Lady Blue Eyes Read online

  Devoted to her younger sisters, Mary and Fontaine, who’d lived with their servicemen husbands, Kelly and Bill, in Texas and Florida before settling in Wichita, Kansas, my mother was determined to join them. “Wil-lis,” she’d complain to my father. “We’ve got to get out of this place. There are better opportunities for us elsewhere.” Whenever my parents had one of their fights about it (or rather whenever Mother railed at my father), I’d jump on Pansy, my pony, and take a long bareback ride until the marital storm had passed. Once, during yet another heat wave that seemed to make my mother especially fractious (even though we’d all slept out under the trees), my sister and I escaped together. After trotting around the meadows behind our house, we rode Pansy right through the front door of the Metropole Ice Cream Parlor to order a soda, inadvertently creating the scandal of Bosworth.

  My father was a pale man of few words. In all the years they were married, I never saw my parents kiss or cuddle. I sometimes wondered why he stayed with her—except that I think he must have loved her very much. In any event, nobody divorced in our town or family, and the stigma would have been too much. Amazing as it seemed to me, Father had left Bosworth once. During the First World War, he’d traveled to France and other European cities my mother could only dream of. When he returned home, he pulled on his butcher’s apron and never spoke about what he’d seen or done. It wasn’t until after he died that I was shocked to find a poem he’d written about Parisian women with their “bright red lips.”

  Whenever my mother sat poring over her Harper’s Bazaar magazine, which came in the mail from New York, or listened to music that made her long for city life, my father would stare bleakly out of the window. Sometimes he’d bury his head in the family Bible and mouth a silent prayer. I’m sure she thought him weak and cold, and it’s true that he was never demonstrative or playful, but I think his quiet strength lay in staying with her for over sixty years.

  To be fair, neither of my parents had an easy upbringing. Both from families of five or six children, they’d survived the Depression and then a war. We weren’t poor like the families scratching a living in the Dust Bowl, but we were broke. The only Sears, Roebuck catalogs we saw were old ones torn into strips for the outhouse. Our dolls and toys were made from offcuts of wood. Our clothes were run up on my grandmother’s Singer and patched as they wore out. For some reason my mother dressed Patricia and me as twins and insisted we do everything together—guaranteeing us a lifelong aversion to each other.

  Living as we did on the fresh produce and livestock we grew or raised in our own backyard, I never felt I had gone without. It was only later that I realized the sacrifices my parents made. “We’re not hungry. You two finish this up,” they’d say as they divided their leftovers between us. Ours was a strong Methodist community, so my parents said grace at every meal and attended church weekly. If Pat and I skipped Sunday school, Pa would chase us around the yard with a dose of castor oil. We received the same punishment or a mouthful of carbolic soap if we were caught smoking homemade cigarettes rolled from Pa’s dried tobacco leaves in the smokehouse—especially when we accidentally set it on fire.

  Although my strong-willed mother and I often clashed, she instilled in me from an early age the conviction that, if I wanted any sort of life, I had to get out of Bosworth. I’d watch her reflection in the mirror as she was applying her lipstick and fixing her hair each morning and wonder if I’d ever be as beautiful or as fearless. I could tell from her faraway expression that she fantasized what her life would have been like if she’d been born someplace less dull. As for me, I didn’t know any different; Bosworth was all I’d ever known. I’d heard talk of how much more exciting things were beyond its windy plains; I’d gaped at the stylish kiss-curls and clothes of my Kansas City cousins when they came to stay. I’d inherited my mother’s curiosity about the world, but at nine years old I was happy to live skipping distance from the general store and dip freely into the gummy beans. Little did I know what a candy jar my life was to become.

  By the time I was ten years old, my mother had finally worn my father down. There were no more one-sided arguments or uncomfortable silences; we were off to start a new life in Wichita. Despite how he must have felt, Willis Blakeley went quietly.

  With the help of her sisters, Mother rented us a house near the Little Arkansas River and enrolled me in the nearest school. That summer of 1937, I was plucked from a tiny, red-painted, six-room primary school and dropped into an enormous inner-city school where most regarded me with disdain. A stranger to cashmere in my homemade clothes, I was the tall, skinny country girl with the “twang.” It had never occurred to me before that I had an accent.

