The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood

12 "Swell Fish"

Chapter 12 "SWELL fISH" UPON OUR RETURN fROM EUROPE in September 1928. we expected to return to the West Coast. But that plan was altered when Ernest was offered a one-year contract at the Astoria Studios of Paramount to direct a feature film in the East. Walter Wanger was eager to challenge his West Coast adversary. Ben Schulberg. and expedite his takeover of the West Coast studios. To be in New York again meant that I could see more of my family. especially my mother. We attended daytime concerts together. attended matinees at the opera. and visited art galleries. We loved' Central Park. where I had spent so much time from babyhood until I was nine years old. It was an opportunity for me to get to know my mother better and for her to tell me about her girlhood. her early struggles in America. how much she missed her native Russia and her family. and about her life now that she was getting old and rheumatic . Her children were grown and gone. with the exception of one daughter. Lillian. who lived at home and was unmarried. Sorrowfully. Mama admitted that Lilly did not understand her and she did not understand Lilly. Lilly blamed Mama for her celibate state. In justice to Lilly. Mama had much to answer for. She was an obstinate. imperious matron with fierce principles of right and wrong from which one could not deviate. I was the maverick. the only one who refused to be tamed or intimidated. for this lowed a vote of thanks to my sister Lilly. who always took my side in my differences withMama and fought my battles for me. Mama had been adamantly against my 163 164 The Shocking Miss Pilgrim using any makeup for my high school graduation, even powder, claiming only women of ill repute painted their faces. Lilly stood up for me. When I fled the house to go where I wanted to go and do as I wished, Lilly would remain at home and brave Mama's wrath. Time and experience mellowed me, and I was able to forgive my mother, but Lilly could not forget or forgive. This was a great pity because it soured her life and her years with Mama. They had no rapprochement, no communication . Lilly took off every summer and all the holidays during her school vacations. There wasn't a country in the world she did not visit at least once. This was her escape. She was running away from Mama. Ernest and I lived at the Hotel Victoria on Seventh Avenue near fifty-seventh Street for a while after we returned from Europe. It was new then. It was there that I lost my cherished jade ring and my white chiffon bridal nightgown and negligee, which Irene had sewn for me by hand and given me as a wedding gift. The ring disappeared when a window washer came to clean the hotel windows one morning. I had taken the ring off while washing my hands and left it in the bathroom on the washstand. My guess is that the beautiful green of the jade stone was more than he could resist. and he filched it as a gift for his colleen. Anyway, it vanished that day, and I have missed it ever since. It was a trinket I prized as a memento of our honeymoon. The trousseau items were also a sentimental loss. But Ernest and I both agreed that it was my carelessness that was to blame and not the pretty young chambermaid we suspected of taking them. It taught me to be more careful. Ihave never lost anything valuable in hotel rooms since, I am happy to say. We were glad to quit the Victoria. Though centrally located in New York City, it was not the best of hotels. Through a friend, we were able to sublet a tiny two-bedroom, furnished apartment on fifty-fourth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It belonged to the first violinist of Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra, Josef Stopak. He and his wife were going to live in Europe for six months. It was a break for us. Ifound only two faults with that apartment. and one was partially my fault. The electric stove in the windowless kitchen, so typical of older New York apartments, had three burners on top plus a baking oven and broiler below. Simpleton that I was, I could never learn that if all three burners...