Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

..6azine, Variety. ..xicer and director, was eady to launch a road comjj. nis hit play, Born Yesterday. Garson Kanin . . . She had met him once. Four years ago. Maybe . . . Impulsively, she reached for the telephone. She dialed Long Distance and placed her call — and then she began to quake, and a little chill skipped along her spine. She was always doing the wrong thing, she reflected shiveringly, and this — this could be her prize boner. Why, any fool could tell you that it wasn't the thing to do, calling a big shot clear across a continent to tell him you could act. Maybe if you hung up real quickly nobody would know — but now it was too late, because already Garson Kanin was on the line, and you had to say something. . . . Such was the beginning, however improbable, of today's boom for Shelley Winters, Hollywood's "wrong-way kid," who has achieved the eminence of Discovery of the Year by doing the "wrong thing" at practically every opportunity. Five-feetfour, her 115 pounds dynamically distributed, Shelley at 25 is the screen's newest femme fatale, a torchy little honey whose impact made critics yip as they did for the early Bette Davis. And she's still exuberantly jumpy and impulsive, obeying those impulses and having them somehow turn out right. Like that telephone call, for instance. She didn't dream it then, but that spur-ofthe-moment dialing was to set her small feet squarely on stardom's path. It was to lead to her memorable role as the little tramp of a waitress whom Ronald Colman strangled in his Oscar-winning A Double Life. She was to parlay that small role — a death scene, plus thirty lines of dialogue and a few sequences of insolent sultriness preceding her demise — into a career that sizzles with promise. This cute youngster who thought she was "so ugly," has already moved ahead rapidly in four more films: The Cry of the City, The Great Gatsby, Larceny and Criss-Cross. Along the exciting way she has signed a Universal International contract, chosen from a welter of studio offers. And she has known the thrill of hearing producers mutter, "Yes, but can we borrow Shelley Winters?" Some of the same producers, too, who had helped convince her she was the homeliest critter this side of Dogpatch! And all because of her positive talent for "the wrong thing." Consider that call to Kanin. Having made it,knowing it wasn't the thing to do, did she state her case and ask for a job? Not Shelley. No. The dialogue ran like this: "Hello. . . . Yes, this is Garson Kanin." "Oh. Mr. Kanin, this is Shelley Winters." "Oh, yes . . ." Pause — while Kanin tried to remember who in blazes Shelley Winters might be. "Mr. Kanin, I wonder — I mean — er — how's the weather back there?" "Fine. And how is it in Hollywood?" "It's — it's fine here, too. Well — er — well, goodbye now." That was all. Her nerve completely wilted, Shelley hung up in confusion, feeling very, very silly. Imagine calling Long Distance to talk about the weather! What would Kanin think? But the call probably impressed Kanin by its very pointlessness. At any rate, when Shelley followed through with a H .... .^utu promptly. No stage job for her, he said, but he and his wife Ruth Gordon had just written a movie. His brother Michael in Hollywood was filming it, so why didn't Shelley go see him? The movie was A Double Life, and Shelley was on her way — to fame, fortune — and more faux pas. She came from a stage career barely notable enough to win her the most meager of passports to pictures — train fare and a short-lived Columbia contract. Once arrived, she spent three years being told how sensationally undecorative she was. At first, nobody seemed to know anything about her or why she had come, although some vague reference had been made to a part in Rita Hayworth's Cover Girl. When she was finally noticed, the attention was most disheartening. A makeup man studied her blue-eyed blondeness for a while, then shook his head. "You need to have your hairline raised," he sighed despondently. "You need your teeth braced, too, and — oh yes, you ought to have your nose bobbed." Shelley ducked the second two suggestions, but shelled out $400 for electrolysis aimed at a higher brow. "Then," she recalls, "they gave me pink hair and a wide mouth, to look as much as possible like Rita Hayworth. I didn't — I looked a fright. They put me to work, after all this makeup, in A Thousand and One Nights — with my