Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

WHERE FORM COUNTS— •O nly Peter Pan makes the patented MEBBY-GO-ROUNDIOOK FOB THE LABEL I Joan Hyldoft, lovely skating' where the accent is on perfect smooth, graceful figures— and, Merry-Go-Round bras. Write today for FREE booklet , “Your New Guide to Bustline Beauty ”, Dept. MA-J KTCMI BRASSIERES — GIRDLES • 116 EAST 27 ST., NEW YORK 16 PATENTED INSIDE VIEW NO PADS • NO PUFFS The simpl e-to-adjust • For very small bust: Pat€ sid i ;nted s the feature inBra gives' M VJVj)" • "Double A" 200 Small bust: A200 you the fuller bust • Average bust: B200 you req so c u i r e lesire and to be in r* ~ 1,7* 2 (ash ion. ■KVji i Cm Si zes: 30, 32, 34. 36. At stores everywhere, or write: Dept. P GARDEN FOUNDATIONS, INC. 45 White Street, New York 13, N. Y. AT LAST! A HAND CREAM THAT HELPS KEEP HANDS SOFTER, SMOOTHER . . . AND IS NOT STICKY— NOT GREASY! Luxor contains Carbamide, the ingredient long familiar to surgeons, which helps relieve the tiny cracks and scratches that make hands look red, feel rough! usual good spirits came back. You can’t be sensitive in a hospital full of battered guys. They won’t let you be. They had nicknames for everyone — a guy with one leg off was called “Limpy.” With two legs gone he was “Shorty.” If he had one arm gone he was “Paperhanger,” and with both arms gone he was “Hooks.” I was the only “Hooks” around there — the only bilateral, as the doctors call it. I was there for three months. But it only took me half that time to learn how to use my new hooks, which operate by a leather shoulder apparatus and the use of certain muscles. The left hook is plain steel, but the right one is covered with rubber to give you a “grip” on things like doorknobs. In six weeks I could do everything I can do now: Eat quickly and skilfully, dress myself, swim as well as ever, dial telephones, play Ping-pong, drive a car, smoke cigarettes — and shoot crap and play poker! There are just two things I can’t do: Tie my own tie and play golf. But no matter how cheerful I was around the hospital, it was different when it came time to go home on my first furlough. I began thinking of Rita and I got the jitters. I’d known her ever since the third grade at Cambridge Grammar School, just outside of Boston. On and off I’d seen her all my life, and I guess I was always in love with her. She has big brown eyes and brown hair, and even though she’d had a brief and unfortunate marriage at the start of the war, I’d never been able to get her out of my mind. So I was pretty jumpy when my plane came down at the Boston Airport. From the window I could see her waiting there with her mother and my mother. Then suddenly my doctor’s advice came to me. “Harold, you can do one of two things. You can become a drunkard on pension, or you can fight life. Take your choice.” I MADE my choice then. I waved a newspaper at her when I came down the plane steps and tried to smile — and for some reason it worked. She seemed to think that everything was going to be all right. Only one of them cried — Rita’s mother; not my own, nor Rita herself. All during that leave Rita and I talked about how swell life could be for me just the same. Her baby son Jerry helped too —just by being natural. When I reported back to the hospital, we were engaged. But I still lacked solid confidence. I found it unexpectedly back at the hospital. One afternoon my doctor brought an ex-Hollywood producer named Julian Blaustein in to meet me. He was then in the Army making training films. He talked to me for awhile, watching me carefully — and finally he made me the offer that was going to change my whole life as completely as the explosion had. He asked me to act in an Army film. “Me?” I said, astounded. “But I never acted in my life. Not even in school. Besides, nobody ever called me good looking.” “Doesn’t matter. I think you’re what we call a natural,” he said. The picture was called “The Diary of a Sergeant,” and it was a twenty-minute film based mostly on my own life. In it, I showed how I learned to use my hooks; then I went to Boston University to school, and meanwhile got up enough courage to propose to my girl. Most of it was shot in the Astoria studios near New York City — where I didn’t have time to worry about myself. I was too busy meeting new people and trying to act in front of my first camera. By the time that movie was made so was my belief in myself. But I had no idea what the movie would lead to ultimately. I never dreamed that 3,000 miles away in Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn would see that little