Little Me Read online

  Yet I adored this man, Letch Feeley, why, I cannot say. With faint heart and a brave smile, I endured his long absences from Château Belletch, his coldness, his indifference, his slights and his abuse. The times I can recall when I was publicly humiliated by him—lovely dinner parties in our Trianon Suite where the collation was postponed and postponed and postponed, only to be served dry and overcooked at a table where the host’s chair was vacant; a “splash party” at the new pool, which I had built in the hope of keeping Letch away from public beaches, when Letch and a certain Aquacutie stayed underwater together for the better part of an hour; a lovely Epiphany party at Errol Flynn’s, on which sacred occasion Letch stole away with an unknown “starlet,” leaving me “high and dry” to get home as best I could. These are but a sampling of the insults I endured. As Mrs. Letch Feeley, was it any wonder that I, once the social arbiter of Filmdom, was excluded from the smart entertainments given by the Astaires, the Coopers, the Gables, the Colmans, the Rathbones, the Taylors, the Thalbergs and such devout, closely knit families as the Barrymores and the Crosbys? As Letch’s anti-social conduct increased, our invitations decreased and my heart was in my mouth whenever I played hostess at a fashionable “screenland” gathering.

  Between 1935 and 1939 Letch and I made ten films together, each less successful, both artistically and commercially, than the one before it. Our last joint venture, Sainted Lady, a deeply religious film based on the life of Mother Cabrini, and timed so that its release date would coincide with the beatification of America’s first saint in November, 1938, was a fiasco from start to finish. As I was playing Mother Cabrini, the picture was actually “all mine,” with nearly every scene built around me. But in order to keep Letch in the public eye and out of trouble, I wrote in a part especially for him—that of a dashing ruffian who “sees the light” and is saved by the inspiring example of Mother Cabrini. And did he appreciate my efforts on his behalf? Did he trouble to memorize the very small part which I had “tailor-made” to his specifications, a rôle eventually cut down to three short speeches? Did he show the rest of the cast—numbering four thousand—the consideration of arriving at the studio punctually—or even at all? He did not! The “shooting” went on for eight months! Most of our working days were spent on the telephone calling “bookies,” illegal gambling dens, a certain “residential club for young actresses,”

  more than a hundred different bars or the steam room of the athletic club. Whenever he deigned to appear at the studio he was “hung over,” uncooperative, rude and insulting. He made many tasteless, irreverent and unfunny remarks, not only about me in the title rôle, but about religion in general. By the time the film was released we were three million dollars over-spent, war was imminent and the public apparently had forgotten all about Mother Cabrini. Thanks to Letch Feeley and the terrible strain he imposed on me, the notices were few and unfavorable. Only George Santayana seemed to understand and appreciate the film when he wrote: “Miss Poitrine has perpetrated the most eloquent argument for the Protestant faith yet unleashed by Hollywood.” But it was small consolation.

  In a rare fit of anger and spite, I “farmed out” my own husband to a small and most undistinguished studio to make one picture as a form of punishment. (An actor must have discipline.) The film was called The Diet of Worms, which I felt was just what Letch deserved. It turned out to be a life of Martin Luther, of all things! It was a disaster! In clothes, Letch simply did not project. He was laughed off the screen. At the same time, however, I availed myself of the services of that great English actor and master of make-up, Sir Gauntley Pratt, to do a “quickie” called The Mystery of the Mad Marquess, in which I played a young American girl who inherits a haunted castle on the English moors which is filled with secret passages and sliding panels and, unbeknownst to anyone, is still occupied by an eccentric maniac. It was a “pot-boiler” made on a “shoestring” and not the sort of film I like, as all I had to do was look blank and scream a great deal. My heart was not in it, but, oddly enough, it remains the most financially successful picture of my career. (I watched it on television late one night last week and it “stands up” remarkably well, even twenty years later.)

