Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

The Haunted Honeymoon (Continued from, page 40) ioved so desperately, so very, very much. He'd looked forward to their wedding day. But most of all, strangely, he'd looked forward to this city in faraway Denmark that Evy had talked so much about. To get away, for a while, at least, from Hollywood, from California, where there had been little laughter for him these past few weeks — ever since that day he'd sat with his son, his little boy, and explained that things were going to be different for them both from that day on. . . . They'd been at the airport that day. Gloria — Jimmy's wife, Jimmy Jr.'s mother — had gone to a counter to pick up her tickets for Las Vegas. And they'd sat alone, father and son. The boy was worried-looking, confused. "But why, Daddy," he asked, "why can't you come with us? I thought you were coming. Why can't you come?" Jimmy didn't answer immediately. He couldn't. Instead he put his arms around his son and he wondered, "How do I tell you what's happening, baby? How do I tell you the truth — that you and your mother are flying away so your mother can get a divorce, so that I can get married again? How do I tell you, my three-year-old baby? . . . How will you even understand what I'm talking about?" "The son I've always wanted" For the next minute or so, Jimmy lied. He began to say something about a picture he was working on, a picture that would take him very far away. "So," he said, "I thought that this would be a good time for you and your mama to take a vacation. And Vegas, you know, that's real old Indian territory. And I thought — " But he stopped. Because lying to the boy, trying to fool him, was no good, he knew. He remembered other times he'd tried. Those mornings after the separation from Gloria when he would leave his apartment on his way to the studio and drop by the house, to be with his son for a little while. How the boy would throw his arms around him and ask, "Daddy, where you been this morning?" How he would answer. "To the grocery store — I got up early and went to do some shopping." How the boy would nod and say, "Oh sure. Daddy, you been to the grocery". . . But how he hadn't been fooled. Not really. "Your mama and you," Jimmy found himself saying now, suddenly, "you're both going to Las Vegas for six weeks . . . And before you come back, I'll have gone away, too . . . First to New York. Then to Europe, a place called Europe . . . I'll be gone for two. maybe three months . . . I'm going with Evy. Evy — the pretty girl you met, you remember? The girl we went to the beach with on Sundays sometimes, the three of us? . . . I'm going to Europe, baby. And I'm going to go with Evy. Because, you see, I'm going to marry Evy — " Again he stopped. And the little boy, beginning to cry, asked softly, "Are you going away because you don't want me anymore, Daddy?" Jimmy hugged his son. "Of course I want you," he said. "I always did want you. And I always will." He tried to smile. "Why, before you were even born, you were exactly the baby I wanted," he said. "Before your mother went to the hospital, where you were born, you know what I said to her? I said, 'Mrs. Darren, you give me a boy, my son, and I'll get you two dozen beautiful roses. 62 Otherwise,' I said, 'you don't get anything.' And she gave me my boy . . . you. And I gave her the roses, two dozen, just like I said. "Yes, Jimmy," he said. "I wanted you, wanted you very much. And I still do. And I always will." He let go of the boy now and reached into his pocket. He removed a wallet, and a picture from it. "Do you recognize this funny face?" he aske ' the chi'd, trying to smile again. "It's you, Daddy." the boy whispered. "That's right." said Jimmy. "Now here, you put this in your pocket . . . like this . . . and once in a while, till I come back and see you again, you take it out and you look at it. So you don't forget your daddy, this funny old face of his . . . All right?" "All right," said the boy. And then he'd begun to cry again, burying his face in his little hands, and sobbing. And Jimmy, unable to watch, had gotten up and walked away. And gone back to Evy. Back to the girl he loved, and would marry. Back to the talk of their wedding, their honeymoon, only a few weeks away. . . . He was gloomy those next weeks. For the first time in his life he was edgy, nervous, afraid, sharp-tongued. Even with Evy. They began to fight. About silly things. Evy would say something and Jimmy would blow up one minute and he'd say to hell with any wedding, to hell with everything — and then he'd grab her and hold tight to her and kiss her. And everything would be all right. He became abrupt, too. with the press, a drastic switch for a fellow known as one of the best and most pleasant interviewees in all of Hollywood. According to one reporter who talked with him during this period: "I asked him first to answer those fans who wondered why he was marrying a European girl and why he wasn't giving an American girl a chance. It was meant as a light question, an opener. "But he got snappy and he said. 