Chapter One
February 1935

“Ah, um,” and then, “The rain is different out here.”

Known to his friends back home as ‘Connie,’ the man in a porkpie hat, suspenders and perpetually rumpled shirt was clumsily trying to get his head around the reality of his daughter’s life.

“Yes,” was all Wilma could think to say, realizing where the conversation would likely go after she’d turned off the radio.

“You wanna know how we do it, don’t you?” Patsy could no longer refrain from asking, well aware of how much her paramour’s father loathed her.

Mother Cox and brother Stuart were more curious than appalled, and Wilma looked away rather than stating an objection.

“These fingers don’t go limp when she needs ‘em most,” the brash comedienne bragged while displaying her right index, middle and ring fingers. “And Wili takes a few minutes of cuddle before warming up. After that it’s off to the races, and that girl’s got—”

“Thank you, Patsy. That’s quite enough,” Wilma chimed in, adding, “Perhaps we should discuss our plans for the morrow?”

As she was educated, refined and quite attractive the Cox’s had never been able to understand why their daughter declined gentlemen callers.

Still, Wilma, who they preferred to call by her middle name, Camellia ‘Cami’ after the state flower of Alabama, sang like an angel and always did well in school. They’d been amazed when she’d secured a contract even before travelling all the way to California. Once her recordings and film appearances started playing in theaters and on the radio, the parents became local celebrities in and around Birmingham.

Even before times became bad and the steel plant and so much else closed across Alabama, their talented daughter had begun to wire money to her mother. Now these recurrent infusions were essential to paying the bills and keeping a roof over their heads, and the parents and brother spent five days and nights on a train to come out for a visit. So, it was difficult to criticize Wilma’s living arrangement with a brash, Irish Catholic girl from New York, and they’d managed so far to remain polite and collegial.

“Okay, I’m going to drive us all up to the Roach Studios,” Patsy told them. “Thelma and I are working all day. If you can remain quiet you can watch, meet her, and Wilma will take you around the studio to see other shoots. You’ll visit the commissary and have a nice lunch; rub elbows with the stars and all that. I’m even going to let you borrow my car. A friend will drive me home.”

Then she looked at Stu and pointed. “If you so much as scratch my paint…” and Patsy just waggled her finger without finishing the thought. “Anyways, you’ll all have a swell time.”

A few minutes later as everyone prepared for bed, Wilma spoke with her brother: “The wind and rain are apt to pick up. Why don’t you sleep inside on the couch tonight?”

Towheaded with a cowlick that resisted smoothing, he wore glasses but still squinted at the world. Regardless of his thoughts about Patsy and his sister, outwardly the young man remained pleasant and accepting.

“Nah, I sleep better with some breeze and rain, calms my mind,” Stu insisted before making his way back to the sun porch.

In the morning, Wilma/Cami was up early to fry eggs and bacon as well as percolate coffee. Eating like ravenous wolves, when Patsy came for her coffee, bacon and a slice of buttered toast with marmalade she feigned having to fight them off before remaining standing while having her breakfast.

Afterwards, Mother and Stu brought the plates and glasses to the sink before Mother helped Wilma to wash and put them into the rack to dry.

When they arrived at the studio and everyone began stepping out of Patsy’s car, Wilma became concerned about what her companion might say or do. The ladies exchanged a quick glance and smiles before Patsy “psst-psst”ed to Papa.

After he came closer, the mouthy movie and radio actress handed him a flask. “There ya are. Single malt Irish” and she smiled to stress that the whiskey was from Ireland, letting the Catholic aspect ferment in his mind. Papa Connie accepted the gift and thanked her.

Chapter Two
Pacific Palisades, February 1935

Hal, Jr. and Margaret, who detested being called Margi so much that her parents opted for Shnookums (and occasionally Baby Snooks after the Fanny Brice character), smiled at their glamorous friend and Thelma hugged and praised them as always. Marguerite instructed her governess to “Take them downstairs for bowls of fruit.” Then she further insisted, “You aren’t to have ice cream until eating all of your vegetables at supper. Am I understood?”

Affirming that she would abide by this instruction, and the children, 14 and 12, professing their obedience, still after they departed Marguerite commented, “They’ll be eating banana splits in your café soon enough.”

As Thelma giggled, her friend related, “My middle name is Olive.”

Now Thelma looked at her curiously.

“Hal calls me Lou, and everyone thinks it’s because Louise is my middle name, but it isn’t. My grandfather was an attorney and thought the phrase ‘in lieu of good sense’ apt because I was so rambunctious and uncontrollable as a youngster. When Hal met my parents and sister the nickname and story were passed along.”

