George knew who the negative stories had come from. “Give me strength,” he muttered. Then he looked directly into Carrie's eyes. “I want you to get this if you don't get anything else: Lu Lawson was a star, but she never did a star trip. Hell, baby, no one had to fight harder to make it than she did, and she never forgot that. When she came to town—it was late in 'forty-four—I was the only person she knew. She was broke—she slept on my sofa for six months because she couldn't pay her rent—and, as we say in the biz, she couldn't get arrested. People started calling her Audition Lu because she went up for everything: cattle calls, chorus gigs, any audition my friends and I could sneak her into. There were a couple of agents who sent her out too. Everyone could see there was something special about her, but she just didn't fit the mold.” He paused to load up his spoon with chili and a dollop of sour cream.

“Back in the late forties and early fifties, the roles for women in Broadway musicals pretty much fell into two categories. There were the romantic heroines who always got their man because they were beautiful and really stupid. Those parts were played by legit singers who had classically trained voices—usually sopranos. Then there were the funny girls. They played the wisecracking underdogs who weren't beautiful but got the guy in the end because they were fun. Those parts called for a lower singing voice—big and brassy—what we call in the trade a ‘belt sound.’ Belting was a much rougher way of singing, and most sopranos wouldn't do it because it was hard on the vocal cords.

“When Lu came to New York, she could sing the hell out of the soprano repertoire, but she couldn't play a romantic heroine. She was cute, but she wasn't a beauty in that kind of peaches-and-cream way that people wanted. More important, she couldn't dumb down enough. She was smart and funny and no one wanted a wiseass singing ‘If I Loved You.’