Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

about the invitation and had gone to bed instead. Shortly before ten o'clock, the girl phoned him, woke him. She was sorry, she said. She couldn't make the party. "Well," David yawned, "that's the way it goes." But, said the girl, she had a girlfriend who was just dying to go. Would he take her? David said no, he'd rather not. The girl persisted. "Please," she said. "I promised you'd take her. She'll be furious with me if you don't. . . . And besides, Davie, she knows everybody there. And once you bring her it isn't that you'll have to stay with her all the time. . . ." The girl went on and on. Till finally David realized that sleep — the thing he wanted most that night — was out. And so he said, "All right, all right." And, groggily, he started to get out of bed. . . . Sure enough, when they got to the party, his "date" disappeared. And David walked straight to the bar and ordered a drink. HE WAS ON HIS SECOND DRINK, or his third, when "like they say in the song lyrics, I saw her standing there, across the crowded room." She was tall and brown-haired and lovely-looking. She stood alone. She noticed David looking over at her at one point. She smiled, and looked away. David waited for her to look back. She didn't. He found himself staring at her, waiting. He became fidgety. ("All of a sudden," he says, "I was clobbered by this shy, if you want to call it that, feeling. I felt she had to look back at me again to show she was interested.") When she made it obvious that she wasn't going to look back ("I'd seen him sitting there looking at me," Ellie says. "I'd liked what I'd seen. But I didn't know what to do."), David put down his drink, walked over to her and asked her if she'd care to dance. She waited, those first few minutes while they danced, for him to say something. "Well," Ellie said, " — in case you're interested. . . . My name is Ellie. I'm from New York. I worked as a model once, then as a buyer for a department store. I came to California a few weeks ago, liked it, gave up my job — and — " she shrugged " — that's the story of my life." She waited then for David to say something. He didn't. Ellie began to wonder: Was this one of those silent attractions? Or was the Hollywood actor just plain bored? They continued dancing. David continued to say nothing. They went for a drive after the party, (David's date, to no one's surprise, had gone off with someone else). He said nothing. They parked by the water. David turned on the car radio. They stopped for a hamburger and a cup of coffee. David was silent. "Don't you like to talk?" Ellie asked, finally. "Not much," David said. "I see," said Ellie. She smiled. "Well, strange as it may sound, I just want you to know that I'm having a very nice time anyway. . . . Really!" David looked at her. There was something about this girl that made him more and more fidgety. 66 ("She was so damn nice and normal, just to look at," he says, "that I figured if we started saying anything to each other, the whole thing might be spoiled.") "What do you want to hear, anyway," he found himself asking, then, " — the story of my life?" "Sure," Ellie said. "Are you interested," David asked, halfsmiling, "or are you just being polite?" "Of course I'm interested, you dope," Ellie said. "If I weren't, if I'd just wanted to be polite, I'd have been back at my hotel room a couple of hours ago." David continued looking at her. Then he nodded. "Well — " he said. And he told her his story. HE STARTED AT THE BEGINNING. And by the time he'd come to the end — a few hours later, "It was way past dawn," he remembers — he had talked to Ellie the way he'd never talked to anyone else before. He talked about his ups, his downs. His misses, his hits. He had even begun to have inroads in discussing his problems with someone for the first time in his life — the small problems, the medium ones, the big ones. And when he was through discussing these things, talking, he knew only two things: (one) that it was dawn and he Don't miss next month's MODERN SCREEN It is a special Christmas issue unlike any ever published before! On sale December 6 had to get this girl back to her hotel; (two) that he wanted to, had to, see her again that night. "I learned something about David that morning," Ellie has said. "He didn't ask me, 'Is it all right if I see you tonight?' He said, 'I'll see you tonight!'— like whatever shyness he'd felt at the beginning, poof, was gone. "It was the same," she says, "when we got married. We'd been going together for almost a year now. And all of a sudden one afternoon he comes over to see me and talks about marrying me. But he doesn't get on his knee and say, 'Will you etcetera etcetera, my darling?' No. He says, 'Either you marry me tonight or we're never going to see one another again.' "Very direct, my husband. "Very, very direct." Very directly, the other day — some two years and a few months after their wedding— we asked David to tell us something about his marriage. We were sitting in the Janssen living room. Ellie was in the den, next door, working on some project. (She sews a lot, paints and is an expert furniture repair-lady.) "Well," said David, "it's a good marriage. A great marriage. And it's all Ellie's doing. She's got a sense of humor, which I like. She's understanding, which I like. She makes most of her own clothes, which doesn't hurt when a couple is trying to save money and get out of debt — which we have, finally. And she's a good cook. Makes the best veal scallopine in town. She learned from the chef at La Scala and — Say, she's making some tonight! You want to stay for dinner?" Sounded fine, we said. But for now, to get back to the story — "Has she changed you in any way these past couple of years?" we asked. "She has," David said. "It's hard to say how. Ellie doesn't do things obviously, if you know what I mean. But take the matter of friends. I never had any before, really. And I have them now. Not many. But a few. And good ones. The Jackie Coopers. The Steve Aliens. A few others. How is Ellie responsible? I don't know. People like her. They're drawn to her. Unavoidably, maybe, they're drawn to me, too, and me to them. I relax more around people now. I don't question their every move. When I do Ellie ribs the heck out of me, and that takes care of that." He stopped, and he thought for a moment. "And another thing," he said then. " — she's got me, or is getting me, out of my brooding habit. When things went wrong, professionally I mean, like with the Escadrille and Farewell To Arms things, I'd really feel lousy. I'd brood. Like I did a little while back, when I lost Butterfield 8. It looked all set. It was a big deal to play opposite Elizabeth Taylor; it was a good role, the piano player's. Pandro Berman, the producer, said he wanted me. You can't ask for better than that. And then word got out that Liz wanted Eddie Fisher for the role. I guess Liz hadn't heard that I'd been set for the part; one way or another, it doesn't matter anymore. Anyway, the opinion got to be that the picture wouldn"t be made without Eddie. And so I was out. "WELL, I BROODED ABOUT THIS, naturally. At least, I started to. But then Ellie had a talk with me. It was a very short talk, very simple. She said that lots of things happen for the best, que sera sera, and — knock wood — something better would come along for me. "And, sure enough, a little while later. I landed this role in Eternity (Hell To Eternity), which I wouldn't have been able to take if I were working on the Taylor picture. And — knock wood — if it turns out to be as good a picture as everybody who should know says it will be, well, then with this and Diamond I may really be on my way." We asked David to tell us a little more about Ellie, her qualities, the things about her he was most nuts about, the things about her that made her a woman among women. "Well—" he started. He paused. He scratched his head and said, "You know, questions like this take time to answer." So he took time. A lot of time. Until, suddenly, from the other end of the room we heard a click. It was Ellie, opening the door that led from the den. She poked out her head. "David," she said, " — is it that you can't think of anything else nice to say about me. . . . Hmmmmm?" Then she winked at us and closed the door again. "My wije?" David called out. "Why," he said, "why, Ellie Janssen is the most sen-sa-tion-al gal who ever lived. Yessir. And I love her madly. "Madly!" "I hope I said that loud enough," he whispered to us then, laughing. "I mean, if we still want to see that scallopine tonight. . . ." END David stars in Allied Artists' Dondi and Ring Of Fire /or MGM.