I was 16, and one of six toe danc ers in “What’s In A Name?,” a John Murray Anderson produc tion. As I waited down Broadway there was excitement in my blood and a fe e lin g of achievement. Wasn’t I engaged in a Broadway production and on my way to be ing a star? What more could an American girl want? I passed a beggar, sitting on the sidewalk, selling pencils. A sense of guilt filled me and I carefully went back and put some pennies in his hat. I knew, Vve got to do enough good deeds to get to heaven some day and this will help. As I walked on I puzzled, How will I ever know when I’ve done enough good deeds to balance my bad ones? Wouldn’t it be awful to be only one or two good deeds short? I shuddered at the idea. At the theatre I went to my dressing room and prepared for the evening performance. There were five of us who shared the dressing room. Our make-up table was along one side of the wall and on the other side of the room hung the full yellow crinolines we wore in one dance and the wedding dresses for another. Carefully I put my shoes on the shelf under the dress ing table. I wouldn’t have dared put my shoes higher than my head, lest bad luck befall me. I began the laborious process of covering my entire body with liquid make up. One of the girls unconsciously began to whistle as she worked. Instantly the girl next to me screamed. The girl had caused bad luck! With one accord, the five of us rushed toward the girl who had whistled and pushed her out of the room. She was going to ruin us all. Then one girl remembered, “ She’s the one nearest the door. She can only hurt herself.” We sighed and the girl, weeping, “ I didn’t mean
peace of mind, mother shot herself. Now grief was coupled with my bewilderment. I sought again, this time going to the Christian Scien tists, who informed me that the good which was my mother was now part of Great Infinite. I sought the Catholics, who told me to pray her out of purgatory. I sought the spiritualists, who told me she would wander in utter darkness until such time as she would evolve up. I sought a Presbyterian church and there, attending a mid-week Bible class, I heard the gospel. Much that was said I did not understand, but gradually I real ized that Jesus was the very Son of God. He pre-existed with the Father before the world was cre ated, came on earth to die for sin ners and ever lives to help mortals. It was incredible to hear that one could not perform enough good deeds to balance the bad ones. The thought hurt my pride and I wasn’t entirely sure that if I tried hard enough, I wouldn’t make it. But there was the snag. How many good deeds were needed? I decided I’d better not depend upon myself. It would be awful to miss heaven for the lack of one or two good deeds. So one day I said, “ I believe” and meant it. With belief came freedom from superstition. I could drop a fork and not expect company for dinner. I could walk under a ladder and not be hurt. A black cat might cross my path and no ill luck would befall me. That seemed wonderful! Christians listen to missionaries and wonder how the heathen can worship idols. But I well remember the important day when I took my faith in my hands and deliberately turned the elephants around in my house, so they did not face the way
to do it. I did it without thinking,” was allowed to come back into the dressing room. We went back to the all-impor tant business of making up, but we were quiet as we continued. The girl’s whistling had upset all of us. After all, it was serious business. She knew well that it meant that the one nearest the door would he fired. It was a burden to remember the many superstitions that sur rounded our work on the stage, but it was essential. Stardom was the goal of all of us and we knew that we had to keep these taboos if we were to succeed. In a very real sense you have to have lived through it to understand how oppressing it can be to watch your every move. Never put an umbrella up in the house. Never go back for anything you forget. Never sweep over a door sill. It is a burden but if from time to time you read articles about people in show business or see them inter viewed on TV, you will notice their pet superstition. When Howard Hughes was in an airplane acci dent, there was a picture in the newspapers of him in the hospital and carefully hanging near him was his lucky hat. Such things a man puts his hopes on when he has no God to whom he can cling! It was a long, long trail out of the darkness of superstition with my burden of p erform ing the necessary number of good deeds. My mother and I sought the an swer in many cults which taught that all men had to do was try and his inherent kindness and goodness would bring him success in this world and life everlasting in the world to come. I believed it for it was all I had been taught, but I found it easy to sin and inconven ient to help others. Finally, despairing of finding
Doro,hy c mskjn I Was a Bewildered
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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