WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:11.480 We're dealing with a page of the travel tapes with the Aplomb Production starting with Betsy Davis. 2 00:00:12.600 --> 00:00:15.760 And this will be a minute of ours and we'll talk about it. 3 00:00:15.760 --> 00:00:18.720 Now, yeah, we're going to go back to the end and I'm going to do ballet by ballet. 4 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:22.920 Next I'm going to ask you about, you know, life on the road. 5 00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:25.000 Quite literally, what was that day like? 6 00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:26.020 Oh, all right. 7 00:00:26.740 --> 00:00:27.180 Good. 8 00:00:27.180 --> 00:00:27.580 What was that thing today? 9 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:28.820 Right. 10 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:33.540 Once they let us know that we're ready, we will do that. 11 00:00:33.580 --> 00:00:33.960 Wait a minute. 12 00:00:33.980 --> 00:00:34.520 This is great. 13 00:00:34.820 --> 00:00:35.780 Oh, go ahead and take your water. 14 00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:38.440 I haven't thought about that curve for years. 15 00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:02.960 Thank you. 16 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:04.660 Life on the road, Betsy. 17 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:05.460 Morning to night. 18 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:06.220 What was it like? 19 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:12.020 Traveling with Ruth and Bentley and the Page Stone Company was great fun. 20 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:14.980 I'm afraid I remember the fun first and the work later. 21 00:01:16.860 --> 00:01:19.200 I don't like to think that I didn't take it all that seriously. 22 00:01:19.220 --> 00:01:19.540 I did. 23 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:22.000 I tried very hard, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. 24 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:23.820 Well, you're supposed to after all. 25 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:26.660 If you can't enjoy your work, why are you doing it? 26 00:01:26.660 --> 00:01:32.660 But we'd have fairly long bus hops between places. 27 00:01:34.860 --> 00:01:40.360 We'd travel all day in the bus, and we had to be very careful because even at that tender age, 28 00:01:40.740 --> 00:01:43.760 your feet puff up if you're sitting too long. 29 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:48.440 So we'd have to get our feet up in the air, and we'd sing a lot. 30 00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:53.080 We sang all kinds of songs, and we would make them up. 31 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:54.940 We also played the game. 32 00:01:54.940 --> 00:01:57.760 What poem does she remind you of? 33 00:01:58.180 --> 00:01:59.740 What music does she remind you of? 34 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:01.080 It's a wonderful personality game. 35 00:02:01.500 --> 00:02:03.380 What music does she remind you of? 36 00:02:03.460 --> 00:02:04.220 What colors? 37 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:07.940 And then you get this whole thing together, and then you pick the personality, 38 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:11.520 and you'd be surprised how often, even picking one out of the blue. 39 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.060 First you say alive or dead, and then you get one alive. 40 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:17.420 Someone we know or someone we don't know. 41 00:02:17.600 --> 00:02:18.380 Someone you know. 42 00:02:18.880 --> 00:02:20.700 So we did that for hours on end. 43 00:02:20.700 --> 00:02:25.740 And then when we got to the, we invariably went straight to the theater. 44 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:31.780 And these were colleges, so the theaters were not, sometimes we'd be making up in school rooms, 45 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:38.380 and sometimes in gymnasiums, and sometimes, and we'd have one bag which was a theater bag, 46 00:02:38.420 --> 00:02:47.440 and one bag which was clothes, and traveled in slacks or skirts very informally. 47 00:02:47.440 --> 00:02:51.420 Then we'd scramble into the theater and do our makeup partially, 48 00:02:51.780 --> 00:02:55.940 then get out on the stage and do our class, if Bentley had time to teach one, 49 00:02:56.140 --> 00:02:59.560 or a bar by ourselves, because the first number was Gioconda, 50 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:02.000 and that was all on point, and we had to dance properly. 