Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

dainty little darling was scared half to death when for no apparent reason Judi suddenly pounced and started choking her. "She was so sweet looking that I hated her." Judi explains calmly. "I saw that white, soft back of her neck and I just grabbed it." The nuns pulled her off and demanded an explanation. "'She reminded me of my sifter's doll." replied terribletempered Boutin. Secrets and surprises A few months ago. one of Judi's boy friends. Ivan Townsend-Smith. took her on a drive to Lake Tahoe. Coming back, they stopped at June Lake in the Sierras, where the millionaire playboy suggested trout fishing. He said he'd show Judi how. Well. Smitty barely got his gear together before Judi had her limit — sixteen fat trout. It was really old stuff to her: she'd hiked and camped and fished in the mountains since the time she could walk. But why pop off about it? Says Judi "I never in my life told anybody I could do anything until I did it. Not even my own family." That meant that independent Miss Boutin had plenty of secrets in her young life which, sooner or later, exploded like bombs before her startled family and friends. Her sharp little nose was always poking into something that promised excitement. One day, during the war. for example, she was happily gobbling popcorn at a movie house with a schoolmate when the master-of-ceremonies invited anyone up on the stage who wanted to sing. "Go ahead." prodded the girl friend, "if you do m buy you a chocolate bar." Judi bounced right up. sang Paper Doll. Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, and a few other wartime hits. They almost never got rid of her. After that she started singing all around Portland, to her parents' complete surprise. It was the same way with boys. One afternoon, when she was twelve, her dad came home to find eighteen bikes parked in the front yard. Inside the house were eighteen boys — and Judi bopping it up. "Hey." protested her dad. 'This isn't a poolroom!" Later he puzzled to his popular daughter. "T didn"t know you knew any boys." "Ha!" laughed Judi. When Judi took violin lessons her family could never figure how she got good enough to play in the Portland Junior Symphony Orchestra. She never seemed to touch the instrument at home. They were considering choking off the lessons because she didn't practice, when a bus driver spilled the mystery. "This crazy kid of yours/' he informed Mr. Boutin, "hauls out her fiddle and saws it all the way downtown." Judi practiced on the bus to her lessons. Like today, she tried to cram forty-eight hours' living into twenty-four. But the biggest surprise — and what set Judi Boutin off on the track to show business— was ice skating. One day a friend of Mab's came around to take her to the Portland Ice Rink, but Mab wasn't home so she took Judi. Judi took to ice like a penguin. But. like everything, she told nobody. She went down alone on the bus. rustled up her own admissions and hid under the seats between sessions so she could skate the next round free. Her folks thought she was just playing hockey at school. But one day someone at the rink took it upon himself to call Mr. Boutin. "Say." he said, "do you know that this Judi girl of vours is a great little ice-skater?" "No!" "Yeah — you'd better get down here and take a look at her." Herbert Boutin did. He was so impressed he bought Judi figure skates and all the gear she needed. In no time at all Judi was a whirling whiz on rockers. In fact, from the time she was twelve until she was sixteen that was her biggest charge. Right away, she made the Portland Figure Skating Club, the only kid in a field of adults. Next summer she boarded alone in Tacoma to take instruction from teacher Johnny Johnson at the Lakewood Arena. At fourteen they flew her up to Alaska to entertain troops. When she was only fifteen Shipstad and Johnson saw Judi in action and asked her to join the Ice Follies as a pro. "Sure!" agreed Judi. "Nope," said her dad. You see, there was school. Creating doubt Being a Catholic. Judi had rattled around mainly in convents. She was a good student: in fact, a near genius in what boys are usually best at — math. Otherwise, well, there were problems. Judi wasn't cut out to be a placid convent girl. Besides throttling innocents who had offensive white necks. Judi owned a red temper to match her hair and a ready knockout punch to back it up. She was always being hauled on the carpet for flattening some opponent with a quick one-two. Also, she was forever pestering the sisters with embarrassing questions. Inquisitive Judi wanted to know how come about every-thing to the 'Nth' degree. "Judith." the nuns told her, "ask your questions after class, not when the other children are around. You create doubt." Anyway, whether Judi created doubts or havoc, she still had to be educated, the way her parents figured it. But Judi wanted to join the Ice Follies — and wmat Judi wants Judi usually gets. She saw no reason whyT she couldn't take on high school and a strenuous Ice Follies tour, too — which is just what she did. While Judi skated around the U.S. and Canada she also took eleven subiects b\T mail and passed them all. In the Follies, fifteenyear-old Judi did a line specialty' and trained for a comedy ice act of her own. What happened next wasn't very funny, though. Judi went to Reno, after her tour, to live with her aunt and attend Manogue school in the Nevada city. The idea was to bring her back down to earth. "After your Ice Follies career," cracked her dad, "youll be such a smarty you won't be able to go back with kids your age and act normal." Judi promised she would, too. and she showed 'em. She made the highest grades in her class. But otherwise the move was a mistake. Judi and her aunt just didn't hit it off at all. "She didn't have kids of her own," Judi explains, "so she didn't like them or understand them. I was treated like Cinderella. I wasn't allowed in the living room, and when guests came I had to eat in the kitchen." When a cousin she'd never met. Bud Boutin, the golf professional, dropped by for a visit, he told Judi, "I thought you were the maid." The blow-off came when Judi skipped school one day. When her aunt found out, she really stormed up a scene, locked Judi in her room and hired a sitter to guard her. That night Judi was scheduled to step out to the U. of Nevada prom. But when her date showed up with flowers he got the door slammed in his face. Then Judi's aunt called Portland and ripped her to pieces over the phone. Her dad drove up the next day. Judi doubts if shell ever again play quite as dramatic a scene as that one. Both Herb Boutin and Judi sat silent while her aunt recited her crimes and called her every name in the book. Suddenly Judi said coldly. "Shut your mouth!" SPORTS GIRDLE Dainty but determined natural rubber figuring— has exclusive breathable surface. White or Pink: Petite. 5. M. L: 82.50.