Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

SHE'LL NEVER STOP FIGHTING (Continued from page 39) know that much about cattle?" he wondered out loud. "I don't," Ginger came back. "But I can sure tell what I like when I see it." I've known and admired Ginger Rogers long enough to know that's a level statement of fact from a very gutsy gal. Ginger knows what she likes and what she doesn't like when she sees it, what she wants and what she doesn't, whit's for her and what isn't. She's the most down-toearth, straight-shooting, frank-and-honest, Ail-American girl I know in Hollywood. The other night I risked life and limb skinning the hairpin turns up to Ginger's mountain-top house, perched like an eagle's nest over Beverly Hills, to congratulate her on finishing The Barkleys of Broadway, to say goodbye before she took off for her Rogue River ranch and to catch up on a hard-to-catch girl for Modern Screen. wrong foot . . . I started off on strictly the wrong foot. I said it was a swell relief to see my favorite star back in a wonderful picture with Fred Astaire after those three straight turkeys she'd made. Ginger bristled like a Fuller brush. "Now, wait a minute, Hopper!" she yelped. "You know The Magnificent Doll was The Magnificent Flop," I baited her. "I liked it," said Ginger stubbornly. "And—" She didn't even let me get started. "Name me one star in Hollywood," challenged Ginger, "who hasn't guessed wrong and made bad pictures. Just one!" "Uh — " I began. "I've made no worse pictures than anyone else in this business," Ginger went on heatedly. "In fact, I've made darned less fewer!" "Is that grammar?" I asked her. "Maybe it's not grammar,", grinned Ginger, "but it's the truth and it's what I mean — darned less fewer!" That's what I love about the gal. She's a scrapper; she sticks by her guns and she hits hard, win or lose. And come to think of it, she's dead right about that career of hers. In spite of her three strikeouts in recent seasons, Ginger's batting average is very high indeed. In my book, her smash hits in those wonderful old Astaire-Rogers combines like Roberta, The Gay Divorcee and Flying Down to Rio; her great performances in Stage Door, Bachelor Mother, Vanishing Lady, Tender Comrade, and — especially — her marvelous Kitty Foyle, are unforgettable, and Hollywood classics. No Academy Award was ever more popular than Ginger's for playing Kitty, the white-collar girl, and when she got it — to her stunned surprise — she did what came naturally to an emotionally honest person like Ginger — she burst into loud, uncontrollable sobs, right there at the banquet! It would take a rugged individualist like Rogers to live where she does — a place that should have St. Bernard dogs or at least a troop of Boy Scouts to lead a wayfarer over the pass. I get dizzy every time I try it, and this last time I stalled my car and almost rolled back to Kingdom Come (which, come to think of it, would be an interesting new name for Beverly Hills). I was really unnerved when I tottered inside her front door — which Ginger opened. (I've never seen a servant in her house yet — must be, but Ginger always greets you.) But she's a pioneer there — built her house back in 1936, and has lived in the clouds ever since. It's a beautiful plsce really, with freedom to view all over Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Hollywood and scattered California communities. There's a championship tennis court and swimming pool outside, and the big screenedin bed where Ginger and her husband Jack sleep outdoors seven months out of the year. Inside is a cozy, comfortable home that could belong only to Ginger. Her personality is stamped everywhere — in the six-foot-square (I swear) coffee table, cluttered with her sentimental knickknacks and old magazines. ("I can't bear to throw them away until I've read them all — and I never get time," she sighed. "I'm a Scotchman.") And in the huge sofa which surrounds that on three sides, long enough to seat any imaginable number of dropper-inners. In the enormous fireplace dancing with flames, the great beamed ceilings painted a soft blue — "That's green," said Ginger. I started again, "Bl — " "Green!" she repeated. It's green. Ginger has her personal treasures scattered around the house. In her studio are her sculptures which she still hacks away at, and cleverly too. The prize is a head of her mother, Lela, and right now she's working