Harps Are Not for Angels

By Aida Mulieri Dagort

Growing up in a large Italian family, Aida Mulieri-Dagort wanted to be a professional musician all her life. Most of her family members played instruments as music was their daily bread, and Aida was nurtured in a rich musical environment. Thus began her journey through much struggle and determination as she accomplished her goals of success. Aida became a musician under contract with two motion picture studios as a member of their recording orchestras during the heyday of Hollywood film scoring - the 1940s through the early 1960s.

Harps Are Not For Angels is her story of that accomplishment and the joys as well as the pressures it imposed on her life.

Musicians under contract to the studios were in a prized position in the profession, and the envy of many players who had not made the grade to earn a chair in one of those orchestras. The politics and pressures of this professional work were on a high level and your job could be at stake at any moment. Meanwhile Aida doubled as a wife and mother in an era when women were expected to do little else.

Along the way Aida chronicles the professionals in the film music business she encountered, and relates stories involving the history of Los Angeles and its connection to the music world at the time. The city was a cultural cornucopia at the end of the second World War, as many artists sought refuge from political oppression, and Hollywood reaped the benefits.

Although it was a good life, in the stresses and high demand of such professional work, Aida found herself diagnosed with breast cancer. Her recovery and subsequent retirement from the music business inspired her to explore her many other talents such as teaching children with learning disabilities, and fine art painting which she did for her own enjoyment.

But for Aida, nothing was as exciting nor as stimulating as her career in the motion picture studios of Hollywoods golden era as related here in her experiences both informative, challenging, and insightful. After reading her story you will see that in fact Harps Are Not For Angels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 13, 1999
• ISBN: 9781465325624

Aida Mulieri Dagort

Aida Mulieri-Dagort was born into a family with a musical tradition dating back to the Seventeenth Century. Her close personal and intimate involvement with the Hollywood scene prepared her to perform as a contract harpist to two major motion picture studios for over twenty-five years at a time when it was still a man’s world.

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Copyright © 1997 by Ai’da Mulieri Dagort

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

To my husband Vinnie for his patience.

I neglected friends and the daily household routine

in order to write these sketches from

the Golden Years of Hollywood Film music.

Vinnie operated our computer as a word processor

and helped with the editing and my bad spelling

over a two year period.

INTRODUCTION

It took unfailing determination, faith in ones self plus an unbelievable stick-to-it-tiv-ness to crash the gates of film music recording. It still does. One cannot be humble and survive. Hence the title—HARPS ARE NOT FOR ANGELS.

A career in professional music during and after the coming of age of tinsel town, was for strong minded men and women. In the 1940’s and 50’s, to survive the staggering competition from among the 17,000 members of Los Angeles Local 47 of the Musicians Union, required determination.

For women in particular, it was courage and a certain attitude of servitude in the days before woman’s lib was ever heard of. Women took second place and accepted lesser pay for the same (chair) position in an orchestra. The first (solo) chair of a section usually received double salary.

As principal solo harpist, either at Warner Brothers, or at Paramount studio, I always received the minimum union wage. I was proud to be there and of what I had accomplished. After all, I was in my early twenties and performing with middle-aged male artists who were seasoned veterans from top named Jazz Bands and Symphony Orchestras. But, I was made to feel like a second-class citizen in this male dominated world. It was for that reason my father was horrified when I announced, as a youngster, I wanted to be a harpist. He knew of the obstacles faced by women seeking to join that man’s world.

Most artists in the field of entertainment, are tough people. They have to be to maintain their status. Bette Davis fought Warner Brothers for years to gain certain freedoms and control over her acting assignments. Some are not the lovable, likable people you see on the screen. I mention some of these contradictions that I witnessed personally.

It was hard to maintain my own position and not compromise my principles. I was a wife and mother, trying to be all things to all people. I was an energetic perfectionist trying to satisfy my various talents and do everything perfectly. That wouldn’t fly, but I didn’t know that then.

