Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

rang and I'd pick it up thinking maybe it was Sandy — but twice it was friends, just calling, they said, and the other times it was crank calls from kids who kept asking, 'Is it true? Are you Sandra Dee's real father?' — and then giggling and hanging up. "And so, more and more, I got the feeling that no, it wasn't going to happen, that I wasn't going to get to see my baby." And then, Sandra, your father told us this story: "Because," he said, "it came back to me what happened once before, the last time we ever saw each other. It was back when Sandy must have been fourteen or fifteen years old. Her mother had remarried by then — man named Gene Douvan — a man with quite a bit of money. And Sandy was living in New York with them, with lots of clothes and nice things. And this one day, for some reason, she happened to be in Jersey City and my brother, Custer, saw her. And Custer said, 'Sandy, why don't you get together with your father for a little while? He'd like that.' So Sandy came to where I was working. And we talked. And we had some laughs, and everything was going real nice. And so then I said to her, 'Sandy, why don't you and me get to see each other a little more?' And she said, 'All right, Daddy, I'd like that very much.' And I said to her 'How about Saturday? Why don't I take the day off and come into New York and the two of us can go to a show together and then go for a bite to eat together, and talk, and get to know each other again, a little bit at least?' And Sandy said, 'All right, Daddy, that would be fine.' She asked me for my phone number and said she'd call me that Friday night, so I'd know where to pick her up and what time the next day. And then she left. And boy, those next few days I felt great. After all, I was going to have a date with my kid. And it had to be right, I told myself, it had to be right. So first thing I went out and bought myself a new suit. And then I polished up the car, this old Buick I had. And I looked in the papers to see what movies were playing on Broadway, at Radio City, because I wanted to take my baby to the best show in town. "And then," your father went on, Sandra, " — and then, Friday night came and there was no phone call from my Cookie. 'Well,' I figured, 'she's probably busy and she'll call me tomorrow morning.' But the next morning there was no phone call either. Till finally, I didn't know what to do, sitting there around the house in my new suit, waiting. And so I called her. And I spoke to her mother. And Mary, my ex-wife, she said, 'I'm sorry, John, but something came up and Sandy can't make it.' . . . And that was that. "And so," your father told us, "I guess I remembered that incident this Tuesday, all these years later. And I figured I was just waiting around for nothing. And that I just better forget the whole idea of her coming, or calling, or wanting to see me." Two faces in the crowd Your father did get to see you, though Sandra. That day. March 22. It was at Kenny's insistence. "Please, Daddy," the boy kept saying, as the afternoon wore on, "if she's not coming, can't we at least go to see her — my sister? . . . Please?" Your father tried to reason with him. "Son," he said, "if we go anywhere and people recognize us, it'll make it embarrassing for Sandy — don't you understand? People'll think we're there to make a scene. Sandy, if she recognizes us, she might even think that. "Son," he went on, "remember a little while back I told you the story about when I carried her home from the hospital after she was born, how I almost dropped her and got scared, and how I swore to myself that I'd never do anything to hurt her, ever? Well, if we go now, if anybody sees us, this might be hurting her. And we don't want to hurt her, now, do we, Son? And so that's why we can't go to see her ... Do you understand?" But the little boy didn't understand, not at all. "My sister," he kept repeating. "I want to see my sister!" Until, finally, your father gave in, Sandra, and he and Kenny came to see you. "It was all short, quick," your father told us, later. "We went down to Rosenberg's Hardware Store at about four o'clock, because I knew from the papers that that's where Sandy would be then, signing more autographs and giving out pictures of herself and things. Before she got there, there must have been about two thousand kids outside, waiting, pushing each other — they even broke a window in the store. And then, when the big car pulled up, and the escort, the kids started yelling so much and pushing around the car that I couldn't hear myself think, or barely see anything . . . And then, for a second, I did see her, Sandy, get out of the car. Just her face. She was pretty, all right, just like everybody's been telling me. She was half smiling, too, and half worried-looking because of the big crowd. I grabbed Kenny and lifted him to my shoulders. 'That's her,' I said, 'my kid — your sister. You see?' 'Yes, Daddy,' Kenny said, 'I see her.' And he began to wave. 'You see that,' Kenny said then, 'how she waved back?' But I knew this was only his imagination because Sandy, she was in the store already, by this time. I knew that my boy was only saying this to make me feel less disappointed . . . And then I put him back down on the pavement and the two of us went back home. . . ." That, Sandra, is your father's story of your day in Bayonne. The story of a disappointed man, and a disappointed little boy. And why, we ask now, why did you disappoint them so much that day? Why did you make it so clear by what you did — or rather, by what you didn't do — that you will continue to shun them, disappoint them, break their hearts? We know that there are two sides to every story. We haven't printed yours — because you, Sandra, refuse to discuss the matter. But from the one side of the story we do know, we know this: That, should you ever find any love lacking in your life, there is love waiting for you at a certain little apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street, Bayonne, New Jersey. That, should you drop by someday, even if for only a little while, that love will overwhelm you and fulfill you, the way no career, no big part in any big picture, no fancy houses or cars or swimming pools, no 11,000 people waving and smiling at you can ever fulfill you. That you will be reminded, by looking around the apartment where you once lived, by seeing your father again, by seeing the brother you've never seen and who resembles you so, of some of the most precious years of your life . . . years which, sadly, you have obviously blocked from your memory ... of your childhood . . . of a time you sat, a little girl, listening to the man, then the most important man in your life, who read to you from those big fairy-tale books about "the people who always ended up living happily ever after." And doing this, Sandra, you will discover that happy endings are not only found in big fairy-tale books . . . not only in the Hollywood movies you've been making. But in life itself. ... ENt> Sandra's in Portrait in Black. Romanoff And Juliet, and Columbia's Gidget Goes Hawaiian. Portrait of Jane (Continued from page 53) When Jane was fourteen, she attended the Emma Willard School in Troy. It was an all-girls school. That fact soured Jane on school life. "It was ghastly. All girls, and that can be real unhealthy." Jane graduated from Emma Willard, and was enrolled at Vassar. She rebelled almost immediately against it. The place stifled her. "I wasn't getting much out of it. All the girls ever talked about was nonsense." So much a rebel did Jane become that some of her antics put her in hot water with the school authorities more than once. She became the scourge of Vassar. "One prank almost did me in. I sprinkled lighter fluid along a classroom door, then under the door. I lit the fluid and a fire ran in a straight line right into class. Everybody flipped. Mostly the school head, though." She was called on the carpet, but talked her lovely head off and beat the penalty of expulsion. Her reputation in school was that of a light-headed brat. Jane prefers to think of herself as a rebel. "They never got a chance to throw me out. I quit!" With painting still on her mind, and her other ambitions temporarily derailed, Jane took off for Paris. She studied painting, and learned languages. Her painting improved in the romantic city of Paris. And her beauty began to attract more than a fair share of boys. Her dates were confined mostly to dinners at little romantic places along the Left Bank. But, she kept strict hours, and dates were always aware of a curfew time. "Daddy had set a curfew for me. I had to be home by midnight during the week, and by two on a Saturday. I never let him down. Even though my dates groaned about" the curfew." "Daddy was strict" She almost lost her heart to Paris, and to a few of the young men of Paris. But one day, she decided to return to New York. She began studying painting at the Art Student's League. She liked the pace of New York. Dates became more frequent but still the curfew remained. "Daddy was strict about it. He also wouldn't let me wear any make-up, j except a light shade of lipstick. I looked a mess!" Her dates thought otherwise, and he phone was constantly buzzing with nev I swains, but Jane never settled completed I on any one boy. Her favorite dates were a |