We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
IT CAN BE LONELY
Continued from page 56
had a Hollywood screen test, after all!
I think this is a helpful thing to think when you feel as I did. Just say to yourself, when you feel frightened in some situation: “Look, you are just one person in a world full of people and others have had to go through this same thing. They’ve lived through it, so who are you to drop dead or anything?” It helps.
Well anyway, I wished that somebody would show up so we could get it over with. Waiting is so hard. It’s like when you go to the dentist and somebody is inside making little moans and you hear the drill and you know your turn is next.
But there wasn’t anybody. Just those Martians overhead, laughing and talking to each other and not seeing that there was this scared kid on the stage, which I was me.
!i How can they laugh, I said to myself, i when I’m simply dying? I started to say my lines out loud, because my throat felt dry, like it needed oiling. My voice sounded so small and shaky. I knew I had to speak up when the time came, so I tried it louder. Then one of the men called down, “You’re OK, Blondie.”
“Hello,” I said, as if he was an old friend. “I’m kind of practicing.”
Another man said, “Just don’t give a darn. Go get a drink of water,” and his companion added, “Just go get a drink!”
We all laughed. It seemed to break the ice that was in my veins. Friendly people. How much that can mean at a time like that. At any time. I made up my mind then and there that I’d always try to say a friendly word to anybody who was scared about having a screen test — that is, if I ever got into a movie studio again. I wondered if my “career” might be over before it began.
I got the drink of water, and when I came back, the others had arrived. I made an “entrance” by tripping over a cable cord. That was because I caught a glimpse of Johnny Saxon. He was going to make the test with me. I think that test lasted longer than any in history. You know why? I had to kiss Johnny. Sound easy?
Every time it came to the place in the script where I was supposed to kiss him I flunked out. I evaded that kiss like it was the kiss of death. I just couldn’t do it. I was so embarrassed. He was so patient with me and so was Ross Hunter, who was producing the picture.
Then after we’d gone through it about a couple of dozen times, I happened to look up, and one of my friends gave me a wink. If there is any such thing as a wink of encouragement, that was it.
“You’re OK, Blondie” kept repeating in my mind. But I wasn’t acting OK. I was failing because of my stupid shyness.
Ross Hunter said I was doing just fine, and to let’s try the whole scene once more. Once more. He was giving me one more chance. I think it was at that moment that I really was sure I wanted to be an actress. Well, I kissed Johnny. I got the part.
After the test for “The Wonderful Years” they weren’t ready to start the picture, so Universal, who has signed me to a contract, lent me to M-G-M for “Until They Sail,” my first picture. Here I was playing an important role with such wonderful people as Jean Simmons and Joan Fontaine. They were so nice to me. I used to watch all their scenes, because I knew I needed to learn.
Sometimes I have spurts of confidence and sometimes I feel so shy I want to go
and hide. I had one of my confident feelings when I first went to see the picture. I said to myself, “I’m going to walk in like a big movie star. My picture is playing on Hollywood Boulevard.” I wore dark glasses and no makeup, and I went slithering in by myself. Nobody paid any attention to me. So I said to myself, “Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt if they recognized me a little bit,” so the second time I went I took my hair down a little and wore a little lipstick, but I still wore the dark glasses. I hung around the lobby after it was over and somebody said, “Who was the little blonde girl in the picture?” and somebody else said “I don’t know,” and I looked at them and grinned. Then I went down to the ladies’ room and heard the women talking about how they liked the picture, and I stood there smiling, and nobody noticed me.
The third time I went, I got all dressed up and had my hair done at the studio and I talked real loud in the lobby, about Jean Simmons and Joan Fontaine, but nobody noticed.
When I sat down, there were two boys next to me, and they were trying to guess my age in the picture, and I sat up, looking at them and sort of smiling, and after about ten minutes of this, one of them turned and said: “Here, kid, do you want some popcorn?” The only person who ever recognized me was the usher, but then he’d seen me come in and out about three times.
But after the picture had been playing around a while some people did recognize me. Some didn’t. Like when I went to a preview one time some people asked me for my autograph. One girl asked for it and then asked who I was. I had a nice little bunch of girls and boys around me when the manager came up and said I must go inside now because the picture was starting. But I wanted to stand outside talking to these kids.