.In these sketches from my life, I am going to take you on a journey of memoirs that occur in the theater in my mind. It is a show that runs all the time, especially when I am reminded of some person or event that I was very familiar with in the past. I begin to rerun the whole story.

You will meet a scrawny kid who was all eyes and ears to everything that went on in her artistic, middle class environment in the 1920’s.

I knew places in Los Angeles that no longer are, and was witness to the very beginnings of the wonderful, outrageous Hollywood we will never know again. My fierce ambition was to become a first rate musical artist. There were disappointments and triumphs in my commitment to excellence. The background was the great Depression, World War II, the Communist threat, the 1960’s and then the beginning of the decline of Hollywood after fifty short years.

You will witness the fierce competition from distant places and from the closest of relatives.

I will introduce you to some famous talented and creative people whose lives touched and influenced mine. These people were the support and underpinnings of the stars and with their extraordinary talents, made Hollywood what it was.

Nothing was more exciting than witnessing the coming together of so much artistry in one place. I was privileged to have known these wonderful people. Their high standards were all directed toward one goal—film.

The 1920’s were an exciting time. There was tremendous enthusiasm and growth in our country. The Great War was over, the airplane was just beginning to be used for commercial travel. Lindbergh had just flown solo across the Atlantic (I waved to him from father’s car along with thousands of cheering masses), the Motion Picture was just being put to use for entertainment and communication, and I was there. Hollywood became a magic word and a magic place. I saw it start—Charlie Chaplin making comedies in Echo Park, and Walt Disney building his first studio on Glendale Boulevard. This was my neighborhood.

There was no nuclear bomb and little crime in the streets. People were reasonably happy and optimistic about the future. I thought the 20th century would be the greatest in all history. Little did we know a Great Depression was just around the corner, and after that, World War II, inflation, crime, the Watts Riots, assassinations, Vietnam, and God knows what else for our fragile souls to bear.

I had it all—stage presence, personality, and the ability for a concert career, but Hollywood was a place where all great talent was used to play to mediocrity. Beholden to a studio by contract, I was given little freedom to develop as an artist. I was a talent that belonged to them and they used it at a certain level to make money from the masses. Of course, the salary was the lure that kept me there, and the reputation of having the best musical job in the country.

I loved money and the good life. The harp was the only way I had of getting it. Don’t misunderstand. I loved music and the work I was doing, but when the recording business began to dwindle for me I was out, gone, on to better things in life and the arts.

I believe that the future generations won’t pay much attention to the literature, the art, or the music of the twentieth century, but they will to our cinema. That is the reason I wrote this book. I am proud to have had even a small part in this phase of our history.

PREFACE

The long ride along Sunset Boulevard from pristine Brentwood on the West end of the Greater Los Angeles Megalopolis to the once-fashionable Echo Park District near the downtown Civic Center, cut a historical cross section through the city; a city in which I had, up to that time, spent my entire life.

It was in this Echo Park Neighborhood, famous for its lake, that my father’s favorite sister lived in an old duplex she and her husband, Bill, had built in the early days of their marriage. Bill died in the early 1930’s and Lucia remained there along with her original Mission style furniture, never changing a thing except that she worked diligently to keep the place clean.

The area was formerly a lovely residential neighborhood. Her quiet street was typically lined with giant sixty year-old, tall, overgrown Palm trees, which made a great scary swishing sound when the wind blew on this small, hilly street called La Veta Terrace.

The neighborhood has lost the glamour of its former arty population and is now in a state of arrested decay and negligence. This whole hilly area serves as a quickie back entrance to Dodger Stadium for those who know their way around. A few of the old timers who resisted change remained, along with my aunt. She would never consider living any other place, even though she could well afford to do so.

