Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

too fast. He met his death learning to fly. "I like people," he once said, "but I think things out better alone. Some talk a problem over. For me, it's a long walk till I make up my mind." said my and "Nothing ever happened to me," he'd tell reporters. "I should wrap my car around a pole so I'd have something to be interviewed about." (Continued from -page 56) in those last few minutes he turned the plane to avoid crashing into the crowds attending services at a cemetery directly below. In a matter of seconds the tiny ship crashed into a parking lot and burst into flames. Authorities that the three occupants had, mercifully, died instantly. I put the receiver back on the telephone cradle and turned to desk, littered with shorthand notes that had taken down his words such a short time ago. I arranged them into a neat pile filed them away, and the finality of the act gave me a strange feeling. And now Modern Screen wants to know about this last interview. The notes are once again spread over my desk, and although a week has passed, I do not feel any less strange. I do not intend a eulogy. It isn't my place; I didn't know him that well. I had spent perhaps six hours with him during various interviews, but while six hours is little time to come to know a person, in the case of Bob it was sufficient to grow enormously fond of him. I can only say what I feel, and that is that Bob was the kindest, most sincere, clean-cut young man I had known. There was nothing unusual about the interview. It was set for noon at a restaurant noted for its quiet charm, the kind of place Bob Francis would appreciate. We were to talk about his recent sojourn in Colorado. He had gone there to make a Western with Spencer Tracy, and after three weeks Tracy had become ill and gone back to Hollywood. The company stayed on in the wilds of Colorado, awaiting the studio's decision about Tracy's replacement. After a week of waiting they had all been recalled to Hollywood, and given a month of freedom until August 19, when they were to return. About Bob's stay there, I already knew he had met a girl under unusual circumstances, that on his return he had been amusing about the quiet life they had all been forced to lead. And I knew that the month ahead of (Continued on page 67^) One Hollywood date was Mutiny costar May Wynn. They went to the Beach with Kim Novak, Scott Brady. Even as a star, Bob continued acting lessons with Botomi Schneider, considered her a second mother. "We always let Bob make his own decisions," his parents said. "That's the way you make a boy a man." In 1954 Modern Screen readers named Bob most popular new star George Delacorte presented award. 59