Danny's Story
I guess if I were asked when the turning point of my life wasâor at least the initial oneâI'd have to say it was when I was sixteen and the Broadway producer, Evan Yellen, called me down from the dance auditions for the musical
Finian's Rainbow
. The show had a quartet of male dancers, but one got too near the footlights in a rehearsal, fell off the stage, and broke his leg. They needed a fourth on short notice, and I was auditioning for the spot.
I should have gotten the job, I think. I was the best dancer there. I had been well trained from the time I could walk. I think the only reason I didn't get it was because I was only sixteen at the timeâand because I didn't have a backer. My mother had gotten me a few spots, but not in anything like a Broadway musical. My mother was a dancer tooâa showgirl at New York's Tropicana Club, which featured Latin music. She wasn't Latin, but my father wasâa Cuban conga drummer who had been in high demand before the Tropicana Club opened and had helped my mother learn that music.
My father was dead when the Tropicana opened in 1945, but my mother was a good enough dancer to score a job thereâlargely, I think because of the club owners' respect for my father. He had been killed at the Anzio beach landing in Italy the year before the club opened.
Having been born in 1930, I was too young to go to World War II. I'm not sure my mother would have let me, in any event. She might have dressed me as a girl, as some mothers did to try to keep their sons from being taken in the army. I could have passed, I'm told, as I'm small and lithe, move like the dancer I am, and have sometimes been described more as pretty or beautiful than manly or handsome. I might have wanted to enlist, though, if I'd been old enough in time, because my mother was the classic stage mother, and there were times I would have liked to escape her clutches. But I was never given the opportunity to consider being anything but a dancer on stage.
When I hit sixteen, all of that changed. My mother was a war widow, and the soldiers who had survived were coming home. She was barely thirty-two, was favored with great bone structure, and used every trick in the book to look ten years younger. She was largely successful and landed a returning hard-bodied, sexually experienced soldier from a well-to-do, if not knock-down rich, New York family, who saw her on stage at the Tropicana and pursued her. The problemâbeyond the man being possessive and short tempered as a result of having grown up quickly in the midst of fightingâwas that he was the age my mother looked likeâtwenty-three. He wasn't about to be seen with a sixteen-year-old stepson. So I had to go.
My mother, who couldn't pass up the opportunity to land a hard-bodied, sexually experienced, well-to-do man nine years her junior this close to when she'd be too old to be limber enough to do the Salsa, turned on a dime. She went from stage mother to waving-good-bye mother in the time it took her to maneuver Manny down the aisle. I, of course, hadn't been invited to see that happen.
It's not that my mother entirely abandoned me; it's mostly that she wore dark glasses and kept her eyes darting around to check for watchers whenever we met at a cafĂŠ in secret. And, of course, she didn't tell Manny she still was in touch with me. She did what she could for me, though, with suggestions and references, as she could, and some cash here and there to help me with my rooming house bill. Unfortunately, she didn't know anyone high enough in the casting world to help me get a good Broadway musical gig.
It wasn't that unusual for guys my age to be out on their own and working in that era. So many young men had been killed in the war that there was a demand for workers, even if they were a bit young, and the theater world had long been open to younger actors, dancers, and stagehands. These young men just needed a little support to be able to hack it financially.
That's where Evan Yellen came in.
I had done my audition and was standing in the line of others who had done soâthey made us watch the auditions of our competition, which is why I was sure I was the best dancer that day. One of the stage hands came to me in line and whispered that Mr. Yellen wanted to see me down in the theater seats. He said the name reverently, which helped me decide to follow himâthat and, not knowing who Mr. Yellen was, I thought maybe he was the casting director.
Mr. Yellen turned out to be a tall, well-built man in his fifties. Very elegant looking as far as my peasant eyes could see and well dressed. What I remember most from that first meeting were his handsâhis long, expressive fingers. The biggest reason I remember them is that he was a toucher, and I felt his hands on me as we talked. Not anywhere intimate, but really friendly regardless.
"I saw you dance up there," he said when I reached him. He was standing in the aisle at the edge of where the lights from the stage extended into the auditorium. The audience area was in the dark. This was an audition. Only the stage needed to be litâand the first couple of rows, where the casting people sat. He wasn't sitting there, or paying attention to the guy dancing now, so I concluded that he couldn't help me get the spot.
"You are very good. The best I've seen up there today."
"Thank you," I said. I was waiting for him to tell me who the hell he was and how much clout he had around here, but I guessed he must be important, because he seemed to expect me to know who he was.
"You won't get the part, though, you know?"
Like I hadn't gotten all of the other Broadway musical parts I'd auditioned for, I thought. Of course not. But I can't stop trying. "Why not, If I'm the best dancer up there?"
"For starters, how old are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?"
"I'm sixteen," I responded. I caught myself but too late. If he'd guessed sixteen, I would have told him eighteen.
"Still too young. The pity is that I see that you're ready, that the two extra years won't make you much better, because there's not much better you need to get."
"Thank you," I answered. But how does that help me, I wondered. Still, the compliment was nice. I was a little worried that he had his hand on my forearm, though. So far, I'd been pretty good at side-stepping the passes men were making at me. It was a real predatory jungle here in the New York theater district.
"Broadway is a dangerous place for young men under eighteen who look as good as you," he said.
I did a double take. Had he read my mind just now?
"Producers don't want any more trouble to avoid on the age issue then necessary, so they just avoid it. You might not get good dancing spots on Broadway until you're eighteen. Maybe you don't want to hold out that long. Also, you won't get this spot because it's already taken."
"Already taken? Then whyâ?"
"They're just being careful, going through the motions, for appearances. For the unions and such. The dancer who will get the job is the third young man from the left in the line up there. He's twenty-one, which erases the age headache, and he's been fucked by the producer of
Finian's Rainbow
. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I disturb you with my bluntness or crass language?"
"No, sir. I know what being fucked means," I said through clinched teeth. And I knew what being fucked meant. This wasn't the first time I'd lost a spot to an inferior dancer who was being fucked by someone important. I was used to being fucked in another way by that. "But you said that I might not get good dancing spots on Broadway until I was eighteen, not that I could never hope too."
"It would be possible that you could get to the Broadway musical stage soonerâif you had a patron."
He still had a hand on my forearm, but now he had his other arm around my shoulder too. I was beginning to get the drift here. He wanted to fuck me. I'd fended this off already a couple of times, but I was getting tired of waiting until there'd be no complications. I didn't mind the getting fucked part, I didn't think. I had known I was gay for several years. And I knew that I was attracted to strong men who would work me. I just hadn't done it yet. I'd developed no interest in topping other men. But everyone I talked to told me to hold out until I was eighteen. Otherwise it could get very messy.
"You think that guy third from the left is going to get the spotâbecause the producer is fucking him?"
