Modern Screen 1954-01 Vol. 48, No. 2

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— —— story of the year: what really happened 0 DORIS DAY JUNE HAVER COMES HOME

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HN WAYNE ... Lhey called him | Hondo aregnerceen | | x HOT | Rist BLOODED — she WITH THE HEAT eS 2G OF THE afraid e PLAINS he des | THAT : | BRED HIM -SILENT AS GUNSMOKE: : -A STRANGER | Seg TO ALL oe Was, BUT THE | afraid — SURLY | ESR DOG | he AT HIS SIDE... All the vast grandeur of the Southwest shown as never before possible ae . iv covorn sy WARNERCOLOR presenteo ey WARNER BROS. ano intropucine Sirk Aa WARD BOND * MICHAEL PATE * JAMES ARNESS GS F R A lis [) | N - PA SS F - SCREEN PLAY BY PRODUCED BY DIRECTEDIDY, i ‘ . i JAMES EDWARD GRANT ° ROBERT FELLOWS JOHN FARROW AWAYNE-FELLOWS PRODUCTION oistrisuteo ay WARNER BROS. 1 eRe Sue Sate. ine | ee = ak up ee eee

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2. MODERN ROMANCES Intimate, exciting dramas about the problems that people everywhere have to face—based on stories from the pages of Modern Romances magazine ‘Vodern"2" is ris HOLLYWOOD STARWAY Exciting, revealing dramatizations about the lives of the most popular stars of Hollywood. All material for this exciting new show is selected by the editors of Modern Screen, America’s greatest movie magazine. Listen to these great new radio shows every MONDAY through FRIDAY. on the ABC network! Check your newspaper for local time and station. JANUARY, 1954 ‘ AMERICA’S GREATEST MOVIE MAGAZINE modern screen . stories JUNE YHA VERE COMES SE © ME rare cee eee eee by Jack Wade 19 NO TROUBLE AT ALL (Esther Williams).........0...0....cccccccseseseeees by Jim Newton 20 PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT ME (Clark Gable))................ by Imogene Collins 22 SOLID AS A ROCK (Rock Hudson) by Susan Trent 24 RUNNING WILD) @DebragPaget) a by Alice Hoffman 26 “JANET RULES THE ROOST (Janet Leigh).......00.00....c.00 by Kirtley Baskette 28 “CALL ME PINHEAD” (Gordon MacRae )............... by William Barbour 30 WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO DORIS DAY ..................... by Jane S. Carleton 32 ANTIQUES ON A BUDGET (Keefe Brasselle)...................... by Marva Peterson 34 THE TURNING POINT ..by Shelley Winters 37 THE MAN FOR) MITZIn @Mitziy Gaynor) eee eee -by Louis Pollock 38 THE WAY CHRISTMAS SHOULD BE (June Allyson-Dick Powell)...by Jane Wilkie 40 CRAZY LIKE A FOX) @Victor Mature) es -ccsees terres eee by John Maynard 42 HOLLY WOOD: HOT, RODS ieee hse by Tom Carlile 44 THE HAM GOT RESULTS (Byron Palmer )..............:ccccscsesseesseneeees by Steve Cronin 46 featurettes LOVE STORY (Eve Ardemns)....i.csccc.cc.cescsescescesteea:hestercatierecssteseeee tet G ee ee 48 THE POWER OF A WOMAN (Lori Nelsom)).. coco tees cececccse ecreeeet eee 50 GET-RICH-QUICK ROBERTSON (Dale Robertson). me Oo DISCOVERY CORNER GLANCE) FULLER) 022i ccccccceetessce se seeee eee 71 THEY THREW AWAY A MILLION FOR LOVE (Glenn Ford and Eleanor Powell) 72 STRANGE STORY, (Keefe (Brasselle)) coi ccce-recs-rcseasee eases Been ats 74 WHY DO ERANK AND AWA GEG Hiei eee ees wh biceese 75 HOW DID*HE PROPOSE? “(Joan Caulfield) e crcccccnenecceseerecees otro nena 76 SOMETHING TO GROAN ABOUT (Bing Crosby).. 79 DOING A SPLIT (Leslie Caron)... 0... 81 STORK OVER LANZA-LAND....00000..500) Als ns one ne ee 82 departments THE INSIDE STORY ae Jdesanublagesaaseavedidi lesa fleasntestu to aaa nea eee 4 SWEET. “AND: HOTS a2 nies eee eee ee by Leonard Feather 4 LOUELLA: PARSONS’ GOOD) NEWS) o..2, 058) oc. ectscceenscee crete concen 6 MOVIE REVIEWG................ ...by Florence Epstein 14 61 64 69 *On the Cover: John Engstead’s Color Portrait of MGM's Janet Leigh, currently appearing in Prince Valiant. See page 54 for picture credits CHAREES D. S AXON PAIGE LOHR, story editor editor BARBARA J: MAYER, assistant editor DURBIN HORNER KATIE ROBINSON, western editor executive editor FERNANDO TEXIDOR, art director CARL SCHROEDER BILL WEINBERGER, art editor western manager BOB BEERMAN, staff photographer BERT PARRY, staff photographer MARCIA L. SILVER, research editor rT SS TT ES) NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS Changes of address should reach us five weeks in advance of the next issue date. Give both your old and new address, enclosing if possible your old address label, POSTMASTER: Please sena notice on torm 3578 and copies returned under Label Form 3579 to 263 Ninth Ave., New York 1, New York MODERN SCREEN, Vol. 48, No. 2, January, 1954. Published monthly by Dell Publishing Company, _nc. Office of publication at Washington and South Aves, Dunellen, N. J. Executive and editorial offices, 267 Fifth Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Dell Subscription Service: 10 West 33rd St., New York 1, N. Y. Chicago advertising office, 291 No. LaSalle St., Chicago, Ill., Los Angeles advertising and editorial offices, 8701 West 3rd Street, Los Angeles, California. George T. Delacorte, Jr., President; Helen Meyer, Vice-Pres.; Albert P. Delacorte, Vice-Pres. Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada. International copyright secured under the provisions of the Revised Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. All rights reserved under the Buenos Aires Convention. Single copy price 20c in U. S. A. and Possessions, and Canada. Subscriptions in U. S. A. and Canada $2.00 one year; $3.50 two years; $5.00 three years; Foreign, $3.00 a year. Entered as second class matter September 18, 1930, at the post office at Dunellen, N. J., under Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright 1953 by Dell Publishing Company, Inc. Printed in U. S. A. The publishers accept no responsibility tor the return of unsolicited material. Names of characters used in semi-fictional matter are fictitious —if the name of any living person is used it is purely a coincidence. Trademark No. 301778. EE EIS SS cre . ~~

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Eyes Have Never Beheld Such Wonders! SPECTACULAR MUSICAL OF FLORID A’S bein b ee a as : i-jumpers towed by 8 speedboats! PLAYGROUNDS! ~~ | bared Daredevil jumps over 12-foot ramps! ’ Lag 4 Lavish Water Spectacles! Esther’s 75-foot dive from a helicopter! IN COLOR BY Lilting love ballads from Tony... romantic escapades with Van... a more glamorous Esther than ever! FIVE HIT SONGS! : : sf : ee iF “Easy To Love” | Z 3 gg - yy “Did'ja Ever” | ee iS : : ee Se ig? “Look Out! I’m Romantic” : ~ — “That's What A Rainy Day Is For’ Ray ta : ; ee a “| ouisiana”’ | 5 aE ar 6 ee — Available on M-G-M Records! STARRING “ESTHER VILLAS: yo ORSON oe MART Screen Play by LASLO VADNAY and WILLIAM ROBERTS lata vedas * Directed by CHARLES WALTERS * Produced by JOE PASTERNAK AN.M-G-M PICTURE

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| Want the real truth? Write to INSIDE STORY, Modern Screen, | 8701 W. Third St., Los Angeles 48, Cal. The most interesting letters will appear in this column. Sorry, no personal replies. Q. What happened to the hot television show Ginger Rogers was supposed to have? —V.L., Darras, Tex. A. Miss Rogers does not want to play { the same character on Tv each week, so a new type of stock company program is being prepared for her. @. How come Bob Hope’s wife never travels with him on any of his personal appearance tours? —R.U., CLEVELAND, OHIO A. Dolores Hope has four children to look after. @. Wasn’t there a bang-up fight between Dick Powell and Henry Fonda at The Cainé Mutiny rehearsals? —T.O., Rocuester, N.Y. A. Powell was signed to direct the stage version. Fonda did not see eye to eye with Powell on his interpretation of the scene, whereupon Powell returned to RKO. There was no fight. Q. I read in your magazine that Rita Hayworth does not let Orson Welles see their daughter, Rebecca. After the story was published, didn’t Welles spend time with Rebecca in Connecticut? —L.T., Darien, Conn. A. Yes. @. What is Bob Wagner’s draft classifi- cation? —R.E., Tutsa, Ox1ra. A. 4-F. @. What connection does Boris Melono- vitch have with Peggy Lee? —W.N., Macon, Ga. A. He was her second husband under the name Brad Dexter. @. I heard over the radio that more motion pictures are currently being pro- duced in Italy than in Hollywood. Is this true? —E.E., Harrrorp, Conn. A. True for the month of October, 1953. @. Wasn’t Van Johnson’s marriage to Evie Wynn responsible for his loss of popularity with the fans? —V.E., Des Mores, Iowa. A. It may have cost some popularity 4 among his bobby-sox following. Q. I’ve heard tell that Marilyn Monroe uses a special bust exerciser. Where can I buy such a machine? —T.R., Great Neck, N.Y. A. Rumor is false. Q. I’ve been told that Gene Kelly once got engaged to a Honduran girl in the. Bradford Hotel in Boston. Is that story true? —E.R., Swampscott, Mass. A. No. 9. In Mogambo, there is a gorilla-killing sequence. Isn’t there a law in Kenya and other African territory forbidding the killing of gorillas? —E.R., Darsy, Pa. A. There is such a law. @. What ever happened to Howard Duff? —V.L., PortTLAND, ORE. A. Happily reconciled with wife Ida Lupino, he has signed a new contract with Universal Studios. @. Does Jean Simmons really receive $10,000 a week from RKO for doing nothing? —W.G., Lonnon, ENc. A. For paying her that sum, RKO has the use of Miss Simmons as an actress. @. Isn’t it true that the Nevada State Gambling Commission has refused to okay Frank Sinatra as a 2% owner of the gambling casino at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas? —G.Y., Reno NEv. A. Sinatra’s application is being studied. No decision has been made at this writ- mg. Q. I’ve read that Dick Haymes owes the Government anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000 in back taxes. Exactly how much does he owe? —H.T., NEw York, N.Y. A. Haymes owes $49,600 in back taxes for the years 1951 and 1952. @. Under what name does Terry Moore attend classes at the University of Cali- fornia. Is she really a Mormon? —G.D., RicHFiELp, UTAH. A. Mormon Terry Moore is registered at the university under her maiden name, Helen Koford. piesa kcal ae **Highly Recommended * Recommended No Stars: _ Average by leonard feather RECORD OF THE MONTH JO STAFFORD & FRANKIE LAINE—A Musical Por- trait Of New Orleans** (Columbia). Here's a recently-released LP that may have escaped your attention, although it contains some of the best work of two top singers. Jo does Jambalaya, Raminay and Shrimp Boats, Frankie handles that fine tune Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans on his own, and they team up for Floating Down To Cot- ton Town, Way Down Yonder In New Orleans and a rousing Basin Street Blues. For a pair of outlanders, they do a heck of a job! FROM THE MOVIES CALAMITY JANE—T/ie Deadwood Stage and Secret Love by Doris Day* (Columbia). BAND WAGON—songs of Arthur Schwartz and Heward Dietz, by Leroy Holmes* (MGM). This LP contains four songs from The Band Wagon and four other hits from Broadway musicals by the famous team. BLOWING WILD—title song by Frankie Laine* (Columbia). This minor-key moan, subtitled The Ballad Of Black Gold, was expected to make as big a hit for Frankie as that other Dimitri Tiomkin composition, High Noon, but it didn't turn out quite that great. THE CADDY—Y ow ve The Right One by Bob Santa Maria (MGM); Dean Martin™ (Capitol); Paul Weston (Columbia). That's Amore by Dean Martin* (Capi- tol); Blue Barron (MGM). FROM HERE TO ETERNITY—Re-enlistment Blues by Merle Travis** (Capitol). GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES—]V hen Love Goes Wrong by Hoagy Carmichael* (Capitol). LITTLE FUGITIVE—Joey's Theme by Richard Hayman (Mercury). MELBA—The Melba Waltz by Mantovani* (London). THE ROBE—Love Theme by Les Baxter* (Capi- tol). STORY OF THREE LOVES—Eighteenth Variation | from Rhapsody (Rachmaninott) by Jack § Pleis* (Decca). TAKE THE HIGH GROUND—Julic by Les Baxter (Capitol). , TORCH SONG—LP by Walter Gross* (MGM). This isn't a sound-track album, but it's — an effective reconstruction of some musi- — cal high points from the film, featuring Walter Gross, who dubbed the piano | passages for Michael Wilding. On Follow § Me, When A Fool Falls In Love and § You Won't Forget Me there are vocals | by India Adams, who was Joan Craw- §— ford's singing voice in the picture. Also | included is Gross' famous J enderly. UNDER PARIS SKIES—title theme by Mitch Mil- ler* (Celta bieye

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MOST BEAUTIFUL \ COLOR BY r E g se - William Demarest CLOONEY co-starring Mitchel] % FRED CLARK - ROBERT STRAUSS ctr: > with Produced by PAUL JONES - Directed by CLAUDE BINYON Screenplay by EDMUND HARTMANN and HAL KANTER - A PARAMOUNT PICTURE DAHL Milan

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PARSONS SUN ... DADOLLE WANTS THE KING TO COME BACK .. THE PARTING OF THE WAYNES COME-BACK BID... We" I WAS in Las Vegas, Frank Sinatra called and asked, “Louella, may I have a moment of your time?” I had a hunch he wanted to talk about his trouble with Ava—and that is exactly what he did. Getting back to the start of this feud in New York, he said, “How could I meet her plane when she didn’t tell me she was coming in? I didn’t. even know she was in New York until a friend told me. “Our whole trouble started because I couldn't stay with her in Europe until she flew home. I had a show to do and I had to rehearse.” These are the first and only words Frankie has had to say since the start of the longest feud the Sinatras have ever had. The beginning of the near end for the Sina- tras came, not with one of the violent battles GOOD NEWS AVA COOLS OFF IN THE LARRY PARKS MAKES A Ginger Rogers attended The Robe premiére with husband, Jacques Ber- \ gerac. Ginger's latest is a Paramount comedy, Forever Female, in which she co-stars with Paul Douglas, William Holden and new star Pat Crowley. Anne Francis, starring in A Lion Is In The Streets, came with husband Bam Price. This pair, who met at an incinerator and spent their first months of marriage in fzvo apartments, are among Hollywood's happiest. splashed all over the gossip columns; not with jealous recriminations; not with the typical shenanigans that usually mark their domes- tic explosions. It came with deadly calm and coldness. Ava and Frankie had driven in from Palm Springs where they had been in the process of making up their New York spat at the home of a friend. They stopped by a cafe operated by Patsy, a very popular Italian restaurateur and a close friend of Frank’s. Right in the middle of a spaghetti dinner, Ava made an amusing, but derogatory re- mark about a friend of Frank’s. His face turned white. Pushing back the table, he put down the money to cover the bill, and said with deadly coldness, “That does it.” Ava's mouth flew open. Her jaw dropped. She couldn't have registered a greater ex- pression of “surprise” to win an Academy Award. From Patsy's, Frank went to a hotel. The next morning he left for Las Vegas for his nightclub opening at the Sands Hotel. Ava wasn’t there, although her own Mo- gambo premiere didn't take place until the following night. The eyes of the gossip hounds watched avidly to see if Ava would fly to Las Vegas.| She didn't. “Why should I?” she shrugged to a friend, “I've heard nothing from him since he left.” With her sister Bea, Ava went back to} _ Palm Springs to cool off in the sun. And yet, I}. hear the things she had to say about a cer- tain “he” were clearly audible over the little} ,. stone wall surrounding her hideaway. Ava's not a girl to suffer in silence. —__E!_'SEL<L

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SEES eh What does all this add up to? My private opinion is that no matter if the Sinatras do stage a temporary kiss-and-make-up act, as they have many times in the past, this pas- sionate romance is in the ice box. And the lovers whose torrid highjinks be- fore and after marriage made headlines— have had it. Oy HERE'S no more flattering background for lovely women in lovely gowns than Edie (Mrs. William) Goetz’s confectioner’s-blue- and-ivory drawing room in her Bel Air home. Of course, the fortune in magnificent oil paintings owned by the Goetzes and adorning the walls doesn't hurt anything, either. The party they gave welcoming Claudette Colbert back to Hollywood after twenty months in Europe was itself a picture of beau- _tiful women in gorgeous gowns. i : Louella took time out from her chores as Hollywood's most famous re- porter, contidante of stars and daily columnist for the Hearst papers, to say hello to old friends Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Bergen at The Robe. Cyd Charisse and Tony Martin discussed fashion with Olivia de Havil- land. Cyd was impressed with the charcoal grey tuxedo Tony intro- duced to night life; may have a cocktail suit ordered to match it. | eee sii. % Imagine this for “entertainment” following the cocktail and dinner hours: Judy Garland and Bing Crosby singing duet after duet! Bing (this was before the accident in the wee small hours of the morning which wrecked his $12,000 Mercedes-Benz) brought —surprise, surprise—Mona Freeman. As far as I know, this was the first time they had seen each other since Bing’s return from Eu- rope. I'd like to go on record right here as saying that Bing drank little, or nothing, during the evening. He never does when he is working— and he was in the middle of White Christmas. I am sure his subsequent accident after taking Mona home had nothing to do with drinking. To get back to the party—Danny Kaye was very proud of Sylvia who was wearing a gown many people voted the loveliest in the room, white with the bouffant skirt of many Audrey Hepburn, who spent evening with Phil Silvers, is becoming one of Hollywood's most popular young stars. Columnists who have referred to lovely. Audrey as ''no raving beauty’’ are now taking a second look. Tab Hunter and Debbie Reynolds are seen around town together these days, but not to the exclusion of other dates. Among those in Tab's dat- ing book are Lori Nelson and Pat Crowley—Debbie's is too long to list! eee) fiers piped in vivid red. It was a nostalgic moment when Jane Wy- man and Freddie Karger and I stopped to re- member another occasion when I had been a guest of the Goetzes. I was at the dinner iable when Janie telephoned me the “scoop” thai she and Freddie had eloped to Santa Barbara. Everyone seemed especially glad to see Fred MacMurray at a party, his first since the death of his beloved Lily. Fred came with Rocky Cooper, so there’s no romance angle here. Gary Cooper is an old friend of his. Zsa Zsa Gabor, dancing cheek-to-cheek with George Sanders (whom she’s constantly on the verge of divorcing) put on her usual aci trying to attract attention—and she did! June Allyson, who can't seem to tear her- seli away from Dick Powell's side, held his hand all evening, or sat on the arm of his chair. If there ever was a time when the

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A The Ice Follies brought out a huge crowd of celebrities, among them Donald O'Connor June Allyson and Dick Powell took part in Charity Day and Marilyn Erskine. Now that Donald is well again, he has resumed TV work and gone into rehearsal for a new movie to make up for losing the role in White Christmas. Powells were having problems, it is long since past. I don't believe they have ever been so close. The two ‘refugees’, Claudette Colbert and Gene Kelly (he was abroad even longer than she), had a lot to talk about regarding Paris, London, Rome—and picture making abroad vs. picture making in Hollywood. Come to think of it, there’s not a producer rich enough to hire all the talent under this roof this night—among others, Ricardo Mont- alban, Mary and Jack Benny, Gracie Allen and George Burns, Frances and Edgar Bergen. Ah HE Most “hated” (so they say) per- former ever to play Las Vegas is our gal, Shelley Winters, who got off to a great start with her nightclub act—and then turned tem- peramental. What goes with Shell? Is she doomed to be a girl who just can’t take advantage of her good breaks—and will she always be her 8 own worst enemy? ESE! SCA~—~C Rock Hudson brought his favorite script girl, Betty Abbott, to the Ice Follies. There's no ring now on the hand Rock is holding, but friends predict that there may be one soon. Ann Blyth and her husband Dr, James When Shelley said she was going to whip up a nightclub act a lot of people, including her friends, thought she was making a mis- take. But she has a lot of determination and when she tried out the act in San Diego the reviews were wonderful. The girl who almost won an Oscar for her dramatics in A Place In The Sun was hailed as a “sock” singer, clever come- dienne, and a real star of the swank saloons. When Shelley moved to the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas the critics were equally enthusi- astic if not more so. Then all brimstone broke loose! Whether the reviews went to her head or whether she was cross because Vittorio Gassman flew out for Italy right after her opening night, no one knows. But Shelley really started exploding right and left. She demanded that a comedian on the same bill cut his time down to fifteen min- utes. (The management said he’d play his full time. ) McNulty saw the Ice Follies with old friends Dinah Shore and George Montgomery. Photographers complied with Ann's request for a let-up on the publicity that attended her marriage, but got this shot of the happy couple. celebration at Hollywood Park. June's flowers came from her own garden. (Read their Christmas story on page 40.) She started complaining about the lights and that customers talked and drank while she was on. One of the executives of the hotel was quoted as saying: ‘We've had a lot of tem- perament thrown around here. We've put up with hot-headed and disagreeable stars. But the worst is Shelley Winiers. “She threatened to walk out. If she does— that’s all right. It’s for sure she'll never walk back in.” Darn it, I like Shelley. I wish she’d get hold of herself. She has as much talent as any young actress in Hollywood if she just won't insist on ruining her career with these sense- less nipups. Ee FAR OFF Paris comes the wail of Su- zanne Dadolle, for many months Clark Gable’s favorite doll, “I am heartbroken that Mr. Gable left Paris without calling me. “I was dreaming of living on his ranch in California and being happily married and

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Gale Storm attended The Robe premiére with her husband. Gale, whose TV show, My Litile Margie, is a hit, looked happy, but not even the success of her film, Lili, New York's longest-running movie, could make Leslie Caron or husband Geordie Hormel smile, though they denied separation. Sipe di Na Shh Bes Jack Palance, who has slid easily from his roles as gangsters and villains into romantic leads, attended with his wife, actress Virginia Baker. Bob Mitchum, who claims to be a big bully around the house, brought Dorothy to the 10 premiére; proceeded to bully an usher into tears. Shelley and her Vittorio are denying talk of a rift, say they want another baby. But friends say Shelley is only grinning on the outside. Terry Moore and host Mike Romanoff exchanged quips. Terry's necklines may be low, but in- structors predict her UCLA grades will be high. LOUELLA PARSONS’ good news Continued having children.” I’m afraid Suzanne is dreaming about the wrong ranch. My bet is you can’t get Clark to another marriage license bureau as long as he lives. T’S BEEN a rocky month for marriages with many of the most circumspect being highly suspect! : The break between the Ray Millands, twenty-two years wed, shocked even the Hol- lywood cynics and shocked their closest friends. It seems hard to believe that Ray, who has tried for twelve years to make up to Mal the hurt of a former parting, could again stub his toe over the same problem. The problem? A blonde who need not be identified. I have no sympathy for her, but I am hop- ing that before this is printed Ray will have come to his senses and returned to his beau- tiful, silver-haired Mal and their two children. Apparently, ‘the dungerous age” for men applies to actors as well as to other males. And, speaking of gossip about the married —Deborah Kerr has practically been drowned in rumors since her sexy success in From Here To Eternity and on Broadway in Tea And Sympathy. Poor Deborah is touted as having had wild flings with a happily married actor, an un- happily married actor, a New York million- aire, a successful agent—and hold on—even Frank Sinatra! This last is nothing short of ludicrous. But it all goes to show you what can happen to a thoroughly proper British Iady when she re- verses her field (as they say in football) and bursts forth on the screen as a siren. Tony Bartley, the “legal’’ man in Deborah's life, is fit to blow his top. Deborah, on the other hand, dismisses it with a shrug of the shoul- der. Perhaps she realizes that spice mixes well with success. The most violent marriage eruption, of course, was the mudslinging, front-paged di- vorce of the John Waynes. I'm on the Duke’s side and I don't care who knows it. I've known him for years, and I've never known him to be other than a gentleman and a kind man even under intolerable condi- tions. Wayne offered his wife an enormous finan- cial settlement hoping to save the whole in- dustry from this mess. H’s deplorable and shameful. If there could possibly be any kind of amusing angle in the’ whole thing, it’s this: the most unhappy girl in town when Gail Russell's name was dragged into the Waynes | slugfest was Jane Russell! Because of the similarity of names (they sound a great deal alike over the radio) poor | Jane was a nervous wreck, as was her ever | lovin’ husband, Bob Waterfield. In desperation, Jane’s press agent finally called the news broadcasters and asked, in the name of innocence, if they would spell out which Miss Russell was involved! MM“ story that Larry Parks was coming back to work with the full approval oi the House Committee on Un-American Activ+ ties, plus a commendation from them for his cooperation, had hardly hit the streets when

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cized English tour, cheerfully agreed to kiss Patti for commentator George Fisher, covering Hollywood premiére of 20th Century-Fox' The Robe. my telephone rang. A soft voice from the other end said, “This is Larry Parks, Miss Parsons. I want to say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Although it has been two years since Larry worked, and nearly three since his testimony that he had at one time been a Communist card holder “through a misdirected sense of pity for the underdog,” many of you fans have continued to write letters about him. For the most part, the writers have been willing to give Larry another chance. I would say the “friendly” letters outnumbered the others by about 70%. Larry’s comeback in a film for television is being sponsored by the Ford Theatre of Television. It will be made at Columbia, the studio where he made his biggest hit in The Jolson Story and where he lost his last contract. These two highly reputable companies are 12 willing to gamble on Parks. Sontinued ei § al Jack Warner chatted at Romanoff's. Despite trouble anges in the staff (even the new, happy Judy gets mad!) *s still underway and may be a great come-back for her. What is your verdict? i I DID Joan Crawford wrong when I printed in this column that she and Michael Wilding feuded throughout Torch Song, the only right thing to do is to let you look over my shoulder and read excerpts from Joan’s letter: Dear Louella: I have never had any trouble with Michael Wilding and I think if you'd question him, you'd find he didn’t have any trouble with me. I never mumbled anything under my breath during Torch Song—or any other picture—unless I was chiding myself for one of my own mistakes. Joan Crawford is the only one I’m con- cerned about when I do a picture. ‘ Now, as far as Mrs. Michael Wilding goes, she was on the set time and time again—we took many pictures—I had her in for tea and cocktails and she was charming and de- lightful and of course, as you know, beauti- ful beyond belief. Susan Hayward was unusually gay at Romanoff's with agent Ned Marin, but seems to have accepted fellow-Brooklynite Jeff Chandler's long- standing offer of a convenient shoulder to cry on, should blues return. ae is I don't know who gave you this story, but it is as inaccurate as snow in June in Cali- fornia. I’ just thought I’d bring you up to date, Louella. God bless you, and, incidentally, it was good to talk to you the other day. I do hope you are happy. ‘Bye now, Joan HE FIRST person I ran into entering the Coconut Grove for Tony Martin's opening was Jerry Lewis. “Now don't bother asking me anything about England,” chirped irrepressible Jerry. “Not a word. Not a word!” I didn’t. Tony's first night at the Grove was more than just another popular singing star play- ing for the homefolks and fellow stars gath- ered ringside. It was a big charity night with the Denver Hospital and Sanitarium the beneficiary and Tony was delighted that over $30,000 was raised.

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-LOUELLA PARSONS’ good news Continued They say women never notice what a man wears but, believe me, all the girls were taking note of Tony’s tuxedo, something new for men—a charcoal grey nylon silk with satin lapels. “T think I should copy it for a cocktail suit,” said lovely Cyd Charisse as I passed her table. As usual, Cyd was beaming with pride over the large turnout for Tony and because of the beautiful way he sang—mostly just to her. I can't for the life of me imagine why Robert Taylor and Ursula Thiess don't get married. They sat shoulder to shoulder all during dinner. Yet, Bob plans to return to Europe soon and Ursula remains in Holly- wood. 4 Redheaded Greer Garson wore a bright red dress! There’s an unusual ‘fashion tip for redheads. Donna Reed, basking in the glory of From Here To Eternity, looked very happy with hubby Tony Owen—which should stop those rumors. he LETTER Box: Francesca Franklyn, San Francisco, asks: “Did Jeff Chandler break up the marriage of Susan Hayward and Jess Barker? If not, how come she started dating him so soon after her marriage broke up?” I can assure you, Francesca, that Jeff had nothing to do with Susan's break with Jess. They have known one another since they were struggling young actors in Brooklyn. They started dating after Jeff broke with his wife and Susan divorced Jess. At first, they both said there was nothing ‘to it—that they were both lonely and were just ‘'friends.” But, do you know something, Francesca, from where I sit, these two begin to look very romantic. What may have started out as mere ‘‘con- solation” dates may very well develop into something excitiag between Susan and Jeff. We shall see what we shall see. That's all for now. See you next month. | lane Powell attended the Charity Day festivities f ~The story of Eddie Darrow, Harness Racing Park with Gene Nelson. | HE’S THE KIND OF MAN WHO'S OUT OF BOUNDS FOR ANY KIND OF WOMAN! the forbidden woman he wanted and the dangerous bargain he dared to make ——— Bf) -~ — { 7 7 : Bae ji fi (A = = = D YZ 2 > — = _ 28 TONY CURTIS OANNE DRU < LYLE BETTGER win MARVIN MILLER opecreo ey RUDOLPH MATE. screenptay ay WILLIAM SACKHEIM ano GIL DOUD proouceo ey TED RICHMOND - A UNIVERSAL- INTERNATIONAL PICTURE

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14 PICTURE OF THE MONTH 7 movie reviews oy Moree oped PARATROOPER Alan Ladd’s training to be a para- trooper in England, but you half expect him to leap out of a plane with no chute on, the way he’s acting. Tense, I mean. Sullen. He’d rather knock you silly than bother to say hello. What’s eating him, you may well ask. Some old sickness from another country. America, to be exact. He was a pilot there and still feels responsible for a pal’s death. Now they want to make Ladd an officer but the thought turns his stom- ach. He’s a leader, sure enough. If you can’t see it in his stiff upper lip you can tell halfway through every battle when he starts shouting orders. There’s an exciting commando raid on German-occupied AI- giers, and stirring scenes of chutes floating down a Technicolored sky. The lavish cast includes Leo Genn and Henry Andrews. Susan Stephen makes her debut as Ladd’s patient sweetheart.—Columbia. KISS ME KATE Here is a real movie jackpot—a musical based on a hit Broadway show that actually follows the original plot and score! It’s understandable, considering that Cole Porter is responsible for the music and Sam and Bella Spewack for the book. Kathryn Grayson, who always looks good in Technicolor, is a Broadway star who can’t decide whether to play Kate in a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew. Trouble is, she’d have to co-star with her ex-husband, Howard Keel, whose new girl friend Ann Miller, is playing Bianca. Kathryn doesn’t know whether it will aggravate Ann more if she plays the part or leaves the show flat—but she wants to make sure she gets her, but good. Underneath all that sarcasm, you see, Kathryn is still in love with Howard. Further- more, under all that muscle, Howard doesn’t really care if Ann is playing around with a dancing gambler, Tommy Rall, ’cause he really wants Kathryn back. In the middle of all this intrigue, a couple of talented gunmen, Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore, show up backstage. It’s opening night, and they’re perfectly willing to open up on Howard unless he pays a gambling debt. So anyhow, everyone, including the gunmen, winds up onstage in a brawling, ad-libbed Shrew that would have Shakespeare rolling, not in his grave, but in the aisles. You, too. (WGM) TORCH SONG This movie’s too slick to believe, but Joan Crawford’s too glamorous to deny, which about neutralizes the problem. She plays one of those gorgeous prima donnas dipped in acid and swathed in mink who can tolerate almost anything but people. During rehearsals for her new Broadway musical Crawford shrieks all day and sobs all night in her swank penthouse. The reason is: nobody loves her. Michael Wilding, her arranger, can see why, even though he’s totally blind. His blindness may be an asset because Crawford’s looks can’t dazzle or in- timidate him. He only knows what he hears and what he hears is a woman too frightened to set her feelings free. It will be a new experience for Craw- ford fans who’ve never seen that lady in black silk stockings. Others in the Technicolored cast are Gig Young, Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Morgan. MGM. THE JOE LOUIS STORY It started in Detroit where a big, taciturn teen-ager is on his way to a violin lesson. A friend laughs at him, tells him he ought to learn how to fight instead. Five years later, Joe Louis becomes heavyweight champion of the world. This movie carries Louis over twenty years, shows him on the glory road and on that Jast lonely walk out of Madison Square Garden after his defeat by Rocky Marciano. The people who were important to him— his mother, his wife, his trainer Chappie Blackburn, are sensitively played. And Coley Wallace, as Joe, bears a remarkable resemblance to the champ. More than a record of an incredible career, this movie re- veals Louis as few could have known him. ‘Joe losi his wife, lost his title, lost his roney, lost his beloved Chappie.” Cast includes James Edwards, Hilda Simms, Mannie Seamon, Evelyn Ellis.—U.A.

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SO BIG—a sentimental journey into the recent past —is a moving film based on Edna Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. It is a portrait of a woman, Selina DeJong, and a plea for true values. Selina (Jane Wyman) believes that only two kinds of people count—the creative (‘‘emeralds’’) and the productive (‘‘wheats’’). She herself is orphaned in childhood and leaves an exclusive boarding school to teach in a rugged farm community and to marry Sterling Hayden who loses his fight with the land. Their son, So Big, and the barren fields are Selina’s legacy. Both bloom despite tremendous odds, because Selina’s faith in life and its essential beauty is unwavering. A neighbor’s boy, Roelf Pool, is inspired by her to become a musician. So Big, however, grows to re- ject his mother’s philosophy, preferring quick success, luxury, and so estranges the one girl he really loves, artist Nancy Olson. Old fashioned, perhaps extreme in its message, So Big is nevertheless an inspired production. Prominent in the cast are Steve Forrest, Martha Hyer, Walter Coy, Richard Beymer, Tommy Rettig.— Warners. BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY Rock Hudson and his wife, Marcia Henderson, have a schooner full of fur they’d like to sail. back to God’s country (that’s Seattle). But the devil (that’s Steve Cochran) won’t let them leave Canada. He gets lonely in the winter. Has nothing to do but bully the hapless Eskimos, beat Great Danes into submission and covet other men’s brides. The trouble he goes to coveting Miss Hender- son is ridiculous, considering how she loathes him. Anyway, he kidnaps Hudson’s crew, has them dumped in the great wastes. While Hudson is mushing to the rescue, Cochran is marching on Marcia. Hudson returns to have his leg broken by Cochran’s buddy (Hugh O’Brian) and winds up in a dogsled behind which stands Marcia, prepared to push 150 miles to a doctor. This is where Wapi, a Great Dane on whom Cochran has laid an iron hand, and Marcia hit the trail together and when Cochran catches up Wapi strikes—not with snowballs, either. Techni- 16 color.—U.I. CRAZYLEGS, ALL-AMERICAN This is the true story of an American boy who was fired by a typically boyish dream—to become a great athlete. For Elroy (Crazylegs) Hirsch, the star of this movie, the dream came true. Elroy was a quiet, not very assertive kid whose parents worked hard to send him through school. Part of Elroy’s plan was to fix it so his Mom and Dad (Louise Lorimer, Norman Field) could have an easier time, But the big plan was football. It filled his life from high school where his coach (Lloyd Nolan) was, in a way, his sponsor till the afternoon he helped the Los Angeles Rams become world cham- pions. Between times there were major crises in his life. Once, doctors told him he’d never play football again. Crazylegs came back to set new records. On several occasions his wife (Joan Vohs) wanted to give him up completely to the sport. She didn’t, though. Probably the qualities that come so strikingly across the screen were the ones that held her, too. For foot- ball lovers there are authentic scenes from major games, thrilling as the day they happened.—Hall Bartlett. THE STEEL LADY You'll think there’s sand in your eyes when you see The Steel Lady. It’s photographed in tan, presumably the answer to every other process. The color is appropriate, however. Rod Cameron and his three wild-catters (Tab Hunter, Richard Erdman and John Dehner, acting alcoholic of the group) make a forced landing in the Sahara. They’ve been look- ing for oil; now they’ll settle for an olive pit if only they survive. That looks doubtful, until Rod stumbles on an old German army tank. It won’t work, but Ali Baba! it just has to! Old alcoholic there finds some jewels in a secret compartment. Keeps mum, though—his pals’d think he has D.T.’s. Boy, those jewels get ’em in trouble with John Abbott all wrapped up in a burnoose. Abbott wants those jewels, stolen gems, they are. The wildcatters, crippled, hungry and powerful tired, lock themselves in the tank and spray the area with machine gun fire. Help arrives, but I wouldn’t want to hang that long.—U.A. CALAMITY JANE Here’s Doris Day looking like last week’s laundry, riding, shooting and talking like a tomboy. And here's Howard Keel, the legendary Wild Bill Hickok, quick on the trigger but awful slow on romance. Together they make this musical a joy to see. Calamity (that’s Doris) is teller of the tallest tales in Deadwood, South Dakota. One day she outdoes herself, promises to bring Chicago’s fa- mous star, Adelaide Adams, to Deadwood. Through a small error she returns with the star’s maid (Allyn McLerie). The Deadwoodians threaten to shoot her off the stage but Doris browbeats them into listening and Allyn becomes the local siren. Too bad she falls for Lieutenant Gilmartin (Philip Carey). Calamity had him staked out for herself. That’s the triangle, but there’s more. There’s a lot of singing, a kind of happy glow, and Calam turns out to be the prettiest girl in all the Black Hills. The entire film shows the fine hand of director Jack Donahue, veteran director of such New York stage hits as Top Banana, A Night In Venice, and the revival of Of Thee I Sing. Techni- color.—Warners. RECOMMENDED FILMS NOW PLAYING MOGAMBO (MGM): Ava Gardner switches from chasing maharajahs to hunting hunters when she bumps into safari-leader Gable in Africa. Gorgeous scenery, wild animals, and Gable’s love for Grace Kelly can’t compete with Ayva’s Technicolored talents. A LION IS IN THE STREETS (Warners): Techni- color film stars James Cagney as the lion with cor- rupt political ambitions plus a wife (Barbara Hale) and a blonde (Anne Francis) to help him attain them. By playing on the needs and emotions of the southern swampland voters, Cagney comes dangerously and excitingly close to the governorship. TANGA TIKA: Another independently produced gem, this one is a warm and simple love story set in romantic Tahiti, where the island chief’s son must earn enough money to wed his girl by capturing the prize in the South Pacific Olympics. Beautifully photographed and acted. THOSE REDHEADS FROM SEATTLE (Para): 3-D, Technicolor and music! This one is just good fun, as -could be expected when singing sister Teresa Brewer, writing sister Rhonda Fleming and loving sister Cynthia Bell arrive in a wild Alaska frontier town. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (Co/): A_ brilliant por- trait of Army lives and loves adapted from James Jones’ best seller. Excellent performances by Mont- gomery Clift. Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed. THE ROBE (20th-Fox): This widely-heralded epic of early Christian days tells in sensational new CinemaScope (realism without goggles) the story of Lloyd C. Douglas’ best-selling novel. Heading the huge cast are Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature. Technicolor. LITTLE FUGITIVE. Wonderful newcomer Richie Andrusco as a seven-year-old who thinks he has killed his brother and runs away to Coney Island for a mixed-up, riotous day. Independently produced, this picture took top honors at the Venice Festival. THE ALL-AMERICAN (U./J.): Tony Curtis as an athlete who shows a snobbish Ivy League College what football and democracy are all about. Also at- tending: Richard Long, Lori Nelson.

