Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1944)

If You Were Gene Kelly's House Guest (Continued from page 56) You’d scratch your head in wonder later on Sunday, too — when every kid in the swank Beverly Hills neighborhood shows up in the Kelly back yard to play kick the can with Gene and Betsy. (Kick the can, Gene says, is far more intelligent and mature than gin rummy!) But the worst is yet to come: Soon the Kelly gang is all there, from Van Johnson to Bunny Waters — all of them playing kick the can with absorbed attention! You’d like that back yard — with its croquet set, trees, patio and the tiny stone playhouse with its one room that would charm any child. By now you’d know that the Kellys are nothing if not natural. They do what they want to do and they live the way they want to live. In fact, you’d discover, by judicious questioning, the only time that Gene was ever faintly artificial was the first time he met Betsy. He was at the time Broadway’s latest sensation — as a dance director. (He’d started his career in his home town, Pittsburgh, running a huge and successful dancing school with his five dancing brothers and sisters.) His latest assignment was to direct the dances for Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe, a night club with a complete stage show. So one sultry Summer afternoon he was sitting in the empty night club in his sweat-stained shirt and suspenders, working out dances on paper — when in through the door walked a sixteen-year-old redhead named Betsy Blair. Little did she suspect that this rumpled young man huddled over a table in his shirt sleeves was the famed dance-director Gene Kelly. She instantly placed him as a bus boy and she paced up to him and asked for Mr. Kelly, please. Then Gene had the first unnatural impulse of his life — he told her Mr. Kelly was out, but he was a bus boy and what was she after? “I am after a job as a dancer in his show,” said Betsy. Then, since she’d come one hour’s distance by subway, she decided to practice her job-getting speech on him. She swung into it — and to hear her talk, she was the greatest dancer since Pavlova. Gene was charmed, particularly when he found out that her only previous experience was dancing at another night club, the International Casino. He found out, too, that she came from Cliffside Park, New Jersey, and that she had two brothers. When he’d unearthed all this he told her to come back tomorrow and meet Mr. Kelly. Naturally, when she did she was infuriated. But Gene continued to be charmed — and he asked her to lunch that day and dinner the next. Then he paid for many of her meals for a year, during which time he became famous as “Pal Joey” and she became famous for acting in “The Beautiful People” on Broadway. He was in Philadelphia rehearsing for “Best Foot Forward” when he called her in New York — and she asked him to marry her. As he’d been talking around that point for some time now, it happened — in a few minutes in a church near the theater, on September 22, 1941. And as you have surmised by now, they have lived happily for the two years ever after. DUT by the time you’ve learned this story, you’ve been with the Kellys several days and you know a lot of other things about them. You know that Betsy washes her own hair and wears every color but red, which Gene doesn’t like on her. You know that they both own cars (hers a Ff^ESH • See how effectively Ff^esh stops perspiration — prevents odor. See how gentle it is. Never gritty, greasy or sticky. Spreads smoothly — vanishes (juickly. Won’t rot even delicate fabrics! Make your own test! If you don’t agree that Fl\ESH is the best underarm cream you’ve ever used, your dealer will gladly refund full price. Three sizes — SOp — 25p — 10{1 NEW DOUBLE-DUTY CREAM • REALLY STOPS PERSPIRATION • PREVENTS ODOR