Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

The Handiest Thing a Woman Can Have! Practical — Luxurious Now, in one "hand sized" purse you have • Billfold • Coin Holder • Removable Key Chain • Identification Window • Stamp Compartment • Card and Ticket Pocket • Removable Transparent Viewers for 8 photos. Enjoy* the pleasure of keeping your 7 "basics" together in this charming creation. Made of luxurious genuine leather in 4 of fashion's most glamorous colors: Emerald Green, China Red, Smoke Brown, Jet Black. Ideal for use in handbag or alone. C.O.D. only $2.98 tax included plus postage. Send check or money order and save postage. Money back if not satisfied. ERMO CO. Dept. Q, 507 Fifth Ave.. New York 17. N. Y. G&S PRODUCTS CO., 383 Shrewsbury Street, Worcester, Mass. Send me Lingerie Dryers (or which I enclose Sl.oo each, postage FREE. Name Address Your twinkling feet will never grow tired In SQUA-MOCS— gay, soft-sole Indian Moccasins. Beautiful hand-sewn Indian beadwork on toes. Made of finest Buck Tan or Pearl Buck. Wash them like glovesl In pearl gray or brown. I CHEROKEE TRADERS, Dept. 3-B j 319 N. Robinson, Oklahoma City, Okla. | Please send pair (s) SQUA-MOCS at J S3. 75 per pair. Size Color I Name | Address I City Zone State J □ Money Order □ Check □ C.O.D. her prowess as a tomboy. But there was always the cozy nest to return to. Newport News changed all that. It marked Ava's initial contact with harsh realities. Compared with Smithfield, Newport News was a big town. The kids made fun of the way she talked. She was the country cousin, the oddity, the one among many, and didn't know how to fight back. So she turned shy and withdrawn. Besides, the Gardners were poor. There wasn't much money for clothes, and most of the girls were far better dressed than Ava. As she entered high school, that fact loomed large; she couldn't cope with it. In high school you paid a $3 fee each semester, which admitted you to all the football games, the school plays, the dances. Ava loved dancing, but she couldn't afford the fee. Her first date didn't help any. She was a sophomore, he was a senior and divine. His very divinity heightened her sense of inadequacy. She had no ready patter, no coquetry. At home all she ever did was talk, yet she couldn't find a word to say to this god. Tongue-tied she met him, and left him the same way. "He'll never ask me again," she wept to her pillow, and he never did. Other boys asked her, but more often than not she'd turn them down. It was easier to stay home than to agonize over clothes or over being a conversational dud. complex at college . . . By the time she returned to North Carolina, she'd grown a healthy inferiority bump, which her year at college failed to reduce. At college it was smart to live on the campus. Ava lived at home. It was smart to go in for academic training. Ava was taking the practical commercial course. She had dates, it's true. Boys are no dopes, and whenever she went to a dance, she'd be rushed off her feet. But she never went without inward turmoil and terror. Maybe this was the one time they wouldn't break in. Maybe this was the time she'd commit some social blunder that would start them tittering like the school kids in Newport News. . . . With the pattern of insecurity established, she set off for Hollywood. How she got her contract — through photographs made by Bappie's husband — is a tale too often told to be repeated here. Except for Bappie, she was leaving behind all the people who loved her. Even then, Molly wasn't too well. Besides, Bappie'd lived in New York so long, she was more experienced. "With me," Molly said, "it would be the blind leading the blind." They were all at the station to see her off. So was Ava's little boy-friend, who startled her with a kiss. He'd never kissed her before, and she couldn't help wondering how it would sit with Mother. Molly wasn't the preachy type, but you know how she felt. "I never kissed Daddy," she'd said once, "till we were engaged." But this she didn't seem to mind. In fact, she was smiling as if she thought it rather sweet. Then her arms went round Ava. "Be a good girl, honey." That was how Molly always said goodbye. When you left for school, when you went out to play — "Be a good girl, honey." That was all she said now. If she cried, it wasn't where anyone could see her. And Ava kept her own tears till the train pulled out. . . . At 17, history repeated itself. Again she was plunged into alien surroundings, frightened and lost. Only this time' it was worse, because the limelight was on her and she had no shelter to retreat to. The insecurity, born in Newport News, reached a climax in Hollywood. Few adolescents understand themselves, and Ava's adolescence was prolonged by Your letters . . . THE WRONG CHRISTMAS Gentlemen: I have just finished reading "The Christmas I'll Never Forget," by Alida Valli, in the January issue. In what I thought was a rather inspiring article, I was surprised to find that twice during the telling, Miss Valli mentioned that her experience took place on Christmas, 1944. With this I cannot agree. As an American sergeant with the Air Forces, I spent the Christmas of 1944 in Rome. No German patrol bothered me, and I doubt if any bothered Miss Valli. You — and she — should know that on June 4, 1944, the U. S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army occupied Rome. J. S. Wicks, Trenton, N. J. (Clearly, Miss Valli forgot that her unforgettable Christmas was actually in 1943.— Ed.) WHAT BECAME OF SALLY? Dear Editor: I used to be a devoted fan of Sally Eilers and saw almost every picture she was in. Could you tell me what has happened to her? Allen Stearn, New York City (Sally Eilers is still hard at work in Hollywood. She recently appeared in Coroner Creek, and you can hear her on the radio. She was guest star of the "Skippy Hollywood Theater" which is heard throughout the country every week. — Ed.) ACTORS ARE HUMAN, TOO Dear Editor: One of your readers wrote how disgusted he was by the Mitchum affair, and set it up as a cause of juvenile delinquency. How any person could blame a particular man for the existence of juvenile delinquency is beyond me. Most of us have too many faults of our own to judge those of others. Usually, the very ones who are most critical are the first to ask and expect forgiveness for their own misdeeds. Ruth Wilson, Los Angeles, Calif. HONEST. JOAN! Dear Editor: I am sick of sending in your Questionnaire box every month without receiving a free subscription. I am beginning to think that this is a put-up job. Joan Furst, New York City (Scout oath — we're on the up-andup. You just have to be among the first 500, Joan. — Ed.)