Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1943)

Wedding setting: Bridesmaid Ann Miller in a blue wool suit with purple orchids; bridegroom Pev; bride Linda in a white wool suit with white orchids; best man Bill Heath said. So we had to keep up the pretense. "Eight o'clock Sunday morning, without even stopping for a cup of coffee, we started for the courthouse. "I was so glad I had my white wool suit — bought optimistically so long before— with white plumes embroidered on my right shoulder and white plumes to catch my coat at the waist. I was so glad Annie had her beautiful blue wool suit with a big bunch of purple grapes on the left shoulder and another at the waist. Her orchids were purple. Mine were white. "We were married at eleven. It wasn't just one of those bang-bang things. Judge Paul C. O'Malley took pains to make the ceremony memorable, both beautiful and solemn. "Back at the hotel we had champagne to toast each other and all the years ahead. The soldiers came over to congratulate and forgive us. I called Harry Brand, at the studio, with my news. And later driving home across the desert, we heard Jimmie Fidler announcing our marriage over the air. "Monday night — at Annie's house — we had a reception. Just close friends and family, no celebrities. It was wonderful, all of it, but just being married and waiting for Pev to come home and looking after our home and ordering dinner — well, that's more wonderful!" IT WAS in the tiny house that Pev and Linda have rented in Beverly Hills that we talked to her. Watching her — tall, dark, slender with her warm Southern beauty, with her black hair, lustrous dark eyes and olive skin — we remembered the excitement she caused among the Hollywood men almost from the first day she arrived. The wolves saw her first, of course. But they rapidly got nowhere. Mickey Rooney in the heyday of his single blessedness was very serious about her. When he returned from a goodwill tour to Mexico he brought her a rare bracelet while his mother — to whom he is devoted — got only a bottle of perfume. And since his marriage, following Ava's suit for divorce, Mickev has been said to be anxious to date Linda again. Also she and Kay Kyser were what columnists call "an item." At the mention of these swains Linda smiled. "I went out with other men," she said, "so there wouldn't be too much talk about Pev and me. I've had a desperate crush on Pev ever since I gave up my romantic dreams of a boy with whom I went to school back in Texas. "It's never been a problem to me that Pev is so much older than I am. I've known so many marriages between people the same age that didn't work out. Besides, I definitely prefer an older man. I think a man of forty or even forty-five can be a lot of fun. If Pev were younger or if he acted younger we wouldn't have so much in common. I believe, above all, a girl should marry a man she can respect, a man who has some brains, a man who can protect her, teach her, guide her, help her not to make mistakes. A young man can't advise a girl, for he hasn't lived himself. "Wasn't it," she asked, "Aristotle who advocated an age difference of twenty years or more between husband and wife? Wasn't it his idea that women grow old faster than men?" There is twenty-two years difference in the ages of Pev Marley and Linda. Linda, not quite twenty, is the youngest feminine star in Hollywood playing adult romantic roles, which is understandable enough, for mentally Linda is ten years ahead of her years. Being the breadwinner for her large family undoubtedly increased her maturity. So did her mother's old-fashioned supervision. It forced her to be individually strong and assert herself; even to the point of leaving the home she had bought for her family and setting up a bachelor girl apartment. Any worrying Mrs. Darnell did about Linda after she was on her own was certainly wasted. When various people suggested to Linda that a "good girl" lacked the necessary emotional experience to make love scenes convincing Linda told them, "Listen, brother — I've never had a bad review!" Linda's mania for knowledge and beauty has advanced her mentally. A voracious and discriminating reader she's long been enchanted by the beauty of Kahlil Gibran's little book on Christ and had keen appreciation for Kipling's poems and stories. The latest issue of the Atlantic Monthly always is to be found on her bedside table. She talks intelligently on many subjects and carries stacks of phonograph records to the studio — Rimsky-Korsakov, Tschaikowsky. Beethoven — to play in her dressing room between takes. That day, talking of Pev, Linda said, "He's always been the only man in Hollywood with whom I could let down my hair. I've known him ever since I came here. He photographed my first three pictures, 'Hotel For Women,' 'Daytime Wife' and 'Stardust.' I was very innocent in those days. I knew nothing about Hollywood and nothing about stardom. He advised me. He told me to stay normal, not to read my own publicity, not to lose my head. "He was married when I first knew him. (He was married to Lina Basquette from whom he was later divorced.) His wife liked to give parties and I used to be invited over with the 'gang' — Tyrone Power and Annabella, the Brian Donlevys, Arlene Whelan, Alex D'Arcy and others. "Pev's a fine host and a good conversationalist. I always liked to listen to him, even before I knew how important we would be to each other. I could learn so much from him. He didn't, for example, just tour Europe. He lived there when he was a photographer in the European studios." Slowly her smile widened. "Our first date was a ball game at the Gilmore Stadium," she said. "After that we often went bowling, to the movies and now and then to a night club together. It was all fun. Things are fun — with Pev." She looked around the little living room. "And now — although I still hardly can believe it — we're married, Pev and I. Which, I'm very sure, is as it was meant to be." The End 33