‘He better be careful. One of these days he could bring home a murderer. Talk to him, Cled.’
But he switched off whenever I brought it up and I learned to do the same when he got on to the subject of my hair.
A man’s hair does get thinner as the years pass. I just changed the way I combed it and there was nothing wrong with the way I looked. But Sel had a real thing about it. ‘Cled,’ he’d say, ‘you’ve got to get a toupee. If you get one now people won’t notice. Leave it till you’ve gone bald and everybody’ll remark.’
I said, ‘I’m not getting one. Baldness is a sign of manliness. Look at Yul Brynner. Women go crazy for him.’
Sel said, ‘But we’ve got our image to consider.’
I said, ‘I didn’t know we had an image.’
‘Of course we do,’ he said. ‘It’s glamour. Glamour, glamour, glamour.’
I said, ‘Hang about. You always reckon it’s the “regular folks” we cater for. Well, “regular folks” don’t care if a bloke’s thinning on top.’
‘Remember what I told you,’ he said. ‘Show business means added value. Why bother switching on to see the same thing you can see over the breakfast table? They expect to see something special, Cled. Classy suit, diamond cuff links. Perfect hair.’
‘Perfect rug,’ I said. ‘I’m not doing it.’
And I never did.
We moved on from Mission Avenue for various reasons. The fans had started finding us for one thing, peering through the windows, leaving lipstick kisses on the glass. Also, Sel wanted his own swimming pool. And then I lost Minnie, just when I thought she was ready to get engaged. Well, she was. The band was playing in Atlantic City and she got enticed away by a fruit-canning magnate. He saw her in a show and liked the look of her so much he sent her a box of chocolates with a diamond ring hidden in one of the soft centres. A dangerous stunt, when you think of it. It could have turned out very tragic. Fortunately for Mr Canned Fruit, it didn’t. But for a while after that I didn’t really care where I lived so when Sel moved to Strawberry Ridge, Encino, I went with him.
He said, ‘You’ll be renting from Starlight Realty.’
I said, ‘Who’s Starlight Realty?’
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‘I am, you plum duff,’ he said.
It was to do with tax. That kind of thing interested Sel. I preferred a wage packet myself, but he always wanted a slice of the business. He had shares in Kaycee Productions. Shares in Kaycee Snack Foods. Years later I found out he’d bought the building where Celeste had her workrooms. He liked buying corner lots. And then, when they knocked all that area down to build a convention centre, of course he made a lot of money on it.
We started doing live performances between television series and we recorded three albums, Starlight Serenades, Softly Starlight and Starlight Just for You. And then there were the personal appearances. We’d get asked to cut the ribbon and open a new shop.
‘You his minder?’ they’d say sometimes, like that ignoramus at the petrol station we inaugurated in Irvine.
But the fans recognised me. They were always thrilled to meet the man who made the actual music. Some of the questions I used to get!
‘Why do you talk so weird?’
‘How much do they pay you for a show?’
‘Will he sign my panties?’
Sel didn’t encourage anything like that. Winking at them, putting his arm round them while he was chatting to them during a show, that was one thing, but when he met them anywhere else he could be quite old-fashioned. And he definitely wouldn’t handle anybody’s undies.
So then I’d get, ‘Will you sign them?’
There were some things you’d get asked every time.
What was his favourite colour? Anything that sparkled.
What did he like for breakfast? French toast with maple syrup, although by the time he got up it was hardly breakfast.
Had he got a girlfriend? He had a routine for that one.
‘Yes,’ he’d say, ‘I’ll show you her picture.’ And then he’d open the locket he had on a chain round his neck, with a picture of Crackers. ‘Isn’t she adorable?’ he’d say.
Crackers was his first little dog. She was a West Highland terrier. He carried her around in his dressing-gown pocket when he first had her, and she’d sleep on his bed. He was never without a dog after that.
Strawberry Ridge was a better location from the point of view of privacy. The road wound up a hillside and you had to know it was there to find it. We didn’t have a number either, nor even a name board, so if fans did come looking they couldn’t be sure of picking the right house. We had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and Sel kept on to Dilys about visiting. But Arthur never cared for travel.
Sel said, ‘Let the girls come, if you won’t. Uncle Sel’s treat. They can come to the studio, see how we make a show.’
‘They’ve got to settle down to work, Sel,’ she said. ‘I know you mean well, but you mustn’t start turning their heads, giving them luxury holidays. Arthur’d have a fit.’
And Mam wouldn’t come either.
You keep your money in your pocket [she wrote]. Teilo wanted to take me on a charabanc to Brighton, sixty-five shillings all in, but I’m not a person who needs holidays. Anyway, I’ve got a promising boy going for his Grade Four so it’s out of the question.
Now, Selwyn, be careful with these houses. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Give Cledwyn so much every week, to put by for you, then you’ll have something for a rainy day.
He laughed. He said, ‘I suppose it’s too much for her to grasp. Well, she’ll see. Film Star Row, here I come!’ He’d got his eye on some land between Santa Monica and Malibu. ‘No more second-hand houses,’ he said. ‘From now on I’m going to design everything. I’m going to build a place with its back nestling against the wall of the canyon and its front facing the ocean, all glass, with a veranda the length of it and a heated sea water pool. I’m going to have bathtubs in the shape of cockleshells.’
He bought the land. But then, before he’d done anything with it, we had a few of those rainy days Mam had worried about.
THIRTEEN
Television was changing. Instead of little companies like Kaycee, the big networks were taking over in Los Angeles. Sel said, ‘It can only be a good thing. Think of the audiences! Soon the whole country’ll be watching me.’
But the networks weren’t interested in Mr Starlight Sings.
