field and moved with everything we owned. I bought an old car and learned to drive. I imagined myself scooting around Hollywood, meeting the stars, actually working with them! No more buses and trains. I did not have the hubris to imagine limousines. And yet I never really doubted that I would act in movies. I had a sense of destiny. My dreams were coming true—in detail.
Hollywood was everything we had imagined and more. And there were palm trees and our own familiar warm, sunny climate. This was the best of Juncos plunked down in Hollywood. My mother was sure I would become famous: “Nonni,” she said, “joo are a star here.” I was making two hundred dollars a week! That was a lot of money at the time. We were rich! No one could have been more dazzled by this new world than I was—this might as well have been Bel Air and a million-dollar contract. I had moved to Hollywood heaven—to MGM, where there were “more stars than in the heavens” and they were everywhere to be seen. And now I walked among them.
* * *
On my first day at the studio lot, I went to meet the producer of the film I’d already been assigned to— The Toast of New Orleans —who invited me on a tour of the MGM lot. But first he took me to the Commissary for lunch. Wow! The scents, the mounds of steaming exotic foods—roast beef and gravy, pure white mounds of mashed potatoes, quivering molds of Jell-O trapping jewellikefruit and everywhere I looked they were there. Crazily beautiful people, Ava Gardner, Jean Tiernary, oh gulp, Joan Crawford. All of them staggeringly beautiful. They were another race. Was I really a part of this?
And then on our way out, I met my first real movie star, who greeted me with a raffish grin and a know-it-all look in his eyes. A lock of dark hair hung over his forehead and left eye. Rhett Butler. Clark Gable. He touched my hand and gave me an even bigger smile than I had seen on Rhett. If you have never been close to a movie star in your life, the impact is surreal: On the one hand, most stars are shorter than they are on screen (except John Wayne, who was somehow bigger), but their faces loom larger than normal humans’, coming right at you into your own face.
There he was, with his thick eyebrows and big ears. It was impossible for me to even speak; I squeaked. Clark Gable did not seem aware of his effect. In my head I heard him say, Rosita, I don’t give a damn.
In reality, Clark Gable said, “Rosita. Great name, kid.”
I did not have that name for long.
I was summoned to the office of the most famous and powerful casting agent in Hollywood, Bill Grady. My heart hammered within the confines of my waist cincher.
It won’t work out after all , I thought as I climbed up the narrow stairs to his backlot aerie. The dark, unimpressive staircase gave me intimations: I was about to be fired. They had taken a closer look, under the glaring sun of Hollywood, and seen that I was no Latina Elizabeth Taylor. There was no such thing. I was a Puerto Rican kid without a prayer, and my nemesis alter ego, that voice, added, A Puerto Rican kid with a bit of acne that all the pancake makeup in the world cannot quite conceal. I was sure Iwould be returned, like an impulse buy, to whatever bargain basement I came from.
Bill Grady’s gaze narrowed as he examined my face. He did nothing to reassure me. I felt my eyes, which I knew were the wrong color, widen. I was also aware that they had a tendency to “pop,” so I concentrated on getting them to calm down and settle back in their sockets. I braced myself for the worst: I would have to go home and go to secretarial school. I had tried secretarial school once and run, silent-screaming, back to my mother and another round of auditions, which I thought had paid off.
I almost heard him say, We’re letting you go , but no, he was saying something different. He was saying, “Your name has to go.” He squinted again. “Too Italian.”
In a trance, I heard him
Hollywood was everything we had imagined and more. And there were palm trees and our own familiar warm, sunny climate. This was the best of Juncos plunked down in Hollywood. My mother was sure I would become famous: “Nonni,” she said, “joo are a star here.” I was making two hundred dollars a week! That was a lot of money at the time. We were rich! No one could have been more dazzled by this new world than I was—this might as well have been Bel Air and a million-dollar contract. I had moved to Hollywood heaven—to MGM, where there were “more stars than in the heavens” and they were everywhere to be seen. And now I walked among them.
* * *
On my first day at the studio lot, I went to meet the producer of the film I’d already been assigned to— The Toast of New Orleans —who invited me on a tour of the MGM lot. But first he took me to the Commissary for lunch. Wow! The scents, the mounds of steaming exotic foods—roast beef and gravy, pure white mounds of mashed potatoes, quivering molds of Jell-O trapping jewellikefruit and everywhere I looked they were there. Crazily beautiful people, Ava Gardner, Jean Tiernary, oh gulp, Joan Crawford. All of them staggeringly beautiful. They were another race. Was I really a part of this?
And then on our way out, I met my first real movie star, who greeted me with a raffish grin and a know-it-all look in his eyes. A lock of dark hair hung over his forehead and left eye. Rhett Butler. Clark Gable. He touched my hand and gave me an even bigger smile than I had seen on Rhett. If you have never been close to a movie star in your life, the impact is surreal: On the one hand, most stars are shorter than they are on screen (except John Wayne, who was somehow bigger), but their faces loom larger than normal humans’, coming right at you into your own face.
There he was, with his thick eyebrows and big ears. It was impossible for me to even speak; I squeaked. Clark Gable did not seem aware of his effect. In my head I heard him say, Rosita, I don’t give a damn.
In reality, Clark Gable said, “Rosita. Great name, kid.”
I did not have that name for long.
I was summoned to the office of the most famous and powerful casting agent in Hollywood, Bill Grady. My heart hammered within the confines of my waist cincher.
It won’t work out after all , I thought as I climbed up the narrow stairs to his backlot aerie. The dark, unimpressive staircase gave me intimations: I was about to be fired. They had taken a closer look, under the glaring sun of Hollywood, and seen that I was no Latina Elizabeth Taylor. There was no such thing. I was a Puerto Rican kid without a prayer, and my nemesis alter ego, that voice, added, A Puerto Rican kid with a bit of acne that all the pancake makeup in the world cannot quite conceal. I was sure Iwould be returned, like an impulse buy, to whatever bargain basement I came from.
Bill Grady’s gaze narrowed as he examined my face. He did nothing to reassure me. I felt my eyes, which I knew were the wrong color, widen. I was also aware that they had a tendency to “pop,” so I concentrated on getting them to calm down and settle back in their sockets. I braced myself for the worst: I would have to go home and go to secretarial school. I had tried secretarial school once and run, silent-screaming, back to my mother and another round of auditions, which I thought had paid off.
I almost heard him say, We’re letting you go , but no, he was saying something different. He was saying, “Your name has to go.” He squinted again. “Too Italian.”
In a trance, I heard him
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