Modern Screen (Feb-Dec 1959)

"We're Glad Johnny Didn't Pick a Glamor Girl" (Continued from page 49) Orrico (the famous movie star, Johnny Saxon), was steady-dating Vicki Thai. There was gossip in the newspapers that the two of them had married. But Mama Orrico knew such a thing wasn't true. Surely her son would call and share such wonderful wedding news with them all. Now he had called to announce he was flying home to Brooklyn with Vicki, the girl they had never met but whose pictures they had looked at over and over again in the movie magazines. "What's she like?" the Orricos all asked each other as they studied her face in the date layouts of the film books. She was different, not like the Hollywood glamor girls. She didn't have the delicate, chiseled features the movie cameramen like, but, then, she wasn't an actress. Yet, wasn't there something about her face, a haunting look in her eyes, something . . . was it kindness? Once, one of the apartment house neighbors had commented, "Gee, Johnny's girl isn't very pretty, is she? I just saw her in a movie magazine." Mama Orrico's heart shuddered. "Do you know her?" Mama Orrico retorted. The neighbor nodded no. "Then don't be so hasty with comments about her looks. Meet her first and find out what she's like." Now, of course, that Johnny was bringing Vicki home, they would all meet her and find out what she was like. And, like all mothers, Mama Orrico wanted her son to find the right girl who would give him her love and look after him, bear his children and make a home for him that was happy and full of life. Mama Orrico walked into the kitchen to tell the good news to her short, husky husband whose housepainting and contracting business had seen them through a decent life. "Tony," she said, "Johnny's coming home. Tomorrow. And he's bringing Vicki!" Then she called her attractive teenage daughters, Dolores and Julie-ann, who were watching television, and she shouted excitedly, "Girls, your brother's coming home, and he's bringing Vicki!" Both girls rushed to the kitchen. Preparing the homecoming "I want you to help me get everything ready tomorrow," Mama Orrico told them. "I want to fix ravioli, and a big turkey, and I'm going to make a big rum cake for dessert. And maybe, tomorrow, after you wake up, you can go to the department store and buy presents for Vicki. I think that would be nice, don't you? Maybe some cologne or a cute bracelet or a nice pair of stockings." Mama Orrico proceeded to make a big pot of coffee, and the family — mother, father and the two darkhaired daughters — all sat around the yellow chromium-edged kitchen table and talked excitedly in quick sentences about what Johnny's girl would be like. . . . The next day the Orrico household was in a flurry; it buzzed with the anticipation of Vicki's arrival. Sweet smells of cooking drifted from the big kitchen. Johnny's eighteen-year-old sister, Dolores, who worked as a dentist's assistant in midtown Manhattan, took the day off and helped sixteen-year-old Julieann dust the living room and dining room. Dolores offered to turn over her room to Vicki. Though there was much to get done 74 through the morning and afternoon, the day passed slowly until five o'clock arrived. By then everyone had bathed and dressed in neatly pressed finery. Mama Orrico wore a ruffled white organdy apron over her sky-blue silk dress. Grandmother and Grandfather Orrico were dead, but Grandmother Julia Probatore, Mama Orrico's mother, had been invited to the family dinner to meet Vicki. "I'll bet anything Vicki's nervous," Dolores confided to her mom as they waited on the porch for Johnny and Vicki to arrive from the airport. "I know I would be if I were going to meet my boyfriend's family. Do you realize she's coming into a houseful of total strangers?" "But every girl, sooner or later, has to face her boyfriend's family," Mama Orrico's voice was comforting. "A girl's real lucky," Dolores added, "if she marries her childhood sweetheart. Then she knows her boyfriend's family right from the start. . . ." It was shortly after six o'clock and the sun was shifting to the west of the pale blue sky when the yellow cab pulled up to the curb. Dolores, dressed in a pumpkin-colored shirtwaist dress, bolted to the cab to greet Johnny, and as she ran to the cab, she threw out her arms and sud t, "? A TV sleuth caught James Garner kissing 10 women in the last 21 episodes filmed for Maverick. So he took this intelligence to Gene Autry, who goes back to the hallowed time when the hero of the sagebrush saved all his kisses for his favorite horse, and Mr. Autry drawled: "All that mushin' it up in Westerns makes me sick. There'll be none of it in my