Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1960)

here. A dressing room!” He was startled. So Doris had to put her gown on in the tiny powder room, which had just been freshly painted and still had a lot of paint cans all over the floor. “And poor Mom had to hold the door shut so no one could get in,” she laughed. She fixed us a Coke in the tiny kitchen at the back and we sat down at the table. “We could talk in the main room where I dress, if you’d rather,” she said. “Oh, no. This is fine,” I told her. “Good. I love kitchens, even if I do hate to cook. I just like them for sitting around in. You know, back home in Cincinnati the kitchen was the center of the whole house. “When I was going to high school there, my cousin Ginnie used to come over with my girlfriends and we’d just sit around the table for hours and talk. Mom always had to throw us out when she was ready to cook supper.” “What did you talk about?” I asked, wondering if they were the same things my friends and I discussed. “Movie stars, mostly,” she said. “I had a real mad crush on Clark Gable, I remember, and I got his name into the conversation as often as possible. “Boy, was 1 a movie fan!” she continued. “Still am, for that matter. When I started making ‘Teacher’s Pet’ with Clark, I was so thrilled I felt as though I were high school age again. And he was every bit as nice as I had imagined him to be.” It seemed funny to hear her say things like that — so naturally. Why, she sounded just like my friends at school. Doris Day, I discovered, was a person you could really talk to and feel at ease with — like a best friend or a big sister. Suddenly, I decided to tell her about a problem that had been bothering me. I had never discussed it with anyone before, not even my parents, but I felt sure Doris would understand and not laugh at me. “I’d like to get your opinion about something,” I told her. “I’ll certainly be glad to answer,” she said seriously. “Well, I want to quit school and go to New York and become a model,” I said. “Do you think that’s a good profession?” “I think it’s a wonderful profession,” said Doris softly. “In fact, I think you’d make a very good model with proper training and guidance. But quit school? That’s something else again. I think that’s the craziest, most foolhardy thing you could do. I left school early because I loved to dance and sing and now I regret it.” P 94 She gazed thoughtfully out the window, and went on, “If I were seventeen again, and had my whole future ahead of me, like you have, I’d go out of my way to learn from those I admire. I’d want to go on and finish my education. You know, hindsight is the most useless thing in the world. It’s like when I watch a movie I’ve made. I can see all the mistakes and I can’t go back and correct them. All I can do is try to avoid making the same ones in the future.” She turned from the window and looked right at me. “If I were seventeen again,” she went on, “I’d take advantage of every minute of it, of all the wonderful things life offers you then, and never offers you again. “The teen years are the years in which we begin to mold ourselves into the kind of people we’re going to be in the future. We develop ourselves as individuals. “If I were your age, I’d look at myself as objectively as possible, select all my good points and do my best to emphasize them. As for my bad points, what I couldn’t discard, I’d try to improve, by watching the people I admire — like movie stars — and copy the way they walk or speak or dress. “But, most of all, I think I’d try to be happy and spread that happiness among as many people as possible. People will always remember you for the happiness you give them and it’s the best way I know of for making lifelong friends.” I thought of all the happy faces I’d seen ai-ound the set, and all the laughter I’d heard, and of Doris Day, herself, looking glad just to be alive. “And you’ll be surprised when what you give comes back to you in many different ways,” she continued. “By all means, become a model — and I hope you’ll become a famous and successful one — but don’t give up the most important years of your life for success. Be happy now, try making others happy now, and make as many friends as you can. Don’t let your success be a lonely one.” I wondered if she might be referring to her own life because, before her present marriage to Marty Melcher, which I’m sure makes her happy, I think she had had a difficult time. I’d read that she went into two other marriages which both ended in divorce, and has devoted a great deal of her energy and time to a career which, I guess, can get lonely fighting for something all alone. And something she once told a reporter came to mind as she