The Legs Are the Last to Go Read Online Free PDF Page B

with you a mental first-aid kit to fix any situation to avoid further infection of your soul. So I had my assistant call a favorite restaurant across the street from our theater, and reserved it for our private party. Everyone in the cast and crew was invited. We had a ball. We ate and drank, hugging one another and praising one another and giving one another the kind of support we needed after so many weeks of difficult rehearsals. And I never chose to speak of the incident again with Mr. Rodgers. I have never understood the point of dwelling on things that are so blatantly obvious. And besides, I could not withdraw from the theater opportunity of a lifetime.
    Mr. Rodgers had called me on the telephone to introduce the idea of No Strings in 1961. He had loved my work in Capote and Arlen’s House of Flowers, and a few years later, in 1957, had tried to make me up to look Asian for Flower Drum Song, a look that didn’t work. I knew he had wanted to work with me for years, and I was excited. The morning he called was after one of my appearances on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, where I was becoming a regular—a great boon to my public profile. For my meeting with Mr. Rodgers, I went ina pale pink Givenchy suit and pillbox hat. It was a perfect choice. “You look marvelous,” he said. “That’s exactly how I want you to look onstage in my show.” And so I did. In No Strings, I played an American model in Paris who falls in love with an American writer played by Richard Kiley. We have a glorious, glamorous fling (that only ends when he has to go back to the States) in a bonbon of a beautifully designed show. It meant the world to be able to depict a black woman with some sophistication, and it was especially gratifying to know I was part of the first integrated love affair on Broadway. This was Rodgers’s first project without a lyricist, it was a solid hit, and I won a Tony Award. My competitors for the prize in 1962 were Anna Marie Alberghetti, Molly Picon, and Elaine Stritch.
    And No Strings was an almost perfect experience. I say almost perfect because show business is never without its regrettable moments. The cast party in Detroit was one. The other came in the days after I received my Tony Award, and I opened the papers to find out that Nancy Kwan, an Asian-American actress, had been cast to play my role in the Warner Brothers film version of the show. Yes, Audrey Hepburn had replaced Julie Andrews for the film version of My Fair Lady, just as Andrews would replace Mary Martin for the film version of The Sound of Music . But this was different. I wasn’t too old for the part in the movie, just too black. Around that time, I had testified for Adam Clayton Powell Jr. about limited opportunities for black performers. In the wake of the news about No Strings, the NAACP sent a petition to Warner Bros., demanding to know how many black people it employed. Several groups threatenedto boycott the film. The studio eventually decided to shelve the project.
    It was devastating to be unwelcome at a cast party and the movie version of a show that had been written for me. But by then, I already knew how cruel show business could be. The great Pearl Bailey was the one who taught me my very first lesson about these immense cruelties in show business. In House of Flowers, she played a madam in a West Indian bordello who helps raise Ottilie, the young ingenue I was playing. Despite all odds (and sense, when I look back on it now), Ottilie remains lovely, innocent, and pure.
    I was nineteen at the time, and looked rather innocent myself. I suppose that’s why Pearl became so maternal. I don’t think she knew that I didn’t really need any mothering, given that I had such an attentive and loving mother. But Pearl was very sweet to me. Then, suddenly she wasn’t. We were still in rehearsals on the road. And on the show’s opening night in Philadelphia, I decided to apply a little