by Ron Goulart
“Oh, you’re the writer, aren’t you? What I mean is, you turn out the scripts for Groucho Marx, Private Eye.”
I nodded, somewhat surprised. “Most people don’t recognize my—”
“My name is Victoria St. John. Well, actually it’s not exactly that because Victoria St. John is my stage and screen name, even though I haven’t as yet appeared on either but it’s a lot more interesting sounding, at least I think so, than my real name of Victoria Winiarsky,” she said. “I intend, which is the point I’m leading up to, and I mention that because I can see that look in your eye that people get when they think I’m just rambling on in some kind of stream of conscience Joycean way and don’t realize I’m heading for a logical conclusion, even though I have this tendency to digress, which I’m certain you’ve noticed, the point is that I want to succeed in show business, but not in the usual obvious way, even though I’m a fairly attractive girl and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be honest about that, by having to let all the oafs who are in influential positions in the movie industry paw me just so I can get a two-day bit part in some B-movie about a bunch of halfwits in tuxedos shooting at each other and turning nice girls into saloon hostesses and that’s why I pay attention to what’s going on.”
I looked at her thoughtfully. “Was the reason you recognize me in that monologue someplace?”
Groucho was now sharing the ladder with the red-haired young woman, helping her to tack up the birthday greeting poster.
Victoria said, “It’s my goal to succeed in the acting field and as soon as I got this job, which I’ve been at nearly three weeks now, I decided I had to find out as much about what was going on as I could if I didn’t want to spend my life being a Mullens Maiden and standing around in a skimpy costume like this and freezing my extremities and so I wangled myself tickets for Groucho Marx, Private Eye and I saw the broadcast week before last and I made sure I memorized the names of all the actors and the announcer and the director and the writer. When you stood up and took a bow, after Harry Whitechurch introduced you before it went on the air, I made a mental note to remember your name along with all the rest.”
“You’re aiming for the movies, huh?”
“For now, but eventually I don’t see any reason why I can’t eventually go on the stage, too.”
I took another glance at Groucho. He was still up on the ladder with the redhead. “Could you talk like this if you were reading from a radio script?” I asked the blond girl.
“Talk like what, Mr. Denby?”
“In this bubbly voice and with all the circumlocutions, Victoria.”
“I don’t think, and please, don’t get the idea that I’m bragging or have a swell head, but I pretty much always talk like this, even though a lot of my friends, and especially my relatives, often suggest I pipe down, and so I really don’t see why it would be a problem to act in the same style if that’s what you’re curious about.”
“Okay, tell me where I can get in touch with you. I think maybe—”
“Oh, gosh, is this just going to be one of those situations where you pretend you can get me into the movies if only I’m cooperative and where cooperative means taking off my clothes and things like that, because it struck me, even when I just saw you from the fifth row, which wasn’t a bad seat when you consider that I got my ticket a the last minute almost, that you were a decent-seeming fellow?”
“I absolutely can’t get you in the movies,” I assured Victoria. “And I’m already spoken for and that’s a situation that looks to last for the next few decades. But the actress who’s been playing Groucho’s secretary on the show is quitting to go do a soap opera in Chicago and I’m thinking that if we’re going to get a new actress, we might also try a new secretary. One who talks somewhat like you do, Victoria.” I took out one of my business cards. “If you’ll feel safer about this, you phone me. In a couple days, okay?”
She smiled, accepted the card and tucked it away between her breasts.
“Now this is the sort of thing I like to see with all my many employees. The lowest, the highest and all those in between. They’re friendly with each other, they share the joys and sorrows of working for Mullens Pudding,” said a deep chesty voice behind me. “All of us are, after all, on the same darn team, aren’t we? From a humble Mullens Maiden to a high-paid scriptwriter. Good evening, Frank, and how are you?”
I turned to see big wide Colonel Mullens, abundant white hair flickering in the night wind, smiling paternally at me. I didn’t contradict the high-paid remark, instead smiling falsely and saying, “Happy birthday, Colonel.”
