Modern Screen (Dec 1953 - Nov 1954)

Her career was responsible for her meeting with Al Jordan who used to play in Jimmy Dorsey's band. They got married and soon she had a child. When the marriage went to pieces, she had to use her career to support her boy. One time when she was flat broke, she begged the program manager of wlw to hire her at sustaining rates. He paid her scale, $64 a week. She sang with Les Brown and Bob Crosby and Barney Rapp. The singing was an economic necessity, She was both mother and father to her Terry and there were long periods of time when she saw neither her son nor her mother. As recently as six or seven years ago, I remember watching her shuffle into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in Hollywood, (after she had been divorced from George Weidler,) a lonely, weary, tired girl, disillusion on her face. I've seen Doris Day smile. I've heard Bob Hope call her jutt-butt. I've watched her give out with that gay, deceiving, flip air of enjoyment. But to me, her blue eyes have always been sad eyes. This girl has never hungered for fame or money or adoration. All she has ever wanted is to leave the rat race, to get away from it, to settle down with her husband and family in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. You may well ask — "Well, why doesn't she do it?" If she quits tomorrow, if she renounces the whole crazy world of show business, can she retain the love and admiration of her friends, her husband, and her mother? Doris Day is probably the best-loved actress in Hollywood. She has never harmed anyone. She has never climbed the ladder of success, lad by lad. She has never engaged in subterfuge or underhand politics. She has achieved success through her own effort and talent. The success she has achieved, however, has brought her fame, money, and position. It has brought her practically everything but the one thing she has always needed most — peace of mind. In the weeks to come, let's all hope she finds it. A better, kinder, sweeter, more unselfish girl was never born. END please don't talk about me . . . (Continued from page 22) and for the rest of his life." The press associations picked up the announcement, and next day readers throughout America were convinced that Clark and Suzanne would return to Hollywood as man and wife. In Amsterdam, Gable was making The True And The Brave with Lana Turner , and Vic Mature. When he was asked to confirm Miss Dadolle's statement, he was stunned. The actor is not the quickest thinker in the world, but by nature he is a prudent man, so he turned the whole matter over to Paul Mills, his press representative. Paul gave out with the following denial: "Clark Gable has no plans for engagement or marriage and hasn't given his promise to engage or marry." In Paris, when Suzanne read this, she was hurt. After all, she was wearing the topaz ring Gable had given her, and while the ring may or may not have been an engagement ring, it showed in a way that Gable regarded her in a special light. At Wolfheze, Holland, he was asked, "Any truth to these stories about you and Suzanne Dadolle?" "Stories about what?" he countered. "About you two kids getting married." "No truth to that," Clark Gable said. "I'm not getting married." Uncle Sam gave Leslie Caron's marriage a break, but she and Geordie are DOING A SPLIT ■ When Leslie Caron's husband, Geordie Hormel, was called up by the Coast Guard, the pert little French ballerina clapped her hands with delight and said, "Oo!" I am the happiest girl in the world!" This was not because her husband w^s in the service, but because Geordie, heir to the Hormel meat packing fortune, had been assigned to duty in San Pedro, Los Angeles harbor. This meant that he could spend alternate nights at home, accompany Leslie to previews and parties, and never break the ecstatic rhythm of their marriage. To Lesl.' this was unheard-of luck, and she enjoyed it to the fullest. But a few weeks ago, the dancing star suddenly made a puzzling move. She asked MGM for an indefinite leave of absence and left her husband to rejoin and travel with Roland Petit's Ballet de Paris. Immediately, this gave rise to the rumor that another of Hollywood's young marriages had foundered. Coast Guardsman Hormel quickly denied it. "I doubt," he said, "if anything can ever disrupt our marriage. Leslie and I have problems, of course. For example, I'm not nearly the artist that she is, and I probably never will be. As a musician, I've yet to make a full-fledged success. Despite stories of my great wealth, Leslie has much more money than I have. In fact, I owe around $40,000. Years from now, I may inherit some money, but only if I go back into the meat packing business." While Coast Guardsman Hormel is busy with such denials, his cute young Leslie is back in the ballet she loves, dancing all over Europe. When the Hormels were first married, Leslie said, "Compared to being with Geordie, my car. means nothing." Unhappily, in this household, times have changed.