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Cios3 “TRADE MARK BOB HOPE stars in Paramount Pictures’ “HERE COME THE GIRLS” BOB (Upside Down) HOPE presents the most adorable, practical holiday gift: — NEWS! Non-Allergenic! New Texture! Charming Pattern! 5 Irresistible Colors! From every angle, you see extraor- dinary Hope—for baby’s most novel, beautiful, useful gift: A PLAYTEX HAPPY PANTS wardrobe! For the first time since babies were invented—there’s actual texture, color and dainty pattern right in the mir- acle s-t-r-e-t-c-h latex itself. Five lollypop colors make a “fashion More mothers buy show” of baby’s every outfit. From the bottom up/ Now you can keep your baby “Socially Acceptable’’*...and Socially Adorable, too! PLAYTEX HAPPY PANTS stretch to over 4 times their size. That means they won’t bind, chafe or irritate. They’re so tissue-like, they’re trans- parent. Yet theyll wear and wear and wear. And PLAYTEX HAPPY PANTS won't fade, flake, crack or peel. Best of all, Happy Pants are off, rinsed, International Latex Corporation ... PLAYTEX PARK... . Dover Delaware. Playtex Ltd., Arnprior, Ont., Canada than any other make! TAPPY Ants Wlardrobe! patted dry with a towel and on again, in seconds! For sheer beauty and durability... give the new PLAYTEX HAPPY PANTS wardrobe! 98¢ each. Save time, buy 3 for $2.94. At your favorite department store or wher- ever Baby Needs are sold. “Prove to yourself,” says Bob Hope, “that latex can’t cut circulation. Just stretch Happy Pants with your hand, as I’m doing.” (Top of picture) Happy Holiday Package for your Young Hope-ful. 5 luscious lollypop colors mix and match with all baby’s outfits—make a complete panty-wardrobe.

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ANNE BAXTER starring in "CARNIVAL STORY” A KING BROTHERS PRODUCTION An RKO RADIO release The most €ye-cat ching coimplexions in Hollywood ge AL wx, Lux Toilet Soap are cared for with | Isnt Anne Baxters skin wonderful to look at ? Anne takes care of her complexion with one soap and only one—Lux Toilet: Soap. Q_out of IO Hollywood screen stars believe in Lux like Anne does— and such popularity must be deserved. IF you dont agree with the screen stars about Lux, Lever Brothers will give you back the money you paid for it. But we think once you use Lux, you'll love it. (Remember —you can see the Hollywood stars every Thursday evening on Lux Video Theatre.) CO SSSSURKR& ES ;:«=‘~e

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modern screen / january 1954 There are no- tears today for June and her mother. They have faith that she will find another way to do God’s work. ‘BY JACK WADE JUNE HAVER COMES HOME @ “Hello,” said the girl’s voice. “Yes, this is June.” It was a friendly voice, warm, strong and confident—and I was glad to hear it. Frankly, I hadn’t expected to, not for a while. Because, the word had been passed around Hollywood press circles: June Haver will neither see nor talk to anyone. Since her sudden, startling return to Hollywood from the convent where she had spent seven and a half months as a novitiate hoping to become a nun, and after her unpreventable greeting by reporters and photographers at the Los Angeles airport, June had vanished into seclusion almost as rigid as that which cloaked her Oe “\ : at St. Mary’s Academy in Xavier, Kansas. NM aie YJ This was understandable. She was emotionally Was confused and physically tired. Shé was in an extremely delicate position concerning publicity, because of the holy life © she had essayed and abandoned and the unpredictable public which faced her again. She had no precedent. June Haver was the first Hollywood star ever to quit her career at its zenith and retire to a convent. And of course she is the first ever to return to the spotlight, a celebrity again. This very fact made June news. I had called her mother, Mrs. Andrew Ottestad, to find out, if possible, when MODERN SCREEN readers (Continued on page 49)

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BY JIM NEWTON one movie star, oneg business man, two bright TROUBLE AT ALL @ This time there was no mad, frantic scrambling for the nightbag. No wild, harrowing race to the hospital. No nail-biting impatience for Dr. Bradbury’s arrival. - This time, according to Esther Williams, “It was as easy as pie.” A little after ten A.M. on October 1, Esther waddled over to husband Big Ben and said matter-of-factly, “I think I’d better go on in.” \ Ben nodded, took the little suitcase and dropped it into the car. | | _ Dr. Bradbury’s office was called and the hospital was notified. ii The doctor had predicted that the baby would arrive around October 1. Everything was on schedule. Ben drove the four miles to Santa Monica Hospital with great care. Esther | was admitted at ten-thirty that morning and taken to her room in the obstetrics section. i | The nurse who prepared her asked her how she felt. Brown-eyed | Esther was bubbling. “Just fine,’ she kept repeating. “Just fine.” In the afternoon the birth pains began, and they wheeled the long-legged swimming star into the delivery room. The anesthetist gave her an analgesic. “T hope she gets what she wants,” one of the nurses said. “They ‘want a girl,’-Dr. Bradbury said. In the waiting room, Ben Gage, father-to-be for the third time, plopped his six-foot, four-inch frame into an easy chair. He began to perspire like a first-time father. In the delivery room it was three-forty. Dr. Bradbury was working with his usual competence. At three-forty-three the baby arrived. A girl! (Continued on page 62)

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Gable’s gone and Suzy’s lost him. The French say he done her dirt— but forty million Frenchmen could be wrong! Please don't talk about @ Authorities on the love-life of Clark Gable— and who in Hollywood is not?—insist that the tall, temple-greyed Casanova will return to the United States this month with his fifth bride. Purportedly, she will be Suzanne Dadolle d’Abadie, the statuesque, green-eyed Schiaparelli model with whom he journeyed all over Europe last summer. In Paris this has been a foregone conclusion for many weeks. French magazines have been running pictures of the couple with such captions as ILS VONT SE MARRIER (They’re going to get married) and LES FUTURES MONSIEUR ET MADAME CLARK GABLE and CEST UNE QUESTION DE TEMPS (It’s a question of time.) A month or so ago, when he was in London with Gary Cooper (their films, Mogambo and Return -To Paradise were opening in England) Gable picked up the phone one afternoon and put in a transatlantic call to his private secretary, Jean Garceau, in Encino, California. “Get the house ready,” he said. “Tl be home for Christmas.” ‘Gable has spent the last three Christmases abroad. But the last time he asked that his ranch house be gotten in shape, he brought home a bride—she was Lady Sylvia Ashley, the ex-chorus girl and former wife of Douglas Fairbanks— and everyone in Hollywood was wondering whether Clark would do the same thing this Christmas. In Paris, on October 12, Suzanne, after returning to work at Schiaparelli’s, announced that she and Gable had been engaged, “but informally,” for several months, the implication being that never in a million years would she have traveled with him all over the Continent unless they’d had some understanding. She was also quoted as saying that, “Even a year ago, he asked me to be his companion "I'm his life's companion!"' Suzanne told reporters, but Gable says they're just good : friends, Who's mis-translating what? all over the world (Continued on page 81)

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Posing for beefcake embarrasses Rock, but he takes his physique’ seriously, knowing it gave him his start in movies. | THAT HOLLYWOOD BUILDUP TURNED HUDSON INTO THE BEST-BUILT STAR AROUND! @ Five years ago, when Universal- cS Oo L.. A Dp AS International studio put Rock Hudson under contract, they signed him with crossed fingers. The shaggy young man had little to A FR Oo Cc K recommend himself to the movie business besides basic good looks. His physique was good but he was a little clumsy in the manner \ of a man taller than other men. At by Susan Trent twenty-three, he had shown little sign of becoming a world beater. Research into his background revealed that when in school he had had little affinity to books. In the Navy during the war he had attained the rank of laundryman, third class. Following that, he had spent two years earning his bread as a truck driver, hauling tomatoes and lettuce the length and breadth of Los Angeles. His acting talent was. an unknown quantity; his experience in movies had been limited to a handful of bit parts with a minimum of dialogue. The studio signed him because it was | following a policy of building movie stars, signing unknowns and putting them through rigorous training designed to manufacture cinema celebrities. The basic requirement for | | such a production is a pleasing appearance and Rock had that. He seemed to have little else, but he was signed because at least one studio executive felt that Rock had the potentialities for success as an actor. Today, Rock Hudson stars opposite Jane Wyman in the remake of Magnificent Obsession. His salary is more than $1000 a week, he has been presented to the Queen of England, he receives 3000 fan letters a month, and is considered one of Hollywood’s With Jane Wyman in Magnificent Obsession most eligible bachelors, he proves to be an actor as well as a muscle-man. Rock isn't quite ready for marriage. as well as (Continued on page 52)

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The strange case of Debra Paget is driving Hollywood crazy. if Maybe she never | leaves Mama’s side— but certain rumors are getting around. After all, how shy can a gal in an orchid Cadillac be? TTA s ——t : Looking at the family album is consid- ered standard dating procedure for cosy twosomes—but Debra does it solo! BY ALICE HOFFMAN ing to Debra wherever she goes—but so do sister Lisa Gaye (now a starlet) and brother Frank Griffin. be ns € : ee % Her gowns cl ‘Debra, who meets lots of fellows on personal appearance tours such as this one in Portsmouth Naval Hospital at Norfolk, Va., claims she dates none of them, would rather stay home with Mom. But who put the ring on that finger? M™ Dan Dailey once pulled to a stop for a traffic light on Sunset Boulevard and found his car next to the pale orchid Cadillac driven by Debra Paget. Girls in orchid Cadillacs can expect whistles from strangers, even if they don’t look like Debra Paget, but Dan was no stranger. He was a co-worker on the 20th Century-Fox lot, and in the manner of confreres, he yelled across the intervening space, “Hiya, little one!” Miss Paget’s nose lifted perceptibly as she stared rigidly ahead. “What’s the matter?’ inquired Dan. “Aren’t you speaking to anybody today?” Debra’s nose went a little higher and her chin jutted with determined hauteur. “Well, don’t sit there and turn blue!” yelled Dailey. “It’s only me—old Dan!” When she turned ever so slightly and recegnized him, of course she relaxed to a smile and waved a friendly hand. Dan’s story proves that Debra Paget is one girl who drives an orchid Cadillac and does not respond to wolf whistles. It also paints a rather accurate picture of Debra. She looks like a movie star: She does not leave her home, or even answer the door, unless she is wearing a complete make-up job. She loathes the mere idea of women in slacks. Debra is never seen in public with- ‘out every accoutrement of glamour, including long earrings. While her clothes are not frilly, they are tailored always with an eye to sex appeal. It is hard to guess whether Debra actually enjoys such trappings. Only a year ago she was content to whisk through life in peasant blouses and full skirts and simple jewelry, but now that she is twenty, she has blossomed into a full-blown product of Hollywood. Debra claims she loves to be glamorous, | that she always dressed up when she was a | child, and then in the next breath admits she | was a tomboy. “Anything the boys could do, I could do better. And Id still be a tomboy if it weren’t for my career.” And then, while staunchly maintaining that such frou-frou is| second nature to her, she states that movie) stars should look like movie stars. “The pub- lic builds you up in its imagination. Why| q 2

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WAY TE. ED let it down?” And Debra’s appearance is never a disappointment to her fans. Whether or not Debra is happy behind her pancake make-up, her attention to theat- rical grooming has.accomplished one difficult feat. Having grown up on the 20th Century- Fox lot, she has been wide open to the danger of being considered a child, professionally, long after she outgrew such roles. The majority of stars who began careers in their early teens have had to resort to violent methods to prove to their studio bosses that they have grown up and are able to grace the screen without pigtails. Jane Powell bleached her hair and went into the nightclub circuit with a sexy repertoire. Jeanne Crain, despite her four children, had to’ dye her hair red and pour herself into decolleté gowns to con- vince the brass. Debra Paget has managed to escape the teen-age type-casting by attack- ing the problem in time. At an age when she can very well portray a siren role, she has appeared to everyone outside her family as a sultry and sexy young lady. This isa noteworthy accomplishment in Hollywood, yet no one knows if the sophisti- cated appearance comes naturally to Debbie. | Those who know her say it is the result of | ambition, with which Debra is generously endowed. She has said: “I will do anything for my career. Anything they ask me.” She proves it by being prompt, polite, and pro- ductive. She goes even farther by con- tributing her share of glamour to an industry which is tardily realizing that it must have glamour, and not gas stoves, in the public lives of its players. The Cadillac is difficult to top, and for this creation Debbie went to | a lot of trouble. In the wardrobe department of the studio she thumbed through fabric swatches until she found the color that pleased \; her most—a pale, pale orchid, almost white. \; Paint of this hue was sprayed on her car, |: which had been an ordinary shade of green, and Debbie was complete—a flawless ex- ~ ample of a Hollywood star. There she draws the line. She feels, and justifiably so, that her cooperation with her job ends with her job. Probes into the more personal aspects of (Continued on page 72)

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When Mrs. Curtis makes up her mind, it’s no use putting up any opposition. Even Tony beats a retreat when “General Leigh” is on the march! BY KIRTLEY BASKETTE Hollywood taught Jeanette Morrison to dress and act—and to get the names of cities right on publicity tours. But not even casual Tony can teach her to slow down when Janet Leigh spots a job to be done.

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Tony's zany crowd {including Jerry Tony and Janet adjusted to marriage. She no long- Lewis) brought out Janet's sense of er winces at his rootbeer and caviar diet; he has humor, taught her to take kidding. learned not to grind cigarette butts into the rug. oe @ The brass of the Sciots’ Convention in San Jose, California, was dumbfounded. Before them, on the flag-draped reviewing stand, stood the pretty blonde majorette from Stockton who had just sashayed, strutted, whirled and swirled to win first prize over thirty other band belles in the grand parade. They’d told her to name whatever she wanted as her prize: A gold watch, perhaps? A sterling toilet set? A nice piece of handmade luggage? And she had told them, “I want a rain- coat.” Her friends, her parents and the officials tried to talk her out of it. “Don’t be silly, Jeanette. You won it. Take something precious that you can keep.” But she only shook her head stubbornly. “Uh-uh. I need a raincoat. That’s what I want.” She got the raincoat. The prize has (Continued on page 66)

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: ¥ { ia o Sic 2H Md * a pr sae & 4 3 rs was a ST ir. z ot ae “ 3 So ee Energetic and restless, Gordon enjoys his pool with his family but be- ‘'l've known for a long time what | wanted to be,’ Gordon says. lieves vacations are meant to be short. He got an early break by ‘'Wouldn't | be a fake looking and talking humble as if | actually | refusing to sit out a CBS contract and be paid for doing nothing. felt | didn't deserve it all? That kind of self-deprecation is unhealthy.”

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BY WILLIAM BARBOUR @ Last June, when Palm Springs was baking in 117 degrees of desert heat, the members of the Racquet Club there turned unbelieving eyes to the actions of a muscular young man in shorts. First, he pulled a deck chair out into the full sun. Then he care- fully focused a wide reflector on it. After which he lay down in the intensified glare. Gordon Mac- Rae was after a sun tan. Since it was Gordon MacRae, it was going to be a fast tan. Nearly seven years ago when Gordon started his movie career, an early story about him reported that he was a young man in a hurry, ahd that what he wanted out of Hollywood was a big house, a swimming pool and a Cadillac. The first part of this was truly descriptive. He is a man who showers, shaves and dresses in well under ten minutes. He is a luncher who puts away his meal with a half , dozen impatient movements of his fork, and spends the rest of the hour talking business. He is a golfer who is always asking permission to play through. He makes punctual arrivals at appoint- ments and early departures. Before he came to pictures he had refused a radio contract settlement permitting him to loaf for a year, because to mark time for such a long period was unthinkable. The second part of the story, about wanting only a house, pool and car out of Hollywood represented an unkind twist put-on his answers by the inter- viewers, who thereby missed the urgency of Gor- don’s ambition. Ask anyone if he likes a Cadillac and he will reply, “Sure.” Who wouldn’t? And who would say no to a house with a swimming pool? Gordon has possessed these symbols of affluence for years, but the dirtiest trick you could play on him, his friends (Continued on page 78) |} ordon met Sheila in summer stock. For six weeks she told her ly ommate Gordon was a most obnoxious boy, then switched to ‘| ling her parents he was great and she wanted to get married! It’s hate at first sight when some people meet MacRae. But those who take a second look find a nice guy who knows where he’s going—even if he has to push to get there! “CALL ME PINHEAD”

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story of the year: ae Behind the illness of this beloved star is a story that has never before atin told— a tragic history of struggle and heartache for a i career she never wanted! BY JANE S. CARLETON ™ For weeks now, the welter of rumor about Doris Day has been rising and spreading: Gossip, innuendo, exaggeration—everything but truth—has been advanced to explain her illness, and even her illness has been denied. When Lucky Me, a Doris Day vehicle sched- uled to start at Warner Brothers last October was ‘suddenly canceled, one studio spokesman offered this alibi: “The script isn’t ready yet. A few more weeks and: we'll roll.” Simultaneously, a Los Angeles columnist wrote, “Doris Day has had what practically amounts to a nervous breakdown and chums claim that difficul- ties with husband Marty Melcher are a big part of her trouble.” : Said husband Melcher when a newspaperman urged him “to level with me, Marty,” “Nervous breakdown? That’s a lotta bunk. Doris is just tired. She’ll be okay. There’s nothing wrong with her. Just had a cyst or something removed from her back. Minor surgery. What are they making such a fuss about?” “YT read in the papers that she’s going to a psychiatrist,” the newspaperman continued. “Sup- posedly she won’t be okay for months. Any truth to that?” “Of course not,” one Marty Melcher. “She’s just tired. She’s done picture after picture— fourteen pictures in a row. She’s beat. Wouldn’t. you be?” “That’s on the level now?” “On the level,” Melcher said. Marty Melcher is Doris Day’s husband and agent and business manager; and as president of Martin Melcher Productions, her new producer. He loves her very much. In her hour of need, he wants only to help and protect her and if this seems to call for more tact than truth—well then, it’s under- standable. But the truth has a purifying and clarifying effect, and throughout the world, there are thousands of Doris-Day. fans who are worried about this tall, talented, freckle-faced blonde who has given them so much joy and warmth and entertainment. The truth is that Doris Day is emotionally upset and that her neurosis may in part be attributed to what physicians refer to as cancerphobia. For some time now, Doris has been afraid that she has cancer. She belongs to a religious faith that holds that disease may be cured by treatment which consists basically of enlightened prayer. In her own family and in her business ph: she has encountered some disagreement with this belief. Several weeks before Lucky Me was scheduled to get underway, Warner Brothers insisted that Doris submit to a complete physical checkup. For a while, Doris refused. The studio pressed its point. The executives were (Continued on page 80)

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Keefe turned authentic farmhouse-type dry sink into phonograph cabinet for den—scraped and refinished another, larger one as diningroom buffet. Normie made traditional rag rug herself, hopes to make more: ‘“Nothing’s better for a budget than Early American,” claims Keefe Brasselle. And he should Cheerful "bargain livingroom" is almost entirely composed of antiques restored by handyman Keefe; equally handy Norma cleans furniture herself. as |

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pe: Attractive four-poster was reconstructed from dilapidated antique bed. The Early American kitchen is located between the diningroom and Night-table is old-fashioned sewing machine, and lamp bases cost Keefe patio for outdoor eating, has modern freezer and washer. Natural $17.50 as crockery set. Normie washes cotton drapes and spreads herself. wood cabinets carry out old-fashioned motif besides being hard to soil. snow. It took saving and hard work for Keefe and Normie to make their antique dreAl’tome true. @ Out in the San Fernando Valley, the night was clear and crisp with the smell of California winter in the air. A dog’s bark cut sharply across the stillness, and the stars looked new and close. On a corner lot, snug inside a small; un- obtrusive house, Keefe Brasselle, star of The Eddie Cantor Story, and his wife Norma, were enjoying the after-Junior’s- bedtime peace that only parents can appre- ciate. Keefe broke the silence by getting up from the sofa and edging another log into the fireplace. “Good night for a fire,” he muttered. Then he let loose an uninhibited yawn and threw his six-foot frame the length of the livingroom couch. He closed his eyes. Norma looked up from her needlework and smiled at her boyish husband. “You know what I’m thinking?” she asked. Keefe opened one eye. ‘‘That the firelight makes your hair look like polished brass.” Norma made a funny face. “I’ve been thinking about this living room,” she said. “Yd like to get an antique coffee table in front of that couch. You think our budget might stand that and Christmas, too?” Keefe Brasselle happens to be one actor who knows a thing or two-about antiques. He used to sell them. “Just how much of an antique did you have in mind?” he asked. : Bewiy, Nowna) side-stepped: the Tissue. Keefe turned a battered deribenet into a sturdy.coffee table for the ine. “That’s just the (Continued on next page) room. Opening at one end into the diningroom and at the other into the bed- room hall, the livingroom is an ideal length for his home movie showings. — MORE pe

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SS Se SS aso a ee Oy aE q Small enough for Normie to manage, Keefe to buy without mort- gage, house: stands on corner in middle-class area. Oldsmobile convertible was only big purchase when income began to rise. Keefe spent weekends building the brick barbecue and the cush- ioned bench. Behind the brick wall he has a badminton court and a basketball ring. Building their home cost the Brasselles $20,000. Keefe installed movie screen behind wooden valance in diningroom, projects pictures across intervening livingroom from projector installed behind window he cut in sliding door of bedroom hall. trouble,” she answered. “I. can’t decide what kind of table it should be. ‘We could use a cob- bler’s bench, but the good ones cost a fortune.” “Normie,” her husband chided: “Don’t screw up your forehead that way. I'll turn out an early Brasselle for you.” Next evening Keefe drove into the garage and Normie caught sight of an old workbench jutting out the rear window of his convertible. “The antique” looked so old and broken that it might have been one of the rails Abraham Lincoln split. It was dirty and cracked and battered. Normie stalked out to the garage. “Keefe Brasselle,’ she said flatly. “Don’t you dare bring that dirty thing into my clean house.” “But, darling,” Keefe protested, “don’t you believe in me?” “Just don’t bring it into the house. It should be fumigated.” The more Norma slandered his prize, the more the young actor was pleased. Once he had a chance to work on his bargain buy, he was sure Normie would melt. For when it comes to repairing and remodeling wooden pieces. Keefe Brasselle is an experienced craftsman. The more hopeless a job looks, the more he enjoys salvaging it. When he spotted this disreputable-looking bench hiding under a pile of furniture in a junk store, he knew at once that it had possi- bilities. He cut off the legs to reduce it to coffee-table height. Then he sealed the major cracks with plastic wood. He spent - nights sanding the rough edges. Then he stained and waxed until the old wood took on the patina of a well-shined shoe. Only then would he let his wife inspect her new coffee table. “T give up,” she said. “You’re a genius.” And she flattered him with a kiss and helped him carry it into the livingroom, That long, narrow (Continued on page 355)

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——— ltl HOW THE STARS FOUND FAITH A man and a baby ill ( and a young Mexican nurse— ny these people | a | brought Shelley ae from pain into maturity— and a fuller understanding of those around her. the turning poin Jy Sly i @ I do not think that any individual can make a bilateral pact with God, an agreement between just himself and God, leaving his fellow men out of consideration. The man’s part of the bargain could only be that he would not sin any more. But for ‘some time I have felt that there can be no heaven‘in the mere avoidance of evil; that this is just a negative approach; ‘that I have not done or will not do any bad does not mean I am good. Today I have come to believe that faith is positive and that the whole basis of religion is the interlocking of man’s responsibility to man. Until. this conviction forced itself into my consciousness (and it had to fight its way to recognition) I had lots more trouble accepting myself as a mature person than I have today. When I was in the early stages of childbirth and a young nurse stretched herself far beyond her duties to buoy me up with hope and comfort, I sensed that. this extra giving of one’s self and time. was the only really good work. In that moment, I tried to recall when I had done as much for another human being. When I couldn’t, I had time in all my pain to feel the sadness of this realization. And that is how I learned to grow up. I was in labor three days. There were periods of doubt when I didn’t know whether the doctors would proceed or try to wait. The birth itself was of a difficult type. I remember two nurses, I remember them mainly by the phrasing of their words to me. The older one was competent and did what had to be done with brisk efficiency. The other was far less professional in bearing, a young Mexican girl, about twenty, and not very prepossessing in either looks or manner. The first nurse impressed me (Continued on page 47)

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THE MAN FOR MITZI ————— Ad — , Jack didn't know who Mitzi was when they met; now she accepts his authority on her clothes and career. @ At a Beverly Hills party ten months ago you might Remember Miss have heard the proposal of marriage made to Mitzi Gaynor’s Gaynor by a square-shouldered, blue-eyed citizen named adviee—on- love? “Stay Jack Bean_He_has reddish-brown hair, a crew-cut, and 99 Riese clothes that are on the conservative side for California. aloof.” But Mitzi has The Beverly Hills host approached Mitzi who was become a clinging vine— _ standing with Jack. “Would you like a drink?” he asked Mitzi. wrapped around a “No, thank you,” she replied politely. Bean(pole) named Jack! “Would you like a bite to eat?” the host offered. : “No, thank you,” said Mitzi. UG Ee) UIUC The host departed and Jack turned to Mitzi. “Would you like to get married?” he asked. Mitzi looked at hinr and her eyes widened. “Yes,” she said. “I mean . . . yes, thank you.” That was last March. The two had known each other for little more than a month. They know each other a lot better now, but the proposal and the acceptance, and all the longing foreach other (Continued on page-54) EE ee

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LL TEND

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+ Vic and Dorothy's five-year-old marriage is as secure as his better-than-ever film career and booming commercial enterprises. ye Famous ap anonymous great publ AZY LIKE A FOX : % Sher ws (Pes SAG A ec pellation, "that beautiful hunk of man," was coined by Like many other stars, such as Tony Curtis and Mona Freeman, Mature’ _debutante for early article on Mature. He thought it hobby is painting. To foil any possible criticism, he prints “Not Complete’ icity—which he would now like everybody to forget. under all his works before showing them off. This landscape is his first try ¥

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CE ae EE ee NN Fifteen years ago Mature went shopping in swim trunks, talse beard and toga. You say you think he’s changed since then? BY JOHN MAYNARD ™@ One summer day, fifteen years ago, Victor Mature ran out of razor blades. At the time, he was scarcely dabbling a toe in the fractious waters of film acting. It was a warm afternoon and Mature was entertaining at his town residence, a tidy pup-tent in the backyard of a friend. Perhaps it is better to say that he was entertaining on his modest grounds. At any rate, he ran out of razor blades, an emergency to be coped with immediately. He was wearing swim trunks and sandals; not, even in Hollywood, suit- able regalia for a shopping center. Ma- ture, although a certain nervousness over his own lack of social inhibition constitutes his only social inhibition, understood this. It was an easy matter to rectify. With spirit gum, he applied to his face a modest beard that happened to be lying around. About his semi-naked person he wrapped a bedsheet in lieu of a toga. Attired (Continued on page 74) lelmer Daves directs Vic in Demetrius And The Gladiators, quel to The Robe. Since Samson And Delilah, Biblical iovies have been his forte, may bring Oscar nomination.

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Hollywood _ Hot Rods Lance Fuller brought Universal's Kathleen Hughes and Barbara Rush to rally, Hollywood's term for Sunday driving and com- | pi paring get-togethers held by most avid sports car enthusiasts. | By Tom Carlile @ It wasn’t spicy enough to be mentioned in the gossip columns. And it probably won’t even come out in the divorce testimony. But several of Donald O’Connor’s close friends think that one factor which was overlooked in the newspaper reports of his marital difficulties with Gwen was the sleek little Bugatti roadster which he used to wheel around Hollywood at high blood-pressure speeds. Before the Bugatti, there had been a low-slung Jaguar with leopard-skin upholstery and a supercharged engine which emitted a throaty roar every night as Donald wheeled it into the driveway. Before that, there was an older Jaguar which threw a wheel while Donald Sa : os was barreling it along at sixty miles an hour one fine afternoon. Pale blue Jaguar XK120 caught the attention of Tab Hunter,|', ; Lori Nelson, Barbara Rush, Jeff Hunter, Kathleen Hughes,|tp 7 Donald has always loved (Continued on page 63) Lance Fuller and Marcia Henderson. Popular, it costs $3600,/,,, sé ae > s bones ae en oe pt ax fee a eee i ass ~ - “Buy your sweetie a Jaguar for Christmas,’”’ a car dealer advertised—and everybody did! As a resul Ty Power owns a Mark 7 Jaguar Macdonald Carey's red Saber has - Jan Sterling drives an inexpensive and a 1900 cc Alpha Romeo as well as the Ford-Mercury engine, is impractical for Simca, Most popular car in Hollywood pictured (and expensive) Duesenberg. large family who love it anyway. ~ is $2400 Mark IV MG: 44

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PUT THAT BICYCLE BACK IN THE GARAGE, KIDDIES— ee Seriously interested: in autos, Lance bought his white Morris Minor for practical reasons. The English-made car hugs the road, reducing tip- over chances: motor, smaller than a battery, gets 35 miles per gallon. 1 You can get more than 135 mph out of that Jag, Lance Fuller said o Tab Hunter, was interrupted by screams from Marcia Henderson and Lori Nelson who discovered both had brought chocolate cookies. j lf it were legal in California, Jeff Hunter could take wife Barbara Rush for a 110 mph drive in this German-made Porsche. A close relative of the popular Volkswagon, the Porsche has a 4-cylinder rear engine. Rallies usually end with enthusiasts prying under the hoods of each other's cars, fighting gallantly over the relative merits of various models. With the girls along this time, the rally turned into a picnic. jHollywood’s famed Sunset Boulevard looks like the Champs Elysees during an international convention. Ra Sis oe. SOE : arbara Ruick and Bob Horton icluded a blue Jaguar in their l-important marriage plans, Dick and June Powell's Jaguar XK120 can do 145 mph, Dick claims—but has nowhere to do it! Gary Cooper, like Frank Sinatra, bought a Mercedes-Benz Model 300SL in Europe, paid $13,000 for it. IN HOLLYWOOD, THEY TAKE THE JAGUAR!

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By Steve Cronin teens Sa50%% 7 P82," *44) * *@ *s5> e* * the ham got results ALSO A CONTRACT, STAR BILLING AND A TON OF FAN MAIL MARKED “THAT WONDERFUL BYRON PALMER!’ @ A few years ago, an awfully nice Hollywood boy got himself involved with a dangerous dame. . His name was Byron Palmer. Hers was Tokyo Rose. This liaison took place in what both storybooks and movies paint as a most romantic setting, but you'd hardly call theirs a love affair. Each day this Palmer called Miss Rose some choice names over short-wave radio. Next day she’d return the compliment. For his part, he’d sign off the tryst with, ‘This is’ Station wxLE—your American Expeditionary Station at Eniwetok on the road to Tokyo.” And she’d come back, “This is Tokyo Rose on the road to Eniwetok.” Well, one day right after beaming his usual insult, Corporal Palmer almost jumped out of his suntan. A big “Boom!” resounded outside his Quonset hut and the atoll shook like an actor at option time. Bombs went off like strings of cannon crackers, zinging bullets peppered the earth and smoke and flame rolled | over the tropical sky until it looked like Dante’s Inferno. Clawing into the flinty coral for cover, Byron Palmer reflected bitterly that, except for his wife, his sister and his mother, women were bad news indeed, and if he lived through this, he would have no truck with any of them. Flashing through his addled senses was the idea that Tokyo Rose had made good her boast and maliciously sent out the whole Japanese carrier fleet just to get him. Actually, a B-24 (Continued on page 57)

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the turning point (Continued from page 37) with her ex- perience. She said it was too bad the baby was arriving early. She thought it would be best to wait two more weeks. She hoped that it would be a girl because in such cases girls have a better chance than boys. She said more but by this time I was listening to myself worry. Suppose it | was a boy? The Mexican girl talked in another vein altogether. In between pains I might say, “I wonder what the baby will look like.” She would reply, “Don’t think about that. Think about what it will think and feel, and that it will think and feel, like you think and feel. The wonder of life is hap- pening to you now. Life is coming, this very second, and coming to extend itself into the forever, through you.” When I would cry out sometimes the other nurse would say. “Oh, it isn’t so bad. . . . After all, what is happening to you has happened to thousands of others. ... You're not the only one, you know, to go through this... .” The Mexican girl never dismissed me so lightly. She sympathized and helped me; she lived and thought on a much higher plane and she took me up there with her. I can hear her now. “This is not a bad time in your life,” she is saying. “These are the finest hours, the deepest feelings, the most touching moments you will ever have. Don’t miss | them because the pain is big or the pain is small, or because now it is here and now it is there. This is greater, so much greater than all that.” W = luck to meet such a girl! What | a human being! She clothed me with such a wonderful aura of sublime function that I didn’t want to take the pain pills the doctor had left. I didn’t need them with her inspiring presence. Even when my pains were finally just minutes apart PS. Sc men peer tee hott RITA HAYWORTH says, “Yes, I use Lustre-Creme Shampoo.” In fact, in a mere words that would sound when she saw two years, Lustre-Creme has become the shampoo of the majority of top Hollywood my eyes open, the beat of her warm heart stars! When America’s most glamorous women—beauties like Rita Hayworth—use coming to me through her. hand which Lustre-Creme Shampoo, shouldn’t it be your choice above all others, too? held mine, bathed me in wonderful calm- ness. I knev7 I would rather be there, ex- periencing the birth of my child’s life, than anywhere else in the world. No, I am sure, there will be no heaven except when we are our brother’s and our sister’s keepers. - And there is no great- er heaven than that. ; For the Most Beautiful Hair in the World 4 out of 5 Top Hollywood Stars These evenings when I see Vittorio sit Peter vation looks te use Lustre-Creme Shampoo baby. She looks at him. They are both so solemn. Then he turns and says, “The baby looks like me, she acts like me!” And what I see in his face is the wonder the Mexican girl spoke about. She never once mentioned God, yet God was in all she said. y NOW in new LOTION FORM or famous ) H*s all this changed me? Not omic CREAM FORM! ly. I fall now and then from the new A F grace in which I would like to live. Yet 2 I cannot help but try to be more consider- <a ate of others. I find no further pleasure, ie FS ® % =. aa or at least not so much as before, in the NI on F Be a (displays of sarcastic and cutting wit that 3 - jare so common in our day. I have a much Glamour-made-easy! Even in Makes hair eager to curl! Now stronger awareness that all persons are hardest water, Lustre-Creme you can “‘do things” with your beings of hope and fear and sensitivity, “shines” as it cleans; leaves hair—right after you wash it! /born of mothers who gloried in their births, . who have been given love and have love BEL ee ee i aes SY Ba to give loose dandruff. And Lustre- = make hair a delight to man- Pour it on... or cream if on! ; : . .. . Either way, have hair |. I always mew this, strangely enough, Creme Shampoo is blessed age; tames flyaway locks that shines like Giese! jand Jie ee I fbn mae the preach: with Natural Lanolin. It does _ to the lightest brush touch, Lustre-Creme Shampoo in jing one hears from another’s lips has little ir! = i c f; Cream Form—27# to Weck tail Arid unload it. is-eonfitmed id not dry or dull your hair brings out glorious sheen = ae ia ee one’s own experience. All that I know I | Lotion Form—30¢ to $1.

