TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

THIS GORGEOUS YEARBOOK CONTAINS YOUR FAVORITE TV-Radio Stars The gorgeous new TV-RADIO ANNUAL is now available to you. This exciting 1955 year book is better than ever! It covers all the Television and Radio events of the year. You'll enjoy the hundreds of new illustrations and you'll be simply thrilled to read the behind-the-scenes stories of all your favorite stars. Below is a brief description of this really important Annual: NEWS EVENTS OF THE YEAR— The behind-the-scenes stories of Eve Arden and Brooks West • Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling • Florence Halop • Bob Smith • Paul Dixon • Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows • Wally Cox • Jack Webb • Milton Beiie. NEW SHOWS OF THE YEAR— Stars new and old, who helped make recent history. Robert Q. Lewis • Sid Caesar • Imogene Coca • Florian ZaBach • Edgar Bergen • George Gobel • Jack Paar • Betty White • Michael O'Shea • James Dunn • William Bishop • Eddie Mayehoff • Gil Stratton Jr. WHO'S WHO ON— Breakfast Club • Father Knows Best • Beat The Clock • Two For The Money • The Garry Moore Show • Your Hit Parade • The Halls of Ivy • Our Miss Brooks • Masquerade Party • My Favorite Husband • Fibber McGec and Molly • Lassie • The Big Payoff • The Jackie Gleason Show. ALL-TIME FAVORITES — Arthur Godfrey • Ozzie and Harriet Nelson • Ralph Edwards • Bert Parks • Tennessee Ernie Ford • Warren Hull • Bill Cullen • Roy Rogers • Gene Autry • Red Buttons • Jack Bailey • Jack Barry • Ed Sullivan • Art Linkletter • Donald O'Connor • Jimmy Durante • Tom Moore. GORGEOUS NEW COLOR PORTRAITS OF THE STARS — Thrilling 4-color photographs of Liberace • Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz • Eddie Fisher • Gale Storm. These full page, true-to-life portraits are so unusual that you will want to frame each one of them! PLUS — Pictures and biographies from the most beloved daytime dramas on radio and TV. ONLY 50c— WHILE THEY LAST This terrific Annual is a sell-out each year. No wonder — everybody wants a copy and only a limited number are printed. Only 50c at your favorite magazine counter. Or, if more convenient, mail coupon with 50c TODAY. 94 TV-RADIO MIRROR Dept. RM-655 205 E. 42 St.. New York 17, N. Y. Send me postpaid, a copy of TV-RADIO ANNUAL 1955. I enclose 50c. Name. PI. .,'.. F Address City State. Age of Discovery (Continued from page 43) Brooklyn. Warren was then just a snubnosed, bright-eyed kid who — up to that moment — would have blinked and said, "An actor? Me? Are you trying to kid someone?" That day, Mrs. Tracy, a neighbor whose daughter was a dancer, called to Warren in the street and asked him to walk along with her to his home. He was quite willing, thinking she might want to get his mother's permission to take him to the movies. Mrs. Tracy had been watching the little fellow with the wavy brown hair and the alert eyes under sweeping dark lashes, the dark brows that turned up at the ends with a quizzical quirk to give the boyish face an unexpected touch of humor. (They still do, these nine years later.) Now, instead of taking him to a movie, she thought he had a chance to be in one. Mrs. Tracy knew that Warners' was casting small-boy roles for the motion picture version of "Life with Father." Would Mrs. Berlinger let her little boy try out? Mrs. Berlinger said, "Why not? Let's see what he can do — if he would like to." "Sure," said Warren, dreams beginning to take shape quickly. And he thought how he could get to be a big movie star, like Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy, and have a gun and a horse of his very own. Warren had his screen test, and his first big heart-break. Talent scouts in each city made their choice of boys, and he won easily in New York in his age group. But in the end they chose a West Coast boy. Warren went back to cops-and-robbers with the other kids, his dreams of glory in the Old West temporarily clouded. Only temporarily, however. Through the audition, Warren had aroused the interest of a Mrs. Bedford at Warners', who recommended him to Oscar Hammerstein for "Annie, Get Your Gun," the Broadway-bound stage play which was getting ready to open out-of-town. Warren was picked as one of four boys — which finally narrowed to three — two to appear regularly in the show and one as alternate and understudy. He became a regular and joined the cast in Philadelphia. It was Warren's first time on any stage, anywhere. He had never even been in a school play, and he would have considered dramatic lessons as nothing short of "sissy," if anyone had so much as mentioned