Books by MEL HEIMER

THE WORLD ENDS ATHOBOKEN

THE BIG DRAG

I

BIG DRAG

by

MEL HEIMER

Illustrations by

PEGGY BACON

WHITTLESEY HOUSE

McGRAw-HiLL BOOK COMPANY, INC.

NEW YORK I LONDON

THE BIG DRAG

Copyright,1947, by MELVIN L. HEIMER

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,

may not be reproduced in any form without

permission of the publishers.

The quality of the materials used in the manufactureof this book is governed by continued postwar shortages.

PUBLISHED BY WHITTLESEY HOUSE

A DIVISION OF THE MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, ING.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ForSCOTT

CONTENTS

I. BEAUTIFUL LADY WITH SCARS 1

H. LISSEN, I GOT A GREAT STORY 12

HI. REEFER STREET 30

IV. L.A. TO N.Y. 41

V. THE GREAT EMANCIPATION 55

VI. THE GIN-MILL BLUES 69

VH. CITY SLICKER 85

Vni. POUR LE SPORT 100

IX. CHARACTERS STUDIED 111

X. NIGHT LIFE OF THE GODS 126

XI. HOTHOUSE FLOWER 139

XII. IS EVERYBODYHAPPY? 153

Xin. THE HAM WHAT AM 164

XIV. LAST NIGHT, AH YESTERNIGHT. .

.

180

XV. ONCE SEEN, NEVER FORGOTTEN 193

Om CHAPTER ONE

Beautiful Lady with Scars

IT is A slow, somehow macabre series of events that beginseach morning at a certain unearthlyhour in many parts ofthis land.

Roosters waddle obscenelyout of the henhouse and screamtheir ugly,marrow-chillingreveille. Alarm clocks cut outsleepers'hearts with hot knives. Cold showers, the rainstormsof the devil,beat men's souls into jelly.Eyes are opened,shoe-laces

are tied,coffee is drunk and busses are caught.Finan-cial

pages are read, small talk dribbles across the landscapelike the retchingsof a drunk, and men who have grappledthrough the nightwith the problem of whether to murdertheir brothers now behave to each other as iftheywere genu-inely

gladthe sky was blue and the sun bright.In one form or another, this unholy ritual takes placein

downtown Chicago with the damp lake air blowing in likea wet kiss,in Boston's Beacon Hill with the milk horses clat-tering

and skiddingon the dewy cobblestones,alongRoute 1winding its gray way throughMaryland and in a thousandother cities,villagesand allegedlycivilized placeswhere menand women live. If you get rightdown to it,it even takes

placein New York. In the far reaches of the Bronx, an ac-countantinspectshis tongue gloomilyby the bathroom mir-ror.

Somewhere in Greenwich Village,a nurse stares at astrangeceiling,wonders how in God's name she got there andtries to figureswiftlyhow long it will take her to taxi up to

2 The Big Drag

Bellevue for the earlytrick.Over by Sutton Place,a willowyblonde strugglesinto her jodhpursand out in the wildernessof Queens,an officeboy listens sleepilyto his old man givinghim hell for havingthe car out so late.

All these thingsoccur everywhere" except in Broadway.Notice I say "in" Broadway,rather than "along"or "on."

I say it this way because Broadway no longeris justa street,althoughthere is stilla windingpathfullof shootinggalleries,movie houses, shirt shops,pineapplejuicestands and cafe-terias;

Broadway now is a section " the whole rococo, garish,hooplamidtown Manhattan area is Broadway,and to say youare "of" Broadway could mean that you live in the Waldorf,or write songs in the Brill Buildingor peddlereefers alongFifty-secondStreet. More than that,Broadway is a state ofmind

" a rarified,refined attitude that may seem simpleandharsh to the outlander but which actuallyis a complex andinvolved thingthat could and will take a book to explain.

But morning for Broadway? No roosters, no alarm clocks,no cold showers and, especially,no pleasantmorning chit-chat.

Is it five o'clock that the firstrooster crows in the out-

lands? At five o'clock,most of Broadway is in that firsthourof deepsleepthat the wise men tellus is the best. The effectsof the lastmidnightbenzedrine tablet have worn off and theeffects of the firstsleepingtablet are beginning.Paper andcardboard and trash lie sprinkledfor blocks on end on side-walks

and in gutters,like the trailof a gigantichare-and-hounds chase. The movie-house

marquees have blinked out,and the dawn is cold " oh, so cold

. ..

even in hot August"and gray. Maybe a sailor beats his lonelyway up the street,uncertainly,waver ingly.A cop yawns. A taxi bumps slowlyover the trolleytracks. A drunk shivers and draws his legs

BeautifulLady with Scars 3

closer to his chest in a doorway.This is Broadway asleep"fitful,frowning,grindingits teeth in a bad dream; waitingfor the next day,waiting for the hundred-dollar parlay,thebreak at Loew's State,the blonde who's goingto come aroundthe corner of Lindy's;waitingfor the big,wonderful surpriseof tomorrow.

By nine, the outlanders are on hand. The street is as dead

and flat as old champagne,and so are all its sidestreet trib-utaries" out cold, from the one drink too many. But the

drones are beginningto spillout of the subways and busterminals and trolleysand train stations. They walk throughthe streets of Broadway like the shapelessfiguresthat float,red and misty,througha bad dream. Past the Paramountmovie house they shuffle,past the cheap little dance hallswith the 30-GIRLS-30 signs,past the pigeonsspreadoutlike a dirtydeck of cards before the statue of Father Duffy,past the big gin mills like the Latin Quarter and the Zan-zibar,

which are tighterthan a drum, throughthe long,hardstreets of crosstown

...

all headed for a desk and a type-writer,or a cage and an addingmachine. The Broadwayite

sleeps.But by eleven, life alongthe Big Drag has begun to

quicken,like an unborn babe kickingat his mother's stomach.The bartenders and the waiters wander into their cool,beeryplacesof employment,the very earliest of Broadway birds

appear on the sidewalks in front of the raffish littlehotels

in the Forties, and maybe from an upstairsacademic de

musique we hear the first,tortured scales of the Manhattan

morning lark " a trumpet stumblingover the latest broken-heartedballad. The streets have emptiedthemselves of the

alien element of commuters, and onlyin front of the movie

4 The Big Drag

houses do we see the JacksonHeights and Brooklynwan-derers,

eyeingthe latest Hollywood masterpieces.Now the real Broadwayitebeginsto pop up alongthe main

stem, as ifup throughthe sidewalks. The dark shirt and lighttie appears. The pegged trousers and the drapedjacket.Nohat, natch. The longhair and the thick,Actors' Equity side-burns

and, since it is the beginningof the day,the "rogue"sport shirt with no tie. The open-toedsandal,if it is summer;the brown suede brogue,if it is winter. The deep tan rightout of the barber shop,and the cigarette" ever-present,smol-dering,

sinister " the final touch that makes our man another

Humphrey Bogart,as he wishes.Somewhere in the neighborhoodof 12:30 P.M., Broadway

makes its first move. Existence in Broadway is a series of

moves; the idea of a day justfallinginto placeaccordingtothe laws of God and nature justnever is considered by theBroadwayite.You alwaysthink,swiftly,smoothly,thoroughly,before you make your move. The lengthsto which this ele-mentary

philosophyis carried are remarkable; it extends tothe tyingof neckties,the buying of newspapers, the decisionof whether to take the taxicab to Columbus Circle or ride the

bus...

as well as to the more solemn problemsinvolvingethics,morals, character.

Each move, big or little,gets an equalamount of thought;to the Broadwayite,the questionof whether to invest a quar-ter

to spend a quickmorning hour in a newsreel movie houseis studied as carefullyas the planto sink thirtythousand dol-lars

in a new club along Fifty-secondStreet. There is nothoughtabout which is more important;it is justthat thecitizen of Broadway has come up the hard,rough,tough way

BeautifulLady with Scars 5

and must forever be circlingaround in the tall grass andtramplingit down lest there be snakes hidden there.

But the firstmove " the firstmove is lunch. It is breakfast,of course, and there is no questionof its beingjusta pleasantmeal. Lunch is eaten in two ways, in Broadway. If the dayis dull and the calendar empty, lunch is a chocolate malted

in Walgreen's,or a fried egg on rye and a glassof tea in oneof the delicatessens that dot Sixth Avenue

" now Avenue of

the Americas"

like kosher oases. But that is an unusual state

of affairs. Ordinarily,the Broadwayite lunches in a show-case" Dinty Moore's or Lindy'sor Toots Shor's,or wherever

midtown fashion decrees lunch shall be eaten. Lunch is the

firstmove, then,but it is also a series of moves within a move.Our boy drifts into the bar, first,where most of the stoolsalreadyare full of other bull moose come down to the water-ing

hole. Here and there,bromo-seltzer dots the bar, but

chiefly,of course, the glasseshold Scotch. Even duringthewar years, you got Scotch in Broadway" if you were ofBroadway."Joe,"our Broadwayitesays, slappingone drinker easily

on the back. The slappedone nods. "Max," he replies.Thereis a pause, while Max studies the room in search of a more

important character than Joe.Momentarily,he finds none,so he turns back to Joe and beginsto ask him what's on thefire,or what looks good in the firstat Jamaica.Joe has beenwishingto God that Max wouldn't stop and bother him, be-cause

Harry is at his left and he has been tryingto get Harryto plug one of his songs on his next broadcast " but Max ishere, heaven forfend,so Joe sighsand is reasonablycordial."A goat named Five Pennies is going in the third up at Suffix

6 The Big Drag

Downs (thatwould be the New England racecourse, SuffolkDowns)," he says, patiently,"and I have heard that "

" but

he gets no further. Now Max has spottedsomeone more im-portantthan Joe."Par'n me justa minute, Joe,"he says . . .

and is off across the room to slapFrank on the back. Joedoesn't even take time to breathe heavilywith relief;he has

swung back to Harry without breakingstride and is talkingabout my God, but that Max is a wearisome bastard.

