23
Discovery
Hollywood, 1929
The summer after she graduated, Leone spurned the lead roles her mother continued to offer her in the popular Barry School of Dancing recitals.
“The thought of one more polka or tambourine dance at the Odd Fellows Hall depresses me beyond measure, Mother. I need a bigger stage.” Leone reached up to the top of her small closet and pulled down a valise she had recently purchased using her graduation money.
“You know I’ve rented the Orpheum Theatre this year.” Opal’s perpetual hopefulness annoyed Leone. Laying out the valise on top of a tangle of sheets on her bed, Leone turned to face her mother. Opal’s small frame presented an obstacle that prevented her from retrieving her clothes from the dresser drawers, so Leone reached for a piece of paper she had concealed in a novel on her nightstand and held it out for her mother to see.
“An appointment slip. See?” Despite her best intentions not to lose her temper, she raised her voice. “Look here.” She held the small ticket up by the corner tips in front of her mother’s face. “This is a memorandum for artists.” She slipped the coveted record of her first employment outside her mother’s dance studio into her handbag. “I’m an artist, Mother, not a fancy dancer. I have an engagement next week at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. In the Gold Room.” Now was as good a time as any to let that cat out of the bag.
Opal’s face froze. Leone followed her mother’s eyes, glazed with moisture, as they searched the room for something to focus on and found a framed photograph on Leone’s nightstand. In the photo, Opal sat posed in a chair. Felix stood on the right behind his wife, chest puffed out, one hand resting on her shoulder, grinning into the camera. Jane sat front and center on her mother’s lap, looking solemn. Leone stood off to the left, hands hanging down—a stranger, Leone thought. She recognized the expression on her face. It was the smile she practiced in the mirror, a sweet smile, the one she switched on when the occasion required.
Opal rubbed her temples, pressed her lips together for a moment, and then said, “You will dance in the chorus, I imagine. What kind of dancing?”
“A Spanish dance.”
“Fancy.” Opal swiveled and left the bedroom. Leone followed, her fingers balled into fists. In the front room, Opal gathered her music books and dance bag. Leone peppered her mother’s back with a volley of words.
“You don’t understand. It’s a start.”
“Oh, but I do understand.” Opal turned again to face her daughter. “I was younger than you are now when I went to New York. It’s a hard life, Leone. If you start in the chorus, you will end in the chorus. And chorus dancing is a short career. At least get your education first, and start preparing for a career that can sustain you when you can’t dance anymore.”
Leone’s face turned red. “You have to take the fun out of everything, don’t you! I’m meeting people. Important people who can help me get roles in Hollywood. I’m not just a dancer. I’m going to be an actress too.”
“Oh for pity’s sake, Leone. Is that what you want?” Opal released the overstuffed dance bag from her shoulder back down to the floor. “We are in a depression. I might lose the studio. We might have to move to San Francisco to help take care of Felix’s parents. You think you are going to just trip off to Hollywood?” Opal folded her arms and waited for an answer.
“Well.” Leone lowered her voice and spoke her words slowly. “I can tell you this. If you are planning to move to San Francisco, then I am moving to LA sooner rather than later.”
“Let her go, Opal.” A chair scraped along the kitchen floor, and Nellie appeared in the doorway. “At least she’s not going clear across the country like you did. We won’t be so far away if she needs us.” Nellie walked over and stood beside Leone, who reached for her grandmother’s hand and squeezed it.
No one had noticed Jane’s presence. During the argument, the little girl had snuck into the room and buried herself under the afghan on the davenport. She sat up now, pulled the covering off her head, and narrowed her eyes at them. She turned green, clutched her stomach, and with a wail, threw up her breakfast.
“That child.” Nellie shook her head.
Leone glared at Jane.
Opal rushed to the kitchen for wet towels.
R
Nellie paid for Leone’s room at the Hollywood Studio Club out of the meager savings she had squirreled away. Young women poured in from every region of the United States, seeking employment in the entertainment industry. The newly renovated residence hall sheltered wide-eyed ingénues from rural America, a comfort to their parents.
Leone’s new life was a whirlwind of dance classes and auditions. Evenings she would compare notes around the communal dinner table with young women from small towns and big cities across the country. In the beginning, she did more listening than she did talking. A Catholic education and one trip to Omaha had not prepared her for the sophistication of the New England girls, who had years of summer stock experience under the slim belts that circled their small waists. Nor for the soft speech of their southern sisters, a smokescreen for steely resolve. Queen of the hive at Saint Mary’s, more often now, Leone found herself buzzing about on her own.
She was by herself the day she ran to catch a trolley to the dance studio. Out of breath, she set her foot on the step and lost her balance when the streetcar started rolling. She slipped. She tumbled into the street and landed hard on her left arm. Pain shot from her wrist to her elbow, and she blacked out.
As soon as the driver realized that a girl lay in the street beside the trolley, he braked. When Leone came to, the hand of a kind stranger reached out from among the bystanders gathered around her. Slowly she regained her senses as she felt herself being tugged to her feet and handed up into the car.
