TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

I didn't call her. And, if I should call now and say, 'I'm not coming home for dinner,' Se wouldn't say a word. I wouldn't have say why — or where I was going. You call that 'understanding,' I suppose." The same delightful understanding works both ways. Pete doesn't suddenly make noises like a disgruntled husband, either, when his wife wants to travel — or go skiing. It's all part of the Lawfords' casual, harmonious pattern for living. However, for all her admiration and affection for both of them, Pete's mother felt that they were being just a little too casual when she had to learn from Walter Winchell that she was going to be a grandmother. Half an hour after the newscast, Pete happened to drop by. "What is this I hear about you?" his mother said, still visibly excited. "I don't know. What?" he said. "I was just listening to Walter Winchell. He says you're going to have a baby!" she said. "Oh, that," said her son. "Oh, yes." Admittedly, Pete's own reaction when he learned he would be a father was far less underplayed— though, by way of preparation for parenthood, he insists: "I looked at Life With Father on TV." But like many other fathers-to-be, he thumbed and thumbed through the usual names. "This thing of searching so desperately through books — thousands of them — it's like a comedy show," he grins. However, he soon found his name: "I got a peculiar idea nobody else seemed to agree with. I liked 'Christopher' — whether we had a girl or a boy. It's being done in England," Pete says, a little defensively. "They call girls 'Christopher' there." Thinking of himself as a father, he admitted from the first, was "a very strange feeling — and I must confess the feeling is even stranger now that the event has occurred." Pete's flair for the lighter touch and his genuine feeling for comedy were revealed long ago — long before he clicked in farce in films or television — in a little clipping he pasted carefully in his scrapbook: "The only thing worth having is a smile. The only thing worth doing is making others laugh." To this, Peter "Phoebe" Lawford is now dedicating his days and nights — frequently including Sundays. It's a frenzied thing, turning out a weekly comedy television show, and very consuming. At American National Studio in Hollywood, where Alex Gottlieb's Dear Phoebe is filmed, they shoot one picture in three days — and shoot five of them consecutively. He leaves the house every morning around seven and may get back by eight that night — or eleven. His lunch hour (using the words very loosely) is broken up viewing rushes in the projection room, dictating correspondence to his secretary, Pam, studying future scripts, and snatching a fast sandwich and glass of milk in his dressing room. But, after years of adorning drawing rooms on the screen, Pete has no complaints. Far from expecting any plush "star treatment," Pete clowns it up with the crew and takes a lot of affectionate kidding from them. They call him their Piccadilly Ray Milland. "May we borrow your face for a rehearsal, please," the assistant director will say. Then, with exaggerated politeness: "This is TV, you know — this isn't Metro." Busy studying a script with one hand and drinking a fast cup of coffee with the other, Pete will ask "What scene is this, my good man?" "The scene where you go down on your head," says the good man. "Thank you so very much," says Pete. And literally he does just that, falling over and over until they bring out the first-aid kit for bleeding knuckles and knees. "Already a casualty, and the day yet so young. Yes, I know. This is TV— it isn't Metro. . . ." Folding himself into his beloved AustinHealey and limping homeward to the beach after a day like this, small wonder that it's a relief to be going home to an understanding bride who doesn't make a Security Council issue over the cold chowder! The Lawfords lease a small two-bedroom redwood "over-the-water" house at Malibu. It has an informal farmhouse feeling, with a large functional living room and a charming dining alcove facing the sea. Through the 24-foot glass window, their front yard is a restless ocean with changing horizons that beckon — and send them surfing in Waikiki, whenever Pete can get away. They chose the beach house because: "It's cozy and warm, Early American, and has such a wonderful fireplace. And we both love the water, anyway." With the so-eagerly-awaited Christopher, they need more room and more yard space. Quarters were already a little cramped as it was, what with Pat's white Mercury, Pete's Cadillac, jeep and Austin-Healey. Take his own word for it, Pete's hardly qualified to advise the lonely-hearted or anybody else. Husbands, particularly. He has no advice to give. He barely has enough for his own personal use. "For one thing," he confesses, with a disarming grin, "I procrastinate. We both do. But I procrastinate more. Such as when we've made our mind up to go to Honolulu and, at the last moment, when we're catching the plane — I still haven't called for the tickets. But Pat has — fortunately. "And I forgot our anniversary completely," Pete continues. "Our first-sixmonths anniversary. Pat had said, that morning when I was leaving for the studio, 'Let's have a few people over this evening,' and I said, 'Fine.' That evening, they brought in a cake and began singing 'Happy anniversary to you' . . . and I'd forgotten all about it. I just stood there with cake on my face. I said something like 'Oh, no,' and Pat said, 'Oh, yes." Whereupon, according to her husband, "I really put a biscuit on it. Thinking how happy we'd been together, I said something like, 'It seems like thirty years.' "But we have so much understanding," Pete adds. "We've had none of that difficult time couples are supposed to have adjusting at first. In some strange way, we have more understanding than many couples who've been married for years. Don't ask me how it's happened — or how it could happen ... so soon. . . ." Pete suspects, however, that it could be because "I found the only girl I could be married to — and she married me. . . . Fortunately." (Continued from page 68) told me, 'still be some hope for you!' " Before their marriage, Gale and Lee looked earnestly for a church they felt would fill their needs. And they found the one to which they still belong — the Hollywood Beverly Christian Church. Gale says, "It wasn't too big (we like a certain intimacy), it wasn't too small, and there was a good church school for the many children we planned to have." When Gale's oldest child, Phillip, was two and a half, she entered him in the Sunday school class. But Phillip cried when he was left alone in the strange new environment. So Gale stayed with him until class was over. At the end of the hour, she learned that the church needed Sunday school teachers. Gale volunteered. She taught every class from kindergarten to high school for the next six years — 1946 to 1952. Dr. Kleihauer, minister of the church, says, "Gale's little-boy pupils waited Sunday mornings on the steps in front of church; they didn't want to miss a chance to walk upstairs with their pretty teacher." Gale and Lee also decided to take part in the church's "Operation Youth" pro T gram. The first six weeks, they put on a V play, with the high school drama group, R which was a great success. The second six weeks, they conducted a forum on "Charm, „. Good Manners, and a Christian Personal84 Answer to Her Prayers ity." They readied themselves by reading church literature on teen-age problems, and had the principal of church education to help them. "But," says Gale, "the kids asked Lee and me questions on subjects we hadn't prepared, such as 'Do you kiss a girl on the first date?' We did our best, though we tried to turn the discussion in the direction we thought it should take. We don't know whether it was our ability in leading the forum — just our awful selves — or the question on dating which made it such a success — but, for six weeks, we had a full classroom!" Shortly after this "Operation Youth" program, My Little Margie came along. Hal Roach, Jr., was blessed with the idea for Margie, having been exposed to the problems of his own teen-age daughter. He wanted Gale Storm for the title role, and they began to film the series in May, 1952. Margie was good, clean entertainment. Gale had faith in it. But Margie did cut into Gale's time schedule. She has had to give up the Sunday school teaching. "It takes two hours to prepare a lesson properly," she says. "When Margie started, I was up at 5:30 A.M., and didn't have two free hours. Unprepared at Sunday school, I had that terrible 'lost' feeling — -believe me, those teenagers are sharp!" But Gale did not give up all church activities. She is still available when the church calls upon her, and, every Yuletide, she narrates the midnight Christmas story. As due reward — indicating that Gale is still a shining symbol of worthwhile religious endeavor — she was appointed the National Chairman of Sunday School Week, during the week of April 11, 1955. And Lee, still active in the church, too, is now a junior elder. Gale and Lee try to teach things like religion, love and respect by example. Around the house, it's always "May I, honey?" and "Please, will you, hon. . . ." The children came to believe that all married people called each other only "Honey." One day, Peter's piano teacher and her husband were at the Bonnells'. During a lesson, they continually referred to one another by their Christian names. "This," says Gale, "completely threw Peter. He didn't see how married folks could be so formal. At the end of the lesson, he said, 'You're not really married, are you?' " At their church, Dr. Kleihauer, the Bonnells' minister, impressed Gale, in a sermon, with the fact that the dinner hour is the children's hour. At the Bonnells', this period reflects their basically religious attitude toward life. When the family sits down to eat, they all hold hands around the table, taking turns saying grace.