  Almost overnight I went from cheerful and headstrong to quiet and shy. Taller than everyone else, I developed a peculiar way of standing by bending my knees and hunching my shoulders that can’t have endeared me to anyone. When a gang of girls knocked my books out of my hand one day in the playground, the only black boy in the school helped me pick them up. I’d never seen a black person before, but he was kind and thoughtful and I always made a point of speaking to him after that, even when the friends I made later warned me not to.

  While I was trying hard to fit in, my mother found her niche immediately as the manager of two budget dress stores known as the Dixie Shops. My father, however, was like a catfish out of the water. He found a job selling shoes, but it lasted only a week, and after that he remained home alone, lost in his memories of Bosworth. He missed the country, his family and friends, and until the day he died he hoped Mother would agree to move back there. Years later, my mother discovered a secret stash of money he’d saved for the journey “home” just in case she ever changed her mind. She never did, of course, and he returned only for the occasional vacation and family funerals. Pa Hillis went first; then Ma fell down the basement stairs and broke her hip, dying soon afterward. My father came back to Wichita with the sad realization that there was nothing left for him in Bosworth anymore.

  When my aunts Mary and Fontaine got caught up in the craze for the evangelist Billy Graham, my mother followed suit. As a “born-again” fundamentalist, she taught Bible classes and evangelized with a fervor that puzzled me. Having already been baptized as a baby, I was publicly immersed, shoulder-deep, in a huge tub. Every Sunday I was urged to go up to the preacher when the Spirit moved me to proclaim that I’d “seen the light,” accepting Jesus as my “Savior.” Out of sheer stubbornness, I never did.

  My father, who eventually found a job he liked as a butcher in a Safeway store, played ostrich when my mother imposed tight new regulations on us. There was to be no dancing, no movies, no makeup, no jewelry, and definitely no boys. Strict curfews were set. Needless to say, by the time I was fifteen, my life seemed hopelessly drab. I’d had more fun in Bosworth. This wasn’t the freedom Mother had promised when we left Missouri. She and I had terrible fights, which usually ended in us not speaking to each other for days. Feeling increasingly trapped, I knew that I had to escape—just as she had taught me.

  Out in the world, war was raging. Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and President Roosevelt sent troops to Europe. People were living each day as if it might be their last. Movies and big band music had never been more popular. Prohibition was over (although Kansas remained a dry state), and nightclubs and dance halls were packed. The newspapers tempered tales of faraway conflict with stories from Hollywood, such as the premiere of the movie Casablanca, the death of Clark Gable’s wife Carole Lombard in a plane crash, or the latest in the on-off marriage of the singing sensation Frank Sinatra.

  Determined to follow the latest fashions despite the fact that I was skinny, tall, and plain, I lost my twang, acquired a cashmere “hubba-bubba” sweater, and donned a poodle skirt. I persuaded my aunts, who were both hairdressers, to dye my hair “Rita Red.” With my new Miss Hayworth look, I sneaked to the drive-in after school with my friends Claudine Ramsay and Winnie Markley; a jukebox in the corner of the soda parlor played the latest tunes. We
’d drink Coke and watch others dance. In the privacy of my bedroom, I’d learned how to jitterbug, but it was ages before I’d dare try it in public.

  It was sitting in the local drive-in as a bored fifteen-year-old that I first heard the singer everyone was talking about. Sinatra-mania had gripped the country, and I’d seen Sinatra’s photograph in countless teen and movie magazines. The number I first heard him sing was a romantic ballad called “I’ll Walk Alone,” and I shivered to the toes of my bobby sox. He sang so effortlessly it seemed. Oh, how we sighed. Bing Crosby may have been the most popular vocalist of the day, but Frank was younger and far more handsome, with his sharp cheekbones and megawatt smile. Unlike Bing, he had a full head of hair with a lick that fell down endearingly over his face.

  So what if some of the gossip columnists made out he was a rogue and a womanizer? That skinny kid with the big ears, who wasn’t the tallest or most handsome of men, had every woman in Hollywood after him; of course it was going to turn his head. All I knew was that there was a real yearning and romanticism to his voice that touched me deeply. From that day on, I was hooked.

