The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-01-03
SPOTLIGHT
BY-
HMLOAEY
XEN C1o33
IIGIlQh NEA SERVICE, lNcl
CHAPTER ONE

MooI stories OF chorus
girls begin at the dress
ing room mirror. Alas for
SheiIa Shayne. Sheila hadn't
been inside a dressing room
for weeks. Grease paint was
a memory for her. Waiting
for a cue was just phrase.
She hadn't worked last
week, nor the week before.
Nor for four weeks before
that? No longer did SheiIa
call this forced leisure being
Eat liberty" or resting" She
called it the very worst kind
of luck.
SheiIa wasn't expecting
sympathy, however. SO many
others seemed to be having
the same experience.
Sheila really wasn't a chorus
girl, though she would have been
glad indeed for a place in the cho-
rus Just then. Born in a dressing
room eighteen years ago, she had
lived in the theater almost all of
her short hfe. She had been born
in a dressing room and Graded in
a trunk tray because Dolly Des-
mond her mother, just =. couldn't
stay behind at the hotel while
Johnny went on with the act.
Afterward the parents firmly de-
clined the suggestion of Johnnys
mother dolly was an orphan) that
the baby should stay behind in Of
tumwa, Ia. while they finished the
season.
So from the first Sheila was a
stage paby-educated in day
coaches during jumps, carried on in
her first part at months, toddling
on in her second part at 2 years.
Then the Gerry Society started in
terfering
Thereafter Sheila's knowledge of
the stage was confined to the
wings, where she watched father
and mother GO through the act.
Sheila knew the lines as we'll as
her parents.
At IA she played her first real
role. 1t was none too soon, for
presently her father and mother,
known as "the Dancing DeSmondS,"
died in a train wreck. 1t hap
pened during the summer when
Sheila had been left behind with
friend who had a cottage at Rye,
N. Y.
Johnny and Dolly took their last
bow hand in hand. Their daughter
was left to make the grade alone.
And at Is Sheila was known for
what JohnnyS and Dolly'S friends
had guessed all along-she was to
be a dancer. Not "hOofer," but a
dancer A bit of thistledown, a
sunbeam with little feet fluttering,
stamping, clicking, weaving in per-
feet time A flower in the wind.
Many a poet or composer, pen in
hand. could have done worse than
put Sheila'S dancing to music.
Old troupers looked strangely grave
when they saw the child, face
flushed and rapt. whirling and
twirling to the tuneless old board
ing house pianos, while some sec
ondrate vaudeville musician sup
piled the accompaniment.
From some remote ancestor Sheila
had inherited a loneliness that far
exceeded goOd-hearted little Dolly'S
attractiveness. Tall, well-built, slim
as a sickle moon, with delicately
curved, slender throat, dark hair
sleek as satin, creamy gardenia skin.
That was Sheila. She herself had
selected the name, Shayne.
Watching her dance, one thought
OF blackberrieS and cream, marble
and ebony. Sheilas eyes were set
in with the proverbial Sooty finger.
She had up-curving lasheS and a
proud fling of the head that Ma
Lowell, proprietreSS of the theatre
cal boarding house, said would take
her before royalty.
n q
(WHICH was all very well, but
w Sheila had no job, very little
money. and scarcely anything in the
way of encouraging prospects. To-
day rent was due. OF course Ma
Lowell would not be insistent, but