Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS If your birthday falls in February, your birthstone is the amethyst and your flower is the violet or primrose. And here are some of the stars who share your birthday: February 1— February 4— February 5 February 6 February 8February 9February 10 February 11February 12February 13 February 15February 16— February 18February 19— February 20 February 21— February 22February 23— February 24 Clark Gable -Ida Lupino -Red Buttons -Mamie Van Dorei Zsa-Zsa Gabor John Lund Ronald Reagan -Lana Turner -Kathryn Grayson -Jimmy Durante Robert Keith Robert Wagner -Leslie Nielsen -Forrest Tucker -Kim Novak Lyle Bettger -Kevin McCarthy -Peggy King Vera-EIIen -Jack Palance -Lee Marvin -Norma Moore Patricia Smith Dane Clark Guy Mitchell -Robert Young -Race Gentry Barbara Lawrence Marjorie Main February 26 — Betty Hutton Peter Lorre Tony Randall February 27 — February 29 — Arthur Franz Joan Bennett Elizabeth Taylor Reginald Gardiner Sir Cedric Hardwicke Thelma Ritter February 9 February 14 The House of Terrified Women Adolphe Menjou 70 February 18 Ann Sheridan February 21 {Continued from page 28) dreaming, with her large blue eyes wide open, peering through the darkness, and beyond that darkness . . . dreaming back to an actual night in her life, nine years ago, when she was eleven. She remembered it so well, so vividly, her first night in show business. Her parents had driven her to the radio station. Her uncle, Bing, had taken her hand and led her into the studio and over to the microphone. "And now folks, I'd like to introduce," he had said, "a brand new singer, a sweet kid, my niece . . . Miss Cathy Crosby!" There had been applause, she remembered. Then silence. And then she had begun to sing her song, Dear Hearts and Gentle People. Remembering, dreaming back, she began to hum that same song now. She stopped suddenly when she heard the footsteps outside her door. She figured that it was probably a night nurse, making her rounds, listening at doorways to see if you were asleep. So she stopped her singing, and she waited, in the darkness, staring vacantly at a shadow on the wall ahead of her, until the footsteps — having stopped, too — moved on down the long and silent hallway of this place, this hospital, this institution, as some people called it. And then, once again, still sitting up in her bed, the beautiful girl with the large blue eyes continued with her song. . . . Preying on his mind It was a few minutes after 10:40 that night when Bob Crosby entered the big house at 220 N. Layton Drive. He parked the golf clubs he was carrying in a foyer closet (he'd been playing that afternoon with Vice President Richard Nixon and actors Robert Sterling and George Murphy) and he walked into the living room. His wife, June, was upstairs at the time, in her eight-year-old daughter Malia's bedroom. The little girl had been suffering from a bad cold all that day, she had a slight fever now, she couldn't sleep, and June had been sitting with her this past hour or so reading to her. When June heard her husband enter, she lay down the book, got up from her chair and walked to the door. "Bob," she called, when she saw him. She waited for him to answer. Instead, she saw, he stood there motionless, in the center of the living room for a moment, mumbling to himself; and then he began to walk towards the big mirrored cabinet at the far end of the room, the cabinet where the whisky was. June turned now, too, and walked back into Malia's room, leaving the door open behind her. "What's the matter?" the little girl asked, softly, from her bed, seeing the look of worry, and fear, in her mother's eyes. "Nothing," June whispered. "Is Daddy home?" June nodded. Then she walked over to the little girl's bed and took her hand in hers. It was preying on his mind, June knew — preying on his mind, terribly. She could tell by the way he had looked a moment before. She could tell by the way he had looked that morning, when they'd gone to have a talk with Cathy's doctor. "What do you mean a complete breakdown?" he'd asked the doctor then. "I thought she only needed a week here. And now it's a month and she's still here. . . . What do you mean a complete breakdown, a mental breakdown?" he'd asked the doctor. June's hand, still clutching Malia's, began to tremble now. "Mommy," the little girl asked, "are you all right, Mommy?" "Yes," June said. "Yes. Shhhhh. Yes." She looked away from her daughter and towards the door again. She wished that her sons, Chris and Bobby and Steve, were back home from that party they'd gone to. She wished, with all her heart, that Cathy were home, too, instead of in that place. . . . Something is wrong Cathy got out of her bed and rushed to a chair near the window and sat. The feeling of faintness had overtaken her suddenly. She'd been singing one. moment, remembering the nice tune, the ' nice night. And then her head had begun to spin and the tightness had grabbed at her stomach and she'd felt sick. Something is wrong, she thought, sitting on the chair now, looking out the window, at the night. Somewhere, somehow, something is wrong. She closed her eyes, tight. She didn't want to think about trouble. The doctor had told her that she was here to rest, that she must rest as much as possible, and think pleasant thoughts, especially at night, at bedtime. She had tried, too. Tried very hard. Every night this past long month. But it was no use trying now. Because she knew, deep down inside herself, that there was trouble. And she thought of her father. She saw him very clearly, though her eyes were still closed. He was standing in front of her, looking at her. saying nothing. He stood there for what seemed to be a very long time. And then he stepped back, back away from her, back in time, and into the den of their house. He'd yelled at her mother that night. Cathy remembered. He'd yelled long and loud. He'd yelled so much that Cathy, nine years old then, listening from the staircase, had run over to him and begged him to stop. He'd ordered her up to her room instead. And she'd gone. And for hah an hour more, an hour more, she'd heard the yelling continue. Till finally it had ended and her mother had come to her room and they'd both sat and cried. "Does it mean . . . when Daddy fights with you . . . does it mean he doesn't love you any more?" Cathy had asked her mother that night. "Of course he loves me, baby," her mother had said, wiping away her tears.; and her daughter's. "This was just anargument. He's nervous about his work. Something happened today and — " She'd paused. "Today he got a wire," she'd said then. "It was from this booking agent in Atlantic City. This man said he'd just heard that Daddy doesn't like any mention of his . brother in any advertising, for any showhe and the band are scheduled to do. And this man. he wired that either he be allowed to advertise daddy as 'Bing Crosby's brother,' or else not to bother to come. "And so Daddy was nervous tonight. And he had to pick on somebody. And he picked on me. "It's all happened before. It'll happen again ... I guess that's just the way it's got to be." "And the fights you have," Cathy had