The Lady Fire-Eater And Me free porn video

THE LADY FIRE-EATER AND ME If I had my time again, I wouldn't have shopped Donna to the cops in the way I did, for deserting from the US Army. Looking back fifty years, I see that I acted out of spite. I was nearly thirty when it all came to ahead in 1949, but I didn't have the sense to see that the relationship couldn't possibly go on for ever. I'd met her after a couple of affairs with men that had turned bad, and things seemed so much simpler now I was with her. We had lived together without many arguments, she had earned enough for both us (I didn't make much as a cook, but when she was working she could bring in ?50 a week, which was a really good income in the late forties). Plus I could enjoy sex with a considerate and gentle partner, while for the rest of the time I had a capable housewife, an amusing companion, and a carefree girl-friend to go out with. I've kept a few mementos from those far off days. The press was all over her after her arrest. In the days before TV, it was newspapers and magazines that dished the scandals. They covered all the revelations about Donna's career as "the only female fire-eater on the vaudeville stage." The faded clippings instantly take me from 1999 to the drab, grey world of postwar Britain, and North London in particular. I'll be eighty next year, but it remains clear in my mind. The best way to explain everything that happened is to begin with the interview I gave to a reporter that appeared in a well known Sunday paper (a bit of a rag, some would say!), following the blaze of publicity that greeted Donna's court martial that June. They printed it in the first person ("My Story, by the Girl who Lived with 'Donna'"), with a picture of me - not very flattering though. It startled me a bit to read the byline, which ended, "Betty Langridge" - I wasn't used to seeing my name in print, certainly not in a national newspaper! The words weren't precisely those I'd have used to the reporter, but they'd edited it the way they wanted. So here's what I said in the article, with a very few changes, such as leaving out some pretty inane subheadings. Betty's Story I wish I had not betrayed Delbert Hill to the police. If I had not been so jealous when he fell in love with another woman, I could never have brought myself to do so. I knew he was a deserter, and I was only doing my duty. That must be my consolation for the regrets which haunt me. It is difficult, even now, to think of Donna as a man, though it was not long before I pierced his masquerade. Yet, even when I realized his sex, I still called him "she "and except in our intimate moments thought of him just as another woman. I saw Donna for the first time just two years ago in early 1947, when she was appearing in a fire-eating act at Collins's Music Hall at Islington. She came into the theatre-bar during the interval and joined some people I knew. I sent her over a mild and bitter. We did not get to know each other then. but last June I was having a drink in a bar when who should walk in but Donna? She was wearing a smart green outdoor coat with a scarf over her head and tied beneath her chin. I introduced myself. We talked for a time. Somehow I had never met another woman who seemed so interesting and amusing. In the corridor outside she slipped her arm round me. I thought it strange, but supposed she was just affectionate in the way stage folk are. Donna invited me to her lodgings in Colbrook Row, Islington, next day. She was smartly dressed and wore sheer nylons. She served tea with all a woman's grace. She told me she was going away on a four-week tour and asked me to arrange rooms for her return. During that month Donna wrote me many letters, in a woman's round writing. They were ordinary, friendly letters--telling me about the sort of business the show was doing, and so on. When Donna came back she asked me if I would like to share the digs. I agreed. And I watched her unpack her trunks and theatrical baskets. There was not a single item of men's wear in them--nothing to show she was other than the women she appeared to be. Donna had exquisite, transparent cami-knickers, little lace panties, corsets, lots of nylons, smart gloves, a rose pink hat, veils and handbags. Her nails were long and crimson, and her hands were a picture. She had a complete feminine wardrobe even down to cosmetics. We talked for a time. Then Donna gave me my first shock. She asked, "Would you mind if I smoked a pipe? "Well, I have known women who smoked pipes, so I said, "Okay." Later that evening we went out for some drinks. Now and then Donna would leave me to powder her nose. I noticed then that she was wearing a wedding ring and a tiny wrist-watch. When we returned home Donna undressed, and I learnt the truth. Donna asked me, "What are you going to do - dial 999?" By that time I was so much under Donna's spell that I promised not to tell if she played fair by me - I should say "he" now, but it's quite unnatural for me to do that. From that moment we led a strange life. Donna fulfilled engagements all over London at clubs, concerts and children's parties. Children loved her. Sometimes she would give them conjuring tricks as presents, or buy them sweets. She