51 00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:06.720 And the changing was difficult. 52 00:03:07.020 --> 00:03:08.640 Effie traveled with Ruth. 53 00:03:10.160 --> 00:03:14.700 Effie was Ruth's marvelous maid, who was a good friend to all of us, 54 00:03:14.720 --> 00:03:16.260 and the greatest character in the world. 55 00:03:16.260 --> 00:03:17.620 She was just wonderful. 56 00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:20.520 She always referred to Ruth as Paige. 57 00:03:23.720 --> 00:03:25.580 Paige is coming, she said. 58 00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:26.780 Paige is here. 59 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:29.000 Paige doesn't like it. 60 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:32.120 And she took wonderful care of her. 61 00:03:32.140 --> 00:03:34.560 She did all of her changes in the theater and did it very well. 62 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:39.640 We had only Mrs. Rosé, Valerie, who was Bettina's mother, 63 00:03:39.720 --> 00:03:41.420 Bettina was the prima ballerina. 64 00:03:41.940 --> 00:03:44.820 Valerie traveled with Bettina always and traveled with us, 65 00:03:44.820 --> 00:03:46.380 and she was the mother hand. 66 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:51.940 And she wasn't on that first chair, come to think of it, she did that later. 67 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:54.820 How we got changed, then I cannot recall, 68 00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:58.680 but we did from Gioconda, which was the opening ballet, 69 00:03:58.760 --> 00:04:00.260 the Dance of the Hours. 70 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:04.160 Mary and I were day in that, which we liked very much. 71 00:04:04.220 --> 00:04:09.100 We had yellow tutus and we had the John Quill wreaths, 72 00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:13.760 which we built up to mammoth proportions until corrected by the ends of the ballet. 73 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:16.740 What do you think you're doing with it? 74 00:04:16.960 --> 00:04:18.100 That sort of thing. 75 00:04:18.580 --> 00:04:19.900 And then Love Song was marvelous. 76 00:04:19.940 --> 00:04:22.080 I did the Red Solo in that, which I adored. 77 00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:25.840 I inherited from Sandy Davis and it was a very chic, 78 00:04:26.260 --> 00:04:30.880 a very smart solo, which I thought was just the last word. 79 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:32.860 I just loved hearing the second of it. 80 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:34.620 It was a very short one, but it was beautiful, 81 00:04:34.700 --> 00:04:37.580 and Love Song, of course, is a very chic, very beautiful ballet. 82 00:04:37.580 --> 00:04:40.360 Reels never revived that one. 83 00:04:41.720 --> 00:04:44.420 She probably thinks it's too lightweight or something, 84 00:04:44.440 --> 00:04:46.940 but it's a real charmer and the music is Schubert, it's lovely. 85 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:53.660 Then Bentley and Reels would do the De Verde Small together and apart, 86 00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:58.980 which I loved to watch, the Libistone, during that time. 87 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:04.600 I think they did Zephyr, that was too early for that. 88 00:05:05.340 --> 00:05:08.120 And then the finale, the grand finale, 89 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:11.640 was the platforms and Valero with the fans. 90 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:17.220 The giggling, of course, was something marvelous happened on that tour. 91 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:19.960 About three quarters of the way through it, 92 00:05:20.420 --> 00:05:23.900 we were in New Orleans and we stopped overnight. 93 00:05:23.960 --> 00:05:27.020 We didn't play in New Orleans, but we all went out to inspect the town, 94 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:28.880 as not many of us had seen it before. 95 00:05:29.300 --> 00:05:31.700 And Effie, Roostmaid, had some friends there. 96 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:35.620 So we were all lined up to get in the bus at 8 o'clock the next morning. 