Deadline for a Critic

by William Kienzle

  All that of course changed when she went off to New York after high school graduation. Her parents had no money for college. In addition, Valerie could see no point in college. By consensus and her own conviction, she was ready for the stage. She was aware she had lots to learn. But she knew the next lessons would have to be in the school of hard knocks. She had no idea how hard those knocks were destined to be.

  She told Koesler of arriving bright-eyed and eager in Queens, where she would stay with cousins on her father’s side. Of visiting one theatrical agency after another. She was convinced she was unsinkable. She was talented, beautiful and—if inexperienced—at least young, healthy, and willing to knock on endless doors until something inevitably opened.

  She did not know until much later that almost every time a door began to open, someone was on the other side slamming it shut. That someone, she would eventually learn, was Ridley Groendal.

  Valerie visited Koesler several times, each time pouring out more of her story. In the beginning, he could not tell where this was leading. But, in time, the dark shadow of Groendal was evident.

  Though her cousins were gracious and kind, her presence shortly became awkward. The modest rent and board she paid, plus the sheer cost of travel in Manhattan, soon exhausted her small savings. Then it grew embarrassing. The cousins were encouraging and sympathetic, but she knew they were operating on a tight budget. They could not carry her indefinitely.

  There was no alternative; she had to get a job.

  The job was not long in coming. But then, Groendal was not blocking her job hunt—only because he could not. After a two-week search, Valerie was hired by Sports Gear International. The New York store was headquarters for a chain of sporting goods stores in the U.S. and Canada. The job combined clerking with occasional modeling.

  In what spare time she could squeeze from her work, she continued to audition for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. Among her attempts to break into show biz: A Chorus Line, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, Fiddler on the Roof, Marco Polo, and Foot Falls.

  Although she invariably tried for the chorus or an understudy part, she never came close. It was a combination of her youth and comparative inexperience along with the pervasive behind-the-scenes presence of Ridley Groendal.

  Meanwhile, her modeling career continued to prosper. Sports Gear International used her increasingly in display ads for everything from tennis outfits to golf equipment. It was not the theater; it was not what she had come to New York to do. But it was income she desperately needed.

  Learning to live in New York City is an art and Valerie was a quick study. She was actually able to contribute a little more than was expected for her room and board. She was even able to put aside small amounts after coping with the city’s substantial cost of living.

  A milestone in her life occurred when SGI selected her as a model for their Christmas catalog. Not only did this bring far wider exposure and considerably more money, but it set the occasion for her meeting William Xavier Walsh.

  As Valerie told Koesler about Red Walsh, she glowed. It was easily the most significant happening of her life.

  “I was putting on my makeup and I saw in the mirror this image come up behind me. Whoever it was just stood there. That makes me angry—people fooling around. So I turned. I was ready to cuss out whoever it was. And I just kept looking up, and up, and up. At the top of this towering body was this grinning face with freckles and a mop of red hair. It seemed as if he was the biggest thing I’d ever seen. I guess my mouth dropped open—like Annie Oakley’s when she meets Frank Butler.”

  Koesler well remembered Annie, Get Your Gun!.

  “Still, I was sore at him. I don’t know why. He was just standing there grinning at me. Anyway, I started yelling at him. It was our first fight. And it was at first sight. And it was very one-sided.”

  She told Koesler that it was a long time after their first meeting before she and Walsh became friends, let alone fell in love. Walsh, at that time, was a senior at Notre Dame. After he modeled gym shoes and other athletic gear for the Christmas catalog, he returned to college and the completion of the basketball season. He was a consensus All-American in both his junior and senior years.

  They dated a few times. Unfortunately, Walsh cared little for the theater, while Valerie found basketball the least interesting of major league sports. But an indefinable something drew them together. Over the months during which Walsh closed out a rather distinguished academic career, he and Valerie corresponded with increasing frequency.

  She found it difficult writing him about her professional life, which had improved and disintegrated simultaneously. As a result of the Christmas catalog and the inspired activity of her agent, she had begun free-lance modeling. This new career, plus her continuing auditions for the theater, left increasingly less time for her work at SGI. Reluctantly, she left her job, sacrificing a regular and reliable paycheck for the hope of much more, if unguaranteed, money.

  And so Valerie began showing up for the morning casting calls, better known by the young hopefuls who suffer through them as cattle calls. After considerable thought and prayer, she had decided against signing an agency contract. She correctly deemed such an arrangement too binding for a young person with limitless confidence in her own ability. The cattle call was the unfortunate alternative.

  She actually shuddered when she recounted for Koesler the interminable months as one of New York’s most frequently photographed models. In most cases, the models knew beforehand what type of shooting each day held. If the character was going to be a housewife, the models would come dressed appropriately. Frequently it would be a beach scene. So the young women would wear bikinis under street clothing. When it was their turn, they had no more shield for changing than a curtain.