was kind, but she did have a shocking temper. It was only when we had a lovers' row once or twice that she used a deep man's voice. Otherwise, she spoke just like a woman. She told me all about herself--how she had deserted from the Army and about her wife back in America. She said she wanted to divorce her. She explained that she had dressed as a woman before--but only on the stage. Always in public she wore her long, black hair in smart feminine styles, but when we were on our own, she would fasten back her locks with an elastic band and sometimes even pencil in a moustache. Donna was rarely short of money and would often go out to buy new clothes. She would choose her frocks and undies with great care. It was amazing how she knew the names of all the different materials. But she would never try on anything in a shop unless there was a private changing-room. Occasionally I bought clothes for her and I asked for outsizes so that they would fit. When she could not get enough stage engagements she would take ordinary jobs. She worked as an usherette in a cinema at Islington; another time she served in a snack bar, and she also had a job in a restaurant kitchen. But never for a moment did she give up her woman's disguise. The other work-girls never guessed. She used their toilets and would put on lipstick before the mirror just as they did. The break finally came when Donna began a provincial tour at the beginning of this year. She had dates at in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Newcastle -on-Tyne, Lancashire and Wakefield in Yorkshire. At Newcastle he met another woman and, though he often wrote to me saying he would return and that he still loved me, I began to suspect he was being unfaithful. The other woman wrote to me. too. She said she was very happy with Donna and would not give him up. That made me see red. I wrote to the Police. I regretted the whole thing immediately I had sent the letter, but it was too late. Well, that is the strange story of my strange lover. We had a lot of laughs together and plenty of fun. Only Donna could have been the perfect lady in public and the perfect man about the house. That's how the article ended. I wish they had allowed me to make some things clearer and give a more rounded picture of the woman I got to know. Donna's Arrest and Court Martial I've not preserved the letter that Donna's new girl friend (Margaret, I think her name was) had written to me. I may have torn it up right away. But it was only a day or two after I got it that I contacted the police in Holloway to let them know that Donna was actually aa private who had absconded from the US army four years before at the end of World War II. Within a very short time, they had informed the Newcastle constabulary, and I think also the US Army base at Burtonwood, between Liverpool and Manchester, where she had been stationed. Most of the key events gradually came out after she was arrested early in April. This is when the barrage of publicity started. I read about it in more than one paper. This is how journalists up and down the country first reported the case, 'A "woman" variety artist who has appeared under the name of Donna Delbert in halls throughout the country was handed over by Newcastle police yesterday to the American military authorities. "She" is understood to be going to Buttonwood to be held as a suspected four-year desert& from the U.S. Forces. This "woman," it is understood, was billed as the only woman illusionist and fire-eater on the stage. The "woman "was dressed in slacks, silk stockings, a woman's blouse, hair done in a long bob and wearing a false bust. An assistant in the act was a youth. Dan Speed, aged 15, of Finsbury. London. He had been with the act since Christmas after answering an advertisement in an Islington shop window. "I always thought she was a woman. Everywhere we went other people thought so, too," he said last night.' There were no more details at this stage, and it didn't tell me anything I had not already known. I waited anxiously until Donna's trial came on, about two months later, and this time there was more background information than she had revealed to me. The key witness was the arresting officer, as the press reported in 10 June, Private Delbert Eugene Hill, described as alias Donna Delbert, pleaded not guilty at a U.S. Air Force court-martial at Burtonwood to-day to a charge of desertion from the United States Army from July, 1945, until April this year. Hill is said to have appeared on the music halls as a female illusionist and fire-eater. Det.