97 00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:37.920 We generally got in the darn thing at about 8 o'clock 98 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:40.760 and drove until 7, stopping somewhere for lunch on the way. 99 00:05:41.160 --> 00:05:43.060 We all got in the bus in New Orleans. 100 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:44.620 We were staying at that nice hotel. 101 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:47.160 St. Francis. 102 00:05:47.280 --> 00:05:49.160 Yeah, no, that's San Francisco. 103 00:05:50.020 --> 00:05:51.380 There's one nice one in New Orleans. 104 00:05:51.400 --> 00:05:52.340 We were all in that hotel. 105 00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:56.060 We all filed down to the bus to get in, all except Effie, 106 00:05:56.060 --> 00:05:57.620 who was nowhere to be found. 107 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:00.240 Well, our schedule was very tight, 108 00:06:00.540 --> 00:06:02.140 so we all had to get going in the bus, 109 00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:04.580 which we did leaving Effie behind. 110 00:06:04.780 --> 00:06:06.620 She's the only one who got left behind. 111 00:06:06.640 --> 00:06:08.060 She was left behind in New Orleans. 112 00:06:08.520 --> 00:06:09.420 And off we went. 113 00:06:10.340 --> 00:06:12.940 Bentley and Roostmaid were then in the car 114 00:06:12.940 --> 00:06:15.680 and all of the rest of us in the bus were worried about Effie 115 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:17.680 and leaving anyone behind, horrified. 116 00:06:18.220 --> 00:06:22.960 So it seemed to me we went through palm trees and everglades and forests, 117 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:25.660 and we stopped at some restaurant for lunch, 118 00:06:25.660 --> 00:06:28.580 which was the edge of nowhere, really, completely nowhere. 119 00:06:28.660 --> 00:06:31.200 We're on our way to Gainesville, straight up the middle. 120 00:06:31.400 --> 00:06:32.760 We probably were in a jungle. 121 00:06:33.380 --> 00:06:35.100 Anyway, we stopped at this place for lunch. 122 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:38.140 The whole company, and all of a sudden somebody let out a shout, 123 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:40.740 and there down the road, down through the palm trees, 124 00:06:40.840 --> 00:06:43.200 comes this taxi cab bouncing along, 125 00:06:43.580 --> 00:06:46.620 and it's Effie, who had taken a cab from New Orleans 126 00:06:46.620 --> 00:06:48.000 and come up to meet us for lunch. 127 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:49.960 Lord knows how many miles or how many hours. 128 00:06:50.420 --> 00:06:51.820 The bill was astronomical. 129 00:06:51.940 --> 00:06:53.700 Even in those days, it was absolutely awful 130 00:06:53.700 --> 00:06:55.420 because, of course, you had to go back empty. 131 00:06:56.320 --> 00:06:59.700 And, well, Ruth... 132 00:07:00.700 --> 00:07:01.480 Did she complain? 133 00:07:02.020 --> 00:07:04.960 Probably loudly, but we didn't hear much about it. 134 00:07:05.380 --> 00:07:08.660 I think she was also very relieved to once again see Effie, 135 00:07:08.900 --> 00:07:10.140 who was the real treasure. 136 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:15.460 Effie also delivered the great line when Ruth had all of the ballet over 137 00:07:15.460 --> 00:07:17.800 some years after this, some years later, 138 00:07:18.140 --> 00:07:20.920 and Effie was still there and she opened the door for everyone, 139 00:07:21.260 --> 00:07:22.080 and everyone was saying, 140 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:24.920 Oh, darling, isn't it marvelous you haven't changed a bit, you know. 141 00:07:25.320 --> 00:07:26.960 Effie said wearily to somebody, 142 00:07:27.080 --> 00:07:30.220 Oh, everyone's just the same, only more so. 143 00:07:32.460 --> 00:07:34.860 But the life on the road was great fun. 144 00:07:35.080 --> 00:07:37.400 The audiences were college people. 145 00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:40.800 They were smaller towns. 146 00:07:41.440 --> 00:07:43.680 You can't get much smaller than Canyon, Texas. 147 00:07:44.520 --> 00:07:45.820 They adored the ballet. 148 00:07:46.900 --> 00:07:49.540 Ruth and Bentley would be feted very often, 149 00:07:49.540 --> 00:07:53.640 leaving the court to eat their tomato and bacon or whatever we had that evening. 150 00:07:53.980 --> 00:07:54.780 All by ourselves. 151 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:59.080 We lived in a different hotel every night. 152 00:07:59.180 --> 00:08:01.960 It was absolutely marvelous when we were in something. 