Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

Two-Fisted Rebel continued from page 48 if first move was to get himself into a fight. He had two cousins who had the largest pet shop in Southern California, but next to them was a nursery — and two Japanese kids. Immediately, they decided they didn't like Stuart and he finally had to take them on. Up to then, his cousins had paid little attention to him, but when he beat up his challengers they accepted him. So for a while he felt he really belonged here. As time went on Stuart got in with bad crowds. The fights became even more frequent. He enrolled in Venice High School — and this was when he probably hit his lowest mark. He was part of a gang of rebels — without a cause — who were aching for trouble. One night they found it "We'd been waiting for a gang from St. Monica's school — there were about 13 in their crowd. This evening they trapped us on the Venice Pier and when the fight was over they left us in a heap. I had two ribs broken, some guys had noses busted, and it was pretty gory. Not like the violent fights I'd had or seen on the East Side in New York but it was bad enough. "I can still remember how mad I was that I'd been beaten. As a rule I won my fights." Stuart's reputation as a trouble-maker became known to all the schools. Parents of other kids were even advised to keep their children away from him. So he continued to live on the outside and alone. He went to no one with his problems. He fought them out by himself. "I can remember, though, thinking so many times, 'I'll never grow up to be a man, I'll always be a child,' " Stuart said. "I thought a child's life was for always and I wanted to grow up and get off on my own. To be on my own meant simply to stop moving, to settle down some place. "By the time I went to Hollywood High School I was really a rebel. Nothing mattered to me. I was ripe for real trouble. And the only thing that saved me was discovering an outlet for my energy in football. Soon, and luckily, I dropped the gang and spent practically all my time in sports. "Not that my fighting stopped. It didn't. I never got through a complete game because I was always being thrown out for fighting some guy on the other team. But here at least I found real competition, something with a purpose. "When I went to Junior College later I continued to play football and baseball and I was working for a football scholarship at UCLA but a knee injury ended my playing days." Stuart made the biggest move in his life when he enlisted, along with five other buddies, in the Army, determined, as he said, "to get it over with." 64 His attitude was anything but ideal. He disliked the discipline, the orders, the officers, anything and everything. And he managed to get into a fight the first day he was at camp. He took on a buddy who had come to the camp with him and was, naturally, immediately disciplined. Then he got into a fight while he was standing in line waiting for his clothes to be issued. It began as a gag, but before long he and his pals took on the quartermaster's office, ripped down the plyboard wall in the place, and had a merry time. "The Army took care of us fast after that," Stuart said. "For the next five days we had to walk around the camp nude. But that still didn't feaze me. One day, a kid in our platoon literally crawled into our barracks. Some other guys had beaten him up terribly. We finally located these mugs in a beer parlor and beat the tar out of them. The MP's arrived. We got a couple of days on bread and water for that episode. After his basic training, Stuart met Joe Andere, a fight champ, who was in charge of the gym at camp. He volunteered to help Andere with the Thursday night fights. Andere recognized Stuart's ability with gym equipment and with the gloves and made him his assistant. From then on, Stuart fought up and down the coast — but this time in a ring and for a reason. But then came the big step — the real turning point. STUART was appointed physical director at a veterans' hospital. It was his responsibility to give exercises to the bed patients with special emphasis on the paraplegic cases. "Here I faced reality for the first time," Stuart said quietly. "It was the blind patients, whose faces had been shot away, who taught me so much — patience, compassion for my fellow man, and the futility of slugging my way through life. Some of these guys had been there in the same bed for four years. They had gone through countless hours of agony as new faces were built for them, but they didn't complain. Right away I was interested in them and wanted to help them as much as I could. Fighting left my mind at once." When Stuart left the Army he was a different person. He had learned to get in on the inside by means other than fists — and he knew then that his fists had only kept him on the outside. He decided to take up acting and, after a while, got a part in a little theatre play. It was then that he and his dad finally established a better relationship. "It was seeing me in the play and realizing that I might have some talent, that I wasn't just a bum as he had thought, that made my dad feel differ REFORMED Stuart is teaching his kids not to fight their way through with their fists. ently towards me," Stuart explained. "He was even further convinced that I had changed when I fell in love with and married Patty. She was a good girl and I guess he thought I'd wind up with a no-good. "Frankly, I don't know how Patty and I ever got together, because I was the kind of guy who went around in a hot rod, who wore jeans and a T-shirt, while she came from a wealthy family and had been to a fine school. My manners weren't anything to write home about either. The only time I dressed up for a date with her was when I'd take her to a jam session. "Most of our time was spent at the beach and we dated only in the summers for a couple of years until I decided I wanted to go on seeing her that fall. Just a few weeks later I asker her to marry me. She had become engaged but this was changed when we suddenly eloped. She has since said she planned the whole thing, and the reason she liked me was because we were so different" After a rough first year spent in adjusting, Stuart and Patty setded down to build a happy marriage. That marriage has made a big difference in his life. "My temper hardly ever flares up any more," he said. "And being married has helped me keep my feet on the ground. It has given me an incentive to get somewhere in life. It's good to be responsible for someone besides yourself." When Stuart and Patty married, he was working with his father in the construction business, running a bulldozer. He was also getting a few parts in pictures. He hadn't realized how much he had grown as a person until, as the result of being seen in a play, he was signed by a studio. The first thing they wanted to do was change his first name to Kip. "This burned me up and I got even madder when they started plucking my eyebrows and teaching me how to walk," Stuart said with a trace of disgust "I insisted I wanted to keep my own name but they won out. I don't know how I managed not to lose my temper and