Don’t expect to wake up and get toast for breakfast.
The toast is you.
YOLANDA lets a long silent moment pass.
LOLA
Like it?
YOLANDA (TO RHONDA)
You remember that song we sang with
Rusty?
(TO LOLA)
We used to have a dog in the act when
Connie and Wanda were in it and we’d sing
this song with him and he’d howl.
YOLANDA & RHONDA (SING)
Go tell Aunt Gladys
Go tell Aunt Gladys
Go tell Aunt Gladys
Her old brown dog is dead.
YOLANDA & RHONDA (SING) (CONT’D)
An old brown dog named Rusty
An old brown dog named Rusty
An old brown dog named Rusty
He just laid down and died.
They howl in two-part harmony.
YOLANDA & RHONDA (SING)
He died from chasing squirrels
He died from chasing squirrels
He died from chasing squirrels
He ate one and got sick.
It must’ve been a bad one
It must’ve been a bad one
It must’ve been a bad one
He just lay down and died.
They howl in harmony.
LOLA
You sang that in public?
RHONDA
That was the summer we auditioned for the
Lawrence Welk Show and Mama made those
big yellow dresses with the puff sleeves and
the petticoats.
YOLANDA
We went to Hollywood on the train and we
promised Mama that we would lock
ourselves into our hotel rooms and not walk
the streets—
LOLA
At night?
YOLANDA
Anytime. And we promised we were going
to sing “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling,
Calling for You and for Me”—
RHONDA
And we would have, except that “Softly and
Tenderly Jesus Is Calling” just didn’t show
us off to advantage. It wasn’t going to get us
the job.
YOLANDA
So we did our bird medley instead.
LOLA
You never told me about this.
RHONDA
It was absolutely terrific. “When the Red Red
Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin Along,” which
segued into “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” and
“Bluebird of Happiness” and then “Bye Bye
Blackbird.” The audience went nuts. They
were standing, clapping, waving hankies,
throwing babies in the air. And you know
something? They cut that number out of the
show. You want to know why? Envy. Pure
and simple. They could not bear to see four
little girls from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, tear up
an audience like that and show up the
Lennon Sisters. So all they left in was “Go
Tell Aunt Gladys the Old Brown Dog Is
Dead,” which we did as an encore. It was
pure envy. The Lennon Sisters. We could sing
circles around the Lennon Sisters. So they
dumped us. The Lennon Sisters were
communists. It’s true. That is not generally
known.
(TO YOLANDA)
Don’t look at me like that. It’s true. We had
more talent in our little pinkie than the four
of them put together. They hated us because
we were better than they were.
YOLANDA
Mr. Welk was nice.
RHONDA
We didn’t know it at the time but that was
the high point of our career. Only time we got
to Hollywood. I was thirteen, you were ten,
Wanda was, what?
YOLANDA
Sixteen. And Connie was fifteen.
RHONDA
That was it. End of the road. Envy.
YOLANDA
Anyway, Wanda took it hard, and a week
later, she got arrested.
LOLA
For what? You never told me about this.
YOLANDA
Shoplifting.
RHONDA
She was in a café having a cup of coffee and
she ordered a glazed doughnut and started
eating it and got a sugar rush and jumped
up, forgetting that she hadn’t paid for it and
she walked out the door . . . and two minutes
later there were red lights flashing and she
RHONDA (CONT’D)
was in handcuffs and the TV cameras were
there and she was bawling and her hair was a
mess and it was on the ten o’clock newscast
and Daddy saw it—
YOLANDA
He was in the hospital with Mama who was
having her tubes tied after Johnny was born.
RHONDA
Daddy saw Wanda on TV getting arrested for
shoplifting and he had a major coronary
occlusion.
LOLA
That was when he died?
RHONDA
It was fatal, yes.
YOLANDA
He just pulled the sheet up over his own face,
and when the nurse came in, he was dead.
RHONDA
He left a note for Wanda. She was released
from jail for the funeral. The note said, “You
broke my heart.” Signed, Daddy.
