TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1963)

outspokenly tired of the teaming. Also, tired of the rumors which say that — when they're not "romancing" — " they're "feuding." "Something wrong"! "Connie and I have worked together more than either of us has ever worked with anyone else," Troy points out. "We're friends. We've always been. We've had many, many little disputes and disagreements — after five years, if we hadn't, something would really be wrong with us. "But you should have seen us in Boston. We had a ball!" That's when they first danced together— while on a personal appearance tour to plug their latest picture — only days before I interviewed them both. Not together, however. TV Radio Mirror and I agreed that they should each feel free to say their say. So I interviewed Connie first, then Troy. I chatted with Connie as she packed to take off for Europe with her current major enthusiasm — not Troy, but Jim Stacy, her real romance of the moment. Then, next day, I chatted with Troy in the house he recently rented on a remote, quiet little street just above the Sunset Strip. It's a calm, serene house with beautiful peg hardwood floors. And eventually all the rent and any improvements Troy makes can apply on the purchase price, if he should decide to marry for real — not Connie, but Suzanne Pleshette. Considering all the circumstances, it's rather odd to hear Troy's comments on why there's no romance ahead — let alone marriage! — for him and Connie. "You just don't fall in love with the people you work with," he says, completely ignoring the rather conspicuous example of Liz and Burton. "You do a series with someone, you're with them constantly. That would take the romance out of anything — and I don't care who she is, every woman wants to be romanced, she wants that romantic tete-atete. Working together takes the edge right off. "Connie was going with someone else when we met, and I was, so we never ever even had the beginning of romance. But the last thing in the world I'd want to do, for example, would be to play in a series with Suzanne. I am in love with her, and to work with her continually — as you have to in a series, when you're together so much professionally — would be too much. It would make for a life much different than we hope for someday." But hadn't he and Suzanne fallen in love when they were making "Rome Adventure"? Troy assures me this wasn't the case at all. He met her a year before the picture ever started, never forgot her . . . nor recovered from his crush. He met her in California on a Christmas Eve, at a gift shop on Crescent Drive. About to leave, Troy noticed Suzanne and he stalled around, pretending to be shopping, while he tried to place v this girl for whom he felt such an imR mediate attraction. When she left — after some sort of argument in the store — he followed her. 84 What had happened was that Suzanne had purchased two hundred dollars' worth of Christmas gifts, asked for small gift cards, and the store wanted to charge her for them! Suzanne flared up and left. When Troy followed her out to the parking lot, she whirled around, eyes flashing, and told him, "If you're following me with those gift cards, don't bother!" "Oh ... no ..." he said, "nothing like that. My name is Troy Donahue and I just wanted to meet you and wondered if, some evening, we might have a date. Could I phone you perhaps?" Yes, he could phone, the number was in her father's name, she said — and started to give it to him : "Trafalgar . . ." "But that's in New York!" Troy said. "That's right. I'm leaving tonight." She left to take over Anne Brancroft's role in Broadway's "The Miracle Worker" and he didn't see her again. A halfdozen times he was in New York and started to call, but there was never enough time and that wasn't the way he wanted it to be, in between interviews ... a rush act. He told himself that one day our time will come. It came a year later, in Steve Trilling's office at Warners. Troy had asked whom they were testing for the picture and, when Steve mentioned Suzanne, Troy could hardly wait to make the test. He brought with him a whole bunch of gift tags, handed them to her, right there, in makeup! Making the picture didn't kill that romance, though many columnists — knowing nothing of Troy's year-long dream — thought it was sheer publicity for "Rome Adventure." They couldn't have been more wrong. While more recent rumors have linked Troy's name to Connie's, he and Suzanne have gone along quietly looking forward to a life "ideally together." But they're not going to be rushed into marriage and they both feel that the important thing, at this moment, is to be two human beings operating individually so that eventually they can have more to offer each other. You've got to be honest "The things Suzanne may not like about me are things I don't like about myself," Troy says frankly. "But now I have impetus to change them, and vice versa. It's very easy, when you're in love with someone, to act always the way they like you to be — but eventually your basic pattern will manifest itself. "With us, we want honesty now. Honesty is even more important than good manners. You've got to know who you are before marriage, even if it means walking away." This is something Troy and Connie have talked about many times. You get to know one another very well indeed, working together for five years. They've seen each other come through romance and heartbreak and studio problems and hassles. They've come through the phase of being teenage images and grown up into young adulthood — together. They know each other so well, and they know that they're not nearly so much alike as Connie may think they "look" by now. Sure, they're both independent, both ambitious, both capable of great tenderness and understanding in a love affair . . . but, of the two, Connie is by far the more daring. Connie takes a dare! Take this European adventure. Connie went to Manchester to appear for the United Jewish Appeal of Europe — and, by some marvelous stroke of luck, Jim Stacy was summoned abroad for the opening of "Summer Magic" in London. It couldn't have been more opportune. Connie and Stacy had already been dating for weeks. Now he could show her England and Italy, which he'd once toured as a rover ... no movie-star travel routine for them, but traveling like any other young Americans, renting cars and seeing the countryside. Upon their return, Connie's late summer plans included playing Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," at Kansas City, then another straw-hat stand in Ohio with "Sunday in New York." She's never appeared in a stage play in her life. But this is the kind of challenge Connie loves to meet. It's the kind of challenge Troy wouldn't want. "How could I do summer stock?" he shrugs. "It would mean rearranging my whole life. You have to take time out from picture commitments to do it. Great for Connie, but not for me." His plans stick to the straight and narrow, taking off for locations in Arizona and New Mexico for "Distant Trumpet" — which Suzanne may also do. At this point, both Troy and Connie feel the need for that increased freedom which goes along with being, grown up. And good friends as they are — diplomatic as they're both trying to be, regarding the policy of a studio which has done so much for them both — my feeling is that they're going to dig in and fight like steers against their ultimate TV marriage in "The Paper Year"! Nothing personal, you understand. Troy bows to no one in his admiration for Connie. "She's a real pro," he says. "So many think of her as 'the kid on the TV series,' and she's not just this at all! She's got a lot of finesse. She's going to be around a while in this business, she knows what she wants and she sticks to her guns until she gets it." "Troy is like a member of my family," says Connie firmly. "But I'm not going to marry anyone this minute. I've never had so much fun as I've had since I suddenly woke up and discovered I'm free for the first time since I met Gary —free!" Well, maybe not marriage for love, Connie. Not to Gary Clarke — or even Jim Stacy. But how about marriage for money? From what I hear, Warners would pay plenty to have you and Troy married — just on TV, in "The Paper Year." The kind of money that would make a lot of security for Troy and Suzanne in the kind of life "we hope for someday"! — Doris James Troy and Connie co-star in Warners' "Palm Springs Weekend," and Connie also sings on Warner Bros. Records.