Myrna Loy by Emily W. Leider Read Free Book Online

According to Della, “That inspired Myrna.” 11
    All this California fun ended abruptly when David senior issued another edict for their return to Helena. Della complied, but once they were reinstalled in the family home, Myrna keenly sensed the friction in her parents’ marriage. Her mother was certain she no longer wished to live full time in Montana. She wasn’t saying she wanted to break up the family, only that she should cast the deciding vote on where they should pitch their tent. California, still smogless and without freeways, offered a healthier life for one and all, she insisted; the family should follow the sun. As he had before, David stood his ground. Now working for the Banking Corporation of Montana and serving as a member of the board, he was the breadwinner, the head of the household, and the son of pioneer Montana ranchers, whose tradition he honored. With the outbreak of war in Europe came a business boom that benefited the entire state. Prices were high for farmland; now was no time to leave. His roots were in Montana; his brothers and sisters all lived nearby, so in Helena they would remain.
    By this time Myrna had developed a decided attachment to Southern California. But one of the compensations of being back in Helena was that now, at age twelve, she could begin taking Saturday morning ballet classes with Miss Alice Thompson. Grandmother Johnson further stimulated her love of dance by taking her to see a performance of Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird . Myrna was moved to choreograph her own version of a “Blue Bird” dance and was invited to perform it in a talent show following the annual banquet of her father’s lodge, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The talent show took place on the stage of Helena’s spanking new Marlow Theater. Looking every inch the princess she had long yearned to become, she leaped across the stage in a pale blue silk dress decked with blue ribbon bows. “Miss Williams, who is much admired for her grace and beauty, has received many compliments,” reported the Helena Record-Herald . Her tomboy days had ended. 12
    Myrna’s triumphant dance, witnessed by many Helena friends and relations, marks a turning point, a decisive step toward a future of creativity and performing. But as she took her bows at the Elks show, two notable absences tempered Myrna’s joy. Her beloved maternal grandmother, Isabella Johnson, had recently died of cancer, at age seventy-four. And Myrna’s idolized father, David, chose to be out of town on a business trip on the night Myrna was to perform for his lodge. David had agreed to fund Myrna’s dancing lessons, Della recalled, because “he recognized that aesthetic dancing embodies the finest ideals of art and music.” But he could not comprehend how a daughter of his could possibly want to cavort in public. Della reminded him that Myrna had two parents and that she, Della, happened to be one of them. She tried to convince him that there was nothing shameful about being an “artistic” dancer, but he insisted, “No daughter of mine is going to be a chorus girl.” According to Della, “he fancied all professional dancers were . . . of questionable morals.” David’s disapproval stung all the more because, after Grandmother Isabella’s passing, Myrna and he had been spending more time together, becoming even closer than they’d been before. 13
    Despite her father’s opposition, Myrna held fast to her ambition to become a dancer but tried not to provoke. She disliked talking about her feelings and concealed from both parents the news that she had experienced her first crush, on a boy in her neighborhood, Johnny Brown. Johnny barely knew that she was alive, however. It was the blonde neighbor Amy he wanted as his valentine. Myrna, when she was grown but had not yet married for the first time, would look back on these first unrequited love pangs and comment, “I’ve always fallen in love with the wrong man—or