I arrived at her two story wood-frame duplex and parked in front. The house was a bastardized Craftsman style structure so popular in the early 20th century. She lived in the upstairs unit. Once let in by the automatic door opener, the visitor was immediately confronted with a long straight and narrow flight of stairs leading directly to the central hall of her two bedroom apartment. All the rooms branched out from there.

Aunt Lu, as my father and I called her, was usually at the top of the stairs to greet everyone. But this time it was her nurse who had let me in. This was the 1970’s, and my elderly aunt had had a mild stroke. A professional nurse was seeing to all her needs.

I had been taught to love and respect my father’s sister from the time I was a very small child. I always wanted to be like her because I imagined her as living a very glamourous life. I also loved her as my teacher and mentor. She had taught me to play the harp, and later in my life, we occasionally worked side by side in the music recording business. At this point, I was too busy with my own life to suspect that after all these years, she didn’t like me.

As I was ushered into the living room my aunt was watching her favorite television show, General Hospital, so I sat down and waited until it was over.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

Why, I came here to see you, and it took a good forty minutes to get here, I answered.

She was in a strange mood, but I suspected she was just annoyed at my interrupting her program. I also noticed as I tried to converse with her that she was not pretending to be worldly and amusing, as she usually did. Today was different.

The nurse entered the room and sat down to join in on the conversation. She was a very tall, clumsy woman who weighed about three hundred pounds. When she sat down on a chair it almost always gave way to her weight. By the time of this visit, all the kitchen chairs were broken. However, she was an improvement from others who came before who had filched things from the house. At least she was honest and efficient. But she was also bored and lonely and always wanted to enter into the conversation. She often made it difficult to visit with Aunt Lu.

In the course of this visit the nurse finally asked me, Do you do the same thing she did, that is, play the harp in a studio recording orchestra?

Yes I do, I answered. "She was at M.G.M. and I was at

Warner Brothers, and now I’m at Paramount studio."

Suddenly, in a very loud and angry voice, Aunt Lu shouted out—"Nobody ever did what I did!"

I suddenly realized that my father’s sister had been an adversary for a long time.

CHAPTER ONE

I was fortunate to have been born into a musical family where music was being played all the time. I heard about the music business in our house and in the houses of my relatives. My father, John Mulieri, was a professional violinist and conductor of theater orchestras. John was a bright, intelligent, and inquisitive fellow with only a street smart education. He was the youngest of four children born to immigrant Italian parents on July 25th, 1889. There were three older sisters for him to contend with, but they loved him dearly and treated him with concern and affection. They even taught me to crochet, he used to say, but mine was always black and dirty.

They lived in a New York tenement and when he was old enough to go to school, John was sent to a large, privately funded school for children of immigrant families. The children were given one hot meal a day. The school didn’t challenge my father at all, except for his appetite, which was hearty. The noon meal was about all he could remember.

While we were saying grace, and had our hands clasped over the warm bowl of soup, I would stick my thumb into the bowl and start licking up the soup before a bell rang that started the meal. I would eat as fast as I could, then run home for two or three blocks to eat another lunch prepared for the family by my mother. Then run back to school to catch the next bell for class.

His father, Vincenzo, also a violinist, had taught all his children to sing and play stringed instruments, even going so far as to make and build a harp for his daughter, Lucia. This project took up the long snowy New York winter nights. My father, sitting beside him, was also learning to work with wood and made a twelve inch model of the larger harp his father was working on. This skill was passed down for generations by the artisans of my grandfather’s hometown, Viggiano, Province of Basilicata, Italy. Since the 1600’s they had made their own instruments and also composed their music and songs. These entertainers were well known as Troubadours who traveled throughout Europe and South America until the late 1890’s. The Salvi family, who immigrated from that same town, are making harps in the United States to this day.

