Life Is Not a Stage Florence Henderson (13 ebook reader .txt) 📖

Since the time I had walked home singing the songs from the movie musicals I saw in the local theater, I had always felt it as a kind of destiny, a calling, a vocation. I never wavered in my desire to entertain people and make them feel happier. When I was very young, I thought for a while that I would enter a convent to become a nun. But when I found out that nuns in those days were not allowed to drive a car and couldn’t go out on dates, I changed my mind. However, getting the sponsorship from Ruth Helen’s family reinforced that deep faith I had as a child. Miracles did happen. Prayers were answered.

There was also the matter that I had the lead in a local musical in Owensboro. I had to tell the director that I was going to New York. He was very excited for me. Everything was set except for one important step: I was not officially enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts until I passed their audition. Being so busy helped dampen any fear and anxiety as my departure for New York neared.

Suitcase packed with some new clothes that Babby had bought me, I said goodbye to my father and my sister. Although Babby was three years older, I felt like I was the big sister as she started crying. I knew that I was leaving her alone with our father, who by this time was becoming noticeably ill with the swelling on his face. But nobody said, “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t do that,” or “Please, don’t go.” I reassured my sister, telling her, “Don’t worry, I’ll come back for you.” And I would fulfill that promise in the coming months.

“Be careful, Gal,” my father said to me. “Remember your character.” He was always cautioning me to look out for a certain suspicious person and how he or she was up to no good. He was usually right. Despite his limited experience, he could read people fairly well. He wanted me to be safe, but truthfully, I was more concerned about his well-being. I had some guilt about leaving my father and Babby, since abandonment had been such a high-impact issue in my life.

I can imagine I was a funny sight, the look of astonishment on my face staring out the window at the skyline of New York City as the airplane made its approach for landing. It was a strange mix of emotions, excitement, and terror, but at the same time absurdly familiar, as if I were coming home. I must have been in such a state of shock, because I cannot recall the slightest memory of how I made it from the airport to the Barbizon Hotel for Women where I was booked to stay for just the first night.

As I rode up higher and higher in the hotel elevator with the bellman, I remembered Christine’s advice that I should be sure to give him a tip. When we got to the room and I went to give him the money, he reached out his hand but asked for a little something more. He put his arm around me. I thought, “Uh-oh, this is going to be terrible.” He was being overfriendly, to put it mildly. My self-protective mechanism kicked in, but it was still disturbing and made me feel all the more vulnerable as I was newly arrived in this big city. Because of my experiences with my father, there has always been a disturbing ambiguity when someone is overly attentive or inappropriate to me. On one side, it is an obvious and clear violation that feels awful. On the other side, it is hard for me to say, “No, don’t do that,” or “How dare you!” It is a strange combination of not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings and also not being totally confident and experienced in knowing what to do.

The next morning I visited the school for the first time. It was not your traditional ivy-covered brick edifice or a classroom building of any sort, but rather was housed in the Carnegie Hall building. The school occupied rooms on different floors.

I reported for my audition to the office of Charles Jehlinger, a distinguished-looking man with a mane of gray hair, who was sitting behind his desk waiting for me to show what I could do. Dr. Jehlinger was a noted expert in the Stanislavski system, an intricate way of creating highly realistic characters, which was a precursor to the “Method acting” that actors like Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and James Dean under teacher Lee Strasberg made commonplace later in the 1950s. Such a background makes the degree of patience and kindness Dr. Jehlinger must have summoned during my audition all the more remarkable.

The school had sent me a book before I left Rockport of short scenes culled from contemporary plays. For some reason, I chose an excerpt from The Subway by Elmer Rice. I had never seen nor ridden on a subway, much less had any way of knowing how its barreling locomotive was expressionist symbolism for a cold and inhumane new age of technology. My character, Sophie, was seduced and pregnant, betrayed and abandoned by her lover, who was going off to Europe. “Eugene! Eugene!” I wailed with all the dramatic effect I could muster before pretending to throw myself down on the tracks of the oncoming subway train.

It could have just as well been over right there. Dr. Jehlinger could have said, “Sorry, Miss Henderson, you are not material for us.” Jump a train back to Rockport and go to Plan B. Become a nurse. Or Plan Z—oink. But failure was not an option that day. I had set a goal: I had come to New York, and I was going to give it three years. “If I don’t land a job in my chosen profession in that time period, then maybe it’s not for me,” I rationalized.