Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1944)

62 he was the most popular boy in school, the leading actor and scholar and president of his class. The stage had solved his problems of adjusting himself to life. But worse problems were only a few months away. Again they were tied up with a woman — and they were to create memories which he could hardly escape, a few years later. She was Jennifer Jones (though her name was then Phylis Isley), and she was a warm, friendly, graceful girl whom he met the very first day he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where a wealthy aunt had sent him after hearing his acting record at the San Diego Military Academy. Above his tuition she’d given him nothing — so Bob’s courtship was conducted on a financial shoestring. When they were married, a year after they met, it was in her home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the vast sum of $200 which he’d saved from a contract with a local radio station. Their one other asset was a blue convertible, which was a wedding present from her parents. But neither of them cared: They were in love, they were young, and no doubt the world would soon awaken to their joint acting talents. They drove off toward Hollywood, where they thought the studios would probably fight for them. Five months went by in Hollywood, with their larder getting emptier every day. Then one evening after Bob had driven them both back to their ramshackle cottage after another fruitless day of job-hunting, he sat down in the living bedroom and told himself bluntly that they had only ten dollars left. He was still digesting this fact when he became aware that Jennifer (who’d been acting mysterious all day, anyway) was standing in the kitchen doorway staring at him — and managing to look mysterious even now, with a frying pan in one hand. She finally revealed her mystery. “Bob,” she said gently, “we’re going to have a baby.” That galvanized Bob into terrified action. The next morning he went quietly out and sold their beloved car — and that very afternoon they left on the cheapest train available for the City of New York again. All he could say to Jennifer was, “I’m sorry, dear,” when they stood in the New York quarters they’d rented until he could find a job. They had two small, dark rooms in Greenwich Village, for which they were paying $16 a month. Months dragged by, while their small capital got lower and lower. Bob had long since given up his adored habit of smoking and every morning he hurried past newsstands so he wouldn’t be tempted to buy a paper. Then, one wonderful day, he got a four-line part in a radio show. For it he received twenty dollars — and he rushed home that evening, tore up the three flights of stairs, and banged open the door to the dark little rooms. “Jennifer!” he shouted. “I just made my first acting money since we’ve been married — and it inspired me. Our luck’s going to change, I know it! So I’ve already done a few things. . . .” He grabbed her wrist and dragged her down three flights of stairs with him again. At the curb before their rickety dwelling was a dilapidated old coupe. Bob pointed it out proudly. “I put a down-payment on it — it’ll cost $75 altogether!” he was shouting. “And I also put a down payment on a miserable little cottage out on Long Island. If we’re going to be parents, we should be in the country. Let’s pack, right now!” They did, and they left that night for “the country,” which was Long Beach. Jennifer bumped and rattled all the way out to their new home in their very old new car and winced involuntarily when she saw it. Bob winced too. It was a ramshackle little clapboard house and cold winds blew through every crack, and outside the wet fog sat over their roof. About four in the morning Jennifer prodded him awake. Even before she spoke he knew by her face what she was going to say. The baby was on its way — brought on before schedule by that wild ride out there. There was another wild ride to the Forest Hills Hospital. Bob watched the nurses take Jennifer into a doorway with his face working and his stomach suddenly gone. He found himself silently making her wild promises of success and security while he stalked alone up and down the hospital corridors — for exactly ten minutes. Then a nurse, grinning widely, appeared and told him, “Mr. Walker, you have just had a son. Your wife is resting nicely. You can see her this afternoon — and you can go away now.” Bob didn’t leave the hospital on his feet — he flew. By some miracle of gravity he landed in his rattley car and by some miracle of machinery he raced it into New York City — singing boisterously and uproariously the while. There he blew aggressively into two radio stations . . . and to his complete amazement, landed two radio jobs with two serials— which meant steady money for months and big money. This shock collapsed his wild spirits and by the time he saw Jennifer he could only whisper feebly, “Darling, I think we’re ( Continued on page 99) T+EE kid s GOOD RHEA ONCE upon a time there was a youngster who lived in Hollywood, a happy, normal little boy who liked to fly his kite on a windy day and played a mean game of marbles. He was just Any Little Boy, for all the smile that you couldn't resist and eyes that you somehow couldn't forget. Then it happened that this youngster was "discovered" by a great film comedian and put into a motion picture. That was in the old "silent" days. The picture caught the fancy and the favor of the world and brought it to the feet of the little boy. It started him along a screen career so fabulous it has never been excelled by a child star and equalled only once. It made his parents rich. It made the producers of his pictures rich. It gave him everything, you'd think. But there you'd be wrong. This fine career didn't give him happiness. What fun was a "career" to a six-year-old boy in those days? The laws which protected child actors were very sketchy indeed. Besides, what could a fortune mean to a boy of six? Kites don't cost much; marbles don't cost much. What matters is the time to enjoy them. . . . Time marched on and this small star did an unforgivable thing. He began to grow up. Pretty soon he began to look funny in the little-boy clothes he had once worn so gracefully, even in the baggy (Continued on page 94)