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soon to be a film starring Ingrid Bergman and Helen Hayes, along with Yul Brynner as an opportunistic fortune hunter. Miss Del Rio played the title role of a twenty-four-year-old woman searching for an identity she believed made her a part of the royal family of Romanovs, and Miss Darvas played the suspicious Grand Duchess of Russia, her supposed grandmother. At the time, Miss Del Rio was fifty-one, and Miss Darvas fifty.
    My job that week was prompter. I was positioned stage right in a small booth that had a narrow slit through which I could see the actors onstage. I held a flashlight while sitting on a high stool, the script on my lap. I never needed, in the course of their eight performances, to shout out a line to either of them. So I turned the pages, kept track of where they were and mostly watched their interplay. Few memories of the actual performances stay with me, except the absolute precision and repetition of their choices, down to the smallest gesture. What does remain are the circumstances surrounding those two and a half hours.
    D uring that summer, most of the touring stars appeared around the theatre somewhere during the day. Miss Darvas was ever-present. She arrived at lunchtime and ate with the rest of us.
    â€œWill we see Miss Del Rio?” I asked.
    â€œDarling! No! She doesn’t leave her accommodations. Never on this tour does anyone see her in the daytime. She travels alone in her Rolls-Royce with her lady-in-waiting from theatre to theatre and only comes out for the performances. Her shades are always drawn in her rooms to protect her skin from the light, and she lies in a bath of milk.”
    I was mesmerized by this story and by Miss Del Rio’s reported meticulous daily and then nightly routine.
    Each evening at about fifteen minutes before the curtain went up, the audience already mostly seated, Miss Del Rio’s car, tinted windows tightly shut, drifted down the driveway and circled to the back door of the theatre, close to the stage entrance. She emerged fully dressed in her first-act costume, completely made up and breathtakingly beautiful. Her driver held an open parasol over her exquisitely coiffed jet-black hair and her lady-in-waiting preceded her up the wooden steps, making certain there would be no one in her path as she disappeared into the dark of the theatre. A special carpet had been laid up the steps and across the backstage to protect the soles of her shoes and the hems of her costumes and a private area had been set up for her in the wings, which consisted of three flats bracketed together to form a small cubicle with a table and chair inside. On the table sat a mirror, a flask of water, a crystal glass, the script, a small light covered by blue plastic, and a few basic makeup items for touch-up purposes.
    I watched every night, hidden, next to the backstage door, as she sat down, smoothed out her dress, and folded her hands across her lap. When the stage manager called Places , I moved to my spot in the prompter’s booth.
    Miss Del Rio never left her cubicle between scenes but returned there for her costume changes, which were executed immediately; after which she sat back down to wait for her next entrance. She never once went into a dressing room or used a bathroom but spent both intermissions sitting calmly and quietly. We were told never to approach her and, certainly, never to speak with her.
    During the act breaks, I was drawn to her lair like a cub looking for its mother. I obeyed the rules but did get what I hoped for. As I slowly passed by, I received a faint nod of the head and a warm smile. No word ever left her lips, other than onstage, where she spoke in a measured, slightly accented, beautiful voice.
    Her final confrontation scene, with Miss Darvas as her grandmother, dramatically staged with Miss Del Rio on her knees, holding Lily’s hands as Lily wept, calling out, “Malenkia, my little Malenkia,” was exquisitely played by both.
    C