-Inspector John Richard Hall, of Newcastle-on-Tyne City Police, told the court that on April 6 he went to a house in Newcastle and asked for Donna Delbert. He was shown into a room where two women were sitting, one of whom he recognized as the owner of the house. The other woman was dressed in brown slacks and a blouse, her hair came down to her shoulders, she had rouge on her cheeks, and her lips and finger nails were reddened." The inspector noticed that the accused was wearing a brassiere underneath his blouse. In the wardrobe were 12 women's coats, only six of which belonged to the occupier. The inspector continued, "I asked her if she was Donna Delbert, and she said 'Yes.' I then asked if she was a deserter from the U.S. Army, but she denied it. I searched her handbag and found in it a registration and pass card bearing the name, 'Delbert E. Hill, private first class.' I searched the room she occupied in the house and found not one article of male clothing. The wardrobe and chest of drawers were full of women's clothes.' Some of this is familiar. I remember those slacks - she wore them slopping around at home, but never that I can recall when we went out together. They had a flat front but a capacious seat and legs. You must recall this was in the immediate post-war period, the era of full New Look skirts - women didn't wear pants much, jeans for girls were unheard of, leggings had not been invented, and though I had one pair of trousers, with a floral pattern, I would never have gone anywhere smart in them. But I didn't know she took a pass card around with her in her bag. It's not obvious to me why Donna should have wanted six coats in May, and why they were kept in the landlady's room. The inspector must have peered at her closely to make out the bra under her blouse, though it's true bras were often clumpier than the lighter ones we wear today. Eventually Donna admitted her military identity, Hill then said, "Yes. I am deserter from the American Army. I cannot say when I deserted, but it was some time before the atom bomb was dropped." The inspector arrested Hill and waited for a U.S. Air Force escort. Pte. Hill, giving evidence on his own behalf, said he joined the U.S. Air Force in 1942 at Fort Riley, in Kansas, where he was put special service as a performer and entertainer. "I travelled about all over England giving shows and entertaining thousands of servicemen and women. At Badminton the highlight of my career occurred where I gave a command performance to Queen Mary and was presented to Her Majesty after the show." At the end of the war with Germany he was interviewed by an officer, who said he would be graded as a clerk and would have to leave Special Service. "I had done nothing else in the Army, and only knew my job as an entertainer and performer to keep up morale. I was told that nothing could done and was given job as latrine orderly at Burtonwood". This was the first I'd heard of the show attended by Queen Mary (mother of King George V, and grandmother of the present Queen). Nor had Donna ever mentioned to me that she had been reduced to the role of a lavatory attendant, at a base far from wartime action, and in the period just after the German surrender in May 1945. While I realized that desertion was a serious offense, I was able to see how she might have felt that she had been let down by the service, and that, already in her mid thirties, she was forced to continue a useless existence of no value to her country. Donna's statement to the court ended like this, In July 1945 I went to Warrington, got drunk, and stayed drunk for three days. I was afraid to return to my unit, and at that time the war with Japan concluded. As the war was now completely over, I thought I would not wrong in taking my uniform. I stored it at a friend's house in Warrington." Private Hill then described how, before the war, he had put on an act as "America's only lady magician" and the "only lady fire- eater in the world." He went to London with the idea of offering his act as woman to a theatrical agent. He decided to let his own hair grow long, as constant use of a wig was not healthy. He got a six weeks' engagement for his act, and although it was not easy at first, he eventually established the show. Private Hill changed his plea of not guilty of desertion to one of guilty of being absent without leave. He maintained it was his intention to return to the Air Force some time. It did not take long for the court martial to reach a verdict. The sentence seemed harsh to me and my friends, but Donna may have known what was coming, 'Private Hill, of 360th Airdrome Squadron, was found guilty of desertion on 5 July 1944 and sentenced to be detained for two years with hard labour, and to receive a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force, with forfeiture of pay and allowances.' So the four years of freedom came to an end. Donna had been hiding in plain sight, building a career and earning a legal living, though some would say not an "honest" one. I doubt if in the same circumstances she would have received a similar sentence. In most of Britain penal servitude had been abolished in 1948. It may still exist in the US military. On and Off the Stage Naturally, the outcome of the court martial prompted quite a storm in what we now call the media, though we didn't in 1949. Much was made of the uniform Donna had rescued from storage, as well as the Private's close cropped hair and moustache. One enterprising reporter obtained an interview and quoted Donna as cheerfully acting the situation, "That's that," he told me as he awaited escort after sentence. "It doesn't matter how clever an actor may be. He gets out of character occasionally." The interviewer began, "Donna Delbert became a hit on the British music hall stage in 1945. A dark brunette, with a rich contralto voice, she toured an illusionist act in which a dog, three