Modern Screen (Feb-Dec 1959)

"There's no doubt in my mind that the experience I had being on my own in New York, and having to learn to live with a complete new group of young people, was just as vital to my acting development as the actual acting techniques I learned at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I would have been a shallow actress, always, if I hadn't broken the bonds and gotten out of my shell. Lived like other people. Suffered some, cried a lot, had to learn to give-and-take and make others like me. "I learned the importance of displaying inner warmth, learned the magic of a smile. Before, these things used to be just words. But when I'd go to the Playhouse every day — usually, still frightened, still shy, still lonely — I noticed an old, white-haired man sitting on the porch of a brownstone house across the street. He used to smile and wave at me. Maybe he could see I was lonely. His smile was so sweet and sincere, it gave me courage. I experienced, first hand, what a smile, even from a stranger, can do. This is all important to me as a person — and as an actress." The end of the story Probably the very most important thing that came out of New York for Susan was meeting a tall (six-foot-seven) handsome, thirty-year-old blond giant named Charles Shelander. Ironically, she was introduced to him by one of the family friends she had been so careful never to mention to her classmates. Jane (Mrs. Edward G.) Robinson was giving a party and called Susan to please come because she knew a "wonderful, attractive advertising artist" she wanted her to meet. He would pick her up if Susan would agree. Susan hates blind dates; they embarrass her. But she couldn't hurt Mrs. Robinson's feelings. Charles phoned her, she liked his voice. He took her to the party, and they got along beautifully. So beautifully in fact, a lot of people think that meeting was the beginning of falling in love. If it is, it will be a perfect ending to the story of what happens when a sheltered little girl leaves home. END Susan is currently in U-I's Imitation of Life and can soon be seen in the Buena Vista film The Big Fisherman. Let's Not Wait Any Longer, Darling (Continued from page 37) knew. The pain had stopped, and the sweat. And the feeling. Her back had been broken, and she was paralyzed. What must she have been thinking, in that strange room, in that strange country, so far from home, so far from Mel, her tortured mind surveying her wracked body, her fear a palpable thing that she could smell and taste. You wonder, as you reconstruct the scene. You wonder if she prayed. You wonder if she thought of death. You wonder if she remembered Susan Peters, injured in a hunting accident, living out her last years in a wheel chair. Audrey and Mel had been married almost five years. A world without him would be a world so grey she could not face it, yet she dreaded the pity which might bind him to a crippled wife. Sick, alone, her pride still blazed, and the spirit which had seen her through a childhood of hunger and nightmare, in a Europe overrun by savages. Had she survived so much terror — and later, so much emptiness ("Before Mel, I was always a little desolate when my work was over") — only to meet defeat in this sad Mexican city, among strangers? Five years of marriage, and no children. Always there had been the work. They'd plan a baby, and a picture would come along, and they were both young, and there wasn't any hurry, and suddenly there was a wild horse, and a f 1, and the end of her world staring at her. Maybe I'll never walk again. Maybe I'll never have children. The sense of loss, the sense of waste. Perhaps she made a promise to herself, lying there, during that awful, endless time. If I live, I won't wait any more. We'll have a baby, we'll be a family. . . . Not that Audrey and Mel weren't always compatible and self-sufficient, just that they always seemed so alone. You'd see pictures of them together, at any of their various rented estates — the villa in Italy, the chalet in Switzerland, any old place where they'd settle down in California. They'd be playing ping-pong, or walking the dogs, but somehow it was as though they had no anchor to their fives, nothing to hold them anywhere. "Some day I hope we can settle down in our own home with our own things," Audrey said once, to a reporter, halfjokingly, explaining that she longed to buy a large double bed. Still, the busier the Ferrers got the more their "some day" receded into the indefinite future. Audrey went to Africa, finished The Nun's Story after bouts with heat, infection, fire, snakes and loneliness ("I think some of my anguish for Mel gets on the screen"), came back to Hollywood and went to bed with flu, then started on Green Mansions, with Mel directing. As soon as Green Mansions was over, she told Louella Parsons, she would take a year off, have a baby. The lesson completed It didn't work out that way. She was offered The Unforgiven, and, at first, said no. She didn't want to go to Mexico without Mel. But John Huston was directing, and Burt Lancaster and Lillian Gish were among the players, and she'd be paid $500,000 plus a percentage, and how could she turn it down? She refused a double for her bareback riding scenes, and a horse is no respecter of movie stars, and the by-now-famous accident occurred. Audrey's back mended, and Audrey wound up the picture, but she was a different Audrey. She'd been set to go straight into a new Alfred Hitchcock movie, but instead, she and Mel flew to Switzerland, to their house in the mountains. They wanted to have the baby there. Once, when Audrey was talking about Mel, she said he'd taught her "how to live for another. I've been restless, and that's over. I didn't know exactly where or what I wanted to be. Now I do." Love is a good teacher; so is suffering. The lesson begun by Mel was completed for Audrey in Durango, when she lay staring at the ceiling, wondering about the meaning of her life. At the age of thirty, Audrey was ready to come home. God willing, she'll have another chance. END Audrey's in MGM's Green Mansions and will soon appear in Warner Bros.' The Nun's Story. Mel is currently in MGM's The World, The Flesh And The Devil. { OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOU For rates, write COMBINED CLASSIFIED 529 W. Madison, Chicago 6 BUSINESS & MONEY MAKING OPPORTUNITIES CW-Aug. 59 BIGGEST Sf-ARE TIME Profits, showing friends, neighbors beautiful Evans Christmas and All Occasion Cards. Easy to take orders (100% profit) with special kit sent-on-approval. Included Free: 32 samples Personalized Christmas Cards, all new Imprinted Stationary Display, 2 Catalogs, Selling Guide. Write today: New England Art Publishers, North Abington 723, Mass. GROW LIVING Miniature Forest (only inches high), or orchard that bears tasty tiny fruit. 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