Max goes throughthe routine time and again;finally,hemeets "my appointment"and goes in to dine. Not too soon,not too late.A coupleof straycelebrities dot the diningroom,but mostlytheyarrive late. Ah, now theytrickle in " maybeFrank Fay,the star sapphireglitteringon one finger,the im-maculate

white shirt,the rusty tie ... or Tallulah Bank-

head, pleasantlyexchanginginsults with one and all...

Ray Bolger,thin as a stalk of corn and much more sober than

any judge ... a visitingHollywood actor, expectingthemoon and the stars on his firstvisit to Broadway and findingjustan eatingjointwith too many celebrities for him to over-shadow

. . .

and over all,the clatter of dishes and silver-ware,

the constant popping up and down and strainingofnecks to see justwho is where, the table-hopping,the criesof "For Chrissake,Bill!" the swift,hurried sipsof coffee andmercurial stabs at food so as not to miss anything.Broadwayis eating.Quiet,please.You both can't talk at once.

Around three, roughly,lunch has come and gone andBroadway has scattered again into a million jigsaw pieces.Some of the pieceshave taxied up to the Polo Grounds or theYankee Stadium, and there theysit behind third or firstbasewatchingthe men of muscle. Here a pleasantafternoon isspent bettingon whether Mel Ott will break his bat on the

BeautifulLady with Scars 7

next pitch,or whether JoeDiMaggio will strike out, the onlyrules of behavior beingthe cardinal one never to show anyemotion. The Broadwayitemay smoke or chew gum or swigdown cokes,but when a ballplayerbelts a 440-foot home runout of the parkor strikes out three men on nine pitchedballs,he must not rise from his seat or applaudor scream and yell,like the moujiks in the bleachers. A deed of derring-doismerelyhis signalto fish for his billfold,slowly,and extracta coupleof bills to pass to his more fortunate companion.

Some of the other piecesof the fabulous jig-sawpuzzleare out on Long Island improvingthe breed;here,you findthem wanderingaround the clubhouse,huntingthe Hot Tip,or impassivelywatchingthe paradeto the post,or takingthefieldglassesslowlyaway from their eyes and muttering,"ForGod's sakes." Sometimes it seems that half of Broadway is outat the track duringthe week. Except on Wednesdays andThursdays,which customarilyare matinee days,you seethem in their trumpetingjacketsand longhairdos,faces tothe sun in a desperateeffort to augment the barbershopbroil,stilltwistingtheir heads from side to side every few minutesto see Who's Here. That is the biggame, anywherein Broad-way

or wherever the Broadwayitegathers.Who's here? Any-bodyI should see? I heard that.

. . .

By six,Broadway has slippedwearilyinto its gown of

sequins.Now you can't take it from her;the old harlot'sfeet

may hurt and there may be longlines under the eyes anduglyscars under the ears where the face was lifted,but underthe lightsand the dark nightshe is beautiful. Give the oldgirla cocktail and watch the life course into her.

Over by the Times Building,the tourists stand and stretchtheir necks at the electricsignthat rolls around the cornices,

BeautifulLady with Scars 9

corny littlebands, all saxophonesand drums, are beginningto beat out rumbas or swing or whatever the dancingpleasureof the hour mightbe, and the hostesses,beloved in song and

story,are sittingin their pen " neither bitter nor morose, as thelearned and literarywould have us believe,but rather ami-able

and vacant " marking time to the end of their youth inthe most pleasantway theyknow.

The three-for-a-quarterphoto shopsbeginto bustle withactivity,and from the used-record stores loud speakersspewtheir tales of love and June and moon. The orange- and

pineapple-juicestands,sloppyand wet and dirty,are doingbig business,and in the several Child's restaurants, HelenHokinson ladies ogletheir creamed chicken with one dubious

eye and their wristwatches with the other,because,my dear,the curtain goes up at eight-fortysharp,which it never, neverdoes. In DuffySquare,a few stoicalpigeonslingerunder the

glareof the lights,and up and down the Big Drag and allalongthe littleside streets, the unattached males and the un-attached

females have begun their tawdry,garishgame ofyou-can't-catch-me.

Over it all,there are the never-endinglights,sellingevery-thingfrom bananas to stove polish" glittering,shimmering,

burstingred,yellow,blue,pink,screamingtheir messages,castinga jerkyand eerie glow over the turbulence below.This is some kind of cool,noisy,affable Hell,where the pitch-forks

are the nightsticksof dumb cops and where the flamesare raucous, amazing neon signsthat tell you where to go,what to wear and how many buttons your underwear should

carry. You stand on the fringeand watch it,stunned and yetnervous, baffled and yet caughtup in it as ifby an undertow.

By nine, the legitimateshowhouses have lured their quota,

10 The Big Drag

and the coughersare busy destroyingShakespeare'slines,while Broadway settles down to its nightlydose of make-believe. Now the world beginsand ends in the wings of atheater,and God helpyou if you are an actor and found ina publicplaceat this time, for it means that you are at libertyand thus a bust,especiallyif the season is busy.In the little

gin mills like the Paddock and Conway's and Mickey Walk-er'sor in every bar and grillthat dots EighthAvenue, a block

to the left of the Big Drag, the ball games are replayedandthe races rerun. Maybe a coupleof thugsare fightingfor theworld's fleaweighttitlein Madison Square Garden, and a fewthousand of the faithful are clustered there,their cigarettesmaking idiotic red needlepointpatterns in the dark build-ing

"

the canvas and sweat and resin and screams siftingto-getherlike a Hogarth painting.In the nightclubs,the comics

are walkingthroughthe firstshows, givingjustthree dollars'worth of themselves, for the dinner crowd goes sparingonliquor.

Now Broadway is in the groove, windingup and explodingwith a ceaseless bang.Somewhere in the night,colts are beingfoaled and knives thrown, safes are beingblown and Presi-dents

are beingborn, wheat is waving softlyunder a clear and

starrysky,and waves are smashingfuriouslyagainstrockycoasts. Bridgeis beingplayed and deathless prose is beingwritten, a car is skiddingon two wheels around a corner andkittens are drowning in a well. Yet all these thingsare hap-pening

far from Broadway, and so they don't count, to the

Broadwayite. God damn it,man, how're you gonna keep upwith everythingalongthe street if you'regonna go pokingaround with what happensOut There?

BeautifulLady with Scars 11

By midnight,the drunks have begun to dot the crowdsmushing along,and the seductions are at least half alongtheroad to consummation. "Oh, Harry,"a littleblonde says toa sailor,"I dowanna go there. I wanna "

" but they are gone,love and lust,before we can find out where theydo end up.There are screams in the air,and gigglesand the jackassbray-ingsof executives EnjoyingThemselves, but theyare muffledand then swallowed

up in the incessant din that pounds alongthroughthe jaggedcanyons. Along Fifty-secondStreet, thestrange music that is jazz seeps out of the tinny,dog-eared,rundown littlejoints,where the war goes on between cus-tomer

and proprietorover finances more openlythan in the

plushjointslike the Stork. And in placeslike the Stork andEl Morocco, the singularlyuninspiredare liftingtheir pinkieslike mad and gettingdrunk not so quietly.By three,the Big Drag is unwinding,running down like

a gaudy littlemechanical doll. In hallways,sailors lie asleep,and the cops are beginningthe task of sweeping up thehuman trash that is scattered,out to the world, throughthearea. The one las' drink is being savored in the bars, whichstillhave an hour to go, and in a standard-size,double-bedhotel room a showgirlis lookingabout her dubiouslyand say-ing

sharplyto the character that this isn'ta suite,not by a longshot,you littlejerk.Some of the lightsblink out alongBroad-way,

and the movie marquees finallygo dark.

By five . . . ah,but this is where we came in. By five,a copyawns, a taxi rumbles over the trolleytracks,the streets laylittered and reasonablystill,like a livingroom after a party.In the hotels,in the apartments, in the flophouses, Broadwaypullsthe bedclothes a littletighteraround its neck and sleeps.

CHAPTER TWO

Lissen, I Got a Great Story

THERE ARE some among us to whom the garishwonders of

Broadway are beyond compare; there is no sightto us morebeautiful than the hokey signsblinkingand the beggarsbeg-ging

and Broadway Rose hurlinga defiant curse at the reced-ingback of a minor celebritywho has refused her piquant

pleasfor gelt.And to us, the use of superlativesor the employ-mentof drum-beaters to sing its praisespublicly,in the call

of the birds,is completelyunnecessary. And yet one of themost important,indeed one of the most representativeof the

street's characters, is the Press Agent.There is nothing quite like him anywhere in the world

today;he would be illat ease in the Raffles bar in Singaporeor the Savoy Grill in London, but in the throbbingheart of

Broadway he is at home. There are times when he is Broad-way,

for, like Brooklyn,that marvelous area sometimes is

nothingmore than a state of mind .. .

and the creator of

that state of mind is the press agent.God knows how many of them there are. To a practicing

newspaperman, they seem in the hundreds of thousands.

They represent everythingfrom a psalm-singingevangelistto a societyglamour girl,and I believe there have even beencases on record of a press agent representinganother pressagent. This is not so wierd or so incongruous as it sounds;Russell Birdwell, for instance, is virtuallyinternationallyknown as a tub-thumper;so is Steve Hannagan, so was the

12

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 13

matchless Dexter Fellowes. Bir dwell is a going concern, with

a volume of business that is tremendouslyimpressiveandwith officesfrom one coast to another. Why shouldn't he havea press agent of his own?

But the Broadway press agent is of a wilder,fiercer strainthan his uptown or downtown contemporaries;there is thelook of a slightlyshoddyeaglein his eye. Nothingis too stifffor him to tackle;no client is too bigfor him to address withthe familiar openingsalvo,"Now, look,kid,we gottafirstgetan angle.

. .

." And more than any other of these enchant-ing

phony-balonies,he dedicates himself completelyto hiswork.

The Big Drag public-relationscounsel " a designation,in-cidentally,at which our heroes hoot and sneer " is livingand

breathinghis jobtwenty-fivehours a day.From the time heopens a bilious eye until the time he crawls under the covers,

slightlyplasteredfrom havingdrunk heartilywith a news-papermanto whom he is tryingto sell a "spread/'he is all

eyes and ears to the matter at hand.

