LITTLE HOUSE...ON THE BACK LOT!
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Hunter, Lyle Bettger, Alec Guinness, Doris Day, Audie Murphy, Curt Jurgens, Sessue Hayakawa, James Whitmore and Gloria Grahame all lived in my back yard in the early fifties. So did Johnny Lillich, Craig Langohr, Jill Whiteleather, Steve More, Lester Gaff, Jane Ann Morsches and Mary Ann and Martha Squires. Still wishing that Bobby Morsches mighta dropped by once in a while, too! My surrogate grandpa whom I nicknamed "Uncle Jim", so as not to imply his elderly status, and my daddy built a 10 ft. by 10 ft. imperfectly square playhouse crafted from discarded Blue Bell button boxes and equipped with an inter-office phone system. Uncle Jim Elliott, spelled with "two Ls and two Ts", not only served as a Presbyterian deacon but also as master of all trades thus rating as THE accomplished architect, if the truth be told. My dad probably held the ladder steady and handed up the tools much like a surgeon's nurse. My mom often advised that we never ask Daddy for the "stars", since his talent for climbing ladders seemed non-existent! Childhood's assignment? Play ‌ house! As well as airplane cockpit, grocery store, tea party, army barracks, 81
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New York Madison Avenue advertising office, recording studio, Wimbledon "Croquet" Cup headquarters, and mostly, movie set. Exhausting! Young imaginations ran rampant. History got made. Popularity belonged to the Duncan sisters for approximately a half dozen summers. Our side-yard served as a tennis court located somewhere akin to Malibu where Pat and Mike withstood re-enactment minus Hepburn and Tracy but instead starring a couple of sweaty seven year olds chasing badminton shuttlecocks! World War II AND Korean War victories emerged from a command center supervised by some kid posing as a tough general, impersonating John Wayne at his highest and mightiest! POW camps a la Stalag 17 maybe occurred when we were at our grimmest. BATTLE CRY! Acrobatic, aerial, high wire routines, borrowed from DeMille's Greatest Show on Earth, achieved perfection through exquisite configuration of a series of step ladders, jump-ropes, hammocks and lawn furniture strewn about our freshly mown lawn. Conversations with the Chinese happened down holes which we dug to the other side of the world. Toy metal cash registers often doubled as typewriters, depending upon our moods...Kroger checkerouters or secretarial pools? Virginia Lillich's land-scaping transformed into those over-grown jungles found in the "Valley of the Kwai"! To re-shoot Neptune's Daughter, the kiddie pool filled to over-flowing via the garden hose, our water-bill for the following month shot up certainly as we replicated the English Channel, Pacific Ocean or a Beverly Hills pool. Our synchronized swimming routines performed to the cadence of the revolving sprinkler showering the grass, Esther, Fernando, Ricardo and even Red Skelton pranced to and fro from back alley to the Rear (kitchen) Window for hours. Gender roles not yet set in stone, everybody portrayed everybody cinematic! To RE-produce, from photographic 82
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memory, the soaper Miracle in the Rain, recently viewed at Columbia Theater on the corner of Van Buren and Main Streets, I played soldier Van Johnson to Susy Alberty's weeping, dying Jane Wyman mimicry upon the tiny stoop doubling as the majestic marble steps of a New York cathedral—caught in a downpour. Soggy conclusion. (Films featuring a wintry theme, such as The Magnificent Ambersons or On Moonlight Bay, achieved the loftiest of production values "on location" at the number 5 hole of Crooked Lake Golf Course so that sledding might be featured accurately—whizzing down that divinely steep hill.) Sure, westerns got shot—pardon the pun—Mother often declaring that Hollywood Indians frightened her. My tiny nephew Jimmy soothed her soul: "Injuns are nothin' but cowboys—only with feathers!" Spurs, ten-gallon hats, boots, pistols, and bows and arrows all rested, when not in use, within a closed toy chest in a cob-webbed corner where all of that stuff actually belonged in my opinion. (The Virginian, Joel McRae himself, warned, "Smile when you say THAT!") One miniature Spinet piano with plastic keys delivering a plunky sound, as well as a record player covered with blue bunny decals, completed our playhouse's furnishings. Each time we shuffled barefoot along the mildewed concrete floor, divided by a huge crevice from west wall to east wall, to gingerly position the phonograph arm, with its often missing needle, onto Jerry Lewis's 78 RPM "Noisy Eater", "Poor People of Paris", Perez Prado's "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White", "Moonglow (The Picnic Theme)", or Earl Grant's "Ebb Tide", we endured miserable though momentary shock. Nothing more enchanting than playtime characterized by edginess! Two phones, one in "mama's kitchen" and the other entirely ours, provided the highlight of "hit-of-theneighborhood" revelry emanating from the playhouse— for a brief time. Bunches of squealing, mobile, 83
