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BY MAXINE ARNOLD
44I hope you don’t get it,” he said. It was to be years, however, before Susan Hayward understood why her father wanted her to miss her big chance
THEY were driving home after the premiere of “My Foolish Heart.” Jess was quiet. He knew how Susan felt. When she had left the theater, a crowd had applauded her all the way to their car. This was her big night.
Susan was quiet, too. As the car came to the top of the hill, she saw the bright lights of the San Fernando Valley ahead of her. Once before she had looked down on lights that had danced the same way because, then, too, her eyes had been filled with tears. She’d been in New York, standing at the window of a hospital ward. She well remembered her father, a jaunty figure with jet black hair and eyes so dark they seemed black, too; his Irish face strong and warm, alive with laughter.
“I hope you don’t get it.” He spoke from his hospital bed. He had lost his fight. He knew that. But, maybe he could help her win hers. “I hope you don’t get it,” he said it again. And watched the eager light go from her face. Jubilantly, she had come to tell him her good news. The famous David O. Selznick had seen her picture on a magazine cover. He had sent for her to come to Hollywood to test for the coveted role of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind.”
He didn’t like to hurt her. But he and Susan never had pulled their punches. “I hope you don’t get it,” he had said, still more strongly.
“But why?” she had asked. “Why? If I get this part, I’ll be a great movie star. I’ll make more money in one year than I otherwise would manage to make for the rest of my life,” she had said.
She had thought to herself, we can all leave that dirty flat, with the trolleys rumbling by. Soot on the pillows. We can afford those wonderful butter cakes at Ebinger’s bakery for sixty cents. We can sit in a box at Ebbets Field instead of feeling guilty for days about the money we spent for two bleacher seats to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play. And at Christmas . . . we can have a real Christmas tree. A tall tree. Never, until late on Christmas Eve when the stores were ready to throw the leftovers away, could they choose a tree.
But, most of all, she had thought, moving from the window, standing beside her father’s bed, if I get it, I’ll take you out of this hospital ward. I’ll take you where there’s sunshine. And flowers. Where you can get well and strong and laugh again. . . .
The doctor had warned him to take it easy months before, when he’d had that other heart attack. To quit work. But her father, wire chief of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, couldn’t quit. Not until he had to. Then, one day, he’d just fallen over in the street and they’d brought him here. But, if I get this, you can quit for keeps. She couldn’t understand his attitude. She was ( Continued on page 102)
Fire, fight and heart: Susan Hayward of “My Foolish Heart”
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