1A - Hope (cont)

"There's no use in knocking," said the Footman. "I'm on the same side of the door as you...and they're making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you." -- Lewis Carroll


Hope Williams extracted a silver cigarette case from her pint-size handbag. She was a worldling who didn't tote bottles of water, sandwiches, a makeup kit, address books, body sprays, laxatives, vitamins and a change-of-underwear within her equipage. If she ever rode a subway, which I doubted, she wouldn't slug you with an over-shoulder vanity trunk. Buzz was already smoking one of his allegedly low-nicotine killers that tasted and smelled like a rancid peach.

"Want one?" she asked, in that butterscotch voice of hers, liquid and milky, with raisins of irony. "Want one," I repeated, dreamily. Frankly, I've never gotten a reaction from cigarettes, but, in a civilized society they provide a flawless accessory. Cancer of the whatever? Hell! Sacrifices must be made. A society is judged by how it accessorizes.

"I was once asked to play Sibyl in a stage version of 'Dorian Gray.' I was too old, Sibyl too boring. And the script? It already had three nervous breakdowns. But I engraved one line on my thigh. " 'A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite and it leaves one unsatisfied.' " She raised her eyes toward heaven. She raised her shoulders too. "It really doesn't satisfy me either." With a silver lighter, she had us both puffing away.

"That's my upstairs baby, Paul, doing bad things," Buzz muttered, adding another color to his ice-tea. "He resists--" then he stopped, and I knew potential trouble was ahead. A dangerous smile played on his face. I quickly added that I wanted to hear about Hope Williams in Cole Porter's show "The New Yorkers" (1930). Actually it was a revue, a musical form that dominated Broadway in the 20s and 30s just as TV revues had huge audiences in the 50s and 60s. A mix of actors, singers, clowns in topical sketches. Showgirls, too, swirling in cobwebby costumes.

"Aw, fuck Cole Porter,' Buzzie slurred.

"Yes, darling, do," Hope went on, without skipping a beat. "But first, open another bottle of champ. And don't get -- you know -- pissy with me or my cowboys will chew you up." I feared the metaphor might overstimulate him, but Buzz trundled off dutifully to the galley. The revue, "The New Yorkers," is famous for introducing the randy ballad, 'Love for Sale.' Originally sung by a nubile woman, it crosses gender lines and, today, the entire ethnic rainbow. Back in the '30s, the critics were offended --as they would be even now -- although most currently pop lyrics are gibberish of no known language. It still carries shock:

Love that's fresh and still unspoiled,
Love that's only slightly soiled,
Love for sale.

Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price
For a trip to paradise?
Love for sale.


Club entertainer Barabara Cook, once a sylphide and now a mirthful of girth, says she finds Cole Porter too arch. The obese Cookery is School Teacher dull with a tweety voice, but, to borrow from Dorothy Parker and her ilk, I submit that she suffers from fallen archness. The Porter revue jumped from a diving board into a pool of amorality. How's this? Swanky Hope Williams was impressed because her cute bootlegger knew how to kill; dado flaunted a mistress and mummie paraded a lover. An idealized American Family. The zany Jimmy Durante, whose "Schnoze" or "Schnozzola" sniffed every sin, rasped that Park Avenue was where bad women walked good dogs. He brought frantic panache to the haute ambisextrous. "Its silliness marked the end of an era," Hope said.

The revue ran five months. Meantime, The Bank of United States with 400,000 depositors folded, along with 1,300 other banks. Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue, the nether avenues were crowded with appetizing old love, new love for sale.

If you want to buy my wares
Follow me and climb the stairs,
Love for sale.

Buzz settled down on the couch, taking Hope with him. In his hands a big red-ribboned scrapbook. Glasses had been refilled with appealing fluids. "I drank a lot in the show," Hope said. "Durante asks with a leer, Are you wet? Then I reply, 'I'm so wet if you blow on me I'll ripple.' " Her delivery , pacing, emphasis -- caused me to jab a bunny tooth of mine into the smoked salmon. I was glad it didn't squirt like a cherry tomato.