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LOVE STORY Hollywood Has None Sweeter Than Eve Arden’s @ It’s surprising that any actress would have so little time that she’d turn down six lucrative picture offers in less than a year. But that’s what happened to Eve (Our Miss Brooks) Arden. The filming of her tv show consumes five days a week. On top of that, although she could have done a film during her two-month summer vacation, she turned down offers that would excite a Lana Turner because she and her husband had planned for two years to take a vacation trip to Eu- rope. This is the key: to one of Hollywood’s genuinely honest love stories. Although Eve Arden as Miss Brooks is constantly frustrated in her pursuit of Mr. Boyn- ton on Ty, her private life isn’t like that. Once married and divorced, Eve before Tv was lonesome for a husband and a man around the house to be father to her two wonderful children, Connie, eight, and Liza, six. Three years ago, she planned a summer stock tour, asked Barry Sullivan to be her leading man. His Metro contract for- bade his taking the job, but he recom- mended a man he termed, “one hell have always known, but haven’t always believed. When someone told me once that I should have more faith in all things, I listened, but the words failed to register any particular significance. But these words were there, waiting.somewhere in my sub- conscious, and when something happened to prove them true, they came to life in me. When my baby was born I was happy as a mother, but miserable as an actress. I thought that the important part of my ca- reer was over. I could not visualize myself, physically or mentally, as the young wom- an I had been before. And if I were not she, who and what would I be? I couldn’t answer this, I was outwardly myself when I started to work in Tennessee Champ, my first picture after Vittoria’s birth, but inside I was uneasy, unsure. Little things gave me more bother than they were worth. Large problems I shrank from facing. One late afternoon I saw the first rushes of the picture and I became terribly upset. In the first developing, color film generally comes out too dark, and later it is cor- rected by technical means. But I didn’t know this. I just saw a Shelley Winters ; > of an actor.” So, sight unseen, Eve had Brooks West of New York signed for her tour. They returned to Holly- wood and Mr. West met Eve’s children. Little Liza came to a fast conclusion: “T think Brooksie is a fine man. Why don’t you marry him?” Eve, who is fa- mous for her snappy comebacks, merely blushed to the roots of her hair and urged Liza not to say the same thing to Mr. West. Liza didn’t have to, for he proposed to Eve a few weeks later. Theirs is a wonderful marriage. They have attended art school together so that they could plan their Early American home together. Altogether a he-man, West does such things as de- sign hooked rugs which Eve finishes. Oddly enough, while Eve still pursues Mr. Boynton on Tv, West has the role of Jane’s boy friend on the My Friend Irma show, playing a young man as successful with his attractive steady as he is in his business career. Asked to comment on the current status of her life, Eve answered with a question: “Would it be naive of me to suggest that a woman can find the great love of her life after she’s thirty?” whom I could hardly recognize and my worst fears were confirmed. But I wasn’t satisfied with just one worry. On my way home I took on others, and none were too small. The baby, who was on an eight-to-eight schedule, had been asleep when I left the house in the morning. I was sure she would be asleep for the night when I got in and I wouldn't be able to hold and fondle her. Vittorio and I had a dinner date at Ginger Rogers’ home and I had arranged for my mother to come and stay with the baby after the nurse left so that we could go. Mother would be late, I told myself, and Vittorio and I would not be able to leave on time. Ginger. would be offended. I kept nagging at myself in this way until by the time I entered the house I was actually in tears. But there was mother. The baby was still up and smiling. We had time to get to Ginger’s. And then Sol Fielding, the pro- ducer of the picture, called to explain about . the film. and how easily it could be cor- rected. He said I had photographed better than in the tests and that he was well satis- fied with the results. Metro even called and gave me a role in Executive Suite. All my desperation, I redazeds of surmises, of lack of faith in myself and : in others. I was like a person walking around with her stare fixed permanently on the ground. I try now to keep my eyes raised. I see more of what is happening to others and less of what is happening to me. This is the “seeing” that counts. T 1s odd how this has benefited me as an actress. If you ask anyone in Hollywood about the one thing I have always been > most concerned with in my profession they will be able to give you the answer in a word—scripts. There is no picture, no op- portunity to act, until it is written. And the way it is written, the quality of the insight into character and human emotion used, is the keystone of any film’s success. Ever since the baby’s birth it seems to me that the scripts I am given to read are getting better. How could this be? Are the scripts actually better or am I now able to see more things in them? I can only ex- plain it by saying that formerly I had eyes only for the part I would do. Now I look for the picture of life it paints generally, and not necessarily for the dramatic force I would contribute myself. I am more con- tent to be part of something very good’ that the best of it should come only from | e. I feel this about my marriage and my home life. This did not come about as I planned it, nor will it necessarily go on ac- | cording to any blueprints that might have | been in my mind as a girl. My husband, | my baby and I all have, or will have, in- | dividual desires and somehow these must all be accounted for and allowed for if we are to live within the framework of one continuing home. It is lucky for me that I have come to this realization. Perhaps the old Shelley would not have been able to | bend and fit as she must to keep her own | together. The old Shelley wished for many things; now these things have become few- er, but just as important. When Vittorio and I met in Rome, we got to know each other and knew that we wanted each other, but there were prob- lems. We were both actors. Many people do not think this is a good thing. A great many of his interests would always lie in Italy and mine in the United States. Cer- tainly. this was not a promising background |i for marriage. Neither of us were passive |) personalities and this presaged stommiy ; times. HEN we had rationalized about all this } and told ourselves we had worked out all the complications, there still remained another—our difference in religion. We } didn’t dismiss this lightly. We gave it deep | consideration and, in effect, this is what we told each other: If we eliminate the names by which we } are known, Protestant, Jew, Catholic, Buddhist, and come down to the actual Jai power we have, we are all the same. We} ean all do unto others as we’d have them j® ; do unto us. We can give even more than we seek for ourselves—unless we will not} try. This is the turning point of humanity. pi: We all know this in our hearts. It reads} the same in all prayer books. i Vittorio and I were married in Mexico in}%} a civil ceremony. When we were flying} back I got a sudden urge that I am sure hn any girl will understand. I turned to him and told him I wanted to stand in a church] with him before we got to Los Angeles. —% | “What church?” he asked. __ ate “Any church,” I replied. auch We got off the plane in El Paso and went . walking down the street. We saw a churchp. and entered and we stood there together} I felt a blessing on our marriage. I don’ § know what kind of church it was. ENDS

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_. Gift-Packed ‘oportioned Nylons* amorous, sheer as a breath, and yet so practical, with rleproof’s snag-resistant Beauty Lock Finish! Three pairs in the ir-gold box . . . one or two pairs in a Christmas-card-folder. 51 gauge, 15 denier—$1.50 pr. gauge, 15 denier—$1.65 pr. thtly higher in Canada JOLEPROOF HOSIERY CO., MILWAUKEE 1, WISCONSIN * IN CANADA: LONDON, ONTARIO june haver comes home _ (Continued from page 19) could learn ‘ about what was happening to the girl who | had always been high in their favor, and | still is. But June herself had answered the telephone. She understood right away | what was up. “You have an assignment, » don’t you?” June asked, with the hint of a , chuckle in her voice. I said I certainly had. “T wish I could give.you a story,” sighed June. “You know I would, if I could. |) Maybe I can one of these days soon. I |i don’t know. But right now, you can un- \|| derstand why I can’t talk. There has been ,|;too much publicity about me already.” | I said I did understand. So we made »|;simple pleasantries. I said. I was glad she was back and hoped she was feeling well. ‘She said she was responding beautifully to .\rest, good food, and the warmth of her |family around her. In faet, she had just jgot back from a trip to San Francisco, up non a train, back on a plane, with two jwonderful days in that wonderful town \with her sister, Evvie, and Evvie’s son, ‘Brian. “We took in all the sights, like any 4yourist,” continued June. “Fisherman's "|! Wharf, Golden Gate Park and a little boat (tip under the bridges out in the bay, past sp tleatraz, and everything.” She laughed. me {t was good to hear that laughter. ait. “And then we went-to Chinatown,” con- at inued June, forgetting that she was talk- ng, because we’ve been friends for some ime, and I think maybe she enjoyed it as nuch as I did. “Had a marvelous time, be- jause it was Ten-Ten festival—that’s like i@0"'ur Fourth of July—the day the Chinese ut tepublic was founded. So Grant: Avenue li\"¥as gay with lanterns, perfumed with in- joo} ense. We ate chow-mein and shopped for a) of little things. And then we dropped in co es wo ot +) a to see Anne Baxter—you know she’s there in John Brown's Body—look, I’m talking too much .. .” Very pleasant talk, I thought. “Yes,” agreed June. “But,” and an anxious tone crept into her voice, “I must stop now. I’ve already talked to you longer than I have to anyone else .. . no, I have no personal plans at all now, except catching up with myself, building my health and gathering my family around me. Mother’s had some family dinners and everybody’s been so sweet to me. No, I haven't been out in Hollywood—nowhere. I’m staying between here and my sister Dorothy’s. No, I don’t know where I'll live. No, I haven’t any picture plans.. I don’t know yet if I am interested. I don’t know what I'l do. If,” said June, “I should want to go back, I want to act now with dignity and good taste. You see, there’s really nothing what- ever that I can tell you now and I shouldn’t be talking to you at all. In fact, my agent called from Italy and told me not to talk to the press, and Harry Brand at the studio advised the same thing. So—I'll have to say goodbye. But it was nice...” “Goodbye,” I told her. “Good luck—and God bless you.” And I received a benedic- tion, too. 4 Dea: was my interview. Not anything to stop the presses or win a Pulitzer Prize —but still—it told me a lot about the pres- ent state of the girl I've come to know so well and admire so much. It told me, first of all, that she was the same sweet, friendly girl I had always known. It told me her outlook was sunny, not defeated, depressed or sad. It told me she was gaining strength, and was physical- ly and emotionally under control. It told me she was interested again in the world around her, able to go on a pleasure ex- ¥ 7 De gente otis a Fe Ge ae ele Ur} 4 : & *Only hosiery to be awarded cursion and enjoy every minute of it. It told me she still held a deep reverence and respect for the path she had tried to take. But it told me something else, too: She is looking forward, not backward. Right now, what is really happening to June Haver is a profound struggle with herself to deter- mine her future. There is no one in Hollywood or else- where who can make her decision for her. The problem is as personal and private as her decision to desert her career and enter the convent. But this decision is more com- plex and more pressing than the other, arrived at over a period of years. It is complicated by typical Hollywood rumor and speculation, wild offers and proposals bombarding her. In her position, she caf- not reply. Only a few days after she returned, for instance, a producer who owns the screen rights. to the late Jean Harlow’s life story, announced that he would try to persuade June to play the part of the platinum blonde bombshell of the Thirties. He ex- plained that he was not attempting to capitalize on June Haver’s news value; he had long thought’ of her in the role. In fact, his lawyers had tried to contact her about it at the convent. If they did, the producer was very much out of line. Even though he declared any profits of such a film would be given to charity, it is an ill- advised, ill-timed suggestion. Besides the fact that both were blondes and both experienced tragedy, the char- acters of Jean Harlow and June Haver do not match. The themes of their lives and the auras surrounding them, are completely different. When I asked June if she was considering such a thing, she replied, “Of course not. Someone is apparently trying to exploit the publicity.” She said it sadly. That is only a sample of what. June

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ot wr ems aoe om a ies poh 50. J ‘ey #@ Lori Nelson looks young and pretty and blonde and as helpless as a kitten. Of course this always brings out the chivalry in the opposite sex, as you know if you’ve seen her two new pic- tures, All-American and Walking My Baby Back Home. But she knows a few tricks that would be a surprise to a burglar, a purse-snatcher or just a plain wolf. She’s a jiu jitsu expert. Five feet, three, in her stocking feet and tipping the scales at 103, Lori can throw a 160-pound man over her shoulder and have him helpless and handcuffed quicker than you can say Mr. Moto. She learned this ancient art of self- ot even judo expert Dad can take her by surprise. THE POWER OF A WOMAN Lori Nelson can hold a man or toss him over with no effort at all! Eb.) Swe Daughter Nelson gives Papa Nelson a Full Nelson as they practice quick defense. defense from her father, Robert Nel- son, a civic-minded citizen who is an Auxiliary Deputy Sheriff in addition to being employed as a studio techni- ~ cian. All deputy sheriffs in Los Angeles County are required to know some- thing of judo. Mr. Nelson has taught Lori all he knows about judo and how to handle firearms. She’s an excellent shot, right handed or left handed. “They get up in the middle of the night to go deer hunting,” Lori’s moth- er complains. “T’ye never had occasion to use judo in either my personal or professional life,’ says Lori. “But it’s fun. prac- ticing with Dad. And it might come in handy.” When she had her close-cropped hair done, the word was out: June Haver is getting herself ready for screen tests. When she buys a- few new clothes, which she obviously needs after half a year in a convent, she’s re- entering the. glamour lists. When she lunches with her former agent, Ned Marin, they are talking picture parts. June’s di- lemma—how to keep out of the news, com- port herself with dignity and fight out her vital decisions alone—looms large and al- most impossible to resolve. That’s natural and inevitable. If there are no facts available, reporters must survey the scene and draw conclu- sions from whatever they see, especially on a subject of such interest and importance to Hollywood and June’s devoted fans. What they see, in her case, may be colored by wishful thinking. Everyone who knows June Haver wants her to return to a full, happy and useful life. It may be a wish, but I believe that June Haver will soon come back to the screen, to the career she } renounced in good faith, but the one in which I believe she rightfully belongs. A? THIS writing, June Haver has signed no contracts, talked no picture deals, read no scripts. Yet, already there are straws in the wind indicating that— whether she knows it or not—June Haver is reaching for the threads that lead back to the life she had led and loved since she was eight years old. The people who have advised June so far —and whose advice she admitted she is heeding—are ‘all picture people. Some qualify as old friends as well. Many for- mer colleagues from Fox have talked to June and, in her mother’s words, “offered to help June if she wished to resume pic- ture work.” They are friends—June made friends with everyone she worked with— but the advice and assistance which all these friends have to offer June Haver is - really valuable only if she is considering going back into the movie business. Of course, when June alighted from a | TWA plane at the Los Angeles Interna- | tional Airport last September 29, she ex- | pressed a different intention and desire. “I | want to go back,” she said then. “I am on temporary leave. I am home to rest and to do God’s will.” At the same time, she | stated flatly, when asked if she’d take up the career she had abandoned, “I gave that up.” ; At that time, June was surprised and confused by the swarm of reporters and photographers who surrounded her. A TWA ticket clerk had recognized her and tipped off the press. She was registered on the plane as Junie Flynn (her sister Doro- thy’s married name) and had planned to slip back home unheralded. “I'm not a} celebrity any more,’ she protested, and | after her happy laughter when she greeted | her family, she burst into tears when she was asked to pose again and again. She must have known, even then, that| for her the attempt at holy life was ended, | and could not be tried again with hope of success. This was strongly hinted by church officials whom newsmen asked to} clarify June’s status. One, Archbishop Ed-| ward J. Hunkeler of Kansas City, said, “I| have never heard of such leave being} granted novitiates.” Another stated, “If}r, she plans to return, she will have to apply} iy through the regular channels. No such}(Ci, action has been initiated.” Another pointed} ip, out that, except for a death in the family, }a; no “temporary leave” is ever granted from} the; the Sisters of Charity Convent. And as}ii;, June’s own mother pointed out, “The fact} j,, that June left in street clothing is proof]},. that her training to become a nun is over.”| i— a — n,n fa.

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ees eta 23S sae. . stand why J about... 5 : Archbishop Hunkeler said, “I think the _ The reason June gave for her return to secular life was poor health. That was undoubtedly the immediate cause. She suf- fered severe migraine headaches, and had undergone hospitalization in Kansas. Ex- haustive physical tests revealed an ener- vating low metabolism rate. This - was another in the chain of sicknesses and ac- cidents which had dogged June before she left California. She had, for instance, en- tered St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica four separate times, for an appendectomy, an ulcer, a sprained back and a ruptured abdominal organ. It was the Sisters there, incidentally, who inspired June’s own de- sire to lead a life of service in the Catholic Church. The-Girl Next Door took almost two years to film, largely because of June’s illnesses. But one of the requirements for admit- tance to St. Mary’s Academy was a certif- icate of sound health. June had been in what amounted to physical training for her convent life long before she made it. She never looked better than she did in The Girl Next Door. At the convent she worked hard; all novices do. But even though her chores were in the kitchen and in the laundry, they were not back breaking. June described the way she felt as, “I was just dragging all of the time.” But even as she said that, reporters who greeted her were unanimous that despite her plain brown suit, cropped, untinted hair and absence of make-up she looked in better shape phys- ically than when she left. She was heavier, had better color and, even under the ten- sion of that meeting, seemed to be in good spirits. This is not to cast any doubt on June Haver’s reasons for abandoning the per- sonal crusade which she had entered with such hope, zeal and confidence. But it is proper to point out that poor health is not the only reason June Haver missed her goal. Other more complex factors evidently helped frustrate that ambition, too. It was not disillusionment on June Haver’s part. “I found the religious life everything I hoped it would be,” were among the first words she uttered back in Hollywood. “It was beautiful. I was very happy there and all the other nuns were wonderful to me.” But there is evidence that the psychological and emotional ad- justments to her religious life were not en- tirely successful. “Dragging all the time,” is a complaint familiar to psychiatrists. I remember talking to a close friend of June’s when she announced her startling decision. This man is active and experi- enced in the work of the Catholic Church. He had acted often as a go-between, when June first voiced her yearnings to become a nun. He told me then, “June’s frail—but that isn’t what worries me about this step of hers. The work won’t*be too hard for . her. She’s also very devout; I am not wor- rying about her sincerity or faith. But you must remember that a girl who enters a convent must change completely, not only in her daily life but in the very workings of her mind. It is hard when you are June’s age. I’m hoping and praying for the best, but I don’t know. I have seen other 1 | inspired girls try for the sisterhood and } find themselves utterly unable to handle \ ( the emotional transition. I’ve seen them tragically mixed-up and helpless to under- they this cannot bring ”? real reason, in fairness to June, was that it y wasn’t the life for her .. .” Another high |Catholic church official agreed, “I’m not | surprised she returned. She’s a convert yand it is difficult to adjust in any way to the Catholic life, especially if the individual is not accustomed to it very early .. .” June joined the Catholic Church in Hol- {i/lywood when she was sixteen and al- ready in pictures. According to her moth- er, June herself soon sensed this insur- mountable psychological barrier at the convent. “I believe,” she has said, “that June realized almost from the start that she had made a mistake. All her life she has been devoted to her family—a real home girl. You can see how homesick this would make her, and how difficult to ad- just to the secluded religious life...” June’s mother was the most broken up member of the family when her daughter left for the convent. : Whatever the reasons why June Haver abandoned her quest after seven and a half months instead of staying seven and a half years to take her final vows, no shame, disgrace or even embarrassment reflects or should reflect from her action. June cer- tainly doesn’t feel that it should. That sen- sible state of mind is important to her present decision. “Many people seek to do God’s will as they understand it,” she has said. “That is all I did. I don’t think I failed.” Nor does anyone else who knows the facts. June was merely what her rank in the religious order was termed—a novice. She Was an apprentice on trial. She had achieved no religious ordainment of any kind from which she defected in returning to Hollywood. Mother Mary Ancilla, Su- perior of St. Mary’s Academy, stated June’s position very clearly: “All young women who come here on trial until the time when they take their final vows, are privileged to change their minds from day to day .. .” The Kansas Archbishop cleared her even more officially, “June left in a candid and proper manner,” he stated. “She leaves with the good will of everyone.” As far as her church is concerned—a church whose dictates and preferences June, being devout, would always heed— she bears no stigma whatever. Which brings up the strongest argument of all why June Haver will take up where she left off in Hollywood: There is no earthly —or spiritual—reason why she should not. On the contrary, there are many earthly— and spiritual—reasons why she should. Danny Kaye at Palace opening was cute when he said, “I'll tell you a little secret. There is nobody in the world who likes to hear me entertain better than me.” Earl Wilson Post For years in Hollywoed before she tried to become a nun June devoted far more of her time, talents and energies to religious and charitable endeavors than she did to her career. Her date book was chronically filled weeks ahead—not with pleasure ap- pointments—but dates for church benefits, hospital visits, appearances to aid charity or church projects. Whether the requests came from an obscure padre with a tiny church that needed help, the football team at Loyola University, whose mascot she was, the Newman Club at UCLA which she sponsored, St. John’s Hospital, the Stella Maris Girls’ Home, or just a friend who needed comfort—I never heard her say “No.” She can serve that way again, if and when she gets back in harness. Actually, she was more valuable to her church and in a position to do greater good as a screen star than as a sequestered nun. I think she realizes this now and I am sure she will make use of that power again. Certainly, she knows the Biblical parable of the talents, whose moral is: Use them. June Haver has been blessed with great talent since the days when she used to sing, dance and spread sunshine around Rock Island, Illinois. There are practical reasons, too, why June must do what she can do best. She is not wealthy; she must make her living. In fact, when June entered her novitiate she signed, along with the vows of chastity and obedience, the vow of poverty. Before she left, her furniture was auctioned off, her clothes, jewelry and personal effects distributed among her family and close friends. The apartment house she had built and furnished in West Los Angeles was deeded to her mother. Her savings went into funds for family financial se- curity. They can be returned to June, of course, and undoubtedly will be if she needs them. But June was never rich. Al- though she made $3500 a week at the tag end of her Fox contract, she had heavy family responsibilities. June, who lived modestly, did not need much money for herself and there is no reason to believe’ that she will now. But there are others she loves for whom she would like to do things. What else could she do to support her- self? Well, it is possible that she could earn a living with interior decoration. June took that up as a hobby several years ago, decorating apartment buildings and homes, but always as a dilettante. For a while, she thought of studying for a teacher’s cer- tificate, but it seems impractical, as she would have to start as a college freshman. It might be folly for June to attempt a new vocation—after her hard-won, estab- lished success as a screen star. She started at fifteen; at twenty-seven it’s hard to change your stripes. It is conceivable, of course, that by some special concession coupled with a miraculous gift of new physical strength, and a clear mandate from her spirit and conscience, June could try again the path she traveled so briefly. What chance has June Haver for second- round success in Hollywood? I asked a prominent agent that question, also a pro- ducer. They agreed: June Haver could go to work next week if she said the word. “After all,” said the agent, “there’s been no time break worth mentioning in June’s career. Her last picture is still playing. For months after she left for Kansas her face was in the magazines and on billboards. Seven months is only a tick of the clock, careerwise. A lot of stars take that much time for vacations and nobody knows they’ve been gone. I wish she were my client. I could sell her tomorrow and she’d be worth as much as ever—maybe more.” The producer said, “Of course, right now the whole thing is a delicate matter. Any- one who puts June Haver into a picture quickly—if he could—would risk being ac- cused of trying to capitalize on the pub- licity. June’s comeback role would have to be selected carefully. Not necessarily a religious role but certainly a wholesome part. June, of course, knows that—that’s why she won’t say or do anything right now—and maybe not for quite a while. But if and when she comes back, she is sure to succeed.” You can be sure that by now June her- self has considered everything from all points of view. Probably she has made her decision, already, or at least, is close to reaching it. In time she will tell it and time is what is necessary to work the unique transition smoothly and tastefully. Undoubtedly the church of her faith feels exactly as June does—that now is the time for her to keep her plans and her thoughts about them to herself. But sooner or later she will have to act. There are many gifts to offer if they come from the heart, and those that do are peculiarly blessed. Although the special capacities for Cath- olic sisterhood seem to be beyond June Haver’s present powers, she still has such an offering to make in her young life. There is no reason why she cannot make it right here in Hollywood. END 51

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solid as a rock (Continued from page 25) one of its best- liked stars. In a way, the transition is a product of the studio’s manufacturing program, but it never could have happened if Rock were not the man he is. About one out of every thirty players who are signed are able to make the grade. The studio gambles on raw material and backs the youngsters to the limit of its wealth and power, but in the long run it is up to the player himself. In Rock Hudson, U-I had a diamond in the rough. He was told to stand straight and once he had improved his posture, his appear- ance was perfect. But this was the easy part. The rest is an endurance contest, and Rock had the stamina of a Hercules. He worked every day for two years with the dramatic coach, the late Sophie Rosenstein who kept assuring worried producers that the boy did have talent, but needed work to bring it out. Rock studied diction and drama, doing pantomime and improvisa- tion. Everybody else under contract did the same thing, but Rock went at it harder, perhaps realizing that he had to. He ex- posed a seriousness and an ambition that nobody was sure he had. He learned fenc- ing, archery, riding, singing, sailing, card tricks, football and “gun work.” For his role as a boxer in The Iron Man he trained three months in exactly the same way a professional fighter trains. He submitted to having his chest shaved for Indian roies and to wearing his hair long for frontier parts. He seemed tireless, and he was will- ing. In 1951 he worked five months with- out a day off and never once complained. “I asked for work when I signed up,” he said. “And I got it.” They put him in one picture after an- other, with personal appearance tours sandwiched between. A shy young man,. he found meeting the public a torturous ordeal, but he persevered and followed instructions. He made friends. He began to acquire poise. MERICA’s teen-agers discovered him and flooded him with adulation. He took the barrage standing up and without turn- ing his head. One adolescent wrote him of her bitter loneliness without him, and added, “My dearest, darling Rock, I shall die with a kiss on my lips for you.” When a sensitive and impressionable young man like Rock gets tons of letters like this, he does well to be able to accept the fact with bewilderment and gratitude, yet continue to wear the same size hat. He viewed his publicity chores with a similarly sane attitude. He answered the same questions a hundred times over with remarkable politeness and patience, and when asked to pose for beefcake pictures, grumbled only to his co-workers. He knew that such shenanigans were necessary to his career and that his cooperation would, in part, repay the studio for its tremendous investment in him. He has been acutely embarrassed every time he has been asked to remove his shirt for a photographer, yet he has done it with a minimum of complaint. With interviewers, he shows irresistible charm. When asked to talk about women or give advice on the prob- lems of life, he has flinched as politely as possible, declared his lack of authority on the subject and has done his level best to steer it into oblivion. That Rock had been a solid bet is more and more obvious each day. As for his health, he has cooperated beyond the line of duty. His appendix had been a worry for several years. During his training 52 period there had been no time for an op- eration, and now came a string of pictures, one after the other. The appendix didn’t bother him much of the time, but as Rock said, “Every time I go down in an elevator, my appendix goes up.” His doctor warned him that it should come out immediately, but the schedule planned for him by the studio allowed no time. While on location for Gun Fury in a fairly wild spot of Ari- zona, he had another attack. It was bad enough to make him pause and consider. His next picture was to be Taza, Son Of Cochise, and five weeks of the shooting were to be spent near Moab, Utah, a deso- late stretch of country with the nearest settlement more than two hours from the location site. Rock finally submitted to the operation and soon after he was galloping over the plains of Utah. Home from Moab, he was rushed into rehearsals, fittings and tests for his role in Magnificent Obsession. During his two days off in the midst of the chaos, he went to Laguna Beach and was dashed into the hard sand by a wave. That broke his collarbone. Proper treatment would have included traction or an operation, but Magnificent Obsession was set to roll, and | february's exciting issue | of modern screen takes you through the closed | doors of the john wayne | divorce—for the truth | behind the mudslinging! | At your newsstand | january 8 Rock Hudson isn’t one to hold up produc- ‘tion. He went to work with an improperly set collarbone and a good sized bump on his shoulder. By now, executives knew that Rock was serious about his career and anxious to make a success of it. This, in addition to good looks, was good news. They had yet to find out about his acting ability. The films to which he had been assigned had not given him much opportunity for acting. They had been blood and thun- der concoctions, not depending on dia- logue for their success, and Rock’s lines had required little in the way of talent. And so, when the first rushes of Magnifi- cent Obsession came through, the studio brass hurried to see them. They were more than surprised at the results. Rock showed up, in his first difficult dramatic role, aS a seasoned actor. In previous pictures his love scenes had left a lot to be desired. He had made love like a truck driver or, as he put it, “I just go in and mash the make-up.” Now he was different, different in many ways. It was almost as though they were watching a stranger up there on the screen. His delineation was sensitive, beautifully timed, his heavier scenes were professionally underplayed. The brass whooped with joy. Their gamble had paid off. R ock had the looks, the ambition and the talent. They couldn’t want more. But they got more. They found that Mr. Hud- son, who had slipped through his formal schooling with the least possible interest in study, reads incessantly. Their new star is a student in many fields. It is hard to draw him out, but when pressed Rock will admit his deep interest in the ancient philosophers. This is the boy who flunked history in school. It just goes to show that you never can tell about boys who don’t study when they’re told. More important than his book learning was his level head. A sought-after bache- lor in Hollywood, he had kept out of trou- ble—a neat trick in the tinsel town. He had reached the age of twenty-eight with- out marrying; another major feat. Rock anticipates with pleasure having a wife and children and a home of his own, but be- cause he does take it so seriously, he has been cautious. Even girls who would like him for their own have admitted, “Rock is wise not to marry yet. He knows he isn’t ready yet and he must establish his career first. He’s so serious about marriage that he is marking time. He doesn’t want to make a mistake.” People who don’t know him well have surmised that he stays sin- gle because of studio pressure. Bachelor stars are considered more valuable than married stars. The assumption is unlikely because, while Rock cooperates in &ther respects, he can’t stand regimentation and is not a man to brook interference in his private life. When he decides to marry, it is a good bet he will marry despite any objections anybody might have. It turned out that all in all, the ex-laun- dryman third class had brains. And he had something else—something perhaps more important than all the other things put to- gether. He had appeal. He made friends both on and off screen, because he is a likable guy. His generosity covers both the concrete and the abstract. He not only reaches for the check, but likes to take others to lunch. When he goes on location he invites friends to live in his house and enjoy it while he’s gone. “And bring the dogs,” he says. Thoughtful and considerate, if he likes you, everything he has is yours. He is one of the rare people who inquires “How are you?” and really wants to know. He lis- tens to others’ confidences and troubles and plain conversation—really listens. Rock is such a good listener, as a matter of fact, | that it contributed to his reputation for shyness. It isn’t that. Rock listens and learns instead of talking to make an im- pression. These things make other men like him and for a studio it is a happy thing to have on its roster a man’s man. Even more | important, from a career standpoint, is his appeal for the opposite sex, and in this respect Rock has exceeded expectations. Why does he have sex appeal? For a woman who is insecure and likes dominant, protective men, the ruggedly masculine Rock fills the bill. He weighs more’ than 200 pounds, towers six feet, four inches, and gives the impression of suppressed power. A woman whose maternal instincts work overtime, would find Rock’s boyish charm all she could wish for. He appeals to both types because he has great pride, | and at the same time, considerable hu- | mility. He is innately kind. He loves kids and | animals and is soft-hearted. He frets about other people’s problems. He lives outside of himself, and except for worrying about his work, he seldom thinks about himself, | on Dustd outlet eens Gt well eed” nad on” Geet tn > =

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He is impressed by those he admires. When he met Jeanette MacDonald for the first time, he recalled how he had adored her on the screen. He impulsively bowed and kissed her hand. E HAS been serious only in unguarded moments, seemingly hiding the fact that he can be serious, and for a long time nobody suspected he was more than a big lovable clown. He was so much fun on a date—“so crazy you never knew what he was going to do’—that girls got happy about seeing him hours before he showed up at the front door. Not only extremely handsome, he is elus- ive, intentionally or otherwise. He has dated many girls in Hollywood but few have felt they really know him, and the tall, dark and mysterious man has always been a magnet to women. He is forever on the move and hard to find. In five years he has lived in nine houses and is currently looking for another. The result is that his phone number is constantly changing, and even if a girl wants to sink her pride and phone him, the number she has is usually outmoded. More often than not, he is on location. In the past few years he has made pictures in France, in Portland, the Chan- nel Islands, Tucson, Arrowhead and Gallup. If he is in town and working, he’s likely to be playing football in the Rose Bowl or a love scene in the zoo. He leads a typical bachelor life in that he spends his days im- pulsively when not working. A man like this is hard to pin down. And to add to his appeal, there is always competition. Even during his sojourn at _the hospital, Rock gained new fans. Ac- cording to reports, a good part of the nursing staff was smitten in one degree or another, and when Rock asked for a pri- vate room (so that he could study surgery for his doctor’s role in Magnificent Obses- sion), the staff split into two factions. Half the nurses arranged a private room for him and the other half managed to keep him where he was, under their own loving care. The fact that this attention from women of all ages (they write they would like him for a husband, brother, lover, son, and even grandson) doesn’t affect Rock’s opinion of himself, makes him an even bet- ter catch. And all the more exasperating to those who would like to become Mrs. Hud- son. [* THE past six months Rock has settled noticeably. He is not as gay as he was. He has traded in his fire engine red con- vertible for a more conservative yellow one. His role in Magnificent Obsession has at last allowed him a normal haircut, and the new Rock emerges as a well groomed, mature man with considerably more dig- nity than anyone suspected. He is looking for a house again, but this time he is searching for a house to buy, rather than rent. For the first time in his life Rock is living alone, and hating it. All signs point to the fact that Rock has grown up and wants to settle into a routine home life. With each passing week, he seems riper for matrimony. He hasn’t announced any intentions, and no one knows who the girl will be, perhaps not even Rock himself, but those who know him can see marriage in the offing. Rock’s career seems to be as solid as his name. “This picture will establish him as a star in his own right,” says a man who has carefully watched the rushes of Mag- nificent Obsession. “He’s no flash in the pan, and deserves only the best roles from now on.” The studio can well claim that they found him and trained him, but it is Rock himself who has assured them a fat dividend on their investment. As the local wags say, he is the best built actor in Hollywood. END 9 OUT OF 10 LEADING COVER GIRLS PREFER ‘Sweettipart soap “Tts More Luxuriant Lather eeps Me fresh All Day” LE “Beauty is my business,’ says Hope Lange, “and SweetHeart is my beauty soap. SweetHeart’s more luxuriant lather, so wonderfully fragrant, keeps me fresh all day. Best of all, SweetHeart Care helps prevent chapping... soft and smooth as a flower petal.” Try pure, mild SweetHeart for your skin! In just 7 days, see how much softer and smoother your complexion looks. — SweetHearr The Soap That AGREES with Your Skin SEO keeps my skin lovely cover girl HOPE LANGE

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the man for mitzi (Continued from page 38) that inspired the first and assured the second, is stronger than ever. Mitzi and Jack Bean will be married. It will be a church wedding. It will take place soon. The couple will make their home in Hollywood. They expect to live there happily ever after. All these things Mitzi has been heard to say; all these things she is looking forward to. Mitzi isn’t wearing a ring yet (or wasn't up to a few weeks ago) but that isn’t of any concern to her. ace: a graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he majored in psy- chology, made the varsity basketball team and just missed making the varsity football team. He is with an advertising agency in Hollywood. Six years ago, he was em- ployed as a psychologist in a Brent- wood hospital. Then he got interested in the advertising business and then found a niche where a knowledge of psychology can be usefully applied. While he has no desire to get into show business he is a talented pianist. When Mitzi wants to go over a song she doesn’t have to send for an accompanist. He’s right there—probably holding her hand, in fact. Mitzi’s musical taste has always run to the classical but since she has been with Jack there has been a strong strain of jazz. He is the kind of bug who needs only to listen to a jazz or Dixieland group to tell you who is playing the piano or strum- ming the guitar strings. He has no aversion to formal concerts but more likely than not when they go out for a musical eve- ning they will wind up in a place like the Lighthouse on the beach where the “blue note” is the good note. Jack proved to be provocative from the first moment Mitzi met him on the eve- ning of February 9 of last year. He was the “other fellow” on a foursome date, brought in for Mitzi’s friend by Mitzi’s date. But the friend phoned that she was sick and Mitzi went out with both boys. Somehow, Jack didn’t know who she was. “What do you do?” he asked. “T’m in show business,” was Mitzi’s an- swer. Jack let it go at that, the first man she had ever met who didn’t press for details, so that they remained sort of bottled up for the rest of the evening. He seemed content with the fact that she was just a girl he had met and that they got along nicely. And for Mitzi, too, after a while, just being a girl and not being a celebrity along with it, was strangely new and pleasant. They went to the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador hotel that first night. Since Mitzi’s official date was an agent who had a client on the show, he spent a lot of time away from the table on business and Mitzi and Jack were left together. The romance went into high from that moment. There are any number of incidents and stories revealing how important Jack has become to Mitzi—in fact, there are facts and figures that show it. Down in the wardrobe department at 20th Century-Fox Studios, where they keep dummies in the form of every star, there have been some changes made on Mitzi’s. Her figure, ac- cording to the wardrobe dummy, used to measure thirty-five inches around the bust, twenty-three at the waist and thirty- six and a half inches at the hips. The new measurements are thirty-six, twenty-one and thirty-five. The reasons for this can be traced to several conversations Mitzi had with Jack, One evening they were looking at a ; _ 54 fashion magazine and Jack pointed out a gown he liked. He said he thought he’d like to see Mitzi in it. “Don’t you think I’m a little too round for it?” she wanted to know, and leaned back, waiting to hear him protest that this wasn’t the case at all. But when he answered she sat straight up. pee you don’t have to be,” is what he said. “Oh?” came from Mitzi, in a small voice. The subject of bathing suits came up when they were looking at another maga- zine and he told her the kind he thought she should wear. She tried the same answer—wasn’t she too round for that? “Well, yeah,” he said. PA out, and fade in on Mitzi doing a lot of thinking. And she has put the resolutions that have come out of her thinking to work. As a result, the ward- robe people had to do some modifying of her dummy so that the gowns selected for her pictures would fit. Mitzi intends to fit nicely into any sort of gown or swim suit Jack fancies for her. When Mitzi recently went to Durange, Colorado, on location for her newest pic- ture, Three Young Texans, an assignment that was to last two weeks, Jack gave her to understand that he was going to miss her. Mitzi did what she could. Every night for fourteen nights she phoned him and talked forty-five minutes at each session. Cost (even if she did reverse the charges) was $15 a night at the rate of a dollar for each three minutes. There was a moment in the filming of Three Young Texans when Mitzi thought it would be the last picture she would ever make. She had never done any seri- ous riding before, and her role called for a bit of horsemanship. She had to take les- sons, and along with her, as pupils, rode her two co-stars, Keefe Brasselle and Jeffrey Hunter. They, too, were new to western stuff. In one scene the script called for Mitzi to kick at the sheriff and gallop away. Mitzi kicked—and found herself under the horse’s hooves. “What did you do?” asked Jack, hanging on to the phone in Hollywood when she re- ported this. “Nothing,” Mitzi told him. “The horse blew his lips at me and danced away as daintily as a ballet queen. It’s a little terpsichorean routine I'll never forget!” Readers of Moprern ScrEEN will remember perhaps, that not long ago Mitzi wrote a column in which she gave advice about new boy friends. Somehow, Mitzi isn’t following her own counsel in her relation- ship to Jack. She said that a girl should be very independent and never call up the boy. But when there’s been a spat about anything and Mitzi reflects later that she might have been wrong, to the phone she goes, to call up Jack. PHOTO CREDITS Below you will find credited page by page, the photographs which appear in this issue: 6, 7, 8, 10, 13—Parry, Beerman; 19—Modern Screen staff; 20—MGM;; 22, 23—Modern Screen staff; 24—-Beerman, Parry; 26, 27—20th Cen- tury-Fox, Modern Screen staff; 28, 29—Beer- man, Parry; 30, 31—Parry, Beerman; 33— Modern Screen staff; 34, 35, 36—Beerman, Parry; 37—Modern Screen staff; 38, 39— Mod- ern Screen staff; 40, 41—Modern Screen staff; 42, 43—20th Century-Fox, Parry; 44, 45— Beerman, Parry; 46—Beerman, Parry. rae a ae Sipe 2 Ke il Mitzi meant what she wrote in Mi ScREEN but, as she puts it, “New condi- tions call for new strategy.” She has al- ways held that the best way for a girl to introduce her beau to her friends is to have them all meet him at a party at which he is a sort of co-host. That party - to introduce Jack Bean has yet to be thrown. She has been with Jack so stead- ily, and has made known her thoughts about him so plainly, that an affair to “in- troduce” him now would be anti-climactic. She also wrote in her column that she would have a few things to say about the way he dressed—if she thought his taste could be improved. Jack, who runs to the Brooks Brothers type of clothes, quiet, re- strained, and who says his hair is getting “shaggy” when the crew-cut gets to be. more than three quarters of an inch long, must look perfect to Mitzi. She admits that there are only approving glances from her when he shows up. Maybe that’s the way it is when you're in love. Maybe that’s why Mitzi didn’t root for the Uni- versity of Southern California at the Minnesota game last fall. Jack took her to see the game; he yelled for his alma mater and so did Mitzi—all the way. It didn’t keep Minnesota from being beaten but it made Jack feel better. ack had a chance to root for Mitzi when she had her appendix removed some months ago. Friends of Mitzi’s at 20th recall that every time they visited her at the hospital there were so many flowers in the room the only place to sit was on the floor—and there Jack was, every day. He kept up her spirits before and after the operation, he took her home from the hos- pital, and he was in attendance all through her convalescence. “What an operation!” Mitzi sighs fondly when she talks about it. His inspirational effect on her is some- thing that Mitzi has come to depend on. Like all performers, she is nervous about an impending personal appearance. When the day of her performance at the Holly- wood Bowl rolled around last summer, Jack seemed to step right in between her butterflies and herself. They never got to her. With his knowledge of psychology he seems to know just what to say and do— and when. ‘ He has given Mitzi a new attitude to- ward her work. When she used to com- plain about being terribly tired after a strenuous dance rehearsal he withheld his sympathy. “Dancing is your business,” he told her. “You are trained for it and you should know your capabilities in terms of time you spend in each session and the effort you put into it. Guide yourself ac- cordingly and don’t overdo.” ; This makes sense to Mitzi. She knows she will last longer and do better with such a formula than if she continues to throw herself into her dance until com- pletely exhausted. Mitzi and Jack are close enough to mar- riage to have discussed the bad influence Hollywood is credited with having on marital happiness. Jack is not affected. “A place is what you make it,’ he has told her. “Hollywood has been good to both of us. It’s up to us.” The way Mitzi feels about it is that | what’s okay with Jack is okay with her. | She just wants to be with him, she says, from now on. When she is with other people she talks about him. When she is alone she thinks about him. She even likes to drive his car instead of her own better | one, because his, she insists, drives just } like Jack. “Everything about it is like him,’ she } says. “It starts, stops, turns, decisively, Pein} as if it knows just what it’s doing. Just /e): like Jack. It’s the next best thing to actu- ally being at his side!” =e iam re ee Ss — eo oe Ss Bh. eS: Pp

