Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1943)

.. If Your Mans in Service DON'T HAVE Will! DATES! ^ That's what the men say! Their spokesman — John Shelton, husband of Kathryn Grayson Kathryn Grayson, movie star, who prefers to be Mrs. John Shelton: "I'm going wherever John goes for as longaslcan!" M kEN in service get the jitters, even go A.W.O.L. sometimes l because wives and sweethearts have war dates." John Shelton said. "In the months I've been in service, since enlisting after Pearl Harbor, I've been at three camps. At every one of those camps the men have thought about, talked about and worried about nothing but the girl back home— how she was getting along, what she was doing. . . . "In fact," he continued, "I'm wholly satisfied the very first job any girl or woman has today is keeping her man in service happy and content, satisfied at all times that she's one hundred percent loyal and faithful. "Women are doing swell work in defense plants, in various services, in the Red Cross, in Victory gardens, I know. But all of this is only half of what it is up to them to do for this fight; and the other half and maybe the most important half — although no romantic uniforms and no snappy in In March Photoplay, Ida Lupino advised that "Wives Should Have War Dates!" From camps everywhere letters like the one below poured in. We set out to see how general this male reaction was. Judge for yourself! — The Editors Fort Sheridan, Illinois Photoplay-Movie Mirror, Kew York City, Kew York Deer Editor, Many of tie at this post who have been reading the J!aro:i Photoplay have doubts about the article called "Wives Should Have War Datea." »e feel it Is going a little too far to interfere with the wives of men who have gone away to fight for their country. So many homes are broken up by wives t;oin£ out with other fellows. And now an article like this has been oublished the wives of service men will be more likely to do that sort of thing. Therefore, we, the service men of Fort Sheridan, feel such a statement should be contradicted and wives be sede to feel it is their duty not to go out <rith other men while their husbands are away fi htii to make this a free country for all of us. Very Respectfully Jours (&jj^/L**6u^ By Roberta Ormiston signias go with it — is keeping the morale of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Corps as high as it will be if the men in those services aren't apprehensive about the girls they left behind them." Officer Candidate John Price (which is Shelton's real name) was looking eloquently at his wife Kathryn Grayson when they were talking in the guest house at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, the Army's largest Signal Corps camp. Across the room three Army wives hailed Kathryn as a comrade, not as a celebrity, the star of Metro's big picture, "Private Miss Jones." In fact only a handful of people at that tremendous post know Kathryn other than as Mrs. John Price. Which isn't at all strange. For that's what she is, above all. "Johnny," Kathryn said gently, "tell how that boy who was with you at that camp in Missouri went A.W.O.L. Officer Candidate Shelton: "Men go to pieces at the thought of another fellow with their girl" because he was so worried about his wife." "At first," Johnny answered, "that guy began worrying because he wasn't getting letters as often as he thought he should. Then he began calling his home on the telephone — in the evening when she would have been home if everything was on the up and up. No answer. So he went over the hill. And came back finally to spend six months in the guardhouse. "This happened to have been a case where a wife really had been behaving badly. It was tough on the guy. He began his suit for divorce the same day he stood court-martial. But lots of fellows have a bad time just because their wives or girls go out dancing. Obviously no girl goes dancing alone. Whereupon the imagination of the fellow who is away works overtime. "Something happens to us in service. We've all the same kind of bug. We don't like civilians any more. It burns us plenty to (Continued on page 66) 57