she equated it with dating. She felt once a man thought a woman was interested in him, the less interested he became. She would learn the same was true of audiences. They had to want her and not the other way around. Lili would make the audience seek her. She would perform privately as if there were no one to please but herself.
When Nijinsky had originated “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faun” in the 1920s he had been roundly condemned because of the subject matter, shocking the audience by rubbing himself. No matter when or where Lili saw the performance and Lichine, it would change her ideas about dance and give her a taste of emotion through movement. She would often deny it but Lili did strive to elevate her work to be on par with the highest level of the artists of her day.
*** Remember her real name was Ruth
CHAPTER TEN
The girls never feared misbehaving at the nightclub because Alice had sternly instructed them on how to behave. She told the girls to not do anything they couldn’t tell her about.144
Idella, who once had her own aspirations for the stage, sidetracked either by polio or children, perhaps tried to dissuade the girls from mingling with other showgirls, because Lili did not make friends. Maybe it was part of the conflict she felt about the career. Dardy later would complain about the strippers and burlesque performers, “They weren’t necessarily the people you wanted to hang out with.”145 Other chorus girls couldn’t help Lili’s career, so she would feel no need to make friends with any of them. By now she had taken a small apartment in Hollywood and was enjoying her space and privacy away from Idella’s nagging and Alice’s worry.
EVERY NIGHT LILI WALTZED INTO THE NIGHTCLUB, PAST A SWEEPING staircase winding up to the second floor. She would stroll past the bar looking for Dick to say hello. In a short time the place was packed with mink-clad women in jewels, men in tuxedos. Everyone was laughing, drinking champagne, and watching a terrific night of entertainment.
Errol Flynn and John Barrymore were regulars. Lana Turner was spotted wearing a dress of beige crepe and a white fox. Texan Rex St. Cyr impressed Lili, sweeping in regularly with Lady Furness (the former Thelma Morgan), the Prince of Wales’s former paramour before her friend Wallis Simpson stole him. Furness’s identical twin, Gloria Vanderbilt (mother of fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt), clung to St. Cyr’s other arm. He threw $100 bills around as if they were confetti.
The self-styled Texan had been born Jack Thomas. He was a generous supporter of the Hollywood Canteen and made sure his name was in the entertainment trades lauded for his efforts. St. Cyr hosted numerous parties attended by celebrities, despite the fact that no one knew exactly who he was. When hosting the 13th Academy Awards, Bob Hope opened his monologue with, “Who is Rex St. Cyr?”146
Lili at the Florentine; Barbara is in the background
In June of 1942, St. Cyr’s name was important enough to be included as one of the guests at Errol Flynn’s birthday party (which got out of hand when a butler was injured) along with Jack Warner, Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power, and Dinah Shore.
Lili was fascinated by him. His name would stay tucked in her head, associated with grandeur, flamboyance, and wealth; it sounded French and Lili loved all things French. She admired—and later emulated—anyone who was generous, mysterious, and glamorous.
Barbara’s sometime beau was the tall and handsome Hearst columnist Harry Crocker who invited her swimming at San Simeon. As a regular part of the newspaper magnate’s circle (he had done a film with Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies, Tillie the Toiler, in 1927), Crocker had a distinguished pedigree. His father was an oil tycoon, his grandfather a railroad builder, and his uncle an important banker in San Francisco.
Crocker snapped a picture of Barbara in the San Simeon Grecian pool and inscribed it to Idella.
Barbara at San Simeon—Inscribed by Harry Crocker “For the nicest mother in the world”
BARBARA ALSO HAD DATES WITH THE FRENCH-SOUNDING FRANCHOT Tone, who in reality had been born in New York as Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone. The thirty-five-year-old movie star would send his limousine to wait for Barbara at the Florentine’s artists’ entrance and drive her back to his house in Beverly Hills for dinner. If Lili didn’t have plans, she would show up too. All three would sit at one end, “dwarfed by the table.” He was a good sport and would have his uniformed houseman serve the hungry girls a sumptuous meal under a chandelier lit with candles.
He had a large English-style home, with formal dining room as “big as a ship” that looked out on beautiful gardens, the windows swathed in sheer lace curtains.147 Tone’s butler would serve lavish seven-course meals. The sisters could eat; they weren’t dainty, nor did they pick at their dishes, despite being rail thin. Franchot would tell the butler to call the driver and made sure the sisters were returned to the Florentine in plenty of time so as not to miss the next show. He didn’t want them fired on account of him.
One night a handsome, round-faced actor with a deeply dramatic way of pontificating asked the twenty-four-year-old Lili out.
His name was Orson Welles, theatre director, actor, and current Hollywood boy wonder, hot off his controversial production of War of the Worlds that for a short time sent radio waves of panic across America with his faux invasion of aliens taking over the earth. Hollywood came calling with a contract offering him almost (this would later be debated) complete artistic control. Welles was fully enamored of himself and his enormous talents.
Backstage at the Florentine, Granny interrupted Lili. He watched her dip a damp cloth in a jar of Ponds and rub it over her face to remove the heavy pancake. Other girls in the crowded dressing room were doing the same.
“Someone wants to meet Miss Champagne. Hurry up. I’ll wait to introduce you.”148
Granny had nicknamed Lili because of all the bottles purchased on her behalf.
Lili favored masculine-looking pants and button-down shirts offstage and slipped into a pantsuit. Granny complained, “Why do you wear that, Lili?” And he left her to finish getting dressed.
Dressed, Lili entered the front of the club and found Granny waiting for her. He led her to a small table.
“Marie, this is Mr. Orson Welles,” Granny said, wearing a satisfied grin on his face. The place was packed and even among the many celebrities all eyes turned to Welles’s table where the striking dancer stood in her very unshowgirl-like outfit.
Welles stood and took her hand. “Pleased,” he said in his deep-timbered voice and bowed. He was conservatively dressed in a dark suit and tie. His voice was distinctive, but Lili thought it “domineering.” “Join me?”
Lili, knowing he was the “important man of the year,” slid into the banquette.
“Champagne?” he asked.
Welles