Roughly,the Broadway press agent is cut into four dif-ferentsections of apple.The hottest and foremost piece,

likely,is the guy who representspersonalities" strip-teasers,chanteuses,song publishers,ham actors, aging soubrettes,ambitious models and the like. He might be a newcomer,strugglingalongwith a coupleof accounts " for whom he

may have offered to work for free unless he gets them some

space " or he might be like one of my particularfavorites,Eddie Jaffe,who is cast in the mold of Puck and has to fightoff customers. A small,quizzicalyoung man with eyeglasses,myopia, a hatful of neuroses and any number of odd assist-ants,

Eddie has the two importantrequisitesof any success-

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 15

baritone who sang last season at the Savoy Plaza and is tryingto break into the Met this year, and "

"

"No baritones,"the

newspaperman may break in. "The boss hates baritones."

Eddie continues, with refreshingcandor, "How aboutLaVerne LaVere, who does grindsand bumps over at Leonand Eddie's?" This routine continues, sometimes endlessly,while the newspaperman answers his mail, oglesthe copygirls,sweats over the lead of a storyand finally,more likelythan not, tellsEddie that one of his clients has a certain ap-peal

and why doesn't he set up a luncheon date for next

Tuesday?There are no thanks " except financially,which reallyis

the only manner in which he'd appreciatethanks " for the

press agent who embarks on the career of representingper-sonalities.His clients are never satisfied.Peoplein show busi-ness,

who form the greatbulk of these clients,are fascinating,humorous and highlyentertaining,but they are also,of

course, the most egotisticalsouls in the world and count thatday lost in which their names aren't mentioned in the publicprintsat least fourteen times. The average press agent, like

Eddie, learns after some time to disregardtheir beefs, al-thoughthe more harassed and uncertain drum-beaters oc-casionally

developulcers and nervous stomachs from beingbedeviled by unsatisfied clients" all clients,that is. Eddie,on the other hand, doesn't care. He knows that he is a goodpress agent; his reputationhas been made and he realizesthat like streetcars, there'll be another client along anyminute.

Eddie's onlyuncertaintyis on the subjectof his charm overwomen, in which he has no great faith and which he swears

has led him regularlyto the psychoanalyst.I have not made

16 The Big Drag

up my mind, over the years, whether this is part of Eddie's

routine " the sending-outof Christmas cards, for instance,depictinghis dullness as a Romeo, or the self-designationasthe ugliestman in the world, which he is not " or whetherhe honestlyhas this amorous inferioritycomplex.I do notcare. To me, Eddie is a good press agent, which is a rarity,like a good cabinetmaker, and that is enough.

Eddie, of course, is vastlymore engrossingthan any of hisclients. In the firstplace,he lives in Tub-Thumpers'Row, acluster of small apartments over the late BillyLaHifFs res-taurant,

now known simplyas the Tavern. Like drones to the

queen bee, other press agents have engaged apartments inthe same buildingso that now the placeis full of bellowing,scheming,brooding,sinister children of the tortured adjec-tive.

Eddie's placeis a two-room affair,notable for its gen-erallydisheveled look and for the location of the telephone.

It is on a very, very short cord and is rightnext to the footof Eddie's bed. The logicalconclusion is that Eddie wantedit there so he could awaken in the morning and start tele-phoning,

as is the wont of the good press agent, and it is truethat this condition,as Durante says, does prevail.

But actually,the telephoneis in that awkwardly-reachedspot as a half -cure against phone spongers. The averageBroadwayite,especiallyif he has unloaded his bankroll theday before on a horse that proved to have only three legsin the struggledown the homestretch, is forever storingupphone calls to be made " to be made for free " whenever ourhero arrives at a placewhere they can be sponged."My God, Joe,"he will suddenlysay, in the middle of try-ing

to sell a fellow Broadwayiteon some scheme, "I just

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 17

remember, I gotta call Max Goldbaum about some tickets

to you don* min* if I justuse your phone,do you?"There are some who will coldlysay, "Get the hell away

from that phone,you cheap bastard," or will skillfullybeatthe visitor to the draw and pickup the receiver firstto makea call of their own. Eddie prefersthe politebrush. The only

way you can use his telephoneis to sit on the floor and bend

over at a forty-fivedegreeangleor to lie on the bed and lean

over the edge,and this latter method is impossiblebecauseEddie is alwaysin the bed, day or night.Well, occasionallyhe does come out into the light,but it is likelythat the greatmajorityof his hours are spent in that rumpledbed, thinkingabout anglesfor stories,or worrying about his latest dream.

It was Eddie who introduced what I can only regardasa remarkable improvement over the downstairs apartmentphone" you know, the kind where you press your friend'sbuzzer and then speakinto a little hole in the wall. WhatEddie does is lower a microphoneout the window into Forty-eighthStreet, for the convenience of the visitor. He listens

meditativelywhile the citizen below outlines the worth and

cause of his visit,his voice minglingwith the din of the streetscene below, and then Eddie either signals"come ahead" or"staythe hell out."

Getting back to that phone,incidentally,you would bestartled at the number of guys who preferto crouch down

on the floorand use it,rather than spenda nickel at the cornerdrugstore.

Like many other citizens of the main stem, Eddie is an utter

hypochondriac,and it is virtuallyimpossibleto find him with-outa thermometer secreted on his person somewhere. Bottles

18 The Big Drag

of pillsabound, and many longhours are spent by the masterhimself in discussinghis latest symptoms with a sympatheticsoul. The promiseof a new, moneyed and newsworthyclientis about the onlythingthat can cut short Eddie's soliloquieson his illnesses.It is likely,furthermore, that all of these ail-ments

are imaginary and that Eddie suffers from nothingmore than an upset stomach induced by the occupationalviceof the practicingBroadwayite,that is the eating of friedfoods.

The press agents who sweat the most and labor the hardest

are the movie tub-thumpers.These are the unhappy ladiesand gentlemenwho are engagedby the major studios' East-ern

offices,and whose lives are dedicated to the publicizingof the visitingmovie stars, of whom more later. One of thebasic reasons for their unhappinessis that the movie businessis shot full of back-slashers,knifers,angleboys and cosmo-politan

thugs,and the turnover in personnelis tremendous.Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the publicityde-partment,

for no matter how much space the New York office

grabsin the newspapers, the Gods that be in California de-cideregularlyevery seven or eightmonths that those god-damnEastern press agents are doinga lousyjob,and they

firethe whole office.

Thus, we find that movie press agents in the Broadwayarea are forever moving from one office to another;theymaybe with Gilt-EdgePictures in November and Blotz Produc-tions

in February.They take with them their most valuableasset " the contact. It is amazing how many movie pressagents are hired because they have entry into a movie re-viewer's

office or because theymight know where the body

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 19

is buried,by the simplemethod of havingstumbled acrossthe reviewer registeringat a midtown hotel with a blonde

to whom he is not married. "Sure,"the head of a movie office

publicitysquadronmight say, "let'shire Sammy Jacobs.Atleast he'llkeep Screech of the Globe from slammingour pic-tures

too hard, anyway/'On the other hand, of course, there are respectableones

in this field,too " men like Felix Greenfield of Warner's,orRoss Doyle at M.G.M. or talented Ralph Ober of Universal,and an occasional good woman press agent, like RosellenCallahan of United Artists. They sweat and slave and barkback at the temperamentalheroes and heroines whom theyare shepherdingaround the main stem, but theymanage tokeep morals and standards at a reasonablyhighlevel.Theyhave one attitude in common; theyforever are going to quitthis business of whoring,as theyrefer to it,and go back tohonest journalism,but somehow the combination of good payand eccentric colleaguesand clients generallyproves irresist-ible,

and theyremain "prostitutes"to the death. They gen-erallydie young, too. Press-agentryis not for the sedate or

the ones hopefulof longevity.

Blood relatives of the movie flacks,as the trade describes

these sellers of their souls,are the theatrical press agents.These gentlemen,given to wearing clean linen and shootingtheir cuffs nonchalantly,are the cream of the bottle and, morethan any other press agents,consider themselves professionalmen. I suppose the citizen who has given this touch of class

to these assorted thugs is an amiable Irish space-stealernamed Richard Maney, who came out of Montana fifteen or

twenty years ago to become the editor of a trade paper on

20 The Big Drag

fishingat thirty-fivedollars a week " and to take tickets atnightas a doorman at the theater.

Maney, who is one of the fixtures at Bleeck's Artists' and

Writers' Restaurant, is that extreme oddity,a press agent whocan write. Of course, his prose is exceptionallyflorid and agood editor would wear out a coupleof blue pencilsover it,but you must remember that our man is plyinghis art in afieldwhere literature is,usually,a completestranger.Maney 's

way with the printedword alwaysimpressesproducers,andit occasionallytitillatesdrama editors who are customarilyweigheddown by great batches of ungrammaticalhandoutsfrom flacks.

At any rate, duringany given theatrical season, Richardusuallyhas ten or twelve shows lined up to publicize;he isthe favorite tub-thumperof Herman Shumlin and GeorgeAbbott,and Lillian Hellmann insists on him for any playshewrites. Russel Grouse, whose shows Maney has publicized,was so impressedby Maney that he did a piecein Lifeon him,which began somethinglike,"Maney should be writingthisstoryabout me."

Tallulah Bankhead, who occasionallyties her turbulentcareer in with that of the Theatre Guild, used to have two

standingdemands: (1)that Pete Davis be named companymanager (theTheatre Guild found ultimatelythat it,too,liked Pete, and named him its generalmanager),and (2)thatManey be her publicityman for any Guild show. All thisadulation has left Maney singularlyunaffected;he is a toler-ant,

serene Celt with a pixieishsense of humor that remainsfull-bodied and strong.He once beat the drums for a show

called The Squall,which leftRobert Benchley,then review-ingdrama for The New Yorker,limpand illwith disgustand

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 21

sent him out into the street earlyin the nightfor fresh air.

Maney rose to the occasion superbly.The ads for the showthe next day ran: "See the playthat made Benchleya street-walker!"