During the summer months, when school was out, Vincenzo organized the children and himself into a musical group and they entertained on the ferry boats that went to all the resort islands off the East coast—Block Island, Rock Island, Nantucket, etcetera. They did this every summer and made good money. The oldest, Anna, sang beautifully, Lucia played the harp, Giacchina (Min) played the violin. John was the handsome child attraction of the troupe, who also played violin and sang popular Civil War and Spanish American war songs. He used to still sing them while shaving as I was growing up. He used to say, I felt like a grown man by age ten. I never learned anything after that.

Vincenzo suffered from a bad case of Rheumatoid Arthritis, but in spite of his illness, he did so well financially that he was ready to retire to California where his wife’s family was already established. So, the Mulieri family arrived in Los Angeles in 1899 when my father was ten years old. From the first day he arrived, he chose his ten year-old, blue-eyed cousin, to be his life-long sweetheart.

Later in life, since he had no religious education, my father found a kind of morality and religious inspiration in the Masonic Lodge. He adhered to its teachings all his life, finally arriving at the Scottish Rite level. He then became a Shriner.

Father was born under the sign of Leo. He was innately smart and always a showman. He looked after everybody in the family, entertained them and advised them, but was never offensive or overpowering in doing so. He was just trying to save their asses.

He was inherently good with his hands and loved to work with wood, and could fix anything that went wrong in the house. If a man made it, a man can take it apart and fix it was his motto. In 1906, his father died, then his mother a year later, leaving a small inheritance to John and Lucia, the only unmarried children.

John and Lucia used the inheritance to go from the small cultural desert of Los Angeles, to Vienna, Austria, to study and perfect their music. Vienna was the center of musical culture and education at that time. This was a fine move for them to make, and after one year with the finest musical instruction in the world they returned to Los Angeles. They could now name their job and were in great demand in restaurants, hotels, live theater, and vaudeville. There was a new symphony orchestra, and opera began to arrive.

Los Angeles was ready for culture. The Pueblo of La Reina de Los Angeles was growing into a small modern city during the early 1900’s. It was in transition from a typical town of the old West into a city of investors and developers from the East. This was a result of the Go West, young man attitude of the country in general at that time. Remnants of the old West still lingered amidst the coming of culture and tall buildings.

My father told a story about coming home from a job very late one night. While passing a barroom, two fighting cowboys suddenly came tumbling out the door. He put down his violin case and sat on the curb to watch along with a few midnight stragglers that had gathered. Teeth and blood spattered about for an hour until one of the fighters was nearly dead. Only then, did the fight end.

Cowboys still came to my maternal grandfather Massanova’s barber shop before they went out on the town. They wanted a bath, a shave, and a haircut. He did quite well financially while his daughters did all the laundry for the shop.

In this same time, the Lombardi Opera Company would arrive in Los Angeles from Naples, Italy, with a skeleton orchestra of reliable players familiar with opera. Upon their arrival, local musicians were added to fill out the instrumentation.

The first season my father was hired, he was only 16 years old and had not yet been to Vienna to perfect his craft. He convinced the Opera Company to also hire his sister, who played the harp. Along with the few musicians from Los Angeles who joined the troupe each year, my father and Aunt Lucia became regulars.

During one of the rehearsals, a certain conductor whose name was Iacchia (pronounced Yahkia) was trying to give directions, but was having a difficult time since he spoke no English. My father had been placed in the very back row of the second violins. He could not stand the conductor’s suffering any longer and he spoke out.

Boys, he just wants you to take it a little slower.

Well, the conductor went back and got him by the arm and escorted him to the assistant concert master’s chair, sending that poor man back to the second violins. The assistant concert master is next to the most important position in the violin section. From that time on, father held that chair and became Iacchia’s constant companion and interpreter.

My dad knew nothing about opera, which has its own style and techniques of playing and interpretation. Iacchia took him aside daily after rehearsal and drilled him in the traditional interpretive style peculiar to each opera they had programmed. It was an invaluable learning experience which could not be found in any books on music interpretation.

This brilliant fellow never let my father out of his sight. My dad literally became his voice. From the early 1900’s the whole troupe traveled by train. In the long, harsh winters they went through the Midwest, the deep South, and as far north as Vancouver, British Columbia.