With penetrating eyes and the wild curls of her silent film days trimmed into a shorter, straighter style that framed a warm and endearing face, Marguerite was vivacious and still movie star attractive at 42 years. She was also her husband’s closest confidante and advisor.

Recognizing this sharing as the setup, Thelma insisted her mentor sit and then sat in the chair across from her. In spite of not liking anyone to tell her how to live, Thelma’s recently failed marriage and the notion of receiving this lecture from a woman she’d always looked up to and felt a kinship with made this almost desirable.

“At barely 16, I married and took up with a lumberjack. He was so handsome and virile. Johnny let me drink beer and cuss. We made love in his truck; it was all so exciting. Then I was stuck in a lean-to cabin outside Yakima. He worked long hours and began to get mean. I didn’t like that. Then he came home one night and beat me up. I was terrified.”

“You lose the last rites if you divorce and remarry, you know that. He died in an accident that spring. Mourning helped me to recognize how immature and selfish I’d been.

“I took a job in town until earning enough to get back to Los Angeles. Rented a bedroom in someone’s house, and didn’t reconcile with my parents for another two years.”

“You’re going to tell me not to flit from one bad man to another, aren’t you?” Thelma interjected.

“Yes. Who knows why, but after Teddy only bad men seem to excite you, why do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I have the same streak of rebelliousness that you had,” Thelma said softly, sadly. “I’d like to change but how do you control who you’re attracted to?”

More than lustrous blonde locks and dazzling good looks, Thelma exuded a certain New England sophistication from her upbringing in Massachusetts. Intelligence and an instinctive ability to emote and melt an audience had made her a star, but this also rendered ‘Hot Toddy’ prey to the worst instincts of the most sinister men.

Continuing, Marguerite ‘Lieu’ told Thelma, “I stayed alone for almost three years before meeting Hal Roach. He wasn’t a big shot then. Still, Hal never wavered from moving forward and seemed to always know the correct decision.”

“You don’t approve of Roli, do you?” Thelma asked.

“I didn’t say that. It’s just that he’s still legally married, and Jewel’s right there with the two of you.”

“Yes, but we’re adults and there’s peace and good tidings all around.”

“I’m older now and domesticity does change one’s perspective, but I’m not stupid. You aren’t really interested in a washed-up director. He’s just convenient until something better comes along.”

Thelma looked perturbed but chose to not protest.

“Soon after I had our first, Hal hired a girl to star in a new production. Pretty thing with big eyes and a flawless figure, was supposed to prance around in an outfit to swim and do gymnastics.”

“Well, I knew he’d strayed or was about to; first time fatherhood can do strange things to a man. I didn’t say anything, just took the baby and went up to Lake Tahoe instead of attending his annual Autumn Party. I was quite close to his distributor’s wife and sister, and not being there was noticed.

After the party, Hal got into a car and drove all night up to Tahoe, didn’t even change clothes. In the morning, I woke up and he was there. On his knees he apologized and said it’d never happen again, and it never has.”

Soon Marguerite added, “Please, keep that one between us.”

“I wasn’t so smart at the marriage game,” Thelma shared, but Marguerite recognized this pout as a limit to her friend’s tricks.

“Hal doesn’t make a move before consulting with his accountants. They’re the real power in this town,” the studio head’s wife said while taking her friend’s hand. “There’s a handsome young fellow from outside Providence, another from Hartford and third from Quincy. Any one of them would make a fine husband, and they don’t play rough or tangle with mobsters.”

“Okay. I’ll come and meet the boys,” Thelma promised.

Chapter Three
Club New Yorker, February 1935

“Cami, is something wrong?” Mother asked.

“No. I just need to focus,” she responded before trying to smile. “A lot goes into a performance. Reviewing each element helps to calm my nerves.”

Watching as a car slowed at the curb before Patsy stepped out, Stuart saw his sister step from the porch and walk closer. The two embraced as Patsy told her companion, “You’ll knock ‘em dead. Just relax and let the crew take care of things.” Afterwards, Wilma climbed into the front seat before the car took off.

“Who was the woman driving?” Mother Cox asked as Patsy entered the sun porch.

“That’s Yetta. You met her this morning, does the wardrobe and costuming. Tall girl with a kind face and cropped hair. Sitting beside his mother, Stu listened as Patsy added, “She’s also Bonnie Hyman’s daughter. He’s the guy who runs the club.” Then Patsy got her keys back from Stu.

Sometime later, “Hey, stand still,” Patsy snapped as she sprayed Wilma’s perfume to cover the musty scent of camphor and storage permeating from Papa’s best attire. Mother Cox had managed to avoid this stale aroma, and her perfume was milder. Stu accepted his perfuming with good cheer.

Then Patsy showered and dressed, coming out wearing a tuxedo with tails and a carnation at her lapel.