On the whole, the theatrical press agents are a prosaicif

elegantlot,who rarelystoop to dodges and stunts (well,topalpableones, anyway)for space. However, there is amongthem a gent named Sam Friedman, who is probablythe mostefficient of the group and who every now and then ducks

away from the dignifiedrealms of The Theater to publicizeaccounts where his gleefullyvulgartaste can run riot. A whileback he contracted to do publicityfor BillyRose's DiamondHorseshoe, and duringthis prisonterm he sweated longandhard to stage a fine,old-stylestunt " onlyto have it backfire.

Sam wanted to get one of the Horseshoe showgirlsarrestedfor one reason or another, because editors pay attention to

arrests, so he arrangedto have one appear in Central Parkin a bathingsuit,which is againstthe rules. The cop on dutyin that section of the park,however, was curiouslyuninter-ested,

so finallySam sent over a stooge to call the law's at-tentionto the misdemeanor and demand that he do his duty.

Thecop grudginglyhauled out his summons pad and was

about to write a ticket when he suddenlysnorted. "Whyshould I let that son of a bitch tell me who to arrest?" he ex-claimed,

and promptlytore up the ticket and strode off

indignantly.Undaunted, Sam tried another day" with four girlsin

bathingsuits. He got them over to the horseshoe-pitchingpits,and with joyin his heart spotteda cop who watched theprocedure."You know," Sam said,quietlybut determinedlyto the policeman,"I guess what we're doinghere isn'tlegal,

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 23

ment." The associate justshook his head and retired. CameS or ScreeningDay, and General Blotz and company arrivedfrom the capital" but five minutes before the screeningwasscheduled,there was justone newspaperman in the projec-tion

room. And he'd onlycome because he'd been lunchingwith one of the studio's press agents, who had asked him

desperatelyif he couldn't come up and kill another fifteenminutes.

To follow alongwith this story,one must remember that

Variety,the trade paper of show business,refers to pressagents as flacks.Don't ask why. Well " the executive, showinga remarkable burst of imagination,rounded up his entire pub-licity

staff,includingsecretaries and clerks,and excitedlyshooed them up to the projectionroom to playat beingnews-papermen.

There theysat,in the firstfive rows or so, with cigarettesin the corners of their mouths, clothes rumpled,cynicallookson their faces " tryinghard, in other words, to appear like

gentlemenof the press. In walked General Blotz,with prac-ticallya fanfare. He looked them over approvingly;the turn-out

of the press was in keeping,of course, with his highrank.But justas he was about to pickout an empty seat in the firstrow or two and sitdown, one of the press agents couldn't keepit in any longer.

"I wouldn't sit there if I were you, General,"he warned.

"There's an awful lot of flack in that area!"

I find radio press agents the least appealing,and I am notat all sure this isn'tbecause of the medium in which theydeal.It is an abortive art, to be sure, and has very littleof the en-chanting

about it.Therefore,publicizingit callsfor a kind of

24 The Big Drag

Superman,who can interest editors who look on it with jaun-dicedeye.

Suppose,for example,you are hired to get some space inthe papers for the new comedy show starringBenny Bene-dict.

In the firstplace,every radio columnist and practicingnewspaperman knows that Benny, even if he has a 27.3

Hooper ratingand is heard by 45,000,000 persons nightly,isa colossal bore, a righteousnincompoop and beats his motherwith monotonous regularity,and the minute you mentionBenny'sname to them theytellyou for God's sake,take that

thug out and shoot him.In the second place,as George Jean Nathan once proved

devastatinglyby quoting longpassages from one of the al-legedlyinimitable Fred Allen broadcasts,nothingfunny ever

is said on the radio " and if Allen's stuff falls flat in the lightof cold type, you and your Benny Benedict are reallygoingto be up Slush Creek without a paddle.

As a result" here, too, I must make an occasional excep-tion"

radio draws the least desirable of the press agents.Either they are the ones who are in the business solelyforthe

money " and a good,fat livelihood can be made in it"or the ones who have failed in more legitimatepress-agentryand are reduced to radio. As a class,theymore than any otherdrum-beaters go in for exaggeration,untruths and boringover-use of adjectives.If a man is known by the companyhe keeps,radio press agents are instantlydamned, for theyare in a field where to be personableand entertainingis tobe out of step.

The fourth and finalbigfield for press agents is nightclubs,and here againthe boys are often the sounding-boardfor the

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 25

trade they ply.A nightclubowner ordinarilytries as hardas he possiblycan to get away with something" anything.He tries to clipthe customers on the food, the liquor,thehatcheck stalland the service,and no matter whether he does

it openlyand harshly,as so many of them do, or with the

glovedhand under the pretense of honest business.Indeed, there seems somethinginfinitelymore appealing

in the rowdydow, rough-and-tumblejointsof Fifty-secondStreet,for instance,where the proprietorwaits for you at thesidewalk entrance with his hatchet drawn, than in the plush-ier spotswhere the meals are a la carte, the headwaiters' bows

are low, the carpetsare deepand the check at the end of theeveningis staggering.

So it is with the press agents who hawk these wares; a great

many of them will do everythingbut murder their great-aunts, if it will get the names of their clubs into the paper.However, if you are a newspaperman and if you deal with

these citizens,after a while you become used to the arrange-mentand you regardthem with a pleasedsmirk,for theyare

lovable,if sinister clowns.

To the out-of-towner,it is astoundinghow largea staturethe columnist has in New York, but it is understandable. For

these erratic gentlemenof the press representmany thingsto the natives. To the quieterresidents,they serve as thenormal medicinal dose of nightlifeand glamourthat every-one

requiresand that so many New Yorkers never get exceptin this long-rangefashion. To the ladies and gentlemenwho

are in the midst of the whirl,to whom diningat the Stork orginning at the Onyx are regularthings,they are the barom-eters

and the guideposts;ifWinchell or Sullivan says the newshow at the Latin Quarteris worth seeing,there is at least

26 The Big Drag

a fiftyper cent chance that it has a certain amount of merit,anyway. And to the peoplein show business,an orchid fromWinchell or a gold star from Sobol " or is it Kilgallenwho

givesout goldstars? I forget" are fine,lustytalking-pointswhen the time is ripefor a salaryraise.

So the nightclubpress agent not onlyis clamoringat thedoor of the columnist's officecontinually;he also does every-thing

short of shine that worthy'sshoes. He sets up front-rowtables for the modern Pepys,sees to it that Countess Mara ties

or Haig and Haig pinch-bottlesarrive in carloads,procureswomen for the more sinful of the columnists and, to namehis most sizeable task,he even sometimes writes the colum-nist's

column"

if he is talented,that is,and if he can dupli-catethe columnist's stylewith grace and ease. I have, while

restingmy old bones in some press agent'soffice,seen himturn out sheaf after sheaf of copy which tomorrow will appearword for word in one of the more prominentcolumns whilethe nominal author is home sleepingoff a hangover.Thisisn't done, of course, because the press agent justlikes thecolumnist. It is done because somewhere in the contributed

column are plantedplugsfor the press agent'sclients.Colum-nistsseem to operate on the theorythat a fair exchangeis no

robbery,and for every six or seven newsworthy bits of gos-sip,theyconcede one free plug.

Ot least seventy-fiveper cent of the time, the press agentis a better writer than the columnist,anyway, so the columns

are more readable when sent in from outside sources. The

onlycatch is that the press agent has a completeand sinceredisregardfor facts,and while many columnists insist thattheydrop a press agent like a hot coal if he serves them upa wrong item, generallyspeakingthe tub-thumpersget away

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 27

with their absorbinginaccuracies because of (1)their skillin relatingthem, and (2) the columnist's lack of time for

checkingthem thoroughly.It was IgorCassini,who does the "ChollyKnickerbocker"

column for the Hearst papers, who pointedout recentlythat

duringthe recent war Huntington Hartford III,the A. " P.heir,turned up in New York nightclubs,by way of pressagents'reports,no less than twenty-seven times, and alwayswith a different girl.

"He took it rather philosophically,"Cassini chuckled inprint,"thoughthe Navy Department is stillcheckingtheirfilesto try and find out how he managed to be in Okinawa

one evening and munching a crepe suzette the followingeve-ningin one of our smarter clubs." Cassini stated correctlythat

Hartford is what is known as "Old Faithful" among the press

agents;if ever one of the tribe is caughtwith his items down,he simply"takes Huntington and sits him at a ringsidetablein his place,or makes him wink slylyat a prettymodel, orperhapseven forces a rumba or two out of him with some newplaygirl.The day is saved."

In recent years, there have been only a handful of pressagents who deal in the glamorizingof societygirlsor girlsfrom bordellos who want to become societygirls,but there

was a time when this was a thrivingenterprise.More than onesweet young thing,observingthe years over her shoulder and

seekingthe quietand securityof a littleshack in Newportor Tuxedo Park for her more mature years, has hired a press

agent to spreadto the world the news of her charms.On the other hand, of course, there are a few shyones who

honestlybelieve that such fame is not too desirable,and theyhave gone to the extreme of hiringpress agents who keep

28 The Big Drag

their names out of the papers. Chic Farmer, the good-lookinggent who has specializedin beatingthe drums for such high-toned spots as El Morocco, the Stork and the Embassy,hashad several such assignments and has done beautifullybythem, althoughsooner or later he cracks under the strain,because he is so good a press agent and has such a highreputationthat it'sconsiderablyeasier for him to get itemsinto a column than to keep them out.

On the whole,the Broadway press agent is a necessary evil,I suppose " yet never dull,and almost alwaysentertaining.He is reallythe Boswell to the Big Drag'sJohnson,and morethan any newspaperman or author,he is its biographer.Onthe gaudy sheets of stationerywhich he inserts into his be-draggled

typewriterand heads arrestingly"Exclusive toWalter WinchelT are capturedthe heartbeat of the bigartery.And when his "exclusive releases" end up in the waste-

basket, as they so often do, they are one with so much of

Broadway anyway, for that is how it is in this weird man-made jungle" fresh and shinyand raucous one day,full ofthe breath of life and screaming and howlingat the world,and in the junkheap the next night.Take any corny simileyou want about Broadway butterflies,and beingat the topof the ladder one day and the bottom tomorrow and so on "and they'reall true.

