Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1958)

FLIRTING Continued from page 65 the booth next to him. He had his arm over the divider between us, so I waited a few minutes and then intentionally made a wild gesture with my hand and knocked his arm. He turned to apologize and, then we talked!” Molly laughed. “That’s great! I don’t think it’s smart to flirt alone, though. You know — there’s safety in numbers!” “Yes,” Barbara agreed, “and it’s not fair to flirt for the wrong reason. Like to make a fellow jealous. You’ve got to know your man or it might backfire.” Judy said, “Another thing — patience is the password. Rushing in never helps. Now I’d let that boy think he’s the aggressor. Boys are much more enthusiastic if they think it’s their idea.” Barbara added, “Be patient, sure, but be ready! You have to have a couple of good conversation-openers so you won’t be caught speechless when you do meet a boy you want to talk to!!” “Like what?” Molly queried. “Oh, giving him a sincere compliment,” Judy chimed in, “or, loaning him your records. Then he’d have to see you again to return them!” A good looking lifeguard passed by again, and this time Molly looked up and laughed. He turned and smiled. “Well,” Judy winked, “now that you’ve attracted his attention, what are you going to do?” “Just wait,” Molly said slyly, and off she went to borrow some of his suntan lotion! Store list for swimwear, see page 82 Barb’s come-ons for company: eyecatching suit ($15.98, Sea B’s), earcatching RCA radio. Cap, US Rubber up a debate in Britain’s usually-chilly House of Lords; whose pin-ups were barred at Oxford — this is a girl who seems unlikely to take page twenty-nine lying down — or covered up. In spite of Tony’s often-expressed feelings in the matter, news photographers are giving odds that on Anita’s next arrival in New York, she’ll be the old Ekberg, willing and eager to display her 39-22-36 measurements. The temptation to disregard the red light of Tony’s disapproval might prove to be too much for her. And how will the “old” Ekberg affect Tony, who was reared in the English tradition that the man is the boss of the family? Will their marriage founder on a mere inch or two less of yard goods? Already Tony’s male ego has taken quite a beating at the hands of the Swedish import. Handsome, debonair, and with a devastating physique of his own, Tony Steel was one of the top ten actors at the British box-office when he and Anita teamed up romantically in 1956, he, too, accustomed to acclaim. No matter how much he may adore the sensational Anita, it must be hard for him to stand idly by while his wife acknowledges the ooh’s and aah’s that once were his. “It’s wonderful being married to Anita,” he said, after their Ringling-Brotherstype marriage in Italy two years ago. But even then he was beginning to get the message. “I’m glad the wedding is over,” he sighed. “I’m exhausted.” Some months later, when Anita had zipped off solo from a South American film festival — both denied later that he had struck her — he modified his original statement considerably. “I love my wife very much,” he said then, “but it’s no fun being married to a glamour girl.” Of course, as Tony would be the first to admit, there’s more to marriage than fun. But still . . . When he and Anita tied the knot on May 22, 1956, Tony did what a lot of other guys would have been happy to do — he put his own booming career into cold storage and followed his bride to Hollywood. He gave up his Rank contract, which had three more years to run; he antagonized British producers by declaring that he preferred to live and work in Hollywood; alienated his fans by announcing that he wanted to become an American citizen, as Anita was planning to do. “I would have done anything for Anita,” he said, on one of those many afternoons in Paris when he counted the roses in the wallpaper while his wife was at work. “After all, I was a veteran, but her career was just starting.” The man who was one of Britain’s brightest stars at the time could not, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, have foreseen that two years later his career would still be in the deep freeze; that in that time he would have made exactly two pictures; that he would be spending his time as “a sort of private bodyguard” — his phrase — to his bride. He did his best to keep the regret out of his voice as he talked about it, but it’s evident that he’s sorry for his hasty action. Playing second-fiddle to his wife is not Steel’s dish of tea and his idleness has preyed on his mind until it has become an obsession. “A man must work to keep his wife’s and his neighbors’ respect,” he said. Counting wallpaper roses scarcely comes under the heading of work, and neither do the slugging matches which have been Tony’s only claim to fame since his marriage. The wolves who, he felt, weren’t showing the proper respect for his bride have learned the hard way that Steel has muscles to match his name. The untact ful who have addressed him as “Mr. Ekberg” have lived — but only to regret it. At least one of his performances — his battle in Palm Beach a year ago with a sculptor who was displaying a nude statue of the luscious Anita — was top-notch, but it won him no award for acting — and no Yankee dollars. But fortunately for Tony, his career has taken an upward turn with a good role in 20th’s “Harry Black,” and this may solve the problem. Danger Signal No. 1 in many a marriage is that ole debbil, vanity, but not to Anita. One of the changes marriage has made in her, she says, is that, where once she was pleased and flattered at these often-extravagant attentions of the other sex, now “I’m annoyed when they try to flirt with me ... I have eyes only for Tony. No man is as handsome and interesting.” But what girl wouldn’t enjoy being fought over? Anita entered into the Palm Beach fracas shouting, “Let them fight! My husband’s winning!” even while she was clobbering his opponent with her high-heeled slippers. Anita knew only a few words of English, such as “yes,” “no,” and “mink,” when she arrived in the United States as Miss Sweden in 1951. But she quickly enlarged her vocabulary and has seldom since been at a loss for words. It was only two years later, in 1953, that she was giving out with such quips as: “I vant a man who is very handsome, beeg and strong and he must have all sorts of money. Vat goot is a man wid’ out money? Effery girl vants a man to buy her pretty things like Jaguar cars and mink coats, diamonds.” Not that the oval-shaped platinum dinner ring encrusted with forty-eight diamonds which Tony gave her on her last birthday came from Woolworth’s, but still . . . it’s only one gift. “I’ve changed my ideas about the future, too,” she says now. “I was very ambitious about my career. I still am, but in a different way. Before, I wanted to succeed, and that was the driving force of my life. Now my career has become secondary. If it ever became an obstacle to our happiness together, or if for some reason or other Tony wanted me to give it up, I’d do it in a minute. After all,” she added, “you can’t cuddle a career.” Like all the other actresses who have given out with this sort of statement, Anita probably meant it, at least for the moment. For the long pull will she heed the “caution” sign? Well, here’s what one person who claims to know her well says: “Anita is not clever, and certainly not intelligent, but she’s remarkably shrewd about herself and her career. She knows exactly where she’s going, and how she’s going to get there.” What Anita might do if Tony asked her to give up her career may become an issue between them eventually, but as of now it is not. Tony laid it on the line: “I am not yet in a position to ask Anita to abandon her career, and in any case, I don’t think I would at this time. She wants to prove that she can become a serious actress.” “I want to act,” Anita put it, “not be just a tool and a part of the decoration. I want to prove to myself that I can do better than I have in the past.” Gird Oswald, who directed her in both of her latest films, United Artists’ “Paris Holiday” and Columbia’s “Screaming Mimi,” is on her team. “She could become a real actress if she were given the right parts,” he says. And Bob Hope, who stars in “Paris Holiday” and who started her on the road to fame, agrees, though with a little less enthusiasm than when he dis