  Letch had returned from his débâcle unrepentant and more badly behaved than before. I really loved that boy, and, in a feverish attempt to preserve our marriage and to try to revive the wonderful, wonderful person Letch had once been, I took my troubles to Momma, hoping that her earthy advice would help me.

  “If I could only think of something at the studio, near me, to absorb his boundless energy,” I said. “What is Letch interested in?”

  “Bookies, booze and babes,” Momma said bluntly.

  Her reply stung me, but this was too important to let my hurt make any difference. “I can’t turn the studio into a gambling hell or a saloon,” I said.

  “It might pay better if you did,” Momma replied.

  “But we have lovely stars—ladies whom I can trust. What about Helen Highwater?”

  “That old lush?” Momma snorted.

  “Or Pixie Portnoy?”

  “A dike if I ever saw one. And I seen plenty.”

  “What about lovely Vivienne Vixen?”

  “I’d hate to be hanging since she was forty,” Momma said. “Letch don’t want a mother, he wants a playmate—lots of ’em.”

  An idea struck me. “Maybe if we inaugurated something to encourage new talent—like the Wampus Baby Stars—and put Letch in charge.”

  “That would be like giving the Boy Scouts to Dudley du Pont,” Momma said.

  “But at least I’d know where to find Letch,” I said.

  “You’d know all right,” Momma said.

  “But I will select the girls,” I said, knowing that my infallible instinct about people would not “let me down.”

  Thus Metronome inaugurated the Belletch Baby Starlets—twelve aspiring young actresses whom I’d chosen myself for beauty, talent and, I hoped, virtue. (Each was required to have letters of recommendation from her high school principal, pastor, former employer—if any—and a reputable businessman

  from her home town.) Of the whole dozen, the most outstanding was a Mlle. Therese (“Tootsie”) La Touche, who came armed with no less than a hundred letters! She was a pretty, winsome and gifted ballerina who was not without professional experience in that she had appeared with the Albertina Rasch Dancers in that lovely Friml operetta, Madame Mazurka, as a child prodigy (actually she was much older than she claimed). Momma took one look at “Tootsie” and said, “I smell trouble.” But I was so hopeful of piecing together the shards of our marriage that I took a chance and started work on Swan Song, a life of Anna Pavlova, in which I was to play the title rôle, Letch was to play Nijinski and “Tootsie” was to be given the opportunity of a lifetime as Tatiana, my elder sister. What a mistake!

  At first I was encouraged to see that Letch was always the first one on the “set,” but I soon began to notice that he and “Tootsie” were spending more and more time in one another’s company and that she was even inviting him into her dressing room! If there is anything I cannot endure, it is a woman who uses her sex as a means to ensnare a man! On camera “Tootsie” was unbearable, always doing “high kicks” and arabesques whenever I tried to speak my tragic lines and literally “dancing circles around me” in the few ballet episodes that were actually filmed. Her scenes with Letch were positively disgusting! Watching the “rushes,” I could see that I had made a serious error in engaging this wanton little thing. Luckily, I was able—with some rewriting—to have “Tootsie’s” part removed from the picture entirely, so that she ended up exactly where she belonged—on the cutting room floor! But, unfortunately, while performing a lovely pas de deux with Letch (who knew next to nothing of the dance), he dropped me and I sustained a severe sprained ankle. “Shooting” had to be discontinued and it was decided that the entire film had better be “scrapped.” By selling the costumes to one of the many touring companies of the Ballet Russe de Monte C
arlo, we were able to recoup some of our losses.

  Incapacitated as I was, I retired to my boudoir at Château Belletch and whiled away my incarceration by taking singing lessons from the late Luisa Tetrazzini, in preparation for a musical film in the manner of those recently done by Grace Moore, Gladys Swarthout, Lily Pons, and Jeanette MacDonald. Nothing I could say or do—and least of all husbandly concern for a wife who might never dance again—could induce Letch to remain at home. I had no inkling of what was the matter this time. But my loyal friend, Dudley du Pont,

  came to me one day, after I was quite weary from repeated performances of the “mad scene” from Lucia di Lammermoor, took both my hands in his and said, “Sweetie, I’m telling you this for your own good and because I think you should hear it first from a friend and not from Lolly or Hedda—although God knows why it isn’t all over their columns. But his royal prettiness is at it again and this time with that two-bit hoofer, La Touche.”

