Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1951)

p 92 PHOTOPLAY ANNUAL 1 951 1 20 Picture Pages MANY IN FULL COLOR Get YOUR Copy Today! THE MOVIE YEAR IN REVIEW Twenty thrilling pages covering the motion picture highlights of the entire year — movie memories you will want to keep! STARS OF THE FUTURE Photographs of Hollywood's most promising up-and-coming personalities. You will see them here, learn their prospects for the future and when they become stars, you can say, "I knew about them when . . STUDIO DIRECTORY Pictures and addresses of all the well-known movie studios. Now you will know where to write your favorite stars. Elizabeth Taylor June Allyson COLOR PORTRAITS OF THE STARS Gorgeous fourcolor photographs of Elizabeth Taylor, Howard Keel, June Allyson, Esther Williams, June Haver, Tony Curtis, Jane Powell, Vera-E'len, Farley Granger, loan Evans, Gordon MacRae, Doris Day. Farley Granger crossed the threshold. She might have been eight again, for nothing had changed. Same old chairs in the same old spots, same old piano, same old threadbare rugs. Same guys — anyway, they looked the samesitting around with their sleeves rolled up. Same friendly “Hiya, Betty — ” . . . During factory layoffs, with an income dropped to minus, Mom used to bring her here. Partly because they had to eat, partly because Betty gave her no peace. “Please, please, Mom, let’s go, and I’ll sing for them and earn money.” Her repertoire consisted of “Dinah,” “Lazybones” and “Some of These Days.” At the close of each number, the customers would throw nickels and dimes on the floor, and she’d pick them up in a hat. This was no case of charity, but of give-and-take in a spirit of fellowship. The customers were all factory workers. Betty was Mabel’s daughter, and Mabel was one of them, fighting to get them more dough. Why shouldn’t they help when she was on her uppers? Besides, the kid gave them their money’s worth. Look at her! Half-pint of pluck and fire and a voice, knocking herself out to entertain them. “Yeah, Betty!” Betty blinked and came to. She was no longer eight and nobody was throwing nickels and dimes. “Hiya, fellas. Just wanted my pals to see where they raised me from a pup.” «N the tour of the plant Betty was an incident. “Where’s Mabel?” they yelled, and hoisted her to their shoulders. Took her to the upholstery department. Gave her a hammer — the kind she used to hit tacks with. Showed her the new car Betty had picked for her. Queen Mabel! With Miss Hutton of Hollywood trailing happily along. Then the executive dining room and a luncheon by Chrysler’s top brass to honor the Huttons. They made speeches to Mabel, and as Mabel rose to reply, Betty prayed alone. “Oh God, please, please, God, don’t let her make a mistake.” At the age of nine, Betty’s mother had been sent to work, and her formal education came to a close. Understandably, therefore, she sometimes fails to stick to grammarbook rules. That Betty should have cared so much may seem out of proportion. The fact remains that she’s passionately protective of her mother. Shaking inside as Mabel rose, she prayed. Mabel gave out with a speech that fractured them. She spoke briefly, pointedly and in the purest King’s English. Closing, she turned to her hosts. “Gentlemen, when I was fighting for a union in your factory, had I known what wonderful people you are, I wouldn’t have been bitter. You must be wonderful people, or all these friends of mine wouldn’t have been working for you all these years.” On this note she sat down, while bedlam broke loose and Betty’s tears overflowed. She cried even harder when the director of the junket repeated what Mabel had said to him. “Have I done anything wrong? Did I make any blunders? Did I embarrass you in any way? Don’t redapple me, I want the truth.” He told her the truth. “Thanks, Jerry. You’ve taken fifteen years off my life.” Saturday in Lansing. Riding in the parade with Governor Williams. Watching them hang a plaque on the old house: “This is where Betty Hutton lived.” Sitting with Mabel between the Governor and the Mayor at the Red Stocking Luncheon— to kick off the drive for such underprivileged children as Betty had been. After all the speeches were done, a minister rose — for what they supposed would be the benediction. It was a benediction. He prayed for Mabel and Betty. He I thanked God Who had given them strength and courage to clear the narrows, and Who had led them to a place where Betty could bring gaiety to a troubled world. Mother and daughter gripped hands, humble, grateful and more profoundly moved than by all that had gone before. And of all places — in Lansing, which they’d left in a hurry. Not to put too fine a point on it, they’d been virtually thrown out. Mom ran a blind pig in the very house where the plaque now hung. Her husband had left her. Somehow she had to put food in the mouths of her kids. People came for beer and gin. The beer was okay, but the gin was illegal, and one night the cops arrived. Friends stalled them long enough for Mom’s trembling fingers to bundle the children up. Three forlorn figures, they fled out into the snow and made their way to Detroit. . . . Now the two who had come back sat there, heads bowed under the lovely light of God’s blessing. In the old days, Lansing had provided another blessing — Aunt Cuma. On the Sunday after the Red Stocking luncheon there was a family get-together at Aunt Cuma’s. She cooked for twenty. The dishes towered to the ceiling. Betty shooed them all out of the kitchen, and washed every last dish, same as she used to do. Left the kitchen immaculate, same as she used to do. Cuma was one of Mom’s most loyal friends. She was also the one person who used to say: “Take it from me, that kid’s going places someday. Nothing’ll stop her.” “Need any training?” Aunt Cuma asked that Sunday, as Betty appeared rolling her sleeves down. “Sure. Let’s sing — ” “Let’s dance, you mean — ” “Let’s do both.” So they did and had themselves a ball. . . . Battle Creek on Monday. They hadn’t much time in Battle Creek, but they saw Aunt Jessie and Uncle Ray and the cousins. JESSIE was Mabel’s real aunt, Betty’s great aunt, and she’d always made much of Marion. Betty felt like the outsider, looking in. Marion went to Battle Creek every summer and returned well outfitted for school — new dresses, new shoes. Betty, two years younger, wore the cast-offs with a sense of burning injustice and terrible envy. “I’ve read some of the stories,” Aunt Jessie said, “and they hurt me. You were such a frantic, restless child, Betty. Marion was quiet. She liked our quiet ways. You never cared for them.” “I understand. I’m old enough now to understand lots of things. But there’s one thing I’d like you to understand too, Aunt Jessie. All I ever really wanted from you was love.” Her aunt’s eyes filled with tears. “I loved you, dear. Maybe I didn’t know how to show it. But I do now. This is the first time since my daughter died that I’ve ever gone out. The first time in fifteen years.” •Betty pressed her warm cheek against the older one. “Thanks for coming, Aunt Jessie. And let’s forget all the rest — ” * * * She was three when they left Battle Creek, six when they took flight from Lansing, not quite fifteen when she stormed out of Detroit. “I can’t stand this place, I can’t stand school, I can’t stand the way we live, I’ve got to get out.” . . . She’d been singing at the Graystone Ballroom, telling everybody she was eighteen. Among the few who fathomed the desperate urgency that drove her was Charlie Stanton, manager of the place. He was kind to her, called her Tomato, earned her deathless gratitude by arranging an audition with Tommy Dorsey.