I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [76]
One morning, the car didn’t show, and I never saw him again.
Morgan was intrigued. “Let’s go up and find the house.” We drove up the hill, winding and winding, until we came upon a plateau at the top, with the most incredible view overlooking Hollywood, and crowned with a solitary house. There was no sedan in the driveway, but I insisted, “This must be it—it’s supposed to be the last house on the top of the hill.” “Holy shit!” Morgan said. “I know this house! You’ve been picked up by Rock Hudson and never knew it!”
In the plot, the seven brothers, all redheads, had been christened by their father at birth with biblical names—in alphabetical order. The firstborn, Adam, was played by Howard Keel, already a star, and magnificent. Howard was giant in stature, bighearted, big-voiced, a big man with big talent. He met his match in energy, talent, and charm, if not in height, with his costar, the adorable Jane Powell. The number two brother, Benjamin, was acted by Jeff Richards, a handsome, laconic actor. Gossip reported he had been a star baseball player before Thespis touched him. Then came number three—Caleb—Matt Mattox, the best dancer of us all. He was a disciple of Jack Cole, the genius who revolutionized Broadway dance. Jerome Robbins, Michael Bennett, and especially Bob Fosse were deeply influenced by Jack’s innovations in dance vocabulary and choreography. Matt Mattox was among the greatest male dancers I have ever seen. We became friends for life. Daniel and Ephraim—brothers four and five, Marc Platt and I—were always paired together, and worked as a team. And next to last, the F in the alphabet, Frankincense, was Tommy Rall. A major talent, he was destined to win a Tony on Broadway for Milk and Honey, and star (as an opera singer) in the title role of Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame in Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston. Last of the seven was Gideon, boyish Russ Tamblyn. Within a few years, his star would light up the movie West Side Story. Curiously, the title, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, gives equal billing to the brides, but the movie was truly about the brothers. We kidnapped the women and, after sundry adventures, won them over as our brides. Michael paired me with Virginia Gibson (her original name had been Gorsky). She was fresh like a spring flower, a freckle-faced American beauty, with class. I lucked out.
Work generally finished around five o’clock, and Marc would drop me off in Hollywood. There, I would wander around, maybe catch a flick, and haunt the sex shops on Hollywood Boulevard. Compared to today, they were antiseptic, even prim. Usually, I’d pig out at Musso & Frank, where marvelously blasé, worldly, old-time waiters reigned as kings over their sections of tables. Filmmaking was old hat to Marc; in the past, he had starred with Rita Hayworth and Janet Blair in several movies, and he constantly griped to me that playing one of seven brothers was a comedown. Marc had changed his name several times. In his Ballet Russe days, he was known as Platoff, because that surname sounded more Russian. Name changing was a virus. I knew Jerome Robbins had been born Rabinowitz; Nora Kaye, Koreff; and even our choreographer, Michael Kidd, had originally been named Michael Greenwald. But who was I to talk? The Boss had morphed me from Joseph Jacques Ahearn to Jacques Joseph d’Amboise.
For a while, one of the brides, Julie Newmar,10 replaced the vanished Rock Hudson as my a.m. chauffeur. We’d make a date at the taxi stand, she’d pick me up at five a.m. and zoom off, driving erratically and fast. She’d say, “Don’t talk to me, I’m not awake yet,” open