The House Of Castle
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Some years back, I went to "The House of Castle" to learn ballroom dancing because, at one time, I thought I could get work as a gigolo. I didn’t become a gigolo, but I did know (sort of) the Castle Walk. I have to go forward while my partner goes backward. This sounds easy, but I’m a non-aggressive person, so I have to ‘act’ to perform this dance properly—that and always stepping on my dance teacher’s foot. Irene, who was much older than me, has been a dancer throughout her life. I first discovered her in a photograph by Philippe Halsman, where she is jumping up into the air in her dance studio. I was impressed by her beauty and grace, especially doing the jump for her portrait. It was at that moment that I decided to take her dance class.
I have been obsessed with illusions throughout my life, especially when it concerns me and how I look. I’m around five feet, not that handsome, and I seem to have these intense mood swings, which go from sad to miserable. I have read a quote from Serge Gainsbourg that beauty doesn’t last forever, but ugliness does go on forever. If I can understand the mechanics of seduction, I feel that I can remove my ‘ugliness’ and find some solace with a beautiful woman.
Although she was much older, I found her perfect, as I stated above. When you learn ballroom dancing, you’re allowing yourself to be vulnerable to your teacher. Irene had consistently shown me kindness and patience - a lot of patience. Even though she was driven by the beat of the music or the melody, I was mainly affected by the song’s lyrics. I have consistently been drawn to Lorenz Hart’s lyrics due to their misery yet playful stance concerning the vocabulary. At the very best, I can only reach bitter-sweetness, which equals a version of happiness. I feel like I’m traveling three feet in the air over a desert landscape with her in my arms. In my head, it was a Halsman imagery!
Irene, at this time, was offered a live TV show that played in the middle of the afternoon. It was the first dance show, and the entire series focused on her and her dance studio, “The House of Castle.” She offered me a role in the series as one of her dance partners. I was taken on board because, as far as I know, all the other males in this series were handsome. But she told me that I have a sense of character, and being a character is more important than being handsome with respect to dance.
So for five days a week, in front of a TV audience and broadcast lives over the CBS network, I danced with Irene. The name of the series was “The House of Castle, ” which was her actual dance studio, and in every episode, she showed the audience how to do ballroom dancing. It was pretty successful, and it seemed that I had a home there and in people’s hearts as I struggled to dance with Irene in front of perhaps a million viewers. Then the worse thing happened.
I had some sort of seizure on the show, where I found myself on the ground. There were at least ten seconds of me writhing on the floor, where the cameraman focused on the background dancers, who were always in the shot. As the camera panned towards the dancers, a couple of the stage crew picked me up or dragged me off to the side. What happened was a complete mystery, but it did get me fired from the show. Some have called it a Pinky Lee curse of some sort, but it was heartbreaking because I was so close to being a success, or at the very least, having a position in a life that was suitable for me.
Time-to-time, Irene contacted me to see if I was OK, but whatever happened during that shoot, our relationship changed from day to night. As her show got more popular, she stayed further away from me. Years later, I relocated to Paris and got a job as a ‘double’ for the actor/singer Serge Reggiani. He hired me when he saw me drinking at a local nightclub on the Saint Germain des Prés. He mentioned to me that he liked how I smoked my cigarette. It was around this time when I read in Hedda Hopper’s column about Irene’s death. In the Hedda style, it was a combination of whatever happened to… and an obituary. The dance studio still exists, but I heard it was purchased by a Russian millionaire who opened a series of dance studios throughout Russia and the States.
As I was hanging out on the set for “Le Doulos, ” waiting for Serge to finish his scene, I concluded that I am a shadow for other people. Not only for Serge, of course, but also for Irene, who taught me so much; I was a mere phantom to her appearance on television. It is through the cracks of life that I find myself at home. As I went home and walked down St Michel, I heard “You Don’t Own Me” from a jukebox. I thought to myself, “yes. ”
