Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

TUESDAY WELD Continued from page 52 is Tuesday Weld. Honest, I’m not fooling.” Sometimes, the teacher just sighs, shrugs and tells me to take a seat, usually at the back of the room. Sometimes she asks for my mother to come and see her or to write her a note. And once, when I burst in upon the class in the middle of an algebra lesson that was going nowhere, the teacher handed me a piece of chalk. “If that’s your name,” she said, “go to the board and write it 100 times.” I don’t really mind. I like my name. I come in for a lot of jokes but at least once I’m introduced, people don’t forget it. I was named Tuesday, you see, because I was born on Thursday and had arrived two days late. Well . . . since my mother’s going to read this, the actual truth is my folks were expecting a boy. They’d already picked out a name, Rodney, after one of my great-grandfathers. When they found out I was a girl and they needed a name for the birth certificate, Mother said, “Put down Susan.” As soon as I could gurgle, I called myself Tu Tu. Mother called me Too-Too because I was always getting into things. Somehow Tu Tu and Too-Too turned into Tuesday. I was born on August 27, 1943 — or was it 1941??? — in a Salvation Army Hospital in New York City. It’s a very nice private hospital, so I’m told, and also very inexpensive. My being born was a financial problem for my family. My older sister Sally and my brother David, he’s six years older and Sally’s eight years older, were both born on a farm in Cape Cod, when Daddy was a stock broker and a gentleman farmer with 3,000 chickens. Just before I was born, he became very ill and he couldn’t work any more. My folks had to give up their farm and move to New York. When I was three years old, Daddy passed away. I don’t remember much about him except from photographs — he was very handsome. He used to call me his “little social security card,” whatever that means! Daddy developed a serious heart condition which finally took him away from us. Even when you’re very young there are certain things that you can remember about your life. For instance, I remember the place we lived in from the time I was born until I was nine. It was a cold-water flat on 53rd Street in New York, with the bathroom in the hallway and the bathtub in the kitchen. It wasn’t very nice but it was all we could afford. After my father died, Mother went out to work to support Sally and David and me. She got a job at Lord and Taylor’s department store, selling things. Everything she made went for rent and food and clothes for us. Mother had a friend who was a designer and buyer at Best & Co., a New York department store. One day, when she happened to see some pictures that a photographer had taken of me for the family scrapbook, she told Mother I would make a good model and Mother agreed to I give it a try. I was then just three years old. From my very first professional sitting I had fun. I liked looking into the camera. I posed for ad copy and fashion promotion for Best’s until I was about eight. Actually it was good for me, I was very shy as a child. Meeting people through my work helped me climb out of the shell I was in. I’ve been told I was the first child model who had a long blonde page boy, instead of tight corkscrew curls that most baby models had. I was known as the tailored type. Whenever dresses didn’t have any ruffles they sent for me. When I was nine, Mother took us all to live in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, which worked out very well because I was tired of modeling then. Besides, I’d become unpleasingly plump which is not too good for photographing. Besides, David and Sally loved to swim and Mother wanted them to have a chance to take lessons with a good coach. By saving her money she was able to afford to take us. Sally and David really learned how to swim like champs. Matter of fact, David is in the Marine Corps now and he just sent us home a trophy he won for coming in third in a relay race in the All Marine Corps Swimming and Diving Championships. When I was ten and a half, we moved back to New York. I enrolled in the Professional Children’s School and began modeling again and also doing TV commercials. Between times, I went to school, which was really a hassle — not school, but getting there. My brother David was in charge of taking me every morning. We did not get along. In fact, I couldn’t stand him. People tell me this is normal. We had to take three buses, then get off and walk through Central Park to get from our apartment to school. I was awful hard to get along with and David didn’t help matters any. He used to tease me. We’d get on the bus and within two minutes we’d have all the passengers glaring at us. I’d scream at him at the top of my lungs and throw my lunch money under the seats, which he had to retrieve. Or else I’d wait until we got off the bus and toss my money in the street. I was such a sweet girl! Then we’d walk through the park and he’d begin teasing