cats and three assistants took part. Booking agents said it was good. And landladies and fellow troupers were attracted by this rather blousy but good-natured woman with an American accent." He went on to quote more of what Dinna told him, After serving his sentence, he said, "I propose to write a book on 'My four years as a woman' and return to Britain to show those who haven't seen it what my act is really like. I was billed as the only woman fire- eater in the world, and I'm still a fire-eater." Hill produced a cigar and lit it. "I studied women carefully to play my part on the stage. I watched every little action until I could walk like them and use the familiar feminine gestures. I worked three months in a London cigarette factory beside woman and none of them knew my sex. I went into women's shops to buy my clothes and soon learned not to shop too briskly, but to have the assistants dancing around a little before I made a purchase." He went on, "I concealed my beard by makeup and wore a scarf when travelling. I wore plucked eyebrows and grew my hair long because 1 found that wearing a wig was causing my natural hair to fall out. My act brought me about ?45 to ?50 a week out of which I had to pay assistants. Finally, I about ?25 a week left. Yes, I've a little salted away." Hill, born in Philadelphia. Penn., married when he was 17, but there was a separation. "I went on the stage when 1 was 14," he said, "touring in magic and conjuring acts." Sadly the book never appeared. It's a pity, because it might have cleared up some mysterious sides of Donna's transition that I don't fully understand, even today. The article ends, "Hill's sworn statement. unchallenged by Capt. Koontz. the judge advocate, showed that after his call up in Kansas he worked in special services as an Army entertainer. He was brought to Britain, where he served on several stations producing shows. Later. Hill was drafted from special services to other duties and resented it. His Counsel Mr. J. M. Davies. said, "He sought to prove by returning to stage work that this was the job he could do well, he was wrong to abscond. but never during the period he was away was ne guilty of unbecoming conduct and he always intended to return." "I have been a builder of public morale when it was most needed," Hill told me, "I shall come back." Apart from the one I wrote, the fullest article about the affair came out in the local weekly, covering Holloway and Islington, on 17 June. It got a few things wrong, but it did supply more details about the way Donna became a familiar figure in the neighborhood before I got to know her. It says Donna was "nearly six feet tall", which is a bit of an exaggeration, I'd say she was more like five-nine or ten. She usually wore heels when she went out. Anyway, the story goes on, From July 1946 Donna started to live in a ground-floor room on Parkfield Street. Her landlady Mrs. Margaret Sannaghan, told the newspaper that a woman asked me whether I could let a room to an American lady actress who she said was a friend. I had no inkling that Donna was other than a woman. It was not until May that I was told who 'she,' I mean 'he,' really was." This situation remained the same until next year, "Donna was then in Newcastle; he had asked me to keep his room on for him," Mrs. Sannaghan went on, "I certainly felt that I had been taken in. Never at any time did I have any reason to suspect his real identity. She used to smoke a cigar and once I asked why she did so. She told me It was because cigarettes were difficult to get (this was postwar shortages!) and It was easier to buy tobacco. As a lodger she was civil enough. Donna was out most of the day and would return home about one o'clock in the morning. Often we would be awakened by the odor of kippers and other food that she used to cook on the gas. She was very fond of a striped performing tabby cat. called Annie. Donna was most upset when the cat died. Donna left in January and It was not until May that I heard he was a deserter from the American Army." The journalist spoke to others who knew Donna, She was known to be fastidious about her clothes, and was often seen wearing a green coat, cream blouse, brown skirt, nylon stockings and high-heeled shoes. She was fond of wearing an amber coloured necklace, clip-on earrings and bracelets. Her hair was always stylishly dressed. Before going to live at Parkfield Street, Donna was in rooms in a boarding house at Providence Place, near Islington Green, and afterwards at Colebrook Row. One of her Parkfield Street neighbours, Mr. Edgar Kemp, the pianist, who once set up a world record by playing the piano continuously for 150 hours, said, "When I first saw Donna I was impressed by her lady-like ways; she seemed so sedate and pleasant. On one occasion I shook hands with her and her handshake very gentle and feminine." Funnily enough, I don't think the green coat was her favorite, all the time I knew her, she preferred a long mock-fox fur and a lighter trench coat with a belt in fawn gaberdine. But all the other items were part of her wardrobe, and she did have some nice Victorian style drop earrings. My girl friends and I were jealous that she managed to keep a regular stock of nylons, which