Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1952)

When the Right Man Comes Along 72 (Continued jrom 'page 42) an important factor in Doris Day's life even before she ever met him; the agency he heads handled her business and professional affairs even before she came to Hollywood. When her career started zooming, she saw Marty nearly every day — on business. Because they were both unhappy and lost in the vacuums left by their earlier broken marriages, they also sometimes spent a social hour or two together, going out to dinner or to a show. But that they belonged together, for always, didn't occur to either of them. At least, Doris says, it didn't occur to her. Marty was the right man, all right. But, before she could know it, be ready for her happiness, Doris testifies, she had to find a whole new set of values, make some drastic changes in her thinking. There's a big lurid sign on the highway near Warner Brothers' Studio (Warner Brothers is across from us, it boasts) which urges all passers to "Relax — let Paul do it!" "I had to relax," Doris says straightforwardly, "and let God do it." Like most people who have had a deep religious experience, Doris is reluctant to talk casually about it. Her religious adviser has told her that she doesn't have to: "Just try to be a good person," her mentor counselled her, "and your light will shine." And it does. i eople gravitate toward Doris these days as to a welcoming fire on a cold night, marvelling at the way she's changed, at her contagious happiness when she explains that she just "learned to think differently— and to be grateful." Driven, worried people find themselves wishing that they could learn those lessons, too. Just as Doris herself, a driven, worried girl only a few short years ago, marvelled when she met an old friend who when she had last seen him had been sick, unhappy, and lost, and now miraculously was well and in love with life. Only his thinking had changed, he said. "I wanted to think that way, too," Doris remembers. And, being the open-minded sort of girl she is, she began to read about and study the religion which had helped her friend, and thus found her own solution. She learned to know what things are really important in life — love and gratitude, sincerity and simplicity and honesty. And she discovered in the process what she really wanted in life — marriage to Marty, first of all. "And v/ith Marty," she says, "came everything else" — stability that she needed, the home that was really a home, a family togetherness such as she had never known before. "Terry (her ten-year-old son) really made the decision for us." The boy had adored Marty from the first time he saw him. "And he needed a man to confide in," Doris admits. But Marty, long before there was anything half so personal in his relationship with Doris (he was her manager, she was his most profitable client), took a fatherly interest in Terry, worked out all of his little-boy problems on a man-to-man basis. "I want Marty for my daddy," Terry announced after their comradeship was cemented. And he would have Marty for his daddy, Doris knew right then. It was as simple as that. There is nothing duty-ish about Marty's concord with Terry. He loves doing things with the boy. On a recent Saturday Doris, unexpectedly excused early from the set, got home at noon to find Marty and Terry in a flurry of preparation. "Oh, boy," yelled Terry, when his mother came in, "now you can come, too. Marty and I are going to my school's play day." So Doris whisked into some relaxing clothes and off they went to the school. A program of races was underway — potato races, barrel races, relays. At first only the children participated, and then some of the adults got in on the fun. A little tyke she had never seen before pulled at Doris' elbow. "Come on," he said, "you can be in the whistle race." Doris came on, ran briskly toward the judges' stand, where a small blue-jeaned afncionado stuffed a handful of crackers into her mouth. "Eat," he said, "and then whistle. Then start back." "I can't whistle," Doris reported, laughing, "even without crackers." She swallowed t^e dry, salty mouthful, puckered her lips — but nothing happened. She tried, and tried again. In the meantime, her small opponents were romping back down the long field. Doris, grimacing and laughing in turn, glanced at the sidelines where Marty, his stereo camera around his neck, was frantically taking pictures. SPECIAL FALL ISSUE Read all about the new shows, the new stars . . . October RADIO-TV MIRROR on sale September 10 "His stereo is always around his neck," Doris says. "Rather, my stereo. I thought he should have a hobby, so I loaned it to him. I haven't had a hand on the camera since. Nowadays I come home from work after having my picture taken all day — my hair is up in curlers and my feet are killing me — I walk in the door and Marty shouts 'Hold it!' And I thought he needed a hobby!" Doris lost the whistle race, but she made a passel of new friends, who insisted that she participate in all of the remaining contests. "I had a ball," she beams. Everybody was staying for dinner, but the Melchers hadn't brought along any food. Fortunately, the Kenny Bakers had an enormous hamper full of cold chicken and potato salad and chocolate cake — plenty for three more. "Unless," as Marty warned, "my wife embarrasses me as usual." "I love to eat," Doris admitted cheerfully. After all that running she was famished. "You can have some of mine, Mom," Terry volunteered, amazingly. Terry loves to eat, too. But it was a big day with his whole family on hand, and he was willing to give a little. They stayed at the school until almost ten o'clock. When it got dark, they turned on the lights on the basketball court, piled records on the phonograph and had a square dance. At one point, the little girls were invited to dance with their daddies, the boys with their mommies in a wild version of the "Hitchhiker Dance." Terry, of course, grabbed Doris, and Marty settled down to take pictures. (The Melchers hope to have a daughter one day, or another son, or maybe even both. But for the present Marty was prepared to sit this one out.) A nine-year-old girl saw him on the sidelines and approached cautiously. "Mister," she said, "when we have this dance my daddy always ducks. I've looked everywhere and I just can't find him. Would you dance with me?" They made a charming couple. In the middle of last June, right after Doris finished "April in Paris," the three Melchers took off in their car for a fishing trip to June Lake. "I don't like to fish," Doris confesses, "I can't kill anything." But her two men wanted to go, and she could sit on a sunny rock in the middle of a mountain stream and look at the sky and just relax. "It was the first time in a long time that I had had a chance to take a trip anywhere with Terry." She had been working straight through the summers for several years. "We almost took Terry on our honeymoon," she recalls, laughing. "Actually we didn't want to go away at all. But brides and grooms are supposed to go on honeymoons, and we thought we should conform." "Have you ever seen the Grand Canyon?" Marty asked, when the problem came up. "I can't remember," said Doris, who wasn't remembering anything those days except her overwhelming happiness. Anyhow, they went to the Grand Canyon (spending their wedding night in a sweltering hotel room in the heart of the lettuce country, El Centro). They stood on the rim of the vast crater and looked. "Well?" asked Marty. "Well, it's beautiful," Doris admitted, adding quickly, "I wonder how things are at home. Let's call Terry." So they called Terry, who said everything was fine but they should hurry home. They hurried home. Home, although both Marty and Doris feel it is the best place to come home to they've ever had, and they love every brick and board of it, has been in the process of redecoration practically since they moved into it, and a lot of sitting is being done on floors. The refurbishing job is taking so long only because both Marty and Doris are busy working people and have only a few hours every week to work with the decorator. The final effect "has to be perfect." "And we're being extravagant!" Doris admits. Doris Day, that is, who has been zealously economical ever since a glorious spending spree the first year she was at Warner Brothers ("I just wrote checks," she says) . "How Marty had to slave to get all that straightened out!" Marty taught Doris to economize, but where their home is concerned he is just as much a pushover for the oldest fruitwood table, the finest china, as she is. "Everything has to be right," Doris glows, "we won't compromise. We purchase what we can — but wait for the really fine things, if we have to." Home is important to the Melchers. Like the other things Doris has learned to know have the only real value in this life, Home is spelled with a capital and it has to be right. Everything important has to be right; everything important is right for this girl who learned to relax — and let God do it — and for her right man, who was right there all the time.