on Jack's profile with a chisel (in marble, that is!) whenever he'll sit still. She showed me two gold medals, proudly mounted on velvet in her studio. One announced her the' Charleston Champ of Texas, 1925, and spelled her name "Jinger." The other, dated 1933, proclaimed Ginger semi-finalist in the women's ping-pong championships. "Know who beat me?" grinned Ginger, "Alice Marble." She trotted out a still life painting she was working on — she's proud of her artistic efforts and frank too. "I'm making all the mistakes of beginners," she admitted. When the fire that Jack built smoked us into tears and out of the front room, we trotted downstairs to Ginger's soda bar. Sitting on those ice-cream bar stools under the candy-striped canopy of her soda fountain, with huge travs of nuts, candies and sugared cookies all around, I wondered, as I do every time I see her, at the "perpetual girlhood of the Ginger Rogers who perched beside me in black slacks, bobby socks, beige turtle -neck sweater and another, royal blue, over that. When Jack Briggs dropped in to kiss her goodbye I actually thought, "She looks like his kid sister!" although Jack is younger than Ginger. He was off to Oregon on ranch business — that tall, grinning l/ODERN SCREEN super-hanisome hunk of man, and my cheeks burned to watch them hug goodbye. I remembered what Ginger had told me five years ago, "He's everything I ever dreamed of, Hedda." Believe me, he still is, and so is Ginger to Jack. But I've got a bunch of cards with Ginger's scribbles on them to prove that her heart beats in another way, besides to the rhythm of sweet romance. One reads: "Hedda, dear — may these little posies in some way speak what I find difficult to express. Love, Ginger." Well, I found it difficult enough to fathom the red roses that came with this one. But soon, another day, came another: "Belated thinks for your sweet story. Fondly, Ginger." And with that, orchids. What story? That puzzled me. I hadn't mentioned Ginger's name in my column for weeks. (She's not the kind of star who makes news — she never gets in or out of trouble, kicks up her heels, puts on a publicity act. She's no party gal. She's far from a columnist's delight.) I riffled through the week's clippings and found a human interest piece I'd done — about a star of yesterday and a kindness that had brought her some happiness she deserved. That, I found out, was what Ginger sent me the flowers for, that was why she thanked me — because she liked that item. If that's happened once it's happened a dozen times. White orchids from Ginger Rogers and a note, "Thank you, Darling, for writing that." Writing what? Never anything remotely concerning Ginger Rogers. I've done that too of course, and I've also lectured her sometimes — and whether I toss brickbats or bouquets at her, I never hear a peep from Ginger. secret heart . . . Yep, she has a heart. Doesn't wear it on her sleeve, and sometimes with her dukes up and her stubborn little neck stiff to back up her convictions of right or wrong, you might think it isn't beating — but it is. Take animals — she loves them. Her woolly, dusty sheep dog, Fudgy, for instance, goes wherever Ginger does, riding high and mighty in the front seat beside her whenever she speeds between her Rogue River ranch and Hollywood. No chair or sofa's banned to Fudgy in Ginger's house, no matter how expensive or plush. He hops right up on a stool at her soda fountain bar with his paws on the counter and yelps for his ice cream — gets it too, no matter who's there. He's a member of the family. Ginger's Oregon home is in the heart of famous hunting country but she's never squeezed a trigger. She wouldn't hurt anything that lives for all the money in Hollywood. Ginger loves every rock and twig on Rogers Rogue River Ranch. She's happiest when she's there with Jack — and usually her maw, Lela, too — working from dawn to dusk on the place. She even gets lyric about it. Last July I got a letter from Ginger. "I probably should be home in Hollywood pounding on producers' doors to get me a job," she wrote, "but the beauty of the countryside is at its peak now. Oreson never looked lovelier! "The cattle are fat. the hay's in the bale The cream's thick as that, on the Oregon trail. The birds nest and sing; the fish bite my string, There's nothing missing — on the Oregon trail. "See — " scribbled Ginger, "that's what can happen to you when you stay up here."