I'll Cry Tomorrrow Page 27

  “Yes, Mom,” I said brokenly. “I’ll read Dick Tracy to you.” And I read it aloud.

  She fell asleep. I looked at her, and grew nervous. Minutes passed. She slept, peacefully. I hurried out of the room to find a nurse. I went into the next room. Coffee was being served. I said, trying to be nonchalant, “I’ll have some black coffee, please.” Then I went back into my mother’s room and she was dead.

  I looked at her, dazed. A nurse came in, and vanished, and returned quickly, a hypodermic in one hand, a small glass of brandy in the other. “I thought one of these might help you,” she said gently. “The doctor ordered them for you.”

  I said, “No, thank you.” How silly of her to think that, I thought dully. If my mother could endure sixteen years of pain watching me destroy myself, certainly I could take the pain of losing her as she would expect me to. I knew, in this awful hour, that nothing could ever hurt me again.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THREE LOVES I had: David; my father; my mother.

  To whom, now, was I to atone?

  In the night I prayed and wept Why could I not have had a little more time to do the things I wanted to do for my mother: to buy her lovely clothes, to make her happy, to have her see me a success, to watch her face light up and hear her say again, “That’s my Lilly!”

  Why could He not have spared her for a few more years so that I might, in some way, try to make up for all the suffering I had caused her? If only she could have seen me regain my dignity and courage, to balance in some way those sixteen years of watching her child disintegrate before her eyes, to balance all her shame, and humiliation, and tears, and mother’s anguish!

  Burt thought a change of scene would help, and we moved to a New York hotel. I became withdrawn and introspective, and Burt worried. But one night, as I lay in bed weeping for Katie, I remembered something she used to say which for these many years I had forgotten. When I was little, if I fell down, or if some other child hurt my feelings, or, later, if some great disappointment came to me, and I cried, she would say, “Lilly, baby, don’t cry tonight—cry tomorrow.” And I would try to control myself and say, “All right, Mom. I’ll cry tomorrow.” Now, fighting my hysteria, after Burt fell asleep, fighting the panic, I pretended that Katie was in the room with me, talking to me as she did when I was a little girl. “Lilly, baby, it will all be different tomorrow.”

  I thought, yes; nothing can be decided as you he in the dark, and even if you reach a decision, there is nothing you can do. You must wait for tomorrow. I’ll put off the tears until tomorrow, and tomorrow everything will be changed, for God will have given us a new day.

  And still I cried.

  I prayed, and tried to visualize my mother as a little child would visualize her, in heaven. I saw her, with her shy smile and her warm eyes and all the love for me that is in her heart, seated with the Blessed Mother, near the throne of God; and through my tears I saw them together, the Blessed Mother and my mother Katie, their arms about one another, each taking care of the other, and as mothers taking care of all the world, and saying to all the lost, and frightened, and bereaved: “Now, that’s all right —have no fear—have no fear any more, my darlings. Have no more fear, my darlings.”

  It was June, 1951. Burt and I were alone in our house, and I was nursing my old sacroiliac, when the telephone rang. The pain had sent me to a chiropractor, and now I lay almost doubled up on the sofa, unable to move.

  I heard Burt’s voice. “No, she couldn’t,” he said firmly. “She’s ill. Tomorrow? No, I’m sorry. But I’ll take your number.”

  I asked weakly who it was.

  “Al Paschal, who handles Ralph Edward’s show, This Is Your Life,’” he replied. “He’s doing the life of Nacio Brown.” Paschal wanted me to fly to Hollywood and surprise Nacio by singing a few bars of “Eadie Was a Lady,” one of the many song hits Nacio had written, and which I sang in “Take a Chance.”

  A miracle got under way. “What?” I demanded. “What did you say?” With each word my back straightened a little. “Tomorrow?” I asked, straightening up a little more. “Of course I’ll do it. Give me that number.” My back forgotten, I hurried to the telephone.

  Burt stared at me, and chuckled. “If you hams aren’t something! There you are, all but passed out, but someone asks you to sing—”

  I didn’t deny it. Burt and I flew to Hollywood next morning and a day later I took part in Nacio Brown’s story. A great song writer received his due, and I was happy to be in the show.

