Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

shoe on), when Fred walked over to her dressing room and joked a little about the incident first, and then asked her if she would like to have dinner with him that night. "I don"t like the big crowded places." he said. "But there's a small place. Italian, where we can grab a bite and have some wine and talk. ... If you don't mind a small place, and some talk." "Mind?" Barrie asked. "No, Mr. Astaire. I don't mind at all." "At the beginning. I was petrified." she has said of this evening, their first together. "I rushed home and looked in my closet. I didn't know what to wear, what dress, what shoes. I didn't know how to fix my hair. And. worst, I didn't know what I would talk about that night. What would I be like, I wondered, sitting there with Fred Astaire. across the table from him. Fred Astaire — the greatest dancer in the world, one of the most sophisticated and most urbane men in the world. What would I say to him? What could I say to him?" The conversation was a little stilted at first, Barrie recalls. Fred asked her to tell him a little about herself, and she did — about how she'd been a tomboy when she was a girl, how she'd liked to swam and ride horses even more than dance, how her father — a writer — had moved the family from New York to California when she was about seven, how — right off — she'd loved the California sun, the palm trees, the deep blue sky. How she'd been happy. Very, very happy. "Till I was fifteen." she found herself saying then. "That's when my parents got divorced. Fd never known there was anything wrong between them. And then, all of a sudden, just like that, they were divorced. ... I lived with my mother for a while, about a year. But nothing seemed the same an\-more at home. And so I decided to move to my own place, to be on my own. I moved into my apartment — the same one I'm living in now. one-anda-half rooms, very plain, a lot different from the big fancy place where we'd all lived. "And I really wasn't very happy, there either," she said. "But I knew I couldn't go back home anymore, now that Fd left. So I began to study my dancing, all the harder. And I got some jobs. TV, pictures, bits. And that's all I did. studied and worked, ate and slept, went to an occasional movie. I didn't have many friends. I'd never had, not really. There's something about me and people — lots of times : I I find it hard talking, looking into somebody's eyes when I'm talking to them. I get afraid. I don't know why. I just do — "So," she wTent on, after a moment, "without many friends, I was alone most of the time. And I was getting lonelier and lonelier. I was pretty miserable, in fact And that's why I got married, so : quickly, just like that I guess. a "I was nineteen. His name was Gene. -. He was a hairdresser. I met him one day ; and a few days later we were man and tl wife. It only lasted four months. It wasn't a good marriage. I knew it, and he did, too. We split up. And I was back where t': I started. "Alone. Lonely. Working, stud\-ing. eat c ing, sleeping, going to a movie every once in a while — " t She stopped and smiled. "I'm sorry," [ she said. : "Why?" Fred asked. "Are you afraid you're boring me?" r; Barrie nodded. "Well, you're not," Fred said. "Because, believe this. Barrie. when you talk about loneliness, you're talking about a subject I know very well." Barrie looked surprised. "Yes. that's right, me. Old Ham Daddy. Old Happy Feet." Fred said. "I've been lonely these past few years . . . I've known what it's like . . . I've sure known. . . ." And then, softly, slowly, he began to talk about something he rarely ever talked about, to anyone. About Phyllis — his wife. "My beloved Phyl . . . ," as he said. Fred's beloved wife "We were at Santa Anita, sitting in our box between races. And Phyl said, suddenly. T think I'll have to go home. I don't feel well. It's nothing — just some dizziness.' ... So we left. . . . And that's the way it started. "It was cancer, the doctor said. "Cancer. "This was a Tuesday. I remember. We were to move into St. John's Hospital on Thursday, two days later. . . . " 'People don't die so easily, Phyl,' I told her. 