Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1939)

Shirley Temple's Last Letter to Santa (Continued from page 9) paD-barei me l».i\ t .mother Jimmy And I would like t>> 1 1 pr dun] !art (blue .iiul Mil chrek like Bill's the cowboy at Hillsdali 1 pr G-shooti Tb.it i-, tii wt-.ir wfa*ll I : i«Je the pony Mr. Schcnk g.. , men of th< I he pony Ls awful smart I And if it's not asking to niuih I certainly would like the wardrobe that goes with Lottie. I bought Lottie myself Jast with money 1 mved up. But when 1 wi nt to the store after her the clerk This doll's clothes are extra. And I did not have enough. They are on the 4th floor so you will know and they are in a big hatbox marked My Dates. She I dress for every day in the week. A blue one with a brown fur jacket (my favorite) and a red snow suit. LAST year I went to that store to see a man who said he was you. But I told mother He is not the real Santa because he said — Well, Shirley I see all your pictures— and I know you cannot do that up at the North Pole. But mother said He is a stand-in for Santa. I guess you have a lot of stand-ins. We had a swell time last Christmas. I went to the Assistance League the day before and they let me help push the as and fill the baskets. Then we went home to supper but I could not eat much. We always have the Tree on A big green one (I do not like the white they smell so funny i with elictric candles and balls on it. My dad puts it on a turn-table which plays Silent Night. Only it did not work last The tree was to heavy. Did you see the Star of Bethlehem lit up on the pine tree outside? Sonny put that up. He nearly fell. We never open presents before Christmas morning but one kind of opened itself up. There was a terrible scream in the kitchen and we all ran out and sitting right on the floor in a cage was a big red macaw. Somebody had brought him for me around by the back and he had pecked through his paper covering. He was screaming at Elizabeth May (she is our cook) and Elizabeth May was screaming right back at him with a broom. My brother Jack said Haha and the macaw said Ha ha to and everybody laughed. Once I got a very nice cow for Christmas. It was from the children of Tillamook where the cheese comes from. The Xpressman brought it to the studio and mother said My goodness where are we going to keep it? We tied it to the little fence outside my bungalow but it ate all the tops off the flowers and the studio gardener was pretty mad. I wanted to take it home it was so beautiful, only we lived in the house on 19 St in Santa Monica then and when we phoned dad about it he said Well it is a case of keeping the cow or the car. We have not room for both! So a milk farm man and got it. It has little cows now. Every Christmas morning when I was a little girl mother woke me with sleigh bells. Now she lets me ring them. My dad says 5 is to early so I wait till 6. We all go in the room together where the family presents are (The other presents are downstairs). Granny gave me a green sweater she knitted herself last year. And there was the nicest kitchen store from You with tiny jars and little potatoes and lemons and everything for my playhouse. I am just learning to knit. I made my dad a tie but he has not worn it yet. He says he is saving it. I LOVE Christmas dinner. Sometimes Elizabeth May lets me help. I can not cook much xcept biscuits. I make those on my little stove out in the playhouse. I did when Miss Carrie Jacobs Bond came to tea last Monday. (She is coming to visit me on the set of The Little Princess to. But Santa when I was washing my dishes afterwards my dog Rowdy jumped up and broke three cups and the tea pot cover. I would like very much to have another tea set if it is not to much trouble. There is a very pretty one (blue with yellow flowers) on the 4th floor of that store I told you about. And in case your not in a hurry could you just sort of look over the new Wizard of Oz book? And some of the Ranger series? Mother says Christmas is a family day so we do not go out. We play and open presents and it is the Best day of the year. But the next day Mary Lou and my friends come over. We make Christmas last the whole week! In the evening my dad drives us around to see all the trees lit up outdoors and they are so beautiful. One house in Beverly Hills has studio snow piled all over the yard and raindeer in front. Some time I would like to see real snow on Christmas. Did you see our wreath? A lumber Jack man up north made it for me with my name on it. It must have been hard because holly pricks. People are awfu' good. So are you. Please give all my friends (like the cripple boy in Spokane and the lady from DeTroit who writes me every week) extra presents. Thank you Santa. (O P. S. Mother says Please do not bring any more rabbits. I got two darling Chinese ones last year and when we came back from Honolulu there were 45. Corrigan Lands in Hollywood (CoJitinued jrom page 60) been Doug!