She smiled and Orson dramatically rose; bowing formally, he took her arm. She was amused. Out into the night they went. It would be one of their last dates. He was too wrapped up in himself for her taste. His preoccupation frustrated her.
Dardy raced over to the chair Orson had sat in, intending to mimic the “great” actor stooping down into his throne.
“Stop,” Alice shouted, raising up her hand. “Don’t sit in that chair. His royal ass sat there.” Everyone burst out laughing.153
Lili felt lost around Welles. He took up so much air. She compared him to Napoleon. He never listened to her, his mind clearly elsewhere. Lili was equally frustrated at work. She was trying to figure out how to get out of the Florentine. She felt as if she were playing a game waiting for a career to take off. She was unhappy and bored. Her nerves were on edge.
Another reason she didn’t care for Orson was he was a cheapskate. He ordered the least expensive thing on the menu, never asked if she’d like a second drink, and tipped horribly. Lili, who never had money, was free with hers. She bought endless gifts for her siblings and Alice. Like her grandmother, Lili couldn’t stand to see someone in dire straits. A lot of the girls at the club, though they weren’t close with Lili, were always asking for small loans. She would lend a few bucks if a girl needed it. After all, it was only money. She could always make more (though she complained regularly how she barely had enough to spend going out to a club).
THE DAYS TURNED WARM AS SUMMER APPROACHED. LILI AT LONG LAST started an overdue romance with Dick Hubert, the handsome headwaiter at the Florentine. Hubert must have seen her sweep by on the arms of Orson and other attentive males.
Despite the fact that she was enormously popular at the club with customers who asked after her and came back often, or cheered enthusiastically, Lili knew she wasn’t any closer to being a headliner. She was just one of a dozen. In Dick’s eyes she stood out.
Both sisters were getting mentioned in the gossip columns, even if their names were usually spelled incorrectly. Men bought presents, drinks, and flowers.
Lili would claim Dick asked her to marry him on their second date, though surely they had known each other for months.
She was “lonely” and agreed, eager to set up house with someone who adored her. True, they really didn’t know each other but she liked having a man to take care of. It made her feel complete. She would dote on Dick, buy him things, attempt to cook. She vowed to be a wonderful wife and sex partner. And Dick already knew about her work; he wasn’t likely to make her quit as Cordy had. It seemed an ideal arrangement. She had developed a cavalier philosophy when it came to marriage; if it didn’t work, there was always divorce.
Lili and second husband Dick Hubert
LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT DICK HUBERT OR WHERE LILI AND HE LIVED. Billboard listed him as the headwaiter through early 1942 when he became the maître d’ after his divorce from Lili.154
They drove the three hours to Tijuana and were married. “In those days you had to wait three days in California,” Dardy said about the popular Mexican weddings both she and Lili enjoyed. “Tijuana was easy.”
Dick, a beautiful dresser, spent hours grooming. He wore tails to work, bought Lili a fur, and drank “a lot,” a turnoff for Lili, which lead to arguments, which she didn’t care for.155 They spent days sleeping and nights separated by a stage. No doubt Dick drove Lili to the club every late afternoon. She had never liked driving, and besides, Lili liked being driven. She liked having things done for her. It was a habit that would become an expectation that people would drop whatever else they were doing to attend to her.
“We were strangers who slept together,” Lili later explained.156 She would admit it should have been a weekend love affair, but in those days—and she would claim this into the 1950s—women didn’t shack up. They got married. And Lili was no different. It is what Alice had taught her. Lili would always want the fireworks and drama and passion of a courtship. But she did not like the routine of marriage. Dick asked at the opportune time, when she was “waiting for men, waiting for a career.”157
A source of friction must have been the fact they had to keep the marriage a secret. Granny would expect her to continue to sit at customers’ tables. Perhaps Dick became jealous, as so many of her husbands would. Maybe he scoffed at her ambition to be a headliner. Either way, Lili was too young to settle down for long. With Dick she began a lifelong habit of leaving someone midsentence if she didn’t like what they were talking about or if she grew bored. She didn’t apologize, never realizing—or caring—how rude it was. She gave the impression they had offended her. She would simply get up and leave. No explanation. It was what she would do with this marriage.
ONE NIGHT LILI OVERHEARD DINGBAT AND A FEW GIRLS CHATTING after the show about how a couple of big producers had caught the performance.
Lili would learn Lou Walters was an important director, producer, and owner of the Latin Quarter Club in Miami. Eventually he would have a string of clubs in New York and Boston. It was the top of the top spots to play.
A child of a Polish Jewish refugee, Louis Walters was, despite being unattractive with a glass eye, “dapper, slim,” and a man who spoke in slogans with a British accent, having been born in London. One of his catchphrases was “Never get a suntan that leaves lines.”158
Lili would take it to heart. Another was never get fat and to always do your best even if it was just a rehearsal.159
Walters had caught the show along with talent agent Miles Ingalls, who booked burlesque comedians and dancers. He maintained offices in the Astor Hotel in New York.
Lili found out the high-powered duo were staying at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.
Lili grabbed some of the publicity photos she had recently shot with John Reed, the big photographer on Hollywood Boulevard with the gigantic picture of Dietrich hanging in the window. She wrote a note on the pictures and stuck them in an envelope.
Lili made her way to the Roosevelt, a twelve-story Spanish-style hotel financed partially by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, which stood across the street from the massive Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The hotel had opened in the twenties and was frequented by a slew of movie stars. It was the epitome of glamour.
Inside the beautiful lobby were big potted palms; the walls were painted a muted yellow. At the front desk she told the receptionist she had a package to deliver to Mr. Ingalls. The receptionist told her the room. Lili sprinted toward the staircase. She was claustrophobic and avoided elevators when she could.
She slid her envelope under the agent’s door.
The next day the phone rang. It was Ingalls looking for Marie Van Schaack.
He would have remembered Lili from the lineup and the club’s brochure. He asked her if she wanted to dance in the Latin Quarter in Miami. He had already showed the owner—Walters—her picture and he offered to book her.
Of course Lili agreed. Miles told her it would be a while before she would start and in the meantime she should get all the experience she could.
Lili