spoke. She’d said, “If I had stayed in Cincinnati, everything would probably have been nothing but one long smile.” But if Doris has had problems, she certainly doesn’t let them shout. I asked her about her son, who I know is about the same age as I. “Oh, he’s fine,” she laughed. “But he wouldn’t have been very proud of his mother’s driving if he’d seen me this morning!” I asked her to tell me about herself . . . the things she likes, what she doesn’t like. She said, “Okay. I think the first thing is the outdoors. I love to go for long walks, play tennis or volleyball. And I love trees. Does that sound strange? Late at night I love to lie in bed and gaze at the sycamore tree that sweeps past my bedroom window. I’m sure that tree must be over one hundred years old and I think how beautiful it is and what a perfect pattern there is in the shape of its leaves and branches. “I remember when I was small, I used to love the visits we made to a farm owned by a relative in Trenton, Ohio. I guess I’m a country girl at heart. There was an old couple who lived next door in a tiny house, who worked on the farm, and I used to peek in their windows to spy on them. Wasn’t that awful? But their way of life appealed to me so. “What don’t I like? I don’t like wearing makeup. Really. And telephones. But Marty says that for somebody who claims to dislike phones, I certainly spend a lot of time talking on them! ANSWERS TO LAST MONTH’S PUZZLE o V m" T H "a C E 7 P R E S T C N R R H O E E ’l ’m > R O "s i S R 'b m s if R T W 1 T T r 1) o H N y p E E N D E T O N 1 "e L_ N L * ° D G E R S “But I do love ice ceam and we’ve got a soda bar at our new home in Beverly Hills instead of a regular one!” I laughed. Doris was smiling again, that big, beautiful smile. “You know,” she said, “I wouldn’t mind being a model myself. Just think of all those gorgeous clothes they get to wear!” “You get to wear some awfully pretty clothes in your pictures,” I told her. “Like that black sheath in ‘Teacher’s Pet.’ ” “Oh, did you like that dress, too?” asked Doris. “You know, the studio let me keep it after the picture was finished because I loved it so.” She laughed again and leaned very close to me as though she were going to tell me a secret. “Do you know what I’m going to do someday?” she whispered. “I’m going to make a picture and really go hog-wild on the clothes. I’m going to have the biggest, juciest wardrobe you’ve ever laid eyes on.” “And you’ll still tell me you haven’t a thing to wear!” said her husband, Martin Melcher, who was standing in the doorway. He was tall and very good looking. He came over and kissed her on the cheek. Then Doris introduced me to him, and he shook hands with me and also asked me if I had really seen all his wife’s pictures four times. You could tell, from the way he looked at her, that he loved her very much and was awfully proud of her. “They want you back on the set, Dodo,” he told her. She put her arm around me as we left the trailer and, while we walked back to the town square, she was munching on another piece of my fudge. “You know,” she said, “you’ve simply got to give me the recipe. I’ve never tasted anything so good. Why don’t you come out again tomorrow and bring it with you?” “I guess I’ll have to mail it,” I told her sadly. “I’m leaving for my grandmother’s farm in Maine in the morning.” “Hey, does your grandmother have a real, honest-to-goodness farm?” Doris asked excitedly. And I remembered her words about farms. “Oh, I wish I were going with you. Maybe sometime, when you’re going again, you’d let me go along, too.” Would I! And I know everyone would love her, too, because she’s so friendly and nice. I thought, no matter where she went, she’d fit right in and make it a happier place just by being there. When we got back to the general store, Doris asked Eddie, the photographer, to take some pictures of the two of us. “Now, don’t look right at the camera,” she told me. “If you’re going to be a model, this will be a good trick for you to learn. See those soup cans over in the corner? Look at them, instead. Photos always come out better if you’re not looking at the camera.” Then I told her the thing I had been saving for last. “When I do become a model,” I said, “I’m going to change my name to ‘Julie,’ because that was my favorite Doris Day movie.” She stared at me for a long, long time and her eyes got kind of misty looking — and then she hugged me. “That’s just about the nicest compliment I’ve ever received!” And then I had to say goodbye . . . vowing I’d see her pictures six times from now on. The End SEE DORIS DAY IN “PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES” FOR M-G-M. SHE SINGS FOR COL. WATCH FOR HER IN U.I.’S “MIDNIGHT LACE.”