  Whatever they wore to model, they would be screened, usually by a panel, usually composed of three men: a producer, a director, and someone from the ad agency. Perhaps a sponsor might be thrown in. The women would be ogled. The process was, Valerie attested, degrading. It resembled, she told Koesler, a singles bar—another area of expertise in which he was lacking. But he got the idea. And he wondered how an admittedly talented person like Valerie could have gone through it.

  The answer of course was The Theater. Unlike most other women in the profession, modeling was not Val’s goal. It was a means of employment and exposure while she continued to pursue the stage.

  During the 1977 theater season, among many other shows, she auditioned for Breathless, Otherwise Engaged, Ashes, and Stop the Parade.

  Stop the Parade, in effect, stopped Valerie’s parade. It was the first major production in which she’d won a part—albeit that of understudy.

  When he learned of her—however slight—success, Groendal was livid. His lackey, who should have been monitoring that area of Broadway, had been asleep at the switch. That worthy pleaded too vast an area of responsibility to pay attention to every broad who was hired as an understudy. Groendal reminded him that Valerie Cahill was his priority responsibility. Ridley reminded him of this just before firing him.

  Until Stop the Parade, Valerie had not been aware that Ridley Groendal even knew she existed. Even then, if not for a bewildering set of circumstances, she would not have known of Groendal’s malevolent machinations.

  Night after night and matinee after matinee, Valerie kept her vigil in the wings in case she might be called on to take over for an indisposed star. Of course, her keenest desire was to appear on stage. Yet the rigors of free-lance modeling so exhausted her that she was almost grateful for the star’s seemingly cast-iron constitution.

  Then, one night it happened. Pauline O’Kennedy came down with the flu. Diagnosed as the twenty-four-hour variety, still it was potent enough to take her out of the show for one night. It was Val’s big opportunity. She put everything she was capable of into that performance.

  It is difficult to gauge one’s own endeavor, but she honestly thought she’d done well. The audience
was generous in its applause. And the other performers were lavish with praise. She was so “up” she had a difficult time sleeping that night.

  Next morning she could scarcely control her trembling hands as she paged through the New York Herald. The play had been reviewed weeks prior to this, just after opening. So there wasn’t much chance anyone would comment on it again, especially since there was little prior notice that an understudy would be appearing.

  Her eyes widened when she found a single column item regarding the performance. She reread it several times before fully comprehending its viciousness.

  The review centered solely on her performance, which it described as “amateurish, degrading to the other performers, who should not be forced to share a stage with someone who shows neither ability nor promise . . . One would hope,” it went on, “she finds her niche in life—perhaps modeling in Peoria. Seeking solace somewhere, it can be said that Valerie Cahill is a mere study—Deo gratias—and she will mercifully sink slowly in the West.”

  There was more, most of it as bad or worse. Her eyes were so filled with tears that she had a difficult time making out the byline. Ridley C. Groendal.

  At that time that meant nothing in particular. Only that he was the Broadway reviewer and this was her first Broadway performance, her golden opportunity, and she had failed. She had blown herself out of the water. Not for a moment did she think to question the review.

  There would be no cattle call today. She could not possibly endure that degradation in addition to suffering through the end of her world.

  She told Koesler of going as quickly as possible to the hotel where Pauline O’Kennedy was staying. Miss O’Kennedy was almost completely recovered from her brief bout with the flu. She was healthy enough, indeed, to be concerned about the distraught young woman who sat on her couch, alternating between sobbing and abjectly apologizing for ruining her play.

  “Come on, now, you didn’t ruin any play.” Pauline patted Valerie’s shoulder, trying to console her.

  “You weren’t there,” Valerie sobbed.

  “Of course I wasn’t there. That’s why you were. But I’ve talked with the others. There wasn’t a dissenting voice: You were very good . . . great!”

  “But the review . . .?” Val offered the column, clipped out and so heavily fingered it had almost reverted to pulp state.

  Pauline pushed it back toward Val. “I’ve read it.”

  “It’s so bad. So negative.”

  “Just pay attention to the good ones, dear.” Pauline did not sound convincing.

  “This is different. No one would take a chance on me after this.”

  Pauline hesitated, as if weighing carefully what she would next say. “But it was written by Ridley Groendal.”

  Clearly, Val did not comprehend what Pauline was trying to tell her. “But,” Val protested in an unbelieving tone, “but, he’s . . .”

  “He’s your enemy.”

  “My what?”

  “Your enemy. I don’t know what you ever did to him, but it must have been a doozy. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s the talk of the business, at least here in New York.” She broke off, at the sight of Val’s uncomprehending look. “You didn’t know?”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Groendal. For the past year and more he’s been making sure you’re blackballed up and down the street.”

  “I don’t understand. I’ve never . . . well, I’ve never even met the guy.”

  “Then I don’t understand it either. Nobody can recall anything quite like this. Oh, there’ve been feuds and vendettas. But nothing like this. He’s been busy with owners, producers, directors—even angels. I don’t know how you even got into our show. Tom was taking some chance letting you on—even as a study.”

