Her destination:
Tangential Tidbit: Obviously, my aunt changed her surname to Kennedy long before Jack's ascent to the presidency. Oddly, years later Trudy's school girl crush on President Kennedy led her to wrangle tickets for herself and Ruth/Karla to his inauguration. I have the home movies to prove it. They screamed and cried throughout the entire ceremony like it was a Beatles concert. 21 years later, I wore Trudy's kelly green taffeta inaugural ball gown to my senior prom.
And speaking of Trudy: In 1952, eight years after Ruth changed her name to Karla, my mother named her first born child Karla. When I asked her if she named my sister after my aunt, she looked puzzled and shook her head. I've never asked my aunt about it.
But back to 1944: Upon arriving in
The reason Karla chose to work at
Because it was war time and housing for soldiers was scarce, there was a four day limit to hotel stays. So, Karla needed to find another place to live, quickly. (What she later found out was that girls, "in the know," just went down to the front desk and re-registered under a different name every four days.) She ended up moving around the corner to a boarding house on
Throughout the 40’s and 50’s, Karla sang in
But Karla never made it as an entertainer. Mostly when she hobnobbed with celebrities, it was while serving them drinks at The Crescendo, a night club on the Sunset Strip. She didn't appear to be sad or bitter about it. As far as I could tell, she was happy with her life and loved to gossip about the stars she waited on. For instance, she told me, “Eva Gardner was a sad drunk but that’s because Frank Sinatra was mean to her and forced her to have an abortion.” How you glean that kind of information while serving them highballs is beyond me. Also, she loved Lenny Bruce who was very nice, hysterically funny and once gave her a fountain pen. She blames, “that stripper,” for getting him on, “the drugs.”
After growing up hearing so many exciting stories, it never occurred to me that my aunt was unhappy. Until I saw the inside of her condo a few months ago. Before then, there was only one indication that perhaps Karla's life hadn't turned out the way she had hoped. I've never heard her sing.
3 comments:
This is a really fascinating read. I love it.
i love karla.
I can't wait to read more about Trudy and "Karla." I'm loving this blog.
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