Modern Screen (Jan-Jun 1945)

I haven't any hands." That one was from somewhere in Italy. "Whenever I hear anyone say — 'How can you take the trouble to write?' well, I just think of that guy. Was it trouble for him?" Not long after Alan was discharged from the Army, he was having dinner one night with Sue in a fancy Hollywood restaurant they rarely frequent. A soldier limped in on a cane, spied Alan and started through to get an autograph. Alan saw the headwaiter halt him. Alan jumped right up, walked into the crowd and introduced himself to the soldier. "This gentleman's sitting with me," he told the waiter. He took him back to the table, bought him drinks and invited him to dinner. The soldier didn't say much; he wasn't a talkative guy. But his eyes got a little shiny, and Alan sensed something back of it. Finally, it came out: "Nobody's been like this to me," he said, "since I got back. You'll have to excuse me." That was enough for Ladd. "Come on home with us," he invited. "You can bunk at our house and stay as long as you like." So they took him home, and he stayed three days. Only then did Alan find out that that particular soldier wore the Purple Heart, that he was just out of an Army hospital for shrapnel wounds that had split his kneecap and crippled him. That he hadn't had a home since he was thirteen. That he was as lonesome as a kitten in a dog kennel. g.i. haven . . . "Okay," Alan told him, "then we're your family. Do what you like. The house is yours." The soldier stayed almost a week, roaming around the house, playing with the Ladd pup, Jezebel, and wheeling Baby Alana out for her sun baths. They never made company of him, and he loved it. He was a perfect guest and friend, and he still writes Alan and Sue, "Dear Family." Nor is he the only one. There's another soldier Alan and Sue picked up one night as they were driving home from a movie. He looked forlorn and lonely standing on a corner of Hollywood Boulevard with his hands in his pockets. Alan pulled over and told him to hop in and come on over to the house. Sure enough, it turned out this soldier had just lost his dad, an Army Colonel, who had been all the family he had. So the Ladd circle gained another member, who doesn't miss a week reporting on his activities wherever the war takes him.); He calls Alan "Buddy" and Sue, Sis. It sounds funny, but Alan has really made more service pals since he was discharged from the Army than he did when he was a G.I. himself But it's not so funny when you realize that when he was on duty, Alan had only his own outfit to get acquainted with, while now, through the mail and through his wartime hobby of picking up guys in uniform, he's in touch with thousands. Maybe it's because Alan knows he can't hand out top-notch entertainment like Bob Hope or Bing Crosby. "I can't sing or tell jokes, and I know it," Alan has told me twenty times if he's told me once. So he feels his best bet is to have as many boys up to his place as he can and give them the one thing he's got plenty of, real friendship. What always surprises him, too, is the fact that most service guys he meets have pretty much the same idea. They'd rather be homefolks in his house, sprawled out on a big sofa, shooting the breeze playing ping-pong or records in the den' than they would hitting the Hollywood hot spots. A sailor came up to Alan after a radio 8 WEEKS AGO TODAY These photos of Miss Helen Ragan of Dayton, Ohio show clearly how an ordinary girl can turn herself into a really stunning creature right in her own home. LOSES 25 POUNDS I'm going to have me a time this Summer" IN 8 WEEKS! Gains New Poise, New Confidence, and a Figure She's Proud of! This summer Helen Ragan is going to have a good time. No more self-consciousness, no more sitting on the side lines, she's going to be right in the swim, and simply because she had the courage to try to improve herself. 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