stable." Paul Sann in the New York Post i> ' denly, unexpectedly, she found herself embracing Vicki. "Hi," she managed breathlessly, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. "I'm Dolores and gee, I'm glad to meet you!" Vicki hugged her back. She was wearing a stunning emerald-green silk suit with a matching polka-dot blouse. Johnny, in a handsome olive-green continental suit, stepped out of the cab and she ran over and embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. All of a sudden everyone was embracing and kissing, and Mama Orrico found warm, happy tears trickling down her cheeks. Getting to know you . . . "Johnny, Johnny," she was saying through her tears, "it's so good to have you home." And, after hugging and kissing Vicki, she took her hand and led her to Dolores' neat bedroom and said, "I know it's a long ride by airplane, all the way from California, and if you want to rest up a little bit, just take off your shoes and lie down for a while." But Vicki said, "I'm too excited, Mrs. Orrico. I've been counting the hours since yesterday, and I'm looking forward to talking to everyone and getting to know all of you!" Mama Orrico looked into Vicki's wide, coffee-brown eyes. "We're so glad Johnny's brought you home!" she said, and her eyes started to smart again. Taking Vicki's hand, she led her into the living room and asked her husband to open the gallon of wine for a toast. Standing there, in the pink and applegreen living room with its beautiful French provincial furniture, lifting the crystal wineglass into the air to welcome Johnny and Vicki to Brooklyn, Mama Orrico recalled the Sunday afternoon, years ago, when Johnny turned sixteen. Grandfather Orrico was alive then, and Grandmother Orrico, too. All the relatives — uncles and aunts and cousins — had come to celebrate Johnny's birthday, and as they lifted the thin-stemmed wine glasses into the air to toast Johnny's golden future, somebody spoke out — wasn't it Aunt Tess? — and said, "And here's to the pretty girl, wherever she is, who someday's going to be Johnny's wife!" Now, they were toasting again on this early autumn day. And they were toasting to Johnny and the girl who might be Johnny's wife." She was nice, like Aunt Tess had predicted, and there was something about her that drew her right into your heart. . . . In the dining room with its massive fruitwood furniture, the table was set with Mama Orrico's finest damask tablecloth, polished silverware, a crystal bowl of sweetheart rosebuds surrounded with trails of glossy ivy. They had eaten an antipasto that was a meal in itself: prosciutto and vinegar peppers, stuffed celery and pimento. There was Mama Orrico's tempting ravioli, a big roast turkey, glazed browned potatoes, a huge Italian salad, fresh bread, plenty of red wine and the dessert of tangy rum cake. Grandmother Probatore, her diamond earrings glittering, shook a finger at Vicki. "Don't be ashamed," she said. "Eat! Just like you were in your own home!" "I'm . . . I'm nervous," Vicki said, her voice throaty and low. "I can't eat too much when I'm nervous." "Oh," Grandmother Probatore added apologetically. "I just don't want you to be ashamed. I want you to feel like you're one of us." "I could never feel ashamed," Vicki admitted. "Everybody's been so nice to me!" There were smiles and more toasts to the future. A wonderful girl Johnny's father, at the end of the big meal, patted his wife on the back. "You cooked a wonderful dinner, Mama," he said. He was a quiet man, as a rule, observing, taking in everything around him but seldom commenting on what he saw. So it came as a surprise to everyone when he announced openly, "You're a wonderful girl, Vicki, and I'm proud of my Johnny for bringing you home!" Mama Orrico dabbed her eyes. Grandmother Probatore said, "Poor girl. Everyone's making such a fuss over her she must feel funny!" Vicki told them, "No, no. I don't feel funny. It's just that I'm so happy meeting all of you. I've heard so much about you I almost feel I know you all very well. You're all so wonderful, just like Johnny said you'd be. . . ." Vicki cleared her throat; her voice was faltering and her eyes were glassy. And she bit her lips to hold back the tears. After dinner, the three girls, Vicki, Dolores and Julie-ann, retired to Dolores' blue and white bedroom to powder their faces and to indulge in a little girl-talk. There was a snapshot of Dolores on the bleached oak dresser. Dolores was being hugged by her fiance, John San Marco. "When are you planning to get married?" Vicki asked Dolores. "Next year, sometime." "He looks nice. What does he do?" "He works with his dad in their butcher shop," Dolores answered. i