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THE ACTING BUG
By Elizabeth Tarver Mother got the acting bug in 1947 and decided I was going to be the next Shirley Temple. “Make way for Linda Lou Morningside,” she’d say. That was the stage name she made up for me. Daddy would groan from behind his newspaper, and my older brother Lewis would roll his eyes. As for me, I’d get a sick feeling in my stomach. I didn’t want to be in pictures. I didn’t want to take tap lessons and learn how to sing “Sioux City Sue.” I didn’t want my hair curled and my clothes specially made. Even at the age of six, I had a feeling the whole thing was going to end very badly. “With dimples like those the world is your oyster,” Mother gloated. “She ain’t got dimples,” Lewis said. “Just a dent in her cheek from when she got in the way of my bat.” “That’s right,” I said. “Nonsense, “ Mother replied, stroking my hair. “Daddy, you should have heard our Linda Lou at Mrs. Elliot’s last night. Her voice is like a tinkling bell…or a spring shower. Just so lovely and gentle.” “First off, Virginia, she’s not my Linda Lou,” Daddy said. “She’s my Ruthie Lee. And second of all, her voice stinks. Sounds like a cat in heat if you ask me.” “Randolph!” Mother clapped her hands over my ears. Lewis laughed so hard he fell out of his chair. “What a thing to say about your own flesh and blood,” Mother said. She wrinkled her nose, a sure sign she was going to cry. Lewis quickly conceded the dent might be a dimple, my having got in the way of the bat a true coincidence. Daddy admitted I sang “Goodnight Sweetheart” pretty well, though I still needed a little practice. Mother wiped the tears away and hugged me. I felt my heart sink to the floor. I knew I had a long road ahead of me as little Linda Lou Morningside, Child Entertainer. There was no telling when I’d get to be little Ruthie Lee Craig from Baton Rouge, again. *** Some months later, Mother read in the paper of an audition for children with potential star talent at a New Orleans department store. The winner would receive a wardrobe befitting a child star, as well as a chance to meet a Hollywood executive who would be visiting the city, supposedly scouting talent. Mother stood on a chair and reached back into the deep recesses of the highest kitchen shelf. She pulled out a rusty coffee can and removed a wad of cash. “This is our big chance, Linda Lou,” she said. “We’re not letting this pass us by.” A week later we were on the train to New Orleans, Mother in her Sunday clothes and me in layers of pink taffeta and lace, an outfit Mother had concocted on her sewing machine in the wee hours of the night. Lewis said I looked like a huge cupcake. “This is my daughter, Linda Lou Morningside,” Mother said to the gaunt old man sitting across from us. He nodded and gazed down at his newspaper. “You watch – she’ll be famous one day.” “Really?” said a plump woman sitting across the aisle. She had a pile of tight curls on top of her head and a wide smile that reminded me of Mrs. Elliot’s piano keyboard. “Oh yes,” Mother said. “Linda Lou can sing and dance and play the piano. She can recite too. Recite a poem, Linda Lou.” I began to recite, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” “Not a nursery rhyme, silly.” Mother laughed nervously. “I mean a real poem. One of those sonnets you know.” I turned my face toward the window and ignored Mother. “Well, I’m sure she’s very talented,” the plump woman said. “Oh yes, very,” Mother said with less vigor. I thought I detected a tremor in her voice. I had her worried. I felt glad and sorry at the same time. For a moment I thought I might burst into tears. Instead I giggled weakly. Mother poked me in the ribs and whispered sharply, “I hope that’s not how you plan to conduct yourself at the audition.” *** There must have been two hundred children waiting in the corridor, crowded outside the office of K. Karlsdorf, vice-president in charge of children’s wear. One girl, with sleek black hair lifted from her neck in a bright blue satin bow, sang like an opera singer. Not as good as Deanna Durbin, Mother said. A boy about my age cracked his knuckles over and over and played an imaginary piano keyboard. Mother said that if he kept that up, his knuckles would swell and he wouldn’t be able to play at all. Still another dark haired girl pirouetted down the corridor over and over. Mother said that girl could only wish she was as good as Ann Miller which she never would be, of course. Eventually, my name was called. Mother jumped up immediately and pulled me from my chair. We walked inside Mr. Karlsdorf’s office and stood in front of an expansive blond wood desk. Mr. Karlsdorf was small and wiry with big black eyes and bushy eyebrows. He was hunched over examining some papers. Mother still held my hand. She tightened her grip as we waited for Mr. Karlsdorf to look up. “What can she do?” he asked, still perusing the papers. “Oh, Mr. Karlsdorf, my Linda Lou can do everything. She’s a natural performer.” “Sing, “ Mr. Karlsdorf said. “Sing, sing,” Mother urged. I sang I Want to Be in Pictures as Mother had planned. Mr. Karlsdorf looked up for the first time. “You gotta be kiddin’,” he said. “She can dance too,” Mother said. “I’ve seen enough,” Mr. Karlsdorf replied. He motioned toward the exit with his thumb. “Does that mean Linda Lou doesn’t win?” Mother asked as Mr. Karlsdorf’s secretary herded us to the door. “Ya better believe it.” “She will be a star one day – you’ll see.” “Maybe so, lady, but not with our clothes on her back.” The door closed behind us and we were out in the hallway again. As the dancing girl twirled by, Mother swatted at her with a handkerchief. *** I felt a sense of relief when we arrived home. My performing days were over, I thought. Mother had other ideas. More lessons, she said. She’d consult with Mrs. Elliot to see where I’d gone wrong with I Want to Be in Pictures. As far as she was concerned I should have won, but maybe a trained ear could discern what the problem was. For the next two months, I continued music lessons with Mrs. Elliot until she finally got up the nerve to tell Mother I had a tin ear and that it was likely Mother had one too. Mother came home depressed. She moped around the house for a couple of days eschewing all housework and worrying Daddy half to death. Then one morning she burst into my room at the crack of dawn. “We’ll concentrate on the acting,” she said, shaking me out of my slumber. “You don’t have to sing and act. There are lots of stars who can’t sing a note.” Mother said I must have an acting coach. Someone who would hone my talent, who would concentrate only on me. I shuddered to think that she might mean old Professor Stalworth down the street. He lived in a tiny decrepit cottage and yelled Shakespearean insults at us kids when we tromped across his yard. He reeked of alcohol and was forever falling down on his way back from Smiley’s Bar. Once my friend Paula and I tried to help him get up. “A plague on both your houses!” he screeched. Professor Stalworth agreed to take me on as a student of the theater that summer and Mother promptly paid him upon completion of our daily one-hour lesson, after which he stumbled down the sidewalk to Smiley’s to spend the money. The lesson consisted of my recitation of a line from Hamlet: “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” “Again,” Professor Stalworth would say. “We cannot move on until you master it.” And I would say it again and again for an hour while Professor Stalworth dozed in his tattered and stained easy chair. “Magnificent,” he would tell my mother when she arrived to retrieve me. “She is making remarkable progress.” “Do you think she has the gift, Professor?” Mother would ask. “Oh yes, my dear,” Professor Stalworth would say, his eyes trained on Mother’s pocketbook. “Her talent is monumental.” The lessons proceeded through the summer until one broiling hot afternoon, the Professor was found unconscious in a puddle of urine in Smiley’s parking lot. His daughter put him in a home for old folks and sold his house. Mother despaired for several weeks, but by that time school had started again and my brother Lewis began his high school football career. Mother forgot about me and focused, to my relief, on Lewis. He was very talented and eventually played college football for LSU. I kept a low profile around the house. Mother hardly noticed me for the next eight years. |
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