When I think of press agents,I invariablycome back to thegenius of JackTirman, a man of many cylindersand manyinspiredmoments, and to the storytheytell of honest Jack.Young in flesh but old and shrewd in mind, Jackwas handlinga nightclubone winter, at a time when business wasn't tooheavy and it took sheer talent and hard work to crack acolumn. It was a time when the ballet was beginningto boom

Lissen, I Got a Great Story 29

in Manhattan, and such as Dolin and Markova were begin-ningto acquire some rightful fame among the peasants. Jack,

dreamily staring at the rain sweeping across the big town

oneafternoon and wondering by what device he could bring

his clients to the attention of the reading public, poked

through a review of the ballet in one afternoon paper and

decided that here was the gimmick, the angle. He hurriedly

prepared some publicity about a ballet team, a wonderful

Russian ballerina and her equally unbelievable hunk of beau-tiful

man,who

were thrillingthe customers nightly at the

Club La Plush.

To honest Jack, it did not matter that there was no such

dance team. He was in there fighting on the side of his boss,and his main job was to get customers into the place. Happyat his inspiration, he sent news of his mythical but marvelous

dancing duo to the columns.

Inside of three days, he was made. In one column, there

was bestowed on the non-existent dancers an orchid. In an-other,

therewas placed a proud gold star. And the pinnacle

was reached when an especiallyinaccurate columnist carried

a tart item that began:

"The dance team of Grabitoff and Garchinka, now at

Club La Plush, is by no means as good as it is cracked upto be.

,

."

Reefer Street 31

Garden Blues""

all of them rightout of the gin-soaked,nos-talgictop drawer of yesterday.

"Guts," a cornetist once told me. "The songs had guts in

them days.How are you supposedto do anythingwith theslush that passes for popularmusic now?"

To these down-at-the-heel dumps,dedicated by their pro-prietorsto the fleecingof anyone who comes within vacuum-ing

range and by their performersto the resurrection andtender worshipof a music with the ringof truth to its lines,come the most talented contemporary musicians of our day"men like dapperRoy Eldridge,the trumpeter; Coleman Haw-kins

of the morbidlysoulful tenor saxophone;ZuttySingletonwith his insinuatingdrums; Buster Baileyand his witchyclarinet

" men who every now and then get tired of this be-draggled

existence and getthemselves seated with a bigswingor sweet band and trydutifullyto playthe slush,and then findit too stifling,and drift back to the joints,where theysit andfool around with the melodies nightafter night,playingsadlyiftheyare sad,playinggladlyiftheyare glad.

The customers who gatherin these sinful spots are an oddmixture " suburbanites from New Jersey and Connecticutwho have justseen Life with Father and are determinedlyout to see the seamier side of Broadway'snightlife;the crew-cut children from the schools and universities who have dis-covered

the marvels of jazz and come regularlyto makeobeisance,until theyreach,say, the age of twenty-fourandbegin to feel their Kid Days are behind them; the meagerhandful of honest jazzaficionados,who sit around silentlyand happilywith their beer and glow inwardlywhen some-body

like Max Kaminsky cuts loose on his trumpet with ablistering,get-the-hell-out-of-herechorus; and finally,the

32 The Big Drag

Broadwayitehimself, who knows and likes this music theyplay" but can't waste too much time on it because, my God,these dummy reefer-smokers never had a dime in their livesand how the hell can ya make a buck sittin'around listenin'

to them?

The names, the facades,the marquees, the personnelinthese placesare ever changing,but the personalityof Fifty-second Street itself never does. Of course, it'snot exactlyin-expensive

to operate one of these joints" it takes,roughly,from ten to twenty-fivethousand dollars to set one up in busi-ness;

but as everyone knows, money grows on trees alongBroadway, and fat,fresh bankrolls are alwaysspringingupfrom the hot sidewalks.

So Joe Glotz, nightclubproprietor,bursts upon the scenewith the FlashlightClub, some brisk fall night,spends thenext six months paying coolie wages to the hired help and

rakingin the longgreen, and then shuts up shop for the hotmonths, while the old signsstillsit wearilyin front of theshuttered jointand inside the onlysound is the steadyrustleof the cockroaches clamberingidlyalong the floor and upthe walls. These are night-bloomers,these caverns of jazz,and they come in the longwinter nightand die off in thelongsummer day.

Here are Jimmy Ryan's,a long,stuffybar and cabaret runby a lean, good-lookingIrishman who has unfortunatelyshown signsrecentlyof wanting to get away from the oldlife,by opening a swankier branch on the upper East Side;the Keyboard,a symphony in leatherette,which at this writ-ing

was spankingnew and which in a year may have a dif-ferentname or not exist at all;the Three Deuces, brassyand

Reefer Street 33

bellowing;the Spotlite,a hole in the wall with drinks;the

Onyx; the Hickory House; Kelly'sStables; the Club Samoaand a handful of others " every one different;yet every onethe same.

Brave and cheapand gaudy and nervy theyare on the out-side;sad and blue and noisy on the inside. And at 5:00 A.M.,

when it is longand empty of peopleand cluttered onlywith

signs,Fifty-secondis the most pitifulstreet in the world "collapsedlike a rag doll;like a tired lady of the evening,ithas slippedoff to a shivering,shapelesssleep.Fifty-secondis no better, no worse than it has been

painted.Every now and then, one of these shops is shutdown by the law because the reefer has been peddledin tooplainsight,and there is nothing fictitious to this. Let the

righteousmusician protestthat the tales of widespreaduseof marijuana are poppycock.He lies.The musician " and thejazz musician most particularly" has littleor no regardforthe fleshlymarvel that is his torso, and he kicks it around

thoroughlywith liquor,no sleep,too many cigarettes,littlefood, and frequently,many reefers. It is melodramatic buttrue that musicians are disillusioned idealists;they are sad

men who are on personalspeakingterms with Beauty and yetfind her so rarelyin their fellow-man that they use everymeans at their disposalto bury their disappointment.Atthirty,many of them are dead. Maybe earlier. Charlie Chris-tian,

a young Negro guitaristwith a talent that even VicenteGomez would givehis righteyetoothfor,was dead at nine-teen

from tuberculosis" a constant companion and hand-maiden

to the jazzmusician. Bix Beiderbecke,the young manwith a horn, was gone in his earlythirties,from the hard life.

34 The Big Drag

They go that way. Some of them, like toothless Bunk Johnsonor round old SidneyBechet, stick around for a longtime, butit'snot somethingon which to put your bankroll.

There was a time late in her career when Helen Morgan,the girlwith the tear in her voice, was the reigningqueenof Fifty-second,but now the honor goes to a sexy-looking,imperious,sultry-voiceddusky girlwith flowers in her hair,named BillieHoliday.The qualityof this Baltimorean's voicecannot be arguedabout, for it has no great quality;cus-tomarily,

she sounds when in full flightas if her voice is flat-tingoff the bathroom wall. "But she says something,"a

trombone-playingfriend of mine once told me doggedly,andI suppose that's as good an explanationas any for the charmthat the Holidayexercises. There is a tired sadness in hervoice as she throws back her head, hunches her shoulders

a littleand sings"The Man I Love" (whichonlya few yearsago you heard in ragtimein a placecalled The Silver Slip-per.

.. .

Ted Lewis and "Is everybody happy?" TexasGuinan and "Hello sucker!" "Look under the table,Joe;thestuff is here and it's mellow."

.. .

Remember?. . .

Re-member?).

And there is a wrench to the flat voice and real

anguishto the whole thingas she singsthe lynchingsong,"StrangeFruit,"which she can't singtoo much because ittakestoo much out of her.

Swing Street,as it has been wronglynamed, deserves aniche in the hall of fame ifonlybecause it has offered havento the Negro musician. These are the daysof democracyandfreedom of opportunity;yet, you can count on one toe thenumber of Negro musicians playingthe bighotels,where themoney is to be made in the field of popularmusic. New York

Reefer Street 35

is full of pseudo-liberalswho live in these hotels and write,preachand scream about the freedoms, but the pianistsandclarinetistsand bassists who playfor dancingthere are white.

So to Fifty-secondStreet comes the talented Negro musi-cian,a grotesque thingin view of the fact that most of the

better white men, like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, BuddyRich, and so forth,pilgrimageregularlyto the littlejointsto listen to them. At this stage in civilized living,it seemsunnecessary to point out that Negroes are better musiciansthan white men; it is true, it is accepted,and the music theymake is somethingfor which we can be thankful.

The manner in which Fifty-secondStreet tries to beat yourmoney out of you borders on the hilarious.The doorman, who

many times isn't even in uniform,but wears perhapsan oldsweater and carries a patchedumbrella,has two tasks: (1)tolure you into the placefirstof all,which he attempts to doby bearingdown on you as you progress alongthe street and

tryingto block your passage, and (2)to assure you loudlythat the next show is justabout to go on " even if it is only9:30 P.M., and most of the musicians involved haven't even

gotten out of bed up in Harlem yet. Wherever Billie Hol-iday

is playing,there is a standard routine that goes on be-tweenthe old,cagy patrons who know Miss Holiday'spen-chantfor appearinglate or some nightsnever at all."How

soon does she go on?" the shrewd customer asks the doorman.

"In justa few minutes," the doorman answers, or, "In a littlewhile." The cagy one turns to his companion."Let's go overto a newsreel,"he says. "We got at least an hour and a half

to wait."

Once inside,you are subjectto the hatcheck girl,who will

36 The Big Drag

spiton any tipless than a quarter and flingit back in yourface. Indeed, Fifty-secondStreet is perhapsthe onlysectorin Broadway where a stony-facedindividual is apt to tellyou,"The hatcheck chargeis two bits,buddy, not a dime." Thehatcheck racket,of course, is one of the most thrivingand

prosperous in New York, and it thrives best in Fifty-second,where no bones are made about the necessityof the payment.

