TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

(Continued from page 51) around ten, when the maid arrived for the day. . . . She was still half asleep when the sound came in on the set, the commercials were over and her husband appeared on the screen — her husband, Richard Coogan — smooching with his beautiful young screen bride, Vanessa. "Oh, no," Gay murmured, jumping out of bed. "Not that!" And, with a sharp twist of her hand, off went the set. Gay Coogan insists her reaction had nothing whatever to do with jealousy. Six years before, when she was expecting her first child, Ricky, she'd looked on without flinching while Dick nightly held an embrace with Mae West through six successive curtain calls, during the run of "Diamond Lil." She'd seen him make love to a number of glamorous actresses on screen or stage without paying the slightest attention to it. But, as she explains it, she, too, had finally reached a point where she was temporarily getting mixed up among the multiple lives of her husband. She'd long observed the public's tendency to confuse reality with make-believe, where her husband was concerned, though she'd always considered herself immune from it. She'd been vastly amused at the uproar Rick, Jr., had caused in a movie theater where they'd taken him to see his father in "Three Hours to Kill," with Dana Andrews. Rick didn't like it. at all, when he saw his father get a beating in a highly realistic fight scene toward the end of the picture. "That man is going to kill you, Daddy," he protested loudly. Dick tried to reassure him, pointing out that he was, after all, sitting right next to him, but it didn't help. "Watch out! He's Born To Be a Husband going to kill you, Daddy — he'll kill you," Rick wailed, sending the audience into hysterics during the film's most exciting moment. At another time, Dick's eight-year-old niece, Sandy — who, along with his twentytwo other nieces and nephews, is a loyal and devoted follower of Love Of Life — was quite shocked upon learning that Van was expecting a baby. "Oh, dear," she piped up, "does Aunt Gay know about this?" Even on the radio, when Dick played Abie Levy in Abie's Irish Rose, neighbors used to stop him all the time, advising him in all seriousness whether or not to move to the country and buy Rosie her house with the "pickle" fence. Later, when he was television's Captain Video, small fry and grownups alike used to greet Dick as "Captain." "I gave up the part in the nick of time," he says. "Imagine any kid having Captain Video for a father! It would have been kind of tough, being a hero twenty-four hours a day. And I would have hated having to disillusion Rick." But, when it comes to being identified by the public with a specific role, Dick has reached his peak as Paul Raven in Love Of Life. It is hard to believe that this should happen in a presumably hardboiled and sophisticated city like New York, but rarely a day goes by that Dick isn't given advice of some sort by some well-meaning stranger. Not long ago, as he was leaving a Fifth Avenue bus, he was confronted by a middle-aged, well-dressed lady. "Now look here, Paul Raven," the lady said kindly. "You listen to me and come clean with Van. It's never any good trying to hide secrets from your wife. Especially not with that sister-in-law of yours." As is well known to several million followers of Love Of Life, Paul Raven is burdened by the memory of an unhappy marriage in his past. To add to the confusion, Deputy Sheriff File— whom Dick Coogan portrayed recently on Broadway in "The Rainmaker" — had a similarly unpleasant secret in his past: A wife who ran away with a traveling salesman. However, unlike either of these harassed men, Dick in real life is happily married to his first and only wife — the girl he met, as a very young man, among the cast of the production that gave him his first walk-on part as a professional actor. Dick Coogan and Gay Adams both made their stage debuts as members of the cast of the late Leslie Howard's notable 1936 production of "Hamlet," Dick carrying a spear and understudying the role of Fortinbras, and Gay as a lady-in-waiting. They did not, it may be noted, fall in love at first sight. "Gay had a couple of very cute wirehaired fox terriers that followed her around at rehearsals," Dick recalls. "Each time I came around trying to pat one of them, wanting to be friendly, she'd take off, taking them for a walk or something. I love dogs, but I began to despise those two interfering mutts." Gay claims today that this was strictly accidental, but admits she thought Dick was too good-looking for comfort. 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