CHAPTER SIX

Los Angeles, 1945–46

The cast and crew of The Bells of St. Mary’s transformed Saint Ann’s into something of a fairy-tale place for the brief span of days they were there. I watched the filming as often as I could, any concentration on my classes tossed to the winds. I had to pinch myself more than once. She was here, at a Catholic school, of all places—at my school, gliding down the meandering paths, looking saintly in her black robes.

We were all starstruck, of course. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw the real nuns stand straighter, and I could swear a couple of the younger ones were trying to emulate Ingrid’s walk.

Even Sister Teresa Mary fell under the spell. She was seen several times smiling and nodding as Bing Crosby whiled away the time between takes, unspooling one of his lazy, ambling jokes. He was a languid sort of man, I thought—always smoking his pipe, asking the older girls for a light when it went out, then laughing at their flustered responses.

“Oh, of course, you young ladies don’t smoke; I should have known,” he teased, with a knowing wink. Even Sister Teresa Mary smiled. My father said everyone from the studio was under strict orders to cater to her and keep her happy. If she grew restive with the chaos of cables and lighting equipment that seemed—briefly—to devour our school, it could cause trouble.

There was one worrisome moment.

“Doyle is making waves,” Father muttered at the end of the first day of filming. Mother automatically glanced around nervously, even though we were in our house and no one could possibly hear him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“He’s complaining that the nuns didn’t have the right to give permission for the filming—as bishop, only he has the right. We’ve got people over at the chancery showing him the script now. Even the Legion of Decency couldn’t find anything wrong with this one.”

“He just wants his power acknowledged,” Mother said quietly. “To keep movie people a little afraid of him.”

“Very astute, Vannie,” Father said, raising an eyebrow as he looked at her. All was smoothed out by morning, and for a few days, my father glanced at Mother with an extra edge of respect.

The coming of Hollywood to Saint Ann’s stirred up the neighborhood in ways that Kathleen and I thought were funny. The raspy-voiced clerk who worked in the hardware store across the street sauntered over every day, peering at all the movie equipment in the parking lot with lustful melancholy; I wondered, What had he wanted out of life? Young mothers in flowered housedresses from the little stucco bungalows on the next block wheeled their sleeping babies as close to the action as they could, trying to pretend they weren’t yearning for a glimpse of Bing or Ingrid. They looked frazzled, most of them. They often had a toddler or two on the back of their baby buggies. It took me a while to realize how young they were—maybe only five or six years older than me. We students in our drab black dresses and class ties were given bright-colored badges by the movie crew so we could move freely around the school, even when they were filming. We stored up every little morsel of movie gossip we could, to pass on nonchalantly to all the neighborhood watchers still hanging around after school.

The atmosphere was wonderfully relaxed. Between takes, Ingrid would put her feet up on a canvas chair and laugh and tell jokes with the crew members. “I can’t actually say I enjoy being a nun,” she said once to a Hollywood reporter visiting the set. “The best part of it is, nobody complains about my weight when I’m in this habit.”

We giggled over that, enjoying this little peek into our heroine’s sense of humor, and repeated it around the campus. “It is one of the advantages,” Sister Hildegarde, my Latin teacher, murmured to another nun with a faint smile. That was impressive: Sister Hildegarde had never been known to respond to a joke.

All the sideline vignettes were, to tell the truth, more interesting than the actual filming. A few minutes of watching the cameras turn, of standing on tiptoes, craning to see past the other girls, the nuns, and the crew members, and then long waits. And then shooting the same scene, again. And again.

“Grass grows faster,” we all told each other in a newly discovered weary way. Ten, maybe fifteen takes would consume hours. Kathleen and I agreed that each version of Ingrid floating across the main courtyard, appearing troubled as she worried about her beloved school’s financial future, looked pretty much like another.

Oh, we loved being jaded.

But not on the last day of shooting.