Past the hatcheck stall,there is the inevitable headwaiter,who, basically,is justlike the headwaiter in the plushierjointsaround town in that he is lookingfor his rakeoff,but who dif-fers

from most in that he, too, has littlesubtletyin his ap-proach."A nice table down front?" he asks a customer. The

customer nods. The headwaiter doesn't move; he looks hard

at the customer. This impasse remains until the customer,reluctantlyor embarrassedly,fishes a half-buck or a buck outof his pocketand turns it over to the headwaiter. The gratuityhere isn'tas high,perhaps,as it is in the Stork or El Morocco,but at least the headwaiter is sure of gettingit. If he doesn't,you don't get your good table " your one-foot square pieceof plankingwith a tablecloth,that is. In the better joints,every now and then the headwaiter is fooled by an out-of-towner who is led to a nicelylocated table,and justoddlyenough forgetsto tipthe suave clipartist.

From there on, it'severy man for himself. There are rarelycover chargesin the jazzjoints,merelyminimums of threedollars or so, which you can drink up in three bottles of beer.

The liquoralmost alwaysis cut, except that it is cut in a skill-fulmanner " i.e.,graduateddown from a slightcut in the first

drink until by the sixth you are drinkingwhat can onlybedescribed as water with Scotch flavoring.The owners figure,and rightly,that by the sixth drink you haven't the faintest

Reefer Street 37

idea of what you'redrinking,and there's no sense in wastingfullportionsof liquoron you when you'rein no state to ap-preciate

it.What with the priceof liquorthe way it is today.You can get food in these places,but it seems a hard way

to die; razors or acid would be better. The kitchens are

inevitablytattered and inadequate,althoughthere is a cer-taincoziness to them because the jazzmen like to sojourn

there between sets and drink tumblers-full of gin,and the

spiritof camaraderie abounds. On the whole, the jointsstopjustshort of what were known in prohibitionas cab or clipclubs. They don't give you knockout drops and take yourbank roll while you'reout, but I have noted a certain wistful

nostalgiaon the part of some of the owners when theytalkof those days.

If you are loose in Broadway of a nightand your pursewon't quitehold up under the pressure of Swing Street'sviolence,there is no need to fret. For the two requisitesofa giddynightalongthe main stem, liquorand entertainment,are to be found everywhereon a graduatedscale,until youdrop down finallyto the placeswhere highballsare a quarterand the performerswork for the billsand coins flungat them.There is a Stork Club for every pocketbookon the Big Drag.It mightbe a place,for example,like the Metropole,situated

rightin the heart of Broadway at Seventh Avenue and Forty-eighthStreet.

Until a few years ago, the Metropolewas justa big,gaudyrestaurant and bar, which was redolent of that roast-beef

aroma that fillssuch placesand which served big shots ofliquorand biggerglassesof beer. There are a thousand placeslike it in New York; a placeto drop by to on a hot day for

Reefer Street 39

Or take a look at her pianist,Frank Ross; he was with TedLewis for ten years, and he was on the Palace bill as accom-panist

for Fannie Brice when the others included a red-nosed

comedian named Fields and an act named Edgar Bergen "Co. that was justbreakingin.

Some nights,there may be blackface Eddie Nelson,whowas famous as Eddie Cantor's replacementin Kid Boots,many cold nightsago " but is more celebrated in the showworld as the guy who practicallyevery Wednesday lent fivedollars to the fellow playingthe menace in Boom Boom " oneArchie Leach, who changed his name to Gary Grant. Thenthere's Annie Kent, who playedwith the Gish sisters whenLillian was six and Dorothy four,and who wrote songs forEva Tanguay and Nora Bayes.

Shed no tears for these headliners of old who are operatingout of a glorifiedbar and grill;after all,they'repackingthemin,and no matter where an old vaudevillian plays,ifthe houseis full he's happy.

Stilldriftingaround the main stem, there's Jimmy Dwyer'sSawdust Trail over there in the Forties, or Diamond JimBrady's,specializingin the big beer and the fat sandwich,the Paddock Bar and Grill in the heart of the movie-house

district,where the talk is of horses " not of their breeding,as you might get in the oases in Lexingtonor Saratoga,butof the pricestheypaidand whether theywere good things.The Pink Elephanton Sixth Avenue, spillingover with sailors,and a hundred others. There is no need to run short of placesto while away the long,lonelynightin Broadway.The pain-killer

is there,ready and waiting,and there is alwaysthe

companionshipof other lost souls,drawn to the mob so theycan rub elbows and get into arguments and feel theybelong

40 The Big Drag

somewhere, if just for the night. In and out of doors they

troop while Broadway sizzles and bubbles around them,

hunting the forgetfulness that lies for sure in a glass, looking

for the spangles and song that will make them forget the desk,

the typewriter, the drill, the crane, the shovel.

CHAPTER FOUR

L.A. to N.Y.

I DON'T KNOW why, but every now and then, the lilymustbe gilded,or, to be technical,the lilypaintedand the rosegilded.As if the Big Drag wasn't tinsellyenough, as if itweren't jam-packedwith hooplaand razzmatazz, it is foreverbeing embellished by the appearance of the Movie Star."Mamie Vere de Vere is in town!" the columnists cry ecsta-tically

" just as if all Broadway won't know it soon enoughanyway, when Mamie is seen staggeringout of Twenty-Oneafter a drunken, diasppointingeffort to pickup a coupleoflieutenant commanders.

There is a definite reason, of course, for regularappear-anceon Broadway of the Movie Star, and that reason is

publicity.In the enchanted land of the cinema, film celeb-ritiesare the proverbialdime a dozen, and for one certain

performerto win himself any sizeable amount of newspaperspace requiresvirtuallythat he shoot his wife and then poisonhimself at Hollywood and Vine around high noon. In Man-hattan,

however, thingsare different;here the newspapermenhave onlysuch old hams as Lunt and Fontanne or Ray Bolgeror Katharine Cornell to work on, and as a result theywelcomewith

open arms the appearance of a talented geniuslike Maria

Montez or Esther Williams, whose fame is predicatedon anabilityto smile becominglyfor four seconds on the sixteenthtake of a movie scene.

The movie peopleare many thingsbut they are not stupid;41

42 The Big Drag

their publicityagents realize that Broadway is a goldmineof free news. So,regularlywe alongthe main stem are treatedto the spectacleof Joan Crawford or Clark Gable in the flesh.In fairness to the star involved,we must admit that it isn't

a snap job,and that the task of beingpoliteto wise-crackingand lecherous newspapermen and magazine writers all day,before beingable to sneak off to a secluded nightspot some-where,

is not an easy one.

The generalimpressionamong the publicboth in Manhat-tanand Hollywood is that when Mamie Vere de Vere waves

good-byfrom the window of The Superchief and that glitter-ingmonster slides away from the fairylandthrough the

orange-filledbackyardsof Los Angelestoward the desertthat stretches East, she is throughwith movies for two weeksand is going to make luxurious,grand whoopee."LuckyMamie Vere de Vere!" the Hollywood columnists write wist-fully.

"Off to N.Y. for a holiday,the grandgirl.Enjoyyourself,Mamie " and don't forgetyour fellow movie slaves,gettingup at seven every morning to be on the set by nine. Bon

voyagerIt was blonde JanisCarter, a risingyoung actress, who

reallyput me wise. Miss Carter was involved in one of these

publicityjunketsnot so longago, and when I caughtup withher one afternoon at Lynne Gilmore's Steak House in Forty-

eighthStreet,she had a fine lustyset of circles under her blue

eyes. Miss Carter was a triflebitter as she explainedthat thebagswere caused by "guyslike you."

"I have been in New York for one week," she said,wanly,"and I do not believe I ever have met so many newspapermenin my life.They are allfine,allgentlemanlylike you, but theyare allnewspapermen, and I must be on my toes every min-

LA. to N.Y. 43

ute. I must be charmingand graciousand mustn't swear toomuch, and if the soup is cold at luncheon,I must justsmilepleasantlyand say I reallydidn't want any, anyway."Janiswent on to explainthat the interviews took placeat

the convenience of the journalists,who would decide perhapsthat theycould talk and drink with Miss Carter between the5:00 P.M. pokergame and the 8:00 P.M. date. A typicaldayfor her began about 9:00 A.M. By ten, she was supposedto be

brightand chipperand readyfor the cooking-pageeditorof a movie magazine. Mostly,she would be wanted merelyto pose for picturesfor this editor,but the latter naturallychats with her about food and exotic dishes and "I have to

show that at least I would know a crepe suzette if I fellover

one."

At eleven,Janiswas bundled into a cab and rushed off toone of the tabloid newspapers, the News or the Mirror, to

have her photographtaken in color " "when the circles under

my eyes haven't even begun to fade." And here Janishadto be careful not to duplicatethe celebrated stunt of another

young actress who went over to the News and blandlycutloose to the photographerswith her opinionof "this lousysheet"

"while Cissy Patterson, the late publisher'ssister,

watched with obvious interest. That was one color picturethat never saw the newsstands.

By twelve-thirty,Janiswas in another studio beingsnappedin a sweater, for she was the Motion Picture Sweater Girl of

the year and at 1:00 P.M. she lunched with a newspapermanfrom the town's biggestsyndicate.At two-thirty,she was ina departmentstore for a "movie quiz"conducted by a fan

magazine. Here she had to be especiallyalert,for all her fans

were out in full force. Janishas two degreesfrom Western

44 The Big Drag

Reserve University,a startlingaccomplishmentfor the aver-agemovie queen, but, "If I can't tell the fans how Gable

kisses,I'm doomed as a dumb biddy."As a matter of fact,atdepartment store gatheringslike this,a number of those

present aren't preciselyfans. They drift in, say, "Who's that

up there?" and then, when somebody replies"JanisCarter,"theysay, "Never heard of her" and drift out.

An hour later,breathinghard,Janismoved in on a broad-castingstudio to record an interview in Spanishfor Latin-

America. Miss Carter had a whole raft of Spanishduringherhighschool daysin Cleveland,but knowledgelike that fades

away faster than the juicein a radio that'sjustbeen snappedoff,and she went crazy tryingto make sure she wasn't callingthe Latin-Americans blue pigs.

