“I’ll have an orchestration made. Come back and see me tomorrow.”
The following night, when I returned to the Drake Hotel, I heard my song being played by Horace Heidt and his orchestra, and it sounded even better than Phil Levant’s arrangement. I sat down and waited until Heidt was free. He came over to the table where I was seated.
“Did you talk to Mr. Brent?” I asked.
“Yes. We’re making a deal.”
I smiled. My first song was going to be published.
The next evening, Brent came to see me at the Bismarck checkroom.
“Is everything set?” I asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“But—”
“Heidt is asking for a five-thousand-dollar advance, and we never give that much on a new song.”
I was stunned. When I finished work, I drove back to the Drake Hotel to see Horace Heidt again.
“Mr. Heidt, I don’t care about the advance,” I told him. “I just want to get my first song published.”
“We’re going to get it published,” he assured me. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to publish it myself. I’m leaving for New York next week. The song will get a lot of airtime.”
Besides his nightly broadcast, Horace Heidt hosted a popular weekly show called Horace Heidt and His Alemite Brigadiers.
“My Silent Self” would be broadcast from New York, and be heard often all over the country.
During the next few weeks, I managed to listen to Horace’s broadcasts, and he was right. “My Silent Self” did get a lot of airtime, both on his nightly broadcasts, and on the Alemite program. He used my song, but he never had it published.
I was not discouraged. If I could write one song that a major publisher wanted, I could write a dozen. And that is exactly what I did. I spent all my spare time at the piano, composing songs. I felt that twelve songs would be a good number to mail to New York. I could not afford to go to New York in person because I needed to keep my jobs, to help the family.
Natalie would listen to my songs and be beside herself with excitement.
“Darling, they’re better than Irving Berlin’s. Much better. When are you going to take them to New York?”
I shook my head. “Natalie, I can’t go to New York. I have three jobs here. If I—”
“You have to go,” she said firmly. “They’re not even going to listen to songs that come in the mail. You have to go, personally.”
“We can’t afford it,” I said. “If—”
“Darling, this is your big chance. You can’t afford not to take it.”
I had no idea that she was living vicariously through me.
We had a family discussion that night. Otto finally reluctantly agreed that I should go to New York. I would get a job there until my songs started selling.
We decided I would leave the following Saturday.
Natalie’s parting gift was a ticket to New York on a Greyhound bus.
As Richard and I lay in our beds that night, he said to me, “Are you really going to be as big a songwriter as Irving Berlin?”
And I told him the truth. “Yes.”
With all the money that would be pouring in, Natalie would never have to work again.
CHAPTER 7
I had never been inside a bus depot before my trip to New York in 1936. The Greyhound bus station had an air of excitement, with people going to and coming from cities all over the country. My bus seemed huge, with a washroom and comfortable seats. It was a four-and-a-half-day trip to New York. The long ride would have been tedious, but I was too busy dreaming about my fantastic future to mind.
When we pulled into the bus station in New York, I had thirty dollars in my pocket—money that I was sure Natalie and Otto could not spare.
I had telephoned ahead to the YMCA to reserve a room. It turned out to be small and drab, but it was only four dollars a week. Even so, I knew that the thirty dollars was not going to last very long.
I asked to see the manager of the YMCA.
“I need a job,” I told him, “and I need it right away. Do you know anyone who—?”
“We have an employment service for our guests,” he informed me.
“Great. Is there anything available now?”
He reached for a sheet of paper behind the desk and scanned it. “There’s an opening for an usher at the RKO Jefferson Theatre on Fourteenth Street. Are you interested?”
Interested? At that moment my sole ambition in life was to be an usher at the RKO Jefferson on Fourteenth Street. “That’s just what I was looking for!” I told him.
The manager wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Take this to the theater in the morning.”
I had been in New York for less than one day and I already had a job. I phoned Natalie and Otto to tell them the news.
“That’s a good omen,” Natalie said. “You’re going to be a big success.”
I spent the first afternoon and evening exploring New York. It was a magical place, a bustling city that made Chicago seem provincial and drab. Everything was larger—the buildings, the marquees, the streets, the signs, the traffic, the crowds. My career.
The RKO Jefferson Theatre on Fourteenth Street, once a vaudeville house, was an old, two-story structure with a cashier’s booth in front. It was part of a chain of RKO theaters. Double features were common—patrons could see two movies back-to-back for the price of one.
I walked thirty-nine blocks from the YMCA to the theater and handed the note I had been given to the theater manager.
He looked me over and said, “Have you ever ushered before?”