Goddess of Love Incarnate. Leslie Zemeckis

was, despite being unattractive with a glass eye, “dapper, slim,” and a man who spoke in slogans with a British accent, having been born in London. One of his catchphrases was “Never get a suntan that leaves lines.”¹⁵⁸

      Lili would take it to heart. Another was never get fat and to always do your best even if it was just a rehearsal.¹⁵⁹

      Walters had caught the show along with talent agent Miles Ingalls, who booked burlesque comedians and dancers. He maintained offices in the Astor Hotel in New York.

      Lili found out the high-powered duo were staying at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.

      Lili grabbed some of the publicity photos she had recently shot with John Reed, the big photographer on Hollywood Boulevard with the gigantic picture of Dietrich hanging in the window. She wrote a note on the pictures and stuck them in an envelope.

      Lili made her way to the Roosevelt, a twelve-story Spanish-style hotel financed partially by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, which stood across the street from the massive Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The hotel had opened in the twenties and was frequented by a slew of movie stars. It was the epitome of glamour.

      Inside the beautiful lobby were big potted palms; the walls were painted a muted yellow. At the front desk she told the receptionist she had a package to deliver to Mr. Ingalls. The receptionist told her the room. Lili sprinted toward the staircase. She was claustrophobic and avoided elevators when she could.

      She slid her envelope under the agent’s door.

      The next day the phone rang. It was Ingalls looking for Marie Van Schaack.

      He would have remembered Lili from the lineup and the club’s brochure. He asked her if she wanted to dance in the Latin Quarter in Miami. He had already showed the owner—Walters—her picture and he offered to book her.

      Of course Lili agreed. Miles told her it would be a while before she would start and in the meantime she should get all the experience she could.

      Lili told her husband she was quitting the Florentine, moving out, and divorcing him. She wanted to “be discreet” in the way she left both her “elegant husband” and the Florentine, which she considered “her second home.”¹⁶⁰ She would tell no one about Miles Ingalls.

      Was Dick surprised? When Lili turned off to someone it was obvious and uncomfortable. Maybe he thought his wife sheltered, too immature, a pretty young girl looking for a bigger fish that could make her career. All things that were true. Hubert didn’t fight her decision and that was the end of marriage number two.

      Lili made a clean break. She headed for the cool air of San Francisco.

       Lili at the Florentine—easy to see what Miles Ingalls saw

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

       1987

      The Whittier earthquake had shaken the ground in October. Unsettling to have the terra firma not so firm under one’s feet. She was alone with her thoughts. The fact the holidays were approaching didn’t help. Her mind was filled with memory. The Duncan Sisters. The Music Box. A gorgeous club. The most beautiful one she had ever worked.

      Writing to fans kept her thoughts in the past. Visions of faces she hadn’t seen or thought of in ages. It was a different world.¹⁶¹ Oh, how her world was different now.

      She had been uprooted in December, the landlord kicking everyone out to tent the building. So inconvenient to move out, holing up in a hotel with Lorenzo, having to vacate every day to let someone clean. Scoring difficult.

      She was glad to be back home. Lorenzo was in the bedroom with his memories while she watched the smoke from her incense pirouette toward the beams above her head. Wasting time.

      She wrote a fan, apologizing for being out of touch. The lined yellow pad she used to keep track of her money showed a small amount from Armando.

      Armando, tall and elegant like Dick, husband number two. Was Armando still handsome? Above her head the sound of feet shuffling, chairs scraping. The lack of privacy pricked at her.

      The bustle of the Florentine Gardens, the smell of perfume and flowers and smoke. Days when she had been young and eager. Those big headpieces. She’d been a giant onstage. So much laughter backstage with Barbara and the other girls. Parading across the stage, pasties on. Oh, how they hurt if the glue was on too thick.

      Picking up an old photo she saw what Dardy marveled at, her “pigeon breast.”¹⁶² A jutting chest and a narrow waist. So slim. Once. Long ago. Now she was bloated. Stiff. And depressed. She stuffed a couple of extra photos from Santa for her friend in Maryland. It’s so beautiful there this time of year.

      To another she started the letter as she always did: Thanks so much for getting in touch—it’s nice to be remembered . . .

      Was she remembered now? As what? Dancer. Arrests. Slut. Too many men. Never enough of that for her. Lovers slipped through her fingers like jewels. The eyes she had gazed into.

      Need roared over her. Anxiety pinged. Time was warped inside her brain. Were her pupils horribly retracted? “Pinned” they called it. Tiny black dots in the middle of her fading blue orbs that saw so little. Her throat was sore, as it often was as the drug wore off.

      From Lorenzo she would need relief. The weather had turned cool, bringing rain. She longed for a fireplace; she wrote a fan. She must have meant a working one because there was a fireplace in her front room. But she had always liked the sympathy of others.

      It wasn’t like before when she could wrap herself in fur in front of a fireplace on Canyon Drive and listen to the crackle of a roaring fire.

      SHE HAD DISCARDED PEOPLE EASILY. FAMILY. HUSBANDS. NOW SHE WAS saddled with Lorenzo for as long as he, or she, remained alive. There are strange turns in this road of life.

      Independence and privacy is not all that bad! was her motto, a joke now. She had neither.

      Her obligation was Lorenzo. She had to make sure the rent, the gas, and phone bills were paid. He just had to keep them supplied with juice, drugs, escape.

      The past.

      Impossible for people to understand her gowns onstage had been by the best designers in her day. “As a schoolgirl I wanted to become a designer. Ironic that I should become a strip tease queen with a career taking off my clothes.”¹⁶³ Now she—the queen—was dressed simply. She hated that term “burlesque queen.” Some “queen.” In need of a carriage. Her neighbor still drove her to get groceries, the odd errand. Foolish young man had tried to flirt with her—actually flirt with her—she’d been courted by the best bullshitters, Paul, Ted, Jimmy even. What did this young kid think? Her head would be turned by his smooth lines? “No, I never really danced much,” she had told him.

      She had a package of bills she needed to get to Dardy to pay. Good old reliable Teedle Dee.

      A phone call from a fan. A welcome respite in her day. This one usually called late afternoon or early evening. To check in on her. She asked him about the “dot coms” that were mentioned on TV. Interesting. She told him she thought the advertising aspect of it brilliant.

      There were marvels still to discover. She heard about bifocal contact lenses. And Apple computers? Imagine. She didn’t understand how—essentially—a TV had information in it and spewed it out. In just a year she would learn about the new wonder drug Prozac.

      Yes, she could still marvel at things. She liked learning things. She had a long conversation with Pat until “the light bulb . . . is getting hot,” so it was time to hang up.

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      It cost 25 cents to cross the Bay Bridge