Hollywood (Jan - Mar 1943)

Day Dreamer Deluxe [Continued from page 23] Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne were casting a new show, There Shall Be No Night. They say that fools rush in, etc. Elisabeth was that sort of fool, just a daffy, stage-struck kid from Brooklyn. It never occurred to her that only the most experienced dare try out for a Lunt-Fontanne show. A crowd of actors was waiting in the office when she got there, but bravely she faced the girl at the switchboard and said with dignity, "Please say that Elisabeth Fraser of Washington Irving High School is here." She was quickly laughed at and scurried out. While waiting for the elevator, she noticed a flight of stairs, and walked up. Soon she found herself in a half-darkened room with Mr. • Lunt and Miss Fontanne. Before she could beat a hasty retreat, Mr. Lunt spotted her and said, "Take off your hat." She took it off. "She's blond! She's young!" cried the actor, as though he had uncovered a great wonder. He asked her to read for him, and in her best Bette Davis manner Elisabeth acted out a scene from a school play. "Now," said Mr. Lunt, "do it again, without making so manyfaces." When she was through, she looked at Mr. Lunt piteously, like a wounded pony who wanted to be put out of its misery. The great man looked her over carefully and then said, "I think you'll do. We need a Finnish girl. We'll try you out at rehearsals." It happened like that. Without any stage experience whatsoever, and during her first job hunt, the blond kid from Brooklyn landed a part in a Lunt-Fontanne show. Yes, Mr. Ripley. It wasn't long afterward that talent scouts, in due course, saw her in the play and made a mad scrimmage backstage to sign up the newcomer. Elisabeth became part and parcel of Warner Brothers and, as such, was shipped to Hollywood. Here some of her spectacular luck deserted her. She used to flounce into the studio wearing old jeans and an oversized sweater that did absolutely nothing for her curves. When she came up for a part, directors would look at her and make a sour face at her limp hair, her burlap bag clothes and her crooked stocking seams. "Trouble is," admits Elisabeth ruefully, "I was too earnest. I wanted to impress them as an actress, not as a glamour girl. Guess I overdid it." Nothing happened during this period of her career except small roles in The Man Who Came to Dinner and One Foot in Heaven. But Elisabeth wasn't one to mark time by waiting. When she heard that Columbia studios were planning to film The Commandos Strike at Dawn, a story about a gentle Norwegian fishing village overrun by the Nazis, she marched up to the producer and buttonholed him for the role of the Norwegian bride. The result of this assault was a screen test, and the part. She loved working in the picture because she used little make-up, and also there is a scene where she goes berserk and kills a Nazi. That was, for her, the blood and action stuff. The company moved to the Vancouver Islands and Elisabeth thrived on its hardy surroundings. One lunch hour she was at the wheel of a speedboat when it suddenly got out of control and darted about in crazy circles. By no more than a hair she missed running down half a dozen fishermen, among them Director John Farrow, and then crashed into a dock. By some miracle she was unhurt but was carried out in a dead faint. When she finally opened her eyes timidly, the company congratulated her on her narrow escape. "I certainly am lucky," she breathed. "Why, if I had run down Mr. Farrow there wouldn't have been any picture and then I'd have lost the part." By this you may gather that acting is her great passion, but trailing it a hot second is ballet dancing. She became enamored of it when she smacked into the Ballet Russe company at the time they were making a short at Warners. She has mooned after them ever since, and has even acquired a Russian ballet dancer, George Zuritch, as her best beau. He looks gloomily at her efforts to twirl a toe, but when he tries to discourage her, a glazed and determined gleam comes into her eyes, as though she were recalling those Brooklyn neighbors who .said she was crazy to try to become an actress. "A day dreamer," recounts Elisabeth undaunted, "is always an optimist." She goes on dancing. Also acting, so the score is even. I War Romance — 1918 Style [Continued from page 47] December 7th. Fay's family lived in California, so she went West, too, and it was there that they were married. They became popular members of the gay Navy group and travelled extensively abroad and through Canada and Mexico. They're as much in love today as they were when they were married. You can tell by the way he looks at her that he considers Fay the most beautiful and fascinating woman in the world. She still calls him "my beau" and finds him the most colorful man she's ever known. "He's the only man I know who's improved with age," she says proudly. "I see some of my old beaux and they're old fuddy-duddies now. But Reggie is as vital as he was when I first met him." They live in a large house in the dimmed out area of Santa Monica, facing the Pacific, and Venable is head of the Civilian Defense there. He is wrapped up in his duties, but he's hankering to be back in active wartime service. "He may return to service any day now," Fay said slowly. "During the last war, although we were in love, it wasn't so difficult to be apart. But this time, if he goes, I'll feel it terribly. After twenty-one years together it's hard to be separated." %V2 MOADWOM s Send us Your OLD RUGS Carpets, Clothing WE DO THE REST! 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