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antiques on a budget (Continued from page 36) table is still crude, design-wise, but it’s perfect for the Brasselles’ informal room. Sturdy and practical, it holds a raft of magazines, ash- trays and bric-a-brac, and guests put their feet on it all the time without Norma’s ever turning a hair. LTHOUGH the Brasselles can now afford to pay for genuine antiques (like their cherry-colored secretary and beautiful mantel clock) most of their Early Ameri- can furniture was collected in the same way Keefe acquired the coffee table. The furniture was bought secondhand and renovated. Keefe and Normie would poke around antique shops, secondhand stores, and junk yards until they found a good but dilapidated piece of furniture. Keefe would size up the state of collapse. If he felt it was capable of redemption, he’d go up to the dealer and say “You want two bucks for that worthless, rotten, old rocker over there?” More times than not, the dealers would say yes. Most of the early furniture repair work was done with borrowed tools in a friend’s workshop. Finally, Keefe picked up a set of power tools, secondhand, of course, and set up a workroom in his two- car garage. Two years after moving into their own six-room house, the Brasselles can truth- fully boast that not a single one of their antiques is a reproduction. Among antique collectors this is considered a rather hefty claim. The Brasselles regard it as a major accomplishment. Back in 1946 when they left Elyria, Ohio, to crash Hollywood, they were a young “married couple, struggling to get along. Keefe was an ex-G.l., and they had an infant daughter, Erin, whom everyone calls Mickey, and their only stake was Keefe’s Army severance pay and a few hand-me-downs from Norma’s family such as a patchwork quilt, a brass teakettle, and some little old kerosene lamps which Norma’s mother had used as a child to light her way to bed. Their car was also an antique and they had a budget. This budget changed every day. By the time they reached Hollywood, the Bras- selles discovered that their budget had reached the disappearing stage. Impressed with the need for getting work, Keefe hurriedly installed his wife and baby in the only kind of home he could manage at the time. “We used to say in letters home,” Norma recalls, “that we were living out of the high-rent district. This is the same pitch you hear nowadays by used-car salesmen on the radio. Actually, we lived in a one-room apartment on North Hoover Street. The rent was $39.50 a month.” While trying to land a movie role, Keefe ranged from job to job, from Christmas card salesman to bartender. Nights, he auditioned for radio roles. Lunch times, he hounded the casting offices. He managed to get one small part in a film called River Gang with Gloria Jean, nothing afterwards for a long time, and then a lucky break. Ida Lupino cast him in her independent production, Not Wanted, and paid him $3,000 for his work. “Most actors,” Norma says, “would have | taken this first piece of good luck as an }.omen, The tendency is to tell yourself that prosperity has arrived, and the temptation to buy all the things you’ve stinted on is | almost overpowering.” “The show business tradition,’ Keefe points out, “is to live up to your biggest salary. And I must admit Normie and I ‘were tempted to do something extravagant. We'd been poor so long that we deserved Me NO Here leading experts show d5° that women, unlike men, have to learn to make love . .. and that the answer to your happiness in marriage greatly depends on how much you know FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN BOOK FORM ... A NEW DELL FIRST EDITION Not just cold statistics like the Kinsey Report but a warm, human and understanding book in which 13 experts (both pioneers and con- temporary investigators) combine to bring you the whole picture on the variety and the meaning of your entire sexual experience. Women is a thoughtful and thorough consideration of the major aspects of sex in relation to self, society and the species. Inspired by Dr. Mar- garet Mead, a remarkable scientist and woman, you'll find it a practical and helpful guide to enrich your knowledge and enjoyment for a richer, fuller, more satisfying life. "Through the ages, women’s lives have centered about their sex role. . .. Where for men actual sex activity, however insistently it may intrude upon attention, is a matter of few minutes, for women each of these few minutes is laden with commitment before and commit- ment afterwards. Where men have to learn to want to be fathers, girls are committed by every cell in their bodies to a more en- grossing and time-consuming role. . . . This situation produces a pattern of opposites: women have to learn to say ‘no’ not only to their would-be lovers, but also to their desires, before they are finally allowed to say ‘yes’ to a husband who ideally is both desired and desiring, while men have to say ‘yes’ to their own impulses towards women before they laboriously learn to say ‘no’ to most of those impulses towards women in general in order to be faithful to their wives.” From the introduction by MARGARET MEAD

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| : | : : to have things a little easier. Before we splurged, however, we sat down and talked things over. We both agreed that what I was working for and working toward, was a home of our own. We wanted a house large enough so Mickey might have a room of her‘own, and we wanted the house to be small and compact so that Norma could take care of it alone. And we wanted it outright so that no matter how our luck changed, a bank or a mortgage company couldn’t foreclose.” They talked the subject out from every angle. Normie, who’s particularly clear- sighted about this sort of thing, pointed out that they could afford a larger apartment with a “better address” but the accom- panying rent would only postpone the day when they’d have enough money for the down payment on a house. There was no avenue for disagreement. They both chose to stay in the one-room apartment with Murphy bed on North Hoover. They lived there for a year and a half even after Keefe, with fair regularity, be- gan to get some good motion picture parts. But they did buy a new car, an Oldsmo- bile convertible. | Dawe those lean years, the Brasselles used to look for inexpensive ways to have fun. One of the ways was to rummage through antique shops and buy nothing that cost more than twenty-five cents. They bought fruit dishes and odd bottles. hundred people we hear from. WRITE THE NUMBERS |, f June Haver Comes Home [No Trouble At All (Esther Williams) [ Please Don't Talk About Me (Gable) [Solid As A Rock (Rock Hudson) [J Running Wild (Debra Paget) [] Janet Rules The Roost (Janet Leigh) "Call Me Pinhead" (Gordon MacRae) [J What Really Happened To Doris Day [] Antiques On A Budget (Brasselle} [J The Turning Point (Shelley Winters) [The Man For Mitzi (Mitzi Gaynor) [The Way Christmas Should Be (June Allyson-Dick Powell) [J Crazy Like A Fox (Victor Mature) TL] Hollywood Hot Rods [] The Ham Got Results (Byron Palmer) _] The Inside Story [ Louella Parsons’ Good News [J Hollywood Abroad LTV Talk [) Love Story (Eve Arden) [The Power Of A Woman (Lori Nelson) L] Get-Rich-Quick Robertson [Discovery Corner (Lance Fuller) (J They Threw Away A Million For Love (Glenn Ford and Eleanor Powell) [ Why Do Frank And Ava Fight? (1 How Did He Propose? (Joan Caulfield) [Something to Groan About (Crosby) Doing A Split (Leslie Caron) J Stork Over Lanza-land DO YOU FEEL NEGLECTED? Do you have a favorite star whose picture hasn't appeared in MODERN SCREEN lately? Or are you interested in an off-screen romance that hasn't been getting enough attention? Well, here's your opportunity to change all that. Just let us know who you want to read about in your magazine by filling in the form below as soon as you've read all the stories in this issue. Then mail it to us right away because (just to make it more interesting) a crisp new one-dollar bill will go to each of the first QUESTIONNAIRE: Which stories and features did you enjoy most in this issue? 2, and 3 AT THE FAR LEFT of your first, second and third choices. Then let us know) what stars you'd like to read about in future issues. When they got their Oldsmobile, they began visiting the model homes that oper- ative builders construct, furnish, and open to the buying public around Los Angeles. It was fun day-dreaming in a glamorously furnished bedroom or trying out the latest kitchen appliances. “We visited every open house,” Keefe says, “from Pasadena to Malibu.” . On one particularly lovely Sunday they tossed Mickey in the back seat and began the twisting, turning drive through Laurel Canyon to the San Fernando Valley. They told Mickey to keep a sharp lookout for the advertising signs that real estate men put out to attract customers. Halfway through Laurel Canyon they spotted the offices of a builder and land developer named William Mellenthin. On an impulse Keefe stopped the car. He went in and asked if any new houses were available for inspection. Mr. Mellenthin himself happened to be working behind the desk and offered to drive the whole Brasselle family to a couple of new homes. Keefe and Normie liked what they saw —the modified farmhouse style of archi- tecture, the careful detailing, the outsize patio. In fact, they liked everything but the price—$40,000. “We think your homes are great,’ Keefe said. “But honestly, we can’t afford them. What we’re looking for is a two-bedroom house in a good middle income neighbor- hood.” “Tell you what,” Mr. Mellenthin sug- Which of the stories did you like least? What 3 MALE stars would you like to read about in future issues? List them |}, 2, 3, in order of preference. What FEMALE stars would you like to read about in future issues? What MALE star do you like least? What FEMALE star do you like least? Miycimannren isitrrtiatais, «. Srivacecectcre eraaetctcaate tts Mivnaddiness! isin. Sse) Samar he crear @ccupaiioneeeee eee lam .... yrs. old ADDRESS TO: POLL DEPT., MODERN SCREEN, BOX 125, MURRAY HILL~ STATION, NEW YORK 16, N. Y. gested. “Why don’t you look at my model * ~ with pure, unadulterated pride, but ‘about home in the Valley?” The smaller Mellenthin house located in a beautiful walnut grove the company had subdivided, was priced at $20,000. “We walked through the model,’ Norma says, “and we knew our free game of just looking at homes was over. We were sold. The house was the size we needed. It was near a school, a shopping district, and a church, and the neighborhood had children to keep Mickey company. We were so completely sold on the model that we picked out a lot that very afternoon and asked Mr. Mellenthin to duplicate his model for us.” The Brasselle house features many of the good floor-plan details adopted from the larger Mellenthin homes. For example, a long living room with an open dining al- cove at one end runs across the front of the house. This one large living area makes the small house seem more spacious than it really is. The two corner bedrooms are square and loaded with built-in closet space. A restful, pine-paneled den with its own fireplace is built at the back of the house leading on to the patio. The practi- cal but picturesque Early American kitchen is sensibly placed between the dining area and the patio for outdoor eat- ing. W == the house was under construction, Keefe and Norma worked hard at get- ting their furnishings. Norma began to take lessons in rug-making and produced a braided wool rug for the den. Eventually, she hopes to complete two more for the bedrooms. Keefe located practical pieces like two ancient dough bases on which he put legs so that they could be used as lamp tables. He also found two authentic farmhouse- type dry sinks. He scraped the larger one clean of its blue enamel coating and refin- ished it as a buffet for the dining room. He outfitted the smaller one with a turntable, transforming it into a cabinet for the rec- ord player. He made the plate rail in the kitchen and wooden curtain valances over all the win- dows. He also worked out an ingenious way to show home movies. He hung the movie screen behind the valance above the dining room bay window. Then he cut a small projection window in an ordinary sliding door that leads to the bedrooms. By placing his projector in the hall and projecting his movies through the window in the sliding door he achieves the quiet effect of a professional movie theatre. In the woman’s department Norma was equally practical. Wherever she could, she used cotton fabrics—in the curtains, up- | holstery, and bedspreads. “This makes the upkeep very simple,” she explains. “I wash the curtains and spreads at home. When the upholstered pieces get dirty I clean them myself, too. I just take some deter- gent, a vegetable brush, and warm water. I scrub the soap suds over a small area. As one spot gets clean I blot up the suds with a turkish towel, then move to another area. The whole job dries overnight. You’d be surprised how well it turns out.” A few months after the Brasselles moved into their new home, Keefe got the good luck bonus of his career. He won the cov- | eted role of Eddie Cantor in the screen biography of the famous banjo-eyed come- dian. “Normie and I,” he says, “were bursting all we could think of doing with the extra] money was to budget some for savings and | . some for wiring and mounting a couple of lamps we’ve never gotten around to. When you’ve been poor as long as we have, it takes time to get used to spending money, even a little of it.” END 4

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the ham got results (Continued from page 46) with a bum landing gear had ploughed into Navy re- placement planes loaded with ammo and bombs. It was like tossing a torch into a fireworks factory and seventy-eight planes were destroyed, some G.I. lives, too. That night Corporal Byron Palmer turned on the heat more fiercely than ever. Of course he forgot those irate resolves about the feminine sex. It’s a good thing he did. Because as things have turned out, it was girls who made Byron Palmer what he is today—one of Hollywood’s top romantic male hopes. Ladies have been delightfully decisive in his past, as they are in his present and obviously will continue to be in his future. Curiously, even that Tokyo traitress boosted his ambitions by proving he could fascinate an audience with words and music. Later he got his first show business breaks charming the matinee set all over the U.S.A. in dashing roles in romantic operettas. Slightly over a year ago, Byron sneaked into a preview at Inglewood, Cali- fornia, where he wasn’t supposed to be, sat long enough to hear girlish squeals and sighs as his first picture, Tonight We Sing, unreeled. Then he eased out, red-faced but happy. That feminine reaction brought him his contract and his buildup at Twentieth Century-Fox. Any way you look at it, the girls have something for Byron Palmer and Byron has something for the girls. It’s pretty simple to see why. Jr Has a face as clean-cut as Greek sculpture, eyes as blue as the South Pacific and a smile that makes dentists want to toss away their tools. He’s got a six, two, 180-pound body with a forty- five-inch chest and a_ thirty-one-inch waist. His build looks like Johnny Weiss- muller’s twenty years ago. He’s gentle, courtly, gay, engaging—and he sings easily and beautifully. One mesmerized girl wrote to him rhapsodically: “If you put Robert Taylor, Clark Gable and Cary Grant in a bag, shook it well and dumped out the result—that would be you, Byron!” All this, while reassuring, is a little em- barrassing to Byron Palmer. Extravagant word pictures are strictly taboo in his fam- ily. When you mention the name “Palmer” around Hollywood, people think right away of the leading town gazette, the Hollywood Citizen-News. By’s Dad, Harlan J. Palmer, publishes the paper. His big brother, Har- lan, Junior, is assistant publisher and his younger one, Ralph, is the San Fernando Valley editor. His aunt, Zuma Palmer, runs the radio page. By tradition, Byron Palmer ought to be interviewing Hollywood stars instead of being interviewed. The _ Citizen-News doesn’t write about him. There’s a copy desk rule there: No stories about Byron Palmer—at his own request. He’s touchy about the home folks’ getting any idea that he could or would use the family rag as a puff sheet. He’s independent. A boy who calls Hollywood his home town has to be independent to get anywhere in show business. Nobody knows that better than Byron Palmer, who was born there July 21, 1923, in what was really an earth- shaking event. He arrived at seven o’clock in the morn- ing and that afternoon the California terra was not so firma. It heaved, quaked and rolled; and the more sinful Hollywoodites dashed out of their stucco palaces in re- pentant terror. It was the worst shake the place had suffered since Gilda Gray hit town. Of course Byron Palmer doesn’t remem- _ ber anything about this. All that geological upheaval did was rock the tiny guy to sleep. But they’ve told him about it since. And they passed on a more shattering bit of information: He was supposed to be a girl named Dora. The switch to Byron has turned out to be a pretty happy idea. He has something in common with the great Lord Byron—noble profile, wavy pompa- dour and all. He’s romantic and dramatic, too, and he has even scribbled some poetry, although the less said about that the better. By is a brunette with blue-black hair, inky whiskers, tan skin and flashing teeth. yron Hunkins Palmer, as the Presby- terian minister christened him, couldn’t have landed in a more solid, respectable and secure setup if he had been born in Minnesota, where his parents came from, instead of Hollywood. His father was a judge before he entered newspaper pub- lishing. Everyone in the whole Palmer clan (eighty-five of them showed up at a recent Fourth of July gathering) were and still are super conservative. The only one in the family who had ever dabbled in the arts was his mother, Ethélyn Hunkins, who once studied operatic singing for her own enjoyment. “We’re all just nice middle class people,” By sums it up, “all of us, that is, except me: I’m the freak. But I must have been born with this streak of ham. As a kid, Hollywood never gave me any glamour ideas. It was just my home town.” One reason was that while he lived in the heart of Hollywood and used to lose baseballs over the walls of nearby RKO or Paramount Studios, the family sent him to the University Elementary School way out in Westwood Village. University is a pioneer in progressive education and the Palmers were firm believers in giving all their kids a chance to develop any skills they liked. Although he might have been tabbed a maverick (as By says, “a kind of a black sheep and a moron”) by some of his relatives when he went in for show business instead of the family newspaper, none of his own tribe ever gave him lec- tures or tried to tout him off of whatever he chose to do. “Fuzz” Palmer (he got that still-clinging family tag from an early butch haircut) first reacted to scholastic freedom by fall- ing desperately in love with his pretty blonde teacher. in love with a curly top his own age and he remembers scribbling passionate billets | doux to her when they were only six. He still has a scar on his right eye, collected when he tried to impress her by jumping over five concrete steps, only to crack up on the third. Romance and recklessness were coupled throughout Fuzz Palmer’s boyhood. Once, he slashed his finger half off whit- tling a doll for a lady fair, and another time, absorbed in making a model boat to sail for another cutie got run over by a two-ton truck, miraculously without being squashed. Doing flips to fascinate a third, he broke his arm. His ma called him “the middle-sized bear.” Between his two brothers, Byron was perpetually embroiled in slugging matches when one or the other muscled in on a romance. Neighboring housewives used to call up his mother hysterically and report that Cain and Abel were at it again in her front yard. The first money By ever earned—three bucks—he socked grandly into a box of Valentine candy for another doll, who most ungratefully car- ried it home without giving him a piece. That ill-spent stake, by the way, Byron earned acting in his first movie—not in | Hollywood, but out at Malibu Lake. Ts Patmers kept a summer cabin there —the Hunky-Dory—and By’s brightest kid memories center around that shack. Malibu is a lovely lake set in the heart of the coast range and yet only thirty-five At the same time he fell | New! Clearasil Medication STARVES PIMPLES SKIN-CO LO RED... hides pimples while if works DOCTORS’ TESTS PROVE 9 out of 10 cases cleared up ...or definitely improved Doctors’ clinical tests prove this new medica- tion especially for pimples really works. In skin specialists’ tests on 202 patients, 9 out of every 10 cases were cleared up or definitely improved. Amazing starving action. CLEARASIL actu- ally starves pimples because it helps remove the oils that pimples “feed’’ on. And CLEARASIL’S antiseptic action stops the growth of bacteria that can cause and spread pimples. Skin-colored to hide pimples and end embarrassment. 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SEND NO MONEY. Simply pay post- I man for each enlargement and each frame plus cost of mailing. Additional | $1.29 for hand’ coloring 5x7 _ size or Jj 1 $1.69 for 8x10 size. Satisfaction guaranteed. Limit 2 I j to_a customer. Originals returned with enlargements. 1 Offer good in U.S.A. only. Prompt service. HOLLYWOOD FILM STUDIOS, Dept. NF-121 7021 SANTA MONICA BLVD., HOLLYWOOD 38, CALIF. 57

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58 a job on the Citizen-News. miles from the Citizen-News. The family moved there en masse every June and stayed until Labor Day while the Judge commuted. Picture companies went out there on location. By earned his three bills for waving from a flimsy dock as Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler pretended to be on San Francisco Bay in Tugboat Annie. It wasn’t any special honor that he got in the extra line. All the vacation kids got rounded up and pressed into service, if they were old enough to lift their arms. While these studio visits were pleasant vacation diversions, they weren’t By Pal- mer’s big charges. Those were swimming, riding, fishing and climbing the rocky knobs—with a female audience if possible —and if the easy movie money came along that was swell. What started him off on theatricals were family projects, right in his own conservative, middle-class home. His big brother got a home movie camera for Christmas, and his mother took Byron to see The Desert Song. That did it. Byron asked Santa for a scarlet hood, cape and mask so he could be The Red Shadow from that operetta—all over the place. “I ran around looking like Flash Gordon for weeks,” he recalls fondly. “I was a sen- sation until the thing wore out.” A record of this glory still exists in the Palmer family archives in the form of a home-made film thriller, The Noose Hangs High. Harlan, Jr., wrote and directed it and the whole family emoted. “Dad was the villain. I? Oh, the hero, of course,” grins By. That’s how Byron Palmer’s folks stamped an affirmative seal on any kid project. “They always went along with any crazy notions we had,” he says grate- fully. “They even bought—and what’s more drank—the lemonade we _ kids squeezed with our dirty mitts and tried to sell. I really can’t remember a crack- down in all my life.” With such a free-wheeling homelife it was only natural that skinny, gangling, handsome Byron Palmer should pack few inhibitions once he put on long pants and got out in the world. He immediately be- came a big operator in school politics, a leading light in shows and a juvenile Don Juan on the side. There wasn’t much on either campus that Byron Palmer wasn’t in, and looking back, By is pretty sure his successes there are what originally planted the performing bug deep in his noggin. “I was a show-off,” he cheerfully admits. “T hammed up everything, but the ham got results.” They elected him vice-presi- dent of the student body, then prexy, di- rector of talent and head cheer leader, too. A big bloc of his constituents wore skirts —also red roses which Byron thoughtfully took to his favorites each morning. When the outcome of an election looked at all shaky, he instinctively turned on the heat with a fast bit of show business. Sometimes his gags backfired, like the time he dressed as a nurse in a burlesque male fashion show he staged, tripped over his skirts and slammed down on a big glass bottle he carried. That cut an artery, and they sewed him up with twenty-two stitches. But usually Byron Palmer found that projecting his attractive personality paid off, and too, that he was happiest when he did it. A boy has to shine at something, and usually he likes what he’s good at. As By admits, “I wasn’t any shakes at sports—just a second string bas- ketball forward and a so-so swimmer. I wasn’t any young Einstein either. My kick was performing. I liked the excite- ment. I liked the applause. I still do.” Y GRADUATION time he knew what he wanted. It wasn’t the newspaper busi- ness. Like all the Palmers, he had already been exposed to printer’s ink just to see if it took. Two summers his dad gave him The first time he was a copy boy. By the second season he had progressed to cub reporter. Un- fortunately, most gems of prose By was assigned to write were in the obituary column. Once, he did break loose on an interview with Senja Henie and actually saw his byline on the scoop. But none of this excited Byron enough to wink out the stars in his blue eyes. As usual, his folks backed him up and sent him to Occidental College, which has a top drama and speech course. Byron lasted almost a year, and a pretty good year it was. He turned in fine grades, acted in college radio skits, got a part time job at Station krac in Hollywood and made the frosh swimming and basketball teams to boot. Ail the time something else was crowding his mind and his heart. One of those girls he used to give red roses. Her name was Joann Ransom, a tall, striking brunette beauty who looked enough like By to be his sister. She had been in his class all the way through high school. There had been others but no one like Joann. He kept his blue Model- A roadster hot, racing back and forth to Los Angeles. When spring filled the air, Byron couldn’t wait any longer. One balmy March day he quit school, drove Joann up to Santa Barbara and married the girl. He was nineteen and so was she. All he had to support a wife was his sal- ary of $18 a week as a CBS page boy. But of course that minor matter didn’t bother a pair of nineteen-year-old newly- weds—or the groom’s parents either. As | SAW IT HAPPEN A friend of mine who has a house at the shore lived next door to a young fellow who wanted very much to be a great tenor. Every night after dinner he would exercise his vocal cords on the back porch, and because it was summer, and all the windows were open, the whole neighborhood could hear him. One evening, when I was visiting my friend, she decided she couldn’t stand the disturbance any more, so as soon as the young tenor started singing on the back porch, my friend began pounding on the piano as loud as she could. What a good job she did of drowning out the tenor! A little later that evening, the young hopeful came over to the house and inquired about the piano playing. When he was told it was my friend, he replied, “That's the best I’ve ever heard you play.” The young man’s name was Mario Lanza. Dolores Jones Philadelphia, Pa. always, they were with him. A little family financial help and an extra job at the studio tapping out time signals and station breaks on the graveyard shift took care of the tiny Hollywood apartment where Mr. and Mrs. Byron Palmer started house- keeping. As for entertainment, well, they were in love. The biggest hardship, as By remembers, was leaving his happy home at midnight to sit in a six-by-six booth and drone out endlessly—“Station KNX, Columbia Broadcasting System. It is now two a.M., Bulova Watch time.” Then Byron had a better idea than sit- ting up all night telling people the time. He signed up with the Air Corps, and in no time at all he was on the Arizona desert near Tucson at the Marana Air Base, a barren spot which later m Red S ton to observe feelingly, “Th find places that God forgot!” The ae Palmers sweated out fourteen months there until Byron was “transferred imme- diately to Los Angeles for training pre- paratory -to shipment overseas.” That’s what he got for telling everyone he was a radio announcer. E LEARNED his stuff at the Armed Forces Radio Service right back in Holly- wood where he started, under Colonel Tom Lewis, who is Mister Loretta Young these days. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Johnny Mercer and about every important Hollywood star who could carry a tune strolled in and out those days for Command Performance and various G.I. transcription shows, but By Palmer had little contact with them. He was in the lower echelons at AFRS and in the end was shipped out ignominiously from Se- attle crammed in the steamy bow of a liberty ship. He came up for air in Hawaii, but before he could buy a grass skirt for Joann he was whisked off to Eniwetok. Neither sheltering palms nor dusky vahinis with hibiscus in their hair swayed on that South Sea isle. Naval shells had thoroughly scalped the place when the Marines landed, and only two palm trunks stuck up like drunken telephone poles. As for women—there wasn’t anything in skirts on the whole atoll. Still, By Palmer looks back on Eniwetok with a special fondness. Not only because it was there he realized what he wanted to do—sing and act—but because he put over his first real man-sized job. Bucking Tokyo Rose wasn’t easy. GI’s laughed at her insidious guff but they liked to listen; she had a typical American co-ed voice that made pleasant music to girl-starved ears, also a stack of the solid Stateside recordings. When Byron and his buddies set up their transmitter under one of those crazy palm trunks straight news was all they had to compete with T.R. A morale job needed more than that, Byron reasoned. He dug up a Seabee who could pat a piano, a couple of sailors who could sing, and with his own baritone “The Music Mates” went on the air. They clicked. Byron Palmer’s trio got more G.I. fan mail than Betty Grable. And that’s when he started thinking seriously about his post-war plans. Byron wrote, produced, acted and sang on his wxLE program in Eniwetok for eight months, cutting Rosie down to size. The mission broke up when an inspection officer took one look at his cadaverous fig- ure—shriveled from 180 to 130 pounds— and hustled him back to Hawaii for re- cuperation. The climate, canned rations and hard work had riddled his health. He spent six months knocking around Hono- lulu beaming OWI news broadcasts, an- nouncing G.I. boxing contests and restor- ing his tissues. Then they shipped him home for a look in at AFRS, where he took over a Bob Crosby show for a while. Next came a reward for pitching in the South Pacific—Officers’ Training School at Camp Lee, Virginia. He was almost through the course when V-J ‘Day came and as By says, “I sure wanted those bars, but I wanted a chalk-striped suit a lot more.” He came out a staff sergeant. Y ons gentlemen in new chalk-striped suits were a penny a pound back in 1946. And Byron Palmer found himself with a wife to support and a baby on the f, way. He didn’t let go his dreams but he fj took what he could to earn a buck. For a while, that was announcing girlie-girlie shows at Earl Carroll’s. Then understudy and bit jobs in operettas like New Moon, The Firefly and Rosalie at the Greek | Theatre in Los Angeles, playing things like h q I : a F b B

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adets, soldiers, waiters, and gentlemen of the ensemble. Sometimes he got a chance to sing but not often. All the time though, Byron was polishing his voice with lessons, and it finally paid off. He hooked on to a touring skate show, Hollywood On Ice as a between-the-acts singer and emcee. In the midwest one of his Hollywood pals sent him a wire, collect. “Hurry back—they’re casting Magdalena for Broadway. You'll be a cinch.” By quit his job that night and hopped home. But that evening’s Hollywood Citizen-News had news for Byron: The show was already cast and gone to New York! “Sorry,” said his pal, “guess I gave you a bum steer.” bott, What keeps a guy gambling for a break however, is exactly the kind of crazy re- verse that happened to Byron Palmer next. He hadn’t been kicking jobless around Hollywood a week until a new agent he hired took him to see tunesmith Frank Loesser and producer George Ab- cooking up another musical for Broadway, with Ray Bolger. He sang his medley from Oklahoma that he’d used on the ice show tour and they all said “Fine, fine—we like you very _ much.” Well, Byron had heard that plenty of times before. His blood pressure re- mained down where it had sunk for the past week. “Just another audition,” he _ told Joann that night and grinned a little wryly, “They said they’d call me.’ He had no hope that they would. He didn’t know of course that after he’d left, there was a huddle and a quick ver- dict: “He’s our boy.” He certainly didn’t _know that the new agent, who had neg- lected to get his home address and phone number, was frantically trying to track - him down over the weekend without success. It was Monday before he con- _ nected—and that was no blue Monday for + SS OR). SSO. EAS Byron Palmer. The show was Where’s Charley, which was a hit on the big street for two very good seasons while Byron Palmer fattened up on $300 a week, brought his wife and daughter to New York and lived like a re- spectable citizen for a change. Studio nibbles arrived but to those Byron Palmer had to say “No” because his contract was ‘for the run of the show. It’s one of the ironies of Byron Palmer’s saga that he’d never been on a sound stage in his life un- til he went to work. And another that—up to this writing—the guy hasn’t sung a re- corded note for the movies, although sing- ing has been his big pitch ever since the Battle of Tokyo Rose. A ET Where’s Charley? finally bowed out, Byron Palmer spent the next sea- son or so racketing around the country in this musical and that—at Dallas’ Star- light Operetta, the Pittsburgh Stadium, St. Louis’ Municipal Opera, The Greek Thea- tre again—San Francisco to New York and way stops. He sang for radio and he sang for tv. He tuned up his lungs on Roberta, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Show- boat, Girl Crazy, and another Broadway revue, Bless You All, which the customers blessed only two short months. When things slowed and he came back to Holly- wood, the only job he could find was selling Christmas cards in the family stationery store next to the Citizen-News at $50 a week! It was the old roller coaster routine—up and then down—with a sink- ing sensation at every dip. Now, a stop-and-go budget is not what ‘most marriage counselors recommend, nor is the kind of hello-and-goodbye life that Byron and Joann Palmer led. By was in the service almost four years and most of his post-war years were spent skipping around wherever the chance of a job led .|him—and usually by himself. Under those Strains his marriage broke up—and mend- ed again—three separate times. But it fin- 2 er i GET- RICH- QUICK ROBERTSON Meet a man with one sumple goal and a dozen ways to attain it! ™ Dale Robertson wants to be a millionaire. Right away. This ambition is not unusual in Hollywood, but Dale is giving it all he’s got. From the moment Dale persuaded a couple of aunts to stake him to a start in Hollywood, he has had but one thought in mind—money! Now he’s paying the loan back, bit by bit, working hard at his career and figuring up schemes on the side for increasing his income. Scuttlebut around Hollywood is that he devotes so much time to these extra-curricular affairs that the Robertsons have little if any social life. And, whenever you hear a hint about rifts in their house- hold, don’t figure it’s another man or woman. It’s just plain work. In the first place, there’s Dale’s career. And he'll be the first to tell you he isn’t too keen about romance and musicals, even when he gets a co-star like Betty Grable. He prefers to do Westerns. “Tm in this picture game for the money that’s in it,” he’ll tell anyone who will listen. “Cowboys are the fel- lows who cash in, but big. Not only do people like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy pull down a big box office and a hefty pay check but look at the fortune they reap from by-products.” Practical Dale figures his horses and dogs might as well add their bit to the family bankroll and he’s disappointed when he cant ring them in on a picture he’s doing. He managed to get his favorite horse into The Farmer Takes A Wife but lost out when the animal fol- lowed him about like a dog from one end of the set to the other and refused to take orders from anyone else. And the wonderful big German shepherd who’s Dale’s shadow raised such a rumpus during Dale’s love scenes with Betty Grable that the dog had to be locked away. On the extra curricular side, Dale has a tire deal on that should hit the jackpot for him—if it works out! Then there’s the waterless hand- cleanser. And there are his horses. All of these interests take time and thought and investigation. And they take money. Dale isn’t a man to gamble away his hard won cash. To add to his other talents, Dale writes_red-hot Westerns for himself to star in. Recently he sold one of his stories to 20th and he hopes to play the leading role. All of this adds up to what, people ask. Those who know him best sus- pect that these activities are not only an outlet for his tireless energy but that Dale has a dream. He wants security for himself and his family. He wants a ranch—a big, big ranch. And he wants both while he’s still young. ee

