Modern Screen (Feb-Dec 1957)

* r and ^ove distress. A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NATALIE TRUNDY ■ For one whole summer. Natalie Trundy did nothing at all but cry. She was nine years old at the time, and she knew perfectly well what was making her so miserable. She wanted to be an actress and Mother said No. "But why?" Natalie sobbed. "If you didn't want me to be an actress why'd you send me to dancing school? Why'd you let me do the lead in the show? Why — " "Let you!" Mother exclaimed. "Nobody let you at all! Why, that poor child who was supposed to play the lead hadn't been sick five minutes before you volunteered to do it! Five months in dancing school — and you wanted to star in the school show! And sing. And act — and — and everything!" "But I did it." Natalie insisted, "and I didn't fall on my face. You know I didn't. And that nice man who came backstage afterwards said I should be an actress. He said I should come see him and he'd put me on television. He said so." "And I," said Mother firmly, "say no." So Natalie went back to crying. Summer passed, fall came, and Natalie went back to school in Forest Hills. New York. And in school she met another little girl whose mother was not so stubborn, and let her daughter act. And this little girl told Natalie that Fred Waring was looking for a child to play Little Red Riding Hood in a specialty piece for his tv show. "Mama, please" Natalie begged that night, over and over. "Just call him for me. Please! You know I can do it." Mother, her face white as a sheet, sighed. "Yes," she said at last. "I know you can do it. But the point is. / can't." "Can't what?" Nat demanded. Her mother sighed again. "Natalie. I simply can't let you turn professional. "It's not because we come from Boston. It's not that your father objects or that I think it will ruin your childhood. It's just that — I can't sew!" Natalie stared at her, mouth open. Mother said, "I suppose you remember the night you told me you were taking over the lead in that school show? You cam* home at four o'clock in the afternoon an. told me that at three the next day you wen going on. You had twenty-four hours t< learn two tap numbers, two ballet number and a song you'd never even heard of!" "Yes," Natalie said, only it soundec more like a question. "Yes. And while you were learnin; your tap numbers, your ballet number and singing at the top of your lungs al night — what was / doing?" The light broke over Natalie's face "You were making my costume!" "That's right! And I can't sew a stitch! I didn't have the vaguest idea what I wa doing. I never saw a pattern before in m> entire life! All day, all night. I was putting in stitches and ripping them out. sewim the top on inside out to the bottom, hem ming it crooked — and why on earth i stayed on the next day is something Fl never know. "And now. Now you tell me you wan to be an actress! TV shows, stage show heaven knows what-all! "I'm sorry, baby. The answer is no." A very thoughtful Natalie Trundy wen back to school the next day and had long talk with her friend — and came horn again, beaming. "Mama," said Natalie, "I told her wha our problem was. And she's been in lot of shows and everything. And she says th mothers don't have to do anything. Evei for little girls, they rent the costumes. Ani if something goes wrong they have . woman called the — the wardrobe mistres — and she takes care of it all. Why, m friend says, as far as she knows, you'l never have to sew a stitch again. Now wil you call Fred Waring?" "Well," said Mother, "under the cii cumstances. I suppose. . . ." Nat got the part. "And," she adds today, having since the; starred in two movies, two Broadway show and innumerable tv productions, "as fa as I know. Mother hasn't lifted a needl from that dav to this!" Natalie is noiv in UA's The Monte Carlo Story and The Careless Years.