YOLANDA
She did thirty days in jail for one glazed
doughnut.
LOLA
That’s terrible.
RHONDA
Fifty-nine-cent doughnut.
RHONDA is putting on her eyelashes.
RHONDA
If it was rock ’n’ roll, she could’ve thrown
sofas out of the hotel window, but when
you’re working to Christian family audiences
like we were, if you so much as forget to pay
for a doughnut, they’ll dump you like you
were a piece of garbage.
YOLANDA
She quit the act and joined the Sisters of
Perpetual Sorrow and went off to live in a
convent in Minot where you spend eight
hours a day on your knees rocking back and
forth and moaning.
RHONDA
One week we’re in Hollywood on the verge
of stardom and a week later we’re back
playing the county fair circuit and doing our
costume changes in the ladies’ toilet and boys
trying to peek in and then you go and sing
outdoors with a cloud of mosquitoes around
your head . . . I remember that time when a
dragonfly came right in my mouth, almost
choked me—I thought I’d swallowed a bird.
YOLANDA
It was “I’ll Fly Away.” She finished the rest of
the verse and then she turned around to spit
during the instrumental.
LOLA is moved by this tale of sorrow and disappointment, her eyes are teary.
LOLA
What happened to your mother?
RHONDA
Your grandma lost her marbles when Daddy
expired. She always had been wound sort of
tight and she went off the deep end and she
started cleaning her house more or less
twenty-four hours a day.
YOLANDA
The neighbors could hear her vacuum
cleaner at three and four in the morning. It
was obsessive-compulsive. She vacuumed
the hell out of that carpet. Vacuumed it right
down to bare threads.
RHONDA
We had to shovel her into the Good Shepherd
Home. And Connie left the act to stay and
take care of Mama and then there were just
the two of us. And your dad—he was the one
who got us on the radio. Before he ran off
with the yodeler. Your mom’s best friend.
Ardelle.
LOLA
She could yodel?
RHONDA
When she met him she could. And then he
just gradually wore the yodeling out of her.
She sang at Mama’s funeral. We couldn’t. We
were basket cases. So your dad and Ardelle
sang.
LOLA
What did they sing at the funeral?
YOLANDA (SINGS)
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me,
See on the portals he’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
YOLANDA & RHONDA (SING)
Come home, come home,
Ye who are weary come home—
RHONDA
And that night your dad ran off with Ardelle
and they drove to Bakersfield, California.
LOLA
My father ran off with my mother’s best
friend after singing a hymn at Grandma’s
funeral? Jesus.
YOLANDA
You were two years old. And you know
something? I didn’t care about him so long as
I had you. That’s the truth.
16 INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE THE DRESSING ROOM—SAME TIME
GK knocks on the door with “JOHNSON SISTERS” written on it.
The door opens. RHONDA is there. Inside, YOLANDA and LOLA are singing.
YOLANDA & LOLA
Come home, come home
Ye who are weary come home—
RHONDA
Are we on?
GK
Got a few minutes.
MOLLY stands behind him.
YOLANDA
What are we doing?
MOLLY
You’re on in the Powdermilk segment doing
“Gold Watch & Chain”—with him—
YOLANDA
Haven’t done that for years.
(SHE SINGS)
I will pawn you my gold watch and chain, love
(GK JOINS)
I will pawn you my gold wedding ring
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom
If you only will love me again.
RHONDA (TO GK)
I’m getting a head start on getting pie-eyed.
YOLANDA
How about “Red River Valley”?
GK
Whatever you want.
YOLANDA takes a look in the mirror, dabs at her eyeliner with a tissue.
YOLANDA
I want to make sure there’s a spot for Lola
later—
GK
I saw her name on the order.
LOLA
Is this really the last show?
GK
Every show is the last show. That’s my
philosophy.
RHONDA
Thank you, Plato.
He leaves as JEARLYN STEELE enters, an African American woman in a golden dress, hair done up high on her head.
JEARLYN
Hi, everybody.
YOLANDA
Jearlyn!
(TO LOLA)
Jearlyn used to babysit you, remember?
