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

Though she's dated many eligible young men in Hollyivood, Gary gets priority on weekends There ensued the few days when Connie was fretting, pacing the floor, lying awake at night. Then came the word that she had been chosen. That did it. Connie was in. Clear in. Well this, of course, led to better and better roles and presently she was under contract to Warner Bros, and disporting her pretty self and her pretty voice and her cute little hats on ABC-TV's "Hawaiian Eye". Which is where we caught up with her. She and her father, whom she adores, have bought a tenroom house high in the Hollywood hills and Connie has been decorating it herself, "by degrees." What she is doing with it will tell you some things about Connie. For one thing, it is filled with plants. Connie loves all the growing things, the green things, the "alive" things. Her house is filled with them. Her favorite room, the one which she feels is especially hers, is the breakfast nook with glass walls which command a wonderful view of the hills and the valley below, looking out toward the sea. What walls there are are papered in yellow and green with lots of little pink rosebuds and with ivy in small pots spilling over the walls. This is her room. Her other special room is a small office upstairs where she personally attends to fan mail. She takes this very seriously and feels it is important to a budding career. This room is business-like, filled with framed photographs and filed scripts. The living room is large with beamed ceilings and French Provincial furniture. Connie has put in much beige and rust and brown ("alive" colors) and there are green drapes with printed vine leaves drooling down their borders. Outside the French doors, there is a terrace with more plants and the most honored one is the azalea Jerry Lewis gave her one Christmas. "It blooms every year!" she marvels. Her bedroom is pink and blue and gray with dolls of every size and description scattered about. Her dressing-room is mirrored and has theatrical dressing lights and many glass shelves for cosmetics. Connie really fixes herself up when she is to go in front of the cameras. She is a movie fan. She goes two or three times a week, if she can, to see movies, old or new. She likes parties, too. Likes to give them and likes to go to them. But she wants them either very small and informal or very large and elaborate .. . as Hollywood parties often are. "At the big ones everyone looks so pretty ... all dressed up!" At the small ones, "People really get acquainted and enjoy one another." But at the medium-sized ones, she thinks, "'Nothing ever seems really to happen or to matter!" SHE and Gary both like night clubs and visit them often. "After all, my father has been in them for years and they were my first love. I still get a thrill from them." And she is pretty impatient with the movie celebrities who maintain, loftily. "I don't care for night clubs unless there is a special act I want to catch." "How can they tell," she demands, "that there may not be a special act that they should catch cmd should applaud and encourage?" Another thing that she and Gary do on what they call their "restful weekends" is to visit as many different restaurants as they can, from the big. glittering spots to the small, out-of-the-way places with checkered tablecloths and flickering candles in bottles. "We try never to eat the same kind of food twice and we have really run the gamut of cookery, both foreign and domestic, from strange Chinese dishes to chowders, to pizzas, to corn puddings to flapjacks. Some of them are wonderful FORTUNE-telling gypsy hands a big surprise to Connie and Gary. Could it have predicted a marriage in the not distant future? and some are awful but most of them are interesting. You hear some strange music in some of these places, too." Otherwise (there must be a good many "restful weekends"), this tireless pair like long horseback rides, picnics, beach parties and tennis. For her own parties, Connie likes to cook. "I adore it if I can find the time. I like to do Italian dishes mosdy but I like to experiment with other things. I usually have small buffet meals with music and conversation afterward." She has a fine collection of recordings. Occasionally, she and her guests get on a giddy kick and play some games. But not often. They are a group of rather serious young people and enjoy their discussions. As for her other domestic virtues . . . "Well, I can't really sew . . . that is, to make anything. But I can sew on a button if it seems really essential, as buttons sometimes do!" Clothes? "I find that your tastes change from year to year. I used to like fluffy, ruffly, frivolous things with bows on them. Now I find myself leaning more and more to the tailored, the severe clothes, fine woolens and so on, especially in the winter months. I like to feel sophisticated. You know . . . hats, gloves, matching bags and so on. I guess your tastes just naturally mature. "I wear a lot of cottons in summer but I want them to be sophisticated cottons. I like them to be designed as woolens might be in cooler weather. Severe. Neatly tailored. "I have a young designer who does wonderful things for me. I like to wear white for evening and she has attended to that with nice things in satin, velvet and brocade. She also made me a lovely turquoise satin gown with hoops in the continued on page 60 17