  The advertisement in the Wichita Eagle caught my eye. “Pretty Models Wanted. No Experience Necessary.” Taking a pair of scissors, I snipped it out and folded it into my purse. Ever since I’d pored over my mother’s Harper’s Bazaar magazines, I’d been struck by the fact that most models were tall like me. I wasn’t sure that I qualified as pretty, but I did have good skin with my pale complexion and fine mousy-brown hair. Maybe modeling was my chance for escape? I decided to go along and find out.

  The auditions were at the Leyton Hotel on Union Street, opposite the Emporium Department Store, where I’d been taken on as a salesgirl at the blouse counter. Deciding not to tell anyone, I dressed with special care and took the bus downtown, arriving an hour before my shift. The manager of my store was on the same bus, but he didn’t spot me, so not wanting to draw attention to myself, I shrank into my seat. Directed to a third-floor suite at the hotel, I was greeted by two men who—I quickly realized—were interested in more than my modeling capabilities. “Lift your skirt, honey,” one told me with a smirk. “Let’s see your legs.”

  Reddening and clutching my purse to my chest, I flinched when the other draped his arm around my shoulders and said, “We just want to get to know you a little, that’s all.” Running from the room, I smeared off the Jungle Red lipstick I’d applied and hurried across the street to work. An hour later, I was summoned to my manager’s office.

  “Miss Blakeley,” he said frostily. “I was in the lobby of the Leyton Hotel this morning and saw you get off the elevator at a very early hour. We can’t have that kind of carry-on here!” Mortified when he didn’t believe my story—even when I assured him we’d been on the same bus—I quit.

  World War II was coming to an end, but it didn’t seem to affect us much apart from drills at school and the fact that my uncles, Kelly and Bill, had been stationed abroad with the U.S. Air Force. As my eighteenth birthday approached, I began to defy my mother’s curfews more blatantly. Claudine’s brother-in-law owned a roadhouse called Swingland, where recruits from the Hutchinson army base would go to drink their own hooch. I’d sneak out of my bedroom window at night and run across the alley to wait for Claudine to pick me up in her car. After a fun night at Swingland, where I finally got to try out my jitterbug, I’d creep back home without my parents ever knowing.

  I started to date the local basketball hero, but my mother had forbidden me from seeing him, so when she caught me talking to him on the telephone one night we had a huge fight. Furious, I packed my bags and went to Claudine, whose parents took me in. My teen rebellion didn’t last. Living with them was fun at first, but it wasn’t home. I began to miss my folks, even their dull routines. I’d wanted to be free, but now that I’d had a taste of freedom, I wasn’t sure the streamlined kid from Bosworth was quite ready.

  My dilemma was solved when my uncles came home from abroad and were stationed in Long Beach, California. In an exact replay of our final days in Missouri, Mother was determined to follow her sisters. In the end, she simply announced, “We’re going.” Thrilled by the prospect of a more exciting life on the West Coast, I jumped at the chance too. My father and sister would stay on in Wichita until she graduated from high school, and then they’d join us. My boyfriend was forgotten as Mother and I flew the fourteen hundred miles to the Golden State. Staring out at the unfamiliar landscape far below, I was giddy with expectation. When we reached Long Beach and I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, my knees almost gave way beneath me. I’d never seen that much water in my life. I sat on a bench and stared at it for hours. The ocean still fascinates me in the same way.

  We moved into my aunt Mary’s house in the suburb of Lakewood, and my mother secured herself a position in an elegant fashion store called Lerner’s. I wasted little time too and applied to the Robert Edward School of Professional Modeling—reputed to be the biggest and best in Long Beach. Although I was starting to develop some curves by the time I walked through the door in my best dress, white gloves, and straw hat, I was as nervous as a bride. “You’re perfect!” cried a chubby, pink-faced man at the reception desk. “Come on in.” His name was Mr. Finney, and he would become my champion. His business partner was Mary Kaye, who was mean—meaner still if she’d had a few drinks—but she taught me so much.