Lucia found the conditions cold, trying, and difficult with few conveniences. She began to have digestive problems.

What was an Opera Company doing out in those underdeveloped states such as Montana and Wyoming in the middle of winter? The U.S. Army was still chasing renegade Indians in the wilds of the West. The Italian musicians who came with the company were very much bewildered and awed by the vastness of the country, and were dismayed by the odd primitive conditions they had to perform in. One story concerned an Italian-African oboe player who the musicians called L’Africano. While traveling through the South one season, the train suddenly was brought to a halt. L’Africano was taken out of the passenger car and made to ride the rest of the way in the baggage car. My father went along with him to keep him company and tried to explain the history of our Civil War, but to no avail. He was a very fine musician and oboist, but needless to say, he never returned with the company when it made its U.S. tour.

At one point, upon arriving in Seattle, Washington, Lombardi could no longer meet the payroll. The company was broke. They disbanded and everyone returned to Los Angeles on their own.

Fortuno Gallo was an Italian immigrant who saw the possibilities and the growing need for this disbanded group. He immediately reorganized them under the name of the San Carlo Opera Company. His base was in New York City but they still concentrated on the Western United States and gave their first performance in 1910.

Gallo’s goal was to make opera popular and affordable. He established a top price of One dollar, fifty cents, which was one-third the price the Met was charging at that time. The company flourished and they still made the same grueling winter tour of the Western United States.

Gallo himself traveled ahead of the company and did all the advance work in every town. He contacted businessmen and heads of companies, talking them into becoming sponsors by giving away free tickets for their customers.

L.E. Behymer, Los Angeles’ dynamic impresario, also sensed the time was right. All artists and cultural events that took place in Los Angeles presented their performances under his banner.

There was indeed a demand for opera. At first, Behymer brought two or three different opera companies out from the East and put on cut versions of Lucia and Lohengrin. These companies wouldn’t perform without an asbestos curtain for fire protection. In Los Angeles, no such thing was available. This made Behymer turn to a small traveling company which was willing to perform without the asbestos and which was much less demanding: The San Carlo Opera Company.

Their production efforts were poor. The folded creases in the scenery were plainly visible to the audience. In Rigoletto, Gilda’s body in the last act, was clearly a sack of straw. To a child like me it was very confusing when the straw sack appeared. I lost the direction of the story. What happened to Gilda?, I noisily asked and was told to be quiet. The audience was delighted and loved every minute of it. They knew it was Gilda lying there in a sack.

The San Carlo Opera brought a certain taste of European culture to the entire country and they gained stature with each succeeding season. They began to cater to great crowds who eagerly awaited their return each year. In the 1930’s they were at the height of their popularity.

Before the 1911 season of the San Carlo Opera my father got married to his childhood sweetheart. She was the same dark curly-haired, blue-eyed beauty who caught his eye when he first came to Los Angeles in 1899.

After they were married, my parents traveled with the San Carlo for seven seasons until I was born. They certainly could not bring a new baby on a train in those awful Midwest winters and to some very primitive areas. My folks missed the fun and the lasting friendships they had made, so my father looked forward to joining and performing with them when they arrived in Los Angeles each year. They would have happy reunions at our house with lots of wine and eating.

They were a good opera company and became an ancillary to the Metropolitan Opera. Many of the up-and-coming singers of the Met, from Maria Jaritza to Giovanni Martinelli, performed with them. I remember hearing a young Licia Albanese in La

Boheme when I was a little girl. Composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo himself came to conduct his opera, Pagliacci, and this huge but-terball of a man gallantly kissed all the hands of the society ladies in the Midwest. For a small company they were willing to risk doing ambitious and newer works, such as Andrea Chenier.

