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

The only person I might be hurting is myself, and that's my own decision," says Tuesday postures of guilt. She asked no apologies on the one hand, and offered none on the other hand. Nor did she feel a pressing need to launch a be-kind-to-Tuesday movement. "Even if what I do doesn't seem to make much sense," Tuesday shrugged as the waitress arrived with the salad, "I'm not hurting anyone when I'm doing whatever it is they say I'm doing. The only person I might be hurting is myself, and that's my own decision. If I can't hurt myself, who can?" The ease with which she talked about it seemed to back her claim that she wasn't bothered by the publicity which had made her the talk of Hollywood and doubtless a conversation piece across the rest of the land. She treated the situation with a genuine unconcern remarkable for a girl so young. In fact, she even laughed at the determined whispering campaign to the effect that she's no more 16 than Jack Benny is 39, that in reality she is 19 or 20 if she's a day. Far from being outraged by slanderous suggestions that she might be a teenage impersonator, Tuesday delighted in the flattering implications of this spite. She clearly enjoyed the fact that so many of her peers considered her so adult that they couldn't believe her age. She was at that stage of life where it was exciting to be thought older than she was, and she was in no haste to dispel this myth. She would only say with a sly wink, "I am so not 19!" California school authorities, however, are privy to her birth certificate, and they are sufficiently convinced of her tender years to see to it that she is treated like any other juvenile in the state when she is working. Tuesday always has a tutor on the set, even as Natalie Wood and Sandra Dee had until their 17th birthdays. However, if Tuesday's detractors preferred to COVERED wagon at Malibu Beach entertains Tuesday and friend Martin Braddock. Her latest movie is "Because They're Young". ON THE BEACH Tuesday tries her luck tossing flying saucer. She doesn't deny showing temperament when people irritate her. ignore this documentation of her age, she was of no mind to spoil their fun. "I'm beginning to think I'm much older than I am," she laughed. "I turned my ankle while dancing last week, and you know what the doctor said to me? He took an X-ray of my feet and said that my bones were not 16. He said my bones were the bones of a 19-year-old girl. So there you are, see? My feet are 19 and my body is 16." YET TUESDAY'S rise has been so swift and controversial that inconsistencies do not seem to discourage her mushrooming taskmasters. The same people who express skepticism about her being a bona fide 16-year-old girl are the first to deplore her social life by accusing her of a predilection for dating men much too old for a girl of 16. But even this failed to make her squirm about her much discussed friendship with 44-year-old John Ireland. She felt that it needed no justification, on the basis that having done nothing wrong in the first place, there was nothing to explain in the second place. "It's my life," was Tuesday's biting reminder to those shedding crocodile tears about her supposed peril in the company of a man Ireland's age. "I was born with it. and I'm going to lead it. In simpler terms, you have only one life, so live it." While her words breathed defiance, her attitude was more of amused indifference. "Beat The Press!" she quipped good-humoredly. "That's the new TV show I'm going to do." Those who know Tuesday are aware that she is not remotely a beatnik. Despite this and despite the fact that at the Fog Cutters she wore a lovely, ladylike cocktail dress, sheer stockings and smart patent leather shoes, she showed no ur;;e continued on page (>S 21