One day the great man who starred in the show, the fabulous Jolson, tiffed with Jinx Falkenberg, then a featured show gal in the production, since then a film starlet and "breakfast broadcaster."
Jinx had often gone out with Al after his break-up with Ruby Keeler.
Jolson turned away, suddenly noticed the 18-year-old child who had been dancing, unseen by him, in his own chorus.
He took the gal to dinner, flattered her beyond anything she had heard in West Virginia or from youthful New Yorkers.
For, though she gave the air to all the boys, much to their anguish and unflattering cracks about the age of her new friend, she resisted Jolson's importuning to marry her.
Yet she was seen with him nightly, shared his favorite corner table at the Stork Club after every show, took him home to meet her family, did not deny published reports that this was the real thing.
The wise Willies said, "See what happens when an old guy with fame and dough comes along? He gets the rail post." So they thought.
They didn't even know about a good-looking young fellow who sang with a band.
Joanne met him in a night club, dated him one night when Jolson was busy elsewhere. He began to take up more and more of her time. Then she married him. It was at about the time he began to click on the radio. He did okay. He is now a top Hollywood star. His name is Dick Haymes. And Joanne is now Joan Dru, married to her second husband, actor John Ireland.
Earlier in this chapter, we implied that models are dumb. Most of them are. But one who was no dope was a blue-eyed rusty-mop who graduated from the local high school in Canton, N.C., at 13. Dumb, did we say? High school is correct. She finished it at 13.
The next year, she matriculated at the University of Wisconsin, its youngest student. She majored in archeology--bone-dry digging up of things long dead. She got her degree in three years, at 17.
Luckily, all her spadework couldn't retard her physical development. She had curves and dimples wherever bewitching beauts at 17 can grow curves and dimples.
Carefully packing her sheepskin in mothballs, Marianne, the tomb-expert, set out to rummage around in the living world. She found it strangely clammy to specialists on mummies.