153 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:08.500 I think we were in one hotel in Texas, or Oklahoma, three nights. 154 00:08:09.260 --> 00:08:13.920 And then we could wash our things properly instead of hoping to heaven. 155 00:08:13.980 --> 00:08:16.760 They weren't damp the next morning when it was time for us to take off. 156 00:08:16.760 --> 00:08:20.200 You have to be young to do that, but believe me, it's fun. 157 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:21.780 It sounds like fun. 158 00:08:22.180 --> 00:08:22.960 It was marvelous. 159 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:25.500 Wonderful friends, very entertaining people. 160 00:08:25.780 --> 00:08:27.480 How many of you were there in the court? 161 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:28.780 I think there were 12 girls. 162 00:08:28.820 --> 00:08:31.960 Well, there had to be 12 girls because there were 12 hours in Giaconda. 163 00:08:32.160 --> 00:08:33.440 There were obviously 12. 164 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:37.260 Plus Bettina, the soloist, plus Bentley and Ruth. 165 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:38.080 That was it. 166 00:08:38.380 --> 00:08:38.920 And boys? 167 00:08:39.540 --> 00:08:41.860 Two boys with us. 168 00:08:42.920 --> 00:08:44.500 Who are the boys on the first tour? 169 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:46.040 I can't remember them. 170 00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:47.080 Oh, bless their hearts. 171 00:08:47.160 --> 00:08:48.040 They'll never forgive me. 172 00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:50.560 We've got to move down somewhere. 173 00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:51.820 I'm sure somewhere. 174 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:52.760 I'm sure somewhere. 175 00:08:53.180 --> 00:09:01.880 One of the boys, Ralph Bellis, was on their trip and he married one of the girls in the company. 176 00:09:01.960 --> 00:09:05.780 He married Evie Chapman and the Chris, the Gilbert and Sullivan. 177 00:09:06.180 --> 00:09:09.860 Then in life she failed totale and married a boy in the quarter ballet. 178 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:10.920 Right. 179 00:09:12.640 --> 00:09:15.360 Let's talk about some of the ballets now. 180 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:18.400 What about American Pattern? 181 00:09:21.220 --> 00:09:28.520 American Pattern was the first long ballet, outside of the opera ballets, a long ballet, that I did for Ruth. 182 00:09:28.580 --> 00:09:30.320 That was all Ruth's choreography. 183 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:33.580 Bentley was the leading dancer in it, but it was all Ruth. 184 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:37.620 And I teased her later and told her she did the first of the ERA. 185 00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:40.800 The first ballet was about a frustrated housewife who wanted out. 186 00:09:41.540 --> 00:09:46.940 Then she didn't look for fulfilling herself in a job or in working or anything like that, 187 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:54.720 but she either did or fantasized, the ballet was never clear, herself into the life of other men. 188 00:09:55.380 --> 00:10:07.600 After the businessman husband that was done in a lovely scene, lovely scene, 189 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:13.100 saw that Remesov backdrop for the opening of American in Paris, it's art deco and it's splendid. 190 00:10:13.820 --> 00:10:17.320 The businessman and the stenographers are in front of that particular thing. 191 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:23.000 But at any rate, she leaves her husband and I first think she goes to a swami. 192 00:10:25.640 --> 00:10:26.800 Mary and I did that. 193 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:30.620 We did the same thing, we're pretty much the same height and did the same things. 194 00:10:31.060 --> 00:10:33.540 First we did the secretaries and then we changed quickly. 195 00:10:33.540 --> 00:10:38.720 I think we did the swami after that and put a black hood on over everything. 196 00:10:38.920 --> 00:10:40.160 Then we got into the bridesmaids. 197 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:43.620 Oh, first we must have been in the bridesmaids' outfits after we were secretaries. 