'How do you answer a question like that? You fall in love with a person, not a nationality . . . Is that a good enough answer?' "Then," the reporter went on. "I mentioned an article somewhere in which Gloria had stated — and I quoted — 'I hope his second wife doesn't go through what I did . . . Jimmy couldn't let me be an individual after we got married. He was intensely jealous ... I never really had clothes, anything new. We were struggling along at first, of course, even after Jimmy signed his picture contract. I worked to help out. Every cent we had went for clothes for Jimmy in his new career . . . Today Jimmy can't even seem to see why I should have any alimony. It's taken us months to straighten that out. . . .' " 'How about it, Jimmy,' I asked, 'what do you say to this?' "And he said, 'Gloria's entitled to say whatever she wants, I guess. I have no comment to make on what she says.' "Then I brought up another quote, this one attributed to Jimmy himself. "It went: 'Evy and I don't plan to have children right away because children don't go with careers.' "I'd just started to say that this remark had left people wondering just where this left his son, when Jimmy blew up and said. 'First of all, I never said that, about me and Evy going to wait to have chil dren. I don't know where they dream up that kind of stuff. But I never said it. " 'And second, about my kid — it's nobody's business what I feel about my kid. I happen to love him. I happen to miss him. I happen to feel as though I'm going to bust sometimes, break down inside of me. just thinking about him. " 'But that's my business, mister.' " "Maybe we shouldn't get married" One friend recalls that "at any of the parties we had for him and Evy. Jimmy would sit around quiet, brooding, looking most of the time as if he were sorry he'd come. Oh sure, he'd snap out of it once in a while — smile, joke around a little, act like the old Jimmy. But those times were rare. . . . "The worst time came the night before they left. I remember. I was in this restaurant having dinner with them. Jimmy and Evy and a couple of other people. I remember we'd just started to eat when Jimmy got up from the table and disappeared for a while. And when he came back he looked as if his best friend had just died ... I found out later that he'd gone to phone Gloria in Vegas, to ask her if he could say a few words to his son. say good-bye: that the manager of the hotel where they were staying said Gloria wasn't accepting any calls, that the boy was asleep already and that it was too late. . . ." When Jimmy and Evy arrived in New York the next day they had, in Jimmy's words, "another of our fights. Here we'd come to make final arrangements for the wedding. But we ended up arguing about something. And I said. 'Look, maybe we shouldn't get married now. Maybe we should go back to California and think things over for a while.' Evy was too hurt to say anything. She said only. 'You're the man. it's up to you.' Then, the next day. af ter a long night, a sleepless night. I realized how much I loved her and wanted to marry her. I sent her flowers to her hotel. . . ." The wedding took place in the Our Lady Chapel of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday. February 8. And two days later Jimmy and Evy were in Copenhagen, Evy's city of laughter. The first stop of their strange and haunted honeymoon. . . . Jimmy seemed happy enough, outwardly, meeting En's mother and father, her old friends and neighbors. To Evy's mother in particular, reputedly one of the best cooks in Denmark, he was a dream come true, a son-in-law who, though he could not speak her language, learned quickly how to say J eg er sulten (I'm hungry), thus sending her scooting happily into the kitchen a dozen or so times a day. Feast night It was, in fact, on the afternoon of his third day at the Norlunds" when Jimmy, in the kitchen watching Mrs. Norlund prepare something, found out about the special feast she was planning for that night. PHOTOGRAPHERS' CREDITS The photographs appearing in this issue are credited below page by page: 17 — Darlene Hammond of Pictorial Parade: 18 — Darlene Hammond of Pic. Parade. Celebrities from Pictorial. Vista Photos. Wide World: 19 — Wide World. Annan Photo Features. Darlene Hammond of Pic. Parade: 20 — FLO. Leo Fuchs of Globe. Wide World: 21 — Dave Sutton of Galaxy, Nat Dallinger of Gilloon. Vista Photos. London Dailv Express: 22 — Wide World. Zinn Arthur of Topix. UPI: 23 — Dick Miller of Globe. Jack Albin of Pic. Parade: 24 Darlene Hammond of Pic. Parade. Celebrities of Pic. Parade: 27-29 — Zinn Arthur of Topix: 30-31 — Globe: 32-33 — Rick Strauss of Globe: 34-36 — Lynn Pelham of Rapho-Guillumette: 38-39 — Topix: 40-41 — Peter Basch: 42 — UPI: 44-45 — Curt Gunther of Topix: 54-57 — Lawrence Schiller.