Even when they are nice enough to want your autograph though, you keep wondering what they’re really thinking. Maybe they’re thinking, “What a crummy looking thing. Why did they ever take her in Hollywood?” Or — “She’s dressed too old for her age — or too young.” You never know. So I feel kind of funny.
It’s the same way in a restaurant. The other day I went with Mama to Sardi’s, that famous place in New York where the stars go. When I was a little girl in my “actress wishing” days, I used to pretend I was Elizabeth Taylor or Janet Leigh. I’d go around every day being somebody else. I’d put on Mama’s house coat and high heels. And now, here I was sitting in the midst of real actors and actresses, and then I suddenly thought “Why I’m an actress too!” Only now I don’t want to copy anybody. I want to be an individual.
People looked at me. They looked at everybody there because everybody is likely to be “somebody.” This, in spite of the fact that I wanted to be recognized that time at the theater, usually gets me down.
I guess I’m self-conscious all the time. I hate myself for it. And I haven't overcome it yet. I think I was trying to when I acted like that at the theater. Mama says I’m a perfectionist. Anyway I never feel I do well. I actually have gone home from the studio and cried. I can’t believe I can be good. I’m never satisfied.
Well, anyway, at Sardi’s, a man came up I knew from my modeling days, and he said, “How does it feel to be a star?” Now really — when you’ve only made three pictures, two of them still to be released then, you don’t go around thinking you’re a star. A starlet maybe.
Cheer up...
IT’S HERE
No more worries — the gorgeous new li*58 PHOTOPLAY ANNUAL is here! And it’s the best yet! Here's a treasure-mine of information about the stars . . . a real Who’s Who in Hollywood. This colorful and glamorous yearbook is the book-of-the-year, as far as Hollywood is concerned. Here you will find everything about everybody who is anybody in Hollywood. This sensational yearbook sells out as soon as it is put on sale. Don’t lose out — get your copy today. Here is what you get in this great yearbook:
HOLLYWOOD MADE NEWS — 20 exciting pages in pictures and text, covering the month-by-month weddings — separations — divorces — births — awards — scoops.
PERSONALITIES OF THE YEAR — Stunning pictures and stories of Natalie Wood • Tony Perkins • Debbie Reynolds • Elizabeth Taylor • Kim Novak • Rock Hudson
• Jayne Mansfield • John Saxon • Sophia Loren • Anthony Franciosa • Yul Brynner • Jeff Chandler • Audie Murphy
• Paul Newman.
SINGERS OF THE YEAR — Elvis Presley • Pat Boone • Sal Mineo • Tommy Sands • Frank Sinatra • Tab Hunter.
ALL-TIM E FA VO RITES — Kirk Douglas • William Holden
• Deborah Kerr • Cary Grant • Burt Lancaster • Gregory Peck • Jeanne Crain • Robert Mitchum • Jennifer Jones • Alan Ladd • Esther Williams • John Wayne • June Allyson • Gene Kelly.
PHOTOPLAY PORTRAIT GALLE RY— Beautiful full-page pictures, plus thumbnail sketches of Joan Collins • Richard Egan • Montgomery Clift • Terry Moore • Marilyn Monroe
• Robert Wagner • Marlon Brando • Ava Gardner.
HAPPILY MARRIEDS — Heart-warming pictures and text about Pier Angeli and Vic Damone • Marisa Pavan and Jean Pierre Aumont • Ann Blyth and Dr. James McNulty • Glenn Ford and Eleanor Powell • Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis • Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer • Mitzi Gaynor and Jack Bean • Rory Calhoun and Lita Baron . Guy Madison and Sheila Connolly • Doris Day and Marty Melcher • Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger • Charlton Heston and Lydia Clarke.
STILL ONLY 50c WHILE THEY LAST
This exciting yearbook is always a sell-out. Get your copy at your favorite magazine counter now. Or, if more convenient. mail coupon, with 50<L TODAY.
PHOTOPLAY Dept. WG-558
205 E. 42 St.. New York 17. N. Y.
Send me PHOTOPLAY ANNUAL 1958. I
enclose 50c.
Name
(Please Print)
Address
City State