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Overly dependent on Mama,
Maggie has just learned to stand alone.
and to talk to boys like Harold Selson, Bob Allen, who watched her graduate.
Last year considered "too naive date," Maggie is now in demand . .
and has learned to dress and make up for her grown-up eighteen years.
(Continued from page 33) But that wasn't quite the truth.
Margaret O'Brien obviously retains the same amazing talent which made her Hollywood's wonder child of the forties. But today she no more resembles the fabulous pigtailed moppet of that lost decade than a butterfly suggests a caterpillar. Today Maggie's a young lady, and a very lovely one indeed — but a lady with a problem. Briefly, she faces creating a new life for herself, a new career and — to make both a success— a new maturity. For far too long pretty Maggie has been holding back tomorrow because she couldn't forget her wonderful yesterday.
As a result, at eighteen Margaret O'Brien finds herself at least three years behind her ; age and on the spot to catch up. Only last year she had her first date with a boy, and only a few weeks ago her first without her mother by her side. As recently as last January 15, on Maggie's eighteenth birthday, Mrs. Gladys O'Brien had to get on the phone and rustle up a date (Tab Hunter) for her coming-of-age dinner party at Chasens, because her daughter didn't know whom or how to ask. Although Maggie's been eligible to drive a car for over two years now, she learned how only two short months ago. Just this past May — halfway into her nineteenth year — did she graduate from high school, at which formality she knew no one else in her class. Only in recent weeks has Maggie conducted a press interview without her mother, shopped for a dress, made a business decision, fallen halfway in love or fixed herself a sandwich. And she parted with her long, girlish tresses, never cut before in her life, just a few weeks ago, but only after her agent handed her an ultimatum: "No haircut — no parts!"
All of this is unique even in Hollywood, but still understandable. Because as far back as Margaret can remember she was no normal growing girl but a boxoffice treasure wrapped in cotton batting. Nonetheless it poses a crisis in her life today as she tries the near impossible — to be as great as an adult as she was a child. To pull that off Maggie must measure up to her present and break with her past. On that challenge hangs her future. And for her it's a pretty large order.
Because Margaret O'Brien has been Mama's girl ever since she was born in Los Angeles nineteen years ago come next January. She never knew her father, Larry O'Brien. A daring circus rider, he was killed in an accident in Mexico City a few weeks before she arrived, a fragile baby weighing (Continued on page 74)
Way back in the forties, when Maggie was the brightest child star ever, she was never without Mama, had few friends. But she met former child stars like Shirley Temple (whose onscreen growing-up was none too successful) and Liz Taylor (who grew up quite nicely). She also met Mr. Gable, who found out fast who she was!
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