As they traveled, children were hired in each town to play the part of Trouble, the small child in Butterfly. I was one. Apparently they liked my Buster Brown haircut which was perfect for a two year-old Japanese child. I can remember sitting on a blanket on the floor, blindfolded, and given two tiny flags to hold and wave. I was somewhere with a lot of lights shining in my face and two ladies were on either side of me (Butterfly and Suzuki), trying to keep me from tearing off the blindfold.

One of the conductors of the San Carlo by the name of Franchetti was married to a beautiful Japanese woman who had a lovely operatic voice. Her name was Hizi Koyke, and she always sang Butterfly with Franchetti conducting.

Koyke was beautiful and dainty and mastered the role to perfection. Her Butterfly was extremely impressive. In the last tragic scene she would remove the pins from her long black hair and let it fall free. It was an unforgettable gesture and added to the drama.

The San Carlo is well-remembered by many of the older opera-going public. They had something special, an intimacy that opera was originally meant to have and is lacking in the great companies of today, and is sorely missed.

They stopped traveling in 1934. From 1936-50 The San Carlo only played Rockefeller Center where they finally succumbed to a more lavish style of production and the ever rising prices of admission. A futile attempt was made to revive the company in Florida in 1974.

With his European training and experience in opera, my father had great job opportunities to go to New York and the Great White Way, as Broadway was known then. But his love for my mother kept him in Los Angeles. She was very close to her large family and would never think of leaving their warm and constant togetherness. Little did he, nor anyone else then, suspect that Los Angeles would be the place where Motion Pictures would flourish and the pit orchestras of the silent film theaters would be the most sought after jobs in the music business.

To make extra money for their families, my mother’s three sisters and their children worked as extras in the early movies of the 1920’s. Aunt Theresa, who was also the worlds best cook, had become a contractor for studios needing Italian or Latin types. She had every available extra at her fingertips and the studios hired these people through her. Even though my tranquil, serene mother was not interested in putting in long days, and sometimes the long bus trips that being an extra required, she consented to go for an interview at Goldwyn studio in Culver City. They were looking for a young, dark-haired child.

Culver City from downtown Los Angeles was a long way out of town in those days, but we managed to get there somehow. I don’t know. I was only three years old. My big bing-cherry eyes, straight jet black hair, and Buster Brown haircut got me the job. I was to play the part of Leatrice Joy as a child. Leatrice Joy was a dark-haired beauty and a superstar at that time. The picture was called A Tale of Two Worlds. The story took place during the 1898 Boxer Rebellion in China which, at the time, was an event of the not-too-distant past. Leatrice Joy was the star and Fred Warren her co-star. Wallace Beery was cast in a strong supporting role as the villain. The year was 1921.

I was not trained to act and emote or cry on cue as kids were later trained to do. I had no concept that I was working and acting. I was just playing. The poor director, Frank Lloyd, had to take me as I was, and I was rather stoic at that. He had to be very inventive to get me to act. I was to cry hysterically because my American parents were being murdered in the next room. The poor man was beside himself trying to get me to cry, which I didn’t even do at home. He finally took a huge doll given to me by the company and gave it to my mother.

Tell her you’re going home because it’s getting so late, and she’ll have to stay all night on the production stage by herself.

My poor, laid-back Mother refused at first, but my acting career was at stake, so she walked out with the doll.

I gave them a scene never to be forgotten. My fit was the hit of the picture. I’m sure my screaming could be heard in Kinney’s famous Venice Beach a mile away.

The rest of the shooting went very smoothly. It is said that actors should never work with dogs or children, but Fred Warren and I became fast friends. He stepped back and just let me be, and seemed to enjoy the experience. Most of my scenes were with him. He played the faithful Chinese servant who raises this orphaned child who grows up to believe she is Chinese. This was Hollywood.

I did many scenes with Warren on the beautiful grounds of the Japanese Gardens Restaurant, which was very popular for lunch or tea in the 1920’s. It still exists on top of a hill on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. Fred played with me for hours while the cameras were rolling.