Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

girl has to live and love before she can really deliver great performances. It's a corny cliche but there's truth in it, too. I think Elizabeth will be a better actress for what has happened to her, and right now she's doing very well thanks, anyway. Father of the Bride was her most popular picture in years and there's the much heralded A Place in the Sun with Monty Clift ready for release. Already, she's knee deep in Father's Little Dividend, and the first thing she discovered when she ran out to MGM the second day she was back in town was that they'd loaned her to Warners and then to Hal Wallis for two others to follow, drawing, by the way, Jane Wyman and Burt Lancaster, no less, for the exchange. Elizabeth herself hasn't lost any of her acting ambition. On the contrary, she itched even through the dreamy days of her honeymoon for the thrill of making pictures. When she and Nick visited the Quo Vadis set near Rome, Mervyn LeRoy was herding a thousand extras in a scene where Christians were being rounded up for torture in a Roman arena. Elizabeth just couldn't stand there and watch. "Oh, Merv," begged Lizzie, "please let me be a Christian and get in a scene!" Mervyn did, and if a girl who was supposed to star in Metro's super-special begs to be an unbilled extra, how lonesome can you be for grease paint, a costume and hot lights? All in all, Elizabeth Taylor's career outlook could not be rosier right now. But there are some prickly thorns hidden underneath those plushy petals. There always are, when a girl who's a star marries in Hollywood. Up until this minute, Elizabeth has not been called on to play the cautious cutthroat game of watching her p's and q's in Hollywood. She was sheltered like a hothouse flower at home and MGM protected her like a regiment of marines. She was everyone's beauteous ideal, mama's, papa's, daughter's, son's. Every day there throbbed the thrilling question: Whom would Elizabeth Taylor fall in love with, whom would she marry? Well, that question has finally been answered. From now on real front page news of Elizabeth will be hard to get, as it is on all happy Hollywood wives. So don't be surprised if some is cooked up. That's what publicity departments are for. From now on, and I told Elizabeth so, she won't dare look at another man sidewise. Like Caesar's wife, she must live ,so as to be above suspicion. Every move of the Hiltons' private life will be analyzed, sifted and weighed for what can be made out of it. If there's the tiniest opening for a rift rumor, one will edge in and prylike that. If I were Nick Hilton I'd never for one minute fly off, say to Puerto Rico, as he did during their courtship, and the Caribe-Hilton on business, not this time without my pretty bride at my side. But he may have to — the Hilton interests are scattered all over and he's a busy young executive. Elizabeth is a busy Hollywood star. He may have to leave her at home a time or two. And suppose an important premiere comes up about then where Elizabeth Taylor's presence will help put over a million dollar picture? And maybe the pressure's turned on and some rising young MGM boy beautiful escorts her — oh my! It could happen. So can a hundred other innocent smokes without fire have you seen page 8? puff up — and in Hollywood smoke can be dangerous, too. I told her to find the smartest, wisest woman in this city, who knows the Hollywood score from A to Z. "Have her run your publicity, answer your mail, manage your servants, supervise your house, lay out your clothes and — yes — chaperone you every hour Nick's away from your side. Never mind if she costs you a fortune— you can afford it." "Well—" demurred Elizabeth— thinking I'm sure that she'd just shaken herself loose from something like that when she left her mother— "I'll think about it." I hope she thinks good and hard. She can't be too careful. Besides, she will need professional help. Her greatest shortage from now on is going to be time, time and energy She hasn't one career now, she has two. She'll have to ration herself. From now on she'll be battling to keep her screen life from intruding on her life with Nick Hilton. She'll need time and peace and strength to live her life with her husband, time to talk over his problems, to be interested, sympathetic, not frayed and jittery and impatient. And she'll want time and strength for a third career which — wouldn't surprise me a bit — may come her way any day. Elizabeth has been mothering things ever since she was barely bigger than a bunny —dollies, chipmunks, cats and colts, pups and parakeets — and she's told me time and again how she longs for a family — "But not yet," she keeps repeating every time I ask her, "not until we've had time to catch up with ourselves." But I never knew a stork yet who gave any foolish ideas like that a snap of his silly old beak. I'm no believer in omens, but it is true that Elizabeth will have a baby boy — on the screen, of course — in Father's Little Dividend, and if she has a little dividend of her own, say, about the time that picture is released — wouldn't Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer love that! And wouldn't Elizabeth too — but for another reason. And wouldn't old Ail-American Grandmaw me — for just no reason at all, or every reason in the world! And why stop now — wouldn't everyone? Because Elizabeth Taylor, like another Elizabeth across the sea, who has just set her a wonderful example, is princess royal to us here in Hollywood, and like young Mrs. Mountbatten, she will be worshipped and watched. I know them both and while Liz doesn't boast the coronets that Lillibet does, she has the same class and courage. It takes a lot of that — in any set or circle — when a girl marries, because there's plenty of truth in that old jingle, "Needles and pins, needles and pins, When a girl marries her trouble begins." Nobody, not even Walt Disney, really believes that Cinderella lived happily ever after, and if Elizabeth and Nick Hilton maintain the state of story book bliss, they won't be human — or even interesting. But they can be happy, and I believe they will be, if they work at it night and day, now that they've both discovered that, East and West, home is best. The End BULLETIN! Just as this story went to press, rumors started circulating to the effect that Elizabeth and Nicky Hilton had been quarreling and that a separation was in the offing. The editors of Modern Screen were aware of these rumors long before they reached the newspapers, but have continued to hold their silence because of their belief that this young couple deserves every chance for happiness. COLOR MAGIC of SUPER COLOR. 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