face hidden behind a veil." Taking the hint, Shelley laid aside one U. S. savings bond a month against the time of her departure from steady salary. The time came, and she embarked on a free-lance career which caused nobody to dance in the streets. She ate one bond a month, and she took screen tests, feeling uglier with every test. At 20th Century-Fox they gave her hair a Betty Grable up-do and applied other cosmetic treatment, but vetoed her chances. "You're hopeless, your voice is all wrong, and you have three left feet," they said. (Recently she played there in The Cry of the City.) At M-G-M they made her up like Lucille Ball. "Ye gods," the makeup man answered her mild protests, "you don't want to look like you, do you?" Squelched, she played a small role in Living in a Big Way while her personal living dwindled along with her savings. (M-G-M wanted to borrow her, not long ago, for a movie life of Jean Harlow.) At Warners, she got an Ann Sheridan treatment, and another brush-off that made her feel as glamorous as Gravel Gertie. (Warners, since the Winters boom began, also has tried to borrow her.) Everywhere it was the same. She had one of the most thoroughly disparaged faces in town, and her ego was flatter than last year's slang. She was convinced that she needed at least a ton of makeup to brave a camera. But when she landed her role as waitress-hussy in A Double Life — "No makeup," said George Cukor flatly. Shelley tried to fool him. A gal had to have glamor. "Wipe that lipstick off, Shelley," he ordered day after day. When she still persisted pleadingly, a less patient man might have fired her. But Cukor just ordered the mirror removed from her dressing room. He just collected all stray lipsticks and combs on the set, and put them under lock. He just made Shelley forfeit all her own cosmetic aids. T> V_ . / EASY NEW METHOD •rf*"^ / / SHOWS HOW TO n TRY IT ON MONEY-BACK OFFER Now let Bob West, radio's favorite guitar player, show you how! Most "Courses" have only 6 or 8 pictures— but Bob's new method has 45 actual photographs! It not only teaches but shows exactly where and how to place your fingers, etc. Most others offer a few songsBob provides 101!— chosen for their radio popularity so you can sing and play right along with your favorite radio program or records! SEND NO MONEY: Just send name and address to Bob West and pay postman $1.69 plus COD and postage. Start playing beautiful chords the very first day. Be playing beautiful music in two weeks or get your money back. BOB WEST, 1101 N. Paulina, Dept. 205, Chicago 22,111. 45 PHOTOS show exactly where to put your fingers 101 SONGS words & music. INCLUDED! NEW, Beautiful Simulated BIRTHST0NE Identification Send No Money BRACELET Sj.95 Your name engraved WITHOUT COST on this curved identification bracelet set with four sparkling, simulated birthstones correct for your month of birth. Just send your name, address, birth month and print out name for engraving on bracelet. Pay your postman only $ 1 .95 plus Tax and C.O.D. costs, on arrival. Satisfaction guaranteed. Write today. GORDON & CO., Dept. M-12, 918 40th ST. PLACE, DES MOINES 12. IOWA. LEARN AT HOME IN YOUR SPARE TIME! Trained artists are capable of earning $60, 575 or more a week. By our practical method we teach you CO (VI MERC I AL ART, DESIGNING , and CARTOONING all in ONE course. FREE I BOOK— "Art for pleasure & Profit" describes j training and opportunities in art. STATE AGE. VETERANS: G.I. Approved STUDIO 80I2M. WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF ART 1115— 15th ST., N. W., WASHINGTON 5. D. C. Get Well QUICKER From Your Cough Due to a Cold FOLEY'S Honey & Tar Cough Compound GLOWING WXX^jy ne and Address We will mall you this beautiful GLOWING CROSS. Also FREE CATALOG showing many VALUABLE GIFTS that are GIVEN with FULL INFORMATION on HOW TO RECEIVE THEM. Enclose stamp or coin for mailing GLOWING CROSS. THE RELIGIOUS HOUSE, D*pt.DMO. 7002 N. Clark St. Chicago, 26, III. LEARN AT HOME TO BE A PRACTICAL NURSE You can learn practical nursing at home in spare time. Course endorsed by physicians. Thousands of graduates. HIGH SCHOOL NOT REQUIRED 50th yr. One graduate has charge of 10-bed hospital. Another saved ?4 00 while learning. Equipment included. Men, women. 18 to 60. Easy tuition payments. Trial plan. CHICAGO SCHOOL OF NURSING Dept. 2312, 41 East Pearson Street, Chicago II, III. Please send free booklet and 10 sample lesson pages. Home . Citv ^ — — State Aae