  At the customary party given later by the Hazel Bishop lipstick people, sponsors of the program, Ralph Edwards said, “You know, some day your life should be done. Your husband, Al and I were talking about it.”

  “My life? Oh, Mr. Edwards, what have I accomplished!”

  Now that I had been in the public eye again, big things were predicted for me. But predictions no longer excited me. I had begun my comeback in 1946, and now, in 1951, the road seemed just as long as before.

  I appeared in a musical in Santa Fe; I was booked into the Mocambo and the Bar of Music in Hollywood. Mike Connolly, columnist on the Hollywood Reporter, gave me a farewell party in Hollywood when I was about to return to New York. Robert Taylor was there, and Zsa-Zsa Gabor, Father Keller, Louella Parsons, Mary Pickford, Florabel Muir, Harrison Carroll, the Duncan Sisters, Gilda Gray, and many others. Cobina Wright, Sr., heard me sing several numbers. “My dear child,” she exclaimed, “where have you been hiding yourself? You can’t leave this town yet”

  I told her, “I’ve been working right along, Miss Wright, not too steadily, but it seems I just haven’t hit the proper vibration.”

  At her suggestion I was booked into John Walsh’s Deauville, on Sunset Strip. One night a small, dark-complexioned woman who was seated with six or seven young men asked Mr. Walsh if I would care to come to her table.

  He introduced us. “Lillian, do you know Miss Polly Adler?”

  It was the New York madam. She was delighted to see me “coming along fine,” she said, with a smile. She’d watched my career and felt she knew me. She wanted to tell me about something.

  “Once, when you had your trouble drinking, I was walking down Park Avenue on a rainy day when I saw a doorman shove you into the street. I guess you had gone into his doorway to get out of the rain. I bawled him out. I said, That is a lady, and you had no right to do that!’”

  I smiled, too, but my heart was not in the conversation. “Let’s talk about happier times,” I suggested. She said, “Do you know, we have something in common?”

  “We do?”

  “Oh, yes. We both have a past, and we’re both writing a book. But mine is psychological.”

  I was held over for six weeks at the Deauville. Press and public were warm and cordial. And again, silence.

  June, 1952, found us in New York, down to our last $100. We were living on credit in a smart Park Avenue hotel. The owner, a widow whose husband had been an alcoholic, assured us that we could pay her when we had the money.

  Whatever we had earned, we invested in my act, in order to keep it up to date—new gowns, new songs and new arrangements. The public generally has no inkling of how expensive a singer’s appearance can be. I could not present songs or orchestrations already on the market. A special arrangement, for example, of a popular song, costs from $300 to $1,000. A special piece of lyric material can cost $1,500. To be beautifully gowned also demands considerable sums of money.

  Thus, at the fees I received, I might have to work several months to pay for a few songs, a few arrangements and a few gowns. Since my bookings were at long intervals, we were almost always broke. In addition, we continued paying back friends who had aided me during my illness.

  Now, with debts beginning to accumulate, I grew discouraged. “Burt,” I said one day, “let’s not fool ourselves. I’ve gone as far as I can with my career. I’m forty-two years old and if it hasn’t come by now, I don’t think it ever will.” I thought ruefully for a moment “I’m not retiring fr
om the profession—the profession is retiring me.”

  Burt laughed, but shook his head. “I wanted to surprise you,” he said, “but I might as well tell you now. Mother’s released a portion of my trust fund that I was to receive later, and I’ve got a plan.” We would buy a motel in Florida, build a little cottage for ourselves next to it. With an income assured, I could continue to sing without financial pressure.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I’ve tried since 1946 to make a go of it. Each time I see an agent, he asks, ‘Are you serious this time?’ I tell him, ‘You people book me so seldom that every time I work it’s called a comeback.’ No. I’ve had it. Lillian Roth’s retiring—by unpopular demand!”

  I felt fine, I admitted: I could face people again. I felt I had regained my dignity, and a degree of serenity. I was tremendously grateful, but enough was enough.