  “But, what could he do?”

  Pauline rose, walked across the room, got a cigarette, lit it, coughed violently, and stubbed it out. “How many shows will it cost Tom?”

  “What?”

  “Groendal can and has shut down shows with just one review. He’s done it for lots less reason than this.”

  “But, why . . .?”

  “I haven’t a clue. You tell me.”

  “No, why didn’t anyone tell me about this before . . . I mean, if so many people in the business know about it?”

  Pauline returned and sat on the couch. “You remember McCarthy . . . Senator Joe McCarthy?”

  “The Army hearings? The Communist witch-hunt? I read about it.”

  “How many people stood up to Joe McCarthy? Damn few. For very good reason. At worst, you could go to jail. At best, you could become unemployable. Something to think about. Why didn’t anybody tell you, honey? Because they like putting on plays, that’s why. Because they like acting.”

  Val was thoughtful. “So why did you tell me now?”

  Pauline tried another cigarette, did not inhale so deeply, and managed to suppress the cough. “It was the right time, honey. Oh, I’m not that brave. It is the perfect time. You can go straighten it all out with Groendal. All you have to know is one fact that you could have learned from nearly anyone and you can go settle this once and for all.”

  “One fact? If I know one fact? What fact? What are you talking about?”

  “Ridley Groendal wasn’t there last night.”

  “But he wrote—”

  “He wrote off the top of his head. He wrote out of hatred for you. How the hell do I know why he did it? All I know is that he wasn’t there. He didn’t even see your performance!”

  Pauline stubbed out the cigarette. “You could, of course, complain to the Herald that Groendal panned your performance without seeing it. But that’s like going to the dead-letter department without going through the post office. They’ll never call him on it. When it comes to the world of critics, he’s like God.

  “Besides, if he condescended to respond to your complaint, he’d probably say he dropped in after intermission for the last act. Or that he had one of his bird dogs cover it. But, believe me, honey, it didn’t happen. He just wanted to kill your career.”

  At this point in her story, Valerie stopped speaking and seemed to drift off in the memory of the event, immersed in the enormity of an act that cried to heaven for vengeance. Imagine panning a performance without having witnessed it, motivated by hatred alone.

  At length, Koesler spoke. “So what did you do then?”

  Val returned to the moment with a start. “Oh! Sorry . . .

  “Well, I didn’t know how to deal with that. There was just no reason. I mean, I’d never even met the man. Why would he do a thing like that? It just wiped me out. Fortunately, I had a pretty good-sized nest egg put aside . . . from the modeling. So I didn’t need to work—for awhile at least. I came back to Detroit and stayed with my parents. I just wanted time to think and put my life back together.”

  “You didn’t tell your folks what happened?”

  “I didn’t want to trouble them. Especially I didn’t want to dump a problem on them when I didn’t even know what had caused it, let alone how to handle it.”

  “Then . . .?”

  “My mother, of course, figured that something was wrong. What’s more, even without my telling her, she more or less guessed what had happened. Finally, we talked. When I got to the part where Ridley Groendal had pretty well killed my career with his offstage power brokering and then delivered the coup de grace with that review, Mom nodded.

  “Then she told me the story. It was such a shock . . . I’ll never forget her words.”

  “We never talked about this, Val. Maybe we should have. I never lied to you. I just never told you everything.”

  “Mother?”

  “You had a brother once.”

  “What?”

  “Before I met your father.”

  “Before—”

  “Wait, Val; let me finish. I was your age, only I didn’t know what you know. I had a crush on a young man. On our first and only date w
e had too much to drink and got carried away.”

  “You mean that was it? One time and you were pregnant?”

  Jane nodded. “I told you I didn’t know then what you do now. Even if I had, I had no intention of even necking or petting, let alone actual intercourse. But, it happened, and I was pregnant.”

  “What happened to the guy? He didn’t marry you?”

  Jane shook her head. “It gets complicated. But, to make a long story short, he left town.”

  “Left town! And left you with a baby? But what became of him? What happened to my brother . . . my half-brother?”

  “He . . . he had Down’s Syndrome.”

  Valerie gasped.

  “The dearest, sweetest child you’d ever want to know,” her mother continued. “I was with him as much as I possibly could be. But you know about kids with Down’s. Frequently, they don’t have a normal life span. Your brother, Billy, died when he was ten. It was about four years before I met and married your father, about five years before you were born.”

  “A brother! Billy! Retarded! I wish I could have known him. I wish I could have taken care of him. I wish . . . but . . . why are you telling me this now?”

  “Because . . . because of what happened to you in New York. And because you want a career in the theater.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “The father of your half-brother has everything to do with it. His name is Ridley Groendal.”

  “Ridley Groendal? Ridley Groendal! It’s almost impossible to imagine. Besides, he’s gay, isn’t he? How—?”

  “For a few moments, a long time ago, aided by some whisky, he wasn’t gay. And those few moments changed my whole life. And, I suppose, to be perfectly fair, they changed his life too.”