Modern Screen (Feb-Dec 1958)

As Ricky became more and more involved with his fast-zooming career, I began to feel more and more left out. One Sunday, we spent the day at Laguna Beach where his family has a house. We lolled on the beach all afternoon, but Ricky barely spoke. I was miserable. On the drive home he was silent. "What's the matter, Ricky?" I asked. "Are you mad at me?" He looked surprised. "Of course not. What made you think that?" "You hardly spoke to me all day. Were you thinking of someone else?" "I was thinking — but not of someone else. I've been thinking of the lines I have to learn for tomorrow's show, and of the personal appearances I have to prepare for and so many things that are beginning to pop. I used to work only with my family. Now I'm on my own. I wonder if I'm good enough." I began to feel the stabs of doubt, too — doubt that my continuing to see Ricky would end in happiness for me. It all came to a head when I returned after visiting my folks in Chicago for the Christmas holidays. While I'd been away, all I thought of was Ricky. But one morning, while I was at my parents' house, I read the movie column in the newspaper and I was stunned. It said that Ricky had been taking out one of the girls on the Nelson show, Lorrie Collins. That was all, but it was enough to send me to my room in tears. I couldn't wait till I got back to Hollywood and Ricky. He was at the airport waiting for me. I started to run to him, but before we reached each other, a crowd of girls swarmed around him and he was busy signing autographs. . . . We were alone at last in his car. We sat close, but there was something different now. Ricky was quiet; I was upset. All I could think of was the other girl. I never realized I would be so hurt if anyone else came into the picture. Ricky must have guessed how I felt. He said, "Is anything bothering you?" "I read that you were going with another girl — Lorrie Collins. Are you dating her?" Then, before he could answer, I blurted out, "Are you in love with her?" Ricky was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I'm not in love with any girl now. I can't afford to fall in love." Then he went on to tell me that his advisers had told him he shouldn't tie himself up with any one girl, that it might damage his popularity if he went steady or got married. He wouldn't let himself fall in love. He just couldn't. What he said made sense, but I still felt hurt and bewildered. I may have been a seventeen-year-old — but when it comes to love, even a teenage girl can have the emotions of a woman. As we said good -night Ricky said, "Why can't we still see each other? All this — about Lorrie and any other girl I see or take out — shouldn't make any difference. We can't get serious about each other anyway." We made a date for the next night, and I ran inside the house. Overnight, I had a chance to think. I could barely sleep. The joy I had known when I first began to go with Ricky had now turned to torment. I looked back and recalled how I'd felt when the Long Beach Queen had presented Ricky with the roses . . . the tinge of jealousy inside me when I saw him look at her admiringly . . . how I began to feel when I saw crowds of girls clamoring around him . . . particularly, how I'd felt when I read that he was dating Lorrie Collins and the thought that he would be dating other girls, too. And yet, why should I care? Ricky wasn't ready to go with one girl or to think of marriage. He'd told me that himself. It was late at night as these thoughts tumbled around me. In the darkness I seemed to think more clearly. Suddenly, all my jumbled thoughts clarified into one: if I couldn't be the only girl in his life I couldn't be in his life at all. I loved j Ricky too much to want to share him — ; either with the world or with another j girl. My mind was made up. We went for a long drive the next night. Ricky's handsome profile was i etched in the moonlight. I sat beside him and felt myself trembling. "I can't see you any more, Rick," I said. "Why not? That's foolish." "It isn't, Ricky. I have to think of myself now. I haven't felt the same since I : learned you were seeing Lorrie. It isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault. But I just can't go on this way any longer. I guess love is a different thing to a girl than it is to a boy. I can't take this any | more. I hardly slept a wink last night. I don't want to have any more sleepless ! nights, wondering who you're seeing or what other girls you're dating. That's the i way I am about you, I guess. This is go 1 ing to have to be the end." I wanted to give him back his ring. But j Ricky wouldn't take it. We talked some more, and that night , we