…Sister Mary Benedict kneels before the chapel altar. She has been told she is being transferred, and she thinks it is because of her efforts to save the school. “Remove all bitterness from my heart,” she prays as she struggles to accept the decision.

Father O’Malley and Sister Mary Benedict face each other in the courtyard; it is time to say goodbye. The tenderness they share, the respect…

As I watched, I had the most confused feelings; suddenly, irrationally, I wanted them to end up in each other’s arms.

…Sister Mary Benedict walks away. Father O’Malley is struggling: he can’t let her go like this. He calls her back, they stand face-to-face. “I can’t let you leave like this,” he begins. “I have to tell you the truth. When Dr. McKay said you were perfect, he was right. But he didn’t mean physically.”

What was wrong with me? What was I hoping for? I knew the script, I knew how this ended. What made me suddenly yearn for it to turn into a love story?

…“You have ‘a touch’ of TB,” Father O’Malley tells her gently. That is why she has to leave, to get proper treatment.

Relief and joy spread slowly across Ingrid’s luminous face. She is not being banished for trying to battle against the closing of Saint Mary’s. It is only health, after all, that has brought this forced, painful departure.

“Thank you, Father O’Malley,” she says gratefully. “Thank you with all my heart.”…

“Cut,” Leo McCarey said quietly.

The spell we were all under did not snap immediately. First, there had to be a mass exhalation of breath. I stared at Ingrid, hardly believing that Sister Mary Benedict was fading before my eyes. In her place was this real person, turning to McCarey, a sudden mischievous look on her face.

“Please, can we do one more take?” she pleaded. “I know I can do this better, convey more.”

“We don’t need it,” McCarey protested.

“Please.”

Who could refuse Ingrid? McCarey bent to her entreaty, and the cameras rolled again.

…Ingrid lifts her face to Father O’Malley. “Thank you, Father, thank you with all my heart,” she begins. Suddenly she moves close to her costar, and flings her arms around him. Bing Crosby, startled, has no time to move before she plants a lusty, wet kiss on his lips, and then—

“Cut, cut!” yelled McCarthy. A priest assigned by the Legion of Decency to monitor the making of the movie jumped up from his chair, yelling, “No, no, Miss Bergman, no, this cannot be done!”

Her laughter burst out, a wonderful, rollicking sound that soon had the entire assembly laughing with her. I laughed, too, hardly able to admit to myself that whatever wave of erotic emotion had come over me, I had fantasized that second take in the first place.

“Thank you all, you wonderful women and girls!” Ingrid called out, then embraced Sister Teresa Mary as we all cheered. Even the representative of the Legion smiled, albeit a bit warily.

Yes, it was over. The next day, all the trucks were loaded up, and drivers, shouting at each other, roared out the gates. Ingrid presented Sister Teresa Mary with a splendid Waterford glass bowl, etched with a thank-you from the studio, commemorating the dates during which Saint Ann’s had briefly become the fictional—and surely soon to be famous—Saint Mary’s.

The bowl was given a place of honor in the formal, slightly shabby parlor of our school, and the students of each class were allowed to file by, one by one, to admire it. We were all very proud. We had been given a touch of the magic wand of Hollywood. For the space of just a week, we had been granted membership in the secular world, a very special membership that would become part of the history of our school.

From the moment filming was finished, all the way to its Christmas release, there was a drumbeat, a sense of waiting for a winner, one that was inevitable. How could we be so sure? We just knew.

We were right. The Bells of St. Mary’s was enormously popular, fulfilling all of my father’s hopes. Ingrid was hailed in a national movie-magazine poll as the model for American womanhood, to great acclaim. Oh, we Catholics were proud. She had single-handedly changed the nation’s idea of a nun as a pokey old spinster to a strong woman, wise and kind.

Mothers would stop Ingrid on the street, pushing their starry-eyed little girls forward. “Miss Bergman, will you say hello to my daughter?” each would ask. “She wants to grow up to be just like you.”

