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

on. Consideration in the protection and care of your voice depends on your age as well. The voice also does not fully mature until most singers are in their thirties, so you need to take care up to that point to not injure yourself as I had done (a reason why younger opera singers are discouraged from singing certain songs or roles). And as you get older, you need to spend a longer time training and warming up before shows to keep the voice in shape. The muscle memory may still be there, but singing remains a very physically demanding endeavor.

As I was caught up in the whirlwind of preparing for Fanny, one little mundane detail fell through the cracks. I realized while we were preparing the show in Philadelphia that I had totally forgotten to retrieve some clothes at the cleaners on Seventh Avenue in New York before leaving town. I called and asked Ira if he could do me a favor and pick them up for me and keep them until I returned. The next day, there was a knock on my door before the matinee, and there was Ira. “I’ve brought your cleaning.” It was a shock, albeit a pleasant one, to see him standing there.

This remarkably thoughtful gesture marked a tipping point. Our friendship suddenly opened up to something much deeper. I was still not old enough to buy a drink in a bar and a novice in the affairs of love, but a hopeless romantic nonetheless. He was very attentive, supportive, very sweet and kind to me, and not very demanding. Unconsciously, I probably surmised that it was also a plus that he knew the business but was not a performer. He would not have a learning curve dealing with the rigors of my career. Over the coming weeks, I grew in my love for this man, but when he asked me to marry him some months after coming to see me in Philadelphia, it scared the heck out of me. He got down on one knee to pop the question at my apartment on 58th Street. My response was, “I don’t know.”

“You probably need some time to think about this,” Ira replied. Whoa, that was an understatement. I told him I would let him know.

Just prior to the opening of Fanny, I was profiled in the September 20, 1954, issue of Life magazine. “Reunion Before Renown” was the title of the four-page pictorial spread, and a reporter and photographer flew home with me to Rockport. For those not around to witness the heyday of Life from the 1930s to the early 1970s, nothing else in the American media world at the time had more impact, clout, or prestige.

The short text accompanying the photos described “a scrawny little blonde girl” who had now returned and how “dozens of people were pleased to see how prettily she had grown up and how close she was to a big success.” Everything in the article looks quite idyllic. I’m shown as the fashionable young woman on the airplane from New York to Kentucky, reading the music score from the upcoming play in her seat. A perky version of the same woman wearing shorts and showing a lot of leg does an impromptu backyard recital with her sister Emily for adoring aunts and cousins (and a few supposed relatives whom I can’t for the life of me recall—perhaps they were neighbors who crashed the shoot to have their moment in Life too). The pious version stands in an old parish church singing. Studious version vocalizes with Christine Johnson accompanying on piano. Celebrity version is fawned over by old boss at soda fountain. Lastly, I’m shown back in New York at Josh Logan’s spacious apartment, viewed in profile like a Renaissance painting in chiaroscuro silhouette, kneeling on the floor by the window studying the script.

Truth be told, behind the mask of those smiling and self-confident poses in the lovely black-and-white photographs was another version—the one of a nervous wreck. Since leaving to study in New York, I had only been back two or three times to see my immediate family. I did so because I was determined to keep the connection with my roots. But making this very private and guarded part of my life suddenly public with Life scared me to no end and I needed to be hypervigilant. What if my brother-in-law Charlie was drunk or abusive when the reporter and photographer were there?

Of everyone I knew in New York, only Ira knew the true extent of the impoverished conditions of my early life. It was amusing that the people I met in New York just assumed that I was from a privileged background with a great education and all the trappings. Though internally I was completely comfortable and natural about where I came from, old accent and all, I didn’t broadcast it.

In the end, everything worked out well, with the exception of my nearly killing the reporter, a delightful young woman who became a friend in the process. I was still a kid and did not have that much driving experience. We hit some loose gravel and the car spun out. She gasped. I felt pretty bad about that, to say the least, but we all got through it without a scratch.

The Life article concluded, “Florence’s future is anybody’s guess. But when her show opens in November, the best guessers, both in New York and home, believe that with her warm voice and spic and span beauty, she will be the freshest, most endearing newcomer on Broadway.”

When we opened in New York at the Majestic Theater on November 4, 1954, those best guessers were right. It was still the custom to get the critics’ reviews later that night. Such moments become cemented in memory even in the mundane details, like the pink ballerina-length dress I wore to the opening night party at Sardi’s that fit me so perfectly and the purse that went with it (which I