  “Buy the motel, Burt, and I’ll help you run it. Mr. and Mrs. Burt McGuire, Your Hosts. I smiled. “I’ll still have my name up in lights.” Neither of us thought that was too funny. Yet I think we both knew in our hearts that we still hadn’t called it quits.

  We drove to Florida. Yes, Florida was booming. But motels? Friends discouraged us. We’d lose what little money we had.

  Stymied, Burt obtained a position with Imported Motors, a firm which sold European cars. And instead of buying a motel, we bought a small home on the harbor in Fort Lauderdale, a part of Florida which enchanted me.

  One morning I read that Martha Raye, Harry Richman, Danny Thomas and Joe E. Lewis were all in Miami, working. The sense of challenge rose in me. Well, I thought, I really don’t have to sing—but I can do it, just for the enjoyment of it. I looked through the classified telephone directory and chose an agent’s name at random. “I’d like to do a little work while I’m down here” I told him over the wire. “Do you suppose you can book me?”

  “Come down to Miami this afternoon,” he said. “We’ll talk about it.”

  I drove to Miami, an hour and fifteen minutes from Fort Lauderdale, and arrived on time for our appointment. The agent had left, his secretary informed me. Any message for me? None.

  I thought, this is as much as the name Lillian Roth means today. Glumly I drove back to Fort Lauderdale.

  “Don’t let it get you,” Burt said. “I have a job. We have each other. You can busy yourself in other ways. You can take a hand in the various charities down here. You can swim and boat and make new friends. Enjoy yourself.”

  Why not? That was the original plan, anyway.

  Yet—

  One night we went to see Martha Raye’s show. She was terrific. Here, I thought, is one of the world’s greatest comediennes. Inspired, I hurried home, dug up a scrapbook and sought out Harry Kilby, an agent I knew. The profession was in my blood. Maybe I hadn’t learned my lesson, but I was sure my talent remained. Audiences and critics liked me. Here was the proof. Why, then, couldn’t I come back?

  “I don’t need to look at your scrapbooks,” he said. “I know what you can do. And you look wonderful—as you did fifteen years ago. I can get you jobs if you’ll take the kind I can get you—one-night stands—not much money. Trouble is, people haven’t seen you work lately.”

  Had nothing trickled down to Florida about my appearances through the country?

  “Yes—ss,” he said, a little doubtfully. “But people don’t know what you look like down here. They think you’re an old woman. Let them see you.”

  I accepted, and began working the big hotels, a different one each night. “I’ll be able to buy a lamp or a chair or something else for the house,” I reasoned. “Anyway, I’ll keep my hand in.”

  Then, a telephone call. A girl who was co-headlining with Myron Cohen for the Christmas Week at Miami Beach’s beautiful Casablanca Hotel became ill. I replaced her, and was held over for two weeks. In January, 1953, Al Paschal telephoned me from California.

  “Lillian,” he said, “Ralph Edwards would like to do your life. You remember he once mentioned it to you. How do you feel about it?”

  Feel? I was stunned. It was an honor to be chosen, but —my life? It certainly wasn’t the life of a great woman. It was the life of an alcoholic, and her return to living again. If the world wanted a fairy-tale ending—there wasn’t one. Spiritually the ending was lovely, for I had found a way of life. But—

  “Think of the good this will do,” Al said. “Nothing like it has ever been portrayed before.”

  I had been trying to live down my past. I knew people wouldn’t forget that I was an alcoholic, but I wanted them to think of me as a person, not as a glorified ex-drunk. That had always been my concern since I’d attained my sobriety.

  Burt and I discussed it. Ralph called and spoke to me. Finally, when Ralph called again, I accepted.

  We flew to California two days before the show. Al, waiting for us at the airport, hurried us quickly into a car, so no one would see me, and literally smuggled us into a suite at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel.

  “Do what you want, Lillian—sleep, rest, read, listen to the radio—but you can’t leave this room,” Al instructed me. “You can’t use the telephone. You can’t communicate with anyone but Burt. Now, you know that our show will be about you, but that’s all I can tell you.”

  I was consumed with curiosity. What questions would I be asked? What guests would appear? Had they brought Minna to California? Edna? Mrs. Berle? Perhaps even the Rev. Gordon Powell, from Melbourne, because he had just written a book on personal peace and power, and dedicated it to us?