  “Letch?” I said. “I can’t believe it!”

  “But it’s true, my dear, too, too terribly true. He’s rented a little garçonnièrefrom this old boy-friend of mine down in Laguna Beach and what they do in that precious little house is too vomit-making for words.” Private detectives proved Dudley to be one hundred per cent correct and investigation of “Tootsie’s” flagrant past made it abundantly clear as to why so many businessmen had recommended her! I had suspected, from time to time, that Letch had been guilty of little dalliances, but this torrid affaire going on under my very nose, as it were, was the “last straw”! They did not even show the common decency to pretend that they were less than lovers! I could have divorced Letch then and there, but I did not. I had invested too much—in time, in emotion and in money—to “call it quits.” Instead, I continued as the family “breadwinner” by commencing work on my musical Wilma Tell. Having been interested in both the stories of William Tell and Annie Oakley, I had combined them and turned them into a sweet operetta about a Swiss lady archer who saves all of Switzerland by shooting an apple from her lover’s head. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said of me, “Belle Poitrine has a genius for weeding out the inconsequentials and presenting them full blown on the screen.” Heartsick over Letch, I had passed him by as my leading man for Wilma Tell in favor of one of the really great voices such as Nelson Eddy, Allan Jones or John Boles, none of whom happened to be available. Thus, while I toiled at the studio, Letch and “Tootsie” continued “carrying on”—sometimes right in Château Belletch!

  Driving me home from the studio one evening, my chauffeur took a détour that led us past a large yacht showroom. In the window I saw a model of what I felt would be the perfect gift for Letch’s twenty-eighth birthday—a pleasure yacht of moderate size complete with lounge, dining saloon, galley, four tiny bedrooms and two baths. It was more than I could afford but, knowing my husband’s love of the sea, I hoped it might capture his fancy, if only momentarily. The salesman explained the mechanism of the motors to me

  Letch at 28

  while I wrote out a large check and gave delivery instructions for my last gift to Letch—the Belle de Mer. It was, as the salesman said, “a trig little craft.”

  Conscious of Letch’s heavy drinking during the past months, I became fearful that he might scratch the paint on the Belle de Mer or in some other way damage her and I did not want such a costly gift to go the way of the wrecked Cord roadster, the mislaid emerald shirt studs, the broken Cape-heart record player of former, happier birthdays. For that reason, I telephoned my insurance broker and had the Belle de Mer fully insured and, while I had him on the “phone,” reviewed my own policies, those I had taken out on Letch and on some of the younger Metronome stars.

  Wanting to make this a truly memorable birthday celebration, I swallowed my pride and invited “Tootsie” La Touche to join Letch, Momma and me at the yacht club for luncheon on my dear husband’s anniversary day.

  As I said, the Belle de Mer was a “trig” vessel. Letch was so stunned when he saw it that all he could say was “Jeest!”

  “Aren’t you going to take us girls out for a sail, darling?” I asked.

  “Sure thing,” Letch said. “How about it, baby?” he asked Miss La Touche.

  “Boy, oh boy, would I ever love to!” she said in that uncultivated, brassy fashion of hers. “Gee, on a yacht, Letchy!”

  I had been aboard the Belle de Mer with Momma earlier that day, seeing that all of the appointments were exactly as I wanted them. But, when the time came to board for the “maiden voyage,” I found myself suddenly indisposed with a severe migraine. “Oh, don’t let me spoil your fun, Letch, mon chéri,” I said sportingly. “You and Miss La Touche go ahead. Momma and I will just watch from the terrace of the yacht club.”