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ally hit the divorce court a year ago last April Fool’s Day. Byron doesn’t like to talk about that, because he feels the failure deeply. He'll explain it briefly with, “We were awfully young when we married, me especially. I think Joann tried to mother me too much, but after all, a girl’s a lot older than a boy at nineteen—and maybe I needed it. Anyway, all the odds were against us.” The ironic part is that just when his home was breaking up, Byron Palmer’s best career breaks arrived all in a bunch. In three days he had three studio offers. The triple play started when a friend took him to Louis B. Mayer’s house one evening to sing. Mayer liked what he heard and promised a test at MGM. The next morning producer Leonard Goldstein asked Byron to Universal to look him over for the romantic lead with Lori Nelson in a Ma And Pa Kettle picture—and he liked what he saw. The next afternoon Billy Gordon, Fox’s casting director, called By into his office, handed him a record and said, “I know this will be rough—but take this home and make every note on it your own. Come back Monday and George Jessel will listen.” That, Byron knew, was the big payofi —if he could swing it. Jessel was pro- ducing Tonight We Sing, based on the life of impresario Sol Hurok. The record was operatic star Jan Peerce going through a tricky aria from La Traviata—slightly out of By’s league. The try was for a romantic young concert singer’s part with Peeree’s voice dubbed in. Not entirely the way he’d have liked it—but when it’s strictly from hunger and there's a new movie career at stake—well, By wasn't proud. That was on a Friday and the weekend which followed is one to remember for Byron Palmer. He had no place to master the operatics except his one-room apart- ment. He locked himself in, spun the turn- table and cut loose with the platter. He kept it up days and most of the nights Fri- day, Saturday and Sunday. “People pounded on the floors and the ceiling,” grins Byron. “I didn’t stop. They banged on my door and yelled, ‘Turn it off! Turn it off!’ but I didn’t hear what they said. Luckily, nobody called the cops. By Mon- day I could sing that thing backwards.” He didn’t have to do that. He sang it only once, forward. Jessel nodded, and By knew he was in. The funniest thing about it all was that Mitch Leisen, the director, exclaimed after Palmer had let loose his baritone, “My God—you actually can sing, can’t you?” That’s how far Byron Palmer’s vocal fame had penetrated his home town. y now the homefolks know it a little better. While he was making Tonight We Sing, Leisen sang his praises so loudly to Mocambo’s Charlie Morrison that they eanceled Peggy King and told By, “You open in five days.” The Mo attracts prob- ably the toughest audience in the world. Though he’d never sung in a night club before, Palmer walked right in and frac- tured the place. Variety raved, “This is local-boy-make-good week at Mocambo.” New York’s St. Regis hotel wired him an offer for the Maisonette Room, but he couldn’t accept with things popping right at home. One was a chance to show he could act with the title role of Mister Roberts at Hollywood’s Las Palmas Thea- tre. He did that so enthusiastically that he busted his nose in the big fight scene one night. All this comes under the head of pitch- ing in the clutch, which is what Byron Palmer is dedicated to right now. He is doubling his voice lessons and dramatic lessons. At thirty, Byron Palmer figures 60 he can’t coast. He knows he’s getting a late start in pictures—and that even the con- tract Fox handed him after Tonight We Sing is not career insurance these days when studios are dropping contract stars like hot grounders. After all, he’s had only that one picture—the Ma and Pa Kettle thing he made first is still unreleased— but Man In The Attic is about finished and The Girl In The Dark Glasses is on deck. But nobody who knows Byron Palmer expects any of this to send his handsome head spinning off into solar space. Like all the Palmers’ heads, his is screwed pretty level to his shoulders. While he made Tonight We Sing, By helped pump gas at a station in Westwood which he owned with his father, and only recently sold. All last year he hustled over to UCLA nights for a course in accounting and business investment, just in case he ever gets his hands on important money. He drives a three-year-old Pontiac, has a rack of carefully mothproofed suits that date way back, cooks his own meals and washes his socks in the two-room furn- ished apartment where he presently rests atop Laurel Canyon. “I have learned by necessity,” he'll tell you, “to be a tight man with a buck.” He isn’t kidding there. Right now, al- though he makes a good three-figure salary a week, Byron has to scratch to put away a bond now and then or collect a few more shares of the family newspaper. His alimony is heavy and his daughter’s ex- | DIDN'T SEE IT HAPPEN I don't know if it’s because I’m néar-sighted or just dense, but ’'m constantly rub- bing elbows with movie stars and not realizing it till hours later. But then, who'd ex- pect stars like Susan Hayward or Mona Freeman to ride a bus like ordinary mortals. However, you'd think anyone would recognize Eve Arden getting on the crowded Hollywood bus at Warners’ main gate especially when she had to stand in the aisle. I stared fasci- nated at this girl with the flexible fea- tures whose face muscles were never still a minute and didn’t recognize her till I was thumbing through Modern Screen days later. While dining at the Smoke House across the road from Warners’, I peered earnestly around looking for stars and then became more interested in a familiar-looking family at the next table. Mama and daddy were absorbed in feeding the three well- behaved children. For hours I racked my brain to place them among my neighbors before I realized I'd been staring at Mrs. MacRae, the children, and the back of Gordon's neck. Next week I’m getting new glasses. Mrs. Patricia L. Pfau Burbank, California penses are growing. Maybe that’s why he’s such a quiet operator that his landlord next door recently popped his head in and explained, “Just wanted to know if you still lived here.” He found Byron deeply absorbed in Rev. Norman Vincent Peale’s book, The Power Of Positive Thinking. A night owl by nature, Palmer often stays up all night with a book or a script. Some- times, too, he'll roll off in his car in the middle of the night for Santa Barbara or south to Mexico, all alone and just for the ride. ; [Tar DOESN’T mean he’s a hermit or any kind of a male Garbo. Byron likes all sports—swimming, skiing, tennis and golf particularly. He likes to dress up in tails and dance the mamba too. He’s a hot record fan, a devotee of good food and drink. He likes people, parties and fun as much as the next guy. He’s as friendly as a pup, has a hard time saying “no” to anyone and is almost impossible to rile. Success has caught up with Byron as a bachelor, but he’s frank in saying he doesn’t like it. Once you’ve been married, you miss it, even if it hasn’t worked out the first time. “I want to get married again some day,” he admits, “but I’m in no hurry and for heaven’s sake don’t say I have any plans because I haven’t. Of course, the right girl might change my mind fast.” There have been lots of girls lately. By’s current date list does include names like Denise Darcel, Kathryn Grayson, Joan Weldon, Merry Anders and Wanda Hen- drix. How much is for romance and how much for sweet publicity now that he’s on the hot list, is hard to say. But when he took Wanda to the Island In The Sky premiére this fall, By had to have a map drawn to find her place in the Valley. At the same time, Columbia called that a “romance’—but how can you romance with a girl when you don’t even know where she lives? It wouldn’t surprise Byron Palmer's close friends if he and Joann got back together one day for another try. Under pressure, even he'll admit they just might. That’s happened three times before and there’s a deep feeling there, gomg back to school sweetheart days. There’s another tugging attraction in the girl who is Byron Palmer’s | most regular and. adorable date—his daughter, Linda Lou. This dainty blonde, now seven, is a steady item for Wednesday dinner and an all-day Saturday whirl at the amusement parks. As susceptible as the other lasses are to the Palmer charm, Linda can effectively cool off her old man sometimes. By took her to see some rushes of himself in Man In The Attic and when they had been reeled off, Mistress Palmer asked, “When do you come on, Daddy?” “That was me. I’ve been on,” he told her. “Oh,” she replied. “You mean that funny looking man with the whiskers?” Last time I saw Byron, he was itching to finish the picture and shave off his cloak-and-dagger mustache—to please a lady. Paste ladies is always attractiye work | —and now Byron Palmer has it. By now too, he knows it’s his business—one that he’s made for and one that he likes. He hopes to stay in this business a long, | long time, acting and singing right in Hollywood where he was born, grew up| and—after a fairly rocky road—came back to make the Palmer name mean something in addition to presses, paper and printer’s ink. To make sure that situation sticks | he’ll knock himself out to please every girl in the world—even Tokyo Rose. “TY’'m doing just what I’ve always wanted to do,” By says, “living just where I want | to live. I never want to leave Hollywood again. I hope things never change.” Right now, it doesn’t look as if they will—with one exception, of course. That ban they’ve got on Byron Palmer stories down at the Citizen-News will have to be ripped off the bulletin board. After all, an important sheet like the Citizen has to cover the news. Publisher’s son or not, Byron is making some and he’s sure to make more. Besides, they’ll have to think of their feminine readers. 4

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AN M/S WIRE SERVICE OF LATE NEWS FROM AROUND HOLLYWOOD ABROAD JEANNE CRAIN may never again make another picture in Africa. What she went through during the filming of Duel In The. Jungle is more harrowing than the most imaginative adventure fiction. One afternoon, for example, on the banks of the Zambesi River, she stood petrified as Assistant Director Anthony Kelly was overturned in his canoe by the swirling rapids. The powerful current carried Kelly into the opened, ugly, waiting jaws of a dozen crocodiles. Following this death, Jeanne was on the brink of collapse, but director George Marshall insisted upon the immediate resumption of filming. He wanted no brooding. With husband Paul Brinkman and actor Dana Andrews on hand to lend moral support, Jeanne went on to finish the picture. Despite the fact that she worked at close range with lions, elephants, and other native beasts in the Krueger National Park, Jeanne, mother of four, showed no fear. ‘Maybe | didn't show it," she says, “but | certainly felt it." LANA TURNER, plagued by the European rumor that she is pregnant, may be back in the States from Amsterdam as you read this. Originally, Lana and Lex hoped to be home for Christmas, but the weather was very bad during the production of The True And The Brave, and the picture was held up. Lex's agent, Paul Kohner, has been in Europe trying to set up some deals for Barker, and if these jell, Lana will remain abroad with her husband. While The True And The Brave was in production, Barker and Vic Mature tried to play golf each day. The Dutch Resistance leaders insisted that Lana was much too glamorous to be cast as a real secret agent. The film tells the story of the Dutch underground movement. Clark Gable plays the part of a Dutch Army colonel who matches wits against the Nazis. Lana, of course, supplies the love interest. When asked why the Dutch were objecting to the film, J. K. Douma, one of the heroes of Arnheim, explained that “'the first requirement of any under- ground agent is to be as ordinary-looking and unobtrusive as possible. Do you think," he asks, ‘that Lana Turner falls into this category?" FARLEY GRANGER rates as the most eligible bachelor in the Italian tilm colony. Farley has an excellent musical ear, and now speaks Italian com- petently enough to help him parry the subtle marriage proposals of Rome's prettiest starlets. He has rented a villa and plans to stay in Europe as long as film work is available. He makes it a policy to go out with no girl more than three times. ‘'| don't want another one of those Shelley Winters buildups,” he says good-naturedly. VIVIEN LEIGH, the beautiful, fragile, international star who suffered a greatly- publicized nervous breakdown six months ago, is now all recovered and back at work. She opened recently at the Manchester Opera House in The Sleeping Prince, a play in which she not only sings, but also dances. Doctors attribute her quick recovery to the constant vigilance of her husband, Sir Laurence Olivier, who never once left her side in her weeks of need. One physician said, “He made. her re-entry into public life his cardinal interest." LIZ TAYLOR, back in London with*her husband and son, in fact, hard at work with Stewart Granger in Beaw Brumunell, is still busy denying that she suffers from heart trouble. "| really don't know how these stories get started,’ she said. ‘If | have a headache or a stomach ache, right away it's heart trouble. My heart is in fine shape. Everything's in fine shape. The baby had some typhoid shots and cried a bit when we first got over here, but now he's perfect." Liz returns to Hollywood when her picture is finished, probably in December or late January. GENE TIERNEY continues to scoff at all the stories concerning her alleged breakup with Aly Khan. They are very much together in southern France—they play tennis almost daily on the courts of the Carlton Hotel—and Aly gets on extremely well with Gene's mother and her daughter. Rumors notwithstanding, Gene is very well-liked by the Aga Khan and the Begum. KIRK DOUGLAS grew a long beard for-his title role in Ulysses, and now he lets the girls run their fingers through it. His favorite: Brigitte Bardot. SRE TS WS BLP SI AL PSI LABS IOS. GREYHOUNDS Tour of the Month! 11 EXCITING DAYS in with EVERYTHING PLANNED, RESERVATIONS MADE Sunbright adventure from Jacksonville to St. Augustine, Silver Springs, Cypress Gardens, Miami, Key West; 10 nights’ hotel. “O30 Plus U. S. 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DANCING SHOES—SUPPLIES BATON—DRUM CORPS SUPPLIES SKATING SKIRTS—Roller or Ice. 24 Page Catalog 10c (applied to purchase) Quincon Dance Supplies, Box 422, Quincy 69, Mass. PART-TIME Women to work in their homes. 3-5 hrs. per day. MAILERS 4043 St. Clair Ave., Dept. F-1, Cleveland 3, Ohio IF YOU SUFFER PAIN © "2sc . NE URITIS “FAST REWEF with the way thousands of physicians and dentists recommend. HERE’S WHY ... Anacin is like a doctor's prescription. That is, Anacin contains not just one but a combination of medically proved active ingredients. No other product gives faster, longer-lasting relief from pain of headache, neuralgia, neuritis than Anacin tablets. Buy Anacin® today!

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no trouble at all (Continued from page 21) “My, but she’s a long one,” someone said. They held the baby up, and Esther smiled as her third child’s infant cries began. They weighed the baby, measured her, and then sent for the proud father. “You've got a fine daughter,” Dr. Brad- bury announced. “Seven pounds, fifteen ounces, nineteen and a half inches long.” Big Ben was all smiles. “We're going to name her Susan Tenney Gage,” he said. “If I had been a girl,” he added, “that’s what my folks would have named me.” RESENTLY, they wheeled Susan’s mother down the corridor and into her private room. They let Ben stay there for a few minutes, then shooed him out as Esther dropped off to sleep. Originally, it was planned to have mother and daughter room together, but there was a shortage of nurses which made the rooming-in system an impossibility. Susan Tenney was placed in the babies’ room. The birth of Esther Williams’ third child was a welcome contrast to the birth of her second, Kimball Austin Gage. Three Octobers ago, Kimmie arrived one month ahead of schedule, and since eight- month babies are difficult to deliver, Esther had a tough time of it. Her entire pregnancy period with Kim- mie had been pretty much of a muddle. She went to Hawaii to make Pagan Love Song and just as production got under way, she thought she was pregnant but she wasn’t sure. She insisted upon waiting until she got back to Los Angeles to make certain. Then there was some question as to the arrival date. Finally, Esther was told that her second child would come in December. In September, she and Ben bought their Mandeville house, and while no one knows for certain, it’s entirely possible that by working long and hard to furnish her new home, Esther inadvertently brought on the premature birth of Kimmie. He was born in October. Esther’s first child, Benjie, was also a little early, so that Susan is really the only Gage child to have been a full-time baby. Esther and her new daughter stayed in Santa Monica Hospital for a week, and on a Thursday, papa Ben, proud and grin- ning, came and took his two girls home. When little Benjie, four, saw his sister for the first time, he shook his head in dismay, and turning to his mother, said, “Boy, there sure are gonna be an awful lot of kids around this house.” Benjie and Kimmie used to sleep down- stairs in the Gage household, but when Esther announced that another child was en route, Ben got busy and had the attic remodeled. Now, the two boys room up- stairs, and Susan has the nursery on the street level. “So far,’ Esther says, “she’s been a perfect little doll. Just sleeps and eats. No trouble at all.” “No trouble” are the two words which best describe Esther Williams’ family set- up. Ever since her marriage to Ben Gage after World War II, the tall, leggy, near- sighted mermaid has known practically nothing but happiness. Over the years she seems to have gotten ’ everything she ever wanted: career, fame, money, security, marriage, and children. “The trouble with Esther Williams,” one reporter said recently, “is that she has no trouble. At the ripe old age of thirty-two, this dame has got it made.” “Wholesome” is the word to describe the Williams personality, and it can be 62 followed by athletic, fun-loving, clean- _cut, healthy, attractive, antiseptic, bright, cheerful, and sexy. No one ever calls Esther sultry or intriguing or fascinating or complex. Sup- posedly, she is the sparkling, typical, right-thinking, successful young woman you can find in many American neighbor- hoods. She was brought up by parents who loved each other deeply and still do. One of five children, she enjoyed a normal, healthy childhood with no apparent antag- onisms or soul-searing complexes. A “the only secret chamber in her mind involves her first husband, Leonard Kov- ner. “He was really her first love,” he pointed out, “and he is never discussed in their household. As a matter of fact, Ben gets furious whenever a reporter refers to him in an interview. But I’m sure that deep down Esther has never forgotten Leonard. “She was about nineteen when they were married. Today, of course, he’s a successful physician, but then he was in medical school, and Esther was working as a stock clerk at I. Magnin’s. I don’t think her family particularly approved of the marriage, but Esther has always been a strong-minded girl. She wanted to get married, so that’s what she did. “She and Leonard lived in a small apart- ment. They couldn’t afford any children. Then Esther got her lucky break at Metro, and after that, she was really career- minded. Leonard was, too, and the mar- riage began to come apart, maybe because they had no common purpose. I think Esther got the divorce in 1944 after Bath- ing Beauty opened in New York. “But as I say, nobody mentions the first marriage to Esther. I’ve never heard her refer to it in any way. I’m sure that she has tried to block it out of her conseious- ness but deep down, I’m sure the memory lingers. You can’t really forget a man who was your husband for four years. Sometimes she must be stabbed by a pang of guilt or a memory of pain. “Then again I may be attributing to her introspection which she never really ex- periences. Anyway, with a brand new baby to look after, she doesn’t have too much time for reminiscing.” | overheard a woman describing her beau ideal: “The man | marry must shine in company, be musical, tell jokes and dance, stay home, be up on his news, be no trouble, drop no ashes, and shut up when | want him to." Personally, | think she should marry a television set. John Daly TV quiz master Most of Esther’s fans have always cou- pled her with her present curly-headed giant of a husband, Ben Gage. One of them wrote to her at the studio, “You and your husband are a credit to the mo- tion picture industry. Every time the columnists say you are breaking up, you have a baby. Maybe after you and Ben have had five kids, the gossips will know what your fans already know—that you and Ben are one of the most happily-mar- ried couples in Hollywood. Why do the columnists refuse to believe that, any- way?” Most of the columnists do believe that Esther and Ben are blissful. From time to time, however, they predict that the happiness will not last. In Hollywood’s long history there are relatively few suc- cessful actresses who have managed to hold on to their less successful husbands. In nearly every case, sooner or later, the ee Bee FRIEND of hers is of the opinion that ~ - a1 husband came to resent his wife’s success, her greater earning power, her tremendous fame. (5 ossipmoncers who predict that Esther — Williams will tire of Ben Gage and vice versa after the children begin to grow up, don’t seem to realize that Esther and Ben are both intelligent, discerning, and well-adjusted. By nature, Ben Gage does not happen to be a driving, rabid, ruthless man. He is not particularly ambitious for fame and money. He started out in radio, and he had a css television show of his own. It was a good show and he made a person- able master of ceremonies, but the pro- gram just didn’t catch on. Ben has show business talent. He could have pestered his agent into finding him more work, but as Esther’s business deals began to branch out, she began to need a coordinator. And what better coordinator than a_ sensible, conservative, prudent husband. So Ben took over, and he has done extremely well. He took a broken- down restaurant out on Sepulveda Boule- vard in Los Angeles, and reorganized it and re-staffed it. Now, the Gages’ Trails restaurant is one of the best family eating spots in the county. And it’s doing a thriv- ing business. i Ben Gage happens to be a big hulk of a man and like most tall men, has always been a target for jokes. Ben Gage is the ideal husband for Esther Williams. They are tall and handsome, and in character they complement each other. One of Ben’s outstanding virtues is that he never has attempted to trade on or take personal advantage of his wife’s posi- tion. In 1951, when Esther was negotiating a new contract at MGM (she signed at $2,500 a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for ten years) Ben might very easily have said to Eddie Mannix, MGM’s general manager, _“You know, Eddie, Esther and I could work very well as a team. Why don’t you hire me as a producer and let me turn out her pictures?” Many a husband has refused to let his wife sign a studio contract or make a one- picture deal unless he went along with the package. And husbands of some movie queens in- sist upon acting as their wives’ agents. Ben Gage has never wallowed in the quicksand of nepotism. He has never gone to MGM and demanded employment, spe- cial treatment, or favors of any sort. He has always gone his own way, a man of independence and self-reliance. The success of the Ben Gages’ marriage lies in the mutual dependence of its con- stituents. Esther and Ben need each other. “T rely on him,” Esther says, “for his strength and judgment and consideration.” And Ben, in turn, loves Esther because she is capable, competent, decisive, femi- nine, gracious, and altogether without guile. It is no easy job being a mother, wife, and actress. Ben knows that and ad- mires Esther for being able to pull it off. He doesn’t resent her accomplishments. He glories in them. That’s something the prognosticators of marital gloom don't seem to understand. It has been said of Esther that she is cocky, aggressive, and stubborn. Her father explains this when he says, “She takes after me in certain ways. She has confi- dence in herself and a sixth sense that everything is going to come out right.” A CiUaLEY, the key to Esther’s character is her self-reliance. She started work- ing as a salesgirl in Newberry’s Five and Dime as a teen-ager. She learned at once that as she made her bed, so would she lie | # ia in it. She had no wealthy or influential a Sree se oo a o > i

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Seared the hard way. relatives to make her career easy for her. _ Everything she has she has earned, and Her swimming _ trophies came as a result of incessant prac- tice. Her so-called lucky break at MGM came only after she was given a screen test at 20th Century-Fox and failed, and after she had worked as a Warner Bros. starlet and failed again. It has been no bed of roses for Esther Williams. She is still the hardest-working actress in Hollywood. Her pictures take longer to make than any others. They de- mand strenuous work but Esther never complains—not even when she’s pregnant. She has always worked ducing the first four or five months of her pregnancies, never babying herself or making out- landish demands. “It’s a funny thing about Esther,” one studio executive remarked. “We never seem to have a picture ready for her until she’s pregnant. She organizes her life very well, you know, and once in a while I’ve thought that she purposely becomes preg- nant after the picture has begun. In that way she makes us finish it in a hurry. Then she can spend more time with her other kids at home.” Esther who once wanted “as many chil- dren as possible,” says now that “maybe we'll have another girl—yes, I think we’d like another girl after my next two pic- tures.” A reporter, overhearing her answer, shook his head in admiration. “You know,” he said flatly, “There is absolutely nothing in the world that Esther Williams cannot do. If she says she wants another girl by 1955, I give you my word that she will plan the exact minute of its birth and then make it, give or take an hour.” END (Esther Williams can be seen now in MGM’s Easy to Love.) hollywood hot rods (Continued from page 44) fast-moving sports cars, still does, and probably always will. Gwen never did, doesn’t, and most likely, never will. It’s fairly certain that Gwen didn’t appreciate Donald’s spending so many hours out in the backyard with his head stuck under the hood of his car, tinkering with the manifold and frim- framming with the carburetor. Nor was Gwen well entertained during the many evenings when the conversation would turn to “twin pots,” “valve-in-head” en- gines and other such technical car chat, _ which is usually the route the conversation takes when Donald meets someone else _ who owns a whippy little piece of sports | machinery. Where cars are concerned, Donald O’Connor, glittering star of stage, screen, and television, is a hopeless case. Real gone. Lost. Nor is Donald alone with this fate. In Hollywood, love affairs have come, within the last few years, to be sometimes a matter of “Love Me, Love My Jaguar.” Romancing couples, to be on the safe side, _ should include some serious talk about ~ their preferences in cars in their marriage ' plans. Bob Horton and Barbara Ruick did _ just that, and being a modern young couple, decided to start married life with a brand new XK 120 Jaguar. On the other hand, if you will recall, it wasn’t too long ago that columnists were pointing out that one dis- rupting influence in Clark Gable’s mar- _ riage to Lady Ashley was his predilection for fast, open cars. She showed no fond- ness whatsoever for the wind and the rain in her hair. When Lana Turner was first married to Bob Topping, she strenuously objected to his race-track tendency that came out as soon as he got behind the wheel of his all-white Jaguar. To pacify her, Bob presented her with its twin for her birthday. It failed to save their mar- riage. Lana kept only the car, and she came to enjoy driving it very much. Both the young and old of Hollywood have adopted the sports car craze. Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. Just three years ago, any strange foreign sports car parked on Hollywood Boulevard would always attract a curious little crowd in a matter of minutes. But today, the parking lot of every major studio looks like the main assembly grounds of Le Grand Priz, and not even the “craziest” foreign ve- thicles merit a second look. Sports cars, both as a practical means of transporta- tion and as a symbol of prestige and glam- our, have truly arrived. HH ortxwoon is probably the only city in the world where a car dealer could (and did) profit handsomely by posting a twenty-four sheet billboard across the street from his Sunset Boulevard show- room which read, with magnificent re- s pom, “Buy Your Sweetie a Jaguar for ” More than a few movie people fol- lowed Bee Ss) if not in time for Christmas, at least during the ensuing ten months. The current list of Jaguar owners in Hollywood would include at least one- fourth of the established, big-name stars. Ty Power garages a Mark 7 Jaguar (as well as an expensive Duesenberg and a 1900 cc Alpha Romeo) at his Hollywood home. In Rome, he uses his sleek 2500 cc Alpha Romeo to travel to and from his movie locations. In all, he has more than a $30,000 investment in speedy transporta- tion, but to Ty, this represents the ful- fillment of a youthful dream rather than a sudden splurge on luxury automobiles. When he first started in motion pictures, Ty had to drive an old jalopy that was always breaking down just before every important appointment; he swore that when he became a star, his first purchase would be a dependable automobile. He’s had many since, but none that give him as much pleasure as his foreign sports ve- hicles. Clark Gable has owned a Jaguar con- vertible for more than a year, and he'll - probably have another fast-moving set of wheels sent over from Europe this year. At the end of her latest Twentieth Cen- tury-Fox film, Corinne Calvet celebrated by purchasing a sleek Mark 5 Jaguar, a handsome, swift machine with more curves than Corinne herself. Keenan Wynn is re- joicing in his Jaguar; when he bought it, he put up his motorcycle and he hasn’t had a spill since. One by one, the stars are succumbing. Not long ago, columnist Hed- da Hopper met Dick Powell, smiling as joyfully as though he had just been nomi- nated for an Academy Award. “Why the big smile?” Hedda asked. “I just got my new Jaguar,” Dick replied. “It’ll go 145 miles an hour.” “That’s great,” Hedda cracked. “But, tell me, Dick—where in California can you go that fast?” The answer to that is: nowhere. But speed is not the whole story about sports cars. Most of the wealthier stars who have gone abroad to make a film have come ‘home thoroughly impressed with the ele- gance and distinction of European auto- mobile design. Both Gary Cooper and Frank Sinatra became so enamoured of the new Mercedes-Benz 300SL model that, with no hesitation, they were able to part with the $13,000, plus freight charges, that it takes to ship one back home to Cali- fornia. Friends of Coop say that he looks ten years younger behind the wheel of his sleek Mercedes, and though it probably was not intentional, the car just happens to blend nicely with the Tyrolean sports clothes which he began to affect some years ago during his skiing period. Later this year, Frankie went Coop one better when, during a visit to Turin, Italy, he bought a racy little Alpha Romeo cabriolet styled by Pinin Farina, the famed Italian body works. Frankie paid for the car on the spot and arranged for its mid-winter delivery in California. It is almost impossible to appreciate the effects of the sports car bug until you have been bitten yourself. In Hollywood, 3 it has even begun to nibble at the staid family men like Macdonald Carey, until recently a sane, intelligent actor who has never made a wrong headline in his life. “Tt came upon our family absolutely with- out warning,” pretty Betty Carey recalls. “One afternoon, I had gone over to Bever- ly Hills to have my hair done. When I came out of the shop, there stood Mac be- side this long, sleek, flaming red Saber, grinning to himself like a cat eating cran- berries. ‘Wow!’ I exclaimed, out of sheer surprise. ‘I suppose we really shouldn't,’ said Mac, apologetically. ‘After all, we’ve got four kids and we’ve had a good time with our ordinary cars all these years. It’s probably silly of me to want this job.’ ““The heck it is!’ I replied, noting the gleam of proud possession already settling in Mac’s eyes. ‘We only live once. You buy that car if we have to hock the family homestead to do it!’ He didn’t argue any more, and for weeks afterward he got up at six-thirty a.m. in order to be at the studio early to show off his wild red car.” Right now, Mac’s in Madrid, making a film called Port Of Africa with Maureen O’Hara. Every time he calls Betty on the transatlantic telephone, the first question he asks is, “How’s my car?” “It isn’t that Mac has forgotten the kids and me,” Betty explains. “There isn’t a more wonderful husband in all of this mad town. But I have to admit that Mac has completely flipped over that car. Be- fore we're through with the sports car craze, all six of us will probably be driv- ing low-slung foreign jobs, if we have to rebuild the garage to get them all in.” J ust how did this wild sports car fad get started in Hollywood, and where is it all likely to end? Pete Peterson is the youthful publisher of Motor Trend and Hot Rod, the magazines which carry all the latest news on automobile trends both here and abroad. Pete knows most of the sports car fanciers in Hollywood, and is frequently called upon to give his advice on a set of wheels before its future owner passes over a bale of the long green in order to call it his own. Pete has a ready explanation for the growing popularity of sports cars in the movie colony. “Holly- wood is merely a highly accelerated ex- ample of the reaction against production- line automobiles which is taking place all over America,” he says. “Certainly, it should be easy to understand why movie people, more than anyone else, are going in for the slick-looking European cars. Back in the silent picture days, stars would spend thousands of dollars to give even their expensive Rolls Royces and Duesenbergs, a custom, out-of-this-world look. Today’s stars don’t get that wild in their selection of ostentatious cars, but they do want cars which will dramatize their glamorous personalities. As soon as Cadillacs became as common as canned peas in Hollywood, they lost their charm. Then a few stars who had been abroad brought home examples of the advanced 63

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car design of Europe, and they started a new fad. It wasn’t long before the fad picked up volume and became a trend.” According to Pete, who drives several stylish foreign creations of his own, Hol- lywood sports car fans could be divided roughly into three categories. “First, there are the serious car addicts. Donald O’Con- nor, for example. This type of guy is pri- marily interested in engines and their smooth performance, and he’d rather tinker with his car than eat breakfast,” Pete ex- plains. “Then there are the well-to-do stars who like the more expensive Euro- pean cars with their prestige value, their luxury looks, and their high speed per- formance. But by far the biggest group of sports car owners are the young players who have been attracted to the less ex- ‘pensive sports cars like the MG, Simca, Singer, and the Morris Minor because they are cheap to run, sharp in appearance, and easy to handle in traffic. This group is growing by the dozens every month.” In fact, Hollywood MG owners are al- ready far too numerous to list. But be- cause it delivers, F.O.B. Hollywood, for about $2400, the Mark IV MG is by far the most popular sports car in the movie colony today. Gene Tierney is so attached to her little MG that she ships it over to Europe every time she goes. Bob Wagner, the handsome young star of Prince Valiant, used to hot-rod his MG around Hollywood like a dirt-track driver. He gave up sports cars for the duration of his career, after cracking it up in a nearly fatal accident. Alec Nichol, who stars with Shirley Booth in The Ex-Mrs. Leslie, fell in love with his MG in London and had it shipped home. Unfortunately, another sports car fancier got at it while the car was sitting on the dock and stripped it of top, wheels, and other vital parts. Now Alec is in the market for general replacements. Since sports cars have come to be such a common part of the Hollywood scene, many young players have taken to as- sembling on pleasant Sunday afternoons for rallies. In sports car jargon, a “rally” means a gathering of enthusiasts, dedicated to a brief drive over the hills, considerable snooping around underneath the hoods, and much lying about their cars’ perform- ance on the highway. With a group of dyed-in-the-wool car fanciers like Lance Fuller, Tab Hunter and Jeff Hunter, the arguments get pretty heated, except when they are accompanied by the ladies. With a group of beautiful girls like Lori Nelson, Kathleen Hughes, Barbara Rush and Mar- cia Henderson, a rally is more likely to turn into a gay little picnic, with dainty sandwiches and cold drinks. O N THIS particular day, Lance Fuller, the handsome U-I discovery whom you will be seeing in Taza, Son Of Cochise, was explaining to Tab Hunter why he had recently sold his American-made car and bought a tiny Morris Minor in its place. “I blew a tire on the freeway doing fifty miles an hour and flipped my car over three times,” he told Tab, as they rolled along through the Hollywood hills. “I felt I was lucky to get out alive, and right then, I decided to find a car that would really hug the pavement. This baby is it. It’s got a motor like a Swiss watch, gets thirty-five miles to the gallon, and as a conversation trap for pretty girls, it’s better than walk- ing the dog.” “Oh, my goodness,” said pretty Lori Nelson, who was sitting between the two young men in the ear. “What’s the matter?” Lance asked, afraid that his frank talk had shocked her. “I forgot to bring the pickles for the picnic,” Lori gasped. Which may give you seme idea of how girls usually follow car 64 talk. But perhaps it’s just as well. END SPECIAL TO MODERN SCREEN: i hollywoo report y Wik Conall famous columnist for The Hollywood Reporter LONG HUNCH DEPARTMENT: : Their intimates don’t think the marriage of Rita Hayworth and Dick Haymes will sur- vive many setbacks in her career, so unless Rita starts getting better roles than she got in Salome and Miss Sadie Thompson, it’s *bye, Dick! A stymied career means no money coming in; no money means rough going . . . Olivia de Havilland, as you know, inherited the sexy role Princess Rita was supposed to play in The Human Beast. So Livvy is now encouraging the same kind of sexy publicity for herself that the Princess—plus Anne Baxter, Jane Powell, Deborah Kerr and other erstwhile goody-goody types—have been “enjoying” of late . . . Everybody in town was saying Shirley Temple was going back into movies and then Shirley confounded the gossips by dating the stork . . . The 1954 Academy Awards are lining up for the big night this coming March. Contenders for the gold-plated Oscars include Frank Sinatra, Monty Clift, Debbie Kerr and Burt Lancaster for From Here To Eternity; Bill Holden, Stalag 17; Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, Roman Holiday; Victor Mature, Jean Simmons, The Robe; Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, Shane; Jane Wyman, So Big; Bing Crosby, Little Boy Lost; and several others still to come. Who do you like for the Oscars? June Haver’s return to acting probably will not be in the lavish type of musical she used to make at 20th-Fox before she entered the convent, but in dramas, which would be the more dignified course for her to take. It’s a foregone conclusion that June is back in pic- tures for good. After all, as her mother points out, “What else can June do but act? She never learned any other trade and, since the life of a nun is not for her, acting is the only thing left” .. . Jeff Chandler keeps phoning Susan Hayward. It looks serious for these two, who were kids together in Brooklyn. ‘ ce de Havilland Hayward SKIRMISHES OF THE MONTH: Odd wasn’t it, that Geary Steffen, who saved Boni Buehler’s life when the airline stewardess lost an arm and leg in a speedboat acci- dent on Lake Arrowhead, should be sued by Boni? He had been _ sending her a rose every day, then wham! that lawsuit .. . Ag Mario Lanza has lost more friends than anyone I know because of ~ his temper. Latest are Andy and Della Russell, the singers .. . When Leslie Caron took off for six months of making movies abroad without her husband, Geordie Hormel, everyone said this was The End. Could be . . . Jeff Donnell said, when both she and Aldo Ray ~ received their final divorce papers, “Everybody is marrying off Aldo and me—but us!” ... Friends claim Pat Wymore won’t continue to put up with Errol Flynn’s shenanigans—such as the piggyback ride with the Paris chorine . . . Susan Hayward’s ex, Jess Barker, has a pal who burned all of his copies of a book called Wayward Susan. So there! . . . Everything was going serenely with the Marilyn Erskine-Donald O’Connor amouring until a role in the stage revival of Our Town came along for Marilyn. It was no coincidence that Tab Hunter got a part in the same play. How’s that for a new twosome? Marilyn and Tab! Piper Laurie has been playing Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Mo with four Hunter fellas, and this is the order in which they rate with Piper: Carlos Thompson is Eeny, Brad Jackson is Meeny, David Schine is Miny and Leonard Gold- stein is Mo. In other words, this gal’s career comes before romance . . . More than several femme hearts were broken when Terry Moore showed up at Henry Willson’s cellophane-wrapped, candlelit garden gala for Annabell and Jim Radford of Texas—with Rock Hudson! Don’t take this one too seriously, however. One date doesn’t make a