He shook my hand, eyes on Victoria. “And you, my dear, are who?”
“Victoria St. John, Colonel Mullens. We met at the grand opening of that new grocery market in Altadena week before last.”
“Yes, we did, Victoria.”
The Colonel’s son, a large blond young man in his late twenties, and two very well dressed men who were no doubt from the Manhattan ad agency were flanking the pudding tycoon.
The Colonel asked me, “You know my youngest son, Collin, don’t you, Frank?”
“Hi, Collin.” We shook hands.
“These two fellows are Buzz Hodges, the Mullens account executive, and Jack Rolphs, the associate account exec. Just in from New York for my birthday.”
I shook hands with the pair of them.
Collin nodded in my direction, saying, “This is as good a time as any to tell him, Dad.”
“Not on my birthday, son.”
“What? Tell me what?” I looked from father to son and back to father.
Hodges, who was taller than his colleague and had very short-cropped graying hair, said, “You might as well be made aware that the ratings on Groucho Marx, Private Eye have been slipping seriously, Frank.”
“When we introduce the new flavor in June,” added Rolphs, “we need your little show to have a much larger audience than it commands now.”
“New flavor?”
Groucho, I noticed, was climbing down the ladder.
“There’s a new flavor coming in June, just in time for all the newlywed brides to try,” explained Colonel Mullens. “Raspberry.”
“But if you have six flavors, it’ll spoil the alliteration,” I told them.
Rolphs said, “You’ll be getting a copy of my memos pertaining to ways to improve the show in the mail within the next day or so, Frank.”
“Improve it?” I realized that I seemed to be doing nothing much but asking short questions.
Collin Mullens shifted his feet, made an impatient noise. “I guess I’m going to have to tell him,” he said.
Putting his hand on his son’s arm, the Colonel said, smiling broadly, “My youngest boy here is something of a writer himself, Frank. While he was at USC Collin always got excellent grades in English composition and he also wrote the skits for the Phi Sig Homecoming Dance three years running.”
“Wait now,” I said. “You’re trying to tell me that Collin is going to take over the scripting?”
“Hey, it isn’t that at all,” Collin assured me. “What I’m going to be is a consultant. You go on writing your scripts same as always. Well, not exactly the same, since you’ll have to change things to accommodate the swell suggestions Jack and Buzz will be sending you. Anyway, all I’m going to do is polish your stuff, Frank.”
“Polish it? A guy who’s sole writing credit is for fraternity skits?”
“Might I join this powwow?” Groucho came slouching up.
“Groucho, how wonderful.” Colonel Mullens brightened, chuckling and holding out his hand. “It’s great seeing you again. You know my youngest son, Collin, and these two handsome fellows are from the New York advertising agency that does such a great job handling our—”
“Ah, you are exactly the people I want most to see.” He ignored the Colonel’s proffered hand. “Which one of you is Batten and which one is Down-the-Hatches?”
“My name,” said Rolphs evenly, “is Jack Rolphs and my associ
ate is Buzz Hodges.”
Groucho’s cigar had gone out and he paused now to light it. “I couldn’t help overhearing some of your spirited conversation with my associate,” he said, puffing on the cigar. “And it inspired me to come up with what I think is a brilliant new title for the radio show.” The smoke he exhaled went swirling away on the wind. “Let’s call it Collin Mullens, Private Eye.”
The Colonel frowned. “I’m afraid, Groucho, the point you’re trying to make doesn’t—”
“Do you have to use spectacles for reading? I know I have to.”
“My eyesight is fine. But what—”
“I suggest you read again the contract you signed with me, Colonel,” said Groucho. “Therein, as those of us well versed in legal jargon are wont to say, you’ll read a clause that I had my own team of overpriced shysters insert. It reads, and this, mind you, is a rough paraphrase, it reads—’Groucho Marx, hereinafter to be known as the Party of The Second Part and sometimes, especially when there’s a full moon, as the Singing Sheriff of Old Cheyenne, has complete and total script approval and control over who shall and who shall not write the damn things.’” He blew out smoke. “In layman’s terms—which were, as you all know, first used by Abe Layman in 1913—I am the one who says who writes my show. Not you, dear Colonel, or your son or city slickers from the East. If you’d like me to exit the show right here and now, then go ahead with your plans to have someone other than Frank work on the scripts.”
