The American Adventures of an English Actor • Part I

In an unpublished essay, Leslie Howard recounts his first journey across the Atlantic and his first impressions of America—its people, hotels, food, theatre, Prohibition and drinking clubs—along with New York's Times Square, the El-Train and its never-ceasing noise.

[Howard changed the name of the actual ship on which he sailed from Majestic to Balearic for the story • Spelling and punctuation are Mr. Howard's]

Part 1:

I walked up St James's Street thinking. 

I stood on the corner of Piccadilly thinking. 

I walked down St James's Street thinking. 

Then, the result of my thinking being exactly what it would have been if I hadn't thought at all, I thought no more. I walked into the manager's office. 

'I will go,' I announced not without a touch of the dramatic. 

'Good,' said the manager. 'I will send a cable at once. You sail for New York on Wednesday in the Balearic. 

"The manager was also, quite unconsciously, being dramatic. The word 'cable', for instance, with its suggestion of instantaneous progress through thousands of miles of ocean, was certainly theatrical. The Balearic also conjured up visions of 'Ocean Greyhound', 'Leviathan of the Deep' and so on. It was most exciting. 

On my first glimpse of the Balearic at Southampton, I thought 'How small!' My knowledge of ocean liners was confined to those articles in magazines which seem to indicate their immensity. Before I saw the Balearic I had visions of a big ship standing in the Strand, her stern at Charing Cross and her bows at Ludgate Circus—or on her nose by the side of the Woolworth Building over which she towered. Whereas the Balearic merely floated in the water by the dock—and looked quite small. Still she was really big enough. 

The voyage was rather hard work—for me—as I was undergoing my Transatlantic Graduation which everyone must go through on their first trip. This consists of instruction in ocean travel by everybody else on board. I appeared to be the only passenger making a first trip. I gather that nobody ever makes a second trip across the Atlantic. They make their first trip and then are never heard of again until they are suddenly seen on their twenty-third voyage. 

I got through my graduation quite well. In addition to being told three times daily that the Balearic was 'the steadiest boat on the Atlantic', I was instructed in a series of strange ship-board pastimes—such as shuffle-board, deck-tennis, quoits, pinochle, shooting craps and gin-rickey. The last was great fun, but one became a trifle inaccurate after about the twelfth round. 

Then there was the pool. I thought in my innocence this was something you swam in. In fact it was a sort of sweepstake connected with the number of miles the ship travelled in a day. I went in for it three times but found it boring. It was always won by the same man—an insurance actuary called Rosenfelder. No fun at all. 

The majority of the passengers were American, a large number of them coming on board at Cherbourg. I had met solitary Americans in London, but this was my first encounter with them en masse. I became friendly with a number of them and found them nearly all charming, hospitable and cultured. I was delighted. It must indeed be a great country if these people were just haphazard samples of its population. Later I was to learn that these were American-Americans and that in the big cities they were a little hard to find among masses of hybrid Americans of European extraction. 

The commercial—or business—element seemed to foregather mostly in the smoking room. The bar was there. After the briefest acquaintance in this place everyone was soon familiar with everyone else's intimate life-history and background. It was impossible to conceal anything from them. The fact that I was able to conceal my connection with the stage for forty-eight hours was miraculous. 

The American-Americans, however, were as charming as ever even after they discovered I was an actor. Many of them, indeed, were quite excited and said they knew Belasco and the Barrymores and so on—and did I? 

Eventually, one early morning, we arrived off Sandy Hook. The bar now being closed in obedience to the principles of democratic liberty, some of the commercial element came on deck and joined me there. They were very kind in pointing out some of the landmarks. As we passed through the Narrows I was told that the flat piece of land on our right was Long Island and the flat piece on our left Staten Island. Then we got into New York Bay and I was prepared for the great moment that I had been told about all the way over—the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and the New York sky-line. 

But it never came. All the first class passengers were at that moment hustled below to the dining saloon where we filed past a depressed young doctor of the US Army who was presumably able to tell at a glance whether we were suffering from typhus, sleeping sickness or other diseases they don't like in America. I felt I had them all before I got to him—but I was, apparently, quite free from infection and was allowed to pass safely into the saloon. 

Here a number of US Customs officials were playing a jolly game entitled 'Line Up Please'. It consisted of getting all the passengers into two lines, one very long and one very short—and then going and having breakfast the other side of the saloon. There were about thirty officials and they arranged themselves as follows: 

     Examining passports in the short line - 3
     Examining passports in the long line - 1
     Going round saying 'Line Up Please' - 1
     Having breakfast - 25 

I was in the long line and the official dealing with it sat at a table at the head of the line and we filed up to him. He was the most junior official, and I think they gave him the long line to make the game last longer on account of the breakfast which looked rather good, or perhaps simply to give him practice. He found a little difficulty in recognising the difference between a passport and a menu card so I suppose it was his desire to be on the safe side which caused him to send about every fourth person to Ellis Island or wherever it is they deposit people they don't like much. 

Once I skipped out of the line and looked through a porthole to try and see the Statue of Liberty. All I saw were the words Lackawanna Ferry written on an extraordinary vessel with no stern and a front at each end. When I got back I had to go to the bottom of the class. 

I discovered later that the thing to do was to rush up to the breakfasting officials and shout, 'Shure an' it's not meself that'll be waitin' all this toime at all. To hell wid the lot of yez!' Or words to that effect. Upon which salutation the officials would rise in a body, seize the speaker by the hand and insist that not only would they waive all red tape—but Mr Murphy should at once join them for breakfast. 

During this period I was rather preoccupied with thoughts of Ellis Island. Fortunately my fears were groundless. Apart from a rather suspicious look at the photograph on my passport, the gentleman at the table raised no objection to my leaving the ship. When I walked down the gangway I was wearing a thick winter overcoat and carrying two others. I mention this because, although it was the middle of October, it was one of the hottest days I have ever experienced. My American friends seemed to think it nice cool weather. They said it was the Indian summer. I longed to be an Indian. 

The heat rather took the edge off the thrill I should have received on first setting foot on American soil. Furthermore, I was much intrigued watching the beginning of a new game on the dock conducted by another set of Customs officials. In this pastime several officials would hover round a passenger waiting for his last piece of baggage to reach the dock. Nothing could be examined until all was complete, and he must stay there until it was. The fun came when the last piece of baggage arrived. This was the signal for a clever flanking movement on the part of the customs men who all vanished into a wooden hut where they lay doggo. 

When my turn came to be 'he' I made a bold move. I stormed the wooden hut, seized an official and said: 'Listen. I am strongly in favour of freedom for Ireland. Will you come and examine my luggage?' A moment later I was through the barrier. Here I said goodbye to my friends of the ship as I stood surrounded with luggage outside the dock waiting for a taxi. 

I suddenly felt very lonely face to face with New York and the American continent. I thought of St James's Street, my family, Waterloo Station, the telegraph boy at Southampton...I felt distinctly lonely. 

Trivial Fond Records, pgs. 19-22

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