At four-thirty,she was in the office of one of the bigpicturemagazines,being interviewed " usuallya waste of time forthe movie star, because Life,for instance, has a habit of dis-regarding

ninety-nineout of a hundred stories with which

it tinkers. By this time, Janiswas beginningto chain smoke.

By five-thirty,she was buttonholed by Ida Jean Kain, the

syndicatedbeautycolumnist,who suggestedreducinga trifle,the charming Miss Kain feelingthat you can even reduce

your way into a seven the hard way when the dice are run-ning

againstyou, as theysay at Broadway and Forty-second.At six-thirty,Miss Carter was permittedto dine elegantly

in her hotel room, lyingon one elbow on a sofa,occasionallyrubbingher tired feet,smoking an after-dinner cigaretteand

contemplatingthe joysof a vacation in New York. By eight-thirty,she had to be ready for the theater. This was a stiffchore,because she had to smile and show her teeth all night

L.A. to N.Y. 45

long and she had to applaud the show vigorouslyno matterhow it stank, to guard againstbeing called high-hatwithinthe profession.As another professionaltask,if she was at thetheater escorted by a male movie star, she had to guard con-tinually

all evening to see that he wasn't scene-stealing,or,as the trade puts it,fly-catching.By midnight,the publicityoffice,always on the ball,had

arrangedfor Janisto visit the nighteditor of one of the big

newspapers, since she had justfinished a picturecalled NightEditor. This was close to fatal,since all nighteditors haveulcers and vile dispositionsand have been trying for yearsto get on the day side, and generallyare unimpressedbymovie stars. They are impressedusuallyonlyby sufficientwhisky and a raise in pay.

At 2:00 A.M., stunned and dazed, Miss Carter was readyfor bed. She layin the dark, smoking a cigaretteand listeningto the Big Drag, many floors below, stillwhizzingand slidingand banging.There seemed to be a tic in her rightcheek, andher stomach twitched occasionally.However, by four she

managed to fall off to sleep,when " wham! " the telephone.And the whole flapdoodleand merry-go-roundreadyto beginagain.

Then, in two weeks, The Superchiefis pullingback intothe Los Angelesstation and Miss Carter, in dark glassesand

hangover,is gettingoff the train. Columnists' stooges,plantedin the depot,eye her dubiously,shake their heads and sidle

over to the nearest telephone."Hello, Queenie?"they sayto their bosses. "Jus s^aw JainsCarter steppingoff The Super-chief. Boy, she reallymust have raised cain in New York;it'lltake her a month to get over this katzenjammer.She must

L.A. to N.Y. 47

he worked in Washington."Lishen, Naylor,"the gossamercreature said to him, pluckingat his elbow, "thish town stinks.Put tha' in your paper. Tell everyone I shaid Washingtonstinks."Whereupon she practicallyfellout of her chair ontothe floor.Of course, there is nothingextraordinaryabout that

scene; it happensfrequentlyand dailyalongthe Big Drag,which is the reason why most of the Broadwayitessighwithrelief when their Hollywood cousins climb aboard theTwentieth Century at five-thirtyone afternoon and headback to fairyland.

The executives in the movie industry,who are reasonablysmart cookies,if not exactlythe kind of gentlemenwithwhom you'd care to dine or playgolf,are forever holdingtheir breath when one of their valuable piecesof bric-a-bractravels to Broadway,because the actors and actresses aren't

very bright,and despiteallthe press agents in the world who

may be hoveringaround,they come out with some remarksthat border on the classical.I recall meeting one young thingin the Sherry-Netherlandone day,and beingstartled by find-ing

her knitting,an idea which, her press agent told me laterwith a shudder, she had thoughtup herself as a means of

impressingme with her homey qualities.This child of fortunehad been queen of several rodeos out West, and she said

she had a real affection for cowboys."Why," she remarked,her eyes as bigas half-dollars,"I justlove them " theyremindme so much of young bulls!"

Then there was Samuel Goldwyn, one-time Englishblack-smith'shelper,who greetedme in a gray pinpointchecked

bathrobe, blue socks, red slippersand a fringeof FoxyGrandpa gray hair. "Well,"he said,"what can I do for you?"I told him I thoughtwe mighttalk about the famous Goldwyn

48 The Big Drag

touch in his movies. Justwhat was it" without disclosinganytrade secrets, of course " that enabled him to get the qualityand good taste in his productionsthat had so frequentlybeenremarked upon?

"Well,"my solemn Foxy Grandpa said,lookingdown at hismanicured hands, "consider taste. After all" what is it butthe man himself? You can't manufacture quality.Either theproducerhas qualityand good taste,or he doesn't. If he has.it,his movies have it."I leftshortlyafter,a littleshaken and

trembling.They are all kinds,these visitingladies and gentlemen,

some of them boring,many of them drunks, a few of themgenuinelyinteresting.More than the Broadway performers,possibly,theyhave the habit of beingfrank, which unfor-tunately

often lands them in trouble. I remember meetingLauren Bacall one day and loungingaround her hotel roomwith her as she,dressed in a black jerseyblouse,black slacksand a pinkscarf around her dirtyblonde hair,talked freelyand intelligentlyabout love. "I've had my share,I suppose.I guess none of them lasted a year, but every time I reallydived into it. It would be 'Oh baby,this is the real thing;I'llnever be able to livewithout this one!' " I remember little

Arline Judge,drinkingorangeadeand recallingwistfullyhowthere was a time when "sooner or later of an eveningI wouldbe in every nice saloon in New York."

There was lovelyHelen Walker, tellingme how she workedas a secretaryfor a businessman in New York and how he

chased her around the room every night,"which I didn't mindpersonally,but I figuredthe poor guy was payingme twenty-four dollars a week and not gettinghis money'sworth, so I

quit."

L.A. to N.Y. 49

I remember standingin a dingy Ninth Avenue bar withMike Mazurki, the wrestler turned menace, and listeningto Mike tell me how hypotheticallya lot of money could bemade in the grapplingracket by takinga dive and how hewas sick one nightand decided to lose earlyto Dick Shikatat Madison SquareGarden, "but mind you, this was not reallya dive,because on the best day of my lifeI could not beatShikat,anyway/'

Once at Twenty-One,there was a four-hour luncheon withCarole Landis at which she tried to enlist a littlesympathyfor the actress whose marriagesend in divorce,as four of hershad. "It might be the husband's fault,you know," she said,"but the publicalwaysblames the girl."There was BettyHutton, beautiful in a white blouse and powder blue suit,sippinga milk punch painfullyas she recovered from a bad

night,and suggestingto the Lord that she would be betteroff dead and why didn't he strikeher down.

There is a certain set social routine alongBroadway,forshow people,and these visitingmovie performerssoon getinto the swing of it. There is alwaysjustone or two placesto go for lunch " last season, for example,it was either

Twenty-One or Toots Shor's" and unless theyare abnormal,the stars head for them to indulgein the traditional didoesof table-hoppingand screaming"hel-lo!" across the room atsomeone they'vemet onlyonce or would like to meet. If theyare free for cocktails,you will find them alwaysin the StorkClub,where theybeginin low key,for the longafternoon with-out

a drink has worn them a bit thin,but where after awhile

theyare rightin squawlingstride.There is never anythingbut the theater at night,and al-ways

sixth row center, and alwaysthree minutes after the

50 The Big Dragcurtain is up, and never the same gown two nightshand-running.On the late shift,it is El Morocco, of course, andhere theytake up the longvigil,waitinggrimlyto be seenby the rightproducersand the rightnewspapermen, and dis-tinguishable

from the El Morocco regularsonlybecause theyare forever beaming and showing their teeth, where thesteadies are concentratingon out-frowningand out-staringeach other. Then, stilllater in the night,or earlier in themorning, there is the nightcapof six or eightmore drinksin someone's apartment, and more likelythan not the fistfightthat doesn't get into the papers, or the furtive,childish little

assignation,or the passing-outon the sofa.

Hollywoodianshave been criticized for their frequentmar-riagesand divorces;it is the one phaseof their lives,perhaps,

for which they should be forgiven,because whereas the

average big-towndweller can live his own existence and

experimentas wolfishlyas he or she likes,the movie peoplelive in Macy'swindow, so to speak,and any amorous pec-cadilloes

in which they engage must be legitimateones. Itseems odd, but because of the white-hot publicityglarethatis forever on him, the movie star virtuallyhas to marry anygirlhe kisses for more than two seconds. Many Hollywoodmarriageshave no roots in love at all,but are the naturalresult of a normal cravingfor companionship.The movie starlives in a glasshouse from the time he gets up until he goesto bed; it is a logicalthingthat he wants someone with whomhe can let down his hair and become again Joe Doakes,

garage mechanic, as he once was.To the movie star come to Broadway for the firsttime, the

receptionmust be a trifledisappointing.For while the pressclapsitshands and clicksitsheels at the sightof new material

L.A. to N.Y. 51

for the printedpage, the Big Drag takes the visitors in stride.Perhapsthis is because a great portionof the Broadwayitesare important in show business themselves.

What is more likely,however, is that alongthe main stem,the big shot comes three for a quarter, and even the bootblacks and newsboys have become inured to the dazzling"for a small-to wner " sightof Bing Crosby coming out of aneighborhoodrestaurant minus his toupee. Even the auto-graph

fiends who crowd around the movie star are somethingless than adoring.To them it is a business deal. Either thestar'spress agent has contracted for their services,in the hopethat some columnist will comment on the hordes of "fans"

followingMiss Vere de Vere around, or else they are afterher signaturemerelyfor the good American coin of the realmit may bringon the open market.