For about five seconds at least there followed what you might call a stunned silence.
Then the Colonel cleared his throat. “As a performer, Groucho, you have a reputation for being outspoken,” he said slowly, anger in his voice. “Let me remind you, however, that I won’t be addressed in this manner by any of my employees or told—”
“Do you want me out of the show?” asked Groucho. “If so, I’ll pick up my guitar and head for home to phone my attorneys. On the other hand, should you come to your senses, we’ll continue with the festivities as planned.”
Up above to the right the giant roller-coaster had just been lit up. I can’t ride those things without having a vertigo attack, but I felt now as though I’d been rattling along in one for the past ten minutes or so.
Rolphs had been whispering in Hodges’s ear. He said finally, “We’re willing to give you four more weeks to bring up the ratings, Groucho. Provided you and Frank make an honest effort to take our suggestions for improvement of Groucho Marx, Private Eye into consideration. After that, and depending on the ratings, we’ll reevaluate the situation.”
The Colonel said, “I don’t know.”
“I can wait four weeks, Dad,” said his son, not looking directly at me.
“Very well,” said Colonel Mullens. “I’ll go along with you on this, Groucho. After all, there are several hundred people who came here tonight to see you.”
Saying nothing, Groucho started off for the entertainment tent.
The Colonel, his son, and the advertising men grunted and nodded at me and left.
I stood there, watching the bright-lit roller-coaster cars go through a swooping test run.
“Do you still want me to call you?” Victoria had been standing nearby throughout the impromptu outdoor conference.
“That depends,” I told her, “on how you feel about traveling on sinking ships.”
She smiled. “Sounds like fun to me,” she said.
Twenty-four
Polly Pilgrim asked me, “How many more encores is he likely to take?”
“When Groucho reaches the Gilbert and Sullivan phase,” I told her, “there’s really no way of telling.”
Out on the tent stage Groucho had followed his encore medley of selections from The Mikado with a medley of selections from The Pirates of Penzance. That had all come after the selection of tunes from the Marx Brothers’ movies.
He was the movie-Groucho now. He’d painted on his moustache and enhanced his eyebrows, slipped into the rumpled frock coat and the baggy pants he’d brought in his bundle.
From where Polly and I were sitting on stools backstage, we could see the first few rows of the audience. I noticed Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Patsy Kelly, Ann Harding, Van Heflin, Grady Sutton, Ginger Rogers, Leon Ames, Lyle Talbot, Roger Pilgrim, Arthur Sheekman, and Gloria Stuart out there. With the exception of Polly’s father, who kept looking at his pocket watch and, probably, wondering when his daughter was ever going to get on stage, every one seemed to be enthralled by Groucho.
Jack Rolphs was sitting on the aisle in the third row of folding chairs and he was laughing and applauding in the right places. Behaving like a man who wasn’t going to cancel our radio show and put me out of work.
“… are there?” Polly had apparently asked me a question.
“Hum?”
“How many operettas did Gilbert and Sullivan write anyway?”
“Far too many.”
Looking on the bright side, we did have four weeks to fiddle with the show. Trouble was, I thought the scripts were fine just the way I was doing them now. So did Groucho, who went over the first drafts with me every week and made suggestions and a few rude remarks.
Polly, who was dressed up in one of her frilly party dresses, stood up. “Does he really intend to wear that funny hat when we sing our duet at the end of my act?”
“It isn’t exactly a funny hat,” I said in my best avuncular manner. “When Nelson Eddy donned that hat in Rose Marie, he was deadly serious.”
“Have you ever known Groucho to be serious about anything?”
“Well, outside of Gilbert and Sullivan and pastrami sandwiches, no.”