Katherine Hepburn had worn trousers in movies. Marlene Dietrich dressed in male clothing even when she was off-screen. Female equestrians had recently been permitted to wear trousers, and the trend was finding favor on golf courses and in other places. However, in Birmingham and throughout the South a woman in trousers was all but unthinkable.

Unable to swallow his disdain over changing mores, Papa looked at his daughter’s companion while commenting, “You look like a cartoon character.”

“And you clean up like a hayseed late for his own wake,” Patsy shot back, getting Mama and Stu to chuckle.

Arriving at the Club New Yorker and paying a valet before getting out of the car, Patsy asked, “Your name’s Clara, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“My paternal grandmother back in Ireland was Clare. I’ve always liked both names, used to tell her picture about my life.”

Impressed with the sharing, Clara asked, “Patsy isn’t your name, is it?”

“Bridget Sarah Veronica Rose,” she answered with a small but deferential curtsy. “One of my brothers called my Patsy ‘cause they used to trick and laugh at me.”

As they headed down a flight of steep stairs, Patsy kissed her hand and then touched it against a picture of linebacker sized fellow with wavy blonde hair and baby blue eyes.

Clara understood Patsy’s gesture as a tribute to her fallen friend. Then she recalled the Pansy Craze and how the biggest star of the trend had died just a year or so earlier.

Entering a larger than expected ballroom, the visitors found their reserved table right beside the stage. Taking seats before watching others milling about the room, Papa became fixated on a particularly attractive cigarette girl.

A cheerful man with receding hair came over and said, “I’m Bonnie Hyman. I run the Club New Yorker. Your daughter Wilma is a prized asset,” and he put out a hand to shake.

“Thank you,” Papa responded. Then Mama Clara told the man, “She’s written of how kind you were to drive her home in an especially severe rainstorm. Thank you.”

“Yeah, was not a good day but we made it through,” Bonnie related. Then he explained that there would be photographers after the show, and asked the parents to be in a shot with their daughter? “They’ll be a write up in the papers. If you prefer to stay out, that’s okay too.”

“Of course, we’d love to be in the picture,” Mama blurted out, and Papa did not disagree.

As Bonnie tended to other business, Patsy waved for the cigarette girl to come to their table.

Selecting two packs of Lucky’s, Patsy told the young woman, “Let me get half a dozen cigars as well.” Seeing Romeo y Julieta Cazadores, she chose them for the rest of her order. Escorting the cigarette girl to Papa Connie and handing him the money to pay and tip, Patsy insisted him to keep four cigars and give her the other two.

Thanking the man with a giggle in her voice, the pretty lass presented her wedge cutter to the gentleman. Papa clipped before placing three into his inside breast pocket while resting a fourth on the table before lighting. Then he clipped the other two before handing them to Patsy.

Giving one to Stuart along with the two packs of Lucky’s that she’d purchased for him, Patsy told him, “You’re movin’ up in the world kid. Just don’t get sick in my car.”

Then she explained, “Conway’s visiting from out of town. Would you mind posing for a couple o’ photos with him?”

Blonde and young with a dazzling smile and fabulous legs, the cigarette girl was delighted. Connie looked to his wife and saw that she was okay with his infatuation.

Waving a photographer to come over and paying him to snap a few pictures, Papa nuzzled and became giddy about being close to this gorgeous bit of pulchritude. With his arm firmly around her slender waist and the giggly girl smiling while leaning her head against his shoulder, a bulb flashed. Then Patsy waved to a second cigarette girl, a brunette with glowing green eyes. Connie soon enjoyed having an arm around each woman as another bulb flashed. Both girls kissed him in one picture, and the retired sheriff’s deputy soaked up all the giggly-girly attention until he was happier than a birthday child blowing out candles.

Knowing that the pictures would be developed and ready before they left the show, the man happily allowed the blonde to light his cigar and giggle some more before he sat down and reflected over how good his life was in this moment.

A salad with a cheese that the Birminghamians had never tasted before was served, and they all liked feta. Then two large bottles of Chianti were placed on the table with their garlic bread, spaghetti and meatballs and mixed vegetables ahead of a choice of desserts.

When the emcee took to the stage, Patsy explained, “That’s Charlie Chase’s kid brother.”

“Then why is his last name Parrott?”

“Show people often make up their own names. Charles Parrott isn’t especially funny now, is it?”

Referencing all the famous people throughout the audience and allowing each to stand for applause, the loudest and longest was for Tallulah Bankhead, an Alabamian. The Cox’s stood and applauded before waving to their heroine, delighted when she waved back.

As the emcee referenced Mayor Shaw, who led a notoriously corrupt administration, Patsy stood up and bellowed, “Did someone bail out ole Frankie—boy?”

