Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1944)

INTRODUCING LITTLEMISS JAMES Scoop! Ten days before the first photographer was allowed to enter Betty Grable's hospital room Photoplay stopped its presses to give you this account of the birth of Hollywood's newest princess BY HU] BENTLEY ^ETTY GRABLE and Harry James have become the parents of a baby girl whose coming into the world has caused more nation-wide interest than any other baby since the last royal birth. The baby’s name is Victoria Elizabeth James — Victoria because Betty was named Vicki in the picture, “Springtime In The Rockies,” in which she and Harry James met. If the baby had been a boy, his name would have been Robert Anthony James, after Harry’s father. Victoria was born on March 3 at 4:55 in the morning, weighing seven poimds and twelve ounces; and she was nineteen inches long. She was finally delivered by a Caesarian operation after her mother had been in labor for almost seventeen hours. The day before, everything was going along as usual in the James household. Betty and Harry had had a late evening at home playing cards with friends, which has been their customary evening pastime for the last few months. Betty fixed breakfast for herself and Harry as always — since, like many another American wife, she had been without servants for some months. She had hardly finished washing the breakfast dishes before she went slowly into the library where Harry was reading the papers. “Harry,” she said, “I think I’d better go to the hospital . . . and I’m scared stiff!” That was all Harry had to hear. He jumped for the telephone and twenty minutes later (at noon sharp) the quiet neighborhood was roused by an ambulance siren. Betty was carried off to the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, with Harry right behind in his station wagon. Completely forgotten was her carefully chosen hospital wardrobe — including pastel fingertip nightgowns which she had bought in satin and chiffon to wear in bed. They are something new: A combination bedjacket and nightgown with wrist-length full sleeves and skirt that is cut off two inches above the knees. Betty had intended to wear hers throughout her confinement. Instead, she was soon dressed in the cotton invalid nightgown of the hospital — and she was too sick ■to care. The seventeen-hour vigil was spent by Harry and Mr. and Mrs. Grable in a miserable huddle, augmented at nightfall by Henry Rogers, Harry’s publicity agent. Harry let the others do the pacing; he spent the entire seventeen hours sitting in a chair with his white face in his hands — -except for three breaks in the pattern. At 4:15 in the afternoon and at 8: 15 at night he had to rush off to his radio broadcasts; and at four in the morning he finally left the hospital with Henry Rogers long enough to go to a drive-in where he ate his first meal in sixteen hours — ham and eggs and coffee. The two men brought cartons of hot coffee and wrapped sandwiches back to Betty’s parents and continued sitting until Dr. George Harris came out to ask Harry’s permission to perform a Caesarian. Shortly after the operation started the baby was born; and an hour later Betty was off the delivery table. Her first words to the doctor, after she learned it was a girl, were: “How much did she weigh?” and her first words to her husband and mother were, “I’m lucky again.” By which she meant that she was lucky it was a girl, which she had dearly wanted. Also, she had wanted, as she had often told Harry, “a fat little girl — not a skinny one.” So she was completely happy. Besides, a week-old hunch that it would be a girl had come true. Because of the hunch, she had bought pink yarn so that she could knit a little dress at the hospital. Not that Victoria needs any new clothes, or new toys, or new anything at all except some furniture. For three weeks before her birth she was the subject of a baby shower to end all baby showers. It was given by Mrs. Darryl Zanuck, at her huge Santa Monica home, and twenty girls were invited. To it Betty wore a blue gabardine butcher-boy suit and white shoes, and left her blonde hair hanging long and straight to her shoulders — the way Harry likes it best. The minute she walked in she got the worst case of stage fright she had ever had, simply over the loveliness of the party in her honor. All the smaller presents were hanging on a tiny tree like a Christmas tree which stood in the center of the great living room. On it were a pair of white boxing gloves, some woolly child’s toys, rattles and small packages. And beside it, on the floor, was a huge pink beach umbrella opened up and lined in satin. This held all the larger gifts, a high chair in white, pink and blue; a bathroom set donated by the three Zanuck children and consisting of a tray filled with crystal bottles trimmed in pink and blue. Mrs. Zanuck herself had given Betty two sets of baby-and-mother twin bedjackets, one in pink and one in blue. Then, for good measure, she’d added a rubber bathinette. But that was hardly all. Mary Livingston Benny was there with a pink and blue comforter and two fluffy lace pillows. Mrs. Jack Warner presented her with a miniature brush and comb set. Lynn Bari M needed help to carry in a play-pen m with blue pads tufted with pink. Mrs. Mac (Continued on page 74)