Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

Delightfully in Love (Continued from page 68) graveyard," Rod interrupted. "Not, that is, for us. We disappear up New MilfordConnecticut-way, where we have bought our home." ''A dancer almost has to be married," Bambi added breathlessly, "to another dancer. Or it wouldn't be a marriage. Not, that is, the way I think of marriage . . . which is to be together— as Rod and I are — day and night, at work and at play, all of the time. When you are a dancer, you have to practice (especially when you are on TV) at least five hours a day. Five hours every day is a long time for a person to leave another person. Then the show itself —either TV or a night club or the theater — means that, if you are a dancer and your husband is not a dancer, or the other way around, you would be too often and much too long apart." "An all-time job, actually," Rod agreed. "The practicing, as Bambi says, the costume fittings, too, the rehearsals, the show itself . . ." "All this and, for Rod — who creates the ideas for our dances and choreographs them — more," Bambi spoke with loving pride, "much more, besides." "And on the evenings when you're not performing, or in any free time you may have, you're listening to music," Rod added, "in order to keep abreast and to get ideas. Sometimes we listen to music at home. Sometimes we go to record shops. We'll hear a piece of music we've heard all our lives, but a new orchestration or new arrangement has done something different to it, and we'll say, 'Why can't we use this?' The fun of dancing is to find music that is inspirational — or an idea that suggests a routine." "We would rather dance," Bambi said, with the glint of the zealot in her moonstone-gray, her sleepy, strange eyes, "than anything else." "Especially," Rod smiled across at her, "together." "Especially," Bambi nodded her smooth fair head. "Which brings us to the place where we came in: the show, 'Great to Be Alive,' in which we met and at first sight — well, almost at first sight — fell in love." I'd seen you," Rod said, remindfully, "in Eva Le Gallienne's Broadway production of 'Alice in Wonderland' the year before. Thought you were wonderful in it, delightful. Disappointed, though, that you didn't dance. Disappointed, too — and always will be — that I missed seeing you dance in 'Oklahoma!' and in 'Carousel.' " "And I'd seen you," Bambi echoed, "around the theater when we were auditioning for 'Great to Be Alive,' although we didn't meet until we were actually in rehearsal. I think I fell in love with you because," Bambi said, and shyly, "of your neck. I liked your neck. Straight and strong." "With me," Rod said, and laughed, "it was — chemistry, shall we say? The same as the song, remember, in 'Guys and Dolls.' The simplicity, too. Your simplicity. There was no pretense. You're just a sweet little cuddly girl," said the slim young man who has been the sweet little cuddly girl's husband since April 2, 1950. "There was one part in the play where he had to kiss me," Bambi was saying. "Usually, in rehearsal, actors just indicate the kiss. But Rod didn't indicate. Rod was really living his part," Bambi smiled, adding demurely, "it was very nice. "We used to have to appear, in the second act, at a second-story window. During rehearsal, when other things were happening on stage, and even during the performance itself, we would sit at our window and talk," Bambi laughed, "and talk and talk. And talk. Stu Erwin, who was one of the stars of the show, was supposed to attract our attention by going 'Psst!' at us. Poor Stu was obliged to go 'Psst!' so long he'd be red in the face and out of breath before we would hear him. "One night, sitting at our second-story window, Rod proposed. 'I suppose we should get married,' he said. It doesn't sound like much of a proposal, sort of plain," Bambi laughed, "but it sounded like poetry to me. That night — we were in Philadelphia — we didn't hear Stu at all!" "In 'Great to Be Alive,' the problem," Rod said, "was that we, who were ghosts, had to be married by a live minister. So, according to the script, Stu Erwin arranged to have a double wedding, so to speak — a live wedding (for others) and a ghost wedding (that was ours) in a haunted house. But the minister got shot before the ceremony was over, so we never did get married in unreal life. "In real life, we got married the week before the show opened in New York — or about two months after we first met — at the .Little Church Around the Corner, here in New York." 1 wore a pink dress," Bambi said, "pink jersey. It had a matching sweater with it. And I had some beautiful pink flowers like a tiara, for my hair. Rod gave them to me. I don't know what they were. I had never seen them before. I have never seen them again. Rod doesn't remember what they were or where he got them. They had, I remember, a beautiful, unearthly fragrance. "We honeymooned at the Stonehenge Inn. Our twenty-four-hour honeymoon, because of the show, the next day." "When the show closed," Rod said, "we didn't have a job. We didn't have any money. At all. So what do you do? You go to the unemployment bureau and collect. It's not charity," Rod said a little grimly, "it's your right." "It wasn't all grim, though," Bambi said in her quiet voice. (They both have quiet, almost whispering voices.) "Before the show closed, the cast gave us a party at Valerie Bettis's house. Everyone was there — Vivienne Segal, Martha Wright, Stu. And they gave us all kinds of practical gifts. "Then, while we were out of work, Rod put a show together and we took it to the William Morris Agency. The agency put up some money for us, for costumes and orchestration. We auditioned in a dirty little rehearsal hall, which was all we could afford. Monte Proser came up (at . the time he was booking for the Copacabana), and it should have been funny to see Monte, of all people, in that horrid little hole— I mean hall. But nothing struck us funny that day. We were trying so hard. All our numbers were on a concert level, too, which wouldn't interest night clubs. We didn't know." Bambi and Rod didn't know. But the William Morris Agency knew — knew that here were two glamorous and unique and very gifted youngsters whose dancing feet would ultimately be starborne . . . "They sent us to St. Louis," Bambi said, "got us a wonderful job, for three months, at the Park Plaza. "From St. Louis we went to the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles — another agency got us this job — and although the local papers gave us some very good reviews, the trade publications, which are the bible of our trade . . . well, 'the trades' didn't! We should go back to Broadway, the trades said, we didn't belong in night clubs. 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