“Jesus,” my driver said, easing his way through the people to the gate. Several of them hit the car with their fists; somebody spit on the windshield. There was so much yelling and banging that I was afraid the car might be over-turned, or that the mob might break the windows and pull us from our seats. But the driver, honking and cursing, finally made it to the entrance, where a Perennial worker ushered us safely through.
“They’re organized, the idiots,” said the worker when he opened my door. “The Anti-Jap Exclusion League got word that you’d be filming here today.”
I appreciated his sympathy, but it did not do any good. Although the protestors remained outside of the gate, their coordinated chants of “Jap Go Home!” were so loud and persistent that none of us could concentrate. I simply ignored the yelling and attempted to play the scene, but the rest of the actors were hopelessly distracted.
“We’re going to have to do this another day,” the director said eventually, after conferring with his cameraman. “Preferably where no one can find us.”
I cannot deny that these incidents were deeply troubling to me, both at the time they occurred and long afterward. Perhaps I have not been completely exhaustive in my descriptions of certain encounters from that era. But if I have not recounted these more upsetting events in any significant detail, it is because I do not wish to make too much of them. The kind of incident that occurred during the filming of Geronimo was fortunately never repeated, and unpleasant scenes of any degree were relatively few. I recount them now not out of a sense of self-pity, for certainly no one was more fortunate than I. I recall them simply to acknowledge that there may have been some truth to Vail’s interpretations.
Perhaps I did not fully appreciate that what occurred in the outside world affected what occurred in pictures. For when one recalls some of the other things that were happening in the city—the vandalized fruit stands, the stoning of Japanese mailmen, the horse manure smeared on the front door of the Little Tokyo Theater—it is difficult to claim that the atmosphere in California had not become more hostile. And when one considers the legal decisions of the early 1920s—and then, of course, the regrettable developments of the early 1940s—it is hard to maintain that dislike of the Japanese was a small, localized phenomenon. It’s possible that I, despite all my popularity, came to be seen as a symbol of a disliked group of people. Indeed, as much as I am loathe to admit this, one can hardly read the difficult events of that time—the Geronimo protest, the incident at the golf course, even Perennial’s decision not to renew my contract—as anything other than an obvious rejection based solely on the fact of my race. I had been admired—loved—for years; that much was true. But like many loves that are forbidden or that carry the tint of shame, I’d been relinquished in the face of public disapproval.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
November 19, 1964
I have finally returned to the safety of my own quiet town house, after a night and day of nerve-wracking mishaps. It was fortunate, to say the least, that Mrs. Bradford was home when I called. I dialed her number from a phone booth in front of the old DeLuxe Theater, which now stands empty and deserted. I should not have been there by myself at such an hour. As I waited the twenty minutes for Mrs. Bradford to arrive, two jumpy, stringy-haired young men were watching me closely, stepping out of the shadows toward me and then back again. My car—the old Packard—stood useless at the curb, one tire so flat it rested on its rims. When Mrs. Bradford finally appeared a few minutes after midnight, I nearly collapsed with exhaustion and relief.
I was at pains to describe how I’d arrived at this place; I could hardly keep the events straight in my own mind. I had started out the evening at the Tiffany Hotel, in the center of old downtown. Although the Tiffany had once been one of my favorite places, I hadn’t eaten there in over forty years. Perhaps in my distracted state I did not appreciate the passage of time, for despite my absence of several decades, I thought it was perfectly reasonable to stop by the Tiffany and unwind with a drink in the bar.
When I parked my car across the street from the hotel, however, my surroundings were unrecognizable. The Tiffany’s granite façade was still there, and its insets of burgundy tile. But the buildings around it had fallen into disrepair, and the storefronts—at least the ones that were occupied at all—belonged to shoe shops and discount clothing stores. Unsavory people milled about on the side-walks, and when I entered the lobby I wasn’t sure if I had found the right place. I had, of course; this was indeed the hotel. It just wasn’t the place I remembered.
The grand two-story lobby had been reduced to one floor, the marble columns were gone, and the lush Oriental carpet had been removed, now replaced by scratched linoleum tile. Old furniture from the rooms upstairs—beds, dressing tables, desks—had been stacked together and pushed haphazardly into a corner. There were people in the lobby, yes, but not the men in suits and ladies in gowns that one would have found there in the ’20s. The half-dozen people sitting on ripped couches against the wall were dressed in worn, disheveled clothes, and several of their faces were streaked with dirt.