Conway and Clara thought this the rudest thing they’d ever heard or seen. Then Patsy did it again after the emcee dropped another name, and she stood up waving her cigar while talking like a caricature from an Edward G. Robinson gangster movie.

Now the couple came to understand that her antics were part of the show, and laughed along with everyone else. Clara noticed that Patsy’s cigar was unlit, and thought for a moment before realizing why – she’d been in the car when her friend died, and had taken in so much sand and seawater that the doctors later warned her that she would not likely live very long. Stu was just awestruck to be around so many famous people, and allowed to have as much of the delicious red wine as he liked.

A trio of jugglers performed with a few showgirls including the blonde cigarette woman. Connie was certain that she’d blown a kiss to him as the act ended.

Now Wilma was introduced and stepped out in a flowing chiffon gown, pearl necklace and glittery earrings. Her hair was up with three flamboyant, colored feathers coming out from above her left temple.

Opening with My Old Kentucky Home, although the lyric referenced a different state the poignancy of the tune effectively contrasted with the violent raids on encampments of the Okies, or Oklahomans and others fleeing the Dust Bowl to get to California. The powers that be were unusually harsh toward these new arrivals. However, patrons of the Club New Yorker were generally more welcoming and inclusive, and understood the unstated message of Wilma’s song. Only six pieces and a piano, the band was still able to fill the ballroom with sound and rhythm.

A decade earlier, Saint Louis Blues had been a huge hit for Bessie Smith. Wilma’s rendition continued the same earthiness with subtle shifts in the phrasing. At one point almost falling from her heels, it was impossible to tell whether this was part of the act or a spontaneous glitch.

Her next song was from Latin America, and it was amazing to hear Wilma sing whole stanzas authoritatively in Spanish as well as English while she shimmied and danced to the evocative music.

Anna May Wong stepped out from behind the curtain, and she and Wilma embraced as the audience applauded and a few Chinese in the audience shouted what sounded like praises in their language. Then the ladies began a duet song wherein each sang a verse that called out to the other. Patsy recognized the lyric as something that Yetta had been working on for months, and was glad that their friend had successfully produced such a beautiful ballad.

The final offering of Wilma’s performance was The Foggy Dew, an Irish resistance song, and Patsy and loads of other sons and daughters of Irish parents and even a few immigrants from the Emerald Isle stood to recite the mournful lyrics as Wilma sang:

…No pipe did hum, No battle drum did sound its loud tattoo, But the Angelus Bells o’er the Liffey swells, Rang out the foggy dew…

When the song finished everyone took to their feet to offer rapturous applause as well as a curtain call before Wilma’s performance was complete.

A group of physical comedians quickly convened for a reenactment that featured a politician giving a speech wherein every malapropism and error conceivable occurred as well as a bucket of supposedly dirtied water being poured on the lead performer before the skit was complete, and it was a laugh riot.

After the food, dessert and entertainment were over and Mother and Father had posed with their talented daughter after her performance, it was time to head home.

Not having been content until the last drop of wine was downed, Stu ably got up, ambled across the ballroom and up the steep stairs with a reasonably steady gait. It was in the parking lot after she’d handed the kid her number ticket to fetch the car, that Patsy began talking to the inebriated hick.

“Back in Sicily, donkeys carry the grapes from the orchard to the presses. When they get too old, well the Italians put them up for a soak. Turn ‘em upside—down and the animals crap somethin’ awful while screamin’ like banshees.

“These traditions became especially important after they came to Napa, a few hours up the road from us. Anyhow, putting each donkey into a big vat o’ wine still takes several men with ropes and pulleys. Apprenticeship and years of training are involved. It’s the blood and urine that impart a stronger taste to the wine.

Noticing that Stu was paying attention and getting queasy, Patsy upped the pressure: “After a week or two the wine turns that donkey meat succulent and tender, comes right off the bone. Anyhow this gets folded into the meatballs, as it adds a zest. Saw part of an eyeball and some brain in one of yours, that’s the best part,” and she saw the first signs of nausea come across the young man’s face.

Then she explained how California has especially long worms that get dried in the sun and added to the spaghetti, and told Stu, “Think about that, cheap protein in these lean times and those worms are delicious aren’t they?”

By the time she got to insects in the grated parmesan that comes from cow noses rather than their milk, Stu began heaving up his supper and continued to vomit even after the kid brought back their car.

Wilma appeared and commented, “Really, you had to take him to Ballinrobe? Just this one time you could’ve let it alone.”

“What is Ballinrobe?” Mother Clara asked.

“My Father was a policeman there back in Ireland, used to work drunks like this before putting them in jail to sleep it off, kept the place cleaner.”