Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

SOLDIER OF GOD (Continued from page 43) anyone, any time — if he or she is serious and she can be of help. Great names in the industry, to whose homes and parties she is being invited with increasing frequency, are just beginning to know her. But down in the most dingy part of Los Angeles she has long been known by others — by broken, shambling men who gather in the Union Rescue Mission where she labors to help them find what she has found herself. She has spent much time preparing for her work. At the Hollywood Presbyterian Church she not only attends two services on Sunday and a prayer meeting on Wednesday, but every Saturday morning at six-thirty (this early because the others have jobs to go to) she meets with a special group of young people to learn how better to serve in the path she loves. Anyone who meets Colleen Townsend almost always asks the same questions. How came this girl to be as she is? Under what especially cloistered circumstances was she brought up? In how intensely religious an atmosphere did she live? And at what tender age was she tutored directly into the ways of the church? Well, the answers run something like this. As to her home, it was broken up when she was a tot. Her parents separated and Colleen went with her mother, now Mrs. Stella Wilhelm, who promptly went to work to support them both. Colleen was born in Glendale, a superb of Los Angeles, but was raised all over the city, the location of her home changing almost from year to year as her mother pursued that which is still the city-dweller's dream — reasonable rentals. As to cloistered atmosphere, with her mother at work Colleen was mostly alone all day, mostly on the street, occasionally with her grandfather for company. As to religious atmosphere, mother and grandfather believed in church but were not churchgoers; there was little time to go and less occasion to talk about it. Colleen was then left to develop mostly by herself. At three she mastered rollerskating. At four she was proudly exhibiting new panties to all the neighbors in the block because they matched her dress. At six she started school but entered in the third grade (she didn't start at five because that's hml Yvonne de Carlo tells about the starlet who met another starlet and said, "Darling, you look wonderful. Wnat happened?" . . . Description of a producer's wife, "She's so fat she outnumbers herself two to one." . . . Speaking about a pet hate, Ella Raines hissed, "If they'd _ cast her as Lady Godiva, the horse would steal the scene !" . . . "I guess it's true that men find beauty in a girl's mind, but it isn't where they start looking," remarks Judy Canova . . . "She looked good enough to eat," says Irving Hoffman. "And boy, did she !" from "Hollywood Merry -Go-Round" by Andrew Hecht she would have had to go to and from school alone and her mother thought her a bit young for that). At seven she began to get a liking for sturdy sports and became a cycling expert — on borrowed bikes. By degrees she worked up to rougher activities. When she was 12 and her mother moved to West Los Angeles, Colleen met the boys of the Barry Street football team — and immediately demanded a place on the team. The boys laughed merrily — but they just didn't know Colleen. Finally, to get rid of the pest, they allowed her to scrimmage. After a few plays Colleen became the new fullback. But, after all, this sort of thing could last only so long. Up to now she'd paid scant attention when people called her a tomboy. Then it began to bother her. By 14 she compromised: She gave up football. turning point . . . Colleen was only 15 when a turning point came in her life, with two developments; the world began discovering her beauty and she discovered something else — a need for spiritual comfort. Her religious devotion came that simply: no soul-shaking experience or tragedy that shook her inwardly, just a seeking and a finding. The world discovered her beauty this way: She was standing on a downtown street corner with a friend, waiting for the traffic light to change, when a man approached her. He was a little embarrassed, but very earnest. He wanted to know if Colleen would give him her address so he could call on her parents and discuss the possibility of her working in television plays. She didn't know for a moment what to do; then, after exchanging perplexed glances with her friend, she gave the fellow her number and told him to talk to her mother. A few weeks later Colleen was a member of the dramatic company presenting playlets over W6XAO, pioneer television station in Los Angeles. Some months later, a Warner Brothers talent scout saw her telecast and the next morning she had been signed by that studio. It was while she was at Warner's that she began turning in various directions trying to establish some aim in life that would satisfy her growing spiritual unrest. She asked the teacher assigned to the studio by the state to give her a course in sociology and, in her spare time, she began doing volunteer work at the California State Orphanage. She found a happiness she had never known before in helping children. At Warner's she played in a number of pictures and completed her studio highschool course. Then, when a shift of studio policy occurred, Colleen, who by now was 16, was released from her contract — seems she was considered too old for kid parts and too young for romantic roles. Her reaction to this was a decision to continue her studies in sociology. By this time Colleen had an agent and he wanted to submit her to other studios. But Colleen would not be diverted. She found what she wanted, scholastically, in Brigham Young University at Provo, Utah, and left for there with enough money to keep her going for one semester. Where she would get the rest of the money for the course, she didn't know but she hoped that either she'd be able to find work in Provo, or that something else would happen. Something else did — in the form of a YOU WONT BE EMBARRASSED WHEN you use this higher type INTIMATE FEMININE HYGIENE Easier, Daintier... Yet One of the MOST EFFECTIVE METHODS! Greaseless Suppository Assures Continuous Medication For Hours Young wives are mighty enthusiastic about Zonitors. This higher type intimate feminine cleanliness is one of the most effective methods ever discovered. Zonitors are by far more convenient and less embarrassing to Use — SO POWERFULLY GERMICIDAL yet absolutely safe to tissues. They're positively non-poisonous, non-irritating, non-smarting. 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