Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

he came home again, the wound healed. That fall, he took a good, long look at himself. Swell, you want to act. he muttered into his mirror. But right now the only thing that's getting any action is your feet. You're just another pavementpounding idiot, in a city full of so many pavement-pounding nuts that some joker left a fund to Actors' Equity for the sole purpose of providing said nuts with new shoes. Merle didn't want new shoes; he didn't want any kind of handout. He wanted work. A man who'd been a friend of his father's, a fellow named Darryl Brady, suggested that Merle come to Hollywood. He had a job for him — not acting, but he wasn't acting in New York either. Holl}rwood. That's where they picked up shipping clerks and truck drivers and coeds and turned 'em into stars, wasn't it? He could be a shipping clerk as good as anybody, so maybe stardom was a mere 3.000 miles away. Several months later, he hadn't become a star, but he was working steadily for Mr. Brady, and he'd put all his money into a second-hand MG, and a little shack at the beach, and he was reasonably happy. One night he was eating at a place called The Green Pheasant in Malibu, and all of a sudden, the whole scene turned into something out of a Lana Turner movie. Two men came up and introduced themselves. One was a producer named William Archer, the other was a director named James Sheldon, and they didn't waste words. "We'd like to give you a screen test at Columbia," they said. Figuring it was a gag a buddy had set up, he grinned at them wisely. "Sure you would. And I'll bet you want me to play the King of Rumania." The offer turned out to be a real one, a fact of which he was ultimately convinced, and then began several weeks of cramming so he'd be good enough. Just when life looked good . . . The day before his test was scheduled, he rehearsed and rehearsed on the scene he'd been given. He worked himself to the point of exhaustion, then took a breather, went to visit some friends in town. By the time he started back to his Malibu shack, he was bone-tired. It was very late, and he fought against an overpowering sleepiness. It went through his mind to pull the car off the road and take a nap. No, he told himself. You'll never wake up in time, and then you'll be in rotten shape tomorrow. He drove on, fell asleep at the wheel, the :ar hurdled an embankment. He doesn't remember how he got out ji the wreckage, he doesn't remember crawling up the road, but somehow he Tiade it, and a terrified motorist, appalled at the sight of a bloody, weaving giant, .oicked him up and took him to the nearest nospital. Lucky to be alive, he didn't complain ;about his fractured skull, his bruised spinal column. The thing that bothered 11m was that they'd shaved his head, and -"taturally nobody was going to screen test !;ome bald boy. He lay on his back for vhat seemed like years, pondering the odd jvays of destiny, and one day while he .".-as pondering, he had a visitor. An ictress friend named Fran Bennett dropped By, and she brought with her an agent lamed Henry Willson. Merle knew Willon's name. He'd created Tab Hunter out •f Arthur Gelien, and turned Roy Fitz;erald into Rock Hudson. Now he was ooking contemplatively at Merle. When Merle Johnson, Junior, finally got ip out of bed, he'd been re-christened >oy Donahue, and he was on his way. Willson got him a contract at Universal International. He was 6' 3" tall, blond and blue-eyed, as handsome as anything they'd seen around there in a long time, and they put him into seventeen movies in two years, though no one seems to recall any of them with excitement. While he was at Universal -International, he met Judi Meredith, who was also under contract. In fact, they'd tested together. Judi was the first girl since the lady in mink who'd really knocked Merle — or Troy, as we'll call him — out. "'I flipped," he says, still not pretending to be cool about the whole thing. He was scared, of course. He was a burnt child, and it had been his experience that if you liked a girl too much you left yourself open to being kicked in the teeth, but Judi tore him up. There was nothing he could do about it. Another romance Actually, the romance wasn't a sweet, boy-girl kind of affair. There was too much Hollywood in it. Premiers, date layouts, and always the photographers saying. "Kiss her again, Troy," and her career booming but not his. Then she fell in love with Wendell Niles. Jr. Wendell was a friend of Troy's, and neither he nor Judi wanted to hurt Troy, so they lied. There was the night Judi told Troy she had to go to the Ice-Capades alone. Troy phoned Wendell. "How about us having a guy evening? Let's wander around some place — " Wendell hedged. "I don't know. I'll call you later — " After dinner, Troy, still restless, rang Wendell back. "He's in the shower." said Wendell's mother. "But Judi's here. Do you want to talk to her?" He felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. "No thanks," he said, and hung up the phone. He turned off the lights in his room, and walked over to the window. The ocean had a lonely look to it, with that strange phosphorescence etching the waves, and the moon half gone. It doesn't seem to matter, he said to himself. New York or Hollywood. My girls just don't ever belong to me. Next day, he faced Judi. "Why, why, why. why? Why didn't you tell me?" She was embarrassed, sorry, but unable to give him any satisfactory answer. "We've had it," she said, and that was that. . . . About a year ago, while he was making Imitation of Life, Troy met another girl. This time, she wasn't an actress. He liked her a lot, but he'd learned caution. When he felt she was beginning to care too much, he told her the truth. They were sitting in a diner, garish lights, and tired faces all around them, and he thought later, what funny places you play out the most important moments of your life. "I don't feel I'm really ready for marriage." he said, and her face crumpled, and smoothed out again all in the space of an instant, and he was stricken. "I don't want to hurt you, baby," he said. "I'm not hurt," she said, in a funny, low voice, and she stood up abruptly. "I want to go home. Let's get out of here — " Now that relationship is finished, and Troy concentrates on his career. Warner Brothers, impressed by Imitation of Life, cast him in A Summer Place (he co-stars with Sandra Dee), and he'd no sooner finished that than he went into The Crowded Sky. Warners is absolutely sold on him — "he's got nowhere to go but up" — and he's determined to be a big star. 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