198 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:44.480 First we did that. 199 00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:46.740 Then we got out of that and did something else. 200 00:10:46.780 --> 00:10:49.000 I think we changed clothes about 12 times and the whole thing. 201 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:53.240 They made it easy for us, but first there was a swami, then there was a gigolo, 202 00:10:53.640 --> 00:10:59.440 and then there was the political agitator, which was Bentley's role. 203 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:04.900 Again he came in from stage right leaping, huge. 204 00:11:04.920 --> 00:11:07.820 He was greatly given to coming in on a large leap from stage right. 205 00:11:07.920 --> 00:11:10.340 He did it again and had a great big one, really. 206 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:12.180 He was impressive in that. 207 00:11:13.900 --> 00:11:17.940 I think he did the gigolo in the opening performances. 208 00:11:18.040 --> 00:11:19.220 He didn't do it always. 209 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:20.960 He doubled roles after that. 210 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:24.640 He just did the agitator, which was Fetty with Sinelflord and us. 211 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:26.860 Ruth looked marvelous in that. 212 00:11:26.860 --> 00:11:33.100 She had a wonderful white dress and a white suburban halo-type hat on it. 213 00:11:34.680 --> 00:11:36.580 It's an interesting ballet. 214 00:11:36.820 --> 00:11:39.780 It certainly is anything but her best when you look back on it, 215 00:11:39.780 --> 00:11:41.140 but it's very interesting. 216 00:11:41.340 --> 00:11:45.000 Of course, the premise for that day was entirely unexpected. 217 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:47.860 Nobody was doing anything like that, Ruth. 218 00:11:48.880 --> 00:11:50.680 That happened all the time. 219 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:51.860 How did the ballet end? 220 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:56.920 It ended tragically. 221 00:11:57.620 --> 00:12:00.800 It ended with the agitator, I think, got killed. 222 00:12:01.540 --> 00:12:03.360 Fetty was also getting killed a lot. 223 00:12:05.800 --> 00:12:07.360 He disappeared somehow. 224 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:10.600 I think she went back, sunk back into suburbia. 225 00:12:11.400 --> 00:12:14.840 We were obviously off stage at this time, or I can tell you precisely. 226 00:12:15.160 --> 00:12:17.980 Because it's funny, you remember things like that you've done so long ago, 227 00:12:18.020 --> 00:12:20.160 so much more vividly than something last week. 228 00:12:20.160 --> 00:12:22.420 But of course, it was a great first. 229 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:25.080 How did audiences respond to it? 230 00:12:26.660 --> 00:12:27.280 Differently. 231 00:12:27.780 --> 00:12:30.080 The critics never knew quite what to make of her, 232 00:12:30.140 --> 00:12:32.860 although the smarter ones certainly did. 233 00:12:34.060 --> 00:12:37.140 Claudia was perceptive about her work. 234 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:39.660 Claudia Cassidy, Claudia indeed. 235 00:12:40.200 --> 00:12:43.000 Miss Cassidy was perceptive about her work. 236 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:46.940 I don't remember the reception of American Pattern. 237 00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:48.160 I can't remember that well. 238 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:49.480 I suppose it was puzzled. 239 00:12:49.480 --> 00:12:53.720 That was a reaction to a good deal of Ruth's work. 240 00:12:54.760 --> 00:12:55.860 She was always a yet. 241 00:12:55.900 --> 00:12:58.900 She was always new, and she never wanted to repeat. 242 00:13:00.160 --> 00:13:04.900 I'm surprised she stayed with Nutcracker as long as that, without changing it. 243 00:13:05.060 --> 00:13:11.420 It's perfect the way it is, but she was always wishing for the next and the next. 244 00:13:13.100 --> 00:13:15.160 Never satisfied with where it was. 245 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:21.920 I recall Frankie and Johnny was the next long one that we did, 246 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:26.200 which then she worked more closely with Bentley on, 247 00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:29.360 and that one was freer for her. 248 00:13:30.060 --> 00:13:33.940 She had a company in the Federal Theater that was so full of characters 249 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:36.600 that that ballet was blessed with them. 250 00:13:36.780 --> 00:13:37.440 It really was. 251 00:13:37.800 --> 00:13:38.840 They weren't very good dancers. 