  “No, no, no,” said Al, grinning. “I’m telling you nothing.”

  I spent a long, lazy day listening to the radio. I tried to keep my mind off the show. I was accustomed to appearing before cameras, but behind the one I was now to face sat 40,000,000 people—and they would be my jury.

  Burt came in. “I’ve seen the script,” he said. “Don’t worry about anything.” Beyond that he refused to say more.

  Next morning I was hurried around the corner to the NBC Radio Theatre and pushed into a dressing room. Someone shouted, “All right—keep out of sight, everyone. She’s coming out to rehearse her songs.”

  I rehearsed on the empty stage, unable even to see my pianist, who like everyone else, was hidden behind a screen.

  Then I was rushed upstairs to the makeup room. When it was time for me to go on stage, I prayed, as I had always prayed before I spoke. The prayer soothed me and I stopped worrying about myself and tried to think of those in the audience who might be helped by my story.

  Suddenly, I was given the cue, and I came through the curtain. I tried to avoid the camera. As the rough outline of my life was presented by Ralph Edwards, I thought, had all this happened to me? I was shocked. Could this horrid, fantastic life have been mine? But it was my life. Nothing I could do would eradicate it. Here it was, revived and made fresh to me and to the public.

  At that moment, seated on the stage, I would have liked to have been anybody else but me, the camera on me and this story unfolding.

  I sang a number I had rehearsed, but I had no idea of what it was. I thought only, what will I be asked next? How will I answer it? Will I say the right thing? Will the public understand?

  Then the program was over, and the telephone calls and wires poured in. They were warm and understanding. The mail continued long after we returned to Florida. Ralph Edwards forwarded thousands of letters, many from priests, ministers, rabbis, telling me how their congregations had witnessed the show and felt great hope; and letters from men and women appealing for help for themselves or for those they loved. It was as though the program had suddenly opened a thousand secret doors, and from them came pouring men and women who suffered as I had suffered, and hoped against hope that they could find a way out.

  I read each letter and answered them, at the rate of hundreds a week. Where help was needed, I tried to suggest how and where it could be obtained.

  Later, I was invited to the Clover Club in Miami for a two week engagement. The public’s a
cceptance led Jack Goldman, the proprietor, to hold me over for sixteen weeks. The club was filled nightly; the audiences were so warm, so encouraging, that sometimes it was hard for me to start my song because my throat was choked with tears.

  Perhaps that is the way people really are—warm, and generous and ready to give of their hearts and affection, if only we open our hearts to them.

  It was the same thrilling reception later at the Sans Souci, in Miami. And then, at last, after seven years, my return to New York, and the announcement in December, 1953, in Walter Winchell’s column:

  “Lillian Roth, who made it the hard way, and Julius La Rosa, who made it the easy way, open at La Vie en Rose on Christmas Night….”

  The critics came out in full force. Their reviews were excellent.

  Offers came in, from all parts of the country. I was invited to record for Coral Records. Monte Proser asked me to return to La Vie en Rose. Other nightclubs bid for my services.

  All this, happening in my new lifetime, I thought. It was true: God works in a mysterious fashion. This was what I had labored for all these years—to be welcomed back as a human being, to know that I was privileged to use my voice—my gift from God—as He intended it, to make people happy. It pleased me when men of my own age, who knew me in their college days, came up to say, “We used to call you our pin-up girl. And here you are, a pin-up girl again.” Boys and girls who knew me in their teens now bring their teen-age children to see me. “Mother tells me she was your fan, and now I’m your fan.”

  It is good to be welcomed back by the public.

  On one occasion a young man introduced himself. “Miss Roth,” he began, a little embarrassed, “I hope you won’t think I’m forward, but I loved the way you sang, “I’ll Cry Tomorrow.’ I’ve never seen you before but your name is so familiar. Where have I heard it before?”

  I smiled at him. “Ask your father,” I said.

  One quiet Sunday afternoon Burt and I were seated on the lawn of our Fort Lauderdale home, sipping cool lemonades and talking idly. It was a time for reminiscence.