Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1956)

( Continued from page 48) with cowboys and learned their lingo. I lived, breathed and slept Curly. I think Sheila is the best wife in the world. Of course, never having had any other wife, maybe I’m prejudiced. But believe me, on the basis of almost sixteen years’ acquaintance and nearly fifteen of solid marriage, I can’t see how any girl could be greater. Sheila has given me two daughters and two sons. She’s bringing them up wonderfully. All these years she’s put up with me, my forgetting to come home to dinner on time, my often making her a golf widow, my constant singing. Besides, she’s a doll to look at. But, so help me, I think the time I appreciated Sheila most was when I was on the kick of getting “Oklahoma!” — or else. The “or else” was that if I got “Oklahoma!” I believed I’d get “Carousel,” and I’d had my heart set on doing “Carousel” since 1948. Or, looked at in another way, it was what I’d been aiming for since I was sixteen and determined to be a singer. My father ran a machine shop in Syracuse, New York, and he had hoped I’d join in the business with him. But, always having loved music himself, he sympathized with my intense desire to sing and didn’t try to stop me. I was still in my teens when Dad died so, instead of going on to college as planned, I went to work. Eventually, I got a job acting — for the grand sum of five dollars a week, plus room and board — at the Mill Pond Playhouse in Roslyn, New York. It was there I met Sheila, who also had acting ambitions, but less than a year later gave them up to marry me. Later, I joined NBC as a page. One day, Horace Heidt happened to hear me exercising my vocal chords in the lounge and, in need of a singer, he asked me to join his orchestra. After touring and singing with him for close to a year, I appeared on Broadway for the first time in “Junior Miss.” Then I sang with Ray Bloch’s orchestra and on CBS Radio until the war caught up with me and I joined the Air Corps, to become a bombardier. I mentioned having wanted to do “Carousel” since 1948, because that was the year I started in movies. I had appeared in the Broadway musical, “Three Ready, Able and Praying to Make Ready,” with Ray Bolger, and after that was signed by Warners. And, once I had my foot in the movie door, I began directing my dreams toward the day when “Carousel” would be made into a picture and I’d play the lead role. Today, I’m delighted that our daughter Meredith, who’s eleven, knows that she wants to be in show business. As a matter of fact, she makes an appearance in “Carousel,” and she’s swell in it, too. Nothing will please me more than if the rest of our gang — Heather, Gar and Robert Bruce — when they get a little older, make the same decision. Because I’ve gained nothing but happiness from my determination, back there when I was a kid, to sing for my supper and everything else. I loved show business then, I love it now. It really burns me when I hear people knock it — particularly since, as I said, Sheila and I found each other through show business. Sheila has tremendous talent. I never asked her to give up her career and, in some ways, I wish that she hadn’t. That’s just because I think she would have been such a smash, and had so much fun. Sometimes now she plays a night-club date with me, and she’s terrific. But she treats such an engagement as a lark and claims she prefers just to be my wife and mother of our brood. That’s my private-life side of it. Professionally, all the seamy side of show business I’ve heard about, all that routine about a broken heart for every broken light on Broadway, and that other fable about the only way to get ahead in Hollywood is to double-cross and lie, are things I’ve never encountered. I’m not playing ostrich. I suppose they can be there. But the route has been easier for me — up until I began encountering Rodgers and Hammerstein. I just plain love to sing. So if I coach three to four hours a day — and I do — that’s not suffering, as far as I’m concerned. I like acting, too, but music is a real passion with me. So back in 1948, when a charming girl named Jan Clayton told me about a show named “Allegro” being cast for Broadway, I tottled around to see if they (Rodgers and Hammerstein) would listen to me. They conceded as how they would. They were listening to everybody then, just as ill ic they were listening to everybody, : ii years