The trouble started when Maury Sline had his midlife crisis. Maury, their booking agent of more than twenty years, ran away to Buenos Aires with Branca Abelho, his 19-year-old Portuguese receptionist. He also absconded with $2,000 of Grace and Bridie’s money. They didn’t blame Maury, Branca was voluptuous and unscrupulous, but they were 67 and almost broke.
Adopting the voice of Humphrey Bogart in African Queen, Grace said, ‘We’re too old to break in another agent, Bridie. And you know it’s been hard lately, all the traveling and sleeping in hotels. Maybe it’s time we take our final curtain call.’
Bridie, in Katherine Hepburn’s distinct drawl replied, ‘You’re always right about things, dear, the show circuit was fun when we were kids, but we’re getting older now. We’ve been on the road for over forty years.
‘I’m very disappointed with Maury. We only stayed out there these last few years for his sake. Maybe we should look for a new act, one that doesn’t require so much driving. We can’t just live out our days on old age pensions. How would we afford to feed the cats? Still, I would like to spend more time by our own fire.’
The twins, variously booked as ‘The Fabulous Parrot Sisters,’ ‘Esmeralda & Stavros (Bridie in drag),’ and ‘The Echos,’ were premier vocal impersonators. They’d been born with the uncanny ability to mimic any voice. Their talent was innate, like perfect pitch, a vintner’s palate or perfumer’s nose; it was a gift from God. That’s what Father Noel had told them when they were teenagers at Mount Saint Michael’s and occasionally abused their ability by playing unkind pranks.
What provoked Father Noel’s chastisement was an incident when Grace had gone into the confessional and, adopting Sister Rosemary’s voice, confessed to the most impure behaviour she and Bridie, then 14 years old, could imagine. As Sister Rosemary, Grace confessed to wearing red knickers to mass. Father Noel was scandalized, but heard Bridie giggling outside the confessional and caught the girls red-handed.
‘Your talent is a gift,’ said the good priest, struggling to keep from laughing at the visual image of the obese Sister Rosemary in tarty knickers. ‘You must find ways to serve God with it. Always be kind. Don’t entertain yourselves at other people’s expense. Make them happy.’
‘Yes, Father,’ the twins replied in unison, each adopting the voice of Ingrid Bergman as Sister Mary Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary’s. He gave them both penance, twenty Hail Marys and five Our Fathers, and quickly turned away to avoid displaying his mirth. He couldn’t wait to share this one with Father Mike.
Now, fifty-three years later, the sisters went to mass whenever they were home in Fremont, particularly when Father Noel was celebrant. However, this wasn’t so frequent. The priest was well into his 80s and only occasionally said mass or heard confession. Sometimes when they were on the road, Bridie would use Father Noel’s voice, reciting his most recent homily. Part of the twins’ gift was a nearly eidetic aural memory. Having Father Noel ‘visit’ was comforting to them shivering together in a one-star flop in Blackpool or South End.
The twins’ most recent act involved recruiting a couple from the audience. They’d blindfold both volunteers and speak to each of them in their partner’s voice without detection. Although easy enough for the twins to perform, the art was in the show’s presentation; building the participants and the audience up to a grand confusion of voices, sometimes interrupted by well-known personalities such as Sylvester Stallone, Richard Nixon, or Dolly Parton.
Another big hit with adult audiences for a few years had been their ‘Hotline’ telephone conversations between then President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Starting as a crisis call over some current event, the two world leaders soon began talking naughtily to each other. When ‘Ron’ asked ‘Maggie’ if she was wearing any knickers it always brought the house down.
It was the Ron and Maggie impersonation which gave Bridie her idea. She and Grace had taken a computer course through Age Action California and, after that, an Introduction to Media Communication at USD Adult Education. Bridie’s idea was to open a Chat Line like those advertised in the back of ‘The Sun’ newspaper, but offering people a chance to talk with their favourite movie personality. Grace suggested calling themselves the ‘Hollywood Starz Chat-Line.’ They agreed without discussion that they would never reveal anything about this venture to anyone else. Their chat-line was, after all, like the confessional. Voices who thought themselves anonymous revealed their most intimate fantasies.
Keeping a secret wasn’t difficult for Grace and Bridie because, although they had friends, they mostly kept to themselves. The twins had always been sufficient with each other, never tempted away by friendship or romance. Their favourite pastime was watching movies together. Sometimes when driving between bookings, they’d ‘play’ scenes from a favourite film, losing themselves in the dreamland of their characters.
With the last of their savings, Grace and Bridie converted the upstairs bedroom into a call-in studio, painting and carpeting it to enhance sound proofing and adding a stove just to make it cosy. The bay window looked out over the lagoon. Then they hooked up to the Internet with high-speed cable supplied by Calcom.
Hoping to attract trade from hen parties, the twins ordered business cards, placed ads, and made small flyers. They left cards in ladies’ toilets, opened a website, arranged to accept Visa, and installed chat software. Internet clients were offered video and slide shows of famous film stars, but direct phone callers, mostly mature men and women, turned out to be the majority of their custom. The twins’ new theatre was inside the mind of their callers, something they’d always recognized as a big part of any live presentation. The steamy videos didn’t interest callers over 40.
Having spent most of their adult lives in hotels, Grace and Bridie had contacts with the front desk and domestic staff of places they’d stayed. Their modest flyers found their way onto hotel nightstands and coffee tables around California, Ireland, and the U.K. The Parrot Sisters were back on the circuit without leaving their fireside! Even with restricted hours, a steady stream of income buoyed their bank account. Now, most of their callers were by appointment.
‘This is our most successful show ever,’ said Bridie in Maureen O’Hara’s provocative but sensible voice.
‘That’s right little lady,’ replied Grace in John Wayne’s, ‘but I think we’re a’drivin’ too many doggies.’
‘We must work hard dear, so we can help St. Factna’s restoration fund and support the animal shelter,’ said Maureen.
Just then the chat line telephone pinged and Grace answered in Branca Abelho’s sultry Latin accent, ‘Hollywood Starz,’ may I have your password and the name of the star with whom you wish to speak?’ As she did so, she entered information into her keyboard, and then said, ‘Please hold and I’ll see if he’s available.’
Turning to Bridie, Grace became Danny DiVito and said, ‘It’s Sistah Rosemary, cupcake. Will youse do Brendan Gleeson for her?’
‘Certainly, dear,’ said Bridie, already seguing into the Irish actor’s rogue Dub accent. ‘But if Father Noel calls, you’ll have to be Mary Martin from The Sound of Music. I’m afraid I’d get confused and end up being Sister Rosemary in her knickers.