_s Corrigan ever since then. He saw Doug Fairbanks once. In the depot at San Antonio. He was standing on the back platform of a train, famous smile and all. There was a crowd around him and everybody asking for his autograph, and everybody proud as could be that he could stand there and look at a real live movie star. Doug managed to get up onto that back platform with his bundle of papers. And when he got up there, he couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't think of anything to do except offer the great man a paper. Doug Fairbanks took the paper and gave Doug Corrigan a dime and a friendly smile. The boy treasured that dime for years. w HEN his mother announced she was going to take the family to Los Angeles, Doug's heart beat so fast it almost choked him. Maybe he'd see Doug Fairbanks again. Maybe he'd see a lot of other movie stars. Maybe — maybe someday — oh, just maybe — he'd get a job in the movies, might get a chance to play in a picture with Doug. Be had to forget about being a movie actor though, because his mother grew to run a roominghouse and Doug had to be the breadwinner of the famil t a job at $8 a week, washing apricots and beans and bottles. and in a few years he had run his salary up to $25 a week. He had to keep on working after his mother died. He had to take care of his broil ■ ter. Be couldn't afford to wait around the movie lots until some casting director saw him and put him in a picture. He had to get meat and potatoes and bread and milk for those dependent on him. He got a job in a lumber yard and gave it up to work in the building line. He was a bookkeeper, a timekeeper, a storekeeper, a rough carpenter and an errand boy, all in one for a time. And then he learned to fly. His brother and sister grew up and married. Doug had no one to support now but himself. And that was an easy task. He had learned to live on very little money. He had grown used to eating only one meal a day, supper. That seldom cost him more than twenty cents, or possibly a quarter. He didn't have to buy fancy clothes, for all he needed in his business was a pair of pants, a shirt or two, a pair of shoes — and maybe a leather jacket. He seldom saw a movie. He had no time. He seldom spoke to a girl. He had no time for girls. And he had always been shy with them, always a little afraid of them. Of course, Doug had his romances. But they never amounted to anything — except to make him despondent and a little bit shyer than he was before. There were girls he liked — maybe not at first, but certainly after looking at them day after day, and dreaming about them night after night, and thinking about them when he wasn't absorbed in building or flying planes. There were girls, all blonde and pretty and petite, but they always got away from him. Doug couldn't tell a girl he liked her. He might feel it deep down within him, but he couldn't bring the feeling to the surface where the girl could see it. Yet maybe it was his fate to be a movie star and thrill the millions of girls he never had a chance to see. Who can say no? He attained fame in one hop. Ovcrnicht he became a universal hero— and told the world he wasn't a hero, only a misdirected aviator. Nobody believed him and everybody saw something rare in him: shyness, faith, diffidence. And everybody saw humor in him and genuine courage. How could he help go into the movies? The public demanded him. He tried to avoid his fate, but he couldn't. He declared he would sign no moving-picture contract. But movingpicture people gave him no rest until he signed on the dotted line. He agreed that RKO might make a picture out of the story of his life. He half agreed — and with what reluctance — to play a part in that picture. But, in that case, he insisted, he wasn't to be forced to kiss any girl for the screen. "But wait until you see the girl we'll put in your picture," a producer said. "You'll change your mind then." Doug shook his head and grinned. That gave the producer a shock. "You mean to tell me you wouldn't kiss a pretty girl, just for a picture?" Doug pointed out that he didn't kiss girls in real life and that if he kissed them on the screen the picture would be untrue. "Imagine," a bystander groaned, "he wouldn't even kiss a girl for money. Big money!" Doug laughed and blushed a little. Yes, he blushes. But he was still adamant. He didn't want to kiss any girl for the amusement of the public. And, if he did — and sometimes a fellow willhe didn't want a nickel for it. It didn't seem right to take money for that sort of thing, even if it was only acting. To make matters certain, to insure himself against the possibility of being drawn into any screen embrace against his will, Doug had a clause inserted in his contract, a paragraph stating he didn't have to make love to anyone during the picture or for the picture. He signed up with RKO for one film. But you know how Hollywood is. Once a fellow gets into a picture, once he realizes he's an actor, it's hard to turn him back into what he was. So, it's possible, if not probable, that Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan will wind up, not as the president of an aviation company, like Lindbergh, but as a movie star. And it's possible, and probable too, that thousands of girls will be writing to him and asking him to send them his photograph and waiting for his next release. Corrigan, as a lot of writers have pointed out, is unpredictable. So is his future. Right now, Doug intends to finish the film and get some sort of aviation job. But moving-picture officials have discovered that he screens remarkably well and that he is extremely popular not only in the United States but all over the world. They have listened carefully to the impromptu speeches. During his tour across the country, Doug had to talk two or three times a day. He earned the reputation of being a natural wit. And the movie producers liked his voice and his manner of talking. "He's a natural for the movies," they insisted. Maybe they can sell Doug that idea, as they sold him the idea of taking a part in this picture. Maybe they can't. I know half a dozen men, older and younger than Doug Corrigan, who would give their right eyes, if they had to, for the chance RKO is giving him. So do you. Maybe you know a hundred, or a thousand. Nobody knows what Doug will do or won't do. But wait until he's a little better adjusted to Hollywood. Then you can judge more accurately which way "Wrong Way" will fly. 86 PHOTOPLAY