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neighborhood kids rushed frenetically about the real house and our outback house just to call one another repeatedly. In and out. Pressing each mother-of-pearl button, we gleefully initiated two-way incessant ring-ring-ringing; conversations began non-stop. How miraculously odd that an unnoticed "freakish" lightning bolt eventually established one-way, out-going messaging from a more relaxed, coffee-sipping mom instructing that all drama must end for the day and kids should return to their own homes before sunset. Time for supper! Her credo, from that fateful day forward: "Don't you dare call me; I'll call you!" (Side-note: Don and Marjorie Souder operated a "Mom & Pop" grocery store directly behind our house across the alley from the playhouse...so if Mother failed to stock the easily accessible freezer with enough Popsicles, "Mom" Souder "would provide" in exchange for a handful of nickels.) Recollections: of another layer of wall-paper to eradicate the mustiness each grand-opening season; of one wall consistently covered by thumb-tacked Photoplay or Silver Screen magazines' slick pix of movie stars we adored like Glenn Ford, Marlon Brando, Debbie Reynolds, or Carmen Miranda; of a Dutch-style front door which allowed "bikers and trikers" to ride past as if in cars while we attached recycled Blue Bell Cafeteria trays to the "vehicles". Our menu items? Plastic cheese-burgers accompanied by vegetable soup concocted from water embellished with cut-outs of paper carrots, beans, and peas afloat. Yes, non-hopping carhops! "Those were the days, my friends. We thought they'd never end." I could reveal so very much more for the right price? However, as Jimmy Cagney "might" have sneered in the Navy flick Mister Roberts, "Loose lips sink ships!" And I still know all of these play-mates and encounter them at Kroger's—the real Kroger's—once in a while, so our secrets will die with me, to be buried at sea. 84
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"Anchors Aweigh, my boys. Anchors Aweigh. Farewell to college joys. We sail at break of day, 'ay 'ay 'ay. O'er our last night ashore—Drink to the foam. Until we meet once more—Here's wishing you a happy voyage home."—Lottman-Savino published around 1950 in London .
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LESS MISERABLE—THANKS TO LEADING MEN!
Ah,
the holidays—magical, manic, frantic, stressinducing, scintillating! My heretofore rather mild psoriasis attack blossomed into Elephant-Man-itis. Doc appointments wriggled their way into the usual notably bustling festivities. Exhaustion and disillusionment R US! "Doctor Feel-Good" adventures invaded my individualistic "I do what I wanna do, and when I wanna do it" schedule at the traditionally nuttiest time of the year—the progression of three celebrations throughout November to January, dictated by the calendar for ages upon ages. You'd better be game. Ride those sparkling events like a demented beach boy hanging onto a precariously slippery surfboard for dear life! No exceptions! Always remain perky and full of positive thoughts! Bah! Humbug! This particular season, national events encompassed: stomach churning fiscal cliffs; stubborn "gunblasting-ourway-to-total-obliterative-MASS-massacre" foolishly contentious debates; wildlife culling promoted as sporty; 173
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"looking occasionally cross-eyed" broadcast by the NRA to be certifiable mental illness, which is supposedly the only reason that increasingly (currently, more guns in the United States than people) heavily armed, paranoid, violent humans slay one another; ever-present, extremist political points of view quashing peaceful, reasonable dialogue; and self-defeating refusals to deal with climate change's environmental emergencies—ALL of the aforementioned trampling upon one's liberal-progressive spirit. Chinese water torture. It follows that a person might reflect inner turmoil via the "pain of psoriasis"—systemic, unpredictable, an alltoo-obvious reaction to the world at large! Furthermore, I am "got" because pharmaceuticals thundered into the life of somebody who never even swallows an aspirin. Ever! Hypochondria? Not my style! Probably I lean more toward "Christian Science", but our local branch shut down years ago. Quick-fix time! Who relishes feeling even a bit under the weather? But how about greeting each day while covered with chicken-pox polka dots which "flare" into patchy, fire-engine red, scaly patches manifesting their myriad selves into mysterious patterns and configurations via a case of latter-day leprosy once featured in Bible stories, left and right? Life, according to Thackeray, is a Vanity Fair! Unsightly, temperamental skin eruptions, other than a few scattered mole-like beauty marks here and there, assure that I'll be more anti-social than I am already! Difficult to fathom! Googling unearthed fellow sufferers comic Jon Lovitz and reality TV starlet Kim Kardashian. Misery loves company! Any boob-tube obsessed couch potato knows that our societal dependence upon prescription or over-the-counter medications guarantees accompanying unwanted results whenever we watch impossibly perfect models wander gleefully and prettily through peppy commercials. Sideeffects listed provide the bulk of the voice-over script; 174