252 00:13:38.980 --> 00:13:40.360 They weren't ballet dancers at all. 253 00:13:40.360 --> 00:13:45.360 Ruth had some of her company with her, a nucleus of hers, certainly, 254 00:13:46.260 --> 00:13:49.040 which she could take, but the rest of them were given. 255 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:52.800 They all weren't modern dancers from the Graf School either. 256 00:13:52.860 --> 00:13:54.920 They were simply there. 257 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:00.300 The ones that couldn't dance could dance some, 258 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:04.220 and they had a great sense of characterization or were given it. 259 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:08.020 We're told what to do, how to do. 260 00:14:08.020 --> 00:14:10.580 As a consequence, Frankie and Johnny, 261 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:15.200 at its first performances, including the three old girls 262 00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:18.740 who banged the drums over on the set, were hysterical. 263 00:14:18.820 --> 00:14:19.780 It was something else. 264 00:14:20.220 --> 00:14:25.140 I think I was the only person who saw the ballet and also was in it, 265 00:14:25.140 --> 00:14:26.820 because I did go out front one night to see it. 266 00:14:26.840 --> 00:14:29.720 I was able to go out front one night to see it. 267 00:14:31.520 --> 00:14:32.980 It was fantastic. 268 00:14:33.060 --> 00:14:35.160 It was not at all what I thought we were doing. 269 00:14:35.160 --> 00:14:37.920 It was a very strange thing, 270 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.340 because we were working very hard and dancing very hard, 271 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:48.920 but when you sat up front, thank heaven I had the sense to see it at this point, 272 00:14:50.280 --> 00:14:55.120 the theater of it was so strong, much more important than the dance, 273 00:14:56.180 --> 00:15:01.340 that we were the Carta Ballet, which was done in neutrals, 274 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:03.320 and we had wigs on. 275 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:06.200 Mine was a...they were all like straw. 276 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:07.700 They were very neutral, too. 277 00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:10.800 Mine looked like the way Betty Grable used to wear her hair, 278 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:12.800 all those curls piled up in front. 279 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:15.340 Mary's looks sort of like Deborah Reynolds, 280 00:15:15.500 --> 00:15:19.440 and there was another girl whose wig looked like Rita Hayworth, 281 00:15:19.660 --> 00:15:23.880 but all in neutral, but you got these funny characters, you see, 282 00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:26.140 from the look of the costumes, 283 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:30.340 but the Carta Ballet, which was in neutral, backed up occasionally, 284 00:15:30.340 --> 00:15:33.020 out of the light, and we would see movement, 285 00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:36.020 which sometimes looked almost sinister, 286 00:15:37.060 --> 00:15:39.660 and then would come in and either look bawdy, 287 00:15:39.800 --> 00:15:41.840 or whatever we happened to be doing at the moment. 288 00:15:41.900 --> 00:15:45.040 Bawdy is a great word for the way we looked most of the time. 289 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:46.800 And the men were in neutrals, too. 290 00:15:46.800 --> 00:15:50.420 One was a sailor, there were businessmen running up and down Nellie Bly's stairs 291 00:15:50.420 --> 00:15:54.140 and all that, and they were all neutral, too, 292 00:15:54.140 --> 00:15:57.840 and the characters, the four leading characters, were in color. 293 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.500 Ruth's costume was shocking pink and black and so forth. 294 00:16:01.940 --> 00:16:04.400 Bentley had on a bright lavender shirt, I think. 295 00:16:04.900 --> 00:16:08.240 Nellie's was bright blue with the black fishnet thing over it. 296 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:11.560 The bartender was in some kind of a shirt to be apron. 297 00:16:12.400 --> 00:16:16.840 And they stood out, and then you could see the actual drama. 298 00:16:17.260 --> 00:16:20.300 And of course, the three ladies on the side were not to be blamed. 