(TO JEARLYN)
You look fantastic.
JEARLYN
When you’re this big, honey, you gotta look
fantastic, there is no way around it. I was
going to say good-bye, but I’m afraid I’m
gonna start crying, so I won’t.
YOLANDA
Good. Let’s not.
MOLLY
Let’s go, everybody.
YOLANDA
Lola’s going to sing tonight.
JEARLYN
Hey. Sing something with me, baby.
She turns to see LOLA looking at herself in the mirror, holding up in front of her a show dress like her mother’s.
LOLA
Do you think I’m attractive?
16A INT. MAKEUP ROOM
The LUNCH LADY stands behind DUSTY who is sitting on a chair. She is kneading his shoulders.
DUSTY
A little to the left. Oh, God, that’s good.
Down a little. Mmmmmmm.
LUNCH LADY
I should be getting back upstairs. I told Lola
I’d make her a turkey sandwich.
DUSTY
Don’t stop yet. You’re driving me wild.
You’re a good back rubber.
(HE SINGS)
I used to work in Chicago
At a department store
I used to work in Chicago
I did but I don’t anymore.
A lady came in for a girdle,
I asked her what kind she wore.
“Rubber,” she said, and rub her I did
And I don’t work there anymore.
LUNCH LADY
This is our last show. I can’t believe it. I’ve
been working here twenty-five years. What’s
going to happen to me?
DUSTY (SINGS)
I used to work in Chicago
At a department store
I used to work in Chicago
I did but I don’t anymore.
A lady came in for a birthday cake,
I asked her what kind and what for.
“Layer,” she said, and lay her I did
And I don’t work there anymore.
17 INT. FITZGERALD THEATER—SAME TIME
Onstage, the band is switching over, musicians coming and going, stagehands moving microphones. GK at the podium.
GK
—and right now let’s bring up an old favorite
here on A Prairie Home Companion and that’s a
couple of fine ladies who’ve been singing
together since they were little girls in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
CUT TO:
18 INT. FITZGERALD WINGS—SAME TIME
RHONDA and YOLANDA slip through the crowd in the wings toward the stage.
GK (O.C.)
They’ve kept alive all the wonderful old
songs that have been around forever, and
they’ve been like sisters to all of us, and let’s
all welcome the Johnson Girls.
RHONDA sticks her tongue out at GK as she passes upstage of him and she and YOLANDA come to the front of the stage. YOLANDA waves to the audience.
GK (CONT’D)
Yolanda and Rhonda, it wouldn’t be a show
without you.
YOLANDA
Thank you so much. Thank you.
RHONDA is gesturing to the audience for more applause. YOLANDA gestures for her to stop.
YOLANDA
I just want to say how happy I am that my
daughter Lola came tonight.
(SHE GLANCES TOWARD THE WINGS)
Thank you, sweetheart. It means a lot to me. I
named my little girl after my mother, Lola.
And now we’d like to do an old song that
Mama loved—she was our inspiration, you
know. Nobody worked harder than our
mama—washing and cleaning and cooking
and looking after six kids—and the main
reason we wanted to make music was that it
YOLANDA (CONT’D)
was the only way we knew to make Mama
happy. She’d be on her knees scrubbing the
kitchen floor and if you stood in the doorway
and sang a song she liked, she’d look up and
smile, worn-out as she was, and you could
see her gold tooth.
Behind her, RHONDA is counting off the tempo to the band.
RHONDA (TO BAND ONSTAGE)
Not too fast—
(COUNTING OFF TIME, SNAPPING FINGERS)
—or I’ll kill you sons of bitches, and I
mean it.
She turns and smiles to the audience, as band plays.
YOLANDA & RHONDA (SING)
Way down upon that old Mississippi River,
Not so far away
That’s where my folks have lived forever,
That’s where I’m going to stay.
I’ve been looking cross the whole creation
Half my life and more.
And then I found my sweet satisfaction
Right here on the muddy river shore.
CUT TO:
19 INT. BACKSTAGE—SAME TIME