The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-14
A Girl at the Gates of
 Drean-Destiny

fifteen now, but have been. And
 that when had the dreams.
 My mother was trouper--a tired, un-
 inspired character woman with travel.
 ing stock my old man was stage car
 penter Gas far as knew1, who had broken
 off with my mother early in my life and
 figured in 1t thereafter.
 Mother sent me to various cheap schools
 and boarding places during my childhood, ~
 very much like she checked her furniture ~~s4@S
 in a storage warehouse when she started sYz@
 the road for season was just esx \ consequence, one of those things in her, NS 2 life, like set of false teeth or . glass eye Z . some other result of an unfortunate M 4 cause which couldn't be mended, but had ss !" to be endured. M
 Therefore my youth was anything but N J, pleasant. was always among strangers, l M Y. never had any affection or attention or @ = = spending money Chrstmases or birth a sse days, or any of those things that children, S ,,. especially girls. live for MM 5 5 Yet loved my mother She was kind M ~ s~ to me in her way. She never was with me M =, long, and didn't werm up particularly W when she was; but she was the nearest to M ,,,, anything to love or anything that loved Z X, that came into my coerless young KS ;+ years. And, as every living creature by eo nature must fix op some object to care KS '. n~ for. even if that caring is only compara- oe tive, thought tenderly of my mother, I -, And dreamed dream-to become an ro actress: more than that to become an Y a. actress of whom my mother would be sus proud and could brag to her associates. for had been around professionals enough
 to know how they feed on the ego complex
 and revel in nothing as much as making
 their fellows enVious by their good fortune.
 So faneied myself great star and my
 mother making the other hams that she
 worked with and strung with burn up with
 jealousy as she told how her girl had
 turned down an offer from ziegfeld be-
 the stage dressing room wasn't guaranteed in the contract. had consented tc 5 11 the lead in new show with the express V TL" rstanding that under no circumstances would :, A.~ Leave New York.
 hose the things that actors live for aRd die AS }sad and silly as it may sound. TO prepare myself for this blazing career pFec' @r tised dancing and singing Oh, not scientifically e iust in my way, which Is how most performers sasS rn. The who actually taught trained ~ this precarious and highly paid profession are
 D. ''] meagre minority.
 M T1oS v thirteen I hanging around cheap music H shers' lofts going at amateur nights lp all P.t t& of remote vaudeville dumps, and going up - M Ast temptations and situations that would make " a bopk-a yellowback that wouldn't be published. E guess. But we'll pass that phase of 1t. .E vas goodlooking youngster, with curly hair end. big dark eyes, slender and Spanish type, SM though my mother was Irish and my father Dane x had a fair voice and could dance few steps of
 the conventional stage sort, initiating the acts # saw at the smalltme houses, where spent all the X silver could scrabble.
 M haunted the offices of the rffraff agents-most N of them ghouls and crooks who cheated ambitious M young amateuFs and desperate old failures out Of g unenviahls living--aad landed several unsteady @ ngagemens with irresponsible acts that got broken
 bookings. With every man worked for and on E every bill wjth almost every man met had to
 fight; but was a hard little bTst, schooled in Z those defenses which come of a life such as mins @ had been where there is any disposition not to be- Y come the playthIRg of every chicken thief enceup
 tered in the dEsss of "show business" and around
 such unsayoFy conditions as come everywhere with sdestreet rooming houses, song "pluggers" shabby theatres and tly'by'n!ght agencies.
 M knew, of course that there was no destiny iu E these surroundings. But had to get experience M had to little money for wardrobe and had to SW work up and worR out some sort of approach to M speciality before could seek the serious notice o M the higherups, about whom had heard vague fairy s tales from other troupeys-most of them preVari s cators-and who seemed to me to be of anothel world. I read their names in the trade journals M but found t hard to visualize fact that there S# were really such gods, who could take me and zM make me star # they wanted to- M And didn't entirely just dream that would ba x in my dingy back bedroom was, as look back or W 1t now pltitul; l was so earnest, DO anxious-and SM dumb.
 W My mother knew was breaking into the profesh W She neither did nor could help me much. She was M not in vaudeville or musical shows, toward which
 was aiming. Besides she was away ten months # in the year.
 2 Of course, at fifteen was far from ready. even Z if ever could have amounted to anything, for the sSN big test. But thought was pretty good. had 3 shown my talents as single" in an outlying ten KS cent house--tWo dances and song in secondhand s soubrette costumes that struck me very classy M all figured up with gingerbread decorations, and sM $he laborers and washwomen who patropiSed that SM. theatre had given me a generous hand" |M So when runors reached my ears at one of the 0 cooking offices that famous revue producer was % going to slt through an ''audd6n," ran like q
 rabbit through every agency in town to find some z ~--------z-