Motion Picture (Aug 1940-Jan 1941)

"I Don't Want a Hollywood Marriage" [Continued from page 46] seemed to stop for a moment. So many of my relatives and friends are there," said Sonja, her eyes filling. "Ever since I came back I've been trying to contact them. Even the United States Government tried to get word through for me. It's impossible. . . . "We don't know what has happened to our house near Oslo. I never expect to see it again. And last night . . I went to the movies and they showed a newsreel of Elvirum burning . . I won my first championship as a kid in Elvirum. It was about the proudest day of my life. And there were all the buildings in flames and the little homes, and men being sprayed with machinegun bullets from the planes. . . ." She had to wet her lips before she could go on. ''Thank God my family are here with me." THE story behind that throws a pretty revealing light on Sonja. (And goes to prove an old suspicion of mine that the Henie Luck should always be spelled with a P in front of it!) When war broke out in Europe last September Sonja telephoned her brother Leif across the Atlantic. "Sell the business, Leif. . . . Please sell it at once and come to America !" Now the "business" was no ordinary kind that you can casually toss on the market. Henie Furs, Ltd. has been the family occupation for generations. They have been furriers to the crowned heads of Europe. It was, for example, Sonja's great-grandfather who furnished ermines for Queen Victoria's magnificent robe when she was crowned Empress of India. And her father who supplied the pieces for George VI's coronation costume. So it was a startled Leif who told his sister the Norwegian equivalent of "You're nuts!" But Sonja persisted. War seemed a long ways from Norway's door at the time and she had to call three successive nights before he agreed to look for a buyer. In three weeks the whole business was signed, sealed and delivered. Leif is blond, slim, and handsome. His wife is little and cuddly and very pretty. They thought it would be fun to visit Sonja for a few weeks. They'll probably never be able to gc back. Mrs. Henie, who looks almost as young as her famous daughter, is arranging the new home for all four of them. A bright, sunny place with wide windows giving onto a swimming-pool and tennis court, out in Brentwood near the ocean. "We've always loved the ocean. Our house in Norway was on an island in the middle of a fjord and only about a twenty minute run by motor or boat from Oslo," she explains. "When we were there last summer we started building a trophy-room. . . ." It is a big room. It took five months to build and it cost thousands of dollars because it's panelled in the finest northern pine. But the trophies will never stand in it. Today they arr in the six huge packingcases that have been carefully trundled into the hall of the new home. Symbolic, somehow, of the uprooting of the old and the beginning of the new life for Sonja. King Haakon VII of Norway presented her with the first cup . . . Lie used to send her a cheering telegram before every public appearance . . . Now he is an exile in his own country, having hidden himself from the ruthless Nazis. DURING the invasion of Finland Sonja sent for the trophies. (Some twentythree in all, including the one her father won as bicycle champion of northern Europe.) Then she decided it was a pretty silly idea and tried to stop them from being shipped. They were already on the boat. It proved to be the last boat from Norway that got through before the German invasion. . . . "I want now only to work, to make a good picture, to have fun," said Sonja. "I have worked very hard most of my life, you know— and loved it." I nodded. I was thinking that that very fact may stand in the way of her happiness with Dan Topping. Dan is one of America's first-string playboys. Sonja will never be a playgirl. She hadn't been back a week before she began going in for those three-hours-a-day skating sessions of her's at the largest local ice rink. It's as much a part of her as [Continued on page 86] 81