Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

0 s, HOPPING.. or when you are writing to the manufacturers of merchandise which you have seen featured in these Fashion Pages . . . it will be easier for them to know exactly the item you icish to buy, if you mention you saiv it in Photoplay. • • • • The test was such a surprise, little Audrey hadn’t a word to say BY SABA HAMILTON Glitter news : Audrey Totter, starred in “Lady in the Lake” ALERT, knowing, intelligent, yet blonde and beautiful, Audrey Totter— like the other little Audrey of story fame — “laughed and laughed” at her chances for pictures. In fact she paid so little attention to a screen test, her agent grabbed her just as she was about to agree to another year of radio. Her voice, rich and throaty, had caught the attention of Marvin Schenck who arranged for a test at M-G-M; a test Audrey had no faith in. When it resulted in a contract, no one was more dumbfounded than Miss Totter of Joliet, Illinois. Unfortunately the lack of television prevented the listeners of such serials as “Ma Perkins,” “Cisco Kid,” “Road of Life” and “Bright Horizons” from viewing the five foot three lovely or they’d have stampeded the studios. Reversing the usual procedure for young actresses, Audrey went from stage to radio to screen. The stage came after she’d graduated from high school and trekked off to Chicago, against her parents’ wishes. After they’d viewed their daughter in such plays as “Stage Door,” “Night Must Fall” and “My Sister Eileen,” which toured the country, they thought to themselves well, now, this isn’t so bad. And then Audrey ups and goes to New York and when no show came peeping over the horizon of Shubert’s Alley, she went to radio, from there to Hollywood where she sat and sat and fretted and fumed for almost a year. Little bits at which she snatched eagerly finally came her way in such movies as “Main Street after Dark,” “Dangerous Partners,” “The Sailor Takes a Wife,” and “But Not Goodbye.” Those roles paid off, for when Robert Montgomery saw Audrey in a wee bit, he was so impressed he tested and cast her for the lead opposite himself in “Lady in the Lake,” the picture Robert directs and stars in. Studio workers loved to linger on that set and just listen to the hazeleyed blonde who had something to say and said it with bubbling wit and humor. The awful truth is she can figure out her own income tax and even likes to test herself against those “How Much Do You Know?” quizzes in magazines. Obviously someone pitched her a curve, several of them, and she knew exactly where to place them for Audrey possesses a form divine. She eats three hefty meals a day and nary adds one pound to a delectable one hundred and three. Her parents, her two brothers and two sisters, all in Joliet, are her most devoted fans. Naturally. She can mount a deer head or stuff a skunk with the best of them, having studied taxidermy in school. Suits in odd shades, such as chartreuse, worn with tons of old gold jewelry add to her chic and smartness, and no one would guess in a million years Audrey taught Sunday School in the First Christian Church in Joliet. Her most embarrassing moment occurred during her last New York radio broadcast — a soap opera. Audrey, no longer in the show, asked for a small part as a farewell gesture. When they gave her the commercial to read, Audrey was delighted until she suddenly heard herself saying to the vast audience of listeners, “Use Blank’s cream, tissue it off, and leave a light film of skin on your face overnight.” The performers had hysterics, the sponsor had apoplexy and Audrey left hurriedly next day for Hollywood.