Modern Screen (Dec 1952 - Nov 1953)

no tears for mitzi (Continued from page 47) madcap with an irrespressible sense of humor and a pixie personality, and more talent than many a long-faced drahmah queen. He forgave her, of course. In fact at the end of the production, Negulesco formally presented her with a tin lunch box. But her reputation as a practical joker was so firmly established at this point that the publicity department had little to do but embellish it from time to time with more samples of Gaynor gags that may or may not have happened. And here's where the real practical joke sets in. It's a strange thing, but occasionally an actress is given a build-up which seemingly fits her personality. Then a crisis occurs in her private life, and the build-up looms false, incongruous, out of character. So it was with Mitzi Gaynor. Coincidental with the establishment of Mitizi's effervescent sense of humor came the announcement that this delightful, dancing pixie was ecstatically in love with a handsome, prematurely gray young lawyer named Richard Coyle. This love affair, which was Mitzi's first, began when she was 16. It lasted five years. It was supposed to culminate in marriage on September 4th, 1952 when Mitzi was 21. It culminated in nothingness. A few weeks ago Mitzi and Dick Coyle had one of those momentous heart-to-heart talks which usually prefaces the breakup of any engagement. The talk took place in the old-fashioned Hollywood Hills home where Mitzi and her mother lived on the second floor and Dick and his mother lived on the first. Mitzi had made her decision the week before, and because she is honest and straightforward and has always respected her former fiance for his intellect and integrity, she made it short and sweet. "I'm sorry," she said, removing the diamond engagement ring, "I can't wear this any longer." Dick Coyle said nothing for a moment, just stood there gulping, looking into the sad brown eyes of the talented beauty who had been christened Francesca Mitzi Marlene de Chenzy von Gerber. A few days later the Coyles, mother and son, moved out of the home they had jointly occupied with the Gerbers, mother and daughter. Thus finis was written to a Cinderella romance which even jaded Hollywood had accorded the destiny of a happy ending. A ftee five long years of loving, hoping, working, waiting, and planning, why did Mitzi Gaynor break her engagement to Richard Coyle? The 31-year-old attorney when asked »t ,comrnent on the breakup, merely said, Its a personal thing, and I don't want to talk about it." Mitzi herself says in her usual, jaunty, bouncing style, "These things happen. A girl just decides that marriage to a certain man wouldn't be right for her; so she just doesn't marry that certain man." Mrs. Pauline Gerber, Mitzi's mother, who knows something about heartacheshe left her husband back in Detroit when she and her only child came west to try their luck— is of the opinion, "that it is best to forget about that affair. There's no point in re-hashing it. Mitzi is only 21. She has yet to reach the peak of her career, and there's plenty of time for marriage." All of these quotations beg the question. None of them answers it. According to intimates the reason Mitzi Gaynor isn't Mrs. Richard Coyle today is that she has fallen for a famous studio executive. Whether Mitzi Gaynor cares deeply for this man, more than twice her age, whether anything, professional or non professional, emerges from this acquaintanceship, it definitely proves one thing: When a 16-year-old girl tells the world that she is a ' one-man-gal" and that "I have found the man in life for me," it may be regarded as the delightfully romantic, but often false notion of any young girl, immature and tender of heart. Mitzi is now old enough to realize she wants her fling. She isn't ready to settle down with any one young man no matter how brilliant, amusing, or educated. When Mitzi Gaynor was 16 she was dancing in Naughty Marietta at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. One night backstage she caught a glimpse of a tall, handsome young man talking to Edward Everett Horton. The tall young man caught a glimpse of her, too. The glimpse became a stare. ( "A funny thing," Mitzi has said. "I knew I'd just have to meet him. I asked Horton to introduce me. As a gag he wouldn't, but he did tell me that the fellow's name was Richard Coyle and that he was a fraternity brother of his, and that he'd just graduated from law school at Northwestern." That's how it started, with a strong rapport of physical attraction between Mitzi Gaynor and Richard Coyle. People have since wondered how a mature, settled, quiet, well-educated young man like Coyle could fall for a scatterbrain like Mitzi. The truth is that there is little logic or reasonableness in love. Coyle recognized great potential in Mitzi, and when she reached her 17th birthday— they had met and dated several times previously — he gave her a gold band, a ring she prefers to call "a friendship ring." The important factor to remember in this love' affair was the relative obscurity of the participants. Practically no one had ever heard of Richard Coyle in California, and Mitzi Gerber (the name she went by before Fox changed it) was, in the year 1947, a dancer who had worked in several shows put on by Edgar Lester: The Fortune Teller, Song Of Norway, Louisiana Purchase, and Naughty Marietta. This was no love affair between a star-struck youth and a well-known dancer. Dick and Mitzi were just a pair of kids in love, so much in love that one night Mitzi came to her mother and said, "Dick and I want to get married." Looking back on it now Mitzi says, "Mother didn't exactly blow her top. She's much too sensible for that. But jhe pointed out other entertainers who had married at an early age, Shirley Temple, Lana Turner, Judy Garland. I knew what had happened to their first marriages, so when she suggested that we wait until I reached 21, I objected of course, but in my heart I felt she was right. "After all, I wasn't anywhere yet in my career and neither was Dick. He was just starting out as a lawyer. How would we support ourselves? When you're very young and very much in love, I don't guess you worry about such down-to-earth things." |\/|iTzr's big break came not long after she had been graduated from the School for Professional Children run by Mala Powers' mother. George Jessel, the ex-20th Century-Fox producer who still refers to her as "Morris," caught Mitzi playing the part of a gold-digging ballerina in The Great Waltz. It was during this operetta that Mitzi showed her great stage presence. While she was dancing her petticoat slipped down. Very casually Mitzi stepped out of it and continued waltzing with Walter Slezak. George Jessel says now, "When I first caught Morris up there on the stage, I said It's FREE for CHUBBIES! 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