Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Draw Lincoln! You May Win A $430.00 Scholarship in Commercial Art Winner gets a complete art course — free training for a career in advertising art, illustrating or cartooning. You are taught, individually, by professional artists on the staff of world's largest home study art school. As winner you also get a drawing outfit and art textbooks. Enter this contest! ART INSTRUCTION, INC., studio 1690 500 South 4th Street, Minneapolis 15, Minn. DRAW LINCOLWS HEAD Please enter my drawing in your draw-a-head contest. 5 inches high. Use pencil. Draw (please print) ings for February 1960 contest must be received by February ome AGE 29. None returned. Wanner noti fied. Amateurs only. Our students not eligible. Mail your Address Apt City Zone_ County Stofe Occupation drawing of Lincoln today. day party. A lot of kids — most mothers would have objected — but Mrs. Bernauer likes to give in to Evelyn on everything. When the kids were there, Evelyn assembled them all together and put on a show for them. They were her friends but they were her audience. That's the way she regarded most kids. Evelyn was asked to appear in Hollywood parades with all their hoopla. More and more she craved the glamour and excitement of Hollywood; school work was simple and unexciting. Fame approached Then came her greatest opportunity. Kay Thompson's famous Eloise was going to go on Playhouse 90. This was two years ago and the biggest acting plum of all for a child. Eloise — the precocious, sophisticated youngster who lived in New York's elegant Plaza Hotel — had become a big hit in book form and in recordings. She was an unusual type of child; not a pretty Shirley Temple child but, well, Eloise. It was going on TV as a spectacular. A big cast lined up — Ethel Barrymore, Monte Wooley. The search went on for Eloise. Evelyn's parents submitted Evelyn's photo. The NBC studios and Kay Thompson auditioned two hundred kids. Evelyn's father told me, "Evelyn wanted the part very much. She's a real pro. It meant everything to her. When she's waiting for a role, she gets nervous. She starts combing her hair, getting jumpy. She has to be working to be happy." Kay Thompson saw Evelyn's picture, said, "Well, this one looks like Eloise." Kay went to the Bernauers' home in Hollywood and met Evelyn. The parents played a recording of Evelyn's on tape for Kay to hear. It was a Shakespeare reading in Evelyn's childish voice, but it indicated talent. Kay was impressed. Noticing how the parents hovered over the child, Kay wanted to be alone with Evelyn. She asked if she could take her for the day, to get acquainted with her. The Bernauers beamed. Kay and Evelyn went off. When Kay came back she said, "This is a delightful child. We had a wonderful time together." The Bernauers knew that Evelyn was going to be Eloise. They were right. Shortly afterwards, the studio called and told them that they wanted to sign Evelyn for the role. Evelyn was thrilled. She worked with a coach extensively. It was a difficult role for a child to do. Eloise was the whole show; she was in every minute of the story. It was live television — something that makes experienced actors crack. It was ninety minutes. And she was in bigtime company — Barrymore, Wooley, etc. And Eloise, by this time, had become such a well-known figure to America, that the child who played her just had to be perfect. Some forty million people<were going to watch it. Evelyn wasn't frightened. She began to live the part. Never did a child love show business and love the experience of getting up and performing as much as she did. And this was a tough job, for Kay Thompson had made many stipulations of her own. At first, Evelyn was1 supposed to only act out Eloise, with Kay doing the talking for Eloise. This was what Kay wanted, and since this was Kay's property the studio had to adhere to this. It was very difficult for Evelyn to act Eloise and mouth the lines, while Kay's voice was dubbed in. It was an ordeal. But she did it. Then, three days before the show was to go on, the director, John Frankenheimer, called Evelyn's father, late at night, and said, "We're going to do the whole show with Evelyn speaking the lines, instead of Miss Thompson speaking the lines. This doesn't give Evelyn much time to learn the lines. Do you think she will do it?" The father said, "You ask Evelyn. She is a real performer. If you ask her to do it, she will. It will be an even greater challenge to her." Praise for everyone Next morning, Frankenheimer asked Evelyn if she was willing to take on the job of learning all the lines in three' days. Evelyn said, "Why, sure." She was thrilled with it. She got up and spoke all the lines in the whole play. People watching her were dumbfounded. Ethel Barrymore' said, "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. This child is the greatest find." Another big shot on the set watching said, "Now, we've just seen another littl Mozart. I've never seen an actor do wht i this child did." Evelyn was a hit as Eloise. She ws raved about, written about, interviewee ; cuddled, chin-chucked, adored. There wer Eloise dolls, Eloise make-up kits, Elois dresses. (Incidentally, none of this mone; went to Evelyn — but to Kay. But Evelyi was so closely identified with Eloise, tha she revelled in the fact that her name wa: < becoming a household word.) All sorts o wonderful, beautiful, fairy-tale thing: were happening to Evelyn Rudie. Sh< was a real, honest-to-goodness child staj of first magnitude. It was like the day.< of Shirley Temple. Fan clubs sprang up in her name. Proudly she signed her name to thousands anc thousands of cards and letters to her fans When she walked down the streets — "particularly in New York," she recalls with glistening eyes — she was recognized. Fans — adults as well as kids — surrounded her. swarmed around her; yelled after her. It might have been inconvenient to be stared at, called at and mobbed, but Evelyn absolutely gloried in it. So did her parents. This was what they had dreamed of. She received an Emmy nomination. She was being referred to as the "most important child star since Shirley Temple." She was sent to New York on four occasions in connection with Eioise. She stayed at the Plaza Hotel — the swank hotel where the fictional Eloise resided — and all without charge. The Plaza was very delighted to have her. Delighted — they absolutely kow-towed to her! As she says, "Once they gave me their Presidential Suite, the second time the Royal Suite, and once they even gave me the Bridal Suite. It was wonderful. They treated me like royalty." Evelyn also remembers that she and her mother used to eat in the Plaza Hotel dining room, and everyone would come to her table — and how once there were so many people crowding around her that she couldn't even eat her lamb chop. "I just didn't eat at all that day because of the people crowding around. But I loved it. I wasn't one bit angry with them. I'd do without food any day to have fans recognize me," she said. Child star After Eloise, Evelyn was still going around with the giddy sensation of being a child star. She appeared as guest on The Dinah Shore Show, The George Gobel Show, The Red Skelton Show, on Aljred Hitchcock Presents, on Omnibus. She worked hard, but as she said then, "I want to breathe the air of the studios." She'd come to life when she set foot inside the studio. She worked hard — but where most people lose weight when working hard, Eloise would eat twice as much when she worked. The child was absolutely exhilarated when working. She had to stay out of regular school, but never for one minute did she miss the normal activities of the kids in school. She was a child star. Everyone felt it was exactly what had been foreordained for her. She had a co-starring role at 20th in a picture called The Gift of Love. Her costars were Lauren Bacall and Robert Stack. But, although she did a good job, the picture laid an egg. While Evelyn and her parents felt that she might be going along on this big surge of Eloise popularity and be another Shirley Temple, what had actually happened was that Evelyn's advent into pictures happened at a different time in Hollywood's history than Shirley Temple's had. When Shirley was a child star, it was the thing then for studios to sign up large numbers of actors to long-time contracts. When Evelyn made her big splash, studios were