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- romance... Van Johnson refused to cover his obvious facial scars with makeup for his role in The Caine Mutiny. The studio criticized him but he stuck to his guns and the results are great. FUNNIES My favorite line of dialogue by Marilyn Monroe in How To Marry A Mullionaire is: “Men seldom jump hurdles for girls who wear girdles.” Errol Flynn signed his bill in the dining room of a Swiss hotel instead of paying cash. The waiter said, “Please add your room num- ber after your signature, sir—there may be more than one Errol Flynn staying in the hotel” . .. I saw John Wayne rehearsing for a scene in Jimmy Durante’s television show and asked, “Are you between pictures, Duke?” Replied he, “Pictures my eye. I’ve been sued by so many people lately I’m between trials!” HOLLYWOOD HEARTBEATS Johnnie Ray has been telling pals he wants to get married again. Meanwhile, the Weeper’s ex-wife has been dating Donald O’Connor, whose ex-wife, Gwen, has been bouncing back and forth between Dan Dailey and Liz Tey lor’s ex, Nicky Hilton. Mu- sical chairs, anyone? Dorothy Dandridge has been driving Farley Granger’s con- vertible around Hollywood while Farl’s been in Rome dating Dawn Addams, among others . Audrey Hepburn told me,, honor bright, that there is absolutely nothing to the® gossip that she and Greg Peck were a “thing” while shooting Roman Holiday in Rome, despite Greta Peck’s un- happy announcement of her separation from Greg. Audrey said that the realistic amouring of herself and Greg in that movie was what tricked the blabbermouths in this gossipy town of Hollywood into thinking it was the real thing... Sresiien SEX APPEAL: Barbara Stanwyck has been wearing extra short evening gowns so I guess this means she agrees with Christian Dior on the short hem ‘length At Warners’, Virginia Mayo’s dressmaker is using her dress form as a guide for Virginia’s dresses after the baby’s arrival . I’m one of those who can remember when Jean Simmons didn’t act so “actressy” in public—but wasn’t she won- derful in The Robe? Tony Curtis’ crew haircut ing All-American made no hit whatsoever with his fans. They’ve been bombarding ' the studio with letters de- manding he let it grow long again .. . Scott Brady had to have his hair dyed black and permanent-waved for his role opposite Joan Craw- ford in Johnny Guitar. Speaking of La Crawford, she came to the year’s most elaborate premiére, The Robe, with Nick Ray but didn’t wait to see the movie because there was a seat mixup and somebody else had her seats. So Joan and Nick left in a huff. I talked to Joan later and she said she went back to see it with her four children the following Saturday matinee. . . Incidentally, while standing out in the lobby before the movie I heard the announcer pro- claim Joan as “the greatest star in Hollywood” Brady —and I was watching several other stars when the announcement came over the loudspeaker. They didn’t think too much of it . . . Bob Mitchum, at the same premiere, said some- thing uncouth to an usherette. She broke into tears, blubbered and said, “That’s no way for a gentleman to talk,” and fled her post... I also heard Stewart Granger complaining that a columnist had separated him from his wife, Jean Simmons, in print. Then Stew said, “Oh, well, we should worry—at least they spelled our names right!” ... Jerry Lewis looked around at the hundreds of fans seated in the bleachers outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, got flustered, and blurted ‘to his wife, “I’m very exciting, aren’t you, dear?” FINANCIAL PAGE: The old-timers still make the most money in Hollywood: Bette Davis asked $150,000 to play the role of Queen Elizabeth in Sir Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Bogart got a flat $200,000 for co-starring with Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina Fai . . . Paul Brinkman, Jeanne Crain’s husband, who started his tool-and-die com- pany here in Hollywood on a shoestring five years ago, netted $90,000 this year... We’ve been terribly im- pressed by Guy Mitchell’s quiet determination to fight the $500 weekly alimony de- mands of his estranged wife, Jackie (Miss America) Loughery .. . Rory Calhoun’s salary has just gone up from $1,750 a week to $2,500 a week at 20th .. . Same studio’s Bob Wag- ner has a new contract too. Bob had been earning $350 a week. Now he gets $1,250 a week for the first two years of his new ticket, $2,000 a week for the third and fourth year, $2,500 a week for the fifth and sixth, and $3,000 for the seventh. That ain’t hay, hey? . With three movies completed and in the can and a nightclub tour on her agenda, Shelley Winters is feeling her old confident self again, almost as though she were still going with Farley Granger and not married to The Gassman! Shell also owns ten percent of a foreign-made movie, Paris Express, that’s be- ing released in this country by her uncle, Ben Schrift. Winters THE REAL LOWDOWN: Betty Grable is no longer under contract at 20th, which is why that studio’s Marilyn Mon- roe gets top billing over Betty in How To Marry A Millionaire. This is the first time Betty has taken second place to anyone since Alice Faye got top billing over her in Tin Pan Alley . . . Did you know that Princess Rita was Xavier Cugat’s first band singer? She was a mere slip of fourteen at, the time, and it wasn’t too many years ago .. . Fernan- do Lamas’ locks are so curly MGM has to unkink his hair with a special lotion every day ... Shirley Booth has lost fifteen pounds since she made Come Back Little Sheba .. . Regardless of her} denials, Maureen O’Hara has? - been dating that Mexican tycoon again—the one who plied her with ex- pensive baubles. Were you as upset as everyone in Holly- wood over Liz Taylor’s collapse in Copen- hagen and those reports that she had suf- fered a heart attack? Actually, Liz has always been delicate. Booth The Perfect Marriage SHOULD BEGIN WITH A Perfect Diamond CERTIFIED PERFECT by the UNITED STATES TESTING CO. The center diamond of every ‘Eternally Yours’’ en- gagement ring has been tested and ‘Certified Perfect’ by the United States Testing Co. 14k white or yellow gold mountings. Drawing enlarged. _Write for Free Illustrated Booklet “ETERNALLY YOURS” DIAMONDS 702 H St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 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66 janet rules the roost (Continued from page 29) long since been regretfully consigned in shreds to the junk heap. But the hard-headed, determined and businesslike Scotch nature of Jeanette Morrison has not been altered a whit, al- thought her occupation has changed, and her name has changed. She’s now a movie star called Janet Leigh. A few weeks ago, Janet bustled into the Beverly Hills salon of the swank hatter, Rex, on a typical movie star’s mission. She had to appear at an important party and she needed a new cocktail hat. During the protracted feminine process of picking out a hat, she spied a sweater and slipped it on. It was a cute, stylish cashmere with fur trimming at the neck and cuffs, just her color, just her size. This one was made for her. When Rex boxed the bonnet, he started to wrap the sweater, too. To his surprise the girl said, “No, wait. I love it, but I don’t know that I can afford it. Ill have to ask my business manager and let you know tomorrow.” The movietown milliner could hardly believe it. “Look,” he ex- claimed, “it’s just a sweater. You like it. Why not take it along now?” “Nope,” repeated Leigh. “Ill have to check first.” Hedda Hopper happened to be in the shop and when she overheard that ex- change she almost flipped her fancy lid. “Now I’ve seen everything,” she gasped. “Tell me what other Hollywood gal wouldn’t buy the sweater first and find out if she could afford it later!” Nobody told her. One day last October, a sharp-eyed in- vestigator from the Bureau of Internal Revenue paid an impromptu call on Fred Morrison, who is Janet Leigh’s father, and her private accountant as well. He said he’d like to take a look at Miss Leigh’s 1951 income tax return. Ordinarily in Hollywood—or anywhere else—such a visit is prone to chill anxious hearts and pop out sweat beads on nerv- ous brows. But Fred Morrison grinned happily and replied, “That’s a pleasure.” The T-Man sat down and pored over the sheets of data. “This $500 for miscellane- ous business expenses,” he said suspi- ciously, “can you document that?” He had a ledger in his hand before he could finish the sentence. There, penned in Janet Leigh’s own neat hand, was everything he could possibly want to know—every dime telephone call, every two-bit travel tip, every three-cent fan letter stamp—with pee with explanations, a whole year of it. He went through that book and another. Then he slapped them shut. “That’s good enough for me,” he announced, scribbling “Audit Approved” on the return and ris- ing. “I thought this would take two days. It’s taken two hours.’ He sighed. “I wish they were all like your daughter, Mr. Morrison. Maybe then I could catch up on my golf.” [ts A hopeless wish. There aren’t many stars in Hollywood as tidily, thriftily and industriously on the ball as Janet Leigh is. In fact, while that quick audit was taking place, the lady in question was charging up three flights of stairs in her Wilshire _ Boulevard penthouse and then racing down again to her Olds convertible loading in this and that, as panting professional movers tried to keep up with her. Wear- ing sneakers, a pair of blue shorts, a T- shirt and scarf tied around her blondined mop, Mrs. Tony Curtis was moving, in per- son and in charge. At times the movers wondered what they were doing there. It was just the hottest spell Los Angeles _ back. had suffered for the past three years, 101 in the shade, if you could find any. This didn’t daunt Janet. Nor did the fact that Tony was working and couldn’t help, nor that only three months before she had lost her baby and was still shaky on her pins. Moreover, two days before the melee began, Janet had finished Prince Valiant, a long and exhausting job. None of this convinced Janet that she should not do the job during this free week, as planned. Besides, if she didn’t, the Curtises would lose a month’s rent. All that week, while other stars not caught in a picture kept their precious skins carefully immersed in swiming pools, Janet carried on the project—a double du job, because not only did she have to pac up and move out and then in—but before she could do that, she had to pack and store everything in the eight-room Beverly Hills house she rented, because the previ- ous tenants were in Europe. One evening during the resolute reset- tling, Tony Curtis came home from his job on Johnny Dark, stripped down to his shorts, cut himself a fat slice of salami, parked in an easy chair and munched re- flectively as he watched his wife continue to skim around the room like a bee in a clover patch checking this and that from a fifty-page inventory. FAMOUS LAST WORDS “Do you know two show - busi- ness careers where two people have beenhappy? May- be there are some but I don’t know many. One’s off on location or in Eu- rope somewhere and the other has to stay in Holly- wood. I came up the hard way and it’s left a bad scar. Money means a good deal to me. It’s hard for me to turn down jobs. I worry about finan- cial security. I’ve worked like heck for a career and it’s just beginning, and frankly, it_comes first with me. Really, that’s no good for marriage, because in marriage you should be a wife first and an actress second.” Shelley Winters in June, 1951, before she met and married Vittorio Gassman. “You know what?” he asked at last. “No, what?” “You worry too much, Jan, and you work too hard.” “You know what?” his girl friend came “T like it.” Tony tried another tack. “You’d better knock off and come up to Reno on this location with me. I might need you. When I get near those dice tables I might lose my roll.” “If you lose your roll,” replied Janet, “Just don’t come back.” Tony grinned. He knew that if he didn’t come back, Janet would chase up and haul him home. But behind the kidding was an immutable truth—one that had dawned on him a time or two before. He was married to a very efficient, energetic and capable doll. : Janet Leigh’s acquaintances would all agree. Her best friend, Patti Lewis, calls her “Miss Efficiency.” Jerry Gershwin calls her “Fussbudget.”’ And her business manager, George Mercader, backed up his opinion recently with an out-and-out offer: “Janet,” he said, “if you ever stop acting you can come work for me.” But maybe what pleases Janet most is the Tr OV family has for her, “General Leigh”. Be- cause, what Janet Leigh has become and ~ what she has accomplished since she hit Hollywood represents a string of personal victories which “Marse” Bob himself would be proud of. And it’s all from a fiatfooted start, or worse. > SBS years ago MGM signed the nine- teen-year-old Jeanette Morrison Reames to a stock contract, without even a test and strictly on her small-town-girl cute looks. No greener pea was ever popped into the Hollywood pot. At that point, Jeanette could barely distinguish a dramatic role from a hot cross bun, for which she would have settled almost as eagerly as the first check for $50. The day before her summons arrived (incredibly, on the strength of a photograph which Norma Shearer had spotted at the Sugar Bowl Ski Lodge, where Janet’s parents worked) Janet and her husband, Stanley Reames, had spent their very last buck on hamburgers. The fourth-rate hotel on Santa Monica Boulevard where they were camping was getting nasty about the over- due bill and listening in on their conversa- tions to make sure they wouldn’t skip. They were awesomely tn debt—$10,000, which might as well have been ten million —because Stanley’s project of launching a sixteen-piece dance band in Hollywood had backfired. In the seven years since, the picture has changed radically. Today, she has not only paid off her $7,500 share of the community debt, but has also acquired a healthy an- nuity, a house where her parents live, a nice wardrobe, ‘including a mink stole, various articles of furniture, a 53 Olds- mobile and some high grade investment type stocks and bonds—all on a cash-and- carry basis. She has learned her craft well enough to list a string of twenty-three hit pictures and a stack of popularity awards which keep right on piling up. Living with her and liking it is a hand- some and happy, though sometimes exas- perating husband, also highly successful. The family income averages $3000 a week. All this has not been done with mirrors— although for a while the consensus about Janet Leigh in Hollywood was that she had stepped through one of those and was a helpless Alice In Wonderland who should not be let out without a nurse. Some of Janet Leigh’s naive bloopers are still Hollywood classics. One of the best known concerns the time she was in- formed by Morgan Hudgins of the MGM publicity staff that she was going on loca- tion in the Sierra with her first picture, Romance Of Rosy Ridge. “But I can’t possibly do that,” Janet pro- tested. “I can’t afford the trip!” Hudgins assured her that MGM would assume the expense of an actress sent out of town to make a picture. When Janet first met Van Johnson—America’s swoon prince then— she completely lost her voice and gagged in beet-faced confusion. Her first day on a set she blurted to the director, “Oh, I’m so nervous I just don’t know what I’m saying or doing,’—and for a while she didn’t. She had no clothes to attend her first premiere so the studio wardrobe de- partment rallied, dressed her up like a doll and delivered her in a limousine. But when Van Johnson spied her in the spot- lights, he rushed out, kissed her and boomed before everyone, “My God—you’re beautiful!” She went limp with confusion and had to be practically carried inside. Janet was so shy, uncertain and be- wildered by the big league social life into which she was plunged that when a tele- gram came from the late great Hollywood party man, Atwater Kent, she called Van and Evie and begged them to take her and

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her husband with them. They had al- “ready sent their regrets to Kent but sympa- thetically changed their plans and ac- cepted, and Evie lent Janet an evening ‘dress. For all this—for everything, in fact, Janet was so grateful and gushing with ppreciation that people took her aside and ried to tell her that the photographers who took her pictures, the publicity people who arranged interviews, even the studio cops ‘who let her in the MGM gate did not necessarily have to be rewarded for every esture with effusive thanks: that was ' simply their business. _ For months, Janet Leigh’s unbelievably _ ingenuous gaffes were laugh lines for the Hollywood columns. There was the time, fer instance, when Janet entered the Chi- cago airport restaurant between planes, ' en route to New York for her first visit. _ It was also her first trip outside her native _ State. - At the counter, the waitress asked her what she’d have and when she couldn't _ think, suggested orange juice. “Oh, may I? I mean—do you have oranges here?” exclaimed Janet. “I thought they just had those in California!” At last, columnists wearied of the Dulcy peg and got a little annoyed. “Who does _ Janet Leigh think she’s kidding?” rapped ' one. “Come, come Honey—lay off the act. You really can’t be that dumb!” - Janet Leigh wasn’t dumb and she wasn’t staging an act. Actually she was an ex- ' tremely smart girl although an extremely unsophisticated one, and psychologically | unprepared for the sharp world she had k landed in. Her gaucheries stemmed from | honest, surprised reactions, while she "sparred around to get her bearings. When “has got them, they were dead level—and BIE ETAG have remained so ever since. Ironically, _the successful Hollywood operations of | General Leigh are still based on the small- | town virtues and rock-bottom background which made Janet Leigh seem like a beau- -tiful jasper to Hollywood at first glance. Be In 1927, Janet was a depression kid. Her childhood homes were tiny apart- _ ments with pull-down beds and cramped kitchenettes where often both the light and ‘the gas were shut off for delinquent bills. ‘Her dad, Fred, was a bookkeeper who worked around at such jobs as he could “grab—in ice plants, electrical stores and ‘auto agencies. Janet remembers a period -when her mother handed her eighty cents ‘a day for the groceries. “Yd run down to the market and buy ‘one of everything,” Janet has recalled. “One egg, one chop, one bunch of carrots, ‘one bottle of milk. I was a fairly big girl before I knew people ever kept food | stacked in cupboards.” Besides chasing to the market, the skinny moppet, as early as ten, would fly into the |'housecleaning and often start the dinner when she came home from ‘school. Both Fred and Helen were very young | parents. Today, they look like Janet’s big |ysister and brother. Their struggle was ‘|mever kept from their daughter. Janet shared the family financial secrets from | the start and they made a deep impression on her. When her mother pawned her | Marriage ring to buy her a new dress, Janet |"was aware of the transaction and appre- ciated the sacrifice. “I never asked for anything I wanted,’ she remembers. “I always knew why we couldn’t afford it.” | All this made Janet capable, responsible _|iand actually ahead of herself. Most people thought when she hit Hollywood and some still think—that she was a cotton-headed babe in the woods. That legend was kicked along substantially when she married Tony urtis, a fascinating, happy-go-lucky clown ose best friends were twice as off-beat 1e was. Janet is fast on the uptake and she has given back Jerry Lewis, Danny Arnold, Jerry Gershwin and the rest of the wacky crew who surround them as good as they’ve dished out, because she has an over-sized funny bone and a sharply honed wit herself. Back of the gags and the zany schtickloks is a serious marriage. As Jerry Lewis’ wife, Patti, puts it, “Tony may wear the pants in the Curtis family—but it’s Janet who holds them up.” The reason for that, too, can be traced right back to Jeanette Morrison’s life in Stockton, California. For one thing, she learned very early in life that there was absolutely no percentage in kidding herself or pretending to be what she plainly was not. This lesson was learned one day at the Weber Grade school when she was only six and already sensed that every other kid in town had more than she had. She picked an easy escape to glamour, which boomeranged. Walking to the Schoolyard, she caught up with a new pupil who didn’t know the local score. The rare opportunity to go grand was irresistible, so when the girl asked her where she lived Janet described an elegant mansion and let her imagination ride. It had a swimming pool, she said, tennis courts and stables where she kept her own private pony and cart. Her father owned an auto plant and was very, very rich. In fact, Janet added airily, “I’ve always gone to private schools, you- know, but my parents thought it would be good experience for me to have this year at Weber with the town children.” The newcomer was suitably impressed and fascinated, so that at recess in the tether-ball line, she begged, “Tell me some more about your big house and pony, Jeanette.” Whereupon the rest of the kids haw-hawed out the bitter truth and Janet experienced the awful shame of getting caught in a pretentious lie. She hasn’t been caught in one since, because she hasn’t told another. Despite her insecurity, or maybe because of it, Janet’s activities tend to be con- structive. She early developed the tenacious resolve to distinguish herself, knowing, as she says, “Tf I wanted anything I’d have to earn it and keep it.” That’s still her code of op- eration in Hollywood. Back then it took various forms within her smaller world. . Janet was through grammar school before she was twelve, out of high school before she turned sixteen and—if she hadn’t left the College of the Pacific in her senior year to marry Stanley Reames, she would have collected her sheepskin before she was twenty. Every year of her school life Janet made an honor society. (eee Janet Leigh’s religion has always been Presbyterian, as befits a Scotch lass, tinctured nowdays, she’ll con- fess, with some of the practical ideas of Christian Science. And the homely convic- tion that the Lord helps those who help themselves has always guided her. When she needed money—which was constantly—she got jobs. She made the sorority she wanted at C.0.P.—Alpha Theta Tau. The lone fiasco of Janet Leigh’s girlhood—her elopement at fourteen with a Merced, California, boy—was more than mad romance. It was a desperate attempt to stay in that town with the friends she’d made, after her family moved there one year and then returned to Stockton. That two-day marriage, quickly annulled by her parents, changed Janet’s character and outlook not at all. Neither, basically, has the seven-year honeymoon Janet Leigh has had with Hollywood. Janet has changed, of course, in many obvious and subtle ways. But underneath, probably more than any other star in town, she remains the same article. Sometimes it seems that not a day has passed since she checked in at MGM. At twenty-six “Janet Morrison Leigh Curtis Schwartz” as she sometimes introduces herself, looks nineteen. She weighed 126 when she signed her contract and her nor- mal weight today is 115. Her waist is still wasp-like and her eyes still sparkle with the zealous eagerness of a Walt Disney beaver. Her hair, of course, is a lot lighter than the brown it used to be. It doesn’t seem at all wicked to her, but it did once when on a sorority week-end to the beach, she dipped into a “peroxide bottle and came back to Stockton in dis- grace. Her chassis has stood up perfectly under the strain of being a star and she’s learned by now to trim it more artistically. Janet has learned plenty of other things, too, about the complex, supercharged business into which she was dropped back in 1946. The ga-ga girlish gratitude, for one thing, has given way to the realization that after all, making movies is a business and one where the in-fighting can get rough at times. There’s plenty of evidence that Janet Leigh has learned how to handle her dukes. At her own studio, MGM, for instance, she has turned down three picture parts, yet never been slapped down with a sus- pension—certainly a tribute to the con- vincing arguments she put up each time. When she was loaned to make Houdini with Tony, Paramount promised her studio that if they would loan her for the picture they would build up the girl’s part. As the contract wasn’t signed until a few days before the picture began, her part was built up as the picture was filmed and Janet huddled evenings with the script- writer. She has learned spunkily to dis- tinguish between temperament and sensi- ble self interest. Not long ago, working at another studio, she was called one evening and peremp- torily ordered, “Be in make-up tomorrow at ten. Your hair is being dyed.” Janet gasped with indignation and then had news for them: Her hair was not, being dyed. She was no puppet, but a sovereign lady and nobody owned dictator’s rights to her hair or any other part of her body. Quite a hassle progressed through several departments, finally reaching the studio | Her hair — chief who got the same news. was not dyed. Sixteen cross-country trips, a tour through Europe and a vacation in Hawaii have expanded Janet’s geographical hori- zons so that she doesn’t catch herself ex- tolling the merits of —say — Milwaukee when she’s actually in St. Paul. And on tour these days Janet is poised and pre- pared. When she went to Pittsburgh, for instance, with Angels In The Outfield the Pirates tossed a dinner at which Janet sat next to the club’s prexy, Branch Rickey. To Mister Baseball’s amazement, she rattled off percentages, batting averages, pitching statistics and other diamond lore with such accuracy that Rickey raised his bushy brows and inquired, “Is your father in baseball, Miss Leigh—or your brother, perhaps?” Janet admitted she’d prepped it all up from the sport magazines and news- papers just for this event, before which she had always thought home plate was something you cooked on. OF couRsE, Janet doesn’t do much cooking these days. Having consistently flopped at boiling Tony’s eggs and baking the sour eream-and-raisin pie he likes, she lets her maid, Ida May, take over. With both mem- bers of the family working, it was obvi- ously silly for Janet to be without house- hold help. But it embarrasses her to ask anyone to do anything for her, servant or not. Her own self-sufficient background rebels. It was quite a problem for a long 67

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time, since Ida May is a very capable domestic, but was still no mind reader. The only way Janet could figure to get things done as she wanted them done was to do them herself. Each evening she’d bustle around fixing this and that, hoping that Ida May was observing the touches. She was. Now she runs things exactly as Janet wants them run, with no orders yet issued. In acquiring the art and armor neces- sary to comfort, success and survival in Hollywood, very little of the friendly small town girl has been rubbed off. Janet’s favorite line is still, “There’s nobody like people.” She still personalizes her myriad professional contacts. Each Christmas, Janet writes letters to everyone in every studio with whom she and Tony have worked—a collossal feat. She still scrib- bles thank-you notes for thank-you notes and worships anyone who’s been nice to her. Marge and Gower Champion, who toiled half a year teaching her to dance for Two Tickets To Broadway, have been her idols and close friends ever since. So have Van and Evie Johnson who took her under their wing and eased her on to the social ropes when she first arrived. Lillian Burns, MGM’s drama coach, who taught her to act, (“Janet was my hardest-work- ing pupil”) is. still her mother-confessor party and a show, at which Janet’s Holly- wood star friends, if they’re friends, come along, too—in a big bus she rents. After the gifts, songs and show, the big feature of the event is a kiss for every boy, six to sixteen. With typical enterprise, Janet has raised $3000 one time and $2500 another toward a new kitchen by promoting shows and benefits for her boys. In fact, where any kids are concerned Janet’s Scotch blood evaporates. side herself, once. aa COUPLE of Christmases ago, Janet and Tony were in Paris during the war orphan entertainment tour they made in England and Germany. It was the first Christmas Janet had ever spent away from her family, and despite Gay Paree and Tony, Christmas Eve at first brought on a homesick touch of the blues. A phone call to Hollywood helped a little and dinner with friends in a little Russian restaurant on the Left Bank helped some more. There, violins played the familiar songs of the Nativity, and Janet and Tony came out on the street still singing them, with gen- 1 SAW IT HAPPEN I have my home She was on the poor : Rep ni 5 delivered in the Curtis menage these “days —from either side of the house. The state of Janet and Tony’s union has long since simmered down frem its original volcanic state through a lot of living, loving, learn- ing and understanding on both sides. As Janet’s dad says. “Janet and Tony have tied down to each other.” The kid from the brawling streets of New York has brought some of the beau- tiful belly laughs of life to the attention of his girl. And the girl from prosaic Stockton has learned to like them. Right after they were married, the Cur- tises tossed a pay-back party for fifty friends to warm up their new apartment. It broke up around three o’clock and Tony, a healthy male animal, promptly dived for the hay. But Janet couldn’t shut her eyes with all those plates, glasses, ashes, and party debris around. So she pitched in alone to clean up the mess and when Tony came to next morning she was still at it. Today she’s different. She makes Tony stay up and help. Right now there’s one subject they agree on completely: They want some kids in their home—four, to be exact. That’s why _Operation Stork is the campaign at hand for Janet. The first chance at parenthood for Tony and Janet ended last July when, after for all the technical problems Janet faces wherever she goes. Last year, she pitched all out with Janet to groom her for the Young Bess part which she lost to Jean Simmons. This disappointment, though keen, didn’t make Leigh mad at anyone. Very little does, unless her propriety is unjustly put in a bad light. Then she can flare with provincial indignation. Just before she moved, a Hollywood trade paper columnist stated that, “Janet and Tony are being evicted from their apart- ment.” Mrs. Curtis grabbed the phone and gave him both barrels, although that was probably only his hurried way of saying they were switching homes. On the other hand, when Janet is really hurt by a barb she says nothing. Last August, when Marge and Gower Champion opened at the Coconut Grove they in- vited Janet and Tony to their table. At the opening, the Curtises were absent and got promptly rapped in print, like this: “Marge and Gower Champion held prized places at their table for their good friends, Tony and Janet, but the good friends didn’t bother to show.” Marge and Gower both knew exactly why Janet and Tony weren’t there and thoroughly approved. Janet was at her mother’s Brentwood house, rubbing the pain-wracked body of her Grandmother three months of pregnancy, Janet lost her the baby. Analyzing that disappointment with | typical thoroughness, Janet reconstructed everything and made mental notes. She had | ™ just finished a picture and was dead tired. | Su Then she had gone to Las Vegas for a | week, on to New York for three more, then } tix off to Honolulu. Two days after they came f sip home, Tony’s father suffered a heart at- tack, and Grandmother Westergaard took | ».. a critical turn for the worse, so there were | ti anxious nights. There was Prince Valiant | ~ to prepare and house-hunting, too. Janet has good health, but she burns up her | ™ energies like a midget racer. As her } “i doctor told her, “You run without a reserve | % tank.” Then there were those three flights | ity of stairs. My Maybe she was wrong in blaming her- self and maybe she was right, but next time Janet will take no chances. Already she’s gulping vitamins all day long, building | up. She has a deadline on late hours, a |°" daily rest schedule. After Laughing It Up }\s with her pal, Jerry Lewis, she’ll wait awhile } sui: before starting another picture and try | «| to duck extensive tours. And about those | ¢,,\, stairs—that’s the real reason why Janet was } ... in such a hurry to move from their pent- n house apartment to a one story place. 5 One thing seems certain. If Janet Leigh ever does preside over a houseful of kids, in Copenhagen. In the winter when Gregory Peck was here, he was taken down to see the statue of the little mermaid from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. She is_ sit- ting on a big stone * in the harbor. It was black with peo- ple who wanted to see Mr. Peck, mostly young girls, of course. If you want to get close to the mermaid you can take a few steps on the stairway or you can climb the stones. Well, the guide took the stones, so Gregory Peck did the same. He was climbing on wet stones with hundreds of girls watch- ing him. At last, when he was near the mermaid, he took a wrong step and fell into the water! He just sat there! All our dreams about Captain Hornblower were spoiled, and we had to laugh. But we just adored him again, when the long-legged man he arised himself with a smile. Merete Thejll Copenhagen, Denmark Westergaard, who was dying of cancer. Janet is still a fervent family girl. Her dad, Fred, keeps her business accounts straight and with him Janet shares her Aunt “Popo” (from Janet’s kiddie attempt to say ‘Pearl’) as secretary. Aunt Popo’s two teen-age daughters, Jody and Dee, and Grandmother Kate Morrison, now eighty- three and totally blind, make up the rest of the clan most intimately mixed up in Janet Leigh’s affairs. Or vice versa, be- cause as her mother sighs, “Every time Janet comes over she cleans out my dresser drawers and re-arranges the furni- ture—just as she always has done.” This family circle, now expanded by Tony’s folks, is still not big enough to satisfy the expansive personality of the girl who, as an only child, always feared and hated loneliness. Today she’s “Aunt Janet” to the underprivileged boys at the LeRoy Boys’ Home in the small town of LaVerne, California. Janet adopted the home and its kids a few years ago as her special project. She makes the seventy- mile round trip as often as she can and 68 on Christmas plays Santa Claus with a darmes joining in. They went to church at midnight—a church neither of them belonged to—and when they came out it was raining and the streets of Paris were bathed in the shim- mering midnight pastels which John Hus- ton caught in Moulin Rouge. It was so beautiful that neither said a word until a lonesome child of the night passed by with his shabby coat hunched up to keep out the rain. Then Tony said, “Wait a min- ute. I'm going to do something I’ve al- ways wanted to do.” He pushed a 1000 france note in the palm of the bey and beamed, “Joyeux Noel!” as best he could say it. “Give me some of those,” said Janet. So they spent the first hours of Christ- mas Day passing out their money to every waif they passed—until it was all gone. Then they went back to their hotel, wet and broke, but very merry indeed. That was one time when Mrs. Curtis did not lecture her husband about being such a chump of a soft touch. Actually, there are very few lectures they will be the tidiest, best cared for, |! most sensibly brought up and most secure | "mj moppets outside the National Baby Show. } ti, Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Tony Curtis | a), will have to-appease their parental hunger } jp, with Houdina, their French poodle, and ni | a mammoth rag doll which invariably sprawls in their bedroom. Tony Curtis gave that to his sweetie "way back when she was making Two Tickets To Broadway, | before they were married. “T Love You” is |" scrawled across it in big, red embroidered |e script—where the doll sits down. fo tej It was just another crazy, typically Tony }&x| gag when Janet first got the thing. But by now, besides romantic affection, she feels a certain warm affinity for that floppy rag doll. It’s really a lot like herself—with}, emotion and sentiment written all over, but... 4 also firmly parked on, where they can’t} get out of control. Une At least, that’s the way General Janet fin Leigh has operated during her first seven| re years in Hollywood—with success in most departments. There’s no good reason tojfiy suspect the next seven will be very much| different. END

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Steve Allen, who is the perfect addition to the panel of What’s My Line? is up and com- ing in about any entertainment field you can name. His late-night Tv show in New York has hundreds of thousands of people sitting up past their bedtime. His be-bop fairy tales are get- ting more and more popular at the record shops. And don’t be surprised if he takes his acting talent to Hollywood. He had to turn down one part—in MGM’s Brigadoon—but this boy cares too much about acting to settle for occasional guest appearances on television; he’d like a big Technicolored part. When he did a radio show in Hollywood, he managed to sneak in a couple of minor movies; but now that he has hit the Big Time, he can get Big | Movies. (Steve got so popular replacing Arthur | Godfrey that, it’s rumored, Godfrey fired him | because the show was no longer The Arthur | Godfrey Show. It had suddenly become the || Steve Allen Show.) . One of the most if versatile guys around, Allen is also one of the |, quietest. When he talks to you in person, you |: can hardly hear him. It’s always worth the |{ straining, though, for he’s just as funny in a || casual conversation as he is when he’s sitting | between Dorothy Kilgallen and Arlene Francis. (Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, who own | What’s My Line? apparently agree with Al- | Jen’s fans. They pay him more than any other , , Member of the panel, even though he’s the .,. newest one.) Allen, at the same time, is serious |, and shy. He’s very serious about his songwrit- |: ing and about the music business in general; i|l and actually goes home to his Park Avenue J \ apartment and works on three books he’s writ- 8\‘ ing. He has moved the china out of his dinette “and moved a typewriter in. When he isn’t , working, he’s out with party-loving Jayne | Meadows, the witty Fox actress who shifted , to television. The long-haired, lank-haired boy sj) seems, finally, to be getting over his guilt feel- by (angs about his ex-wife. She and Steve were sb\very young when they married; and, as in so #2\@many similar cases, she-had a hard time ad- it“ justing herself to his success. Some of Steve’s | friends think that Steve brooded for a long M}\time that it was his fault, even after the divorce. |, Now that she’s married again—and now that a | Steve’s career is really rolling—he’s taken a | brighter outlook on life. His three sons pay “4 aim long summer visits that pep up him and . Wally Cox really does want n W y/{his conscience . g\"“o get married, but there are still a couple of t 4 Godfrey finds Steve Allen too much competition— Orson Welles wins unpopularity contests—Wally Cox looks for the right girl— hurdles to jump before he will. First of all, he’s still going to his psychiatrist. And he maintains the highest standards in town. It takes a while to find a girl who can meet all of them! ... You’d never believe it if you met The Conti- nental in person. He turns out to be one of the nicest—and most intelligent—guys around .. . Orson Welles, who never won any popularity contests, was once not only blackballed from one of New York’s important clubs, but the members got up a round-robin to keep him out! . . . The extra show-business touches on What In The World? are put there by a young man named Beb Forrest, who also happens to be Sylvia Fine’s brother. Bob worked for Sylvia and Danny Kaye for a couple of years, but was finally persuaded—by others—to strike out on his own. His friends also got him to change his name at the same time—just to complete the sibling break. Bob’s not too happy work- ing in Philadelphia, however, so don’t be sur- prised if Danny and Sylvia get an old assistant back again . . . Red Barber is one of the few TV personalities who really use the products they advertise. When Red exhorts you to buy a certain brand of beer or cigarette, you can bet any amount that Red drinks and smokes nothing else. Red is a staid, surburban, Sun- day-school-teaching man; and he’s not going to tell his public to do anything he doesn’t do ... Incidentally, the top cigarette-spon- sored team on Tv smoke their sponsor’s brand only during the commercials . . . Just in case anyone still thinks Marion Marlowe and Frank Parker are in love—they’re not .. . Brandon de Wilde's father, Frederick, would surely like to be the successful actor his son is . . . Don’t ever worry if you can’t catch all the episodes in the Tv soap operas. The writers fix it so that you can keep up by looking only two or three days out of five . A favorite game in Tv circles is quoting Jinx Falkenburg McCrary. One of her bloopers: When a guest claimed she was thick-skinned, Jinx quickly demurred, “Oh no, you have a lovely complexion”! ... Walter Cronkite wears solid gold cuff links that Ruth Montgomery of the New York Daily News and Meet The Press gave him. But it doesn’t mean anything .. . 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the way christmas should be (Continued from page 41) chalet, Santa’s reindeer and sleigh, the Nativity. There are Swedish bells and Christmas knick- knacks from the world over. They all find a place each year, despite the fact that each new Christmas brings more gifts and more novel decorations. In the middle of last December, Dick came home from work to find the living room sparkling with holiday spirit. There wasn’t a square inch of table surface with- out snow or a manger or a tiny chimney. “Hi,” said June, who was arranging a vase of poinsettias. “That’s all there is to it,” said Dick. “We'll have to get a divorce.” “What in the world are you mumbling about?” asked June. “We can no longer live in the same house. The two of us can’t even get into the living room at the same time. Where would you suggest I put my car keys?” “Hang them on the light switch inside the front door.” “T can’t find it. You’ve got it covered by pine branches.” She laughed and turned to face him. “You do like it, don’t you?” “Sure,” he said. “It’s like walking into Connecticut. But there are just two things. Tl have to take down the holly wreath over the garage. My antenna got caught in it when I drove in. And where’ll I put my car keys?” UNE HAs decided that this Christmas she will restrain her decorating. Not that it hasn’t been attractive, but it’s grown more crowded every year. Guests at the Powells’ annual open house on Christmas Day have . been forced to hold their teacups or high- ball glasses in one hand, their gifts in the other, and have spent minutes furtively searching for an ashtray. This year, too, they are thinking about taking the children to Sun Valley for the holiday. Sun Valley may not be home, but it invariably has snow, which neither Ricky nor Pam has ever seen. June and Dick remember with particular fondness the Christmas they spent at the ski resort. It was their fifth Christmas together. They hadn’t had a vacation for a long time, so after the initial festivities on Christmas morning they left for Sun Valley for one week. They found it so enchanting they stayed six. An incurable romanticist, June’s fondest memory is the day she and Dick set off for a five-mile drive in an open sleigh. The horses’ hooves beat a soft staccato on the freshly fallen snow, the bells tinkled and the snowflakes, big as half dollars, fell silently through space. ! An incurable comedian, Dick has never forgotten the sight of June on skis for the first time. “Let me tell you about it,” he chuckles. It is unfortunate for him that he keeps bringing up this memory, because June can recall a particularly hilarious spill taken by Mr. Powell. This was Christ- mas the way Christmas should be, and phone calls back to Hollywood, during which six-month-old Pam burbled into the telephone, gave them assurance that all went well at home. It was the best Christmas, both report, they’ve ever had. The rest of them, eight in all, have been widely assorted. The first one, in 1945, was spectacularly miserable. They had just moved into their Brentwood home, which had been ripped apart and put together again on Dick’s orders. It was improved but the contractor had finished the work much later than he had esti- mated. So the Powells moved in on De- cember 24, determined to be in their nest for Christmas despite the wet varnish, 70 dearth of furniture, and the strong odor of paint. Dick immediately caught a thump- ing cold, which put him to bed with a fever of 103°. After dinner that night, an unromantic repast out of cans, June drove into town and bought what looked like (and might have been) the season’s last tree. It was a scraggly affair much in need of trimming, but all it got in the way of decor was what June had on hand—one dozen red balls. Or rather ten, as she dropped two of them. These small crashing sounds were the only noises in the house, besides an occasional muffled sneeze from the bedroom, where Dick was wrapped in flannel. Outside it was raining, and while ordinarily June en- joys the sound and solace of rain, it only served to irritate her this particular eve- ning. She went into the bedroom and gave Dick a hot toddy and a chest rub and left orders that he should go to sleep. With nothing better to do she opened her gifts and then, figuring to be prompt for once, wrote her thank-you notes. She was seal- ing the last envelope at ten o’clock when she became aware of another presence in the living room and turned to see Dick, her red-nosed husband, wrapped Indian fashion in a blanket. “What do you think you’re doing out of bed?” she demanded. “The padio is floodig,” he announced miserably. “I beg your pardon?” “The padio,” he said patiently. “The raid. It’s comig dowd so hard the padio is floodig.” “So it’s flooding,” said June. “You can’t do anything about it now.” “T was thikig I could bail it out.” “Bail yourself into bed,” ordered June. The next day was Christmas and despite June’s logic, Dick spent the day bailing out the patio. By this time she was so angry with him she didn’t care. She had presented him with a handsome antique silver stationery chest, which he had promptly declared much too expensive. He suggested that she return it. H® FEELINGS were damaged, but she has learned in the ensuing years that Dick usually does take back whatever she buys him. This is understandable. June’s imagi- nation often runs away with her head, and she has bought him a selection of objects and gadgets which includes everything ex- cept a stomach pump. “That,” says June acidly, “he’d probably keep.” : Gifts from his wife which he has kept include a new Swedish camera, portraits of the children and a Shopsmith set. He takes the camera everywhere but to bed; the portraits adorn one wall of the living : ed Next, Dick fears, June will enlist Pam and Ricky as aides and plant her own Christmas trees! room, and the tools hang 1 workshop. June has trouble re : herself from giving presents long before |) Christmas. She gets into such a pleasurable |} snit about her surprises (whether or not they are likely to be accepted permanent- ly) that she is tempted to spring them in || | early December. The Shopsmith was the || worst. It arrived in mid-December, in a bulky wooden case, which June stowed in a small room off the garage. Every time | Dick went into the garage, which was often, considering his penchant for putter- ing, June did a nip-up. Should she show it to him, or keep it as a surprise? She al- | ways decided on the latter, following him | anxiously, whereupon he would turn and |) ask if she wanted to go with him. “Go?” she would say vacantly. “Are you going somewhere? I thought you were going to hammer or something.” When he headed for the workbench she would hover around like an anxious hen for fear he would discover the hidden case. | “What are you doing?” “'m making a cabinet for. the new speaker. Why?” “T just wondered. Let’s and play tennis.” “Why do you get so disconnected every time I get in here?” he would demand. “Leave me to a man’s work.” Hiding gifts from Dick was difficult enough, but as the children grew older June was hard put to find inaccessible spots. No matter where she puts them, by Christmas Eve each package has suffered! the loss of one corner. This is the trade-|} mark of Pam who can seldom resist an ex-| 4 ploratory gesture, although she never rips) anything but the paper and can’t peek in-) ms side the box. In each new house June de-) im) vises a cache, but wherever it is, the pack- ages invariably come to light with only, three untouched corners. : Me It seems that whenever the Powells} »; move into a new house, they pick the! &, Christmas season to do it. The first was spent among packing boxes in Brentwood,| and on their third they had just moved) «)} into the big English house in Bel Air. This! time they were more settled by Christmas. While this made things more pleasant, June discovered that year that Dick had) fallen into the ways of most third-year) » husbands. “Here,” he said, handing her a sheaf of papers: “Would you get gifts for these peo- ple? June cast a bewildered eye over the)», endless list. “But—I don’t even know most) ; of these people. Last year you did all you)}; own shopping. Couldn’t you—” “Too busy,” said Dick. “I won’t have free day before Christmas.” “Who’s Edward Applegate?” “I went to school with him.” “But what’s he like? Is he married? Anch 5 what about this Cynthia Pfaff?” June’dk, voice grew hoarse with panic. “How car) - go some place Dick patted her on the head. “I’m sure youll think of something,” he said. It was the same way with trimming thd) tree. The second year Dick had merrily) joined in the ritual, but the third year, thd), ‘} minute he’d dumped the boxes packed with trimmings on the floor by the naked. tree, he disappeared. “Where’s the tinsel! 9 June screamed after him, but got no an{) swer. Y THIS time, June has it down to a sys¥ 4 tem. Since the Powells buy literally hundreds of gifts, including about fifty fol} children they know, June shops all yea} round for Christmas presents. By the tim} November has arrived, she has a goo part of a room filled with boxes, all neatl labeled. There are large drawers fille¢ ~ with a gay selection of papers, ribbons ané small package decorations, and this is on f Dy a tank

