Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1943)

a rotten shame," simultaneously breathed the gossips and the friends and the enemies. Snoop around as they would, no one from any group could find out which one was "to blame." Still, Hollywood was in for one surprise. It was obvious that John had increased in star stature since marriage and that Anne had not. This should have meant that it would be John who would be seen in the night clubs while Anne, in the manless society of the movies, would sit home alone. The shock was that the reverse happened. It was Anne who immediately began appearing out every evening, and with one devoted escort after another. She was seen with Eddie Albert, with David May, with Edmond O'Brien, with Robert Stack and some score of others, while John stayed quiet and alone in his bachelor quarters. Months passed before John did begin dating Sheila Ryan, but whip that up as they would, the Hollywood gossips simply couldn't make a big thing out of that pairing, since it was so visibly a friendship and nothing more. But when, a couple of months ago, John first appeared with Jane Russell, everyone sensed that this was something that would bear watching. There was, between Jane and John, that electric quality of awareness of one another's presence. When John began being seen, not once or twice, but constantly with Jane, then the whole lown knew it was witnessing one of those torrid romances, taut with emotion, flaming brighter for the short time it could endure because of John's coming service. The tongues at once began to clatter. Then when John and Anne were seen back together again one evening, the whispers rose almost to shouts. The explanation of this latter date was distressingly simple, however. Both John and Anne adore their small daughter, Julie Anne, of whom Anne has the custody. As her parents, they had met to discuss the little girl's future, stayed together for dinner that they might talk about her, her schooling, her bright sayings. Even if you hate your ex-spouse cordially, you can't go around Hollywood showing it, as that wrould be just too wearing in a place where lost loves are always bumping into one another. John and Anne don't hate one another, so they behaved charmingly that evening. BUT when, the next night, John and Jane Russell were observed together again, then there was no longer any question but that this was a real romance. But the chief reason why, over and beyond their youth, their ambition and their handsomeness that these two are attracted to each other has never been told up until now. It has to do with John's love for Anne Shirley and with Jane Russell's love for a boy named Bob Waterfield. You have to understand, first of all, that for all his handsomeness, for all this adventurous life which has included jobs in carnivals, burlesque shows, boxing rings, movies and the like, John Payne is an inhibited, shy young man. You have to know that Anne was his first real love, and that marriage was an ideal relationship to him, and that the death of love stunned him deeply. Some people can knock around the world and never be touched by it. This, until very recently, was true of John. He had lived in two distinct worlds before he came to Hollywood. The world of his childhood was that of the most refined Virginia society. The world of his first wage-earning, of his young manhood, was that tawdry side of show business. Any Holly In the middle of the Russell-Payne datings, John appeared one evening with Anne Shirley. Tongues wagged — till Hollywood found out the reason wood interviewer will tell you that this star, who should be full of the most wonderful stories, is actually colorless in speech. My personal belief on that score is that John Payne, in order to protect himself against the seaminess of the reality he saw in the sports and show world, so steeled himself against all feeling that now it has become almost a prison for him against emotion. It is not at all that he has not experienced, or does not experience, strong emotions. It is. rather, that these emotions are so violent within him that he dares not give them any expression whatsoever. Anne Shirley, who took her name from the character she played in her first starring role, "Anne Of Green Gables," had knocked about life even more years than Johnny. She had been supporting not only herself since her third birthday, but her mother, too. But instead of life's making her either timid or bitter, it left her a little girl who until her marriage had one of the biggest doll collections in the world, a gay. laughing girl who. off screen, couldn't be bothered with glamour, who. more often than not. was apt to pull her hair back from her plain, unpowdered young face, a girl who had a devastating honesty and who, in terms of movies, knew all the answers. IN the year 1937, when John and Anne married, Jane Russell was pursuing Bob Waterfield at the Van Nuys, California, High School which they both were attending. Jane was only fourteen then. "The Outlaw" and its international publicity, the fact that a hundred magazines would print covers of her and hundreds more would run full pages of her photographs all still lay in an undreamed future. Even if she had visioned such fame. Jane couldn't possibly have imagined the strange fact that would make her famous in movies and yet keep her off screen. She had no time to think of such things, however, for in 1937 and for four years afterward, until just a few months ago when she met John Payne, the only thing Jane wanted from life was Bob Waterfield's love. They had actually met, Jane and Eob, two years earlier. Bob Waterfield was sixteen then to Jane's fourteen, and he was distinctly the glamour boy of the Van Nuys High School. He possessed that rare combination of both brains and looks, for he was graduating in ihat summer of his sixteenth year, and he was also a football hero, he drove a low, expensive car. he dressed smartly, he danced every step known to any floor, he had cold green eyes, broad shoulders and slim hips, and he was going through school on an athletic scholarship. There was hardly a girl (Continued on page 96) 22 photoplay combined with MOVIE vssor