Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

"Yes. sort of," Margo said, after a moment. The clerk looked her over. A reql pretty girl "Interested in making some good money, quick?" he asked then. Without waiting for an answer, he went on. "It happens I got a friend connected with a big modeling agency here. He always tells me. "You see a girl you think we can use — a real pretty girl — you give me a ring . . . How about it? Can I give him a ring about you? ... He might like vou and you're in a few bucks.*' Again, without waiting for an answer he picked up a pencil and began jotting down some information. "You're how tall?" he asked. "Five-feet-seven." Margo found herself answering. "And you weigh?" "One-twelve." "Color hair — blonde," he said. "Color eyes— grey blue." Then he asked. "Bust?'' "What?" Margo asked back. 'The size of your bust?" asked the clerk. Margo took a deep breath. "I've never measured it."' she said. The clerk looked up from his pad and examined the anatomy in question. "Refined.'' he said, his examination over, as he wrote down his finding. "Very refined . . . Now. let me make the call and" — he smiled — "and good luck. Miss. . . ." If there was ever a girl who entered the Hatbox Derby and didn't need anybody's sood wishes, that girl was Marguerite Guarnerius. Within a few short months, the gorgeous Hoosier with the oddball name had become one of the most talked-about models in New York. As well as one of the highest -paid (S50 an hour). An amazingly versatile girl, Margo did all kinds of jobs — magazine covers, fashion layouts. TV commercials, one after the other after the other, the checks rolling in fast as a camera's click. A shy and lonely and repressed girl up to this time. Margo zoomed amazingly and full-blast into the dizzying social whirl which ninetv-nine out of a hundred successful models find themselves whirling in before long. "It dawned on me one day. after about a year. I guess, that I hated this life, with all my heart" she says today. "I hated the social part because of the people involved — of what they expected of me. which was exactly nothing, to be nothing, to be only a pretty girl to have around and help Hecorate the air . . . The me, whatever there was of the real me. was tired and lost. I swore after this year, on this day. to give it all up." Marriage This, however, was easier sworn than done. Margo. grown quickly accustomed to good money, a good apartment, good clothes, found that she couldn't give up her work as easily as she thought. She continued modeling. But she did bid good-bye to the old crowd. And she replaced them all with a husband, a fellow named Bill Warner, an advertising executive she met one evening and, thinking she was in love with him. married a few afternoons later. Today Margo is reluctant to talk about this marriage. The muscles in her neck tightening when she does, she says only, softly: "It was a disaster. It was quick beginning, quick ending. The only good "hing that came out of it was our child." Darryl Warner— a big. beautiful blond baby — was born shortly before Margo's divorce was finalized. And. within only a few years after his birth. Margo learned •hat bringing up a child alone was not easy. "My son was unhappy," she says, "and I was unhappy. It's not easy for any boy to live with women only. And it certainly wasn't easy for Darryl. living with only a mother, a nurse and a maid. I guess the more unhappy and disturbed and hard-tohandle he became, the more I tried to run away from him. I found myself going out a lot again. Tired as I was when I'd come home from work. I'd dress and go to visit people for dinner or go to the theater or a movie. I didn't date much. I wasn't interested in men anymore. I didn't think I would ever be again. There was, in fact, only one man in my life, my son. my baby. And he didn't seem to love me. He wouldn't call me mother, mommy. He wouldn't listen to anyone, least of all to me. So. in a strange, confused way. I tried to run away from him — I'd come home, give him a present I'd bought, very fancy and expensive, as if to buy the little kiss I'd get from him as he took the package from me, and then I'd run. "Till I couldn't stand it any more, what was happening to him. to me. "Till I turned one day to an organization called the Child Guidance Council and had a long talk with a director there — that plain, down-to-earth, common sense type talk we all need once in a while, no matter how high we might feel we're flying up there in the stratosphere. "I was told, very simply, that a child must be made to feel he belongs. 'Give him. not only presents and quick kisses, but love, real love, and consistency,' I was told. 'Don't, above all. take him for granted.' I was told. Learning to be a mother "I went home that afternoon, and this time I stayed home. "I learned lots being with Darryl, even in those first few hours. I learned, among other things, what it was like to put my boy to bed. "And one day not too long after this I learned what it was like for a mother to get a present from her son. I was in the living room, reading, this afternoon, I remember. I knew Darryl was in his room, playing. And then, all of a sudden, he came out and handed me something. It was a piece of clay, with his handprint on it. 'Mommy.' he said, giving it to me, 'this is for you, because I love you." I cried. It was, up to that moment, the happiest moment of my life." It was at about this time — with Darryl changed — that Margo herself decided to make some changes. Once again she vowed, as she had vowed four years earlier, to quit modeling. And this time she did. "Smile all you want." she told her doubting agent. "I'm holding on to a few TV jobs, for living expenses. But I'm dropping everything else." Taking a deep breath and crossing her fingers, and remembering for an instant a little girl lying on her lonely sick-bed. pretending she was an actress, feeling her strange and delicious feelings, she went on: "I'm going to a drama school. That's what I came to New York for in the first place. That's what I should have done in the first place. . . ." Margo enrolled in a well-known acting school the next day. A few weeks later Columbia Pictures, having heard about her from the school's director, screen-tested her for a leading role in Middle oj the Night. The test was a flop — Margo, if not downright terrible, was at least pretty bad. And the role went to Kim Novak, while Margo went to a different school. This school suited her fine. She studied there for nearly two years, under a coach named Wynn Handman. She tried out for Broadway plays and TV shows, dozens of them. She was rejected most of the time. MIDSUMMER SPECIAL! 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