Evening Star Newspaper, July 5, 1931, Page 60

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, ]ULY 5, 1931, 7 She Stoops toYonkers A Romance That Began Behind the Scenes on Broadway and Came to a Happy Ending Quite a Piece Up a Street That Was Much Longer Than the Heroine Had Expected. BY BERTON BRALEY Pictures by George Clark VERY year there are hundreds of new faces and twice as many new legs in the Broadway choruses. Youth and fresh beauty is the demand, and youth and fresh beauty storm the casting offices. Experience is not particularly important. Face, figure and a sense of rhythm are ma- terials which an expert ensemble director can easily mold into a working unit of the girl and music industry. But he can't do it alone. Just as a good captain can make a fairly efficient company out of green recruits if he has good non-ccms and a dozen or so hard- boiled buck privates with at least one re-enlist- ment behind them, so a chorus director can whip a green chorus into shape if he has a few hard-boiled, chorus-wise chorines with half a dozen long-run Broadway successes as their training schcol for a nucleus of his merry- merries. These girls are as necessary in a chorus as non-coms in the army. They range from an old 18 to a young 35. They are blund or brunet, as nature decrees or the type requires. Not all of them are pretty, and not a few have legs that are no threat to Lily Damita, Claudette Colbert or Ann Pennington. But they know show business. They can do & new step after watching the dance director once. They can snap into a new number with almost military precision after slight direction, since they have learned that all new numbers are only old ones painted over. Furthermore, they can swing the green ones into it with them, which is important. HEY are flippant and slangy. They're as independent as a hog on ice, as self-respect- ing as any stenographer—and a darn sight more so than some debutantes—and they are indis- pensable to the success of any musical comedy. They know it—and few of them ever go on the road. When the show hits for the sticks they step out and into a new productivn that’s getting ready for the main stem. Mamie Cunniffe (Angela Morne on the pro- gram) was third from the end in the front row of “Hot and Bothered.” She was 22 and had been a chorus lady for five years. She was an unhennaed redhead, 5 feet 2, and weighed 118 in chorus costume—a net of 1171, to be exact. She was pretty, and her figure was good enough so she could and did pick up a few dollars a week extra by posing—figure or cos- tume, as per requirerents. She had no par- ticular modesty. She was used to being kissed casually by almost any man who happened to be back-stage; she had played night clubs now and then; she knew all about the facts of life. She earned about $75 a week, paid her half of a hundred-dollar-a-month apartment, bought hber own street clothes, did not support a widowed mother and did not have a car. She was thrifty and had $500 in the savings bank. She was born in New York and had never been out of it. She didn’'t want to go out of it. She didn’t see why anybody ever went out of it. New York was her town and Broadway was New York. That was one of her two strongest convic- tions. The other was that chorus men were no good and that a girl didn't have anything to do with them off stage. She could see that she’d have to point that out in frank and earnest fashion to Nick Mills, The big bozo didn't seem to get wise. Every night for the month he’'d been with the show he’'d tried to date her. A chorus man trying to date her! Kin you imagine! She’d given him one run-around after another, thinking he’d lay off. But the big boob came back for more punishment. Of course, he wasn't so b~ —f'r ~ ch~ns man. Most of 'em were pretty terrible. This baby was & bass and kinda husky, W0. o, i he were the kind he looked, what was he doing in the chorus? Was he one of these stage- struck Johns that thought you could work into leads by being a chorus man? Then he was toe dumb for Mamie. Huh? Whoever heard of a chorus man get- ting more than a line like “Well, boys, here he comes now’'? O, if he asked her out again she'd have to tell him where to get off. She sort of wished he wasn't & chorus man. That'd be different. He had nice big hands—and his Jine wasn’t so bad, either. Well, it would have to be done just the same. She’d been “thinking it over all evening and if he made a crack about a date after the curtain dropped she'd give him the works, ‘The ensemble gave its final kick in the finale and the curtain dropped. E ; “Hearken, me proud patrician beauty,” said Nick Mills as they moved wingward, “you look pale and famished. I have jack in the jeans and an itch in the feet. Why don’t you and I crash the Ritz—or what have you more expen- sive—and wow 'em with a ball room act? Moss and Fontana knocked for a row of