  “That’s right,” Momma said. “You youngsters go along and enjoy yourselves while you still can.” We said adieu and ordered daiquiris while Letch and “Tootsie” boarded the Belle de Mer. He looked so young, so handsome, so virile, so full of life, in his white yachting cap, that it fairly made my heart leap. She looked very common.

  From the terrace, I heard the powerful throb of the Belle de Mer’s motors and I waved my mouchoir a little sadly as that noble craft got under way.

  “Poor tomcat,” Momma said, or something like that. I wasn’t sure.

  “What did you say, Momma?” I asked. But I never heard her reply. The air was rent with an explosion that shattered my cocktail glass and broke every window in the yacht club. No sooner had the Belle de Mer reached the mouth of the yacht basin than it was blown to a thousand bits. There wasn’t even enough left of it for the insurance investigators to examine. “Momma!” I cried. Then everything went black.

  As there was nothing remaining of my poor, darling Letch and that lovely, talented young danseuse to bury, we held simple memorial services at the Chapel of the Avenging Angel the following morning. Although I was nearly prostrate with grief, I was surprised to see Momma climb into her red “Rolly-Polly” and drive off due south at an astonishing speed, rather than to return to Château Belletch or Metronome.

  My fellow workers were amazed to see me, a widow of less than twenty-four hours, turn up on the Wilma Tell “set” directly after my dear husband’s services. But, as I have always said, “the show must go on.” Alas, it did not. While I was singing my big number, “Gemütlichkeit,” I noticed that the Alps were moving. When I demanded an explanation, it was immediately offered by a rude bailiff. Metronome was in bankruptcy and the studios were being closed by order of the creditors! Wilma Tell, my greatest film, would never be seen.

  My husband was gone, my studio was gone, even my dear mother was gone (to Mexico, I learned later). Nothing was left for little me but the insurance money. I faced the world alone again—bereft, bankrupt, beleaguered.

  Luncheoning with “Roz”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CALLED TO THE COLORS

  1941–1945

  The end of mighty Metronome • My need of a change • Finances • A girl’s best

  friend is her mother • Making the rounds as a star • I retire from motion pictures • War!

  I do my bit • Momma becomes San Diego’s most famous hostess • I win the Navy E!

  THE DÉMISE OF MY MIGHTY METRONOME, following on the very heels of my beloved husband’s tragic death at sea and the disappearance of my dear mother, came as a severe blow. With bailiffs all over the “lot,” moving scenery, cataloguing settings, costumes, “props”—even the desks, typewriters and pencils in the offices!—I was helpless. I tried to put up a fight, for I am not a woman who takes many things lying down. But it was useless. All of the legal advisors I sought out said the same thing. Mighty Metronome, once the greatest film studio in the world, was bankrupt and in the hands of the receivers. Momma, who had complete charge of the finances, who could answer all of the questions as to the whereabouts of millions of dollars’ worth of assets, was nowhere to be found. I would have to give in gracefully to the venal tradesmen and the socialis
tic government forces that willfully set about to destroy the fountainhead of so much beauty. The studio, the theatres— Buchsbaum’s Baghdad in New York, the Bessarabian in Los Angeles, the Bacchanalia in Chicago, two dozen in all, each more lavish and imposing than the last—beautiful Belleville in the desert (which I had planned to turn into an Egyptian real-estate subdivision at a later date), even Château Belletch, and its lovely antique French furniture, were impounded. All was lost save my poor wardrobe and the insurance money for Letch’s precious life and the bonnie Belle de Mer . As for my jewels, they had simply “disappeared” when the “cutthroats” from the marshal’s office came to wrench them from me.

  Everything was gone save my contribution to Art. As Dudley du Pont and Carstairs Bagley said, while comforting me, “The greatest moments of your life are in the can.” How true! Though everything might be gone, the unforgettable films I made had all been immortalized on celluloid and were there in neat rows of round tin cans to thrill the world for years to come. A screen actress’ life does have its rewards!