said good-night — for the last time. The other day I saw Ricky. He was driving along Hollywood Boulevard, and so was I. We found ourselves in lanes 5 next to each other. He had on the same red shirt he wore the first day I'd met him — I felt a little funny. He waved and started to say something. Suddenly, the j light turned green and we had to drive on. We lost each other in the heavy traffic. I'm beginning to go out with other boys now. Although I don't compare them with Ricky all the time, the way I used at the beginning, I still think of Ricky a lot. Sometimes, when I think of him, the old 1 pang returns, and I wonder if I did the | right thing by walking out of his life. I hope it was the right thing — it was the only thing I could do. . . . END I Ricky can soon be seen in Rio Bravo for Warners. why nick and I are afraid to marry (Continued from page 41) fresh and brash and quite a character. He was doing a Richard Diamond, Private Detective show on the same lot where I am filming The Real McCoys. Richard Whorf was directing his film, and as usual when I have time and there is a fine director on the lot, I go over to watch him work. When Nick and I were introduced, he played it cool, acting the part of a manabout-town. I couldn't blame him. My McCoy outfit — cotton dress, high buttoned shoes, and my hair long and stringy — is hardly designed to get me a glamour award. But his attitude burned me up anyway. "So this is the great Nick Adams," I told Tony Martinez, a regular in The Real McCoys. "Who does he think he is?" "Nick Adams," Tony grinned. Three months went by before we met again, when Nick was making another telefilm. This time I happened to be all dressed up in a sheath dress, high heel shoes, with my hair nicely combed, and my face made up. Nick's eyes lit up. "Haven't we met?" he burst out when I walked on the set. ■ This time I played it cool. "Could be — " He choked a little. Obviously he didn't like my answer! When I watched him work that afternoon, my opinion of him made a complete about-face. I've been in this business long enough to realize that he is a truly 68 fine, dedicated, extremely capable actor. All the clowning stopped the moment he stepped before the camera. I was impressed. But he slipped back into his old attitude when he walked over to me after the scene. "You must be a fine actress," he grinned. I didn't know what to make of it. And it showed. "Only a great actress could get away wearing an outfit like you do in The Real McCoys. . . " I loved his sense of humor, and I liked something else. So many people in this town look anywhere but in your face when they talk to you. Nick looks straight at you. But I still played it cool. . . . Apparently that didn't discourage him. Because the next afternoon I got a call from him in the middle of rehearsal. First date "How would you like to go to the Ice Capades with me tonight?" he asked selfassuredly. "Who is this?" I came back. There was a moment's silence. "Why — this is Nick. . . ." "Nick . . . Who?" I knew very well Nick Who but I couldn't resist having a little fun. "Nick Scheckenbrot," he mumbled. "Now how about the Ice Capades tonight?" "Do you think you can call a girl you never dated at two in the afternoon and expect her to go out with you the same night?" I cried out. Tony Martinez happened to be standing next to me while this was going on. "What do you have to lose?" he urged. "A perfectly good evening," I whispered 1 as I held my hand over the receiver. But curiosity won me over. I had to see what Nick was like. "All right," I told him. "I'll go." Usually when a date picks me up, I'm [ ready for him. I really have no choice since I live in a one-room apartment, with no place to change. But we worked late that day and Nick was on time. When I opened the door I'd just slipped on my dress, but I had a towel wrapped around i my hair and no make-up on. I didn't look much improved from a McCoy. Nick seemed startled. In fact he was speechless. "You might as well see me at my worst!" I exclaimed. "Sit down on the couch while I get ready . . ." and I turned to go to the bathroom to fix my hair and put on make-up. "Don't!" Nick called out before I had taken more than a couple of steps. "Don't what?" "Don't put on make-up. I like you this way. . . ." So I just put on lipstick while Nick even insisted I fix my hair in the living room, so he could watch me. Nick is a different kind of person when you're alone with him, with no one else around for whom he feels obliged to play a scene. He is nice, quiet — and very sincere. Sure, once in a while he starts acting up but all I have to say is "Slow down, boy . . . slow down . . ." and he'll grin and cut out the act.