Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

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ised him that if anything happened to him, I would see to it that his wish was fulfilled." But that was not to be. Patrice Wymore, Errol's third wife and now estranged from him, stepped into the picture. Patrice, who had married Errol in Monte Carlo in 1950, was in Washington, D. C, appearing in a nightclub act. She flew West immediately to make her own funeral plans for a Hollywood burial. Even though Errol was planning to di vorce Patrice to marry Beverly, Patrice was still Flynn's legal wife. And through all of Errol's romantic runabout with Beverly, Patrice somehow still seemed to kindle the flame of love in her heart for Errol. Just before Errol's death, Patrice had said: "I wish I could hate him but I can't." Which proved again the old saying — all the world loves a lover. Beverly took the defeat philosophically. 'All that really matters to me now is that I've lost Errol. I have lost the mai I loved with all my heart. It will take | long time for the wound to heal. "But I must accept his death. And must live by my promise to Errol — tha if anything happened to him I would gi ahead in the Flynn tradition, living fo today and having a wonderful time do ing it. "That is what I must do. . . ." EN Errol and Beverly star in Cuban Rebe Girls, Exploit Films. Troy (Continued from page 28) older person. He carried the burden of his father's death, but he had to make sure it never showed in his eyes. Merle Johnson, Senior, failed slowly. Eventually he was bed-ridden, later, hospitalized. During the final months of his illness, he was almost entirely paralyzed. Merle Junior was fourteen, then, and he went to the hospital every day to visit. Toward the end, Mr. Johnson, by now pitifully weak, contracted pneumonia. The last time his son saw him, Mr. Johnson indicated the gold watch on the table beside his bed. The watch was his favorite possession, and he had kept it always near him. "Take it home," he said now. The boy tried to speak, but no words would come. He shook his head, finally got his voice. "You'll need it — " "No," his father said, keeping the tone light. "There's no sense having it around; please take it when you go." He knows, the boy thought, startled, and a wave of love and pity flooded through him, and his throat ached with feelings he didn't understand. He walked down the street clutching the gold watch which had ticked away the minutes of his father's life, and he turned into a luncheonette where a bunch of kids he knew could generally be found driving the waitress crazy. They were all there, and over the jukebox Louis Armstrong was growling A Kiss To Build A Dream On. The gang talked about the football schedule, and whether you could ever get any homework done in study period, and who was taking whom to the Bayport High School sophomore dance, and at one point Merle Junior looked up and his family's maid was standing in the doorway. "Go home right away," she said. "Your father's passed on — " The day Troy became a man He didn't cry. It was as though he'd been expecting it, but his fingers closed around the gold watch in his pocket, and all the way to his house he caressed that cool, smooth surface. He was saying goodbye to his father, he was saying good-bye to his childhood; something had broken in him, he would never be the same any more. If his father had lived, young Merle Johnson might have had the courage to fight for his idea of becoming an actor. As it was, he felt an obligation to try to make his mother happy, since he was all she had. After two years at Bayport High he transferred to the New York Military Academy at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, with his future one huge question mark. He'd agreed to turn his back on theater, but theater and sports were all that interested him. Scholastically, he was close to awful; he never enjoyed studying, but what he did enjoy was writing plays, directing them, playing parts in them. He was a demon athlete, too, winning letters for football, basketball and track. He and his mother finally agreed that he should try out for West Point. He passed his first test, then fell and broke his knee in a track meet. The injury automatically disqualified him for acceptance at the Point, and he found himself breathing a sigh of relief. "It's fate," he believed. "Now maybe I can do what I want to do — " Tired of living a life somebody else had figured out for him, he went to his mother one last time. "I want to be an actor. You still don't approve?" "That's right," she said. "I don't.'' "Okay," he said. "I don't want to hurt you, but I can't lie any more. I'm going to the city and try my luck. I won't ask you for help — " She watched him up the stairs, she heard the thump of the suitcase