Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

SHIRLEY JONES Continued from page 74 contemptuously dismissed as “that emptyheaded farm girl.” Six years later she won an Oscar as a slut in “Elmer Gantry”— and after that she’d get pinched on the thigh and asked to “tell me where you got the experience to play that prostitute. Lulu Baines.” Actually, Shirley is neither character. But as one producer who has worked with her says. “There’s a helluva lot more of Lulu in Shirley than there is of Laurie.” She grew up thousands of miles from Oklahoma, but her childhood was the essence of small -town America. Even her name conjures up pictures of vanilla ice cream, home cranked; of watermelons on summer picnics; of pale blue ruffled dresses and ghosts on Hallowe’en. One wonders whether Rodgers and Hammerstein were not perhaps subconsciously influenced by the superstitious rightness of her face and her name. There were 800 people in Smithton. Pa., including the three Joneses. Grammar school was a three-room frame schoolhouse with three grades in each room. Shirley walked home for lunch each day, went barefoot all summer, learned to swim in the Yaughagenny River. “Dinner was at 5 P.M. each weekday for ten years. Every Saturday I washed my hair and every Saturday night I went to the movies. After church on Sunday we walked home to the big weekly dinner of chicken and homemade noodles. “Anyone in the world would have bought my childhood if it had been offered for sale. I wish my children could have it, too. and yet I wonder if it would be good for them in this complicated world in which they’re going to live.” She was a responsible child, pleasant and well-mannered, filled with the “solid security of being an only child and having no competition.” Yet even then she was ferociously strong-willed. (As strong-willed as Lulu Baines who was seduced, betrayed, locked out of her father’s house — and never even thought of begging to be allowed back.) And so she was spanked every day by a strong, determined mother who eventually despaired of teaching her equally strong Shirley moderation in anything. She was the first kid chosen for all the boys’ sandlot football and basketball teams. She could outrun, outshoot and outtackle any boy in Smithton — until they finally grew tall enough to throw the ball over her pretty little head. Prim— but oh. my! At that point she graduated to other “sports.” Anything that was considered too dangerous by the others was her first choice for an afternoon’s fun. She went skiing without skis, jumped off any walls, trees or houses that were tall enough to scare everyone else. She drove too fast down every rutted country road within fifty miles of Smithton. And at eighteen she went alone to New York to become an actress. Then — as now — her appearance was deceiving. Today the plumpness has disappeared, but the rosy cheeks remain, conveying an illusion of sweet simplicity. As a result she shocks everyone who has gotten to know her more than superficially. She loves to argue — sometimes merely for the sake of arguing. “You look so sweet.” said one angry actor a few months ago, after Shirley had demolished him with a flood of statistics. “I would never have believed you were so — so damn opinionated /” She loves to dare — sometimes merely for the sake of daring. When she was in Kentucky, filming “April Love,” the cast spent one Saturday at a horse show. Shirley was fascinated by a white stallion so spirited his own jockey couldn't control him. When the show was over, she trailed horse and jockey to the parking lot. “He’s beautiful,” she said. “The most wonderful horse I’ve ever seen. I’d give anything to ride him.” The jockey hesitated. “Do you ride?” he asked. “Yes.” “Do you ride well?” “Terribly, terribly well.” The jockey found it impossible to refuse. As soon as her feet touched the stirrups, the stallion lunged wildly. There was no place for him to run in the parking lot. so he plunged against Cadillacs and pickup trucks, then desperately jumped across a small foreign car. By the time she managed to bring the horse under control, the producer of “April Love” was leaning, white-faced, against his rented limousine, and the jockey caught hold of the stallion’s bridle with shaking hands. Of all the people in the parking lot that afternoon, only Shirley Jones was not afraid for Shirley Jones. She slid casually out of the saddle even though her arms and legs were covered with bruises that would not disappear for weeks. “Anything you can do . , Learn to write: This national magazine, like hundreds of others, needs many new stories and articles for every new issue. Today there is also a growing, far-reaching, demand for Newspaper-Radio-T.V.Motion Picture writers. (Over 20,000 articles, stories, and scripts are purchased every month.) 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