“My father wants me to come across sweet and dignified tonight.”
“Don’t worry, you’re both, Polly.”
“The Zansky Brothers are supposed to be out there in the audience,” she told me, sounding nervous. “They run Paragon Pictures, you know.”
“I know,” I answered. “So you’re really going to sign with Paragon?”
“We’re on the brink of signing,” Polly said, smiling. “According to my father, everybody at Paragon likes my voice as much as Colonel Mullens does.”
“Then you’re going to get a nice deal out of the Zanskys I imagine.”
She leaned closer to me. “I’ll be pulling down almost as much as Deanna Durbin,” she confided.
“That’s terrific.”
“I may not be quite as pretty as Deanna, but when it comes to my singing—well, I’m just about her equal.”
A real uncle would have caught the hint and assured the pudgy girl that she was every bit as cute as Deanna Durbin. I considered it, but decided that while I wasn’t above lying to sponsors and actors, I wasn’t ready to start lying to kids.
Instead I said, “Your mother must be pleased, too.”
“She is, very much.” Polly lowered her voice. “I’m going to work out some way to share with her all this money I’m going to be making. My father says he’s all for that.”
“How’s Frances feeling? Can we talk to her, do you think, tomorrow sometime?”
Polly gave a negative shake of her head. “She’s better, but Dr. Steinberg says she really has to take it easy for at least a couple more days.”
Out on the stage Groucho had stopped singing and strumming his guitar. The audience applauded enthusiastically, some of them even shouted approval.
“Oh, please, dear God,” murmured Polly, “no more encores.”
After holding up a hand for silence, Groucho stepped closer to the microphone. “I’m deeply touched by your ovation,” he told the crowd. “And two or three of you also touched me for five bucks on the way in. Now we come to the high-class portion of the evening, which will bring you a very gifted young lady whom I have the pleasure of working with each week on that highly rated comedy show, Groucho Marx, Private Eye. A show, let me add, brilliantly written by the incomparable Frank Denby without any help from home or from any relatives of the sponsor or over educated New York sna
ke oil salesmen.” He directed his false smile directly at Jack Rolphs. “Without further ado, folks, here’s the Songbird of Southern California—Miss Polly Pilgrim.”
She squeezed my hand. “Please, tell him not to wear the hat,” she said and walked out onto the stage.
* * *
He wore the hat.
But it didn’t spoil anything. Alone on the stage, Polly had won the audience over with a short program that mixed some classical stuff with popular ballads. She finished up with “Isn’t It Romantic?,” the Rogers & Hart tune that Jeanette MacDonald had introduced in Love Me Tonight a few years earlier. That got her a standing ovation.
When Groucho went bounding back onto the boards wearing the Mountie hat, it produced a nice laugh. So did his explanation of how he came by the hat and that he’d been promised that Nelson Eddy’s blond wig was supposed to come with it.
He and Polly did about fifteen minutes. Her father, in his bland way, seemed pleased with her performance. I was pretty sure I’d spotted one of the Zansky Brothers out in the fourth row and he was obviously enjoying the whole thing.
For an encore Polly and Groucho did a duet version of “Isn’t It Romantic?”
They took several bows, with Groucho upstaging her on most of them. But then he placed her at the edge of the stage and withdrew and Polly got a hand of her own.
Standing beside me and watching Polly smile at the audience, Groucho observed, “She’s better than Florence Nightingale.”
“Florence Nightingale wasn’t a singer.”
“Didn’t I say she was better than Florence Nightingale?” he said as Polly took another bow. “It’s tough not being beautiful in this town. Or so I’ve heard.”
“I know you’re doing the master of ceremonies chores on this thing,” I said, “but soon as it’s over, Groucho, I’d really like to talk about our radio show. I’m worried that—”
“Don’t fret or mope, Fauntleroy,” he advised. “Well, I suppose you can mope a little, but only in the privacy of your room.”
“Those admen unsettled me.”
“Mere shleppers who’ll return to the stone canyons of Manhattan in a few days and forget all about us.”