There are, naturally,a number of sycophantsto whom the

appearance in town of a movie star is the signalfor a con-certedcampaign of boot-licking.Broadway is nothingif not

crowded with opportunists,and the lessdesirable of these arethe ones without talent of their own who figureon hitchingtheir wagon to a star. What makes it all sad and cheap,how-ever,

is their willingnessto be satisfied with crumbs. Maybetheyknow the star's press agent and use that as an "in,"orperhapstheyjustbother the Hollywoodianherself so muchthat soon she is too numb to care whether her retinue contains

the boot-licker or not. Whatever the manner of tyingin withthe star, the Broadway character can be seen taggingafterher as she leaves her hotel, or sweeping into a restaurantwith her, on the fringeof her largeescort, or tellingsomenewspaperman that "Gloria told me this morning, thatwhen

. ,

." etc.

L.A. to N.Y. 53

he dodgespersonalappearances and publicityand spendshishours listeningto Eddie Condon playjazz,or talkingwith abookie he once knew, or justamblingaround the main stemhappily.

And to see a reallyblissfulman is to see someone like Frank

Fay come back after a sojournin the movie capital.Mr. Fayof the impeccableclothes and the starched collars,is alwaysbewildered by the cheapnessand gaudinessof movieland anddesperateto return to the Lambs Club, where actors wearties and are reasonablycordial to each other and talk aboutsomethingother than movies " the horses,say, or politics,orwhether DiMaggio is going to hit .350 this year.

The Broadwayitewho istappedfor the movies cannot hon-estlyturn down the chance,because money is money wher-ever

you earn it. But every time he can wangle it,he pilesa coupleof suitcases aboard one of those Santa Fe stream-liners

and heads back to home. It is weird to imagine someone

relaxingwithin the confines of Broadway, with its flutterypulseand its crashingof pots and pans, but relax they dowhen theycome home from the wars of the West.

There are those,of course, to whom Broadway and Holly-woodboth are home. You will see someone like George S.

Kaufman diningone nightin the Copacabana and eyeingthe glitteringcrowd in the Mocambo in Hollywoodthe next.These transcontinental travelers are forever climbingin andout of planesand Pullmans, and theylive in a kind of purga-tory,

children without a country. Their names are forever

beinglisted in Varietyunder the "L.A. to N.Y." columns, andtheir typewritersand secretaries are forever at their side.

They are the ones who look hungrilyat the California menufor the magicalwords "New York cut" oppositethe steak

54 The Big Drag

listing, and when they are sitting in their little bungalows at

work"

for mostly they are writers or independent producers

or designers or show people of some anonymous kind " their

thoughts usually are on such faraway wonders as Roseland

Ballroomor

the shooting galleries on Sixth Avenue. Behold

the expatriate, God pity him" or,

in Broadwayese, "the poor

guy-"

CHAPTER FIVE

The Great Emancipation

THERE is, of course, nothinglike Broadway anywhere. Nocombination of streets and smells and lightsand peopleis

quitethe same; no unholy atmospherewith quite the seduc-tive

glow,no amalgamationof phoninesswith quite the scopeexists. However, this remarkable area is hewn roughlyat leastafter the fashion of other, more sedate communities, and soit has its normal complement of women.

In a way, it is almost unnecesary to speak of Broadway'swomen. They are so renowned in song and story that their

gloryis familiar to us all.Although many of the boys alongTin Pan Alleyhave homes in JacksonHeightsand three chil-dren

each to add to their own woman, who most likelyis be-

aproned,stringy-hairedand fat,theyare forever writingwitha sob in their throat of the butterflywho nightlystalks thestreet with heartbreak in her eyes. Every one of these main-

stem females, if we are to believe the song pluggers,has adreadful run in the stockingof her heart,and you can readthe fine printin the Times by the lightof the torch she car-ries.

She has been usedup like a tube of toothpasteand

thrownaway like an old banana skin,and now there is noth-ing

for her to do but walk sorrowfullypast the Paramount

Buildingeach night,swinging her red pocketbookand smil-inggamely,while a tear trickles throughher mascara.

This would make a touchingpicture,if true, and Godknows there have been and are a number of Broadway

55

56 The Big Drag

women who made the mistake of saying"Uh, huh" when theyshould have said "Not tonight,brother." But on the whole,the Broadway girlis neither destitute nor drunk,pennilessnorheartbroken. It is stillpossible,of course, for a man to makea fool of a woman, but don't forgetthat these are the daysof emancipationfor the tender sex, and it is an unlikelywoman indeed who doesn't learn swiftly,from books andstreet-corner discussions at the age of twelve,the lesson that

Broadway girlsused to learn at the age of eighteenor twenty,in lonelyhall bedrooms or one-nightstands at the Ritz-Plaza.Today,the girlwho comes to Broadway knows exactlywhereeach mine is laid,where each booby traphangs,and exactlywhat is going to happen to her if she blunders into one "usuallynothingexcept a dose of chagrin,followed by thedetermination never to be made a sucker of again.

If you cut away the hard-rubber casingsof their hearts,theyaren't a bad lot,many of these Broadway women, andI suppose the worst that can be said of them is that they'reout for all they can get. Since the average Broadway manis out for the same objective,our butterflycan hardlybeblamed. AlthoughI do think that she oughtto givethe malesex a small handicapwhen the game begins,because whenit comes to barteringpassion,the man doesn't live who canbat in the same leaguewith a woman.

If you are loose on Broadway some nightwithout dinnerto get home to or a lodgemeeting,dropinto one of the better

joints,like the Stork or the Copa,and watch a Broadway mantry to get a Broadway woman to come home to his bed andboard with him at the least possiblecost. Quitepossibly,thebutterflywould enjoy a tumble in the hay as much as thehard-workingwolf,but it's a matter of principlewith her

The Great Emancipation 57

never to look up shylyand nod yes until she's taken thegentlemanfor most of his bank roll,the next three months'rent and a promise to marry her.

I know that to out-of-towners,this attitude seems sordid.It is hard, for example,for a citizen of Vermont, whose lifeis pure and wholesome, to reconcile himself to the seemingpromiscuityof the whole thing.But alwaysremember thatlifealongthe Big Drag is a pinwheel,a rollercoaster,a fast-motion movie; everythingis steppedup twenty times intempo, and the Broadwayite,whether for better or worse,has at thirty-fivelived four times as many lives as the Kansanat seventy.

We speaknot of a quiet,elm-lined community of God-fearingcitizens when we speakof Broadway;we speakof an

incredible,needled,jazzed-uparea that is a world apartfromthe world of Kiwanis clubs,Wednesday nightbridgesandSaturdaynightmovies. No one has changedBroadway in ahundred years, and it is unlikelythat anyone will in the nearfuture. We must consider the phenomenon dispassionately,like a cricket under a microscope.

On the other hand, we do an injusticeto a certain shareof Broadway'sfemales if we classifythem all as hard-boiledbabies. Some aren't and some are, justas some are black andsome are white, some full of that mysticalqualitythat theBroadwayitecalls class and others full of nothingbut theninety-twocents' worth of chemicals of the average street-walker.

Broadway has all kinds of women " tough,beautifulshowgirls;stenographersnaive and stenographerswise;ushers and cashiers;models; artists;prostitutesand semi-

pros; salesgirlsand Salvation Army lassies" everything.It has girlswho wear Bendel black or Bergdorfforest

58 The Big Drag

green, at four hundred dollars a throw, and it has girlswhowear S. Klein pinkat $6.75. It has girlswho live onlyfor the

dressing-tablemirror, and others who clump alongthe mainstem with their liftsrun over and their slipsshowing.All thewonder and beauty and seaminess and spite that can befound in the female is paraded before us nightly,and thereis somethinga littlefrighteningabout it all.

The one female above all others to whom Broadway shouldbe more than a spitand a smile is the career girl,because per-haps

nowhere in the world can she cut loose to better ad-vantage

and make somethingof herself than in this nervousbellyof the bigtown. It is not quitetrue that Broadway firstasks you "What can you do?" and then "What sex are you"as an afterthought,because if anything,a girlwith good legsand talent,whether it be a talent for designingstage sceneryor cookinga good cup of coffee,has the edge on a man whoselegsare not quiteso exciting.

But there are a thousand women in New York whose fresh

ideas and whose drive and skillhave todaymade them com-fortablyindependent,a situation that quitepossiblywould

not exist in the hinterlands. Whenever I think along these

lines,I contemplatethe life and times of Pat Allen, a littlered-haired girlwith blue eyeglasseswho, in a town full ofthieves,touts, fanatics,pigeon-lovers,pigeon-haters,dream-ers,

schemers, professionalbums, dancers,refugeesand knife-throwers,stands unique.

To Pat Allen's disordered office justoffthe Drag come dailythe handsomest men in the world " Greek gods,platinum-haired Adonises from the North country, swarthyromantics,neatly-shavedand crew-haircutted specimens of collegiana.

The Great Emancipation 59

Fiftya day theydrift into her place,slippingquietlythroughthe front door and sittingpatientlyin the ante-room for hoursat a time. Once in a while Pat comes out briskly,smiles hercontagious little smile, crooks her finger,and one of thesechesty,gorgeous ones jumps as though through a flaminghoop.Then when nightdropsits raucous mantle on the mainstem, she comes out and smiles sadlyat the remainder and

theysighand drift into the cityoutside.For Miss Allen's fascination to these beautiful gentlemen

is a financial one " she has what amounts to a monopoly onthe male modeling market in New York. Just as Conover,Powers and Thornton have cornered most of the charm

among the girlmodels, Pat has in her filesthe name and photoof every would-be Hollywood star, every ham Broadwayactor, every eager young Narcissus in town. When there is a

call for a toothy,clean-cut young chap to be photographedwith a certain brand of cigarettestickingout of his jaw, thecall goes to Pat; when the wet beer that dissatisfies wants

,a serious young junior-executivetype, Miss Allen is the oneto see.

And Pat's is a storyof the main stem that could have come

about, maybe, nowhere else. Born at Eighty-seventhandMadison, she acquiredthe poiseof the Broadway young atthe age of four, at which time she was taken by her father,a cityofficial,to christen some new lions at Central Park's zooand a few days later was thrown out of a movie house whenshe insisted on pointingto herself in the newsreel and howl-ing

delightedly,"That's me!" She grew up in Asbury Park,New Jerseyand went to a half-dozen institutions alongthelines of the Scoville School for Young Ladies, after which she

The