“Surely, you mean like Sister Mary Benedict,” Ingrid would gently correct as she signed autograph book after autograph book. But she gave up when they stared at her blankly.

The adulation soared on and on. Even before the film premiered, Look magazine put Ingrid on their cover that fall, dressed not as herself but in full religious habit.

It wasn’t just Catholics elevating Ingrid; it was everybody. Protestants and Jews and atheists—we were all rooting for her.

“It’s amazing,” my mother said.

“You know what it is?” Father said, in one of his happy, pontificating moods. “Think about it—the war is over; all those American soldiers pouring home are getting married, buying houses, starting families. People want warmth, sentiment from Hollywood, after all the fighting—stories of grace and nobility they can believe in,” he said. “And who better to deliver that dream than Ingrid? Through my masterful efforts, of course. We’re giving them what they want, and isn’t that what the movie business is supposed to do?” He grinned. Within his question was the answer, and it made perfect sense to me.

Life on the surface at Saint Ann’s seemed about the same. But for a while, telling someone what school I attended brought eyes widened with curiosity. “What was Bergman like?” someone would ask eventually. Or “What is Bing Crosby like?”

As if we had the faintest idea, to tell the truth of it.

There were so many people peeking through the fence around our school during the filming, I hardly noticed those who seemed to linger in the aftermath, still straining to see some hint of Hollywood here. So, one afternoon, when Kathleen kept pacing the tennis court and glancing over at the fence, I was puzzled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are we playing or not?”

She nodded toward one figure standing by the wire-mesh fence. “That’s my father,” she said in a strained voice. “I want him to go away. I’ve seen him here before.”

I could hardly believe it, there were tears in her eyes.

“Are you sure?” I asked, pushing back a sudden romantic scenario of a reunion between father and daughter.

“Yes. I can’t talk to him—I don’t want to. Ever.”

“Shall I go get Sister Teresa Mary to order him away?”

She shook her head violently. “No, I don’t want anyone to know.”

I stared at my friend. Those tears in her eyes were so unnerving. I could see she felt trapped. “I’ll tell him to go away,” I said, though I was instantly afraid of my own bravado.

The look of relief on Kathleen’s face put my feet in motion. I was actually doing it, walking over to that slumped figure by the fence. No one else was around. And then I was right there, staring at a haggard-looking man with doleful eyes. His face was flushed; I figured he was a drinker.

“She wants you to go away and never come back,” I said.

“I just wanted to see her,” he said in a pleading voice.

“Go away; she doesn’t want to see you.” I was scared. What if he stood his ground? Was the fence strong enough to hold him back?

But this was a defeated man. I couldn’t suppress a guilty thought—how awful it would be if this were my father.

“Just tell her I’m sorry. I won’t come back.” He turned and trudged away slowly.

I walked back to the tennis court, still shaking. Kathleen was leaning against one of the benches. She reached out a hand and grasped mine.

“Thank you,” she said.

I squeezed her hand back. “Let’s play,” I said.

Both Ingrid and Bing Crosby were nominated for Academy Awards. The day the nominations were announced, my delighted father declared it was time for both Mother and me to go dress shopping for the awards ceremony.

I could hardly believe it. “You mean, I really get to go?” I asked.

“Of course you do, and I want my girls looking glamorous,” he teased.

“Where is it going to be?” I put my fork down. I was too excited to eat another bite.

“Grauman’s Chinese—this is a very splashy event,” he said.

I glanced at my mother, hoping I would be able to talk her into getting me high heels. Going to Grauman’s Chinese Theater? It was the exotic center of Hollywood glitter, the place outside of which actors and actresses sank their palms into wet cement, leaving handprints for the ages. It had to be one of the most famous places in the world.

