I Used to be a Dancer

I used to be a dancer. Did you know that? I got it from my father. He loved to be on stage, too. Never got him anywhere, and I guess at the end of the day, I was as big a fool as he was.

Show business... ha! Even when I hear that music today, that “da da na na, da daaa,” Oh, I wanna scream! It just drives me crazy. But he used to sing, and he used to dance. He loved all that. Loved to be on stage. Him and his friend Terry used to get into all the vaudeville shows. What’s that? Oh, you know, over there in Union City, Jersey City, Hoboken… all over. They’d pay you nothing. Peanuts, maybe a few drinks or a couple dollars if you were lucky, and you go jump around on stage, make a fool of yourself. Him and Terry used to do it all the time. Terry ended up going to War II, but this was 1913. Cost people ten cents to see the show. Ten cents! Fifteen if you wanted to get up close. He quit all that when he met my mother. She wasn’t putting up with none of it. No way. She said, “If you’re gonna marry me, you have to go get a real job.” And he did. He gave that all up when he got married.

Well, sort of. He never lost his love of the stage. The next job he got was as an ice shaver, selling ice in the streets and in the bars. And of course, once he got into the bars, he couldn’t resist doing a little song or a dance or something. “Hey, we’re having a drink here, why don’t you sing us a song or something?” And he did. He loved it. Huh? Yeah, he did have a good voice, yes. He got up there and sang, you know, maybe for a beer or something. Pretty soon, he got this little magic show going in the bars, too, and that’s when he got me in on the act. I was still young. What’s that? Oh, I don’t know, maybe 12, 13 years old. I memorized all these little phrases he had, and he’d go up to someone and say, “Did you know my daughter is a fortune teller?” And then they’d go to a telephone and call me at home. “Hey Peggy!” he’d say. Oh, and my mother hated this. She couldn’t stand it! But he’d say, “Peg, what color is this young lady’s shirt that I’m touching now.” And I’d go look up the little code of phrases he taught me, and I’d say, “Uh, uh, yellow!” And they’d love it! “Hurray, hurray!” Clapping like mad. I loved it, too, and all I was doing was looking up the phrases. That’s how we used to do it. But oh! It drove my mother crazy. She used to hate it, hate it, hate it.

Before you knew it, I got the same bug. My father, pff... he got stuck in the bars. But me? I loved to get up there on stage and sing and dance, and the people start clapping… it was like nothing else. Nothing in the world like it. But you got to really love it to do that, you know? You got to love it. Every single time I’d see there was a casting call for something, they needed an actress or a singer or whathaveyou. Boom! I was there, first in line. I was in there in a flash. And I’d get up there and sing and dance… oh god, I was crazy for it.

And just to show you how ignorant we were back then: Me and my sister Louise heard that some famous director or star or something from Hollywood was going to be in town one time. So we thought, “Oh, this is it! This is gonna be our big break!” And so we just opened the window of our little apartment on 7th Street and started singing. Opened the windows to West New York and just went at it. “La, la la, la laaa!” Singing our little hearts out like idiots, hoping maybe this guy would be passing by and, “oh, oh, where is that beautiful music coming from? What, what am I hearing?” Meanwhile my mother’s banging on the door going, “Will you two please shut up in there?!” Ha, ha, ha…

Every single casting call I saw, I was the first one there. I got a couple roles here and there, nothing big though. I’d come on stage and bring the lead actors a cup of water, then walk off. Ha. The biggest role I got was in the Passion Play at St. Andrew’s. I played Herod’s Lady of the Veils. I had to do a little dance… Nothing obscene, mind you! No, no.

The little success I had in show business (and it was a very, very small amount) I can tell you this—I made it all happen for myself. I made it happen by myself, with no help from anyone. I did it alone and I made it work, no matter what anyone else tells you.

You kids--you have a very enriched life, do you know that? You’re lucky you had a chance to go to college and get bachelor degrees and masters’ degrees and doctorates and all that. When I was growing up, I didn’t get that much of a formal education. Not much of an education at all. I never had a chance to go to college. Too busy raising a gang of rowdy kids... But I wouldn’t trade it for the world, you hear me? Not for the world. Because you all ended up so wonderful and successful and smart and beautiful. Every single one of ya. Ah, ya too much…