"I had a pretty lonely life, actually. Up until about 30 years ago," the 80-something film queen confessed, seated on the stage, being interviewed. Her legs demurely crossed, the same legs which had made her one of the preeminent musical stars of her era. The legs were shapely and elegant, somehow defying the passage of time.
The pompous blowhard Robert Osborne (he of the TCM marathons) chimes in: "And a big reason for that, for you're not being lonely...is... in the audience tonight! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Dick Moore, little Dickie Moore, who was one of the Little Rascals and played Dietrich's son in Blonde Venus."
"He's still a Little Rascal," Jane said, under the applause.
I almost fainted at this point in the evening. An old man in the back of the theatre waved his hand to his beloved wife onstage. Often I'd watched Blonde Venus and wondered what happened to this little boy? To be sitting in the same theatre with him was some stunning only-in-New-York, heart-pulsating moment.
Jane spoke about how lonely it was growing up, beholden to MGM. She always felt invisible, despite being famous. "I didn't think anybody knew who I was because I didn't know who I was," she explains philosophically, from a clarity of great distance.
One day Clark Gable walked up behind her and clapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey, Janie, ol' gal. How're ya doing?" And she, flabbergasted, couldn't recall his name, floored that anyone knew her name, let alone an icon like Gable.
"It's like it was happening to somebody else," she said. When she wrote to her friends back home, she never told them who she'd met because she didn't want to seem stuck up.
The occasion at the Lincoln Center was a screening of Two Weeks With Love (1950) a film also starring Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban. Jane selected the film for the night's screening, it being her favorite film that she starred it.
It's easy to see why she likes it. A kind of Walter Mitty-fantasy on the hilarious, hopeful neurosis of a lovesick teenage girl. A girl who longs to seduce the hunky Mr. Montalban. It's vivid color palette is striking. A scene in which her young brothers set off a fireworks calvacade within a hotel is notable for combining animation and live-action scenery, circa 1950-style.
It's a delightfully charming movie, one that seems it should be regarded more as a popular classic than it actually is. A family film, but with heart, wit, intelligence and a minimum of sappiness. It recalls Meet Me in St. Louis, in that it's gently nostalgic for a more innocent era but doesn't condescend to it's audience.
They played a clip of Jane dancing with Fred Astaire prior to her speaking at the evening's screening. She explained she rehearsed the dance with a stand-in and only did the routine once with Astaire, while the cameras were rolling.
It's astonishing her longevity. That anyone who lived through this golden glorious age of cinema is still vitally present to tell stories about it. She explained that MGM only allowed it's performers to be musical comedy types, or straight-dramatic types. They didn't permit crossovers.
The pompous blowhard Robert Osborne in the midst of interviewing Jane, bellowed out an introduction, "And ladies and gentlemen, another MGM girl is in the audience tonight, Marge Champion!" A cantankerous old lady in the row behind me temporarily put on a wide smiley face, rose precipitously from her comfy chair and blew air kisses at Jane, and they waved.
I googled Marge Champion later that night. Such a joy to discover forgotten goddesses! She, too, was something amazing in her day!
