Free The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld by Chris Wiltz Page B

floated to her usual front-row table, compliments of the star. When Charley Bagby, the piano player, saw her, he broke into “Be Still My Heart.”
    The first act was a ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen with his smart-aleck dummy Charlie McCarthy. Charlie sat on Edgar’s knee, having a little trouble keeping his head upright. Edgar asked him why he was so groggy.
    “Well, Charley and I,” he said lifting his chin toward the piano player, “had a pretty rough night last night.”
    “What did you do?” Edgar asked.
    “We went down to Dauphine Street to visit the Queen.”
    The crowd laughed, because by that time everybody knew who the Queen of Dauphine was. A reporter for the Item had picked up the reference earlier in the week and started using it in his column, “The Spotlight.” Also, the show was broadcast over the radio, and Harris regularly preceded his songs, such as “That’s What I Like About the South” and “Doo Wha Ditty, Oh So Small and Oh So Pretty,” with “This one’s dedicated to the Queen.” During the broadcast he’d let his friends know where to meet him after the show too—over at the Queen’s on Dauphine.
    Norma had met Phil during the first week of his engagement at the Blue Room. His show was from ten to two nightly, and after hours he and his band had decamped to a bar on University Place. The bar was owned by one of Norma’s friends, Louie—not her ex-boyfriend. One night when the band members were particularly wound up and didn’t want to quit, Louie closed down his bar and took them all over to 410 Dauphine. Norma had taken one look atPhil’s large-featured, roughly handsome face, which was rarely without a smile, and fallen in love.
    Every night after the show Phil and his band would head to Norma’s, where they’d fix big pitchers of absinthe (a drink made from wormwood, a psychoactive substance that was banned in 1912), tell jokes, and play music. Phil wrote a song for Norma called “Queens Drink Absinthe in New Orleans.” Norma loved all the attention he gave her, and she had never laughed so much in her life. “I discovered that when you’re in love, everything is laughs.”
    So many people were clamoring for tickets to the Phil Harris show that the band’s engagement was extended through February. Whenever they could Phil and Norma would go to her farm in Pearl River. Sometimes Jackie and a couple of the girls came along with a few guys in the band. One night Phil got a little loose and tried to bring one of the cows into the living room. They all laughed until Norma wasn’t sure they would recover.
    Norma had horses at the farm; she’d bought them after a tuberculosis scare that turned out to be a case of too much nightlife. She exercised and got as much fresh air as she could now. Phil had never ridden horses until he met Norma. He loved riding with her.
    All too soon Phil had to leave New Orleans, though he returned for two more Blue Room engagements. In between, Norma visited him in Cincinnati, Dallas, and Los Angeles, where he played the big, fabulous nightspots. They’d spend a few nights together, until Norma needed to get back to her business. “Or I’d send out a distress signal,” she said, “and he’d beeline for New Orleans.”
    Phil’s fame and popularity continued to grow, and he joined the Jack Benny radio show. After that, on one of Norma’s trips to California, he showed her the property he’d bought, formerly the actor Adolphe Menjou’s, right in the heart of Los Angeles. But when Norma saw it, before Phil built his house, it was thick with orange trees and deer were jumping over the fence.
    When Norma met Phil, he was unhappily married to a woman named Mascot, a former Miss Australia. Even though they divorced, Norma never allowed herself to think she had a future with this man who made her laugh as no one else did, one of the great loves of her life. She knew that his life would always be centered in Los Angelesand New York. “And I had