Radio mirror (Jan-June 1948)

Touch My Heart (Continued from page 41) way. And ever so much funnier. As Court tells it: "My first suspicion that something was up was when I found myself sneaking into the movies. I'd never been much of a movie-goer. I've never been much of a movie-goer since. But for two solid weeks after I first asked Grace for a date, and got turned down, I went to the movies every day. Sometimes twice a day. "Having been theater-born (my Dad was an actor and, later, a theater-manager) and radio-bred, I'd decided, rather whimsically, to be a lawyer. At the time I met Grace, I was studying law at the University of Toronto. I was also President of the Student Organization at Osgood Hall and was running the school paper. In addition I was doing the twenty-two free lance radio shows a week I've mentioned. Obviously, I was a man with commitments. But suddenly I took the notion that I couldn't study, couldn't concentrate, couldn't do anything, didn't want to do anything, except — go to the movies. So there I went. I can never tell you what I saw. I was alone with my own little thoughts. Finally, I realized the nature of the malady, the aberration that had seized me: I was in love." SO there we were, the pair of us, in love. Each knowing it but neither saying it, to the other. Not yet. When, a very few days after he first asked me for a date. Court tried again, I said "Yes!" in italics and with an exclamation point. But alas, we didn't get off to a very good start. Our first date, in fact, was very close to being tragic — and, later, a second crisis in our courtship came very close to being fatal. For our first date, feeling that he would not and could not suggest doing anything mundane, Court invited me to drive to Niagara Falls with him, have lunch there in the States, and drive back. It was a pretty ridiculous thing to do in mid-winter but it seemed to me, as to him, a pretty exciting thing to do, an adventure uniquely our own. Anyway, off we went and had a perfectly, unforgettably beautiful time. The long drive, wrapped in furs, over snow that shone like the sun above us. Lunch in the Indian Room of the Niagara Falls hotel. For music, the mighty orchestra of the Falls playing the songs of lovers, the quick and the dead, who have honeymooned there. . . . But on the way home, we ran out of gas. It was getting dark. It was growing late. The nearest gasoline station was some twenty miles away. We finally hailed a car and persuaded the driver to push us to that gas station. By the time we got home, it was 4:30 in the morning and poor Court, who wanted so much to make a good first impression on my family, was feeling the weight of the world upon his shoulders. However, the weight lifted when next he met my parents . . . they loved him at first sight, as had I. What I call the "second crisis" in our courtship was my going away. It was precipitated by Court proposing to me. Which he did, quite suddenly, six months after our trip to the Falls — in, of all places, a third-rate, brokendown restaurant where we'd stopped, after the broadcast, for a quick coffee — and at, of all unbecoming-to-a-lady times, high noon! "I couldn't get down on my knees," Court laughed about it, later on. "The floor was too dirty. And I must have been completely disorganized — I know I put ketchup in my coffee and cream and sugar over the steak sandwich I didn't eat!" I was in love with Court. And well I knew it. I was also in love with my career. I had worked very hard at, and for, my career. I'd studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, England — under such teachers as Charles Laughton, Sara Allgood, Sir Kenneth Barnes ... In addition to my work at the Hart House and with the John Holden Players in Winnipeg, I'd had some theater experience in New York. In 1938 I was in the Theatre Guild production of "Dame Nature." I'd also understudied Jessie Royce Landis and had been a permanent member of the North Shore Players at Marblehead, Mass. The Story of Dr. Susan was my first radio contract. I liked radio, loved it, but I also wanted the theater, wanted New York where theater and radio are most advantageously to be had. When Court proposed to me I didn't, torn as I was, say "No" but neither did I say "Yes." I said, in effect, "Maybe." I decided to go to New York and there make up my mind between Toronto and New York — which meant, actually, between Court and my career. For Court, I knew, could not leave Toronto. He was not yet graduated from Law School. He had as many radio commitments as — well, as Gregory Peck has film commitments. Furthermore, the war was on. . . . I went to New York. I was offered the chance to go back to Marblehead again, or to Nantucket. I was asked, by Gladys George and the late Phillip Merivale, to play summer stock with them, in Saratoga. I thought, Any one of these opportunities will help to reestablish me in the theater, in the Fall. I also thought. This will mean giving up Dr. Susan. And — This means choosing between my career and Court. EACH morning, as I rang for tea, talked on the telephone concerning some bright prospects that might be for me, I thought, I'll stay in New York. This is where the stars of theater and radio are made. I'll stay. . . . Each evening, as I was going to sleep, I thought, I'll go hack to Dr. Susan. Back to Court. Back to Toronto where my home is, and my heart. . . . I went to sleep saying I'll go back because Court called me every evening from Toronto. Oh, he was very fair about it, never playing on my emotions, never taking advantage of the advantage he must have known he had. Never a word of love, always the friendly-interested approach. "That sounds very promising, Grace," he'd say, when I told him of an offer made me. Or, "Do you think that is quite wise, Grace," of another offer. 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