Kaye said, ‘I don’t understand it. They’ve taken Variety Half Hour.’
Hubert said, ‘Never mind. You’ve given the boys their start. Now call it a day. Spend some time with your ever-loving husband.’
But Kaye wasn’t ready to give up. She said, ‘Maybe it’s your costumes, Sel.’
Every show we recorded he wore a different jacket and every jacket Celeste made for him had more sparkle than the one before. So we made a new sampler with Sel back in a normal tuxedo, but they still wouldn’t buy.
‘Too unusual,’ Kaye said, ‘that’s what I’m told. Too hokey. Too unusual. These New York executives don’t seem to have the first idea what regular folks like to watch.’
Hubert said, ‘Darling, in business you gotta know when to walk away. TV’s getting bigger than you’ll ever be and you know what? Regular folks’ll settle for whatever they’re given. They’ll just tune in to something new and forget they ever watched Mr Starlight Sings.’
I said, ‘We can always go back to the supper clubs.’
Sel said, ‘Not me. I’m bigger than that now. And if NBC don’t want me that’s their hard cheese. I shall have the last laugh. There’ll come a day when they’ll be begging for me.’
I said, ‘And in the meanwhile? You’ve got bugger all in the bank.’
‘Maybe so,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got assets. And so I’m sticking with Kaycee. I’ll stay local, stay where I’m appreciated. There’s a way through this; I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.’
And it was Bob Barney, the producer at Kaycee, who worked out what the answer was. Back in those days the networks didn’t have enough shows of their own to keep going all hours. It was the little local stations, hundreds of them, that filled in the gaps. Barney said, ‘They need shows and we’ve got them. We can sell them the tapes and they can find the sponsors in their own backyard. Think of all those towns, all with businesses like Bartine’s.’
That was how Kaycee Syndication went into business, sending out samplers of Mr Starlight Sings to stations across the country. And back they came, every one of them a refusal. Waterloo Local said a man in bejewelled apparel was too risky for Iowa; Dodge TV said Sel smiled too much and LRTV said even in a normal suit he wasn’t to their taste. They said his hair was too long and girlified for Arkansas.
Kaye said, ‘What’s wrong with these folks?’
Barney said, ‘Well, he is different. And they’re all buying The Kooky Levine Show like there’s no tomorrow. Maybe Mr Starlight is just a California kinda thing.’
Kaye said, ‘Maybe, but I’m not convinced. I’m going to give this my best shot. I’m going out there. I’m gonna find out what they’ve got against smiling and nice wavy hair.’
Hubert said, ‘Don’t do it, darling. It’s a fool’s errand.’
Kaye said, ‘Conroy, you said this boy had something and you were right. You started all this.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t expect him to break up my happy home. If this is worth abandoning a good husband for I’ll eat my hat.’
Kaye said, ‘I’m not abandoning you. If I was gonna do that I’d have done it years ago, while I still had my figure. I just want Sel to get the audience he deserves, plus I’m sowing a little seed corn for you, sweetness. And you won’t starve. You’ve got Willa.’
‘What about kisses?’ he said. ‘I ain’t kissing the help.’
Willa said, ‘And the help ain’t kissing you.’
Kaye was gone a month, accompanied by a salesman, and they came home with ten contracts. Ten sounded all right to me.
Hubert said, ‘Ten? Ten! You left me at the mercy of Willa Lightfoot four whole weeks for ten sales? Well, enough is enough. Know a mistake when you see one, darling.’
‘I do,’ Kaye said.
‘But it’s not me that’s making a mistake. It’s these dumb advertisers. This boy is bankable and I’m going to prove it.’
The next month Kaycee sold us to twelve more stations, and then another seven, including LRTV who had reconsidered about hair worn over the collar.
‘See!’ Kaye said. ‘It’s taking off.’
Hubert said, ‘Twenty-nine deals in three months! I’ll be six foot under. I’ll be in Forest Lawn before you’ve even covered your costs.’
Willa said he was behind her in line for an early grave the way things had changed in the Conroy household. The lady of the house absent and those left behind doing nothing but get underfoot.
Then Cornhusker, one of the first stations to take Mr Starlight Sings, came back for more and so did FWTV.
‘By popular demand,’ Kaye said. ‘Is that an apology I hear, Hubert Conroy?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I’m too weak from neglect.’
But after that things really began to roll. By the time we’d recorded the next run of thirteen shows, we had nearly a hundred syndication deals. Kaye had Willa put Hubert’s golf cap on a serving dish at dinner time.
‘OK!’ he said. ‘You launched him. Now stay home. Please!’
Sel insisted on making changes for the second series that was being syndicated. He said, ‘I’m changing the set. I go into the viewers’ living rooms so I want them to feel like they’re coming into mine. I want a sofa, and a little occasional table, and framed photos on top of the piano: Mam, Gaynor and Betsan.’
The trouble was we didn’t have a photo of Mam.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘We can get one from a picture library. Any nice head and shoulders’ll do. They’re not going to see it close up.’
I said, ‘Mom might not like it.’
‘She doesn’t have to know,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s only to give the idea of a family get-together. Fake living room, fake photo, what’s the odds? Everything’s fake on television.’
So we got the new set, as per his instructions. It wasn’t till years later somebody wrote a piece reminiscing about the early days and remarked that the living room wall used to wobble if Sel went too close to it, and how everybody wondered why he had a photo of Gladys Cooper on top of the piano but nobody liked to ask. Crackers was in the second series too. He trained her to sit on the sofa nice and quiet and look into the camera when he told her to and cock her head to one side. By the time we did our third series Crackers was getting nearly as many letters as we were.
Mr Starlight Page 10
