1945 Parkersburg, West Virginia

The first movie that I remember really, really impressing me was ​Mildred Pierce, ​which starred Joan Crawford. I was five. I was there with my mother and my best friend Nancy and her mother. The theater was called the Palace Theater​. ​It wasn’t quite a palace, and the admission fee was 10 cents. The Palace was an older theater. It was across from my grandfather’s supermarket.

I feel there must have been ushers, because if people got too rowdy someone would come down with a flashlight and make them be quiet. There was a concession stand, and all I remember are those Jujubes. I ​hated​ those. Somebody had some and shared them, and oh my ​God​. But I don’t remember buying candy; I don’t remember bringing anything. We would just go out and get a drink of water if we got bored. Every once in a while, somebody did buy popcorn, but there was no passing of popcorn [with Mildred Pierce​]. We were very grown up then.

Mildred Pierce ​was the story of a divorcée and how that affected her life. I don’t want to go into this too deeply, but the whole business of being a divorcée meant that you were loose. It was terrible because that’s what you had to put up with. In retrospect, I realize my mother would have been going through that same thing, because she was a divorcée at about the same time in history, but I hated Joan Crawford​—​ that’s one thing I remember. I don’t know why, and that’s probably why I didn’t like the movie. I realize now it was great for our moms because they had time off, can you imagine? Because these went on all morning. You didn’t get out till lunchtime.

But just in the middle of the movie, the film stopped. The lights came up in the theater, and we all looked around because that had never happened before. And they announced that the war was over. That historic moment was V-J Day, in August of 1945. We all silently, in awe, walked out of the theater. Everyone progressed down to the main street of my hometown​— ​I’m going to get teary because it’s so moving​—​and everyone was celebrating, everyone​— ​Market Street was packed. We’d never seen adults behaving like this, and out of the big hotel windows people were throwing rolls of toilet paper streaming down. That’s the first movie I really, ​really​ remember. Very, very vividly.