  In a room lined with mirrors, I learned how to show off my full five-foot-eight-inch height. “Stand up! Don’t slouch!” Miss Kaye would bark. “The world is a stage, we are all stars, and we must shine!” She and Mr. Finney taught me to walk like a model by imagining a glass of water balanced on each shoulder. I learned how to enter a room “rubber-limbed and straight-backed.” In lessons twice a week for three months, they showed me how to sit, apply makeup, walk down stairs, and model clothes. I’d always thought of myself as skinny at 112 pounds but was instructed to lose 2 pounds, a message that was so drummed into me I’ve wanted to lose 2 pounds ever since. Having never tasted seafood before I moved to California, I was happy to live on a diet of shellfish. Once my silhouette was acceptable, Mr. Finney displayed an enormous photograph of me in the school’s window under the banner Model of the Month, which led to some modeling jobs in a few local stores. Eager for the experience, I worked without pay, showing anything from fur coats to lawn mowers.

  At one shop, called the Parisian, the owner’s wife was an enormous and unattractive woman who wore thick glasses. She’d choose a dress and ask me to try it on. “Here, put on my glasses so I can see what I’d look like in it,” she’d say, handing them to me and squinting at my reflection in a mirror at the back of the store. Even though I was her exact opposite in shape and height, and my dress was several sizes smaller than the one she’d need, seeing me in it somehow always persuaded her to take it. I learned a valuable lesson about the power of a model.

  Sashaying around in fancy clothes, I knew that modeling was what I’d been put on this earth to do. After all, everything else I’d tried—playing the piano, tap dancing, cooking, or taking exams—had achieved less-than-impressive results. But when Mr. Finney entered me in the Miss Long Beach beauty pageant and I only made it into the top three, I began to fear that modeling wasn’t for me after all. Undaunted, Mr. Finney persuaded me to enter the Belmont Shore Fiesta. Despite the fact that I was wearing a beautiful white strapless Calponi swimsuit, I was convinced that a curvaceous blonde with a sunshine smile named Betty Harris would win. To my great surprise, I was the one presented with the rhinestone crown, bouquet of roses, and set of Samsonite luggage. Photographers rushed forward to get their shots. This was my first-ever moment in the media spotlight, and it had a surreal quality that made me feel as if I was watching myself from afar.

  As the 1948 Queen of Belmont Shore, I wandered around the resort in my swimsuit and tiara for a week. By the second or third day, while I was waving at the crowd from the top of a fire engine, I noticed a tall, good-looking young man with wavy chestnut hai
r driving one of the cars in our parade. “Look, there’s that guy again,” I called to Betty, who’d been crowned my princess. “I think he’s after you.” I was wrong.

  His name was Robert “Bob” Harrison Oliver, and he was a twenty-year-old summer student at Long Beach College. A part-time singer and bartender at his parents’ restaurant, the Rose Room on Anaheim Street, he told me he’d wanted to meet me ever since he’d seen my photo in the paper. He seemed nice enough, so when he asked me out for dinner at the most romantic setting in town, a smart supper club on top of Signal Hill, I accepted. Over steaks, Bob told me he came from a large Italian family on his mother’s side called the Spanos. He loved to gamble and flew the family plane to Vegas on weekends to play blackjack, but his real passion was to sing. “People say I sound a bit like Frank Sinatra,” he told me. “We have the same kinda voice.”

  “I love Sinatra!” I told him. “I have all his 78s, and I never miss the Lucky Strike Hit Parade on Saturday nights.”

  Bob nodded. “A jazz pianist friend of mine named Nat King Cole was on that recently. Have you heard of him?” I loved the King Cole Trio and thought how much more interesting Bob’s life was than mine, but as he lit my cigarette I noticed that his hand was trembling. Just as I was about to exhale, he dropped to one knee. “Barbara, I adore you,” he declared suddenly, taking my hand in his. “Will you marry me?” As everyone stared at us, I laughed smoke in his face. Crestfallen, he said, “You don’t have to give me an answer tonight. I’ll wait. But I must have you. I’m so in love.” Then he sat back down to finish his meal.

  The next day, one of the judges of the Belmont Shore Fiesta approached me after another of my parades. His name was Les Pace, and he was the head of casting at Twentieth Century–Fox. “My wife, Helen, and I think you have a wonderful look. We’d like you to come in for a screen test.” My week couldn’t get any more surprising. Being invited for a screen test was like winning the lottery, but I decided not to tell anyone in case I jinxed it. I claimed the script, a three-minute segment from the movie Gilda starring Rita Hayworth, was a contract for the fiesta. Reading through the scene over and over in my bedroom, I was sorely unprepared.