by Rose Madeline Mula

Created on: February 12, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

The year, 1940. The place, the Embassy Theater, a movie house in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Unlike the sterile, stark cubicles that serve as screening rooms today, the spacious Embassy was a fantasyland. It boasted a ceiling of twinkling stars against a midnight-blue sky, a huge screen draped in lush, red velvet; gilded, highly-ornamented walls; uniformed (and cute!) ushers; and a richly-carpeted, imposing lobby with a grand staircase curving upward to the balcony seats. In short, the Embassy was an enchanting oasis in a dreary former mill town that had morphed into a nondescript watch manufacturing city.

I was twelve years old, painfully shy, self-conscious, gawky, and near-sighted. In that pre-contact lenses era, I was condemned to wearing glasses and enduring the "Four Eyes!" taunts of mean-spirited classmates, which did not inspire confidence.

But at the Embassy I forgot my insecurities as I got lost in the wonderful world of the silver screen. One day in 1940 a memorable movie mesmerized me Rebecca, starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. He was handsome, wealthy, aloof. She was awkward, timid, withdrawn. She was me! Except she was lovely. But she didn't think so. Hey! Could it be that maybe I, too, was pretty behind my glasses but just didn't realize it? I have never identified so strongly with a character in a movie. And when she implausibly won the heart of the brooding Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), I was as ecstatic as if he were carrying me off to be his wife and the mistress of his mansion, Manderlaywhich was even more magnificent than the Embassy Theater.
The only scenario that was even more incredible was that the woman on that screen would one day become my friendwe would correspond, chat on the phone, and even visit each other's homes. No way! Man would walk on the moon before that happened!

Well, of course, man did eventually walk on the moon; and, equally miraculously, the glamorous Joan Fontaine of Hollywood, California, did meet and befriend the shrinking violet from Waltham, Massachusetts. Both events occurred many years after that day in 1940 when Rebecca captured my soul and took up permanent residence there as my favorite movie of all time. Surprisingly, it is the least loved work of its beautiful star, even though it had won her an Oscar nomination.

I learned of Joan's aversion to Rebecca when I first met her in 1975. After years of slaving as Susie Steno in a series of companies, I had landed my dream job as Operations Manager

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