'It's hard to die,' I said. You have so much to live for; you're so important to so many people. This isn't your time to go. It couldn't be. I know it' — And I did know it. Then. ATTENTION DEBBIE Eddie misses Carrie and Todd so much, he's moving back! Don't be shocked, read next month's MODERN SCREEN On Sale July 5 "The operation was performed that Friday, Good Friday. It was a long one. It seemed successful. The entire recovery seemed successful. "But then, a few months later, another operation was needed. We returned to St. John's for more major surgery. The operation was again called a success. "Phyl came home with some slight improvement. "But she never regained her strength. And the definite downtrend set in. . . . "She never lost that sweet expression on her face. "She slipped away from us at ten o'clock, on the morning of September 13, 1954. "She was only forty-six years old. . . ." He paused for a while. "So I've been lonely, too," he said then. "But I find ways of fighting it. One has to." "How do you fight it?" Barrie asked. Fred's remedy for loneliness "Very' simple." Fred said, smiling a little. "I make friends with the cops, and with churches. . . . Cops are nice fellows. I have a lot of friends on the police force. And some nights when I have nothing to do I just phone them and ask if I can ride around in a prowl car. Here in Los Angeles, and New York, those are the best places. I get in one of those cars and it's like going on a hunting trip. You suddenly run into some excitement. And the boredom, the loneliness, it goes a little . . . Like with churches. Barrie. Same thing. Comes an afternoon when I've nothing to do, I'm feeling low, and I go to church. St. Bartholomew's if I'm in New York. Any of several here, if I'm here. And I just sit, alone, for hours at a time. And it's a beautiful thing, the comfort I find those hours. I think of everything — my life, my work, the hidden meaning of the good and bad things that have happened to me. I come out spiritually refreshed. It often helps me to go on." Again, he smiled. "Maybe that's what you need, Barrie," he said, "to make friends with the cops, the churches." "Maybe," she said. "Or maybe, for now." Fred said, "just having dinner with me again some night, and talking again. Talking things out with Old Ham Daddy here, Old Happy Feet. . . . How does that sound?" "Yes," said Barrie, nodding finally, "that sounds fine. . . ." Rising star "My whole life took a turn after this night," Barrie has said. "Plain existing was over for me. I began to live. Fred and I went out quite a bit, always to small quiet places, the kind we both liked. We went riding — we share a tremendous enthusiasm for horses. And, of course, we talked. About lots of things. Even about my career. Fred suggested that I begin aiming higher, that I get an agent and turn down bit parts here and there and aim for the top. You'll make it someday, if you really try hard enough.' he'd tell me. I got an agent. And, sure enough, things began happening. I did a Have Gun, Will Travel on TV. And then, before I knew it, I was signed with Twentieth CenturyFox and working in Mardi Gras. It wasn't a big part, but it was something. Slowly, surely, I was beginning to get there." Fred's career, too, began shifting gears at about this time. "For the last few years," says a friend of his, "he was content to do a picture or so a year, and only that. TV? A whole new medium? He wouldn't hear of it. not even at the fantastic prices certain sponsors were willing to pay him. 'I'm too old, much too old,' he'd say, 'to start fooling around with anything new.' And then, suddenly, as if he'd dropped a couple of dozen years someplace, Fred had a talk with his agent one dav. About TV. Doing a show. ... By nightfall, it was all arranged. The show, a full-hour spectacular, was to be sponsored by the Chrysler Corporation, and to be called An Evening With Fred Astaire. The date settled on was a Friday, October 17 (1958) — about three months away." Fred drove over to see Barrie the night the arrangements were made. "Fd like you to dance with me," he said, after telling her a little about the show, " — but as my leading lady this time." "Me?" Barrie asked, falling back into a chair. "Yes, you, young lady," said Fred. "Now two things," he said then. "One: I want you to know this — I've chosen you, not because you're a friend of mine, not because I'm fond of you. But because I think you're a great dancer. Understood?" Barrie nodded. "Two." he said. " — I expect you to work hard. Very hard. We've got a heavy rehearsal schedule and we're going to start tomorrow, just me, you. Herm (Hermes Pan, the choreographer), Buddy (Bud Yorkin, the producer) and a couple of others. "So now let's take a few sips of this champagne I've brought and then you go to bed, I go home and go to bed — and tomorrow, first thing, we work. "Okay?" "Yessir," said Barrie, sitting forward in the chair, making a mock salute, begin 79