And, of course, this was where my father had met my mother. Not that she liked talking about it. I always thought it sounded so romantic—this handsome man courting my beautiful mother, right in the midst of the glamour of Hollywood stars—but she would give a quick smile and change the subject when Father tried to coax her to tell the story.

I had never been inside. Kathleen and I, like any tourists, had wandered the famous sidewalk, giggling and placing our own hands into the imprints, including those of an actress, Carole Lombard, who was married to Clark Gable and had died in a plane crash a few years ago. Kathleen had stared at the Lombard handprint with a pensive expression on her face. “Nothing lasts, even when you think it will be around forever,” she said.

It was times like this, in small flashes, when I had some insight into Kathleen’s fists-up approach to the world. The sight of her father’s face at the school fence was etched in my memory. There really were things that none of us could change, no matter how much we fought against them, and maybe my mother’s forebodings were right—which ones were waiting out there for me?

But there was always Hollywood.

I dreamed my way into the magic world of the Academy Awards. Yes, there was a cream-colored envelope sitting in a place of honor on the fireplace mantel of our grand new home. I would finger it, awed by the elegance of the expensive paper and the elaborate script of the address.

I don’t think I quite believed I was actually going to the ceremony until the day arrived. That is, until, as I hummed and twirled in my new gown, I heard a new sound. I peeked out the window and saw a glistening black studio limo gliding sleekly up the driveway.

It was really happening. I was about to float into a fairy-tale evening in my beautiful new silver high-heeled shoes. I hoped the neighbors would notice, but, of course, they might be going, too. This was Beverly Hills, after all.

Before I knew it, I was bathing in light—the radiant, glittering swirl of sparkling jewels and gorgeous gowns, my own included. Mine was all frothy satin and tulle in a beautiful shade of blue, a color I knew I would always love. The only shadow over the evening was Mother’s insistence that I wear a stupid white bolero to cover my strapless shoulders, which I resented. I was thirteen now—almost fourteen. I was growing up. But of course that was the problem as far as she was concerned, I told myself.

I stopped brooding about the bolero when we got to the theater and saw the crowds of people crunched into a small roped-off space, craning their necks to see each new arrival, smiling, clapping. “We want Ingrid, we want Ingrid,” chanted one group, holding up signs, waving them, cheerfully bumping into each other.

And then came the reception. Waiters walked around handing out little sausages wrapped in crispy dough, politely offering them to me on silver platters, but I kept shaking my head. If I dropped one of them on my dress—or, worse, the carpet—I would die.

I recognized many of the actors and actresses in their sleek glory. There was Gregory Peck, signing somebody’s cocktail napkin, and I heard some people whispering that Joan Crawford was so afraid she wouldn’t win the Best Actress award for Mildred Pierce, she wasn’t going to show up. But the most chatter was about the Best Picture race, which was clearly between The Bells of St. Mary’s and The Lost Weekend, which was all about drunkenness, I knew, though Mother would never let me see it.

Everyone seemed affable and hearty as they greeted one another. But my father had reminded me at home, “Don’t forget, everybody’s an actor at the Academy Awards.” I thought of that when I saw Bing Crosby and Ray Milland—his rival for Best Actor—lounging against the cocktail bar, laughing over a shared joke. I sipped a ginger ale, trying to make it last. My father led my mother around, a hand on her elbow, introducing her, so clearly proud. I thought she looked perfect in her apple-green silk gown with her hair swept high, even though her smile seemed strained and nervous. And if she was nervous, what was I doing there? I tried to pretend I belonged, although no one actually talked to me.

Just before the lights blinked, signaling us all to take our seats for the show, I made a rush for the coatroom in hopes of checking the white bolero. This would have been a futile act of defiance under any circumstances, and I had thought better of it and started to turn back when I saw Ingrid Bergman standing half in shadow in the narrow corridor. A man stood close to her, a man with a carved, almost gaunt face and thinning black hair. He was talking rapidly, his tone sharp, his words clipped, lecturing urgently about something; I couldn’t tell. She wasn’t resisting but kept her head averted, saying nothing. Her eyes were blank, as if she willed herself elsewhere.