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chore June thoroughly enjoys. She insists . wrapping each gift personally, much to Dick’s relief, and only lately has had offers of help—from the direction of Pamela. The Powells’ seventh Christmas, the last they spent in the Bel Air house, when Pamela _ was three, June had left unlocked the door | to the “wrapping room.” Before long there | was a small hand tugging at one end of the ' ribbon with which June was wrestling. ' “Pretty,” announced Pamela, after which she pulled a pile of wrapping papers onto | the floor. _ “Look,” said June. “Mommy’s wrapping all these pretty things for other people. ) Now, if you'll just go into the nursery _ and—” She was brought up short by Pam’s pleading eyes. _ “So pretty,” said Pam, and offered up ‘her own sash as wrapping material. The |) upshot was that Pamela hung most of her | hair ribbons on the packages, and June ‘ceased all operations when her daughter became imprisoned in an entire roll of Scotch tape. p Their fifth Christmas followed a trip to ; Honolulu, and on arriving home after the Jong vacation June had to hustle to com- plete holiday preparations. It was this Christmas that she said to Dick, after he had sentenced her gift to be returned, “I ‘know one gift you’d keep. I’d like to give ‘ you a son for Christmas some time. A little “boy who’d look just like you.” | Life seldom grants wishes in such detail, ut the following December 24, Ricky owell was born, and despite his five ounds and one ounce, looked exactly like bi his father. Ricky was the best Christmas present June and Dick ever had, but his coming completely upset holiday plans. une herself was very much in the hospital m Christmas day, and as soon as Dick had elped Pam open her presents, he took off to spend the day with June. He gave her / his personal gift that day, a golden baby angel to accompany the angel he had given her when Pamela arrived. The day before, as June was wheeled out of the delivery room, he had slipped on her finger an ex- act duplicate of her wedding band, a ges- ture of his love and gratitude. _ On each visit he made to the hospital he ok one package from under the tree so at they could open their gifts together. it seemed an ideal solution to the holiday d one that helped make the long hospi- 1 days pass more quickly, but it turned ut to have its drawbacks. Once June was home she asked to see the rest of the gifts. Dick had opened each package and put cards?” _ “What cards?” he said, looking up from ‘his newspaper. “The gift cards! The cards that—if I could find them—would tell me who sent us what.” 2 “Oh—those. I threw ’em away. Didn’t ink, I guess.” “IT guess you didn’t,” said June right- usly, and proceeded to write a pile of otes which all said the same thing: Richard and I thank you so much for our lovely gift. It was just what we Wanted.” Whatever it was, June thought. S0me donors were neglected, and some )eople receiving one of these notes sat Own and thought hard, for they could ave ore they didn’t send a gift to the -owells. a HEIR sixth Christmas passed, with all ~ its confusion, and left them with a baby who grew to look more and more like The following holiday was a combi- m of Ricky’s first birthday and his hristmas, and to celebrate the dou- .: , DISCOVERY CORNER Lance Fuller, Hollywood’s Answer to the Cry for a Brand New He-Man @ “Nothing ever happened to me,” grinned Lance Fuller, future star who is creating more excitement than they’ve had on the Universal lot since Tony Curtis was discovered. “Nothing that is, except when I was seven years old IT captured a live alligator and thought I was tough. So a few years later I went sailing alone on the Indian River, got caught in a storm and was swept out to sea. The Coast Guard picked me up, bawled me out and Tve never thought I was tough since. During my teens I tried ranching in Texas. A mad bull side-swiped me and I wound up in the hospital. I figured I led a charmed lifé from then on, and I was more convinced of it in 1946 when a bus I was in plunged off a mountain into the Gulf of Mexico.” Movie fans who see Lance with Tony Curtis in All American and in Son of Cochise are going to want to know a lot more about this twenty-four- year-old ex-football star who started out to be a lawyer, but turned actor when his folks told him he had all the elements of a perfect “ham.” After his Army hitch he jumped into Little Theatre work and was discovered at the Laguna Playhouse in My Sister Eileen. Hollywood, badly in need of a new bachelor, will have one in Lance when his divorce is final. He is a lean, 195- pound, six-foot-three-inch Summerset, Kentucky, youth of French, English and Indian descent. Currently, he lives in Beverly Hills with his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Mathis. Now that Lance is really on his way up, he has transferred his springer spaniel, Baby, from the 1950 Ford convertible he used to drive to a sleek white foreign sports car, per- fect for his favorite occupation of “just enjoying the climate, the breaks I’m getting and the gorgeous gals.” Before long the gorgeous gals will be standing in line to enjoy his movies. ble occasion Dick hauled out every camera, every tripod and every flashbulb in the house. Ricky ignored the flashing lights and delightedly examined the sparkling * tree and his shining new toys. He cooed with joy when the new puppy bounded into the room and then he nuzzled his face in the pup’s warm fur. “Look at him!” said June with wonder. “He acts just like a boy should!” Before the children came, Dick and June opened all their gifts on Christmas Eve, but now that they must adhere to The Day for the sake of the youngsters, they save all their surprises for Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve they open only their gifts to each other, after the children have been put to bed. Christmas Eve is always spent with Edgar and Fran- ees Bergen. Frances is June’s_ closest friend, and it has become a habit that the foursome spend the evening together. Last Christmas was the first in their Mandeville Canyon home, and again they were barely moved in when the holiday rolled around. Nevertheless, the house was decorated, courtesy of June, and by the time Christmas Eve arrived the inte- rior was sparkling with seasonal spirit. A huge green tree stood in one corner of the living room and beside it, on the floor, a spray gun and a can of suitable white paint. Dick wasn’t to be found, of course, so as sundry guests dropped in, June smiled her most charming smile and hand- pafactpitee Ne ed them the spray gun. “I'll help,” she said, “as soon as I get Pam into bed. I’m tape- recording her Christmas prayer.” Upstairs, she sat by Pam’s bed, listening to her daughter’s husky voice, which is amazingly like June’s, go through the prayer she had been taught. One line in- cluded the phrase “in my simplicity,” and as Pam came to it she attacked it confi- dently. “In my simple city,” she said. “Amen.” June smiled, turned off the re- corder and tucked her daughter into bed. By the time she got downstairs the as- sembled guests had transformed the tree into a shimmering white. “It looks beauti- ful!” June exclaimed. “Now, where’s Rich- ard? Richard!” Her voice came echoing back to her, but no male voice replied. “He’s probably out in the garage,” she said. And then she smiled apologetically at her guests and handed them each a bauble for the tree. “Would you please help?” For this Christmas, June has a plan. If she’s to cut down on interior decoration, she has fifty-five acres to fool with on the outside. Unfortunately, all of the trees on the property are oak or maple—anything but fir—but she figures on buying a fir tree and planting it in the front yard. “That way I can hang everything on it,” she says. “And besides, if it’s good and tall, Richard will have to help.” END (June Allyson can be seen in Universal- Internationals The Glenn Miller Story.) 71

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Is the Glenn Ford-Eleanor Powell marriage too good to be true? THEY THREW AWAY A MILLION FOR LOVE _@ To put it mildly, Eleanor Ford was miffed at the annual story out of New York that she and Glenn were nearing the end of the matrimonial road. For some reason neither of them can fathom, ever since their marriage in 1943 some New York columnist starts a rumor once a year that they are on the outs—no doubt on the theory that no movie star mar- riage can last forever. The facts are that Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Ford spent six months of 1953 in Brazil. It was the first time they had been abroad together. Their son, Peter, now nearly nine years old, went along with them on the combination vacation-work trip while Glenn appeared before the cameras in The Americano. There were dozens of complications, but none of these were domestic—only such minor irritations as waiting for several weeks in that magnificent country while the Mexican-born leading lady learned English. And the financial problems of inter-country movie financing had to be straightened out. Now, with Glenn’s picture, The Big Heat, in which he co- stars with Gloria Grahame just being released, they are back in their Beverly Hills mansion. It has taken them five years to complete the redecorating of their home. The reason? Glenn and Mrs. Glenn don’t order anything unless they can pay for it spot cash. To pursue the truth still farther, let it be known that when these two wed, they decided on a policy that cost them at least a million dollars in potential wealth. Eleanor Powell. before she married, was one of Metro’s greatest stars. She could have carried on for years, earning at least a quarter of a million or more, annually. Instead, Eleanor hung up her dancing slippers when Glenn was mustered out of the Ma- rines in 1945, and is one of the few great stars who ever really turned her back on stardom. No matter what you hear, the truth is exactly as Glenn put it to Mopern Screen in November, 1949. He said: “ met her first in Pat O’Brien’s living room. I couldn’t resist her. Of course, it wasn’t my first glimpse of the glamorous Eleanor Powell. Back in New York, when I was stage man- ager at the Empire Theater I used my day off to see her in the musical hit, At Home Abroad. I admired her charm and talent, but from a balcony a fellow can’t do much more. I had to meet her to love her. I had to marry her to know her well.” Today Glenn says: “Nothing has changed. I wouldn’t dignify the current rumor with a denial. It’s too ridiculous!” running wild = (Continued from page 27) her life are §\ met with a wall of silence. It is typical that 9 Debra, driving her remarkable car, would not deign to acknowledge a greeting if she \ thought it came from a stranger. Miss }~ Paget looks at life down an extraordinar- J ily narrow road. The bypaths are the do- | ings of her career, filled with friends asso- } % ciated with that career. The road itself is J ls peopled only by her immediate family. ] 7 What they do and think and say, the way } i they live, is considered by Debbie to be } «1! their own business. And what Debbie } thinks and does is strictly the affair of that J x narrow road. I It is an attitude that many stars have } De tried to maintain, but few have been suc- | 4 cessful. Millions of people feel they have } ri the right to know the minutest personal | ix details of a celebrity’s life. It’s one of the } sin prices of fame and wealth, particularly in } Th Hollywood. Most stars attain a modicum } ity of privacy only after they have spent about } mo! ten years living figuratively in fish bowls } jou and then, once the public seems sated with } her information, the stars are left to them-| 7 selves and move into the spotlight only | oft when they are embroiled in divorce, dope } La or death. she The newer crop of today’s stars realizes } the the value of publicity and sometimes will- | mm ingly, sometimes grudgingly, answers im- pertinent questions. Debra has been as co- } operative as the next star, and even more aware than the average of the advantages ot publicity. She has posed politely for re- quested pictures and spoken volubly in]| | appointed interviews. Sweet and manner- || ly, she told seores of reporters about her |} ° breakfasts, her reading habits, her nail }} ‘ polish and her pets. If Debbie had been the}} ° average new star, this could have gone on}| # forever without a ripple. D It happened that Debbie was different. Reporters heard with surprise that this al- luring bit of pulchritude had never been|}} ‘' kissed. Indeed, she had never been dated. }} “ Much was made of this for a couple of}|| % years. Debbie explained patiently to each |} % succeeding interviewer that she would rather stay at home with people she knew |} “ and loved than go out with a boy whol] ! didn’t interest her as much as her family}} ! did She pointed out that she was Victo-}} / rian and believed in love at first sight— even in the well loved wheeze about Prince Charming. During this time, which was more than a year ago, Debra Paget was known as a} fairly shy young thing who had not yet grown wise in the way of interviewing.}| She never parried questions simply be- cause it wasn’t necessary. People couldn’t| believe that such an attractive girl could . be happy with no beaux, and they began} ." to probe for the reason for this state of affairs. = With little searching, they lit on Debra’s},” mother. Mrs. Griffin denied that she had/| kt laid down any rules against Debra’s dat- hed | ing. Debra and her family insist that they find nothing unusual in a twenty-year-old, movie actress who goes out only with Pere mother. Debra says reporters made a mountain| tn out of a molehill. She maintains that her} = early statements on the matter were true,| fet that she simply wasn’t interested, and laments the fact that her mother was thon. drawn into it. Mrs. Griffin did some la- et menting of her own. “It was pretty awful,} uy the way people pestered that girl. I’ve seen} St her tortured with questions. One night a} columnist kept her from her dinner one}; hour, while he tried to get her to admit on} the phone that she didn’t date because I}; wouldn’t let her. How could the child ad-}; mit such a thing, when it wasn’t true? I}. - se os

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“married young, and two of my children have already married young, so why in the world would I suddenly decide Debbie -shouldn’t date any boys?” M®:: GRIFFIN was on the receiving end of more criticism because she goes everywhere with Debra. “I’m with her be- cause she asks me to be, and that’s all there is to it,” said Mrs. Griffin. “Now, take Lisa—she’s only eighteen, but she’s not the type who needs me like Debbie does. Lisa has her first leading role over at Univer- sal-International, but I don’t go running around with her. I go with Debbie because she asks me to. That’s what a mother’s for.” People wonder why, if this is true, Debra feels the need for her mother’s re- assuring presence. For a rather quiet and retiring girl she has developed an amaz- ing ability to take care of herself, and a singular talent for side-stepping questions. The new talent may stem from the fact that with these flying barbs—the dominant mother, the dateless girl, ete—Debra has found need at last for a weapon to keep her private life out of print. The affair of the ring added to the height of the wall Debra has built around herself. Last year, before her twentieth birthday, she began to sport an immense sparkler on the third finger of her left hand. The dia- mond was reported to be five and a half | SAW IT HAPPEN When Marilyn Maxwell appear- ed at Great Lakes she was singing at a dance given for the servicemen. During the act she pulled my husband onto the hugged and started stage, him, to sing “Embrace- able You.” Just at that time my nine-year-old son sneaked into the dance and asked a man standing near the stage, “Whats my Pop doing up there with that blonde?” He still teases his father about that! Mrs. O. T. Carroll Naval Base, South Carolina ‘carats, and Hollywood, knowing that Deb- ‘ bie’s father is a house painter and that her own salary is not astronomical, began to / Speculate about the source of the ring. Said ‘Debra, “It’s a family heirloom,” but gos- i sips didn’t swallow that answer. When re- |;porters asked, “From which ancestor?” ‘Debbie put her newly-found ability to |\ehange the subject into practice. At the same time, Debra admitted she \had found her Prince Charming, and de- i\secended from the throne of movieland’s ‘unkissed queen. Two and two made four, '|'\figured Hollywood, and cast about for men wealthy enough to bestow such a bauble. They came up with the name of a produ- keer renowned for his active interest in 4|\girls. Debbie vehemently denied that this i'man was her knight on a white horse, al- s\though she appears to fit into his pattern— ‘Inyoung, gullible, unattached and ambitious. l|She refused to name her new heart inter- 4\'seen in public with him, the rumors con- tinued to fly. ny Her mother, who learned lip-reading I\during the days she worked in burlesque, i} \frequently found herself in the embarras- sing position of watching other people ‘dis- cuss the origin of the ring. Mrs. Griffin holds her temper under such circum- stances, but she is a candid woman. One day in the studio commissary, after ascer- taining the subject of conversation at the adjoining table, she could no longer re- strain herself. “If you really want to know where the ring came from,” she barked at the tongue-wagger, “it’s a rhinestone out of one of my old G-strings!” Mrs. Griffin feels deeply for Debra in this predicament, and while she occasion- ally allows herself such outbursts in de- fense of her daughter, she insists that Debbie hew to a more decorous line. o DEsRA continues to be sweet and man- nerly during interviews, and willingly tells the lighter facts of her life. She lives with her parents and two younger sisters, plus a sister and brother-in-law and their two children. The house has ten rooms, is on Hollywood Boulevard, and is main- tained without outside help. Debra’s bed- room is done in white satin with turquoise satin flounces (one whole wall is covered in this way), and there is lavish trimming in strawberry velvet. The bed is seven inches larger than king size, the chairs are white wrought iron, the mirror is tinted in peach and framed in “white baguette,” and é there is a white television set. She prefers light perfume, always wears it, and has conquered a nail-biting habit “because I’m not nervous any more.” She claims she has never been a good mixer in large groups of people but that her per- sonal appearance tours have helped her learn how to meet strangers. At home she is teased by her father when he sees a glamour photograph. “Who posed for it?” he wants to know. The family lives and lets live, and its members never interfere with each other. Says Mrs. Griffin: “The rest of the family are clowns, but Debbie is quiet. She’s the different one—the only one | who keeps her mouth shut.” Debra shampoos and styles her hair at home, lately prefers pencil-slim skirts, loves children, is moody when she’s work- ing, and dislikes cheap jewelry. “It’s got to be the real McCoy or nothing at all,” adds her mother. Debbie will tell you all of these things about herself. She only clams up when the subject is steered to her mother, her Prince Charming or her ring. She likes to kid herself. She says she wears earrings be- cause her face “is too plain and needs to be dressed up,” and she admits her temper is growing worse. “I can’t tell you why,” she smiles. “It’s just a million things.” Possibly it’s because Debra has lately been badgered to exhaustion by strangers inquiring about things she does not wish to discuss. She feels that her course has been a good one. “I’ve made a point of looking like a movie star and I think it has paid off. I get a lot of letters from people who’ve seen me on tour, and they always say, “You look just like I expected you to.’ As for my not dating, lots of people who write to me say they’re glad I’m not a sheep— that I don’t date just because other girls my age do.” About the ring, as well as the other points for discussion, Debra simply says, “People are not going to tell me how to run my private life.” There she has a point to be respected. Yet, when anything about. a star’s life is out of the ordinary, people are going to talk about it. Until the ring is no longer in evidence, until Debra begins openly dating men, and until she feels secure and comfortable without the presence of her mother—that is, until her personal life falls more into line with those of other girls her age—Debbie is going to have to put up with insolent questions and even saucier rumors. END (Debra. Paget can be seen in 20th Cen- tury-Fox’s Prince Valiant.) 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STRANGE STORY Keefe Brasselle can hardly believe it himself ™@ Because Keefe (Cantor Story) Brasselle practically grew up on the 20th Century lot, he’s always wanted to work in a picture at that particular studio. His mother, Marie Brasselle. has been hairdresser to Betty Grable - for the last ten years. Although Betty Grable herself championed his ambi- tion and Keefe has said hello to head man Darryl Zanuck almost as often as the gate man has, his ambition hadn't been realized. Finally came the day when he was signed to co-star with’ Mitzi Gaynor in Three Young Texans. Jubilantly, he called his mother to exclaim, “Mom—lI’ve made it at last— I’m going to work at 20th.” “I know,’ his mother responded, letting the blow fall gently, “but I have news for you. The picture is going to be released by 20th, but it will be filmed at RKO!” Keefe’s long wait to land in the charmed circle of Hollywood big stars is paying off like the jackpot he hit when he went to the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas at $15,000 a week. It’s an unheard-of figure for a boy who was almost unknown before playing the Eddie Cantor role. This booming success has made only one change in his personal life. He’s building a re- hearsal hall as an addition to his Hollywood home, doing most of the work himself. Keefe’s Las Vegas trip is one he can’t live without. At twenty- one, he broke into show business there as a master of ceremonies at $150 a week. “What a bomb I was,” he recalls. “T was so bad, so nowhere, they fired me at the end of the second week.” Now he’s going back to collect 100 times his first price, and when he’s through, as he says, “I’m going to rush home where I belong as fast as I can run. 74 This might be all just a dream!” crazy like a fox (Continued from page 43) thus, and with a clear excuse for needing a shave, he drove to the drugstore and got the blades. Now there are a few points to be made about this drug store foray. One is that Mature has never in his life been a con- scious exhibitionist. He simply does not, in the manner of most people, double-check his impulses. The toga-and-beaver junket seemed to him a likely caper and he did not reconsider it. For another thing, none of his friends was especially puzzled by his action, even though they themselves would not have undertaken it. The most analytical among them had long since ac- cepted Mature as unfathomable and spe- cial, and all recognized his gift for making the key gesture appear entirely logical. But one of them knew something the rest didn’t know. In the long morning hours before he bought razor blades, starting at dawn, Mature had attended to the following de- tails: (1) combing through a script with a flair for nuance, vision and Victor Mature that then and thereafter was never to de- sert him; (2) working out the finer points of a small side-enterprise that would net him a nice little kit of money; (3) taking to a veterinarian a stray mongrel that had limped onto the premises the previous evening; (4) sitting beside the hospital bed of a friend for a couple of hours—a friend whose bill Mature would square later. Granted that the last two points of this agenda may sound a bit mawkish, they happen to be true. That agenda comes about as close as conscientious scrutiny can to explain what’s with Vic Mature. Actually, there is no pat, complete and entirely intelligible explanation. Mature has many intimates in and out of the mo- tion picture industry. They include stars, politicians, millionaires, publicists, news- men, a dialogue director, a wardrobe man, Coast Guardsmen with whom he served in World War II, dogfaces with whom he didn’t serve, grocery clerks, a man (Brian Donlevy) who in the name of art (Kiss Of Death) tried to prevent him from getting shot six times through the belly, and a man (Richard Widmark) who shot him six times through the belly, just the same. None of these professes to understand their friend, through and through. They simply go ahead and like him. Victor Mature is an astute, spectacularly successful careerist. Some people see him as a staid, hawk-browed, chilly-faced sobersides. Others see him as a citizen who lives in a tent, shops for blades in crepe whiskers, and yields gracefully to being photographed watering his lawn in Prince Albert coat and shorts. Here, at best, is safe middle ground: Victor Mature is an improbable fellow. [2 Is fifteen years since laffaire toga. Mature’s pup tent has grown to a handsome Mandeville Canyon estate, L- shaped around a patio and swimming pool. Late last summer around the pool were gathered a dozen or so friends in bon voy- age formation—many of them the same friends who were clustered about the tent that day. A studio limousine drove Mature and his wife, Dorothy, to Pasadena, whence the Super Chief transported them to New York, whence the Queen Mary will see that they get to England, whence Hol- land, whence a loan-out picture (Mature is a 20th Century-Fox star) for Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer with Clark Gable and Lana Turner. Mature’s career has grown, too. Behind him is its early lightweight phase, inaug- urated with a strange piece of lint titled 1,000,000 B. C. and reaching its gaudy cli- max with the New York- tion, “Beautiful Hunk of Man.” Behin« is the war and his impeccable record, be- hind him the inexorable post-war growth of his stature as an artist and a no less steady growth of negotiable assets, such as dollar bills, and, immediately behind him, two films representing the full flowering of his professional life: The Robe and Demetrius And The Gladiators. Well, you can see that the old Mature— or the young Mature, if you like—is a thing of the past as well as a pleasant memory of another era when headstrong youth did what it pleased, and who could care less? Presently, he made his appearance at that send-off party. He stood for a mo- ment in the fading light just outside the terrace door of his bedroom. He was older, greyer, possibly with a faint spiritual qual- ity in the classic features that once had mirrored nothing but what sort of fun there was to be had around the corner. Then he broke the spell. The new Mature, | nearing forty and possibly poised on the | threshold of Academy Award honors, | dashed across the patio and leaped into the pool, clad in polka dot pajamas and a battered felt hat. This occasioned no more surprise on the part of his friends now ‘than the toga busi- ness had fifteen years ago. This day was | not abandoned wholly to fun and games| & either. Before teeing off at his cherished | ii Riviera Country Club, and well before | dunking himself so casually, Mature had helped straighten out the inventories of | two of his thriving businesses. He had stopped by the home of Louella O. Parsons for a farewell interview, worked on a third | commercial enterprise, and he had done | retakes for Demetrius and some final; «& dubbing for a film he had just completed | for another studio. To say that Mature is a self-centered opportunist and nothing else is to be blatantly mistaken. To say he is a hand- | some clown with naught behind his strik- | ing facade is to be idiotic. To say he is | a bewildering amalgam of the two, com-| ¢ bining the more admirable qualities of | 5 each, is to come pretty close. But to give up and start thinking about something simpler puts you at the head of the class. | ha Victor John Mature was born in Louis- | ville, Kentucky, rather more than thirty | years ago, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Marcel-} lius Mature, émigrés from Austria. The} elder Mature, who died in 1941, began life | in America as an itinerant scissors grinder. | By the time his son, somewhat against| | parental wishes, had flown the nest and| headed for Hollywood, the father had| parlayed this modest enterprise into a for-| tune of possibly half a million dollars,| mainly from the proceeds of commercial} }:. air conditioning. Vic’s mother, a handsome} ¢f| woman with a striking resemblance to} » Mature, still lives in Louisville whence} she regards her offspring’s achievements with an attitude somewhere between re-| ; spectful tolerance and bemused disbelief. On 2 fairly recent trip to Hollywood—her | i only one—she left Mature with a vague} h:» feeling that, “I’m not sure mother knows| ; exactly what I do out here.” Mature left home in 1937 without the formality of advising the family where he} ; was going or even that he was going. He had no wish to worry them—merely} ,; wanted to expedite his departure—and patched up this omission shortly with a} brief wire to his father from Los Angeles, ,,. reading roughly: “Stuck here in a strange city with only a dime.” Mr. Mature’s reply} ,;: was even briefer: “Cheer up. I only had} a nickel.” ee ee ee an a = oS ters EEBseeseRrkR Fea. AS A prelude to a three-part career, Mature enrolled in the Pasadena Play-} i house, a truly distinguished establishment) » ~s:!

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but one richer in cultural opportunities than in payroll. Accordingly, Mature, while playing stock and learning the funda- mentals of his craft, washed dishes, simon- ized cars and worked as a janitor to keep body and soul in tandem. His mentor in those days was the highly able Gilmor Brown, who from the beginning gave his student the same “A” for talent that critics were not to concede him for years. Ultimately, after sixty-odd plays and the unexpected revelation of a gift for reading Shakespeare, a gift he has never lost, Ma- ture got the lead in Autumn Crocus (a nice part for a romantic actor) and then in an offering called To Quito And Back. It was in this he came to the attention of film producer Hal Roach. Mature’s first chore for Roach, and his first film chore of any kind, was the role of a gangster in The Housekeeper’s Daugh- ter in a company graced by Joan Bennett. It went off all right except that it almost didn’t come off at all. Arriving at the lot his first day, Mature was taken to the second floor of the front office into the presence of a Roach executive who took one fast look at him, shook his head dis- mally, and said: “Won’t do. You don’t look like an actor.” By the rule book, Mature should have fainted from pure chagrin or maybe shot himself. Instead, he stared back at the producer, set his two palms as a director does to frame a picture, replied finally, “You know something? I’ll be damned if you look like a producer either!” and lunged out. The standoff was squared, but never fully resolved until years later when the two worked together again: the executive, Frank Ross, as producer of The Robe, Mature as one of its stars—perhaps its most applauded star. Mature’s next effort for Roach has a more significant place in his ‘biography than it does in motion picture annals. It was the cave-man epic 1,000,000 B. C., op- posite Carole Landis. To this day, Mature discusses it as frequently as he does any picture he’s ever made. His jaw is apt to sag at the memory but with what particu- lar emotion nobody knows. Certainly he has never been known. to deride it. The least that can be said is that it made money and, so far as Mature was con- cerned, it started things. It also got him back to Louisville for its premiere, his first visit since he’d flown the coop. In a hotel room there the night before the showing, there appeared a tell- tale crack in his practiced insouciance. Mature’s habitual surface approach’ to matters that might be of importance to him is the familiar couldn’t-care-less doctrine, be-glad-when-it’s-over. Maybe, like many of its practitioners, he is only preparing an escape-hatch for disappointment. May- be not. But when he was given the speech publicists had prepared for his personal appearance the evening of the show, he was so outraged by its content that he ‘kicked the door of his room. That might have been all right if he’d been wearing shoes. He wasn’t. The door splintered a trifle but so did Mature’s big toe. M ATURE’'S second professional appear- "~ ance in his home town, with the 1950 picture, Stella, he and Ann Sheridan had made for Fox, was not without incident, either, although his body suffered no con- tusions. On his way to a radio appearance, Mature and party passed the theatre at which Stella was to open that night. The marquee naturally featured pictures of Victor Mature, and this somehow man- aged to un-hinge the taxi driver. “All that fuss!” he bellowed suddenly without turn- ing his head. “All that strictly-from-noth- ing! Listen, I know that guy. Knew him q when he was a kid. A nice guy but no m Ever since their marriage two years ago, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra have fought, feuded and fussed. In fact they have battled so frequently that any news of a tiff between them is about as startling as yester- day’s weather report. What is their trouble and why do they fight? The answer, accord- ing to Hollywood intimates, is just this: they are very much in love. That isn’t as strange a reason as it sounds. Because they are in love, each has the power to hurt the other and each employs this power with reckless abandon. First step of the current fracas was their refusal to see each other for an entire week in New York last fall, although they were. living at sepa- rate hotels only twelve blocks apart. A tem- porary reconciliation was effected at Frank’s mother’s home in New Jersey, but a week later Sinatra refused to escort Ava to the Hollywood premiére of Mogambo, and she in turn refused to attend his opening at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Frank’s mother tried to explain their be- havior after the ill-fated reunion at her home. When Ava was still in London, Frank had taken his mother to Atlantic City for _ ten days. While they were gone, Ava planed in from Europe. Frank didn’t know which flight Ava would be on. If he had, he would have met her. Ava misunderstood and checked in at a hotel. The newspapers gave a big play to rumors of a split and Frank, who hadn’t intended to insult Ava, was con- fused and annoyed. “When the ten days in Atlantic City were over, says Mrs. Sinatra, “I started out for home. I was almost home when I thought, ‘No, ’'m going to go over to New York to talk to Ava and see just what’s wrong, what happened.’ J called her up at her hotel and she said to please come right over. She kissed me and after a few minutes she be- gan to cry. She had been tired, she said, when the plane came in, and when she didn’t see Frank, she felt bad. Then she found out he was in Atlantic City with me and she said, ‘Mama, I don’t know how to explain this, but I know how little you get to see him. I thought for once you're to- gether, just the two of you, and I didn’t want to spoil it. I thought I might spoil it. Then I said to Ava, “What are you doing tomorrow night for supper? Because I want you to come over to the house and eat and I want Frank to come too, and for the both of you to talk this over like two grown-up people. Then Ava laughed like a girl and said, ‘T'll come, Mama, of course I’ll come.’ So that was easy. “Well, the next step was to get Frank to come,” continued Mrs. Sinatra. “I know he can be a little stubborn sometimes and I decided to do this my way. I called him up_ and told him I was going to make a nice WHY DO FRANK AND AVA FIGHT? Italian meal the next night, Monday, and would he come over between shows. He was singing at (Bill Miller’s) Riviera right then. “So he says to me, ‘Who’s gonna be there?’ And I says ‘Never mind; you just come. Ava got there first, at about six- thirty. Frank got there at seven. He walked in and I think he almost expected to see Ava there. He looked happy. They both did. But they were just standing there, not say- ing anything. “This is where mothers come in. ‘Hey,’ I said to both of them. ‘Come into the kitchen and see what I’m making for you tonight.’ They both followed me in and we walked to the stove and I took the big spoon I use for stirring the gravy and I made them both taste it. Then they both began to laugh and talk and before you knew it they were hug- ging each other and then they grabbed me and the three of us stood there just hug- ging and laughing and I think we all felt like crying a little bit, too.” Mrs. Sinatra’s happy ending lasted just a week. But keeping these two highly emo- tional people together is no easy assign- ment, even for a mother. Ava has never been a _ balanced, well-adjusted young woman, and for years Frankie has been self- centered and temperamental. Mrs. Sinatra is all for Ava. “Ava is one of the most won- derful people I’ve ever met. She’s beautiful, more beautiful than she looks in the movies or on magazine covers. And she’s natural.” Mrs. Sinatra wrinkles her brow. “But I’ve noticed sometimes when there are more people than just me and Mr. Sinatra and Frank, Ava gets to acting a little shy. She clams up just a little, like a little girl at a party with a lot of big people. I don’t know why. But you still love her, and you still feel her being here in the same room with you, being warm. I tell you—Id like to tell this to the people who criticize Frank and Ava—I’d like to tell those hypocrites who send me letters without signing their names that say ‘Aren’t you ashamed, Mrs. Sinatra, aren’t you ashamed that your boy divorced his wife and left three children just so he could marry that actress?’. I’d like to tell them that Frank loves his three children as much as he loves anything else in the world, that he never fell in love with Ava until after his separation, that I, his mother, am proud that he married a wonderful girl like his Ava.” Ava says that what she really wants is a baby. Friends think she might consider adopting one, if Frank agrees. Other than their tempestuous, unpredictable, nerve- shattering kind of love, what really solid basis do Ava and Frank have to hold their marriage together? Edward De Blasio 75

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Here’s how Joan Caulfield and Frank Ross got around to that big question @ I was living at Benay Ventua’s house, when one day she said, “I want you to meet Frank.” I turned to face Frank Ross, the writer and the producer of The Robe. He was in the middle of his divorce from Jean Arthur at the time. I, too, was rather unhappy. He said, “Will you have dinner with us?’ I said, “Yes,” and Benay suddenly disappeared with a blithe “See you later!” Frank gallantly took me to Roman- off’s. Benay came along later, and said, “Tl give you the keys to the house, and you come home whenever you want.” And she disappeared again. Frank was really a perfect stranger to me. I had met him two years before, on a golf course, at a time when I was concentrating on golf. (When one is unhappy, one concentrates on something like that.) Frank took me to hear some music, and home by one 4.m. Benay was still up, waiting for my news. “Did he ask you for your phone number?” she asked eagerly. I admitted, unhappily. HOW DID HE PROPOSE? “No.” I believe I had fallen in love with Frank that night. A week later, Benay called me excit- edly at the golf club to say Frank had inquired about me, and that she had in- vited him to her house for a dinner party. Nothing fussy, of course. Just a party for twenty-four people. After that dinner, Frank took me out, and I stopped seeing other men. We started to go out two or three times a week, and then every night. Then one day. when I called him at the studio set, his secretary told me that the last time I had phoned, he had scolded her for not calling him to the phone at once. For the first time, I was sure he liked me! © One night we were at a party at the Alan Ladds! It was about eight months after our first date. We were sitting on the patio. The moon was gleaming bright, and I said, “You know, you're the kind of man I’d like to marry!” And, he, being a perfect gentleman, did not deny it. Benay arranged the wedding at her house, practically at once. ee Barrymore, you ask me. So he’s in lights — now. Me, I’ll be home wit’ me slippers on when the yokels are givin’ him the double- O. Who cares for a movie star? Who cares for Mature?” By and by the cab arrived at its destination and Mature made some- thing of a ceremony of paying the fare himself. The driver looked squarely at him for the first time and appeared to lose consciousness for a moment. When he re- gained itéhis apologies were abject. “Listen,” said Mature, “you stay here till we get out, and keep the flag up. You and me, we talk the same language. And get the egg off your face, for Pete’s sake. You're my driver the rest of the time I’m here, and I don’t want you looking unhappy about it.” Mature was as good as his word. For the whole three days of his stay, he kept the one cab with him, presumably putting the driver up in the middle tax brackets. By the time he left, they were fast friends. : It figured. This rapprochement would surprise no one who knows Mature. Al- though certain persons and _ situations, usually those. bearing the trappings of phoniness, can rouse his hostility with the quick, hard flare of a scratched match, he is extremely sensitive to unfounded hos- tility against himself. Yet he understands it—more accurately, he divines it—and instead of meeting it with a challenging truculence of his own, seeks to break it down. This is not because of a quailing of the spirit, but because of a need to over- come glib misconceptions of what sort of individual he is. It is normal for some people to meet a film star on aggressive terms, to display rudeness solely to con- vince themselves or any onlookers that they are not impressed. ; Fortunately, he’s a deadly man in this particular clutch. A friend has said, “He can charm the ears off a brass monkey” — and he can. An even closer associate once remarked: “He can walk into a crowded room and feel, right away, if there is a resentment and where it’s coming from. He then proceeds right to the source and won't be happy until he has broken it down. And he does break it down, I don’t think there’s another man in the world who’s had said about him so often, in that tone, you know: ‘Hell, he’s a swell guy! I thought—’ And so forth.” The Louisville cab-driver was a mild case in point. Mature and his companions had to make a side-trip to Cincinnati that time, where Mature produced two corollary instances of his persuasive power. One was at a swank Cincinnati rooftop dining room which positively is never open for lunch. Mature stepped in simply to look the place over. Three hours later the entranced maitre d’ was still serving him special Gallic dishes and carrying on a fervent conversation, interesting in the light of the fact that Mature knows no French. Next day, Mature boarded the Cincinnati air= - port limousine to fly back to Louisville. But the afternoon was lovely, he had not been in the East, the good, green East, in years, and he thought there must be bet- ter ways to travel than by flying. He leaned forward and began talking to the driver—and twenty minutes later sat back, en route to Louisville on Cincinnati air- port service wheels. Potxowine the quasi-memorable 1,000,- 000 B. C., Mature made for Roach an item called Captain Caution and then got an electrifying break. Playwright Moss | Hart had written for Gertrude Lawrence a gaudy inspection of psychiatric difficulties titled Lady In The Dark and needed a man who could portray a handsome film actor built like a professional strong man. That turned out to be Mature. New York, a difficult town to stagger, was staggered. Mature became society’s

