Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

think I had two heads. Later, outside the Music Hall at Radio City, I was mobbed. "Can I have your autograph, huh? Please, Miss Frazier, will you give me your autograph?" We finally escaped to the balcony and hid in the last row on the side. By that time, it had dawned on me. By some quirk of fate, I was passing for Brenda Frazier, the most publicized Deb of the Year. It was a break for me. CBS decided I was a natural for Society Girl, and shipped me off on a back-breaking tour of the nightclubs. I had to sign a contract, promising not to marry for a year. But that was all right with me. I was strictly the career girl in those days. Besides, Dick Brown hadn't yet appeared on the scene. I don't know how I became a soap opera queen. It must have been that good fairy of mine working overtime. But I do know that the first time I heard my own voice on a recording, I was horrified. "I have the worst voice," I almost wept to Mother. "How can anybody give me a job?" But they did. In 1940, Princeton voted me "Actress of the Year," and I went off on a good-will tour around the country for the Columbia Broadcasting System. During the next five years, I played in almost every daytime serial from the title role in Stepmother to The Romance of Helen Trent. I was Rose Kransky (the first character in radio to have an illegitimate baby), Carson McVicker (lady psychiatrist) and scores of other daytime heroines. Along came the quiz shows and giveaways, and I turned into the voice of sponsors. Doing commercials is fun and not nearly so anonymous as it sounds, I discovered. When Twenty Questions went on television, for instance, the Ronson Girl (yours truly again) was the only character who didn't appear on the screen. That first week, my mail box was jammed with letters from fans, begging me to "Stick your head in the camera." I really felt good then. I used to say I'd never marry a man in the same profession. I was dead wrong about that. For Dick and I get along beautifully. Our work is different enough so that we can't compete, yet close enough so that we understand each other's problems. When Dick has cocktails with a girl at the club or I have lunch with men from the studio, we both know it's strictly business. He never thinks twice about my erratic hours; he's used to them himself. I don't resent his night club work away from New York either, though I do miss him when he's away. But my own experience has taught me how important it is for him to do what he enjoys most. There's one danger in a marriage like ours. It would be^easy to slip into the habit of leading separate lives even when we can be together. Dick underscored that quite unwittingly in connection with our honeymoon, and we both laughed about it afterwards. My vacation began four days before his. "You go to Florida early, honey," he told me. "I'll join you later." "Why, Dick, this is our honeymoon. A husband and wife usually spend that together. It's an old American custom?" See what I mean about separate lives? I'm never going to let that happen. Dick moved into my apartment when we were married, the housing shortage being still with us. Things didn't look very different at first, except that there were shirts in all the drawers where my clippings used to be, and I once mistook his shaving cream for the toothpaste. Then gradually we redecorated. Now our two and a half rooms express Dick's personality as well as mine. We spend a great deal of time at home, as a matter of fact. We both prefer it that way. Night life is no holiday for Dick, and I had enough of a butterfly existence when I was single. It's wonderful to be able to relax in our own living room of an evening and to entertain friends there if they happen to drop by to see us. When we're alone, we usually have dinner by candlelight. Then, the dishes out of the way, Dick settles down to his pipe and I to the yellow sweater I'm making for him. I used to make all my own clothes, but knitting is a talent I picked up along with my wedding ring. We play one game of gin rummy every night before we go to bed, and Dick insists I cheat because I always win. I point out that I used to be the backgammon champion of Connecticut when I spent my summers there, and he tells me that back home in Ohio he was always a whiz at chess. We always seem to have so much to talk about. Perhaps that's because our courtship was so fast that we didn't have time to find out much about each other. Perhaps it's because our early lives were so different. I was an only child, born and bred in Brooklyn. I went to school by streetcar and subway and played in crowded parks. Dick, one of six children, comes from a small midwestern town, where school was a hop and a jump from home, and the gang gathered afterwards to kick a football around a vacant lot or to have Coke dates in the corner drugstore. I remember how surprised he was when I told him that I'm a frustrated singer myself. My mother was studying voice when she married my father. In those days, she wanted her child to have the career she'd missed, though she changed her mind later. So, while she was carrying me, she sang constantly. Unfortunately, I was born tone deaf, but with a tremendous voice, so tremendous that I was forbidden to sing in the school assembly. I had my heyday, though, years later, when I sang with Richard Himber and his orchestra. We opened with "Are you havin' any fun?" and every time I went off key, I just sang louder. Dick surprised me, too, not so long ago. He's been all over the country, playing nightclubs and radio. He spent several years broadcasting from the West Coast. But, back in 1944, he had a program singing over the Mutual Broadcasting System right here in New York. We figured out that I was rehearsing Nick Carter one floor above the studio where he was singing. "You see," I scolded him. "If you'd just been energetic enough to walk up one flight of stairs, we could have had three or four children by now." "That's all right, honey," he consoled me. "When we do have 'em, they're going to be very talented." "You bet. Sing like you and act like me." Dick broke in with a loud guffaw. "What'll we do • if it's the other way around? Drown 'em?" What can you do about a man like that? Love him, laugh with him and never leave him. At least that's my program— for the rest of my natural life. WANTS TO LEARN AT HOME-WITHOUT TEACHER 'T1 housands now play who never thought they could. Why not YOU too? Our printed lessons make it easy as A-B-C to play real music BY NOTE. No special "talent" needed. Only a few cents a lesson — including sheet music! No tiresome exercises— you learn by actually playing pieces. Makes learning music FUN — it's like playing a game! 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