the subject. Cops-and-robbers, cowboysand-Indians, were the stuff his dreams had been made of up to then. M ow, at seventeen, an experienced young actor of television and stage, and a high school senior (his best subject, U. S. history; his hardest, French), Warren is getting ready to enter Columbia University in New York and work toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, then, later, a Master's. And he plans to get in some good solid work in the dramatic arts course, because he loves what he's doing, wants to keep doing it better, and looks forward to a life in show business, maybe later as a director— though he wants to act in The Secret Storm a long, long time. "This kid Jerry, whom I play on television, is a boy who got off to a bad start," Warren explains. "He had tough breaks with his parents. His mother was killed in an automobile accident, and Jerry wanted to punish the people in the car responsible for her death. His mind got so twisted that he actually believed it was his duty to avenge his mother. Jerry's father has made some serious mistakes, too, and the boy has had a rough break all around. I want to see him pull out of this thing and become a decent citizen and a I happy guy. "Peter Hobbs, who is Peter Ames in the show, is a great guy who treats me as if I were really his son," Warren continues. "Contrary to her role, Haila Stoddard— who plays Pauline Harris, my dead mother's sister — is a real wonderful person. And Barbara Joyce — who is Jane Edwards, the woman my father loves — is as sweet as all get-out. "My sisters on the show are Jean Mowry, who is Susan, and Jada Rowland, who is Amy, and they're both swell. We have a lot of fun when we're not rehearsing. Amy's the youngest, so we all try to make her happy. But, no matter how much we joke and roughhouse before we go on, when it comes to work we're in dead earnest. Even Jada. Kids grow up fast in show business, because it teaches a sense of responsibility. We can't let anyone down, and each person's work is important, no matter how small the part." Sometimes people ask Warren if it wasn't hard for him to be on the stage, and now on television, during the years he was growing up. "The only truthful answer I can give is that I have enjoyed every minute of it. If I were not an actor, I would like to be just an average kid going to high school and getting ready for college, probably with an engineering course on my mind. I like working with my hands, and figuring things out. I might have been thinking about joining my father's construction business one day, with my brother Larry, who is seven years older than I am. Larry thinks my being on TV and the stage is kind of crazy, I suppose, although he seems to be a little proud that I can do it. My mother used to introduce me as 'My son Warren, the actor,' but I persuaded her to leave out 'the actor' part. 'Let people find that out for themselves later, if they're interested,' I told her. So now she doesn't do that any more." With a work schedule like Warren's, there isn't much time for girls and formal dating, but two Sunday evenings a month are dedicated to this important subject. "I don't want to get married until I am twenty-five," he hastens to say. "Not until I know all about girls." Then he grins at the rashness of that remark. "I mean, until I understand girls better, if I ever do! Anyhow, I know I should be much more mature before I even think of marriage." The reason he sets apart two Sundays, and only two, is a double one: First, he has to catch up on homework at least every other weekend. Second, he likes to give a girl a really nice time, which usually means some cab fares, dinner in a good restaurant (he himself prefers Chinese food for such occasions), a downtown movie, or going somewhere to dance, or a legitimate show, if there is a Sunday night performance. All this knocks out a fellow's budget. Theater friends often give Saturday-night parties after the show and he sometimes stops by, for an hour or so. But that's about all the social life he has time for. Being a product of modern times, Warren thinks girls ought to "go Dutch" with boys unless it is a formal date pre-arranged. "All of us had a big argument about this on the set one day — whether a boy should pay for a girl's lunch or a Coke, or something like that, when they just happen to be together. We fellows think the only time there should be no question about our footing the bill is when we actually take a girl out. But the girls don't seem to go for that." He grins, and shrugs, as if to imply that already he finds the ways of women quite inscrutable.