Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1957)

were several Doris Days, maybe a dozen. I was just in time for lunch, and because Doris and I wanted to talk, we passed up the Green Room where the Warner Brothers’ stars and executives table-hop during the lunch hour. Instead we went to a quiet restaurant Doris favored. We had a roomy booth to ourselves. Doris was wearing a simple white outfit that on anyone else would probably have been called a sports dress. But on her it seemed like one of those creations that are sheer inspiration. Her tousled blonde hair was pertly cut in short, casual pompadour fashion, and the wind had added some even more casual touches. Somehow, though, it looked as if each careless lock had been artfully placed by a master stylist. Doris was every inch the movie queen in the great tradition of the silent films, but at the same time, with her freckles and wonderful smile, she managed to be her friendly, untouched-by-Hollywood self. Doris ordered her favorite pan-sized hamburger plus a huge tossed salad on the side. “On this picture I can eat all I want,” she said with satisfaction. “There is a lot of dancing in ‘Pajama Game,’ and we’ll have to rehearse so much that it will be impossible to put on weight. Not that 1 have to worry about it. I guess I’m too active. “We should have had lunch at home,” she went on, “but the place is a mess. We’re GO. GO, GO TO HOLLYWOOD! You Have a Holiday in Store in PHOTOPLAY'S Big May Travel Issue getting ready to move, you know. It’s a strange thing. Our house at Toluca Lake — we bought it from Martha Raye, and I love it so — was just fine because it was handy to Warner Brothers. Then when I left the studio to free lance, all my work was out in Culver City or far places like that, so we bought conductor Alfred Wallenstein’s house in Beverly Hills. It’s beautiful. Why, when I think back — ” “Yes?” I questioned with unsubtle eagerness. “Nothing. Nothing right now, that is. But it does make a contrast.” “From living in a trailer?” “Oh, you’ve heard that story, too.” She made a slight grimace. “It’s true enough, and it got a lot of publicity for some reason. Lots of people live in trailers, and it can be all right, you know.” “Was it?” “Let’s work up to that part gradually. I’ll admit that was one of the unhappiest parts of my life, but it wasn’t the trailer’s fault. When you know more about me, why then you’ll understand.” Now I do understand, but at that moment at lunch I felt slightly frustrated. For some reason I could not fathom, our interview was going in Doris’ direction and not mine. Now I know why, of course. All too often a star’s story is written in response to an interviewer’s questions. The star will answer honestly, but the interviewer asking one set of questions may end up with a story that will in no way resemble that of another interviewer asking an entirely different batch of ques tions on the same subject. To avoid that kind of conflict, we spent the rest of the afternoon in reaching an unusual agreement. We would, we decided, let the unvarnished facts speak for themselves. The facts, not the question, would lead the way. “It’s like this,” explained Miss Day. “I always do my best to answer questions honestly, but some questions come up more often than others. Then when I answer the questions, that answer is printed more often than others, and so it gets — well, let’s say it gets an emphasis all out of proportion to what it deserves.” “Like, for instance?” “Oh, that trailer story, or the time I broke my leg, or my two divorces, or that I am the child of a broken home, or about my being the bouncy, girl-next-door-type. They’re true stories, except I don’t get that ‘girl-next-door’ stuff, and you’ll see why. But their importance has been exaggerated. Like the time the Hollywood Women’s Press Club voted me their ‘Sour Apple’ as the ‘Most Uncooperative Actress of the Year.’ What I’d like your story to do, is put everything in its proper place, and let the reader find out why one thing led to another.” “So where do we begin?” “You might try Cincinnati,” she suggested. “Everything started there, and sort of keeps going back to there.” She paused and then said with remarkable frankness, “I was pretty young when I came to Hollywood the last time. Maybe the things I want to remember are only the good things, or the things that were good for me. Why don’t you get the other side? Talk to the people who had to put up with me and helped me along, and things like that. They know more about me than I know myself. I’ve told my own story so often, maybe I’m getting in a rut.” Now we were getting somewhere. I knew that when Doris made “Love Me or Leave Me” at M-G-M, there had been a period of three months in which she cooperated with the press so fully that she averaged 200 interviews a week. It might well be that Doris had told her own story too often. All told, there had been 3,000 interviews during the filming, and when you figure that Doris has starred in some twenty pictures, the total comes out to be a lot of interviews. Just another insight into what it means to be a movie star. But that’s a different story. As the umpteenth interviewer, I had to ask, “And who do I see in Cincinnati?” I reflected meanwhile that it’s a rare movie star that wants you to go to her home town to pick up the local gossip. But already Miss Day was as chipper and eager as though she were going home for a visit herself. “Oh, you must see my Uncle Frank, and Barney Rapp and Grace Raine. And Will Lenay, and Danny Engel and Milt Weiner— the whole crowd. You’ll like every single one of them, bless them all.” There were still many friends of Miss Day whom I wanted to interview in Hollywood— stars, directors, producers, character actors, extras, and neighbors. But she was right. To know the Doris Day of Hollywood only recently acclaimed by Motion Picture Exhibitor as the top boxoffice draw of all actresses, I had to know first the girl in pigtail braids from Cincinnati. I was there the next morning. So the story of Doris Day's journey begins. Today she has reached a high plateau of happiness and success. But how did she come to it, and by what painful steps? Be sure to go on with George Scullin' s story in May Photoplay. (Doris is being seen in M-G-M' s “Julie” and Warners' “The Pajama Game”) Special New Tablet Relieves Monthly Cramps for 3 out of 4 in Tests! Amazing new formula developed especially for female distress gives greater relief than aspirin! If you dread those “difficult days” each month, listen! 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