Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1950)

l.arry it like a love charm SvieMAtiile PERFUME in purse-size, spill-proof FLACONETTE Your secret magic . . . Carry it with you always! LIPSTICK Don’t just sit and dream, darling. DO something! Shape your lips for glamour, ■romance. Make them irresistible, excitingly soft to kiss with Irresistible Lipstick . . . the smoother, softer, non-drying lipstick. Whip-text for color brilliance. There Was a Boy . . . ( Continued from page 70) capacity for happiness. “Could be,” Kirk says, “that the pot at the end of the rainbow is always filled with more ashes than gold, but I don’t want to believe it.” Kirk’s story began, actually, eight years before he was born. The year was 1908 and Kirk’s mother, Bryna Danielovitch, an unschooled Russian peasant girl, was enroute by steerage to America. Life in old Russia had been hard for Bryna. There had been no money, little food. Her husband, Herschel, had been conscripted into the Czar’s army. Herschel was a born rebel, his son says, “a rebel without a cause,” and life in the army proved intolerable. He deserted and escaped with a price on his head, to the United States. DRYNA was on her way to join Herschel " in their new home, in the New World, in Amsterdam, New York. Her throat ached with excitement, she reached out eagerly for what she confidently expected would be a new, free life. In America, Bryna Danielovitch knew things would be different. America was the land of opportunity. There would be honest work for Herschel and enough to eat and her children, when she had children, could grow up proud and free. They could learn, as she had never been permitted to learn, to read and write, they could go to school, even perhaps to college. They could Be Somebody. That was the beginning of the dream. Things didn’t turn out exactly as she had expected. Herschel Danielovitch, transplanted to America, became Harry Douglas, American, but he was still a rebel. Most of the men who lived in their neighborhood, in the oldest, shabbiest section of Amsterdam, worked in the carpet mill. But Harry found the factory too confining. He liked to be out of doors, he liked to be free to sit around with his friends over a beer in DiCaprio’s Diner. He worked, made a little money. He managed after awhile to buy a cart and some horses, and he eked out a living, peddling junk, peddling fruit in the summer, hauling logs in the winter. Children arrived at two-year intervals after Bryna came to Amsterdam, three daughters, Betty, Katherine, Marion, and, in 1916, a son, Issur. And three more daughters, Fritzie, Ida, Ruth. The family paid a small down payment on a big enough, if beat up, old house. That house was finally paid for, free and clear. But one of the first things Kirk Douglas did after his Hollywood triumph was to make it possible for his father, by that time the only member of the family still living in Amsterdam, to live comfortably in a new, modern house. Harry is alone in Amsterdam, but he is not lonely. His house is new, but still within easy walking distance of DiCaprio’s Diner. The poverty of that immigrant family would be inconceivable to most of Kirk Douglas’s friends today. “There was never anything in the icebox . . . sometimes nothing but a can of cooking oil, the smallest size,” Kirk recalls. “It drives me crazy today, if the refrigerator at my house isn’t crammed with food. I have a complex about food. Even if I go to a fancy dinner party, or an expensive restaurant, I feel I have to eat everything on my plate. I can remember too well when there simply wasn’t enough to eat.” His mother was more successful than most women in her position at feeding her big family. “She had a peasant knack,” her son says, “of making something wonderful out of a bone and water and salt and pepper.” She made lunches every morning for the children to take to school, for they did go to school, that much of the dream was materializing. “She would put a few drops of oil in the largest frying pan,” Kirk says, “beat a single egg with water, spread it out as thin as she could and divide it up among us for sandwiches. “I used to see the other kids at school, eating sandwiches with chicken and butter and mayonnaise and lettuce, and I wanted to grab them out of their hands.” It is not surprising that Kirk’s first pres ■ ent to his mother after his early stage success was a modem refrigerator, filled with food. KIRK’S oldest sister, Betty, quit school after the ninth grade to go to work to help support the family. “I know now that she must have resented it,” he says. “But somebody had to. Mother couldn’t go on like that.” As a little boy, Kirk didn’t sense the steel strength beneath his mother’s gentleness. Strength, to him, was embodied in his father. His father was Superman. “Father never picked a fight in his life,” he recalls, “but if somebody challenged him, and somehow or other he managed to get himself challenged every night, he could lick his weight in wildcats. “I admired that. I guess I rather admired his rebellious spirit, too. There’s certainly a large slice of it in my own character. I don’t think rebellion is necessarily bad. My father could have been a great guy, with half a chance. He could have been a tremendous actor.” Kirk had his half a chance. His mother saw to it. Not that he didn’t work for it. He started working before he started to school, “running errands for the guys down at the mill.” When he was seven he was in business. “I bought up pop and candy p 122 Make your dreams of romance and exciting dates come true! Learn the secret of glamorous girls who beautify dull, drab hair with Nestle Colorinse. It’s like a miracle to see that rich, natural-looking color give your hair radiant beauty and sheen! And notice — Colorinse’s lemon-rinse action removes soap film. ..leaves hair soft, shining! Get genuine Colorinse. TO GLORIFY BLONDE AND RED HAIR (Choose Your Shade Now!) BLONDE . . . true shining honey blonde. PLATINUM . . . glorious silvery blonde. AUBURN . . . like red-gold sunshine. HENNA . . . rich glowing red-bronze. 6 Other Enchanting Shades! Also try NESTLE COLORTINT Same beautiful shades in a triple-strength rinse. Lasts through 3 shampoos! fUtiA COLORINSE 6 rinses 25(1