soft-sole pumps? Hey? Or rather, Hey Hey?” “Listen,” sald Mamie, jerking her arm from his clasp, “don’t you ever get tired of being turned down all the time, big boy?” “Absolutely,” grinned Nick. “It's because I get tired of being turned down that I keep trying to turn something up. Anyhow, why up- town me all the time? You could like me if you knew me—my mother does—and several women outside the family have spoken favor- ably of me as a child. What's the matter with me, anyhow? “I've seen you step out with two or three boy friends that bore no resemblance to Vincent Astor, Lindbergh or Gene Tunney. What's the out? Is it something my best friend won't tell me?” “You're a chorus man,” said Mamie. “I don't go out with chorus men.” “There are two kinds of chorus men,” replied Nick, unperturbed, “the kind you don't go out with—and me. You may have known a lot of the first kind, but you shouldn't judge the second kind by that. If you met me, not know- ing I was a chorus man, wouldn't you like me?” m;But I know you are a chorus man and that's - “d “That's what? What is that? I may belong to the dancing clan, but I'm not a typical chorus man. There’s a lyric for an opening number. Come on, child, forget your sense of caste and let’s go. I'll take you places where nobody could discover my alias—and where nobody would believe it if they did. “When I slip into my coonskin coat every- body takes me for a visiting collegian until they see I'm sober. You might as well come now— for I'll keep at you till you do. And henceforth your other boy friends can’t alibi you, because I'm socking anybody else who tries to escort you.” ¢ “Excuse me,” sald Mamie. “I must run up and dress. There's a friend waiting outside for me now. You—socking anybody! Chorus man!” “I didn’t have to sock him,” explained Nick, taking her arm as she stepped out of the stage door 20 minutes later. “I just told him he was mixed on his dates, and he went away. After I showed him this, close, s0 he could under- stand me better.” He held up a large and muscular fist. “Now,” he continued, “there are two things A small, well shaped but astonishingly hard fist doubled, and propelled by a slim, soft, but muscular feminine arm, collided with Milda Marrow’s slightly shrewish chin. It wasn’t a knockout, but it ended the argument. you can do. Accept me as a pinch-hitter for the bird who has flown, or call a cop. “You're terrible,” said Mamie. “A great big nasty thug,” agreed Nick. “But something had to be done to dissipate your impression that a chorus man couldn't act bass as well as sing it. LoBk, I've even hired a car.” He opened the door of a sleek limousine. “The Belle Vue,” he said to the driver, and handed Mamie in. “Where—where's that?” asked Mamie. “Out mnedr Northfort,” sald Nick, “where there are wide open spaces and men aren’t chorus men.! Scream if you're afraid I'm kid- you!” ¥ thy “I'm not afraid of & chorus man,” said Mamie—but she said it with a giggle. ) / “Listen,” said Mamie, “don’t you ever get tired of getting turned down?” “Ab- solutely,” grinned Nick, “it’s because I'm getting tired of being turned down that I keep trying to turn something up. --Tms stage dust certainly does smudge up your legs,” remarked Milda Marrow, one of the new chorus girls, as she surveyed her pair. “I suppose that didn’t trouble girls much when they wore tights. How about it, Mam:e, you ought to know?"” Now they haven't worn tights on Broadwiy Yor 10 years, and this had all the imputations of a nasty crack. And it didn’t fail to register with Mamie Cunniffe, and Mamie didn’t fail to make a prompt and spirited response. “I couldn't tell you,” said Mamie, “but maybe your sweetie could. He must have sat in the bald-headed row at the Black Crook. But are you cture that’s tonight's dirt?” . The dressing room shrilled with girlish laugh- ter. Milda's small rosebud—rouge rosebud— mouth drew into a lemonish pucker. “At least I've got myself a man,” she sneered. “I'm not so hopeless I have to pick 'em out of the chorus. A small, well shaped, but astonishingly hard fist doubled, and propelled by a slim, soft but muscular feminine arm, collided with Milda Marrow’s slightly shrewish chin. It wasn't a knockout, but it tumbled Miss Marrow over her chair, and terminated the argument. - Mamie turned and faced the other girls like a little roused tiger. “Listen, all of you,” she said. “Any more wise-cracks about Nick and me and I'll goal the lot of you. That spitting little cat has put me wise to myself. Chorus man or not he’s my man, see! I've been trotting around with him on the q. t. because I was just fool enough to let a stage tradition make me kind of ashamed to be seen with a chorus boy. Well, that’s out! “I'm not ashamed; I'm proud. I'd be proud of Nick whatever he was. And you frills that are running around with sugar daddies and slick-haired simps better not dish any more