Leone ignored the murmurs of sympathy and sat very still on a bench seat, taking stock of herself. Her arm hurt like the dickens, but everything seemed to be in working order. Several blocks later, though, as she stepped back down onto the street, she experienced an odd sensation. She could not feel the pavement with her left foot. By the time she reached the dance studio, she was limping badly.
Madame Smolina, the ballet mistress, stood in the center of the classroom. “And one, and two, and three, and four.” She counted in heavily accented Russian. She didn’t have to look up to detect the halt in her favorite student’s step.
“Leone, what has happened? The class continued their battements, en avant, à la seconde, and en arrière. Madame glided to Leone’s side.
“A slight accident, Madame; I’m feeling quite weak on my left side.”
“Tell me.”
Leone described her mishap. Trying to make light of it, she joked. “I was seeing stars, Madame, and not the kind that show up in class between auditions and performances.”
Madame frowned and clucked her tongue. “Tell me exactly what you felt.”
Leone tried to recall what had happened. “When I fell, a sharp pain gripped my hip. I think it weakened my leg. The pain shot up my arm and exploded in my head.”
“Stand up straight and let me have a look.” Madame reached her slim hand out and touched Leone’s hip with two graceful fingers. It was as if she had pulled a rug out from under Leone’s feet. One minute, the injured girl was telling her story, and the next minute she lay crumpled on the floor, her eyes darting wildly, her body unable to move. She could feel her lips attempt to form a response to Madame Smolina’s anxious questions.
“What are you saying? I can’t understand you.” Leone could hear her own words, but they did not seem to reach the teacher’s ears. Madame’s lips were moving, but she sounded as if she were speaking from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
Leone’s eyeballs continued to dart around in their sockets, desperate to hold onto the light, but now the teacher’s face loomed like a featureless moon above her. Then the light dimmed and went out, and Leone was sucked into a darkness from which she would not emerge until a voice she did not recognize called her forth.
R
For a week, Leone lay in a Los Angeles hospital bed, trapped inside her body, unable to move, see, hear, or talk: utterly senseless. Hospital physicians could not explain how a minor injury led to such devastating consequences. Despite their reluctance, after exhausting all their resources, they called in a psychiatrist.
Years later, Leone would wonder why the long wait to consult their esteemed colleague? Then she would remember. He was not esteemed by the hospital staff. Dr. Cecil Reynolds was a celebrated student of hypnotism. As such, he was highly suspected of selling snake oil.
It was not the nature of Leone’s accident, its dire consequences, or her miraculous recovery that conspired to give her the headlines she had so desired. It was the celebrity of the man the medical establishment finally summoned. A leading proponent of the physiological theory of hypnotism, Dr. Reynolds also happened to be personal physician to Charlie Chaplin. Thus the stage was set for a dramatic recovery.
What was it like, to be called out of darkness? An odor like fingernail polish remover laced with alcoholic sweetness seeped into Leone’s consciousness. She became aware of her body, but she could not move. Neither could she see, speak, or hear.
Get up now, and walk.
Her limbs like dead logs began floating downstream. By what volition she maneuvered her body from the grave of her bed to the bank of pillows that now supported her in an upright position, she did not know.
Get up now, and walk.
She reached for the arms of an unseen partner. Her legs swung over the side of the bed, and her bare feet slipped onto the floor. Weightless, she emerged from a dense fog and stumbled into the arms of a nurse, who supported her weight and murmured into her ear, “That’s very good; rest now.”
Over a period of a week, this exercise repeated itself. With each halting journey from Leone’s bedside to Dr. Reynolds’ arms, her body grew stronger. Still, she remained in darkness. How she yearned for light. Toward week’s end, the step of her feet lightened, but a gray blur continued to cloud her vision.
Will I see again?
Each day, Leone stepped briefly into a hazy clearing until one day, she stayed. When the haze cleared, the first thing she saw was the doctor’s handsome face.
“Welcome back, Leone.” Under his imposing, heavy, dark eyebrows, the doctor’s warm, brown puppy eyes pooled with compassion. The nursing staff clasped their hands to their hearts. The attending physicians whispered among themselves. Voices! She could hear voices, but not her own.
Will I sing again?
A few days later, doctors surrounded the bed where she lay. An anesthesiologist administered a mild sedative that lulled her into a waltz-like state of well-being. By now she trusted Cecil so completely that she had no fear of regressing. She studied the faces that crowded around her bed, the raised eyebrows, the pursed lips, the jutting chins and tilted heads. Only Cecil smiled and leaned in to search her eyes with his. Speaking magic words, he turned the lock on her vocal chords a notch. Her throat let go, and a few raspy sounds escaped her lips.
The nursing staff that stood behind the doctors pushed closer. Cecil touched her hand, nodded his head, and the lock on her speech clicked over another notch. Sodden words strung together in a senseless phrase that fell from her mouth. The doctors rubbed their chins, blinked, and shook their heads. The nurses nodded encouragement.
Cecil caught up her hand in his. “Speak, Leone. Tell me how you are feeling.”
The latch on her voice sprung open. “I feel very well, Doctor.” Oh my stars, what a lovely sound! That’s my voice. That’s me. Speaking!