were like gold dust at that time - we figured they must have come from the black market, but she wouldn't tell us here she got them. Anyway, there was some information about how she managed to get work in the theatre, According to Mr. Trevor Smith, entertainments manager at Collins, Donna first applied for stage engagement at the theatre three-and a -half years ago. Some weeks later she secured an engagement with Jasper Maskelyne (this was a show that featured magicians and conjurors) and appeared for a season on the stage of the Whitehall Theatre. Her 15-minute act, during which she appeared to inhale flames from two torches. included a performance with 15-foot long whips. The skill with which she would handle the heavy whips never failed to arouse the admiration and applause of the audience. She was subsequently given a week's booking at Collins. One of Delbert's friends told one of our reporters, "Donna is a remarkable person; I sure that she would have continued in the female role indefinitely. We were all amazed to learn that Donna was in fact a man. Who could have guessed it?" After a pause he added. "There is this to be said for Donna. He was not like some of the other deserters from the Army who go around robbing and shooting people, he did give entertainment and earn his own living. Donna was always a favourite in the bar at Collins Music Hall, which she used as a sort of rendezvous. She had her own tankard and always drank pints, usually mild and bitter. She wore a wedding ring and once told a friend that her husband had been killed on VE Day. Her hair was natural and was well over shoulder length. A brilliant conversationalist. she appeared to be quite well educated and could talk on almost any subject in an interesting manner. Her one ambition was to save enough money to enable her to tour the U.S.A. with her own show as the only American woman fire-eater and illusionist. She was also on the stage of the Westminster Theatre and toured some of the leading provincial towns. Obviously, this dream never materialized once her cover was blown. I can confirm that she had a regular circle of friends at the bar and that she usually drank pints, although occasionally she would indulge in shorts, including drinks you never hear of these days, like gin and it (Italian vermouth) - which I myself couldn't stand, so I stuck to gin and lime. Near the end of the article, mention is made of an assistant for some time, "15-year-old blonde Irene Clarke, of Colebrook Row," whom I did get to know. She was sweet but not very bright, though to be fair as well as feeding props to Donna on stage she also acted as a kind of wardrobe mistress. This was quite demanding because she had to wash and iron Donna's clothes, and as I've said she as very pernickety about them, always wanting to have freshly pressed skirts or dresses. I've no idea what became of Irene. She took a lot of care with those things, and Donna can't have paid her more than about five pounds a week. My Life with Donna So much for what the world at large thought about Donna. But how does that square with what I saw in her? For a year I was the only person in the world who was in on her secret. It's possible a few people had their suspicions, but if so they never made them public - and they didn't include people who hired her for performances in the theatre, her colleagues in nightly shows, the women who worked alongside her in the tobacco factory of Butler and Tanner, or the friends she made in the pub. As I said, none of my girl friends had any inkling, though they were fairly street wise, not innocents in any way, and they would certainly have opened up to me if they had had any misgivings. When the story had broken, my best friend Jean said to me that she had admired Donna for her verve, energy and wit. She regarded her as one of the successful women in her profession that she had ever come across. You've got to recall her that most lines of work were closed to women, especially when men earned from the war and took up their former jobs. The were for instance hardly any funny female performers, apart from occasional standouts like the Cockney double act Gert and Daisy in music halls and on radio. Donna was a natural comedienne who could relate brilliantly with her audiences. How did she do it? She told the reporter that she had studied women closely to get tips on how to behave, as regards walking, talking, gesturing and so on. I'm sure she did a lot of that. But it seems to me there was some deeper, perhaps inborn identification with the opposite sex. The longer I knew her, the less possible it was for me, outside the time we spent in bed together, to think of her as anything different from a normal woman. She had been brought up as a boy and learnt to portray a man convincingly - and would do this to the end of her life. But her life as a female, at least over the time I knew her, was not an act. It came naturally. That was why she was able to get away with the pints of beer and the cigars. She knew that such things could not cover up her essential femininity. Let's be honest, if she had not revealed herself to me, I might almost certainly have met her every day for two years and not have twigged. Even in the intimacy