A — The Carrot Top and the Opal
Iris Adrian, an oomphy redhead, who now plays tough girl parts in films, was a central character in one of the strangest love stories ever told on Broadway.
She had come to New York a young greenhorn, in 1932, from her California home.
She had no ambitions toward show business, but was visiting a girl friend, who one day answered a call posted by the late great Flo Ziegfeld. Iris went along to watch.
Ziegfeld didn’t hire the friend, but he asked Iris if she would like to be a glorified clothes-horse. Iris thought it might be a lark and took the job.
At that time N.T.G., who was running the old Hollywood Restaurant on Broadway, had an agreement with Ziegfeld that the ten choicest Ziegfeld girls could double in both shows. Iris was one of the ten, easy.
Every night, after the final curtain of the Ziegfeld show—it was Hot-Cha, in which the late tempestuous Lupe Velez starred—Iris would scamper to the Hollywood and go into the chorus there for the midnight and two o’clock performances.
One of the owners of the Hollywood Restaurant was a very wealthy New York real estate man. His son, Herman Amron, was manager of the club. He fell in love with Iris and for a year or more it was one of the torrid romances of the Street.
When Iris took a summer off to go to Europe, Herman grabbed the next boat and followed her. When she returned, he bought her a mink coat, a diamond ring, a diamond bracelet—and kept buying.
He loved her so much, he did what so many other unwise, over-eager men on Broadway do. He tried to help her career. He begged talent scouts to go to see Iris. He spoke to friends—in the movie studios. Finally Iris came up with a contract—a year, with options each six months. She went out to Hollywood about ten years ago and appeared first in a George Raft picture. Herman was thrilled that he had done so much for his beloved. But, of course, he was very lonesome, since his job kept him here. He managed to fly out a couple of times to see her, but, as so many other men have learned, he found fame and adulation help a girl forget the man who isn’t there.
Herman felt he was losing her. He grew desperate. He was back in New York. Christmas was coming. He had bought her diamonds and furs and didn’t know what to send her now. He chose a beautiful, costly opal bracelet, packed it carefully, put in an affectionate card and sent it on to Hollywood, to Iris.
What Herman didn’t know was, that among the superstitions in show business—like not whistling in a dressing-room or wearing yellow on opening night—opals are hoodoo 1-A.
Iris received the package. Like a girl, she opened it in a flurry of anticipation. She took out the opal bracelet. It was beautiful and she put it on, though she knew it was hard luck.
In the same mail was a letter from her studio—a notice that her option wasn’t taken up and in two weeks she would no longer shine at Paramount.
The two, coming at once, were more than a coincidence to Iris. She knew that the opals had jinxed her contract. In a rage, she threw the bracelet on the floor, broke a couple of stones, had her maid send it back.
Two days later, still furious, she married a man who had been proposing to her for a year. He was worth $30,000,000, but he had one drawback—he was deaf and dumb.
The honeymoon covered a cruise from California to New York, via the Panama Canal. When Iris got to New York, she left him, picked a good state and sued for divorce. She got her decree and, washed up with pictures, returned to New York clubs, this time doing a specialty, advertised as Iris Adrian of the films.
She worked a couple of weeks at Leon & Eddie’s, featured, and got over so well that she was given another chance in Hollywood, with another studio. And this time she clicked.
Through the years, Herman Amron continued to love her. Once in a while she would give him a break and let him take her out. Though he had disposed of the opal bracelet years before, the curse apparently hung on. Every time she went out with Herman something unfortunate happened to her.
Once she got sick; again, she got word of a lost Hollywood contract.
The last time Iris was in the newspapers was when she married Georgie Jay, a personable character who owns an uptown night club, the 78th Street Taproom. The marriage, of course, wasn’t meant to take, because Iris had to stay in Hollywood and he had to stay in New York.
Once, when she was East, she and her husband sat in Leon & Eddie’s. Herman, the hoodoo, was at the next table. He came over to say hello to Iris and Jay. That night Iris and her husband had the squabble which resulted, a week later, in her divorce.