Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

Be My Valentine ( Continued from page 53) and it was those same violets and bovardia she was a-carryin’ when she promised to be his life-long Valentine. Ronnie Reagan, on the other hand, is doing his combing for red and white roses. Each year he sends Jane a nosegay of them with a card saying, “Happy, Happy Valentine’s Day . . . From Me.” This began the first Valentine’s Day after they were married. Last year threatened to be a very unhappy one. When they got home from the studio the nosegay hadn’t arrived. Which worried Reagan. And Janie, who had completely forgotten the date, was feeling unusually low. It had been one of those days when life piles everything up crosswise. “Good grief — what a day,” she said tiredly, dropping into a chair. About that time a delivery truck drove up and the doorbell rang. “Now what!” she said, getting up to answer it. Ronnie grinned. Jane took the package and pulled out the familiar red and white bouquet. “Well — what do you know? It’s Valentine’s!” She looked at her husband affectionately and both started laughing. Jane bounced back to normal. After much thought, Dick Haymes, who usually plies his lovely Joanne with jewels, decided to surprise her with the oversized bed she’d been wanting for her bedroom in their new Encino ranch home. Joanne, a very restless sleeper, tosses herself clockwise around a bed. She’d been wishing for months for one of those big custom-made jobs to toss in. So, for Valentine’s, Dick ordered her an eightfoot nocturnal beauty made up. A bed for a queen. Or queens. Then Joanne left town on a two months’ movie location trip the day before it was to be installed. Betty Hutton’s favorite Valentines are diamond earrings Ted Briskin gave her when they were in Chicago on a business trip last year. She spotted the earrings while window-shopping around some Loop jewelry stores to kill time ... it says here. Also while looking for some diamond earrings. Later on she mentioned them to her husband in a casually pointed way, careful to add the name of the store, the postal zone number and the fact that it was even then approaching St. Valentine’s. “If you want to surprise me, get them, darling,” she suggested. The next night Ted came back to the hotel bearing a very fancy package. “Some surprise,” he grinned. “Especially since you said you’d take them and had them put away with your name on them.” Johnnie Johnston’s present for the queen of his heart is a gold pin shot with a ruby arrow. Dark, vivacious Kathryn Grayson and her blond Johnnie are one of Cupid’s cutest current couples. Make a bet they’ll be singing to each other, “The Song Is You,” the song that introduced them when they met to rehearse it for “Till the Clouds Roll By” at M-G-M. NOTHER romantic pair are John Lund, who scored in Paramount’s “To Each His Own,” and his brunette Marie, who get in some sentimental reminiscing of their own each Valentine’s night, while John usually slowly eats, one by one, the heartshaped box of chocolates he bought her on the way home. He admits to being one of those husbands who are sometimes slow about remembering special days and sometimes bring in presents with the price tags still warm. Which detracts nothing from the sentiment of the occasion for John and Marie. Their remember-whens go back to one Valentine’s Day when they were first married, when they were being featured together on Broadway in “New Faces of 1943.” There wasn’t any matinee that day and the Lunds went down to the Battery, browsed romantically around the Aquarium, caught a fast sandwich in a restaurant nearby and invested two nickels on the Staten Island Ferry for a boat ride. Last Valentine’s Day Dick Powell was in the hospital with influenza. June Allyson, hoping to cheer him up, wrapped three immense packages in fancy red and white paper and took them to him. In one box was a book on how to build airplanes, in another a book on how to destroy airplanes and after much unwrapping the third box disclosed a specimen of Dick’s favorite fruit — one lonely grape. Mark Stevens always gives his wife, Annelle, toy stuffed animals on special days like this. But one Valentine’s Day, when Mrs. Stevens was in the hospital for an emergency appendectomy, the nurses got all excited when a large box came for her. They didn’t know whether to give it to her or not. They were afraid it would excite her too much. Finally after much consultation, they took the box into her room. When she opened it, out sprang a giant rabbit with long pink ears. Speaking of surprises, you can bet that Gloria De Haven will be wearing a striking suede outfit come Valentine’s — for sentimental reasons. John Payne gave it to her the year they were married. Gloria had been wanting a suede coat, but Johnny told her they shouldn’t get it. What with their just getting married, his just getting back from the Army, the new house, etc. “We’ll have to wait until we catch up a bit, honey,” he said. Gloria said that was all right. She’d wait a year or ten. Meanwhile John went out to Voris Suede Shop on the Sunset Strip, picked out a luscious orchid shade of suede for a coat, hat, gloves and bag for her. He selected the styles to make them up in, had one of the salesgirls who was Gloria’s size fit them and walked into the house on Valentine evening with the whole outfit ready to go. Cupid goes culinary in a big way at Shirley Temple’s house. On such sentimental occasions, Shirley Temple Agar whips up her top specialties like Jack’s favorite “Beef Stroganoff” and a chocolate roll. “They’re very good,” says her handsome husband authoritatively. You ask him how to spell Stroganoff. “I don’t know. Hey, Shirl, how do you spell Stroganoff?” he passes on. “I don’t spell it. I just season it,” she says pertly. “She makes good French hash too,” goes on Jack. “Valentine’s a sort of special day,” muses Shirley, “but sometimes people put too much into it.” Which Jack picks up with, “You can’t put too much into French hash.” “Last Valentine’s Day Jack gave me a bottle of my favorite perfume and a big kiss,” she remembers. Jack says he gave her the perfume with a nice card saying, “Here it is, Red. Happy Valentine.” She likes to get red roses, “But I don’t particularly go for candy,” she says. To which Jack says agreeably, “No, she doesn’t. That is, unless you count chocolates and bars with almonds and . . .” Although St. Valentine’s Day isn’t observed in Maria Montez’s native Santa Domingo, she personally observed it with a big bang last year in Hollywood by giving birth to her baby, Maria Christina. And Cupid was confronted with astrological complications no bow and arrow could fix. The doctors had said that Maria’s baby should be born on the 12th, but Carroll Ryder, noted astrologist, said the stars indicated that it should be born on the 14th. Then the baby’s Venus, Sun and Mercury would all be in Aquarius. Also, her Moon would be in the warm magnetic sign of Leo. Which was good. On the other hand, on the 12th her Moon would be in Cancer. And that would be bad. Furthermore, she must be born in the morning, instead of the evening, to give her the power of the morning sun. A Caesarean birth, Maria Christina arrived as ordered last February 14 at 8: 23 a.m. A little later, Jean Pierre, who’d been pacing up and down, looked through the glass in the maternity ward to see what Cupid and the stars had decreed. And there she lay, the dainty little queen of their hearts. The End ITTTTTTT I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I ITT I I I I I IT! HIM IT I IT I'l ITITTl Q)liclu?inler an! Put another log on the fire and concentrate on which woman star and which man star you’d like to see pictured in beautiful color in Civ Then fill in the coupon below and mail it to: COLOR PORTRAIT EDITOR, PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE 205 East 42nd Street, New York 17, N. Y. 94 Man Woman MY NAME I Ed. Note: We regret this cannot mean you will receive color portraits of the stars. It means the pictures in full color of the stars receiving the most votes will appear in Photoplay.l lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll