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DEATH
Bruce Dern and
Diane Ladd
were just
finding out
how good life
could be. Then tragedycruel and meaningless
-turned it all to ashes
Life was good, Bruce Dern thought • as he glanced around the Arena. It was a cool, clear evening. Just right for a track meet. A former ace half-miler himself, Bruce enjoyed a good meet. And good company.
His companion tonight was Leslie Stevens. Good company indeed — and also the writer-producer who was giving Bruce a featured role in the television series, "Stoney Burke."
And that was best of all. At last, things were breaking right for the acting Derns. Bruce with a regular TV assignment . . . Diane Ladd, his blonde, brown-eyed wife, just starting to meet the top producers — maybe guesting soon on "The Untouchables." In fact, she was out with Walter Winchell himself, right now.
Bruce grinned. Winchell — who'd known Diane since she was a child — had taken her to the Dodger game. Not that Diane cared a hoot about baseball! But she'd be sitting in Walter O'Malley's box and meeting producer Mervyn LeRoy. . . .
Suddenly, Bruce was aware of an insistent tug on his sleeve.
He turned and saw a policeman.
"Is your name Bruce Dern?"
Bruce nodded amiably. But his half-smile faded, as the policeman continued: "Been searching for you. Please come outside. Emergency!"
Outside, the first cold sweat of apprehension turned to icy prickles of fear, as he answered yes to further questions: "You live in North Hollywood?
"You have a baby daughter?"
Diane Jr., he thought. Oh, God, don't let it be that anything has happened to our baby. . . .
He hardly heard the policeman's words: "Got a call from the police station. Accident at home." He was beyond hearing, or seeing, in the blur of fast driving that followed.
At last, they were home. Only, it didn't look like home. Policemen and doctors everywhere. Oxygen tanks. Strange machines. And, somewhere in the background, the Derns' maid weeping hysterically.
For Dern himself, there was only a dreadful silence all around him. Just one incredible fact echoing in the empty chambers of his mind.
Baby Diane was dead.
Eighteen months old — and dead.
It wasn't until later that, bit by bit, the grim irony of it all emerged. While the maid was answering the phone — taking a message about a job for Diane Sr.! — the baby had slipped out of the house and run eagerly toward the forbidden, fenced-in pool. Somehow, the active little mite had managed to push the gate open. Had
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