Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1949)

I'm Hollywood s Cinderella Continued, from page 30) I have lived in ollywood, New York City, that fashionjjle part of New York State called Westlester and the “Bohemian” part of onnecticut called Westport. Even before was bom, Joan Crawford was destined to 2 my godmother and I was destined to be amed after her. Joan had been my other's closest friend for simply years, ight from my cradle, I’ve been meeting mous actors, playwrights, reporters and agazine editors. My parents, whom I’ve always called by eir given names, are both writers. Kath■ine, after being a minor movie actress, ecame a Los Angeles newspaper writer, len a publicity girl at Metro-Goldwyniayer (that’s where she first met Joan rawford) then a writer on this very mag;ine, Photoplay. And since she has been arried to my father, she has collaborated ith him in writing plays. Y father, Dale Eunson, besides, being a short story writer and a magazine edi>r, was coauthor of the stage hits, “Guest i the House” and “Loco.” So you can see ■hy I’ve never gone hungry — until this last ugust 30th when Mr. Goldwyn signed me, "hen I starved. Because Mr. Selwyn, Mr. oldwyn’s executive talent director, told ie: “Lose that baby fat!” And this was pllowed by a similar order from Mr. oldwyn, who said: “You must drop ten lounds.” It was rough, awfully rough. Of course, my neatest trick, I suppose, :^as in picking such clever parents. If Dale adn’t written “Guest in the House,” I light never have had the chance to go on tage in a perfectly slick child part at the ge of nine, and so to decide I wanted to be n actress and not a ballet dancer. When “Guest in the House” was to be layed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dale [ecommended me for the little girl part, i Outside the billboards said, “Guest in he House” starring Richard Hart (yes, i he very same Richard Hart who was liana Turner’s leading man in “Green )olphin Street”) and introducing Joan lunson. As I stood in the wings, waittig for my entrance cue, I was very, very tervous. I didn’t know what I’d do when j got out there in front of a real audience, jlut then, suddenly, I did hear the right vcrds. I walked on and I began speaking ind moving and as I heard myself talking, thought: “If I feel as nervous as this :very night, it just won’t do.” Right after jhat, I became perfectly calm and I always tave been ever since. In fact it all went so veil I began to hope that someday, after a ot of work, I would be a little important, naybe. But in my wildest dreams I never conceived that only four years later I would )e co-starring with Farley Granger. It was odd — the way it all happened. When Mr. Goldwyn and Cathy O’Donnell Parted company, Mr. Selwyn, Goldwyn’s ialent expert, was sent all over the country >n a scouting expedition. When he phoned Catherine Willard, Ralph Bellamy’s exvife and a family friend, asking if 'she’d ;een any promising girls, she told him to ook me up. The next morning, he called and asked ne to come to the Goldwyn office and get i script. Katherine told me not to get ;oo excited. I read for Mr. Selwyn and two lays later, I made a test. Two whole dreadful weeks elapsed after |hat. It couldn’t have been more grim. No telephone call. Then finally a wire came or Dale from Mr. Selwyn. While Dale took the telegram over the phone, Katherine and I were dying. As I said later, jpe might at least have talked like you do on i stage telephone. You know, said stuff like, ‘Well, do you want me to tell my daughter that she has the part?” Instead, he just stood there saying, “Uh-huh . . . yes . . . uh-huh . . . yes.” Then he hung up and said, “What do you want to know?” which simply infuriated Katherine and me. What the wire had said was, could I leave the next day for the Coast. I could have left in five minutes. Katherine and I arrived in Los Angeles the next Monday and by three, Mr. Goldwyn saw us. I was told to report for another photographic test the next morning. That’s when I met Irving Reis, the director, who is terrific, and Farley Granger, who is a dream walking. We went over the script, rehearsing love scenes, which we shot as a test on Saturday. During the test I was calmer than I had been any day since we arrived. I played my scenes with Farley as though he were a long-lost uncle. I was wearing Merle Oberon’s dress from “Wuthering Heights.” My hair was lightened and the sound stage was so cold that even though I wore a woolen bathing suit under the nightdress that the scene called for, I shivered and shook violently. They brought me coffee to warm me up. I don’t like coffee, but I gulped it down so fast I burned my tongue. HOW I lived over that weekend I don’t know. The suspense was perfectly dreadful. But finally it got" to be Monday once more and I was told to come to the studio. On the way over, I gave myself a real talking to. I told myself that (A) I’d get the part of Roseanna. (B) Mr. Goldwyn would say he liked me but that I was too young and that I was to come back in three years. (C) He wouldn’t like me at all and I would be sent back to New York and all Katherine and I would have had out of the trip would have been our chance to see our old California friends. But the moment we walked into Mr. Goldwyn’s office, I knew. Because he gave me a great big grin and I didn’t even have to wait to hear him say, “You are Roseanna.” Then it began! Giving biographies, going to court to have my contract approved, changing my name. There were interviewers and photographers everywhere. Joan Crawford gave a party to introduce me to the press. She brought along a perfectly gorgeous wrist watch as a gift for me to remember her and the day by — not that I shall ever need that heavenly reminder. Everybody and everything has been so wonderful. Even before we started shooting I was putting in a seven-hour day, which included just about everything but the good square meals I craved. I had to keep up with my school work. I. had to take a daily riding lesson, because even though I rode horseback some, when I was younger, I am not expert. There’s only one thing I regret. It doesn’t seem quite right that now I am called Joan Evans, even if Evans is my grandmother’s name. I take pride in my family name of Eunson. But I do know that Eunson, which is pronounced as if the “E” weren’t there, is a name that looks difficult. I write Katherine and Dale every night. They have gone back to New York — because that is where their careers require them to be — leaving me out here in charge of a friend. But I will join them as soon as the picture is finished. By being in New York between pictures they hope to keep me from “going Hollywood.” But whenever I’m home, I know I’ll be waiting for the phone call that will bring me back to the suspense of tests, chilly sets, diets, new work, new friends and the magic that is Hollywood. For, just like Cinderella, I’ve left my heart at the ball. The End Wfc erever You Live You Can Buy ML Aotcfi/ay W? ad/ucnb i If the preceding pages do not list stores in your vicinity where Photoplay Fashions are sold, write to the manufacturers listed helow: Jersey Dress with Stole F. H. Safian (3 Co. 1375 Broadway New York, N. Y. Crepe Dress with Tiered Skirt R. (3 K. Originals 1400 Broadway New York, N. Y. Jacket and Skirt Majestic 1410 Broadway New York, N. Y. Persian Print Dress McKettrick-Williams, Inc. 13 50 Broadway New York, N. Y. Stores Selling Photoplay Patterns Gimbels New York, N. Y. Lit Brothers Philadelphia, Pa. The Hecht Company Washington, D. C. Pattern Sketches Back