Buzz's eyes glazed with mischief. You know how people are: enough about others, it's Time to Talk About Them. "Alan and I have kept this book for the last 15 years," he announced proudly, carefully
opening the scrapbook as if it were a catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I knew the scrapbook. Once, when I had been given the apartment and was preparing a party, I found it positioned on the desk. Now I don't believe in poking into drawers or closets; Pandoro's Box is a cautionary legend. A warning. But here was this Thing. It was Christmas and it was tied with a bright Christmassy ribbon. Left for me, as a tempting delight? Memorable quotes from Hegel, Kant, Mallarme, a soupcon of Schopenhauer? A recipe from Waverley Root for gratin dauphinois, for example? ('The potatoes are then put into an earthenware dish which has been rubbed with garlic ..and sprinkled with grated Gruyere...') Well, why not, open. It's just a scrapbook, after all. Don't we all keep scrapbooks? I don't. I keep diaries, but --- what's this? The book was a compilation of nude photographs, taken through the years, of Enbas exercising unbridled passion. With unbridled expertise.

The rascals. They wanted me to see them -- almost in their prime, and ponder a model for Life by their organic structure. I was amused by their sentimental truancy. For they thought of me as The Kid upstairs who maintained a privacy that carried, in actuality, more fictional pretense than eccentricity. With notorious nonchalance I retied the book. They'd never know it had been opened. Of course, I made of botch of the damn red bow, but -- if questioned, ever -- I have a knack for evasion. It was their mischievous prank.

Hope Williams, with subtle, yet wholesome cordiality, turned the pages -- with the gaze of an art appraiser. "Now, here -- I really can't see Alan's face," she said, her butterscotch voice melting."You, Buzz, are so pliable, rather like a hot, salted pretzel, don't you think?" Um, uh-huh, the pages turned. "Oh, here's an imitation of laying an egg!" She closed the book, then with aristocratic aloofness, puffed on her cigarette. "Simple pleasures," she said. "Now, why did you take these pictures?"

"Christmas cards for Unicef," I piped up. "The dove of peace is getting a bit stale."

Buzz, suddenly a freckled, teenaged Vernal, whacking away at sagebrush in Arizona -- if there was any; my knowledge of the terrain is nil -- offered: "As a document of our life together, so, when we get really old, people could see us when we were young." Just a traditional family scrapbook for the children.

"That's not good enough," said Hope. "You really must give this to the Kinsey Institute. Here's a masterpiece of sexual activity. I know an executive there, I'll tell him about it."

"Aw, don't be a cunt." Buzzie was now sozzled.

Hope flung herself against the faux-marbre fireplace, arms extended. "Cunt?" She made it sound like croissant. "You speak metaphorically. You've never seen one in your life. You told me that years ago. You just like the sound of the word, I don't mind. In England, it's used as often as skittles or beer and chips. Or the overused word Please. 'Please, stop being a bloody cunt.' Yes, it has a certain musicality." I thought: the show is on!


Hope radiates what Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic of The New York Times, called a "comic incandescence" when he reviewed her in Philip Barry's 1928 hit, "Holiday." We're familiar with the title today because of George Cukor's fine film transfer, costarring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I find it superior to "The Philadelphia Story" which Barry tailored for Hepburn -- Hope's understudy in "Holiday." Both women, and the Barry roles they played, were smart, non-conformist society rebels who did exactly as they pleased, pausing briefly for a marital spin. "I don't particularly believe in marriage," Hepburn once said. "It's an artificial relationship because you have to sign a contract." Hepburn also saluted Hope Williams as the most fascinating personality of the '30s and observed that she learned a lot from watching her onstage. On and offstage, Hope was clear-headed and sparkling; she was herself. Philip Barry's stage description of Linda Seton -- or, the Hope Williams he knew -- reads: slim, rather boyish, exceedingly fresh. Critic Brooks Atkinson concluded, "The style of Linda Seton is definitely hers." So much bosh is written about Acting and Styles Thereof when, in fact, the scribblers and their fans are beguiled by gnashing chompers of scenery. Years ago the playwright J. M. Barrie noted, 'If you have charm, you really don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter what else you have.' In a world of charmless people and charmless actors, Hope Williams had charm that positively fizzed. Another point: the lasting actors have Personality. It is this element that endows them with power, memorability -- and Star Quality.

(to be cont.)