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> a oe SS! == Ba Ee SO No. 1 boy, café and otherwise. He charmed the 400 by not being conspicuously charmed by these in return, and for a brief period he solved a severe apartment short- age by sleeping nights stretched out on the banquettes of the Stork Club’s Cub Room, most hoity and inner of all Manhattan night club inner sanctums. A picture maga- zine of vast circulation took note of all this and featured Mature both on _ its cover and inside the book. The essay has long since been forgotten but one tiny fragment has survived. An unnamed debu- tante was quoted as saying rapturously: “What a beautiful hunk of man!” Mature’s feeling about it today is that it was a very lucky publicity stroke—at the time. It was the strongest incidental fac- tor ever to militate in favor of his career. If it could be forgotten now, he would not be angry. On his return from New York, he joined 20th Century-Fox and began the second phase of his climb. Pictures he did there before the war were light but pleasant. One of them, My Gal Sal, made an amazing bundle of money. He served in the Coast Guard—first the temporary reserve and then the regular— for thirty months during the war, over- coming with ease the short-lived prejudice of enlisted personnel against beautiful hunks of men, and came out of it with much honor, a commendation from the commandant and the will to start making civilian money again. Besides more housing difficulties, which he solved first by living in his dressing room, and then by buying a cottage in a non-fashionable section of West Los An- geles, everything rolled smoothly. He teed off with the part of gambler Doc Holliday in the John Ford production My Darling Clementine, went from that to the so-so Moss Rose, and from that to his first sound critical success, the luckless crim- inal in Kiss Of Death. The graph sloped off a bit then, but never dangerously, and he felt secure enough on February 28, 1948 to marry Dorothy Berry, a non-professional, in Yuma, Arizona. Mrs. Mature, born Dorothy Stanford in Pasa- dena, is as lovely a stabilizer as a mercu- rial temperament could ask for. Despite a small parade of run-of-the- mill pictures, the Mature luck—“Every- thing breaks right for me; I just relax”— held. Cecil B. DeMille, requiring a Sam- son for Delilah, could think of no one more desirable than Victor Mature, and Victor Mature he got. The merits or demerits of Samson And Delilah as art were beside the point— _ Mature himself, arguing his case for a strong follow-up picture, admitted that his part in it constituted a “freak” success. Its tremendous financial returns were not, nor was the power of Mature’s com- portment and performance. He did make lesser films after its release, but almost unquestionably he had’ set the stage for The Robe and Demetrius. That, as it turned out, was what counted. Toa, Victor Mature lives a pleasant, slightly chaotic life in his two-year- old Mandeville home with his wife and son, Mike, his friends, his work and his golf. Golf is the most recent of a long series of fickle devotions, but it evidently has the distinction of being with him to stay. Within a year of taking it up, he broke eighty, and he’d only been at it ten months when he shot his second hole-in- one. He is a natural athlete and this outlet serves his abundant energies well. It has also proved to be of therapeutic value. In the middle of one professional crisis, he went out and shot fifty-four holes by him- self without thinking anything or saying _anything. When it was over, he felt thor- oughly cleansed and knew exactly what he had to do. Some idiosyncrasies, as well as many of the old sensitive points, stay with him. He still eats whatever, however and when- ever he wants. He does not balk at en- chiladas and root beer for breakfast. Nor can he forsake an odd, touching com- passion for the plain, the timid or the lonely. Entering one of the large parties he so rarely feels moved to attend, Mature maintains toward its more influential or beautiful ornaments an air of pleasant re- serve. But a neglected, frumpish or anony- mous guest is more than he can bear. He spends hours exerting his charm and flattering attentiveness on a_ wallflower who otherwise would have been stranded. And from whom he has not a thing in the world to gain. In Hollywood, this is mav- erick behavior. In Mature, it is the norm. \ enous any generality about Mature 4 is ill-advised, it is safe to say that he takes his career seriously, himself not at all. He is a master of the self-derogatory. Confronted with a complaint from DeMille during the shooting of Samson, he replied gently: “Yes, but where else can you find anything so big that moves on two feet?” He was likewise embarrassed by the early publicity for the same part, well aware that Samson threw chariots around and pulled down temples. Mature, actually a very powerful man, was moved to confide to a writer: “You know, I’d smoke more if I had the strength to tear the cellophane off more than one pack of cigarettes a day.” Barred from admission to a posh local golf club on the grounds that he was an actor, Mature denied the allegation bitterly, averring he was no such thing and that he had his press notices to prove it. Convention moves him little. Dining one night at the old Trocadero, he overheard a girl with his party order lasagne, an Italian dish. She was told it wasn’t on the menu. Without mentioning his intent, he went across the street to LaRue, a more or less competitive establishment, filled the order, and brought it back to the Troc. The waiters were indignant but couldn’t have said at just what. Since the problem had never arisen before, there was no precedent for handling it. On another oc- casion, during a Mature craze for canasta, he, Dorothy and another couple stopped for lunch at an elegant but deserted hotel. It was asprawl like a dead peacock because it was off season. Wishes for canasta be- gan to gnaw at Mature and soon the four had chartered the hotel’s super-bungalow, where they stayed for a week, playing night and day in what must have been the longest sustained session in canasta’s history. But if convention does not touch him, human grief and suffering do. When the fiancée of a close but monetarily harassed friend was injured in an automobile acci- dent, Mature footed all expenses, sent acres of flowers and drove miles across town to sit with her at the hospital. When a waitress in the Fox commissary became critically ill at a time she happened also to be critically broke, he very quietly picked up that tab, too. This from a man whose shrewd business sense is indis- putable. When a beloved studio publicist died, with interment many long and in- convenient miles from the place he had lived and been loved, only one star both- ered to come to his funeral: Mature. And if Mature should see the fore- going paragraph, there is one thing to be noted; it will gag him. So we end as we began—in a state of considerable confusion, having come to only one conclusion—trying to describe Victor Mature is like trying to parse an eggbeater. END - Competition’s Wonderful! It’s one reason we all have so many of the good things that make life worth living! Johnny couldn’t tell you whether Mary’s friendlier smile, or her name on the sign, made him choose her lemonade. But he’s glad. he did! Because let’s face it —we all like to have somebody try extra hard towin our good will. In fact, when so many brand manufacturers compete for your favor, as they do every day in this land of ours—it makes you feel pretty wonderful, doesn’t it? Their keen competition is the chief reason we can all choose to- day from the biggest line-up of top-quality brands of merchan- dise ever offered to a purchaser anywhere in the world! It explains why makers of brand-name prod- ucts never stop trying to improve their brands to increase our satis- faction. And why they keep us up- to-date about them in magazines like this. Yes, today it is truer than ever before—when you name your brand, you better your brand of living! BRAND NAMES FOUNDATION INCORPORATED A Non-Profit Educational Foundation 37 West 57 Street, N. Y.19, N.Y. 77

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aoe Dy i UP rt A Ne SR I Seam “call me pinhead’’ (Continued from page 31) all agree, wou'd be to convince him he is a success. “Not to have anything further to attain or ac- complish would demoralize him,” they say. “He’d fall apart.” Gordon is still very much in a hurry. Gordon had no serious brief against Warner Brothers when he got out of his contract with them last summer. No seri- ous brief, that is, except that working only for them restricted him almost en- tirely to movies at a time when the whole field of entertainment was widening excit- ingly. He’ll still make pictures. He is one of the leading choices to star in the movie version of Oklahoma! (the other two can- didates are Howard Keel and Guy Mitch- ell). He may also appear on Broadway opposite Jeanmaire (of the Ballet de Paris and Goldwyn’s Hans Christian Andersen) in a big musical. He will certainly he shaping up his radio show, The Railroad Hour, for its tv debut, and if he accepts all the offers he is getting for hotel and night club appearances, that schedule will be filled solid for the next five years. (G0n70N came to Hollywood as a singer from radio, with a touch or two of theatre experience. If you catch him today in his club routine you will find that he is also a poised actor, a clever impersonator and a surprisingly good dancer. He acquired these additional abilities because each was a challenge that he met head on. His first serious movie dancing .was performed in 3 Sailors And A Girl with Gene Nelson. When the scene was originally planned only Gene was to dance. “You sit it out,” the director told Gor- don, “because it is a fast and difficult time step.” “TI can do it,’ Gordon protested. Gene, who is a close friend of Gordon’s, advised against it. “You’re not a hoofer,” he said. “You might look bad. Why take a chance?” Gordon waved this sort of reasoning aside. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Tl take the chance. I’ll dance.” And he did. From that one might conclude that Gor- don is not only a hard driving guy, but stubbornly so, and probably a bit ego- centric. It’s true. The business of being an artist is such a personal one, so much depends on what you are, what you look like and sound like, as well as what you can do, that it is almost impossible not to react to any given situation from a purely subjective point of view. If Gene Nelson hadn’t known this, he would have been offended. Many people who come into con- tact with Gordon don’t know it and are offended. That’s why unflattering stories about Gordon get printed. Unfortunately, when he proves, as he generally does, that he is utterly without malice, nobody bothers to correct the original bad report. A well-known designer once walked on- to a Warner Brothers studio set carrying a costume for Gordon which she proudly held up before him. He took one look at it and said, “It stinks.” She was shocked into tears and ran off to the producer to resign from the picture. Gordon followed her, slapping at his face in disgust with himself. “The collar is too high on it,” he tried to tell her when he got to the producer’s office. “I haven’t the neck for it. ’'d look like a pinhead. Otherwise the costume is fine.” “But you said it stinks!” she cried. “On me it would, I meant,” he said. “I could see that right away and that’s all I could think of. I’m sorry.” The producer, long accustomed to the way actors figure, ‘sighed. “He likes it,” he told the designer. “But you see just the costume while he sees himself in it. It’s a big difference.” She wiped her eyes dry. “Just call me pinhead,” Gordon told her. “But don’t make me look like one, honey.” And then she smiled. Paul Coates, a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily Mirror, once happened to be at Fort Ord when Gordon, Bing Crosby, and Bob Hope were on the program to entertain the troops. Just as the show started he heard Gordon appeal to Bing and Bob. “Hey, fellows,’ asked Gordon, his manner impatient, “Let me go on first, will you?” They looked at each other and shrugged. “Go ahead,” said Bing. “Hop to it,” said Bob. The next morning Paul Coates blasted Gordon in his column. How could a young- er player be so arrogant as to shove in ahead of two men like Hope and Crosby? he asked. He added that he would hate to be the wife of a fellow like Gordon. “What a life she must live!” he said. When the column came out both Gordon and his wife, Sheila, were thunderstruck. Macdonald Carey was once named West Coast chairman of National Sunday School Week. Now this Mr. Carey is not what you'd call the Sunday School type. He's an ex-Marine, but he's the father of three children. It seems that Mr. Carey, who would rather front for something as normal as a church school, instead of the usual crack- pot organizations, had a funny experience when he was in the Marines. He and some buddies heard about an island that still had head hunters on it. So they rented a launch from some Seabees and went to have a look. After a half- day climb up into the mountains, they found the head hunters and they asked the chief whether he'd like to trade a few good skulls for some of their knives and gadgets. The chief, who had been cordial up to then, was horrified. "Why," he said, “that's impossible. This is Sunday and we're all good Pres- byterians!" Carl Schroeder Gordon wrote a letter to Crosby and Hope immediately, telling them why he had made his request to go on ahead of them. They both told him to forget about it. “If I took to heart all that’s been written about me,” wrote Bing, “Id be a total wreck.” psx coaTEs heads a new Tv panel show called Our Famous Husbands, and among the members of his panel is Mrs. Sheila MacRae. She has made sure that Paul, too, knows what happened that day at Fort Ord. Gordon’s grandmother was desperately ill in the East. His sister had promised to telephone him at eleven o’clock that evening about the results of an operation which would show whether or not her condition was incurable. Only by going on the show first could Gordon get back to his hotel in time to get the call. When he did get back, it was to learn the worst. The death of his grand- mother was the first tragedy in Gordon’s stances to Crosby and Hope that night, as anyone else would have done, but to do so” as they were about to go on stage seemed to him like a poor time to burden them with his personal affairs. i Last fall Gordon went to El Rancho hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to play a two weeks’ engagement. Five minutes after he got there, he learned that an act called The Redcaps was on the same show; seven singers whose repertoire not only included some of the very songs he planned to use, but who also did the same type of imper- sonations he presented. This sort of mis- take in booking will send any performer into hysterics. Gordon yelled his head off. “All right, we’ll cancel their act,” the manager told him. Gordon quieted down and shook his head. “Wait,” he said. “Maybe there is some way to work it out.” And he went for a walk through the hotel’s public and gambling rooms. Word of his protest had reached The Redeaps. They had been in situations of this kind before with the inevitable result. They let it be known that Gordon MacRae was a heel and started packing—standard operating procedure for actors when they clash with each other. But when opening night came they were still in El Rancho hotel and working, not in the main room but in the cocktail lounge and later in the gambling rooms. Gordon had come up with this idea, It was so successful that within three days every other big hotel in Las Vegas had copied it. Gordon didn’t do badly, either. He broke the hotel attendance record for his two weeks’ stay. On top of that, The Redcaps withdrew their unkind remarks about him. They had spoken too soon. Among the people who disliked Gordon at first sight is his wife. Sheila was a member of the Millpond Playhouse in Roslyn, Long Island. When she first saw him, she was taking down the names of a line of forty aspirants to a single opening on the cast. He yelled at her from half way back in the line. He wanted to know if she would take his name right away, so he wouldn’t have to wait. He said he had borrowed his mother’s car and had to get it back soon. She gave him an icy stare. The next moment he had somehow barged up to the desk and was talking to her. “A. (for Albert) Gordon MacRae is my name,’ he was saying. “From Scars- dale, New York. I'll be back for the try- outs.” She had to put it down. But when the readings were held for the part that was to be filled, her resentment was still very much with her. The play was Christopher Morley’s The Trojan Horse. Only two peo- ple voted against Gordon’s getting the role. One was Sheila. The other was her room- mate whom she had talked into also black- balling him. In fact, the roommate had ‘heard nothing but a steady stream of anti- MacRae chatter. “He was pushy, he was fresh, he was impudent,” Sheila recalls. “For six weeks I couldn’t stand him. I kept on pointing out how obnoxious he was. He was all over the place, getting his nose into every-- thing—the scene painting, the seating ar- rangement, even the cooking in the house where we ate. One morning he sent his eggs back to the kitchen because he didn’t like the way they were done. The next morning you’d have thought he would make up for this by not causing another commotion. Instead, he went back to the kitchen to tell the cook how to fry his eggs. From that time on, he used to spend a lot of time back there, leaning over the cook’s shoulder and giving her advice. And she loved it! She seemed to sense that he ~ meant no offense. After a while, I got the |

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= a oii ad i “ - . feeling about him. He was just so same chock full of confidence about himself that any sort of shyness would be sheer pre- tense.” (5 0RPoN will be thirty-three in March, gets $15,000 a week for club work, $5,000 for guest appearances on TV or radio, and will command upwards of $150,000 for a picture. He was twenty years old and earn- ing just $50 a week when he married Sheila. Yet she is certain he was as sure of himself then as he is today. “His band was in Cleveland and I was in New York when he proposed and I said yes,” she reports. “He had me take a train there right away. We had no house, no furniture, no funds besides his salary, no plans about how or where we would live. That was what I had gone to Cleveland to talk about. But we didn’t get to that conversation until after he marched me down to the city hall, got a license, and had the mar- riage ceremony performed.” Gordon was under contract to Columbia Broadcasting System and had a year to go on his contract when war broke out and he joined the Air Force. He was in Austin, Texas, when his discharge came through and he immediately wrote CBS in New York that he wanted to finish out his year. They replied that they were so surfeited with singers that they had no place for him. They would simply pay him off for the year his contract had to run. By this time, their first child was born and Sheila was worried. There was an opportunity to work on some small stations in Texas and she thought they ought to look into it. Gordon shook his head. “We’re going to New York,” he announced. They went. CBS officials repeated what they had told him by letter. Gordon coun- tered by suggesting that they might be able to use a boy-girl program if they couldn’t use single male singers. They agreed to listen. By the next day, Gordon had roughly sketched out some patter he could exchange with a girl between songs. The girl was Sheila, the audition was piped into the offices of William Paley, president of CBS. When it was over, Mr. Paley was on the telephone. He couldn’t remember the name of the singer, he told his program heads, “but whoever he is, and the girl with him, put them on a regu- lar weekly spot.” This meant that Gordon’s voice was once more to be heard regularly, which was far more important to him than just sit- ting around and collecting his check regu- larly. Four months after he and Sheila went on the air Gordon had two ‘more radio shows of his own, Jello and Gulf- spray. He had been signed to appear in a Broadway musical, 3 To Make Ready, and had been selected on We The People as the male voice heard most in radio. “That’s what I like,” he told Sheila at the time. “Action!” He was to get more. A year after he went back on the air he was signed by Warner Brothers and shipped out to Hollywood. A writer once asked Sheila if Gordon ever relaxes. She reported that he does, usually on a Sunday afternoon. She finds him sitting out in the yard under a tree, listening to a record player. The music is always operatic. And in his eyes, she can see that he isn’t listening just for amusement. He is making plans. She doesn’t waste time wondering whether some day she will see Gordon stride out upon the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and burst into an aria from La Boheme or Don Giovanni. She knows they won’t be able to stop him hen he makes up his mind he is ready ae END Lady Luck has jilted her favorite. Now Bing Crosby has something to groan about When Bing Crosby was a young man, thirty or so years ago, he was so irresponsible that to most people he seemed to be unlikely ) husband material. But once he was married to Wilma Wyatt, a beautiful thrush from Memphis who sang under the name of Dixie Lee, Bing settled down and became a model family man. For twenty years Der Bingle has led a charmed life, setting the most phenomenal records in show business. His recordings have sold more than eighty million copies and his forty-seven movies have grossed more than a billion dollars. Through all this the Crosby name has never once been tarnished by scandal or tainted by rumor. Bing’s family has always been regarded as one of the happiest and most wholesome in Hollywood. And until Dixie passed away last year, the household had managed to stay clear of tragedy. Having counted his blessings, Bing has al- ways referred to himself as “the luckiest guy on earth.” In fact, when he wrote his auto- biography, he insisted upon the title, Call Me Lucky. As happens to all men, Bing Crosby’s luck ran out a few Sundays ago when at five- thirty-five in the morning, his $12,250 German sports car, a Mercedes-Benz, collided with a late model sedan in a Los Angeles street inter- section. Alone in his flashy, yellow convertible at the time, Bing cracked a vertebra in his back and wrenched his knee so badly that he couldn’t report for work on the set of White Christmas for several days. There were three occupants in the other car, and two of these were seriously hurt. One, a city fireman, suffered a major head Ze 250, sports bite English plates. SMASHING Mercedes cost $3000 to fix, more in suits. concussion and for a while it was touch and go as to whether he would live. Fortunately, he has. Bing told a State Highway Patrolman, “I slowed down and came to an idle stop when I reached the intersection. I looked both ways, saw no cars and started across. There was a crash, and I lost control. That’s all I know.” After Bing made that statement, he left the accident scene in a hurry. His Mercedes- Benz, which he bought in Stuttgart last sum- mer, was so badly smashed that it had to be towed away. Garagemen who later submitted a $3,000 repairs-estimate, say, “He’s a lucky guy to be alive. If he’d been driving some ordinary car, it would’ve buckled like an accordion, and the steering wheel would’ve gone through his chest. Either that, or he’d have been thrown through the windshield.” In the weeks to come, Bing, who has always been an extremely careful driver, will un- doubtedly become the target of several law- suits. The Groaner has something to groan about, for a change. Typically, Der Bingle’s smashup, no one asked if the crooner was hurt. What the movie colony asked first was, “Where had Crosby been, that he was coming home at five-thirty in the morning? Could he possibly have been visit- ing the future Mrs. Crosby ?” Bing didn’t and wouldn’t, say. But Mona Freeman did talk. “Bing was out with me,” the young actress admitted. “It was our first date since he’d returned from Europe. We went to a party for Claudette Colbert. When it was over, he took me home. He was on the way to his home when the accident occurred. I can tell you that Bing was cold, stone sober.” 79 —————————— caer ene Se eres when Hollywood heard about *

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what really happened to doris day (Continued from page 32) worried about her. She looked drawn and tired. They didn’t want to start a picture and have her collapse midway. After all, she’d been none too strong when she made Calamity Jane with Howard Keel. The front office boys talked to Marty. Where Doris is concerned, her husband is the only court of appeal. A new contract was coming up. Why couldn’t Doris be reasonable? The studio had worked her too hard. Everyone agreed to that. Yes, she deserved more money. No question about it. How about $150,000 a picture, two pictures a year, a five-year deal? How about Martin Melcher Productions to be re- leased through Warner Bros.? Okay, only let the girl get herself checked over. Doris went to a doctor, a great doctor, and she was given a complete physical. A tumor was found near the left breast. She was told honestly, but with tact. You can imagine the thoughts that raced through her mind. She was sure, first of all, that the tumor was malignant, cancer- ous. She thought of Dixie Lee Crosby who had been killed by that disease. She re- called other people similarly afflicted. She wondered what would happen to Terry, her young son, if she should die. To die at thirty! Her emotions ran amuck. Tears ran down her cheeks and she cried in her heart. But her staunch faith in her religion brought her strength. She wondered if the answer didn’t lie in prayer. Prayer has brought her great happiness in the past. Prayer has the power to conquer and recti- fy and cure. And she started to pray, but around her there were people, kind people whom she loved and respected and ad- mired, including the great doctor, and he said, “Look, honey. There’s only one way we can tell about the tumor, only one way we can find out whether it’s malignant or benign. We’ve got to take it out. At least, we've got to take out a piece and have it analyzed.” : You can imagine the conflict that raged in this lovely girl’s soul—the conflict be- tween her religion and medicine. She was prevailed upon to enter a hos- pital and on September 24, she was ad- mitted to St. Joseph’s in Burbank. A biop- sy was performed on the left breast. A small tumor, no more than two-by-four centimeters was removed and taken down to the pathology laboratory. Doris was kept on the operating table. If they should find that the tumor was benign, then Doris had nothing to worry about. The surgeon would merely suture the incision and home she’d go, good as new. If the tumor were malignant, a radical mastectomy would have to be performed to stop the possible spread of cancer. In his laboratory, the pathologist took the tumor and placed it on the microtome, a slicing machine. A blast of carbon diox- ide instantly froze the tumor so that it would be firm enough for dissection. While he worked, the doctor, the nurses, and Doris Day, their patient, waited. They waited and they prayed. Doris, of course, was anesthetized. In the operating room, there was only silence and hope. The pathologist took a glass rod and picked up a small sample from the tumor. He dropped it into a jar of water and stained the tissue with toluidine blue so that the cellular structure would be easier to determine. Then he slipped the tissue fragments onto a pair of glass slides. Delicately, he placed them under his microscope. He looked at one, then at the other. Then he smiled. “Benign,” he said. “Benign.” The word was flashed to the operating room. Everyone was smiling. The doctor closed the wound. When Doris awoke she was told the truth. Absolutely no cancer. She could go home with peace of mind. Physically, she was okay. Bu peace of mind did not come easily, and at home she developed an anxiety neurosis, a constant apprehension, a psy- chogenic illness of sorts, and the doctor recommended that she see a specialist. — Doris complained of nervousness and fatigue and a tendency to be easily upset. To her, this was frightening, because all her life she has been an energetic, hard- working girl and suddenly she had flagging ambition and a disinclination and partial inability to work or even to play. Fatigability in girls like Doris Day rare- ly comes as a result of metabolic exhaus- tion, although Doris has frequently suffered OPE | NAME ADDRESS CITY 80 Be SIDS EOS EE OOM A OOS OMOACoronoonoonoaAcoondnococnoocaocdoeoncocoopsacenscccogoNDoooddD any more home like you? Yes, you. Up-to-date, fashion-conscious, movie-going you. Bet there are. Bet you can name several kindred souls right in your own family who thumb through your copy of MODERN SCREEN every month—before you even get a chance to look at it. Not to mention your best friend who wants to borrow it and your brother who can’t resist cutting out the pin- ups. No need to hunt frantically for the perfect gift for all these perfect people. Just give them a year’s subscription to MODERN SCREEN. Fill out the coupon below and mail it to us with your remittance. It’s easy. And so inexpensive, you can afford to subscribe for yourself as well! SUBSCRIPTION IN THE U.S.A. AND CANADA FOR ONE YEAR $2.00; TWO YEARS $3.50; THREE YEARS $5.00. “FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS $3.00 A YEAR. PLEASE SEND CHECKS OR MONEY ORDERS ONLY. MODERN SCREEN Subscription Department, 10 West 33rd Street, New York 1, N. Y. ZONE STATE 11/3 Be Fs Ps owe Th ener = ere - *% “iy from a marked anemia. More frequently, — the fatigue is a result of emotional diffi- culties, the foundations of which can be traced to childhood conflicts. I went to grade school with Doris Kap- pelhoff in Cincinnati, and while I never knew her well, I knew something about her family life. The Kappelhoffs lived in the ground floor of a three- or four-story brick building, and I think the first-born child, a boy, died before Doris was born. She’s the baby, and there’s an older brother, Paul. : Her father was one of those rigid, too- strict fathers, a Teutonic mixture of sen- timent and discipline. He used to teach music, and I think Doris was afraid of him. I’m sure that practically all of her ner- vousness can be attributed to her relation- ship with her father. Her parents were divorced when she was eleven or twelve, and I think her youth ended then. Her mother, a sweet and thoughful woman, enrolled her in dancing school and later took her to Hollywood where Fan- chon & Marco signed her and her youthful dancing partner, Jerry Dougherty, for a series of kiddie stage shows. I think she was thirteen, maybe fourteen at the time. Already she was becoming a bread-winner. I am not a physician and I do not know the underlying causes of the psychoneu- roses, but in the case of Doris Day I honestly think that this girl is unhappy because she doesn’t want a career but is trapped by one. Against her own inclina- tion, she has become big business. Re- cording contracts, her own radio show, Tv rights, a new Warner Brothers deal, the leading light of Martin Melcher Produc- tions. Marty Melcher looks after all this with the superb competence born of experience. He has been an agent, he has worked in the music game for many years. He has had to learn all the angles, and he’s learned them well. According to some reporters there is no sharper man in Hollyweod than Marty Melcher. Doris is indeed fortunate in hav- ing such a man to look after her finances. [s - kt NFORTUNATELY, Marty looks after every- thing. When he was going with Doris, he helped move her furniture, he repaired things around the house, he made fast friends with her son, Terry. He advised her mother. In short, he became a father substitute, and psychologically, this may turn out to have been a very bad thing. As I say, it all depends on the childhood rela- tionship between Doris and her father. There is a psychological process termed, | “ “recall,” and it is hampered by another |} 4 one termed, “repression,” but in the weeks |} ¥ to come if Doris can look back into her youth and recall emotional experiences she has sought to repress, the answer to her nervousness and her current instability may be found. Perhaps she will discover that she dis- | liked her father because he refused to remain with her mother. Perhaps she disliked him for several other reasons. Perhaps in her subconscious, she has | transferred that dislike to her father- substitute, to Marty Melcher, the overseer of her career. Perhaps she refuses to admit any of this | to herself and herein lies the basis for her personal conflict. : I These are all possibilities and I suggest | them because in similar cases they have fi: been found valid, ys To my way of thinking, Doris, in her j 4j subconscious, not only regards her hus- |} band as a father-substitute and a psycho- hu: logical crutch but as a figure synonymous J * with career. And her career, as I’ve said, j ‘ ne never been particularly pleasurable to her. : ‘

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Her career was responsible for her meet- ing with Al Jordan who used to play in Jimmy Dorsey’s band. They got married and soon she had a child. When the mar- riage went to pieces, she had to use her career to support her boy. One time when she was flat broke, she begged the program manager of wLw to hire her at sustaining rates. He paid her scale, $64 a week. She sang with Les Brown and Bob Cros- by and Barney Rapp. The singing was an economic necessity. She was both mother and father to her Terry and there were long periods of time when she saw neither her son nor her mother. As recently as six or seven years ago, I remember watching her shuffle into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in Hollywood, (after she had been divorced from George Weidler,) a lonely, weary, tired girl, disillusion on her face. -I’ve seen Doris Day smile. I’ve heard Bob Hope call her jutt-butt. ’'ve watched her give out with that gay, deceiving, flip air of enjoyment. But to me, her blue eyes have always been sad eyes. This girl has never hungered for fame or money or adoration. All she has ever wanted is to leave the rat race, to get away from it, to settle down with her husband and family in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. You may well ask—“Well, why doesn’t she do it?” If she quits tomorrow, if she renounces the whole crazy world of show business, can she retain the love and admiration of her friends, her husband, and her mother? Doris Day is probably the best-loved ac- tress in Hollywood. She has never harmed -anyone. She has never climbed the ladder of success, lad by lad. She has never en- gaged in subterfuge or underhand politics. She has achieved success through her own effort and talent. : The success she has ac/iieved, however, has brought her fame, money, and position. It has brought her practically everything but the one thing she has always needed most—peace of mind. In the weeks to come, let’s all hope she finds it. A better, kinder, sweeter, more unselfish girl was never born. END please don’t talk about me... (Continued from page 22) and for the rest of his life.” The press associations picked up the an- nouncement, and next day readers throughout America were convinced that Clark and Suzanne would return to Holly- wood as man and wife. In Amsterdam, Gable was making The and Vic Mature. When he was asked to confirm Miss Dadolle’s statement, he was stunned. The actor is not the quickest thinker in the world, but by nature he is a prudent man, so he turned the whole matter over to Paul Mills, his press representative. Paul gave out with the following denial: “Clark Gable has no plans for engagement or marriage and hasn’t given his promise to engage or marry.” : In Paris, when Suzanne read this, she |. was hurt. After all, she was wearing the topaz ring Gable had given her, and while | the ring may or may not have been an en- igagement ring, it showed in a way that ‘(Gable regarded her in a special light. . At Wolfheze, Holland, he was asked, _“Any truth to these stories about you and Suzanne Dadolle?” , “Stories about what?” he countered. 4\| About you two kids getting married.” ; “No truth to that,” Clark Gable said. “I’m not getting married.” True And The Brave with Lana Turner, Uncle Sam gave Leslie Caron’s mar- riage a break, but she and Geordie are ™@ When Leslie Caron’s husband, Geordie Hormel, was called up by the Coast Guard, the pert little French bal- lerina clapped her hands with delight and said, “Oo!” I am the happiest girl in the world!” This was not because her husband wes in the service, but because Geordie, heir to the Hormel meat packing for- tune, had been assigned to duty in San Pedro, Los Angeles harbor. This meant that he could spend alter- nate nights at home, accompany Leslie to previews and parties, and never break the ecstatic rhythm of their marriage. To Lesli_ this was unheard-of luck, and she enjoyed it to the fullest. But a few weeks ago, the dancing star suddenly made a puzzling move. She asked MGM for an indefinite leave of absence and left her husband to rejoin and travel with Roland Petit’s Ballet de Paris. Immediately, this gave rise to the DOING A SPLIT rumor that another of Hollywood’s young marriages had foundered. Coast Guardsman Hormel quickly denied it. “T doubt,” he said, “if anything can ever disrupt our marriage. Leslie and I have problems, of course. For example, I’m not nearly the artist that she is, and I probably never will be. As a musician, I’ve yet to make a full-fledged success. Despite stories of my great wealth, Les- lie has much more money than I have. In fact, I owe around $40,000. Years from now, I may inherit some money, but only if I go back into the meat packing business.” While Coast Guardsman Hormel is busy with such denials, his cute young Leslie is back in the ballet she loves, dancing all over Europe. When the Hormels were first married, Leslie said, “Compared to being with Geordie, my car. means nothing.” Unhappily, in this household, times have changed. 81

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& It happened at Sunday breakfast a few hours before Mario Lanza was scheduled to fly to New York to nego- tiate his RCA VICTOR recording con- tract. The two little Lanza girls, Colleen, five, and Lissa, three, were sitting at the breakfast table with their parents when Damon, the littlest Lanza, now aged one, was wheeled in by the nurse for his good morning kiss. Lissa looked at her little dark-eyed brother and pinched his cheek. The baby cooed. “He sure is cute,” Lissa said. Now it was Colleen’s turn. She in- spected her little brother with approval. “T think,” she announced imperiously, “we should have another boy in the house. Don’t you think so, Daddy?” Lanza grinned. “It sure would even things up,” he agreed. “Then Lissa and I would always have STORK OVER LANZA LAND It was all the kids’ idea—they want another tenor in the family! someone to take us to dances,” Colleen continued. “That’s what brothers are for.” “Speak to your mother,” Mario sug- gested. “She’s in charge of the baby de- partment.” Betty Lanza looked around at her family, at Mario and her three offspring, and ever so matter-of-factly said, “I think maybe I can get you another brother around June or July of next year.” Lanza spilled his coffee on his trous- ers. “Daddy.” Colleen cried, “look what you’ve done.” She took her napkin and began to repair the damage. But Mario could look nowhere but at his Betty. He looked into her soft brown eyes, and almost imperceptibly, ever so lightly, her lovely head nodded and her eyes said yes and that’s how he knew. 5 EN, “Are you engaged?” Gable shook his head. either.” “That doesn’t square away with Suz- anne’s announcement in Paris last week.” “What announcement?” “You know—that the two of you are en- gaged, that you want her as your life’s companion.” There was a moment of silence. misquoted,” Gable said. “Have you been spending any time with her of late?” “No, she’s back in Paris. She returned to work.” “Have you been talking to her on the phone? Or writing her any letters?” . “T’ve been too busy for that,” Gable an- swered. “Then how do you know she was mis- quoted?” “Ym sure she was,” Gable countered. know her, and she wouldn’t say a thing like that. She probably said-she consid- ered me a good friend and some reportel took it up from there.” “That may be, but aren’t you in love witk Suzanne?” “She’s a wonderful friend.” “Of course, but are you in love witk her?” “We’re just good friends.” “Are you bringing this good friend back to Hollywood with you?” “No, I’m not.” “When do you expect to get back?” “It’s hard to say. Depends on how this “Not engaged, “She was cc 22 picture goes. We should be finished by the end of November. I should get back by Christmas.” “Then you're definitely coming home alone?” he was asked. “Is that right? No chance that you might change your mind and bring Suzanne with you?” “Tt don’t think so,’ Clark Gable said. ON There you have it, out of the actor’s mouth. Will Gable abide by his decision to leave Suzanne in Europe? Will he bring her with him? Will she come to Holly- wood herself and join him? Or was it all a summer romance? Al Menasco, one of Gable’s best friends, toured Europe with “the king” and Suz- anne a few months ago. He is of the opin- ion that Gable will never marry Suzanne Dadolle. “She’s a lovely young woman,” Menasco concedes, “and they got along very well, but Gable isn’t in the marrying mood. My own opinion is that he’s had it for a while. Marriage, that is. “He’s fond of Suzanne, but only as a friend. Of course I could be wrong, but that’s my opinion.” Another friend of Gable’s, a beautiful young woman who dates him between marriages, says, “I know the guy pretty well and unless a girl has money and posi- tion, preferably both, Gable won’t think of marrying her. He'll go around with her, the way he has with this French babe. He’ll take her all over and date her ex- clusively, but he’s not going to slip that wedding band on her finger. “At his age, you’d think he’d wise up and him. But no. He marries the socie And a funny thing, it’s these dam . dough who make him pay through the nose when divorce time rolls around. “Take Maria Langham, his second wife, and Sylvia Ashley, his last one. These babes were loaded, and they’re old enough to know the score. I think Gable’s divorce from Ria cost him at least $300,000 and of course he’s still paying Sylvia. He tried to get out of it by saying that she was an extremely wealthy woman in her own right. Of course it didn’t work. “You’d think the guy would wise up in his old age and marry some dame who wants to spend her life loving him and taking care of him. But no. He’s got to have a show-piece. I guess that’s why he’s an actor. “As for this Suzanne Dadolle, I think he just took her around Europe for the ride. His intentions were friendly, not matri- monial.” : ? They are saying in France that if Gable dees not marry the Schiaparelli model, not only will Suzanne be disappointed, but the star of Mogambo will lose thousands of fans among his French followers. ‘A model who accompanied Suzanne to this country a few years ago, when she came over on a tieup deal for a hosiery firm, says, “I feel sorry for Suzanne. So do most of the other models in Paris. She is in a very awkward position. She left her job to travel with Monsieur Gable. “Furthermore, and this is very impor- tant, Suzanne has a family. French fami- lies—I guess they are like all families—if in the end the girl gets married then everything that has passed before is of no matter. But if in the end, the girl is left in the cold with just memories—then there is hell to pay and it is the girl who pays it. That’s why I hope with all my heart that Monsieur Gable marries Suzanne. Really, she is a very nice person and she has a lot of savoir faire. She worked for General de Gaulle during the war, and she would not shame your Monsieur Gable in Holly- wood. She is very much in love with him. “And well, it is not as if she were one of those girls who can always turn to her work or that ambassadors daughter Gable was going with. When a girl has wealth or prominence, then she can afford these unhappy love affairs. One can say, ‘We are still good friends,’ and let it go at that, because one knows there will always be more men. “But right now there is no room in Suz- anne’s heart for anybody but Clark Gable. I have heard it said that he broke the heart of Grace Kelly and hundreds of other women who have fallen in love with him, and I know it is not his fault. He is a charming, wonderful man, and women throw themselves at him every day. But if he marries Suzanne, I promise he will not regret it.” What from Suzanne herself? She spoke to one reporter and made world-wide headlines and now, justifiably, she is afraid to talk to others. Gable doesn’t particularly like girls who talk to reporters. Suzanne has gone on record, however, as saying that she and Clark are more than - good friends. It is her understanding that she and the actor are engaged and that when he asked her to be his life-time com- panion, he was thinking of marriage. One English writer suggests that seman- tics is responsible for the difference be- tween Suzanne’s allegation and Gable’s denial. “What probably happened,” this writer offers, “is that he might have said, ‘Susie, you're swell. You’re my friend for life’ | “Poor bloke. Probably doesn’t know that if you say those words to a French girl in France, it’s an out and out proposal.” | END

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