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TWO CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

Actress Dorothy Stickney, wife of the late playwright Howard Lindsay, co-starred for five years with her husband in Life with Father, which Mr. Lindsay wrote with Russell Crouse. In this excerpt from her new memoir, Openings and Closings (Doubleday), the actress recalls to Christmas Eves she spent on B' way, one lonely and one jubilant.

[[Image – sepia photo: a Christmas scene from the Broadway show Life with Father – Christmas tree, pictures on wallpapered walls, a candelabra in the background; in the foreground, a mustachioed father holds court with a wife and two older sons standing behind, and two boys sitting at his feet between a pile of presents]]

Dad was willing for me to try New York. He would give me some money for expenses and my fare there and back to Dickinson [North Dakota]. Did he perhaps think that the best way to get me home was to let me find out firsthand how lonely a big city could be? I was to go to the Woodstock Hotel because it was run by a man from Vermont and would therefore be a safe place for his daughter.

I arrived by train on an evening in early autumn, just at dusk when the sky was purple and all the city lights were beginning to blossom. At the Woodstock Hotel I leaned out my high window and watched with wonder as the huge Wrigley Gum sign flashed on and off. Across the street was Henry Miller's Theatre with a lighted sign on the marquee proclaiming "BLANCHE BATES IN THE FAMOUS MRS. FAIR." That night I saw my first New York play from the last row in the second balcony. I was less impressed with Blanche Bates, the star, then I was with the ingénue, beautiful, blonde Margalo Gilmore. She was what I wanted to be. To this day I remember clearly a little red feather hat she wore and how she ran across stage. I promised myself I would be exactly like that someday.

The next day I explored Broadway. It was best of all when evening came. The Broadway I saw on that early autumn evening was very unlike the tawdry street it is today. It was as gaudy and incandescent as it is now, but in those days it had its own special kind of elegance. I walked past fine restaurants and handsome theatres, and I saw beautiful ladies and top-hatted gentlemen on their way to dine or see a play. I walked up and down Broadway, solitary but feeling important and exhilarated, and very much a part of the scene. I explored side streets where grimy shop windows displayed such treasures as wigs and makeup, toe slippers and ballet costumes, and yards of spangled cloth of every color to be used for Lord knew what glamorous purpose. All of it was perfect! The trolley cars rattled and banged, and the elevated roared, and I adopted New York for my very own. It didn't adopt me but I adopted it. And I knew without the slightest doubt that for better or for worse, sink or swim, succeed or fail, I was in New York for keeps.

Living in a hotel was far too expensive. Dad thought I should rent a room in some nice boardinghouse, but I didn't know how to go about finding one. I had never heard there were such places as endowed clubs – the Rehearsal Club, the Three Arts Club

by Dorothy Stickney

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