299 00:16:20.380 --> 00:16:22.440 They had never been duplicated and never will. 300 00:16:22.680 --> 00:16:25.300 They were ex-Baudouville actresses. 301 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:30.700 Little round apples, one of them looked like a whole bunch of apples. 302 00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:31.360 She really did. 303 00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:32.960 She was just round all over it. 304 00:16:33.020 --> 00:16:33.740 It was a cute face. 305 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:35.180 I think she was the one that had the drone. 306 00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:40.020 And they opened their mouths with these bawdy words coming out, 307 00:16:40.160 --> 00:16:40.920 and they squawked. 308 00:16:40.920 --> 00:16:42.140 They absolutely squawked. 309 00:16:42.160 --> 00:16:44.480 And of course, the audience just absolutely leveled. 310 00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:47.040 They were just the most amusing things you have ever seen. 311 00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:48.140 They were so funny. 312 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.300 And effective, very, very effective. 313 00:16:53.300 --> 00:16:56.180 It was a marvelous ballet. 314 00:16:56.640 --> 00:17:00.380 Ruth's performance in it, I've said, I think, is the best thing that she ever did. 315 00:17:01.060 --> 00:17:06.660 Bentley, of course, acrobatic background, his final scene where he was shot, 316 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:14.100 down the banisters and over the thing, was incredibly difficult to do. 317 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:15.420 It must have been impossible. 318 00:17:15.600 --> 00:17:16.700 It must have been impossible. 319 00:17:17.320 --> 00:17:18.440 We used to watch that every night. 320 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:19.880 We were all offstage at that point. 321 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:24.840 The other thing about Frankie and Johnny was the astonishing use of color into it. 322 00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:26.680 Well, I've just described part of it. 323 00:17:26.700 --> 00:17:31.680 I don't know who did that, but in the shooting scene where things really get tense 324 00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:37.440 and serious and rough, Ruth is a hysterical woman at this point. 325 00:17:37.540 --> 00:17:41.940 She waves a gun around over her head exactly like anybody losing their minds 326 00:17:41.940 --> 00:17:46.160 and half out of their mind with jealousy would do it, and that kind of a woman. 327 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:49.520 But Frankie went back to her crib. 328 00:17:49.520 --> 00:17:55.480 She goes back, put on a long robe, a very brilliantly colored long robe, 329 00:17:55.840 --> 00:18:03.440 which swished around behind her and added immeasurably to the fright at that point. 330 00:18:03.760 --> 00:18:07.940 She runs up the ladder, the ladder conveniently placed, runs up the ladder, 331 00:18:08.280 --> 00:18:15.800 and after she's peeked in the room and shoots, then it switches to real fright. 332 00:18:15.800 --> 00:18:22.600 That ballet had a sort of a Brechtian quality to it. 333 00:18:23.220 --> 00:18:27.500 In the revivals I've seen, I have never quite seen that again 334 00:18:28.600 --> 00:18:33.880 because I think of the people who did that and the way they were 335 00:18:35.080 --> 00:18:40.560 and the way they looked and the way they responded and the time that it was. 336 00:18:40.560 --> 00:18:46.140 It was the 30s and it was a fairly bad time all over. 337 00:18:47.280 --> 00:18:51.460 But the ballet itself, absolutely marvelous, and it's going to last longer than any of us believe. 338 00:18:54.100 --> 00:18:55.820 I think it will, I think you're right. 339 00:18:57.060 --> 00:18:59.280 Gold Standard, you all said, were you involved with that? 340 00:18:59.280 --> 00:19:01.560 No, they did Gold Standard before. 341 00:19:01.560 --> 00:19:06.160 I saw it when Ruth and Bentley performed it. 342 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:10.400 They did a series of ballet performances before I was able to be in the company. 343 00:19:11.600 --> 00:19:14.800 It was a charmer. That was Jacqui Bair. 344 00:19:15.500 --> 00:19:17.120 She had wonderful composers. 345 00:19:17.820 --> 00:19:20.840 I also saw Hear You, Hear You, and it was never in it. 346 00:19:22.140 --> 00:19:23.060 Wait till we change cassette.