me and I’d cry. My sister and I didn’t get into fights much. In fact we weren’t particularly close. Eight years is a lot of difference when you’re growing up. Now Sally’s married, has two children and lives in New York. Do you believe in fate and dreams? I do. I hope that doesn’t sound strange but I’m a Virgo (born between August 22nd and September 22nd) and that’s typical of us, according to some horoscopes I’ve read. From the time I was ten I used to have a dream that some day I would meet and get to work for director Elia Kazan. Even when I was ten, Mr. Kazan’s name meant more to me than any other in the profession. He had just directed “East of Eden.” When, soon after I’d had a small part in a picture made in New York, “Rock, Rock, Rock,” I heard that Mr. Kazan was casting for “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” a Broadway play, and that there were to be open tryouts. I flew at the chance. The week before I was to appear at the tryouts I wracked my brain deciding what I should wear. Most of my wardrobe was — and still is — jeans and shirts and pullovers, but I had to wear something to impress Mr. Kazan. I couldn’t make up my mind which extreme to go to. Oh, yes, I had decided to go to an extreme, that was for certain. First of all, I bought the highest high heels I could find. Then I found a bright pink sleeveless dress that I knew Mr. Kazan couldn’t help but notice, and to go underneath it, I bought a huge crinoline and taffeta petticoat that stuck out a mile and made a swishing noise when I walked. I even dyed my hair platinum. When my mother came home that evening, she nearly died! But it was too late to do anything about it. Next came some deep-tan makeup so that I would look outdoorsy and healthy even though the summer had already passed. To complete the picture, I bought some thick phony eyelashes that could have knocked six people down if they’d stood within a foot of me. As I started to leave the house, I got cold feet. Had I gone overboard? I pinned on a hunk of false hair made up into a thick ponytail braid, and over it I tied a pink scarf — more like a rag — which I felt was sort of a “country” touch to balance things. Off I went to the theater. When I finally heard my name called I could barely walk to center stage. I started reading. After a few minutes, Mr. Kazan called out and asked me if I would please go offstage and come down where he was. “Young lady, how old are you?” My idol was talking to me and the words weren’t what I wanted to hear. “I’m . . I’m . . .” I mumbled something that sounded like sixteen. (I was really going on fourteen.) “Well, then, can you tell me one good reason why you’ve made yourself up to look like a woman of thirty-five!” Sitting there listening to him tear me apart, I was crushed. Then, in a flash, I realized I should be grateful that he cared enough to even waste time with me. I sat quietly and listened. “First of all, that hair ... it has to go. Get it back to its natural shade. And that makeup and those eyelashes! Miss Weld, you’re a mess! Another thing, that petticoat you’re wearing — I could hear you coming a mile away.” He could see I was almost in tears, but he knew that he had to say what he did for my own good. I started to get up and he said softly, “I would like you to come back and read again.” I nodded, too numb to speak. “All right, Tuesday, I’ll expect you back next week.” One week later, in flat shoes and minus war paint, petticoats, false hair and bright pink dress. I read again for Mr. Kazan. That was only the beginning of the “hurry-up-but-wait” routine connected with Broadway tryouts. I came back to read again off and on for nearly three months. Finally, I was given the part of understudy to the two lead ingenues. Maybe if I was lucky one of the girls would get sick — not that I wished them harm — only some minor ailment serious enough to allow me to make my Broadway debut! I was so happy I cried with excitement. I was going to work for Elia Kazan! Opening night I sat backstage listening to two other girls saying the words I knew by heart. Since I was only an understudy, I didn’t have a dressing room and, between acts, I found a seat on the steps in the basement. There I was, dressed in black and in a blue funk when a man came over and introduced himself. I’d been reading movie magazines practically all my life and I knew immediately that this tall, young, handsome man was the Dick Clayton, former actor turned agent. The man who’d helped discover and develop stars like James Dean and Tab Hunter. He was very nice to me. He asked me why I looked so sad, and I told him it was because I would never get a chance to act in the play and that I was utterly miserable. There was something very soothing about him and his voice. He asked if I had an agent. I said yes. I did at that time. Then he said the most exciting words I’d ever heard: “Tuesday, you don’t belong in a base p ment sulking. You belong out in Hollywood. You should be a star.” I just nodded and he continued. 75