Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Whatever Happened to Those Nice Kids? (Continued from page 31) Hope was called upon first to make her presentation. Then Don joined her. And when she stepped down he said, "Oh thank you so much, Miss — uh, what's your name again?" And Hope laughed. And everybody in the audience laughed. It was corny — but it was cute — and because it involved these two it was even a little enchanting. A few minutes later, Don rejoined his table. He and Hope chattered together and with their dinner companions. They danced together. And they kept smiling at one another. Always smiling. But when they got into their car to drive home later that evening, there were no more smiles. And very few words. Hope stared out the window as Don drove the long distance down Wilshire Boulevard into Beverly Hills. She stared and she thought and she said very little. Don pulled into the driveway adjoining their large Tudor Style home. "Are you too tired, or do you want to talk tonight?" he asked quietly. "I think we better talk tonight," Hope replied. "I'll fix some coffee first." "Yes. That will be fine. I can use some coffee. And I want to get out of this suit." Hope brought the coffee into the den. It was her favorite room. The first room they had been able to complete when they didn't have enough money to furnish the entire house. It was warm and large and comfortable. A good room in which to talk. The room where they had managed to talk out most of their problems in the past, and to solve them. Only tonight she knew her problems wouldn't be solved as simply as before. Had they really ever been solved? she wondered. Or were we just pretending to ourselves that they were, just as we were pretending to everyone else tonight that we were still those 'wonderfully happy Murrays,' that sterling example of the ability to mix marriage with tivo careers.' The talk She toyed with her coffee. She wanted Don to speak first. "I think," he said slowly, "that it would be be+t°r if I moved out during the week end. Before I start rehearsals for Playhouse 90. It will be easier that way for everyone — and I want to spend some time with the children. Will that be all right with you?" "Yes, that will be all right." "Hope — , Hope — what I want to say is-^" Don faltered. "What I want to say is that we've got to give this thing time. For the children's sake. It can't be what I want — or what you want — or the way it is or isn't between us now. We've got to give ourselves time to think — to be sure. A great deal of time. I mean before either of us decide definitely about a divorce." "Yes," Hope answered, "we'll give it time . . . and hope that's the answer. But we've made the important step. We've let it come out into the open, the way we feel. We're no longer pretending to ourselves that we're the nice young average couple. We're no longer pretending that we feel the same way that we felt five years ago. By facing the truth about ourselves, maybe it will work out. We'll give it time. We'll try to put things into the proper perspective." They retired that night with a great burden lifted from their shoulders. They kept their secret to themselves until ?M Don left his home, the following week end. Then they made the inevitable announcement to the press: We have temporarily separated to work out our domestic problems. No divorce is planned. Short. Simple. Unrevealing. To a cynical observer it was just another Hollywood marriage that hit the rocks. On the day Hope and Don released their statement three other couples in showbusiness made similar announcements. The newspapers grouped them all under one large banner: Hollywood Love Gone Sour. It was as though their marriage was buried in a mass grave. But Don and Hope were different. Theirs wasn't another Hollywood marriage. Theirs was a marriage destroyed by Hollywood, by a world of make-believe and illusion. Which was strange because they never had any problems when it came to reality. They were able to face reality fine — from the very day they met. Two sensible people They met on a double date. She was with another guy and he was with another girl and he didn't give her a second look. He was toting a torch for a girl in California. He thought Hope was a sweet child and nothing more. At seventeen, he felt she was far too young for a guy of twenty-one. A few weeks later they met again — and he stopped thinking that maybe she was too young. He even stopped thinking about 444444444444.4.4,444444444,4,4.4,44 ^ Brigitte Bardot says, "I am * neither a star, a pinup, nor a mon 4 * ster, but all three. Perhaps it is * j| the devil that made me." ^ t in the NczvPYaor'kSPcst % the girl in California. He invited her to be his guest at The Rose Tattoo in which he was featured. They went dancing and they talked theater because she, too, had been in the theater since she was twelve, and they found they had a lot in common. They started dating — at first regularly, then constantly, and when he was certain that she was the only girl in the world for him, he asked her to marry him. Her heart wanted to say yes, but her head said no. Facing reality, she told him, "Don, maybe we should think it over some more. I'm just too young to get married." Understanding, he answered, "All right. Hopee. We'll give it time." Two sensible people came to a sensible solution. Hope went off to college. Don went on tour with his show. When he returned he was classified as a Conscientious Objector by his draft board, and he applied for Foreign Relief work with the Church of Our Brethren. He spent the next two years overseas working in refugee camps, trying to help the displaced people of Europe build new lives again. He wrote Hope constantly. But she didn't answer his letters. Not once. She was being realistic. She didn't think a long drawn out correspondence would be practical. He kept a farewell telegram and a Christmas Greeting with him at all times and in one letter, which she kept but did not answer, he wrote: You know when we met, 1 was so confused, so mixed up, that 1 was beginning to question the values I lived by. It was hard to tell you really. But it was some thing like a terrible night that seems endless and you walk and walk and finally you come to the top of the mountain and you look down and there's a field of corn below, full of sunlight and goodness. That's what you were to me for all that you were so young — shining and quiet and good and sweet. You made me know I wanted you but more than that you made me know what I wanted from myself. In the last letter he wrote from Europe, he told her the date he was returning home — and the name of the ship. He didn't expect her to be there — but he secretly prayed she would. She was there — as beautiful as ever. She told him it was good to see him again — but gave no explanation for her silence. She told him she'd be very happy to date him again — but made it quite clear his return wasn't going to disrupt her life as she had been living it during the two years he had been away. She went right on dating other boys. She even sympathized with him for being in love — unrequited. Fate steps in A month after his return, he was back in Europe again to appear in The Skin of Our Teeth. Again he wrote. Again she didn't reply. When he returned home, they caught up and became close. Later Don was to say, "From then on I saw Hope as a precious possession. I became openly possessive. I sought every way I could think of to be with her." When he got a lead in a Broadway show called Hot Corner, he managed to pull some strings to get Hope a reading. When she was offered an understudy part, he persuaded her to accept it. They were together constantly on the road, ate together, rehearsed together, traveled together. And once, they even had a chance to play opposite each other when Don's leading lady got sick. Hope's sister flew in to see that performance. After the show she rushed backstage. "The love scenes were magnificent." she drooled. "Everybody in the audience was positively dewy-eyed." And remembering them, Hope began to feel somewhat dewy-eyed herself. For the first time in the five years in which they knew each other, she became bewitched by an illusion. The fantasy created on-stage and her relationship with Don off-stage became fused together. For the first time she believed herself in love. 1 When the show folded, after three fast performances on Broadway, they became engaged. But they didn't set a date. They decided to be sensible and wait until Don had some form of security before they actually got married. A few months later, he was given that security by way of a 20th Century-Fox contract, and the lead in Bus Stop. He went west by himself and was so miserable alone that he wired Hope to come out for a vacation. Buddy Adler saw her at the studio, remembered her from a prior TV appearance and signed her for the role of the waitress without even knowing she knew Don. It seemed that fate had stepped in to keep them together. Don and Hope talked vaguely about get I ting married when the picture was completed—but on April 14, 1956, while the\ were still in production, they decided tc ' wed in a simple civil ceremony. Later, Don laughed about it: "In Hollywood I had Hope in a vulnerable position I was the only one she knew in town — so " finally broke her down." Bus Stop made Don a star and it brough 1