Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

held up, and proud. She never wavered. Cary Grant, standing up at his chair to receive her, thought it was the bravest thing he had ever seen in his life. She sat down next to him. Her voice was the husky voice he remembered from the show, her smile lit up the entire room. It only took five minutes for him to realize that he was in love with her. Only five minutes because it was so obvious. The rest of the voyage passed in a daze. The only thing Betsy Drake remembers of it was that Cary, elegant Cary, put his evening suit in his trunk and went down to dinner every night by her side in a business suit, to keep her company. Maybe that was why she fell in love with him. Or maybe it was because of what no one else had seen, but she saw so clearly: the deep, basic honesty that the quips and the bright talk attempted to cover. Like when he asked her to star in his next movie with him. “It’s called ‘Every Girl Should Be Married.’ The part is perfect for you.” “They’ll never give it to me,” she said. “I’ll make them.” “Oh, you can’t. They’d say you were doing it because you — you like me.” “They won’t say it after they’ve seen you act. And maybe they’ll be a little more perceptive. Maybe they’ll say — because I need you so.” Was it possible that no one had seen that side of him before? Or was it more likely that it had never been there — until Betsy came along. Whatever it was, they made the movie together, and they were a hit. When they were done with it, they were more in love than ever. Cary would drop over to Betsy’s tiny Hollywood apartment and find her, glasses on her nose, poring over a book. “What’s that about?” “Spiders.” Cary would gasp. “What on earth are you reading about spiders for?” “They’re interesting. Here.” She would reach over to a stack of books piled on the floor. “Here’s another one on spiders. Go ahead, look.” “I don’t want to read about spiders, for heavens’ sake. I thought we’d go dancing.” But Betsy, deep in her book, would scarcely hear him. Cary would wander around the room disconsolately; finally, bored, he’d pick up the book. An hour later, Betsy would nudge him. “Hey, I asked if you want a cup of coffee.” Cary would look up, blink. “Coffee? Oh, ah, sure. Sure. As soon as I finish this chapter.” To his amazement, he found himself reading more and more. He went through Betsy’s entire library finally, fiction, nonfiction, travel books, science — everything. “Is there anything at all,” he asked her one day, “that you’re not interested in?” She thought it over. “Nope, I guess not. How about you?” “I thought there were a lot of things,” Cary said thoughtfully. “But I guess I was wrong.” He looked around. “Betsy, how did you ever find time to read so much, do so much?” “I guess,” she said slowly, “it was because I was alone.” She looked up, and the wonderful smile broke out. “Now, for the first time, I’m not alone any more . . .” As much as she gave to him, he gave to her. Knowledge of how to dress, how to do her hair, how to talk to people — all the things she had never had time to learn, he taught her. With Cary beside her she was no longer plain. Her friends discovered to their surprise that little Betsy was pretty after all. No, not exactly pretty. Beautiful was more like it. What she did for Cary’s soul, he did for her poise. In both cases it was an undreamed-of blessing. They were married on Christmas Day, 1949. It was that day because it was the one out of all the year when Cary’s closest friend, Howard Hughes, could be reasonably sure of not being tied up with business. To keep the wedding private, they told no one but Howard, drove out to an airport in a borrowed car, climbed over a back fence onto a runway, and were picked up there by Howard in a Constellation airplane. They landed in a deserted field in Arizona and were taken to a farmhouse to be married. The minister had no idea who was getting married, and cared less; to Betsy and Cary it was perfect. To Howard Hughes it must have been somewhat nerve-racking because, in perfect best-man tradition, he dropped the wedding ring and he, Cary and Betsy had to crawl around on the floor looking for it while the minister tapped his foot. When it was over, Howard phoned RKO to tell them, kissed the bride and drove them back to the airport. As they got out of the car, they saw a group of people waving to them from the hangar. “The press,” Cary groaned, and turned to run But it wasn’t the press. RKO had sent the news out on the radio via a special bulletin. A cowboy who had seen the huge Constellation land put two and two together, gathered up his friends, and brought a bottle of champagne to toast the newlyweds. It was a gloriously happy moment. They came home to a house and garden in Beverly Hills, to dozens of lavish presents, hastily bought by their friends (the most expensive came from Barbara Hutton), to a host of reporters — and to the gossip. “That little nobody! Imagine her getting Cary Grant!” “Don’t worry, she won’t have him long. If Barbara Hutton couldn’t keep him, nobody could. Just wait till she starts to run into his past all over the place. . . .” There wasn’t long to wait. One of their first guests was Countess Dorothy di Frasso. Cary, introducing her to Betsy, took a deep breath and said in a rush: “It was Dorothy, you know, sweetie, who introduced me to Barbara.” It had to be said, because in any conversation with Dorothy, Barbara would pop up — they were such close friends. But because it had to be said didn’t mean that Betsy had to like it. Cary watched her hazel eyes open wider, and wondered anxiously. She would be polite, no doubt. But afterwards would she tell him to keep his former wives’ old girl friends out of her house and her life? She would, of course, have every right. But the look in the brown eyes was not anger but honest interest. “How do you do?” said Betsy Drake Grant. “I’d like to meet Barbara myself, you know. She sent us such a beautiful gift . . .” And only a few years later it was Betsy, at Cary’s side, who performed the last, greatest act of friendship for the Countess. Dorothy di Frasso died alone in Hollywood, and the night before her funeral, when the curious and the sad had finished paying their respects to the body, it was Cary and Betsy who walked into the mortuary and kept vigil through the night beside the coffin. “She hated to be alone,” they said then, simply. And so the two of them, their faces pale in the dimly-lit, flower-banked room sat all night long and tried to talk and laugh, so that Dorothy would know she had friends with her— always. But Cary’s past was to come even closer than that. There was the time he put down a telephone and turned to Betsy to say: a must for every television fan TV’sTop Stars the exciting, absorbing stories of television's greats . . . the part they play on your set . . . their home life Here’s the greatest . . . TVs TOP STARS 1959 . . . the brand new book produced by the editors of TV RADIO MIRROR. Here in one glamorous package is everybody of importance in the television world. 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