of a single room (not to mention a bathroom down the corridor we shared with anther lodger) we simply cohabited as two females. Until they printed pictures of Donna after the court martial, I had no idea what she looked like as a man (she didn't possess any male clothes when we lived together) . Her body was hairless, her hair and nails unmistakably those of a woman. It was an education in some ways to spend my time close to her. She brought in her suitcase all sorts of things, clothes, make up, jewelry, that I had never seen before. Some came from Americas (as the nylons originally did). Some were upmarket items that I would never have had the chance to see till then, like the ring studded with tiny diamonds she said she found in a San Francisco junk shop before the war. Some were the kind of thing that my mother would never have allowed me near when I was growing up, like some of her flimsy silk underwear. She also had film magazines, and was well up on Westerns in particular. This wasn't surprising, as part of her act involved whipping, roping and lassoing - when I saw Doris Day as Calamity Jane a few years later, it reminded me of her. There are pictures of Donna in her five-gallon hat and cowgirl boots. From time to time she would buy Vogue and pore over the fashion pages - she said this was to keep up with the new designs, but I felt it was because of her naturally strong sense of style. When Donna wasn't working, if we didn't go out, we'd hang around at home. listening to the radio or playing cards. We both smoked - most people did then. She might put on a lovely lavender negligee she had - once the landlady knocked and walked in, but neither she nor Donna turned a hair. Once a week she would set her hair with curlers (no heated rollers or hairdriers for several more years) and carefully comb it out. The whole process took her just an hour or so. I can only remember one time when she had her done in a a local beauty parlor, before a big date at a London theatre. We went out fairly regularly, usually to a pub around lslington like the Canonbury Tavern, where George Orwell was supposed to have written part of 1984 just at this time. She didn't dress up specially and took very little time to do her face and everything (alhtgh she did have to disappear to the loo to carry out running repairs if we stayed for any length of time). I knew several of the locals from before but she had acquired some new friends I hadn't met. She was always the life and soul of the party while I stayed more in the background. I wasn't exactly svelte but Donna was two sizes bigger than me. However we were able to borrow some of each other's roomier clothes such as sweaters - in fact anything was fair game except shoes (Donna took a size 9) and of course underwear. I appropriated a gorgeous white sunhat with a purple brim she was going to throw out and wore it for some years, don't know what happened to it in the end. But she was generous in buying me a few things including several pairs of full fashioned nylons which my friends and I had been coveting for a long time. The End of the Affair So why did I tip her off to the police? My vanity was piqued, because I thought we had a special relationship, of a sort that most other women would not be able to manage - not even the presumably desirable Margaret. I came to realize that it couldn't have gone on for ever. That's even if Donna had not begun to tire of me, as I think she had. She must have found me a bit limited, as well as drearily respectable and unadventurous. It was easy to tell that she thought my girl friends were not tremendous fun. She gave them all private nicknames, while she used to call me Betty the Mouse. It's hard to say how long she would have kept up her role. Personally, I don't think it was true when she said she intended to return to the Army. My feeling is that as long as the jobs came coming in, she would have tried to build her stage career. But as everybody knows, television killed vaudeville, and within a short period the halls where she played were almost all shut down and converted to other uses, such as bingo. There's have been n life for her in Britain after her release, even if she'd tried to live as man and so relatively anonymously. In practice that meant there was no future for us a couple, or indeed for her with Margaret. The heart of my relationship with her was a close affection with another woman, and in later years I have instinctively compared the female friends I've made with her. Relationships with men have been in a totally different bracket. I can't imagine even now, so long afterwards, what Donna would have been like as a man. Epilogue Private Hill served his sentence in the USA and remained in his native country until his death in 1991, aged seventy-eight. According to one account, "He returned home to Philadelphia, usually performing as a man, but sometimes as 'Donna Delbert, The Celebrated English Magician & Fire Eater'. With time, however neither Delbert nor Donna was in as much demand, and they sold ice cream, worked in a Magic Fun Shop and even ran a diner." Nothing is known of the later lives of Betty or Irene (they have been given new last names in the story to maintain their privacy).