We lived high off the hog on
Fifth Avenue, which was not, of course, Fifth Avenue, New York. It was just a
nice middle-class neighborhood. Most of the richer families were building on
the opposite mountainside. Helena is a spacious city, climbing up Mount
Ascension and Mount Helena from Last Chance Gulch, so we had wonderful, steep
streets. When it snowed, you could slide past Judge Cooper's house all the way
to the railroad station in the valley part of town. The Coopers lived just
below us in a fairly elegant house with an iron fence around it. My parents
knew them, but I didn't see much of their son Gary, who was four years older
and spent some time at school in England. Later, in Hollywood, we used to laugh
about living on the wrong side of town, but, curiously, we seldom talked about
our Helena days. That didn't keep him from talking to others about them.
According to Edith Goetz, Louis B. Mayer's daughter, Gary would cheerfully
describe me "belly bustin' hell-bent for election" down the street
past his house.
?
Gary Cooper confided she had
bright red hair in braids, great big freckles, and a turned-up nose, revealed
Myrna's erstwhile co-star, William Powell, after the three converged in
Hollywood. She wasn't what a boy might call beautiful, but there was something
about her that got to him. He was shy and she was shy, and the most pleasure he
got out of the romance was leaning on the Williamses' picket fence listening to
Myrna play "The Wedding of the Winds."
?
The only time he ever spoke to
her in those Helena days was one afternoon when he went to the Williamses'
house on an errand for his mother. Mrs. Williams, the soul of Montana
hospitality, sent Myrna down to the cellar for a glass of apple jelly. Now, back
of the furnace down there was a dark hole that had become a phobia with Myrna.
She went down the steps bravely enough, carefully made her way to the jelly
shelf, but visions horrible and dank rose from the black hole.
"Yo-oo-oow!" shrieked Myrna, falling up the cellar steps, bruising
her knees and tearing her stockings.
?
"You," remarked Master
Cooper, "are a sissy," probably the only ungallant thing Gary Cooper
ever said to a lady. Certainly there have been no complaints since. Myrna,
completely mortified, chose to forget the entire episode, including Judge
Cooper's little boy, as quickly as possible. They met eventually in Hollywood,
but by that time Gary had his hands full with the temperamental Lupe Velez, and
Myrna was already far gone into the bizarre. Nothing ever came of the
Loy-Cooper romance.
?
My first beau was another
neighbor - John G. Brown, Jr. Actually, he wasn't really my beau. I had a
terrible crush on him, but he had no time for me. He would let my girlfriend
Ruth Rae ride on the back of his tricycle, while I lust trailed along, very
disturbed by the whole thing. On Saturday afternoons, Ruth would ask me to call
him up for her, and I like a fool would do it. This went on and on, but he
never paid any attention to me at all.
?
Years later, when I started at
Warner Brothers, who should send me my first fan letter? Johnny Brown! I had
played only a few parts, probably the Orientals, but he wanted pictures of me
for his room at college. He claimed the whole college wanted to know about me.
Well, I thought, this is my revenge for all those years he ignored me.
?
James Kotsilibas-Davis (Myrna Loy
¨C Being & Becoming) 1987
