Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

Sometimes I get the feeling that newspaper and magazine people are a little annoyed because I haven't picked the girl yet. Why should they be? I date a lot. And for one of the best reasons a man can have. I like girls. And I like them feminine. Lace, perfume, fluffy dresses, big smiles, bright eyes — and all the accessories. And I like them gentle. Not only with me, but with everybody. Your figure? It really doesn't matter if the guy loves the girl. I've never seen a woman yet who didn't have curves. And because I'm the kind of a guy I am, we'll laugh a lot. You will have all those things, I know. "D ut i don't think you'll be at all like a few of the girls I've dated. I remember one date not too long ago. She is an actress. Young, happy and wellliked by everyone. But when the first date was over I knew I was through. When I called her "Honey," she stood up and did the Charleston. When I said, "Baby," real casually, she sang "Tweedlej Dee." I was afraid of what might have happened if I called her "Darling." She may never get married. She won't sit still long enough for a man to say, "I love you." She's the kind of a girl who tries too hard to be the life of the party. It may be that she reflects the attitude of a lot of girls these days. They just don't seem to want to settle down. Everything's got to be jumping. If it isn't, it's a bore. There's the other kind of girl, too. The Arnold Stang visited the set where Cecil B. DeMille is completing The Ten Commandments. He reports: "As of last week, they were only up to Thou Shalt Not Steal'." Leonard Lyons in The New York Post one who takes eight reels to get dressed for a date and then needs a lap dissolve and color close-up for an entrance. This kind of girl will brush her hair one strand at a time and take at least a year to answer a simple question like, "Will you be my wife?" if want to devote my life to acting. An actor's career, if he takes it seriously, can be rich, satisfying and full of excitement. It will let him look back when he is old and say, "I wouldn't have lived my life any other way." But to survive in the acting profession you must, somehow, learn what people are like. What makes them laugh, sing, dance and cry? Why will one man curse the day he was born, and another love the future more than the past? What gives two people a love so great that nothing on earth can destroy it? If I ever expect real, honest, lasting success in my chosen profession, I must get I to know the answers soon. So I try to find them. One newspaper columnist recently stated that I refused to be friendly with anyone who couldn't do me some good. I think what this writer meant to say was that I deliberately sought to spend my time with persons who know a great deal more than I do about life and my profession. A man interested in a career in politics would be a fool if he did not take the opj portunity to sit down to dinner with a U. S. Senator, if he had the chance. My associations with men like Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark and Clifton Webb are the kind that started out on professional ground and developed into real man-to-man relationships. They happened not because I was Robert J. Wagner but because they found that I needed help as an actor. They know how important this assistance can be, because they've been through the mill themselves. When I made Titanic, I met Barbara Stanwyck. My part called for plenty of emoting as a young man in love for the first time. She knew I needed help on this and showed me, word by word, through a long screenplay, what a woman should see in the character I portrayed. No male actor could have explained this to me. And it isn't the first time Barbara Stanwyck has helped a young actor. William Holden never misses giving her credit. Those are the simple, honest-to-gosh reasons why I spend as much time as I can with people who know more than I do. ID etween now and the moment we see . each other and fall in love you'll read other things about me which probably won't be true, either. Try to read between the lines. For instance, some writers say I'm difficult to interview. I am. In the beginning, though, I wasn't. I had new questions tossed at me so I had answers. Now some of those questions are pretty old. Like the favorite: "Wagner, when are you going to get married?" At first I replied, because it was the truth, "I don't know." Then I tried, "When I fall in love." This prompted another question: "When will that be?" So there we were, right back to "I don't know," again. What bachelor can answer that question? One thing I do know. I will fall in love. And it will be with you: I can only hope that you fall in love with me. You'll have to put up with a lot though, not only with me but with the business I'm in. For instance, R. J. Wagner has never been known as a model of promptness. I'm late for dates, dinners, dentist appointments and early curtains. I'm extravagant. I spend more money than I should. But a very old rich man once told me a story about spending money. He said that when he was young and had money he saved more than he should. Now that he was old he still had the money, but he couldn't spend it because people would think he was foolish. "Now," said the old man, "it is the same as if I had wasted the money." T'd rather wear sports clothes than suits, but I'll probably change on that. I dislike phony books, phony people and phony conversations. I'm crazy about golf, shredded wheat, milk and soft-boiled eggs. I guess I'm not much different from any other guy my age. The real problems of our marriage will occur during the shooting time. With transportation as speedy as it is in this modern age, movie companies go just about any place in the world to make pictures. And sometimes take months to complete them. That means long separations. But somehow we'll manage. Well, honey, so much for me, which isn't too much when you get right down to it. But I've been wanting to write this letter for so long, and I feel better, now that I have. Keep happy, keep beautiful and keep hoping, with me. And some day when destiny is in a good mood we'll find each other. If we don't, just remember this: A guy named Wagner wanted and loved you. It's his tough luck that he wasn't around when he should have been. Always and always, R. J. Look like a Million Marvel at these expensive looking, lustrously lovely, rhinestone-clasped simulated Duchess Pearls . . . with an elegant Lustre-Dip glow, exclusively our secret. These magnificent necklaces can be yours for only $1 each, plus tax. At your favorite store. H S S ORIGINALS, INC., 48 WEST 37 ST., NEW YORK !