Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1954)

Guy Madison's Marriage (Continued jrom page 43) at the time of her arrest. She had failed to pass two sobriety tests. Gail unconsciously clenched and unclenched her hands as she listened, but she didn’t weep. Her voice was low and steady when she voiced her plea: “Not guilty!” Her attorney asked for a continuance of the case to January 18. Minutes later, she walked out of the courtroom to face the bright lights and the prying questions. Her head was high. She knew that beyond — in the shadows — Guy Madison was waiting. How different she was from the girl who, two mornings before, had been irrational and nearly hysterical, who had touched the ordinarily stony hearts of jailbeat photographers when she flinched in the glare of their flashbulbs and made a pathetic little witticism: “I haven’t had my picture taken for some time.” Only a few years ago Gail Russell had been one of the brightest young stars in Hollywood. Remember “The Uninvited,” “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay,” “The Angel and the Bad Man,” “Salty O’Rourke?” But lately her luck had failed. Ironically (who knows how painfully for Gail?) Guy Madison’s once “dead” career had, on the merits of his Wild Bill Hickok characterizations on radio and TV, zoomed to new heights. “The Charge at Feather River” is a smash success, and more big adventure films loom for him under terms of his new million-dollar contract with Warner Brothers. For Gail, this sordid arrest was just one more grim chapter in a success story which had turned sour. And, as on the day her name was smeared across the front pages in connection with the John Wayne divorce case, Gail was alone when it happened. Two mornings before, while Gail was being booked and fingerprinted, Guy Madison had been fast asleep in his bachelor apartment, unaware that his wife had been driving about the city streets alone, dazed and lost. She was literally lost, as she explained to the police officers, and she was spiritually lost, for the moment, in the whirlpool of her own intense emotions. But today Guy was loyally at her side, and Gail could feel confident and safe. There have been speculations, since Guy rushed to Gail’s rescue in this latest heartbreak chapter in their lives, that the two would reconcile. This is not likely. Less than a week before the arrest incident, Guy had told Photoplay in an exclusive interview that there would be no reconciliation. But divorce, he said, was not an immediate possibility, because Gail was “recovering from a severe emotional disturbance,” and “thinking things out.” It was apparent, as he spoke, that he would do no brutal slamming of doors. Perhaps, deep, deep in the recesses of his heart, there was a secretly buried hope — secret even from his conscious mind — that there was still a slim thread of hope for this battered marriage. They had just returned together from Seattle where Guy had taken GaU in the hope that she would enter a renowned sanitarium where she could have intensive psycho-therapeutic treatment away from the tension-making Hollywood world. For Gail needed such help, and at long last had agreed to accept it. "The story had been kept out of the columns and away from the gossip-mongers, thanks to the loyalty of Guy’s and Gail’s co-workers and close friends. But the tragic “mystery problem” which is the core of the Madisons’ marital trou It washes or rinses, drains, damp-dries, turns itself off ,,, all automatically! /(,>,. > »’ / ,and iio'^lycos^s. i69 ‘•'V. that’s even I® lots ot,yiirin.9-' It’s wonderful! Does a full-sized 8 lb. wash, with new SuperAgitator cleaning action! Floataway-Flushaway draining keeps dirty wash -water from straining through clothes to re -soil them. Completely portable. Rolls anywhere, stores anywhere. New Flexible Metexaloy Wondertub is so durable, it’s guaranteed, in writing, for 5 full years 1 Honestly, what other machine could possibly give you so much for your money? *model-wdn BENDIX HOME APPLIANCES, AVCO Manufacturing Corp., Cincinnati 25, Ohio