—
The script was intact on the day Billy typed the last word. I don’t recall him editing any of it. And his script didn’t just have dialogue and stage directions; it also included lyrics of the songs that Billy wanted Benjamin to write.
And it was a good script—or at least I thought so, based on my limited experience. But even I could understand that Billy’s writing was bright and funny, fast-paced and upbeat. I could see why 20th Century Fox kept him on payroll, and why Louella Parsons had once written in her column: “Everything Billy Buell touches is box office! Even in Europe!”
Billy’s version of City of Girls was still the tale of one Mrs. Elenora Alabaster—a wealthy widow who loses all her money in the crash of 1929 and transforms her mansion into a casino and bordello in order to keep herself afloat.
But Billy added some interesting new characters, as well. Now the play also included Mrs. Alabaster’s fantastically snobbish daughter, Victoria (who would sing a comic song at the beginning of the show called “Mummy Is a Rumrunner”). There was also a gold-digging, penniless aristocrat of a cousin from England, played by Arthur Watson, who is trying to win Victoria’s hand in marriage, in order to lay claim to the family mansion. (“You can’t have Arthur Watson playing an American police officer,” Billy explained to Peg. “Nobody would believe it. He has to be a British dolt. He’ll like this role better, anyway—he gets to wear finer suits and he can pretend to be important.”)
The romantic male lead would be a scrappy young kid from the wrong side of the tracks named Lucky Bobby, who used to fix Mrs. Alabaster’s cars but who now helps her set up an illegal casino in her home—the result being that they both get stinking rich. The romantic female lead was a dazzling showgirl named Daisy. Daisy has a body that won’t quit, but her simple dream is to get married and have a dozen children. (“Let Me Knit Your Booties, Baby,” would be her signature song—performed in the manner of a striptease.) That role, of course, would be played by Celia Ray.
At the end of the play, Daisy the showgirl ends up with Lucky Bobby, and the two of them head off to Yonkers to have a dozen babies together. The snobbish daughter falls in love with the toughest gangster in town, learns how to shoot a machine gun, and goes on a bank-robbing spree in order to finance her expensive tastes. (Her big number is “I’m Down to My Last Pint of Diamonds.”) The shady cousin from England is banished back to his shores without inheriting the mansion. And Mrs. Alabaster falls in love with the mayor of the city—a real law-and-order type, who has been trying and failing to shut down her speakeasy throughout the entire production. The two of them get married, and the mayor resigns his political post in order to become her bartender. (Their final duet, which would turn into the big closing number for the whole cast, was called “Let’s Make Ours a Double.”)
There were some new smaller roles in the play, too. There would be a purely comical drunkard character who pretends to be blind so he doesn’t have to work, but who is still a mighty fine poker player and pickpocket. (Billy talked Mr. Herbert into taking the role: “If you can’t write the script, Donald, at least be in the damn play!”) There would be the showgirl’s mother—an old floozy who still wants to be in the spotlight. (“Call Me Mrs. Casanova” was her signature tune.) There would be a banker, trying to repossess the mansion. And there would be a large company of dancers and singers—far more than our usual four boys and four girls, if Billy had anything to say about it—in order to make the play into a bigger and more energized production.
—
Peg loved the script.
“I can’t write for free seeds,” she said, “but I know what a smashing story is, and this is a smashing story.”
Edna loved it, too. Billy had transformed Mrs. Alabaster from a mere caricature of a society dame into a woman of real wit and intelligence and irony. Edna had all the funniest lines in the play, and she was in every single scene.
“Billy!” exclaimed Edna, after reading the script for the first time. “This is delightful, but you’re spoiling me! Doesn’t anyone else in the show get to speak?”
“Why would I take you offstage for a moment?” Billy said to her. “If I have the chance to work with Edna Parker Watson, I want the world to know I’m working with Edna Parker Watson.”
“You’re a dear,” said Edna. “But I haven’t performed comedy in so long, Billy. I’m afraid I’ll be quite stale.”
“The trick of comedy,” said Billy, “is not to perform it in a comic manner. Don’t try to be funny, and you’ll be funny. Just do that effortless thing you Brits do, of throwing away half the lines as though you can scarcely be bothered to care, and it’ll be brilliant. Comedy is always best when it’s thrown away.”
It was interesting to watch Edna and Billy interact. They had a real friendship, it appeared—based not only on teasing and playfulness, but on mutual respect. They admired each other’s talents, and genuinely had a good time together. The first night they saw each other, Billy had said to Edna, “Very much of little consequence has transpired since last we met, my dear. Let’s sit down for a drink and talk about none of it.”
To which she had replied, “There is nothing I would rather not talk about, Billy, and nobody whom I would rather not talk about it with!”
Billy once told me, in front of Edna, “So many men had the pleasure of having their hearts broken by our dear Edna, back when I knew her in London so long ago. I didn’t happen to be one of them, but that’s only because I was already in love with Peg. But back in her prime, Edna cut down man after man. It was something to see. Plutocrats, artists, generals, politicians—she mowed them all to bits.”
“No, I didn’t,” Edna protested—while smiling in a manner that suggested: Yes, I did.
“I used to love to watch you break a man apart, Edna,” Billy said. “You did it so beautifully. You broke them with such force that they would be enfeebled forever, and then some other woman could come and scoop them up and control them. It was a service to humanity, really. I know she looks like a little doll, Vivian, but never underestimate this woman. She is to be respected. Be aware that there’s an iron spine hidden under all those stylish clothes of hers.”
“You give me far too much credit, Billy,” said Edna—but again, she smiled in a manner that suggested: You, sir, are absolutely correct.
—
A few weeks later, I was fitting Edna in my apartment. The dress I’d designed was for her final scene. Edna wanted it to be sensational, and so did I. “Make me a dress I have to live up to” had been her direct instruction—and forgive my boasting, but I had done it.
It was an evening gown composed of two layers of robin’s-egg-blue silk soufflé, draped with sheer rhinestone netting. (I’d found a bolt of the silk at Lowtsky’s and had spent nearly all my personal savings on it.) The dress sparkled with every movement—not in a garish way, but like light reflected on water. The silk clung to Edna’s figure without clinging too hard (she was in her fifties, after all) and there was a slit up the right side so she could dance. The effect was to make Edna look like a fairy queen, out for a night on the town.