I hesitated, shocked. I was seeing something that was private, surely. But this couldn’t be—were they rehearsing a scene? I had never seen Ingrid expressionless. More than that, there was a detached look in her eyes, whereas his seemed to be straining for dominance. I was seeing detachment winning over passion for the first time.

But something was ordinary, pedestrian. Real. What should I do—go past them? Pretend I didn’t recognize her? Or go back? I cleared my throat.

Ingrid looked up. “Hello, Jesse,” she said calmly.

The man next to her turned and stared at me as if I had done something wrong.

“I’m sorry, I was just—”

“Petter, this is Gabriel Malloy’s daughter,” Ingrid said.

“That publicist of yours?”

“Yes.” She moved herself lightly away from him to touch me on my shoulder. “You look lovely tonight,” she said. “Jesse, this is my husband, Dr. Lindström.” The lights flickered; she glanced up with a smile. “It’s time for the show to begin; we should go.”

I nodded and managed a few words, still trying to absorb what I was witnessing. Ingrid’s husband made no pretense of saying hello. He simply followed his wife, managing to look intent and irritated at the same time.

At a loss, I started back. I did not want Ingrid to have an unscripted reality. I did not want her to be anyone other than the role model I adored. I stared after the man she had identified as her husband and saw only an ordinary person who should not be in this scene. Or any scene bred in my imagination.

“Lindström is something of a cold fish,” my father said when I told him about the encounter as we took our seats in the theater. He stared straight ahead, a sober look on his face.

“Were they fighting?” I asked.

He waited a moment before replying. “She isn’t a fighter,” he said. “He rules in that marriage.”

How strange it felt to think of Ingrid Bergman being ruled by anyone. “Do you like him?” I asked.

Father laced his fingers together, clearly biding his time. “I’m not in the business of selling Petter Lindström, I’m in the business of selling Ingrid Bergman,” he said. And then, with an audible snort: “I’ll tell you this. He isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.”

The lights dimmed; the show was beginning. And that was the extent of the glimpse I was given into the marriage of an intense, dour man to the actress I adored. How could any man rule a woman like Ingrid Bergman?

Neither Ingrid nor Bing Crosby won an Oscar that night. And Best Picture went to The Lost Weekend, which clearly dismayed my mother. But my genial father wasn’t upset at all. “Why should I be?” he said with a grin as he strolled out of the theater, exchanging waves and air kisses with Jennifer Jones. “Ingrid is doing just fine on the Oscar front. She won for Gaslight and Crosby won for Going My Way; it’s all gravy from here.”

He was right. The Bells of St. Mary’s remained hugely popular, garnering plenty of awards, and Sister Teresa Mary announced them all during Assembly—including the fact that it was well on its way to being the top-grossing film of 1945. For quite a long time, we felt a collective ownership of that movie. The nuns even approved a new ritual: we older girls, as guides for selected first- and second-graders, were allowed to bring them to the parlor to show them the bowl on display that marked our school’s place in cinematic history.

I had chosen my hero well. Now she was everyone’s hero.

Reality, of course, reasserted itself with finals at the end of the school year. I came out with an A in drama, but only a B-plus in geometry. Mother sighed over that; but, after all, girls weren’t supposed to have the same flair for mathematics that boys did. My other grades were a mix of A’s and B’s—sometimes with a plus.

All the chatter and preening about The Bells of St. Mary’s began to fade. But there were still regular single-file visits to the Waterford bowl in the front reception room. The younger children weren’t sure what it was all about, but they knew Ingrid was important.

“My mama says she’s going to become a saint,” one third-grader announced.

Kathleen gazed after the little girl as she left the reception room and said, “When you think about it, saints tend to get sacrificed sooner or later, don’t they.” There was no question mark at the end of her sentence.