Far from his home in Tennessee, he rented a room from her parents, John and Eva Milne, and romance blossomed. Frank sang the songs of the day while the reels were being changed. The city, which still retained much of its frontier exuberance, boasted many such places, and the creaky wooden sidewalks of its main street, Tower Avenue, were crowded with people just like them, all eager to break into the big-time world of vaudeville.Įthel pounded out the background music for the films that flickered on the Orpheum's screen. They had grown up to the sound of applause, and they met, in late 1911 or at the beginning of 1912, at the Orpheum Theater - a "picture house," as it was then called - in Superior, Wisconsin, a rowdy, lively port at the western end of Lake Superior. It was a simple wooden platform, and it could be anywhere, any size, any shape: no stage was ever too mean or insignificant for Frank and Ethel Gumm. But for both of them the home of the heart was neither north nor south, nor in any other direction the compass pointed. She came from an even smaller town in the far North, and her eyes, so dark that they were almost black, were as sharp as winter's wind. He came from a little town in the South, and his smile was as spacious as summer's sun. Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland: Chapter 1-Ethel and Frank: Part I - Gerald ClarkeĬhapter 12-A Golden Deal and a Death in a Parking Lot
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