I Danced for Mussolini

FOREWORD

In the early 1920s when Sethma’s family arrived from Kansas, Southern California was known not only for oil exploration but also for its thriving motion picture industry. D.W. Griffith, the foremost film director of the day, had reconstructed Babylon on Sunset Boulevard right in the midst of the slumbering community of orange groves and stucco bungalows . There Griffith created his own version of ancient history with four thousand locals portraying the citizenry of Babylon and mile-high white plaster elephants lining the make-believe court of Balshazzar. It was this Hollywood, laid out beneath the hill-top sign that read "Hollywoodland" (named for a housing project that never got off the ground) that ignited dreams and lured the Williams family from Signal Hill after their chicken ranch fiasco.

PREFACE

I first met Sethma at a party in Montecito where she was surrounded by a fascinated, laughing group who obviously were intrigued by the personal and funny anecdotes she was

recounting. I stopped to listen and found this fun loving lady indeed had some unforgettable tales to tell about her earlier years that paralleled the ‘Perils of Pauline’.

This petite 88-year-old, with sparkling blue eyes and a whimsical sense of humor, now lives quietly in a beachside community near Santa Barbara. With a table of scrapbooks filled with memories of her career and her little dachshund, Rudy, by her side she sifts through articles and photos taken during her career abroad and in Hollywood.

Chapter I

From my balcony I look out at the ocean and reminisce about all of the exciting times I’ve lived through-- replaying my memories it seems as though I’ve lived more than one lifetime. How, I wonder, could it all have happened to me and with so much of it played out against a background of history.

If time travel was possible, which chapter of my life would I choose to revisit? Would it be my romance with the dashing Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, or the time I danced for Mussolini, himself? Or perhaps the drama and danger of being asked to participate in an attempt to assassinate Hitler?

It seems destiny took over when my parents came to California from Wichita, Kansas, in the early 1920s. My father was a hard drinking dreamer who knew he would make a fortune if he bought a lot on Signal Hill in the Long Beach area where a forest of oil wells pumped an unending supply of ‘black gold’. Only it turned out that the lot he bought on top of the hill was the only parcel that didn’t have oil. Struggling to overcome his disappointment he started a chicken ranch on the property instead.

My mother, Grayce Williams, was a frustrated entertainer who decided to fulfill her dreams by living vicariously through me. She decided my future career by enrolling me in ballet school when I was just three years old. I hated having to do all the required practice exercises--even at that age I was a free spirit and just wanted to dance to my own tune.

Despite all the boring exercises I began to love dancing so much that when I was thirteen and money was scarce I sold my brother’s new bicycle to pay for more lessons. Then I was really encouraged when my teacher, who was also the owner of a dance studio, thought I was good enough to work as her assistant-- needless to say, I was thrilled and decided to make dancing my future career.

After we left Signal Hill for Hollywood we rented a beautiful house near Melrose and Cherokee -- but my father, Seth Williams, who seemed to be addicted to oil as well as booze, lost his money investing in another oil well. All of our furniture was repossessed that time except my great-grandma’s rocking chair, and we were thankful for friends who brought food and some cots for us to sleep on.

Besides oil my father was also intrigued by the movie business and went into debt investing in a screen test (of himself) offered by the newly opened Hal Roach studio. He saw a studio advertisement promising to make a screen test available to anyone interested and it might lead to fame and fortune. The catch was it cost $10,000. and my father’s test resulted in nothing but a bad credit rating and a big zero in his bank account.