Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

Marriage Brought Him Everything (Continued from page 16) star commands a higher salary on the screen. In radio, too, Basil is one of the few dramatic actors who can make his own terms. Last year Kellogg's struggling The Circle, rich with the biggest names in filmdom, had to call on him to save it. He has been highlighting guest star spots, on big Hollywood shows since radio came to town. Socially, too, the Rathbones are probably more firmly and favorably established than any couple in Hollywood. In it the Rathbones are acknowledged leaders. As hosts, they are a Hollywood legend. No event since, has matched the brilliance of their famous "Bride and Groom" costume ball celebrating their eleventh wedding anniversary. Nor has any Hollywood wedding reception been staged with more finesse and charm than that of Basil's son, Rodion, and his bride, last year. And all of this — the good things of the private life of Sherlock Holmes — are the fruits of Basil Rathbone's romantic adventure with his wife, Ouida. I suppose there is no actor in Hollywood who epitomizes poise, self-confidence, even conceit and arrogance more than Basil Rathbone does to one who sees him on the screen or hears him over the air. His speech is clipped and precise, his bearing straight and proud, his mind and witsharp and compelling. He seems a man to master any situation in life with ease. Yet when Basil first met Ouida Bergere he was, by his own confession, a man with an inferiority complex, a man shy to the point of awkward confusion, a social flop! Worse still, he was dazed into a state of aimless drifting, rudderless, without a grip on the realities of steering a successful career. Basil lived through two years of front line fighting and crawling, as he puts it, "on my stomach over every inch of mud in No Man's Land" without any injuries, except a few light wounds and barbed wire slashes, which scar his legs to this day. But, like many another soldier, the long days and nights when death was just beyond the tick of his wristwatch, robbed him of any concern about the future or any power to plan it. So with peace, Basil came back to the stage, aimless, ambitionless, living from day to day. Neither money nor fame meant anything to him. He shrank from decisions, he took what he was offered. He avoided parties and people. His aggressiveness and his hope for the future had vanished while time stood still in the war. All he wanted was to be left alone. Naturally, in the most competitive profession on earth, acting, that is anything but a formula for success. Despite Basil's talents, he began to lose this part and that, ones he had counted on. His career began slipping away and he was too negative to halt the slide. He was like this when he met and married Ouida Bergere. The union with her positive personality has changed his whole life and his fortunes, Basil swears. To understand that, you must know something about the remarkable Mrs. Rathbone. Ouida Bergere Rathbone is small and dainty but with the strong personality which often goes with red hair. Hers is flaming. She is colorful, sharp-witted, practical, educated, intelligent. She is bursting with energy and strength. When Basil first met her, Ouida was an extremely successful Hollywood screen writer — making a thousand dollars a week at Paramount studios. He was just another British actor. The day they were married she stopped writing — sacrificing her own career to her husband's, because, as Basil points out, "she was canny enough to realize that marriage seldom works with two pay checks in the family." If you believe Basil, his wife alone has taught him to be important to himself, to have self-confidence and to push his fortunes. She alone has developed that "social side" in which he was so sadly lacking, banishing a smothering inferiority complex and turning his painful timidity into the sparkling charm which has made him a famous figure at Hollywood gatherings. And you can readily believe Basil when you know him and understand the type of man he is. In no other, perhaps, would such a complete Fink Mickey Rooney, Jack Benny and Orson Welles, chatting before Hollywood's all-star broadcast for the President's March of Dimes drive. USE IRRESISTIBLE LIPSTICK ts/^&^2oi FOR GREATER SMOOTHNESS for the witchery of vibrant, dewey-fresh lips, you need a softer, smoo.fher lipstick like IRRESISTIBLE, the lipstick that's WHIP-TEXT for greater smoothness. Whipped again and again by a secret new process, Irresistible Lipstick is non-drying, more lasting, and beautifully clear in color. In luscious FLASH RED, FUCHSIA PLUM, RED OAK, ORCHID and other smart shades, with matching Rouge and Face Powder. M APRIL, 1940 AT ALL 5 AND 10 CENT STORES IRRESISTIBLE LIPSTICK PUTS THE YOU IN IRRESISTIBLE YOUTH! 89