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.
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 Theater 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 Theater 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?’
‘No, sir.’
He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. Can you walk?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you know how to turn on a flashlight?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then you can usher. Your salary is $14.40 a week. You’ll work six days. Your hours are from four-twenty to midnight.’
‘That’s fine.’ It meant that I was free to have the whole morning and part of the afternoon to spend at the Brill Building, where the headquarters of the music business was.
‘Go into the staff changing room and see if you can find a uniform that fits you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I tried on an usher’s uniform and the manager looked at me and said, ‘That’s fine. Be sure to keep an eye on the balcony.’
‘The balcony?’
‘You’ll see. You’ll start tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sir.’ And tomorrow I will begin my career as a songwriter.
The famous Brill Building was the holy of holies in the music business. Located at 1619 Broadway, at Forty-ninth Street, it was the center of Tin Pan Alley, where every important music publisher in the world was headquartered.
As I entered the building and wandered through the corridors, I heard the strains of ‘A Fine Romance,’ ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin,’ ‘Pennies from Heaven’…The names on the doors made my heart pound: Jerome Remick, Robbins Music Corporation, M. Witmark & Sons, Shapiro Bernstein & Company, and TB Harms—all the giants of the music industry. This was the fountainhead of musical talent. Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern…They had all started here.
I walked into the TB Harms office and nodded to the man behind the desk. ‘Good morning. I’m Sidney Schech—Sheldon.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I wrote ‘‘My Silent Self.’’ You people were interested in publishing it.’
A look of recognition came over his face. ‘Oh, yes, we were.’
Were? ‘Aren’t you still?’
‘Well, it’s been on the air too much. Horace Heidt has been playing it a lot. Do you have anything new?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I do. I can come back with some songs tomorrow morning, Mister…?’
‘Tasker.’
At four-twenty that afternoon I was in my usher’s uniform, escorting people down the aisle to their seats. The manager had been right. This was a job that anyone could do. The only thing that kept it from being boring was the movies that were playing. When things were slow, I could sit at the back of the theater and watch them.
The first double bill I saw there was A Day at the Races with the Marx Brothers, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The coming attractions were A Star is Born, with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and Dodsworth with Walter Huston.
At midnight, when my shift was over, I went back to my hotel. The room no longer looked small and dreary. I knew it was going to turn into a palace. In the morning I would take my songs to TB Harms, and the only question was which ones they would publish first—‘The Ghost of My Love,’ ‘I Will If I Want To,’ ‘A Handful of Stars,’ ‘When Love Has Gone’…
At eight-thirty the following morning I was standing in front of the TB Harms Publishing Company, waiting for the doors to open. At nine o’clock Mr. Tasker arrived.
He saw the large envelope in my hand. ‘I