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

with Ira. But deep down, nothing had radically changed, and I still knew that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. From that day forward, I held out the promise that someday, somehow, I would be in love and share my life with someone equally committed to exploring that exciting and sometimes thorny path of personal growth—speed bumps and U-turns included.

CHAPTER 15Hollywood…Finally

By the mid- to late 1960s I was getting a lot of media coverage. An impartial observer leafing through my scrapbook from circa 1966–1970 would be impressed with the hubbub of activity. There were newspaper and magazine articles including notices, column items, and in-depth interviews and photo spreads focused on club appearances, benefit concerts, and bigger splashes for starring roles in larger productions like the first revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific at Lincoln Center for a summer run of sold-out performances in 1967.

More than a few of the articles in that scrapbook pointed out how very odd it was that with all the success, Hollywood hadn’t really made a place for me. There was certainly no conscious effort on my part to reinforce any dissatisfaction with my career direction. I was perfectly happy with the way things were. The articles wondered with disbelief how it could be that I was still waiting to be noticed or discovered by Hollywood.

My attitude about the whole Hollywood thing was the same as I felt about my encounter with Frank Sinatra on one of my early trips west. I had just finished doing some live Oldsmobile commercials on a Bing Crosby television special and was outside the studio waiting for a cab. A little Karmann Ghia sports car pulled up, and the man inside rolled down the window. “Hey kid, you need a ride?” It was Sinatra. He was smartly garbed in a hat, a black jacket, and black-and-white-checked trousers. He was a guest on the show and had recognized me.

“I’m going to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel,” I told him.

“Get in.”

The younger and more innocent version of me was a little nervous because Frank had quite the reputation. I knew that because I got more than I was asking for when I once questioned a noted film actress rather innocently after a concert we were doing for Richard Rodgers.

“What was it like dating Frank?”

“It’s great,” she told me. I thought that was the end of her answer, but she added ever so matter-of-factly, “He just can’t ever get off. Wears me out.”

“Really? Hmm.” Not much more you can say after something like that.

Cruising in his sports car, we chatted about some mutual friends, including the choreographer Carol Haney, who taught him how to dance in the movies. Throughout the coming years, I got to know Frank, not well, but he was always very nice to me. But as he dropped me in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt, I was relieved that he didn’t hit on me. At the same time, a tiny little part of me felt humorously slighted not to have been asked. It was symbolic on another level about the Hollywood film and television industry. I was very content with my career, but it would be nice if the studios and the networks came a-courting.

I guess it spoke to the power of putting the message out there to the universe. Only a few weeks after those newspaper articles questioned why I wasn’t doing a film or a television series, both happened in quick order in 1969.

I went to London to do the screen test for The Song of Norway, based on the life of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and adapted from an operetta of the same name. I got the part in what would become my first real film. For purposes of historical accuracy, I have to admit that I had done another film a few months before that, but I am happy to say that not even Google makes any mention of my participation. I was with Ira and friends on vacation in Italy when the call came in to do a cameo role. It sounded good at the time—a film with Dick Van Dyke and directed by Garson Kanin called Some Kind of Nut. I can only vaguely remember doing a scene in a swimming pool. What was more memorable was a chance to see my musician friend once again before heading back to Italy, as the affair was still on at that point but beginning to wind down.

The Song of Norway turned out to be a wonderful and totally unforgettable experience for what would turn out to be a totally forgettable movie.

The chance to finally work in film, but also one about classical music, was exhilarating from start to finish. It was a huge thrill that we got to record all the music with the London Symphony. The icing on the cake was the fact that the film would be shot on location in Norway and Denmark for three months. We shot on location in the fjords and mountains and the older sections of very picturesque towns and cities from Lillehammer in the north to Copenhagen and Odense farther south in Denmark. I took my two smallest, Lizzie and Robert, along for a good portion of the production, and they enjoyed the experience too, except for one part. We had to take a seaplane to some location and it was a very bumpy ride. I was sitting next to the pilot and they were behind me. I have a photo of them somewhere showing their sad little faces staring down into the airsickness bags they held at the ready. Poor Robert got the worst of it. Ira brought Barbara and Joseph over for a visit too. I think they enjoyed it.

Hanging out with the legendary actor Edward G. Robinson was an added bonus, and our friendship continued long after the film wrapped. He was short in stature at five feet five, but you wouldn’t know it from seeing him on film.