Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

H II LLY WOim'S MANNERS stars who present the opposite side of the picture. Some girls, I suspect, become stars because they are dominant and aggressive naturally. Their marriage manners of course are different. In the film colony innumerable households revolve entirely around the wife’s business hours and social obligations. She’s the breadwinner and it is the husband who supervises the servants, makes out marketing lists and worries over the domestic budget. Overdoes it sometimes, like a certain husband whose niggardliness with his star-wife’s money was the real reason behind their divorce granted for mental cruelty. For a time the star smiled with pleasure while her husband boasted that he had cut household costs in half. But slowly, as her house ceased to run smoothly, her smile faded. Then servants of long standing departed. Guests — unless she took time out to order the luncheon or tea or dinner — fared badly. She asked, politely, that the purse strings be loosened. Refusing, he taxed her with being an extravagant fool. There were quarrels. They’re together no more. Betty Hutton has changed tremendously since she married Ted Briskin. No longer an attention-getting boisterous hoyden, Betty now dresses and behaves with restraint. She’s even given up smoking — except for a surreptitious puff occasionally — to please her lord and master. Barbara Hale’s another girl who is positively terrified for fear her screen career will interfere with her marriage to her co-star, Bill Williams. Away from the studios she literally implores people to call her “Mrs. Williams” and not “Miss Hale.” She bends over backwards to play second fiddle. I’ve known wives galore but never Mrs. George Murphy knows the score for a committee man’s wife A lover’s quarrel would be forgotten anywhere else, but it brought break-up rumors for John Loder and his wife Hedy Lamarr .