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"possible liver failure, pituitary tumors, severe depression, suicidal thoughts, heart attacks, alteration of personality, debilitating anxiety: please discontinue use if any of these new symptoms develop!" Waxy, cortisone-based, steroid-loaded applications of topical, slathering creams initially converted me into a walking Christmas candle. Within a couple of anxious weeks, I experienced a switch-over to a greasy, oily concoction, no longer in toothpaste size tubes but rather in huge jars, which assures that I could effortlessly swim the English Channel as a revisited, slicked-up Gertrude Ederle! These ointments and salves comingle, entering my blood stream prompting both inventive dreams and convincing hallucinations. Truly, I spotted JFK, or his identical twin, at Richard's Restaurant recently. "Jack" appeared very fit and startlingly elegant in an expensive overcoat, his distinctive shock of hair—still parted and combed to one side—now glistening silver. The president's steely blue eyes peered in my direction in a decidedly aloof country club/landed gentry manner. I spoke to him and am comforted that my husband also witnessed this occurrence. Rod Serling, in a nearby booth, may have been jotting down notes for his Twilight Zone series. Thus, following my relentless rounds with the medical profession in an attempt to retrieve cosmetic acceptability, what truly soothed my jangled holiday nerves? LEADING MEN!!! Handsome matinee idols recently paraded across movie screens before my eager, adulatory eyes! These dudes redirected my vain, obsessive fixation with my skin onto their perilous adventures with— respectively—Her Majesty's Secret Service MI6 , civil wars, and French revolutions. Daniel "James Bond-007" Craig stylishly and ruggedly pursuing villains as the sky falls all around himself, Daniel Day Lewis's 150% inhabiting of the iconic persona of a Christ-like Abraham Lincoln, and hunky Hugh "Jean Valjean-#24601" Jackman's completely 175
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convincing, mesmerizing transformation from a despicable singing French convict into an angelic singing French savior of singing French lost souls stole my heart! I vicariously cheered, swooned, and suffered! Sacha Baron Cohen and Javier Bardem boosted my spirits also, as both appeared in these very films as cleverly clownish villains. (Javier made it into my paperback book, Secrets of an Old Typewriter!) Upton Sinclair regarded Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Miserables as "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world"—agreed! Susie Sexton, likewise, considers Russell Crowe to be "one of the half-dozen greatest actors of this world or any other"! I'll not be moved to change my accurate evaluation of the Australian perfectionist. Contrary to probably countless audience members' appraisals, I reveled in his Gladiator—Insider—Beautiful Mind-blended super-intelligent approach to the character of conflicted, yet determined, "Inspector Javert". His execution (Crowe detractors might agree with the word "execution") of the constant musicalized dialogue, required of the entire cast at all times, demonstrated consistent focus, flawless articulation, and a raw honesty captured by not one other vocalist as exquisitely. Extraordinary Russell's inspirational believability astounds me. Not since Spencer Tracy regaled audiences with total naturalness for decades have I ever been so impressed by any actor. Russ's Inspector Javert, planted firmly amidst dismally dreary overwrought deprived and depraved local masses of French humanity dubbed Les Miserables, provided the highlight of my 2012-13 holi-daze malaise! Upon juggling noble protagonist Jackman/ Valjean with aggravating antagonist Crowe/Javert inside my currently addled state of mind, I preferred the performance of Mr. Crowe whose crisp portrayal was neither florid nor melodramatic but instead intriguingly, provocatively observational and artistically out of step with 176
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the film's murky tone. For this devotee of unique talent, his Javert won my everlasting devotion. Standing rigidly upon a bridge above the River Seine—while expressing an anguished puzzlement at the nature of good and evil— baritone Crowe, as the unbending seeker of often brutal justice, sings: "There is nothing on earth that we share! It is either Valjean or Javert! And my thoughts fly apart. Can this man be believed? Shall his sins be forgiven? I am reaching, but I fall. And the stars are black and cold as I stare into the void of a world that cannot hold. I'll escape now from the world, from the world of Jean Valjean..." Then into the swirling, watery abyss he hurls himself. Could have been my drug-enhanced malady, but I considered diving after him...to administer mouth to mouth resuscitation! (Russell's pending gig involves even more water; he'll be piloting an ark full of animals "two by two" when he stars as...Noah! I can hardly wait!) .
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