Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

that Shirley was too interested in Johnny. That's what you always get for trying to help out. . . . All I want is to be left alone." When Johnny Johnston, who'd gone to New York one week before Shirley Temple announced her divorce plans, heard about Joe Kirkwood's statement, he was quoted as saying, "There's a cer j tain fellow in Hollywood who is trying to make trouble for me with my wife and when I get back out there I'm going to , punch him in the nose." Shirley's reaction to Joe's statement, . was reported in these words: "Just find out about Joe Kirk wood, just find out all j about him." 5 Kirkwood, prior to his marriage, was , involved in a paternity suit in Boston, i Now, what does all this mean, these charges and countercharges and innu endos and implications? II rumors are flying . . . [, Actually, they mean nothing. The dialogue of recrimination is merely kid-stuff, i verbal sparks set off by emotionally -immature youngsters. Shirley has not now 3 nor has she ever entertained the slightest designs on Johnny Johnston. She has j never been the cause of any of the tempesj tuous quarrels between him and Kathryn J, Grayson; and neither Johnny nor Kathryn | has been responsible for her disagreej. ments with Jack Agar. Shirley may have L smiled and conversed with Johnny John£ ston. In the course of two years and in the presence of her husband, she may have ! dined, danced, and sung with him. But as for supplanting Agar in her heart with L Johnston — such eventuality seems far beT yond the outposts of possibility. Kathryn || and Johnny have settled their difficulties j and are expecting another baby in April. = So much for the Johnny Johnston angle. Consider next the rumors that Shirley I filed for divorce because her husband was I spending too much of his spare time with t other girls. i I've seen Jack Agar in a bar or two, : maybe even tasting one drink too many, J and so have dozens of other reporters, and I've also seen him talking to a girl or two who wasn't his wife. And, of , course, the possibility exists that perhaps j] one of these girls, a non-professional, is |j genuinely in love with Jack. But that doesn't mean Agar has ever "cheated" on | . his wife. , , Jack, today, is one of the most widely1 1 admired actors in the screen colony. Girls fall for him the way coal shuttles into a cellar basement. But according to Shirley herself, disenchantment first reared its , disillusioned head in her household more j than two-and-a-half years ago — and back then, no one ever saw Jack Agar with any girj other than Shirley. So "the other ] woman" doesn't apply in this case. i Of course, now that he and Shirley have ; gone their differing ways, Jack will un, doubtedly squire other girls around town; but this is not to say that any of these broke up his home or that his differences with Shirley centered about another woman who was less demanding, more subservient to his ego, more flattering to his vanity, more understanding to his aims, I and more in tune with the tenor of his I! life. No, Shirley didn't file her divorce complaint because she was jealous of another rival. Nor did she file it because in-law trouble had brought her and Jack to an impasse. That in-law story is pure poppycock. Parents like Mr. and Mrs. George Temple, wise enough to rear Shirley in 'a normal, wholesome manner when she, as a child, was beset by all the temptations of the motion picture world, were surely prudent enough to stay out of her marriage. It's true in a way that Shirley never left home after she became Mrs. Agar, for she and John moved into the guest cottage on the Temple property and in the past four years she's usually been within a hundred yards of her mother's beckoning. But stories to the effect that her folks sought to regulate the lives of the young couple are completely untrue. As for the purported career trouble breaking up their marriage — in the sense of two picture careers in one household not mixing — that never applied to Shirley and Jack. There was never any career rivalry between these two. Who could possibly rival Shirley Temple's amazing career, anyway? Jack was once asked how he felt about Shirley's continuing with her career. "I'm simply going along with her," he said flatly, "in anything she wants to do. She'll probably work as long as she gets pleasure from it. She can quit whenever she feels like it. I'm interested only in her happiness." The failure of this marriage can never be attributed either to Shirley or to Jack. The PLEASE NOTE . . . that the MODERN SCREEN FAN CLUB ASSOCIATION has been discontinued, due to limitations of editorial space. All club presidents will be notified by letter. THE EDITORS responsibility for it belongs to them both. They were both sadly unprepared for marriage. They married during the heat and haste and passion of war. They never really knew each other. They didn't realize that marriage is the toughest kind of human relationship in the whole pattern of human behavior. A lot of movie fans made the mistake of believing when Jack and Shirley got married that this was the typical, ideal American marriage. What is typical about a. bride who is worth $2,000,000 and a bridegroom who himself doesn't have to work for a living? No one back in those halcyon days ever asked that question. Let us, however, just for the record and for the basic understanding of this marriage, take a . look at Shirley Temple ih 1945. This beautiful, apple-cheeked child, barely out of the Westlake School for Girls, had never gone around with boys very much. When Jack first met her she was 15. How Jack met Shirley is of course, old hat, and there's no point in re-hashing the story here, but the very vital point is that he first proposed to Shirley when she was 16. Now, what sort of man wants a 16-yearold wife? Certainly not a mature, wellrounded man of the world. But certainly an immature, eager, infatuated soldier; and that's exactly what Jack Agar was back in those days of '44 and '45. Moreover, he was a fatherless boy, quiet and well-bred, not too well-educated, without trade or occupation but heir to a considerable sum left by his father — who had been head of a Chicago meat-packing house, the Agar Packing and Provision Company. Two months before Shirley was graduated from the Westlake School for Girls, she and Jack became engaged. Though prior to their engagement, he and Shirley had been together less than 20 times, both were sure they knew the other thoroughly. All young lovers feel that way, and doubtless they always will; but after a year or two of marriage, they discover moods and behavior patterns in their mates that they never thought existed. Jack had never intended to become a motion-picture star. His plans called for him upon discharge to go to Cornell. University and study business administration and learn the meat-packing business. But David Selznick had looked him over very carefully at the wedding, and he had decided that Jack might be developed into a young star after his discharge from the service. For 18 months following his screen test, Jack Agar worked hard, learning how to walk, talk and act on the screen. in the. beginning . . . Those 18 months, according to Shirley, were the best years of their married life. They moved into the little cottage on the Temple estate. They played cards and records at night. They ran all of Shirley's old pictures, only one of which Jack had ever seen before. The marriage was good, golden and glorious. And then, Jack got his first job. John Ford signed him for a role in Fort Apache. Later, Shirley was signed for the same picture. During the shooting of this film, Jack learned what really tough work acting is. When Fort Apache was released, Jack was billed on many theater marquees as "Shirley Temple's Husband." More than anything, this kindled a fire in him to make good on his own. Not — let me repeat — that there was any career rivalry between him and Shirley. He simply wanted to be accepted by the public on his own merits. In the past two years, he has been. Fort Apache was followed by Adventure in Baltimore, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Iwo Jima*, and I Married a Communist. In all these, Jack has performed adequately and has captured the loyalty and interest of movie-goers everywhere. Why is Jack Agar being divorced by Shirley Temple? Perhaps he has not been as attentive to Shirley as he was when they were first married. Perhaps he has played too much golf in his spare time and made Shirley a golf widow. Perhaps he has fallen out of love with Shirley and she with him. Perhaps, despite his growing success, he is still beset with doubts about his acting ability and needs a wife who, rather than sometimes offering constructive criticism, will constantly build and maintain his ego. Perhaps he needs a wife he can dominate, a wife who has not been accustomed to every luxury that money can buy and who will look up to him as her superior, as the family bread-winner. Perhaps all this is why he and Shirley Temple no longer need each other. As a matter of fact, it is. The End 57