being lugged down out of the closet, perhaps she even remembered her own youth, and that no one could have stopped her, or told her. "You've got to fail on your own terms," she said to the empty room, permitting her son, at last, his freedom. In New York City, Merle Johnson. Junior, was a busy boy. He took journalism classes at Columbia University, he studied acting with Ezra Stone, and he worked, worked, worked. He was a messenger with a commercial film company — you picked up the can of film from one place and delivered it to another, and it didn't do much for your voice and speech, but it taught you how to tell uptown from downtown, and which subways got you where. He took a job as a laborer on a road construction project in Jersey, and he waited on table in Sayville, Long Island (the first was good for his muscles, the second taught him to be comfortable in those stiff shirt fronts), and he sang with a dance band, and did a little summer stock, and he never went near his mother. Not that he didn't phone, just that he knew if he visited, she'd press money on him, and he was determined not to be supported by her. He'd call her up. "Mom?" She'd try not to sound anxious. "How are you, darling?" "Fine, fine," he'd say, hearty tone belying the fact that the landlord was pounding on the door. Dodging eviction He lived in eight different rooms in New York, and was evicted from two of them. The process was very simple. The landlord would appear and demand the rent. Merle would look innocent. "I'm terribly sorry, sir, I just don't have it." Sometimes it worked, twice it didn't. Twice they gave him back the same innocent stare he'd turned on them, and said politely, "Get out." Between jobs, starvation is the main problem of actors, and Merle's solution for this was original. He'd get up at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, go to a onearm joint and eat a hot dog. This would make him queasy enough so he didn't want to face nourishment again till night. Lots of days there were parties where people served food; occasionally somebod; got married, or had a graduation, and th spreads would be sumptuous; even whei you didn't know the principals involvei too well, you could always squeeze by th door-keeper if your shirt was clean, an< you had a good crease in your trousers. He fell in love for the first time whei his fortunes were at their lowest ebb. He'i gone to a cocktail party thrown by som in-the-chips pals, and he'd no sooner set tied himself in a chair, than the most beau tiful girl in the world walked into th room. She was almost buried in a mini coat, which she removed as she crossei the floor toward him. She dropped th coat in his lap. "Watch it for me. wi] you?" she said. He couldn't believe it had happened Out of all the people there, she'd decidei to honor him with the custody of he wrap. Watch it for me, watch it for m( It was like a song. Someone to watch i for me. He sat there, hand protectively stretchei across the silky, precious fur, and the part; built up around him. He never moved, h didn't even go over to where the food wa: though he'd been famished before. Half an hour later, the girl came bad laughing. "You really are watching ii aren't you?" "Hmm." he said. He remembers it wa something brilliant like that. "Look," she said. "Why don't you tak me to dinner? This bash isn't much fun. He began to stammer. Somebody stud a pink paper hat on the girl's head, an she brushed it off with a look of irritatior "Well?" "I can't," he said. "I have no dough." Her smile was dazzling; her voice ha< been written by Mozart. "I'll take you, she said, offering her back, so that h could slip the mink onto her shoulders. Troy and the model For three months, he couldn't think c anything but the girl. First thing in th morning, last thing at night. She was model, and she was coining money. Hi career couldn't have been said to faltei since it had never really got going in th first place, but it sure looked dead. Probably the girl was fond of him, bu she was ambitious, and a lot of guys wit! heavy wallets and custom-made suits wer ringing her bell, and she started being bus> He got the "Troy, honey, I just have t break our date" once too often, and wen marching over to her place with fire in hi eyes, and of course her headache turne out to be tall, dark and diamond-studdec and Merle was turned away from th premises a much sadder boy. It was his first broken heart, and h didn't know how to handle it, so he did i all wrong. There'd be phone calls. He'i yell, "I'm never going to see you again, and her silvery laughter would float acros the wire, and she'd say, "All right, honey, and he'd be suddenly frightened. For three months he hung around, re duced to taking any crumb of time tha she would spare him. Finally he wen away to play in stock. At summer's em