dirt about Nick. “You can take it from me, if he's a chorus man now he won't always be one, while your Johns will always be what they are, and that 'S ain't anything to write home about. Anybody got any more smart cracks?” Nobody had any more smart cracks. Mamie got into her street clothes and, slamming the dressing-room door behind her, clattered on her high heels down the winding steel staircase. Outside the theater she hurried down the street to a certain corner two blocks away. “We are watched.” Nick hissed mysteriously and excitedly in her ear as he joined her. “If the secret of your clandestine meetings with a chorus man is to be kept, act as though I were just a corner loafer and ignore me.” “Who's watching?” demanedd Mamie. “Nobody that I know of,” said Nick. “That was just my so-called sense of humor. Where do we go from here?” - “Let's go to Tom and Jerry’s,” said Mamie. Nick stared at her, “But that’s where most of your girl friends hang out when they haven’t got a date,” he “That's why I want to go there,” said Mamie, “Some of ‘em made a crack about my running around with a chor—with you—and I want to show 'em what I told 'em.” “What did you tell 'em?” = "' DLENTY. But the main thing was that I guessed I knew a regular fellow when I saw him, and that you were one. And that I'd show you to the world and tell ’em that you were—were——"' “The boy friend?” asked Nick. “Something like that—if that's hcw you feel about it!” Nick addressed Broadway in general in puz- zled accents. “Listen, world,” he remarked, “can you tie this? I asks her for a date every night for a month before she gives me a tumble. I gazes at her with eyes of a faithful fido—and she wants to know if I feel like being the boy friend? Whaddyuh think, woild? “Well, I'll tell you what I think! she’s one grand little girl.” “You're silly,” said Mamie. “Not so very,” said Nick. “But wait a min- ute, she doesn’t know the worst. And yet I must tell her. Ah, me. Perhaps she'd marry a chorus man—would you, Mamie?"” “I'd marry you,” Mamie replied, without any maidenly hypocrisy, “though this is an awful place to ask me!” There was a moment of silence. Then—— “What ho, the car awaits,” said Nick, as the familiar limousine drew up at the curb beside them. “We will complete the formalities ine cident to betrothal within its luxurious interior. Chauffeur, continue up Broadway until I bid you stop.” They had purred as far north as Kingse bridge before the formalities incident to be= trothal had permitted either of them to cone sider where they were. “But you have to come up for breath some- time, and Mamie, sitting up to arrange her bob, glanced out of the window. “Where are we?” she asked. “Oh, still on Broadway,” replied Nick. “It doesn’'t look like Broadway to me” Mamie protested. ‘“Broadway doesn't go this far.” “You'd be surprised how far Broadway goes,” said Nick. “We're just about to enter Yonkers —and Broadway continues even beyond that.” While further conventions of engagements were being complied with, the car slipped through Getty Square and kummed up the hill beyond it. Half way down the other side of this hill it turned into a stone gateway and stopped before a small stone house. “What's this?” Mamie asked. “This is still Broadway,” answered Nick. “Come on in and see how you like the shack.” He took a key from his pocket and leading Mamie up the steps unlocked the front door of the cottage. A switch clicked and Mamie blinked as she looked about her. A single room appeared to take up all the space of the first floor. A grand piano in one corner, a great fireplace at one side, a dozen great easy chairs, a huge couch before the fire. Rich rugs and an air of sumptuous comfort. “Like it?” asked Nick. “There are three bed rooms upstairs and three baths. A kitchen on this floor. Steam heat and lcts of hot water. All for $15 a week—on Broadway. In Yonkers. Would you consider living here, in Yonkers ~—with me?” I think Hls this that confession you were talking about?” demanded Mamie. Nick nodded. “Listen, Nick,” said Mamie, “when those girls began to ride me about you I found out something. I found out I was in love with you. Some girls might be in love with a man and worry about what his job was or how much he could do for them or where they were going to live. I even thought I was that way myself— hard-boiled baby, and all that. “But I don't know whether I can love a man who's lied to me all along like you have. I know you don't get this place for $15 a week. And I know you're no chorus man. Come clean, Nick, or I'll walk out of here and never see you ugnln." 4 “We’ll walk out together,” said Nick. “I have Hed to you. But—you don’t know the half of it, dearte. When I lies, I lies good.” He took her arm in an inexorable grip and pulled her along with him into the car, which moved on up the graveled drive, winding & Continued on Eighteenth Page