Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1954)

p 96 1954 EDITION ON SALE— NOW Get your copy of this great Annual from your newsdealer now. Only 50c. This yearbook sells out as soon as it is placed on sale. Or, if more convenient, mail coupon — TODAY. RADIO-TV MIRROR Dept. WG-454 205 E. 42 St., New York 17, N. Y. Send me postpaid, a copy of TVRADIO ANNUAL 1954. I enclose 50c. Name. . . . Pfease Print Address . . State This Gorgeous Yearbook Contains Your Favorite TV-Radio Stars Here's the yearbook that TV and radio set owners await with glee! It covers all the events and all the history-making moments of all the great shows and programs of 1953. This exciting new edition is better than ever! The editors of RadioTV Mirror have outdone even themselves! This is the big TV-radio book-of-the-year. It contains hundreds of illustrations . . . stories about the lives of all your favorites! Just feast your eyes over the contents of this gorgeous yearbook. Remember— this is not just another magazine — it's a book that you will cherish and refer to for years to come. It's a real collector's item. And it costs only 50c at all newsstands. NEWS EVENTS OF THE YEAR— The behind-the-scenes stories of Julius La Rosa • Herb Shriner • Jack Webb • Ray Milland • Phyllis Avery • Jeff Clarke • Donald O'Connor • Walter Brooke and Betty Wragge • Milton Berle • Eve Arden and Brooks West • Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer • Dean Martin. NEW SHOWS OF THE YEAR— Danny Thomas • Jean Hagen • Liberace • Paul Hartman • Fay Wray ♦ Dave Garruway • Brandon de Wilde • Ernest True.x • Mike Wallace • Lurene Tuttle • Ray Bolger • Eddie Fisher • Win Elliot • Ann Sothern • Jan Murray • Bob Crosby. WHO'S WHO ON TV— Bishop Fulton J. Sheen Kate Smith Show • Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz • Martha Raye • Randy Merriman * Bess Myerson • Steve Allen • John Daly • Perry Como • Martin and Lewis • Robert Q. Lewis • Garry Moore • Ken Carson • Denise Lor • Art Linkletter • Peggy Wood • Judson Laire • Warren Hull • Paul Dixon • Wanda Lewis • Sis Camp • Jim Backus • Joan Davis • Tommy Bartlett • Jack Sterling • Edward R. Murrow • Art Baker • Godfrey and His Gang: Frank Parker. Marion Marlowe, Janette Davis, Haleloke, Lu Ann Simms. Tony Marvin, Mariners, McGuire Sisters • Maria Riva ♦ Eddie Albert • James Daly • John Forsythe • Margaret Hayes • John Newland • Sarah Churchill • Joey Walsh • Mark Stevens • Beverly Tyler • Loretta Young • Ralph Bellamy • Robert Montgomery • Elizabeth Mont* gomery • John Baragrey • Constance Ford. STARS OF THE DAYTIME DRAMAS— Ma Perkins • Guiding Light • Search For Tomorrow • Second Mrs. Burton • Stella Dallas • Hilltop House • Our Gal Sunday • Right To Happiness • Road Of Life • Front Page Farrell • Hawkins Falls • Just Plain Bill • The Bennetts • Young Dr. Malone • Valiant Lady • Follow Y"our Heart • Perry Mason • The Brighter Day • Pepper Y'oung's Family • Wendy Warren • Three Steps To Heaven • This Is Nora Drake • Life ('an Be Beautiful • Aunt .Jenny • Love Of Life • When A Girl Marries • The Woman In My House • Romance Of Helen Trent • Backstage Wife • Lorenzo Jones • Young Widder Brown • Rosemary. My Defense (Continued from page 47) “Honestly, Louella, what do you think is the matter? Since I don’t seem to have the right idea on all this, please, Louella, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong. Why should they do this to me?” “You and Ben come on to dinner with me at La Rue,” I proposed. “It’s quiet there and we can talk and perhaps I can tell you some things about you that may surprise even you.” So, that’s how it happened that long after most of the diners had left the cafe, and Ben was table hopping to visit with a crony or two, Esther and I sat talking over our coffee cups. I had started by saying, “Esther, did it ever occur to you that the press girls gave you the axe as the least-co-operative movie star because they are judging you by the standards of other glamour girls who live by the glamour rules? And you don’t. You never have. “For example, Joan Crawford is a movie star. So is Marilyn Monroe. And Lana Turner. And Ava — but not you, Esther. Let me tell you what a certain glamour girl, a typical run-of-the-mink movie star said when I mentioned to her my surprise at your twice winning the press club’s booby-prize. “This belle sniped: “ ‘Well, I’m not surprised. What does she know about getting there the hard way? “ ‘Did she ever date a dozen eligible drips-around-town in a different night club every night just to keep her name in the gossip columns until she got a toe-hold on a career? “ ‘This is the way many of us had to do it — but not Esther. Not on your life. Miss Neptune’s daughter sprang full-blown into stardom from a heated swimming pool and then to add insult to injury, she gets everything else that matters to a woman. “ ‘She gets her man, a house full of babies, and a fortune on the side from other investments!’ ” Esther threw back her head and laughed her hearty, healthy laugh. “Perhaps she expressed it crudely,” I said, “but there’s some truth in it.” “How do you mean, Louella?” Esther asked. And, here is what I told her: There are so many things in your life you put ahead of being a movie star. First and above everything else, you’re Ben Gage’s wife, sweetheart and his woman. It’s said that all women fall into two basic categories — the man’s-woman or the motherwoman. You’re both — but first, you belong to Ben. You are a strong, vital, happy 'woman who has found her guy — and that’s enough, sister. In your unabashed realization of your perfect mental and physical mating with Ben you have found what most women search for all their lives, and too many of them never find. And, you are smart enough to know what you’ve got and to cherish it. I’ve often heard you say without embarrassment— which is the way it should be — that you and Ben are Married Lovers. The only time I ever knew of you really blowing your top, even to wanting to take a swing at someone or something, was when Ben had a hassle with a tipsy drunk in a cocktail lounge and the gossip started that you were leaving him. You were furious. Remember you said, “Fiends and Devils! Leave us alone. What Ben does, I would have done. He’s my guy and what he does is all right with me . . .” It follows naturally that your other pre of Esther occupation, equally strong, is being mother to Benjie, Kimmie and now little Susie Gage — that happy clan of babies who swarm all over you. To them you are just Mommie — who holds the hankie while they blow their buttonhole noses and who let Kimmie cut his teeth on one of your gold loop earrings and who dries Susie’s diapers before an open fire in the living room. You once said you should have a dozen kids, you have them so easily — can’t even remember a labor pain when you wake up after one of your babies is born. And it isn’t only your own kids you love — it’s your nature to reach out to all children. That’s why you give so much of your time and yourself to the Nursery School for Visually Handicapped Children. You are at the Home as many hours a week as you can possibly spare teaching these little blind children to swim and to help them gain confidence in themselves in a dark world. I’ll never forget what you did one day when a girl who had once been a beauty in the chorus at Earl Carroll’s called me with hysteria and desperation in her voice. I barely knew her myself — but my secretary was caught by the tragedy in her voice and put me on the ’phone. She had just been told by the doctor that her baby, just nine weeks old, was stone blind and that there was no hope that the baby would ever see. “I don’t know Esther Williams,” the distraught mother sobbed, “But I know you do. Miss Parsons, I have to have help. I have taken my little boy to the Home for blind children but they tell me they can do nothing until the baby is a year old. “What can I do? Where can I turn? My poor little blind baby cries all the time. I don’t even know how to care for him. I have to have help now or I’m afraid I can’t carry this burden. Could you appeal to Esther for me, please!” You were working on the set of “Easy to Love” at the studio, but I got an emergency call through to you. “Don’t worry,” you said after I had explained the plight of this unhappy mother, “something will be done, and not a year from now. Give me that girl’s number and I’ll call her now.” I didn’t hear from you again about this, but ten days later the mother called me again to thank me and to say that an “angel” had come into her life. “Do you know what Esther Williams did?” she told me. “That very day she left the studio at her lunch hour and went to the Home. She explained the situation and said that in this case she hoped an exception would be made. “Within a few hours, I had a call from the Home. They said that at Miss Williams’ personal request they were not only taking in my baby, but my husband and I were to come to the classes for parents and receive instructions in the care and handling of a blind infant! “I can never, never tell Esther Williams what is in my heart. Will you please say it for me. Miss Parsons?” Well, as you know — I didn’t need to do this because you didn’t let that initial good deed stop there. Maybe you don’t know that I know, but you and Ben called the parents of the blind baby soon after this, invited them to your home for dinner — and you gave them your friendship as well as your help. That’s what I call being “co-operative.” And being a good wife, a good mother