Screenland Plus TV-Land (Nov 1952 - Oct 1953)

"I Want A Genius!" Continued from page 25 Romantic as candlelight— the soft and prettylines that make yours a dream figure. Draped crepe dramatically accented with delicate lace over palest satin. For important occasions! Lace-lovely rayon crepe in black or navy. Dept. 50-112 "599 Broadway, New York 12, N. Y. On prepaid orders add 30c for postage and handling. You save C 0.0. charges. If C O D. you pay price plus postage and C.0.0. charges. Style Ho. sue 1st Color Choice 2nd Color Choice 9060 (Print) NAME ADDRESS CITY 8, ZONE STATE Send 10c for beautiful Fashion Catalog Of all the younger stars in Hollywood, she probably knows better what she wants of life as it concerns marriage, a husband, and a family — because she set herself a definite pattern in her earliest years. One night, several years ago, this writer was dining with Yvonne at The Tropics, in Beverly Hills, California. That's a restaurant where the Hawaiian waiters wear leis, and drinks come in tall glasses frosted in all the colors of the rainbow, and a synthetic rain beats on the bamboo and glass roof. It's an exotic scene, and the food is exotic, too — in complement to Yvonne De Carlo who looks her best in any place far removed from a modern civilization. "Just as I like to eat differently," she explained, "I have different ideas about most things. Men, for instance. Because I am achieving stardom, I am constantly tied up with romantic juveniles — so that I can get into the columns — and I have never been so bored." She toyed with her frosted drink. "Most of the men in the movies don't know what to talk about when they go out with a girl," she said, musingly. "They play with the silverware on the table, do tricks with match sticks and dinner napkins, and tell the latest, notso-funny stories. I like candlelight, and the kind of conversation that means something." In those days Yvonne De Carlo was seen in many of the better public places with the heart throbs of those years: actors like Turhan Bey, Robert Stack, Rod Cameron. The newspapers were always quick to say: "This time it's serious. Watch out for Yvonne's waltzing down the aisle with X. . ." Such statements brought more laughter to Yvonne than annoyance. "I don't know where we'll both be in ten years from now," said Yvonne, "but I bet you the price of this dinner that I'll still be unmarried, and still sure of what I want — a man who has achieved something in his own world, a man who can think, a man who can talk — and a man who is not so tied up in his own self that he will neglect the woman who loves him." What Yvonne was trying to say is that she would never, never marry an actor. Her own experience had taught her what can happen to a woman who makes a bad marriage. Her father, connected with show business, had deserted her mother on the eve of her birth. Penniless, her mother had to seek out a kindly doctor and an understanding hospital to bring her fatherless daughter into the world. "When I marry," said Yvonne, slowly, "I shall make sure that security goes hand in hand with love. If I fail to make a career for myself in the movies, I would want to be sure that my husband can take and understand the failure, and still provide adequately for the continuance of our life and love together within his own resources." Today Yvonne De Carlo is a wealthy girl. Her movies have all made money, and she with them. She owns a nice house, always a good car, one of the most extensive and tasteful wardrobes in Hollywood — and travels around the world absorbing the romance and excitement of foreign worlds with an almost childish hunger. "I missed so much in my earlier years," she says, "that I feel nothing can quite make up for the poverty, the drabness, the insecurity that almost broke mother's heart — and very nearly my own. But youth survives almost everything, and today I am making up for lost ground." Hard? Yvonne is not hard. She's just practical. Her own agent, Paul Kohner, will tell you that Yvonne has learned a lesson that most actresses should learn: the tragedy of want, the value of money, the treasure that is a belief in oneself. One of her directors says, "Yvonne may not be the most talented girl in the world, but she is the most confident. While she lacks the artistry of a Pavlowa, there is no ballet sequence she won't tackle. Although her voice is only fair, she will face the tough audience of the Hollywood Bowl in an operetta. As for her acting, no script feazes her — because she believes in what she is doing." When it comes to the men in her life, Yvonne has the same confidence. She believes that she can let one ardent swain go after another until the right man comes along. "She'll wait for that man until she is gray haired, if needs be," reveals one of her close women friends. "What she despises in a man most of all is inferiority, a lack of poise, an aimlessness about his own way of living." For a while Howard Hughes' name was linked with Yvonne's, and so was Ali Khan's. Perhaps these two men, out of all the men Yvonne has gone around with, are nearest to her concept of suitability. Hughes, because he is a great man in the field of aviation, a man whose word is law in countless directions, a man who would handle his wife as he does everything he tackles — in a grand manner. In Ali Khan, Yvonne recognizes many of the values she seeks in a husband. He stands for glamour, other women are mad about him, he is intelligent, graceful, amusing and devil-may-care-ish. He is also unpredictable. A great attraction in Ali Khan for Yvonne is that other women have failed to hold him — and this actress loves nothing better than a challenge. Many movies (and many men) have gone by since that last dinner at the Tropics, in Beverly Hills, and it is a little more than a coincidence that Yvonne, on the return from one of her perennial trips to Europe, should speak frankly to the press on very much the same matters on which she spoke over Bombay Duck to this writer, ten long years ago. "It is a biological necessity for me to idolize a man for his accomplishments," she said, gravely. "You can find a lot of wonderful guys in the world who are taxi drivers or cowboys — but not for me." 52