The time came when we had to take a vacation. By a certain date, if we had not left England, we would have lost our American citizenship. So for three weeks we went to Paris, the Riviera, Venice and Switzerland. Some friends, Bob and Molly Laing, met us in Nice and it was a wonderful vacation. They were dear friends and Bob took me for a ride in his MG along the coast. He reminded me of my brothers. Tragically he died of a ruptured appendix just a few months later.
Another highlight of our vacation was seeing Maurice Chevalier at the “Folies Bergère” in Paris. Until then Pop had never liked him but was completely won over by his charm. I never saw anyone take so many curtain calls or do so many encores.
Pop bought Mom a beautiful diamond and sapphire wristwatch and took Miki and I to a couture where we each bought two gorgeous evening dresses, original and exclusive designs.
Back to England and work.
One afternoon we were invited to a private showing of something called “Television.” Pop was very intrigued, although the picture was not much better than his “Broadcasting” illusion.
I loved being in England and would have been very happy to remain there. But the shadow of the coming war was beginning to loom. From the time Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich [in 1938], the general feeling in England was that war was inevitable. After the following March [1939], when Hitler seized Czechoslovakia, we began carrying portable boxlike gas masks, which were never used and were felt to be a preposterous nuisance but meant to be a show of preparedness.
In spite of this we had to fulfill an agreement Dante had made some time before to return to Berlin and play the Scala for two months. We left England with heavy hearts. We were supposed to return but felt very uncertain.