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

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

"Everyone who hits the Hollywood jackpot goes through a series of phases . . . Ray's indulged his, but most of it's out of his system" BY MRS. RAY MILLAND ■ his is the story I never thought I'd write! May I hastily add, as a non-professional wife, my reasons are purely personal and my particular point of view only concerns me. Fortunately, my husband, Ray Milland, subscribes to this same theory, so the credit side of our marital ledger balances beautifully. It just so happens that seeing my name and face in print holds no fatal fascination for me. Ray (I always call him Jack, which is the name he assumed because he hated his given name of Reginald) is the celebrity in the family and within the realm of reason I prefer to remain out of the spotlight Running a home, being a wife and mother of two growing children is the role I play best — I believe. Loving our home as we all do, it's a full time job. As fate would have it, however, the request for this story came m from SCREENLAND in the midst of musings that were quite nostalgic. So I was moved to make this exception. It was our 21st anniversary, last September 30th to be exact, which happened to fall on the same date set for the preview of "The Thief." Now through the years it's been heartwarming to observe Ray mellowing, maturing and becoming the complete adult he is today. But I still wasn't prepared for the shock when he announced that he wanted to go to a preview of his own picture! Naturally, it meant a great deal to him, but others have too. During the 20 years he's been an actor I've been the guinea pig at previews while he remained home pacing the floor as he waited for the verdict. That he's learned at long last to disassociate himself, is just one of many indications that he's learned how to live and is a much happier person as a result. Ray's previews, his fan mail, the general reception given "The Thief," more than qualifies my pardonable pride in his performance. Of course, "Lost Weekend," "The Clock" and "Rhubarb" are also my favorites amongst his many pictures. Driving home from the preview of "The Thief," Ray was silent as he always is when something deep within him yearns to be expressed. The experiment of making a picture without dialogue was a success and he was grateful. It wasn't the right time but I wish I could have reminded him of an incident that should be very appropriate for this story. Ray has always been a worrier and even though he began at the bottom in pictures, we have never actually been poor. We ate regularly, we paid our rent, but we've always lived within our means. Still Ray believed that every day was the last day. When he first signed with Paramount, a big insurance broker friend of the family came to see us. I ou are young and just beginning," he said to Ray, "Take out a good annuity and twenty years from now you'll be able to retire." My husband was speechless. Twenty years! He finally managed to say that he'd be lucky if he lasted five, he didn't know anything about acting, he was getting by on borrowed time, and he wouldn't dream of doing it! He couldn't have been more sincere and, silly as this may sound, it's just recently that he's begun to believe he has a permanent place in pictures! Previous to making "The Thief," there was a time lapse of ten months when Ray didn't (continued on pace 61) 31