later, in Hollywood when they fi 1 began casting “Oklahoma!” If there e\ 01 were two men with open minds and ea y they are Oscar and Dick. I had to read 1 s{ “Allegro” songs from the copy, whi i isn’t easy, but I managed it, and I thou| if I did pretty well. They didn’t and another actor got 1 1 role. But I didn’t forget the two lessc a that experience taught me. n Lesson one was about the value a friendship — in this case, Jan Clayto: » tipping me off about the audition. Lesson two was the value of being pi v pared. ■; Out of these grew lesson three for me Ic the meaning of faith. The Bible says t) it faith without works is dead. That’s t true. Faith has to be backed up — by y< in If you believe that your faith can gi f: you the breaks — and I certainly do belie " it — then you’ve got to give your faith i couple of breaks yourself. a For example, being ready for the bre; a In my own case, this meant being knoi o as making a “comeback” when I ma c “Oklahoma!” Sure as Gibraltar, tha P what it looked like. But Sheila and I kn( 1! it wasn’t a comeback at all. I had be m busy full-time with radio and TV wo » and night-club engagements. I’d been il the screen for more than a year delibe li ately. I’d deliberately gone to Jack Warn i — who’s a very good friend of mine, i t cidentally — and asked to be released frc , my contract exactly one year before I w ! told “Oklahoma!” was mine. I’d been a happy guy at Warners. I • liked co-starring with Doris Day. I w making very good money. But I want out because I saw I was getting into o of the pleasantest ruts in the world' playing parts that were easy, singing son that were easy, taking money that v, easy, and letting myself get a little bro around the waistline. So I said to Ja Warner, “Let’s stay friends. Give me t privilege of parking my car on your I any time, but shake me off the payrol When you are under contract, you ca; go after the roles you want. You ha to take what they give you. So I becar a deliberately free agent in order to after Curly and “Oklahoma!” Immediately, Sheila and I began getti ready for it. And I do mean Sheila a: I — plus Meredith, and Heather and G; The first thing I did was to buy the print version of the play. I’d seen the sta production several times, of course, anc knew all the music Curly sang. But wanted to know every word of the sho A month or so later, I knew the whc score and script of “Oklahoma!” So c the entire MacRae family. Our hou turned into a theatre, and night aft night, Sheila played all the women’s par I played all the men. Sometimes o friend, Jeff Chandler, stopped in to pi Jud, or our pal Gene Nelson would dan through one of the roles, or Dean Marl would try out his pipes on another. Day after day, I dieted and rode hors back, dieted and coached vocally. Nig and day I prayed. I said to Sheila, “If the Good Lord war me to get Curly, I’ll get it.” She sa. “Why, Gordon, of course He does.” And \ kept on working, dieting, praying. Finally, as the weeks went by and t contest for the part narrowed, I couldi stand waiting around. So I flew to Spoka: to play some golf. I was out on the lin with a pro named — so help me — Cur when someone came running out from t) clubhouse to tell me my wife was callir j ANSWERS TO PUZZLE ON PAGE 77 Across 57. Nelsons 22. 59. Tony’s 24. 1. Fighter 61. role 25. 6. operatic 62. “Oklahoma!” 28. 12. Ray (Danton) 64. Orleans (New) 29. 13. Always 66. Ian 32. 15. S A (South America) 67. Pat (Crowley) 16. Egan (Richard) 69. N O (Nancy Olson) 30. 18. Dion 70. Ewell (Tom) 37. 19. Walt ( Disney) 71. She 38. 21. Dandy 40. 23. No 41. 25. Mala’s Down 43. 26. B G (Benny Goodman) 44. 27. Destination 1. Fred (MacMurray) 46. 28. Abel (Walter) 2. Granger (Stewart) 47. 30. Todd (Richard) 3. Hand 48. 31. lyric 4. Ty (Power) 51. 34. FS (Frank Sinatra) 5. Rains 52. 35. or 6. Own 53. 36. D A (Desi Arnaz) 7. P A (Pier Angeli) 54. 39. corny 8. eye 55. 42. game 9. R S (Red Skelton) 56. 45. C U (close-up) 10. Islands 58. 46. Harry 11. cats 60. 47. rose 14. loot 61. 49. SS (Susan Strasberg) 17. Gabby (Hayes) 63. 50. Inside 19. Wait 65. 53. Artists 20. aloof 68. Y D (Yvonne De Carlo) in M T ( Marshall Thompson) Alec (Guinness) lion “Cry” K D (Kirk Douglas) Aga (Khan) Keys O’Connor (Donald) Russell (Rosalind) A R (Ann Rutherford) Mrs. Heston (Charlton) R. I. Eileen D S (Dinah Shore) E O (Edmond O’Brien) Ask Trail Tom snaps nose site Rod (Steiger) Hal (March) AO A H (Audrey Hepburn) 90