Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

MARK DAMON Continued from page 54 I along the streets: the big healthy oaks with their shimmering green leaves, the lopsided ginkgoes with their skinny branches that remind you of crazy clown poses, the droopy weeping willows that almost touched the ground from their sadness. When we got to the Met we quenched our thirst with tall glasses of iced tea in the museum’s spacious cafeteria and then we wandered through the lonely, vaulted halls to the second floor where all the Rodin statues embraced in the slanting three o’clock sunlight — young milkmaids and husky he-men, all in white marble, together forever, and I remember saying to her, “Gosh, Rodin sure knew S about love, didn’t he?” We didn’t say very much as we walked along the hushed museum hallways, looking at the happy statue lovers all over the place. The hot sun was streaming through the huge skylight in a wide shaft of brilliance, and it gilded the statues with its glow and suddenly (maybe it was the sun that beat on our heads and set us crazy for a minute) there we were, standing in front of Rodin’s most famous work, “The Kiss,” and the two of us looked at it for a long, long time, and suddenly, just like clockwork, we stepped behind it and looked at each other with searching eyes and we leaned forward and we kissed! I was knocked for a loop, flabbergasted. If you had told me this was going to happen earlier that day, I’d have said you were out of your mind. But there we were, sure as the sun was shining, with our lips touching and with my heart thundering in the stillness of that musty museum and I can remember saying to myself, “Wow! The most unexpected things ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★■A-**-* ★★★★★★-* BUY U. S. SAVINGS BONDS AND INVEST IN YOUR FUTURE can happen — and in the most unexpected places!” We kissed in the shadow of “The Kiss”! Only for a second — that was all. But oh, so many thoughts can go through your head when something very special is happening to you. I can’t really say I enjoyed that kiss as a kiss, because I was so stunned. I was too aware of our sedate surroundings and. our crazy togethernesstiming (as though someone had directed us for a scene in a movie), but there we were, the two of us, strangers in a sense, drawn together by the spirit of love. Some people would say it was the atmosphere— all those Rodin lovers around us. Or maybe it was the funny old sun — it’s been know to do strange things to people. But I say no, it wasn’t any of these things. It was plain-and-simple love at first kiss for Mark Damon. I hadn’t realized it when I’d met her that hour out in Hollywood, but I knew it after our museum kiss that afternoon. How did I know I loved her? How does a guy know it’s the real thing? Well, for one thing, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I was so doggone curious to find out every possible thing I could: all her likes and dislikes, the schools she had gone to, what kind of friends she had, all the things that made her the girl that caused a ticklish sensation in my throat. I read a book recently where Gertrude Stein says every time she meets a genius a bell rings in her head. Well, with me, it seems my throat tickles when I really fall for a girl, and so far it tickles for one girl. Only for her. What did we do the rest of that day? She had to go home to dinner. She was living at a girl’s residence and dinner was served promptly on the dot of six o’clock. I had suggested cheeseburgers and Cokes at a little luncheonette, but she said no. I wished I could have offered to take her to Sardi’s or the Stork Club, but, being a struggling actor, I was budgeting pennies to make ends meet. So I went home to my dingy closet of an apartment on New York’s West Side and I played an Elvis record on my portable phonograph, and I began to dance, all by myself — out of excitement, I guess — until I collapsed on my daybed. After a while I fell asleep, dreaming of her. In the morning, I knew I had to make the dream last. So I called her. From that day on, we began doing things together, seeing plays (Standing Room Only — that was all I could afford), catching the second-run movies in the cheap movie houses along Times Square, loafing in the free museums where we would duck behind a statue sometimes and sneak a quick, laughing kiss. All through those days we got to know each other. She told me she was spoiled. She came from a well-to-do family and had been isolated. She wanted to see and meet different kinds of people, to be a good actress. I told her I came from the slums of Chicago (I was, I admit, a little ashamed to tell this), and that I would show her the world, the real world. I wasn’t afraid of the seamy side of life, and I led her to it. I pointed out how the poor people lived in Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem and in the miserable Lower East Side with its Bowery flophouses. She didn’t like it. One summer night we were walking through Greenwich Village and we stopped in a down-a-flight-of-stairs coffee house with blue lights, and as we sipped espresso coffee, I finally told her how much I loved her. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. . . She told me, “I like you a lot.” “Only like?” I said with disappointment in my voice. She hedged. “But I love you,” I told her again. And suddenly I was afraid to ask if she loved me for fear she’d say she didn’t. She said, “I like you, Mark, but . . . we’re more like brother and sister.” Now, that’s enough to take the beat out of any man’s heart. Slumping in my chair across from her, I said, “Why . . . why do you think I’m like a brother?” “Well,” she said. “There’s so much I have to do to help you.” I wanted to know what. And she told me she didn’t like the way I buttered a whole slice of bread. It was impolite. The proper thing to do was to break it in half before buttering it. She didn’t like the way I mis-pronounced French words when I tried to appear worldly by dropping a flip foreign word or phrase into a sentence. She said it was crude of me to go out at night in a baggy sweater and an open shirt and khaki pants. In the city men always wore suits and neckties. I blushed. I stammered. And told her how much I respected her manners. I told her I’d change. She smiled and said, “Let’s see.” We sat for a while in that Blue Moon cafe, and I changed the subject to plays rca Victor This album will pep you up as much as a vacation. 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