Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

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Name Address City State EVERYBODY’S LAUGHING Continued from page 38 light, it becomes a much different story. “How can they keep printing those things?” she suddenly asked. “I try to tell myself I don’t care and that I’m not going to get upset any more, but . . .” she broke off wearily. It was quite clear she was still upset from the little things she did. “I can’t sleep and when I do I even dream about it now. Like last night. It was such an awful thing ... I dreamt I was allowed to use a stadium to talk to people. It was a big place, an arena like those in the Roman days where they’d let loose lions on an unprotected man — that kind of place. Huge . . . tremendous . . . like the Colosseum. “In my dream I was led into the center of the stadium and I shouted so as to be heard, ‘Listen, everybody, I want to tell you something. Everybody, please, I want you to understand the truth about me.’ I started to explain — and all of a sudden there were rocks being thrown at me! From all those seats up above, people were throwing rocks. I kept shouting *just the same, trying to make them hear. . . . “Then, suddenly, they stopped throwing the rocks. It was very quiet and I thought, ‘They know I have something important to say. They’re giving me a chance!’ But when I looked up,” and unhappiness filled her eyes as if all this had been more real than a dream, “everybody was gone. They’d just thrown their rocks and left. . . . “When I woke, I had to turn the light on to convince myself I was in my own room — that I had only been asleep. Without thinking, I put my hand up to my eyes and my cheeks were wet. I was still crying.” Kim’s voice was heavy as she went on. “In a way, it wasn’t a dream, though, and I can’t wake up because this is just the kind of thing that’s been happening to me in real life. I felt exactly that way a few days ago, for example, when I was looking at the newspapers. It was in the evening, and I thought I’d read a while before I went to bed. So I poured a glass of milk and curled up in a chair and began glancing at the news, when all of a sudden my own name jumped out at me. It was in a gossip column — an item about an actor who’d just gotten divorced. It said he was my latest boyfriend. The whole thing was sort of jeering, and I could imagine hundreds of people sitting home in their living rooms, just the way I was, and reading the item. “It gave me the most awful helpless feeling. It was just like the dream. I wanted to say, ‘But it’s so foolish! I’ve only met that man once — and that was for a picture-story in a magazine.’ But there I was, by myself. I couldn’t make any of those people hear me. “And when I talk to the press,” Kim said wearily, “whatever I say gets all twisted around by the time it comes out in the papers. Or else the reporters refuse to really listen to me — like the one who called up a few weeks ago. I was dressing, I was in a hurry because I was going to have dinner with my agents at Romanoff’s. The phone rang', and when I answered it I heard this cheerful voice: ‘Miss Novak, are you going to marry So-and-So after his divorce comes through?’ He was talking about a director I’ve known ever since I came to Hollywood. A story in that day’s paper had said I was ‘interested’ in him. “As politely as I could, I answered, ‘No, I’m not. I don’t know him that well.’ “The reporter said, ‘Do you mean you don’t even know him?’ “ ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ I answered. ‘He’s an old friend.’ “The reporter just said, ‘Oh. Thank you, Miss Novak.’ You know how you can sense somebody is smiling, just from the sound of their voice? Well, it was like that — I could hear him grinning. And it hurt, because this director’s friendship means a lot to me. He did the very first picture I was in. I was so frightened then, with no acting experience. I’ll always be grateful to him, because I don’t think anybody would have noticed me if he hadn’t done such a fine job on the picture. He directed my latest movie, too — ‘Bell, Book and Candle’ — and I’m happier about that performance than anything I’ve ever done. All along he’s given me advice and encouragement. A real friend, one I could trust. Now this. . . .” “Do you think perhaps you’re taking it all too seriously?” I asked. Kim smiled wistfully. “I guess that’s what my agents thought. They could tell I was upset, and they tried to cheer me up. The director was at Romanoff’s that night, and he stopped by our table to say hello. I tried to look amused when I asked him, ‘Did you read about us?’ “He laughed and said, ‘I certainly did. Why don’t you tell me these things are going on?’ Everybody else laughed — in a kind way, not ugly like the dream — and I tried to join in. But it wasn’t funny to me. There’ve been so many stories — I no longer can take it all as a joke. “And the worst part of it ... I think my fans believe it.” She got up and began pacing the room almost distractedly. “How could they know what the truth is? I can’t talk to them — I can’t get through to them. You see, I know what some of them are thinking, because I’ve had letters. There was one from a girl in Kansas City, a really nice girl. That is — I’ve never met her, but I feel as if I know her, because she began writing me when I was brand-new in movies. “You know what? In her last letter she said she’d been terribly disappointed to read this about me.” Kim stood still, and her voice was grave as she repeated the unpleasant words. “That I’d been seen around town at little out-of-the-way places with different movie executives — all of them married men. She’d never thought I was that kind of woman, but since I hadn’t denied the story . . .” Kim spread her hands hopelessly. “I had told the studio people but they just said that I shouldn’t say anything, because rumors and gossip die faster if you just ignore them. But you see what happens? I’d hurt a good friend of mine by keeping quiet. Well, I wrote to her, of course. I told her Fhe truth: that it was a case of mistaken identity. The girl who’d been going around with these men was new in town; she wanted to be an actress; it just happened that her hair was about the same color as mine, cut the same way. “And yet when I sent the letter I had the same helpless feeling. It’s not possible for me to answer every single letter I get — and what about the people who don’t write — who just feel I’ve let them down? I owe these people so much. They’ve given me their support from the very start. Most of all, I owe them the truth. But how can I give it to them?” The words were a question, but as Kim spoke them her voice sank to a note of utter hopelessness, pathetically expressing her belief that nobody