Deadline for a Critic

display ads for everything from tennis outfits to golf equipment. It was not the theater; it was not what she had come to New York to do. But it was income she desperately needed.

Learning to live in New York City is an art and Valerie was a quick study. She was actually able to contribute a little more than was expected for her room and board. She was even able to put aside small amounts after coping with the city’s substantial cost of living.

A milestone in her life occurred when SGI selected her as a model for their Christmas catalog. Not only did this bring far wider exposure and considerably more money, but it set the occasion for her meeting William Xavier Walsh.

As Valerie told Koesler about Red Walsh, she glowed. It was easily the most significant happening of her life.

“I was putting on my makeup and I saw in the mirror this image come up behind me. Whoever it was just stood there. That makes me angry—people fooling around. So I turned. I was ready to cuss out whoever it was. And I just kept looking up, and up, and up. At the top of this towering body was this grinning face with freckles and a mop of red hair. It seemed as if he was the biggest thing I’d ever seen. I guess my mouth dropped open—like Annie Oakley’s when she meets Frank Butler.”

Koesler well remembered Annie, Get Your Gun!.

“Still, I was sore at him. I don’t know why. He was just standing there grinning at me. Anyway, I started yelling at him. It was our first fight. And it was at first sight. And it was very one-sided.”

She told Koesler that it was a long time after their first meeting before she and Walsh became friends, let alone fell in love. Walsh, at that time, was a senior at Notre Dame. After he modeled gym shoes and other athletic gear for the Christmas catalog, he returned to college and the completion of the basketball season. He was a consensus All-American in both his junior and senior years.

They dated a few times. Unfortunately, Walsh cared little for the theater, while Valerie found basketball the least interesting of major league sports. But an indefinable something drew them together. Over the months during which Walsh closed out a rather distinguished academic career, he and Valerie corresponded with increasing frequency.

She found it difficult writing him about her professional life, which had improved and disintegrated simultaneously. As a result of the Christmas catalog and the inspired activity of her agent, she had begun free-lance modeling. This new career, plus her continuing auditions for the theater, left increasingly less time for her work at SGI. Reluctantly, she left her job, sacrificing a regular and reliable paycheck for the hope of much more, if unguaranteed, money.

And so Valerie began showing up for the morning casting calls, better known by the young hopefuls who suffer through them as cattle calls. After considerable thought and prayer, she had decided against signing an agency contract. She correctly deemed such an arrangement too binding for a young person with limitless confidence in her own ability. The cattle call was the unfortunate alternative.

She actually shuddered when she recounted for Koesler the interminable months as one of New York’s most frequently photographed models. In most cases, the models knew beforehand what type of shooting each day held. If the character was going to be a housewife, the models would come dressed appropriately. Frequently it would be a beach scene. So the young women would wear bikinis under street clothing. When it was their turn, they had no more shield for changing than a curtain.

Whatever they wore to model, they would be screened, usually by a panel, usually composed of three men: a producer, a director, and someone from the ad agency. Perhaps a sponsor might be thrown in. The women would be ogled. The process was, Valerie attested, degrading. It resembled, she told Koesler, a singles bar—another area of expertise in which he was lacking. But he got the idea. And he wondered how an admittedly talented person like Valerie could have gone through it.

The answer of course was The Theater. Unlike most other women in the profession, modeling was not Val’s goal. It was a means of employment and exposure while she continued to pursue the stage.

During the 1977 theater season, among many other shows, she auditioned for Breathless, Otherwise Engaged, Ashes, and Stop the Parade.

Stop the Parade, in effect, stopped Valerie’s parade. It was the first major production in which she’d won a part—albeit that of understudy.

When he learned of her—however slight—success, Groendal was livid. His lackey, who should have been monitoring that area of Broadway, had been asleep at the switch. That worthy pleaded too vast an area of responsibility to pay attention to every broad who was hired as an understudy. Groendal reminded him that Valerie Cahill was his priority responsibility. Ridley reminded him of this just before firing him.

Until Stop the Parade, Valerie had not been aware that Ridley Groendal even knew she existed. Even then, if not for a bewildering set of circumstances, she would not have known of Groendal’s malevolent machinations.

Night after night and matinee after matinee, Valerie kept her vigil in the wings in case she might be called on to take over for an indisposed star. Of course, her keenest desire was to appear on stage. Yet the rigors of free- lance modeling so exhausted her that she was almost grateful for the star’s seemingly cast-iron constitution.

Then, one night it happened. Pauline O’Kennedy came down with the flu. Diagnosed as the twenty-four-hour variety, still it was potent enough to take her out of the show for one night. It was Val’s big opportunity. She put everything she was capable of into that performance.

It is difficult to gauge one’s own endeavor, but she honestly thought she’d done well. The audience was generous in its applause. And the other performers were lavish with praise. She was so “up” she had a difficult time sleeping that night.

Next morning she could scarcely control her trembling hands as she paged through the New York Herald. The play had been reviewed weeks prior to this, just after opening. So there wasn’t much chance anyone would comment on it again, especially since there was little prior notice that an understudy would be appearing.

Her eyes widened when she found a single column item regarding the performance. She reread it several times before fully comprehending its viciousness.

The review centered solely on her performance, which it described as “amateurish, degrading to the other performers, who should not be forced to share a stage with someone who shows neither ability nor promise . . . One would hope,” it went on, “she finds her niche in life—perhaps modeling in Peoria. Seeking solace somewhere, it can be said that Valerie Cahill is a mere study—Deo gratias—and she will mercifully sink slowly in the West.”

There was more, most of it as bad or worse. Her eyes were so filled with tears that she had a difficult time making out the byline. Ridley C. Groendal.

At that time that meant nothing in particular. Only that he was the Broadway reviewer and this was her first Broadway performance, her golden opportunity, and she had failed. She had blown herself out of the water. Not for a moment did she think to question the review.

There would be no cattle call today. She could not possibly endure that degradation in addition to suffering through the end of her world.

She told Koesler of going as quickly as possible to the hotel where Pauline O’Kennedy was staying. Miss O’Kennedy was almost completely recovered from her brief bout with the flu. She was healthy enough, indeed, to be concerned about the distraught young woman who sat on her couch, alternating between sobbing and abjectly apologizing for ruining her play.

“Come on, now, you didn’t ruin any play.” Pauline patted Valerie’s shoulder, trying to console her.

“You weren’t there,” Valerie sobbed.

“Of course I wasn’t there. That’s why you were. But I’ve talked with the others. There wasn’t a dissenting voice: You were very good . . . great!”

“But the review . . .?” Val offered the column, clipped out and so heavily fingered it had almost reverted to pulp state.

Pauline pushed it back toward Val. “I’ve read it.”

“It’s so bad. So negative.”

“Just pay attention to the good ones, dear.” Pauline did not sound convincing.

“This is different. No one would take a chance on me after this.”

Pauline hesitated, as if weighing carefully what she would next say. “But it was written by Ridley