Louis Roney: How things work out

In my grammar school and high school days, the Baby Grand Theater on Park Avenue in Winter Park offered us Hollywood fare: The ubiquitous Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Ida Lupino, Madeleine Carroll, Greta Garbo, Delores Del Rio, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, and the rest of the female charmers.

Early in my film-watching days my pals and I wanted to see only Tom Mix, Ken Maynard, Joe E. Brown, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Wallace Beery, Johnny Weissmuller, James Stewart, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, Erroll Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and, above all, Rin Tin Tin.

When we boys were about 14 we began to pay attention to the beautiful women that Hollywood boasted. My favorite was Madeleine Carroll, but I would have settled for Ginger Rogers. Since the chances were slim of my ending up with any of these “femmes” or even Rin Tin Tin, I pined for Ann Sheridan, whom I was also unlikely to meet on the streets of a small Florida town.

One summer a Florida pal and I were walking down Hollywood Boulevard in sunny California, a long hitchhike from home. I sat down in the lobby of the Hollywood Hotel and looked for movie stars. I saw a couple of “B” movie men whose names I have now forgotten and, believe it or not, in came Bette Davis, who chatted for a moment with the desk clerk, then turned on her heels and left. I had liked Davis in the movies a lot, but without one of the perturbed expressions she wore in her films, she was really not a gal to stop traffic. Loretta Young came in shortly thereafter and looked wanly around the lobby before getting in an “up” elevator and disappearing. I saw Edward G. Robinson walking down the street later and I had seen him in films in Florida in many gangster roles. None of these stellar characters gave me a second look as I “slunk” silently down the street gawking. OK! What would you have done?

When I got back to Winter Park, I spent a few years going everywhere with my dog, who liked me no matter what. Later I took my dog and drove up to New York where I got a nice little pad on Central Park South. A friend introduced me to a gal named Joy.

Joy was long on pulchritude, and brains as well, and was a musician “par excellence” and even sang duets with me, so the selling job was pretty much up to me and I hoped I had the wares to succeed.

What little fame I have had has always seemed to be a gift from some “heaven” up there somewhere smiling down at me for no good reason.

When the president of Harvard handed me my degree, I felt guilty somehow, although my grades had been good.

In New York when I finally wangled a date with this Joy, she told me she would go to a movie, so we did. Afterwards, we went into Schraftt’s and enjoyed a chocolate malted. She may have gone out of her way not to out-class me in the gray matter department, but she did it so deftly, that I didn’t even notice, and I felt I had impressed her.

Thirty-five years ago, after many more movies and malteds, we took the subway down to City Hall and got hitched. Afterwards, my new b.w. said, “Let’s drive down to Florida for our honeymoon, I want to see the little town you came from.” In Orlando we stayed with a friend named Sally for a couple days, a real estate agent and old pal of mine, who quickly sold us a modest Gamble Rogers house in Winter Park. UCF invited me to become a Distinguished Professor, which sounded like a fine idea, and was a fine idea for 24 years.

In the meantime we started Festival of Orchestras, a concert organization we ran for 17 years. More than two decades ago I started this column Play On!, which you are now reading and I hope you will continue to read and enjoy.

I haven’t quit. I’m still trying!