Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1955)

Rumor's Targets ( Continued, jrom page 51) After ten years, she goes shopping for gowns and stands before the store mirror staring critically at her reflection. “Do you think my husband will like this one?” she asks anyone who happens to be standing nearby. She still adds softly, “I want to look glamorous. For Richard.” All might have been different if Richard had lacked his ever-present wisdom and patience and understanding, if June had failed to find the courage to grow up. Even Richard had his doubts during their courtship. In fact, he refused to admit it was a courtship. The entire idea was pretty ridiculous to him. June Allyson was a cute kid whom he’d met casually when she was doing a show on Broadway. They’d met again when they made “Meet the People” at M-G-M. And again when June and Nancy Walker were sent to New York for theatre appearances. Richard was in town at the time and he caught their show. The girls were good, but there wasn’t a great deal they could do with sad material. Afterwards, he went backstage. “Bad, huh?” said Nancy. "If I tell you I’ll only depress you more,” he said. ‘Impossible,” said June. So he sat down for a while and tried to cheer them up. June Allyson was only a kid, of course, but she was such a sweet kid that once back in Hollywood, he thought he’d call her. June’s housekeeper, who doubled as chaperone, told him that June was in bed with pneumonia. “Tell her to be a good girl and get well and I’ll take her to dinner sometime,” said Richard. “Sometime,” muttered June when she received the message. And the more she said it the more distant it became. How do you circle “sometime” on the calendar? A few evenings later, Richard stopped by the apartment with an armful of roses. Several of June’s friends were there and Richard spent the evening playing bridge with the housekeeper. “That’s when June started flirting with me,” he says. “As I recall, you were the one who flirted with me,” corrects his wife. Eventually she recovered and he took her out to dinner. They liked being together and, as the weeks went by, they found themselves together quite often. But it was no courtship. Anyone could have told you. Richard Powell, for instance. However, confusion set in the night he delivered her to her doorstep and leaned down to kiss her good night. June drew away. “I have something to ask you,” she said. And it took every ounce of her nerve. “All right,” said Richard. “Just what are your intentions?” He looked at her standing there so primly. “Had any other offers?” he inquired. “Two,” she said and stepped inside and closed the door. He went home, but that night he couldn’t sleep. He tried counting sheep, but they turned into proposals from two other guys. What if she were serious about accepting one of them? How could she when she was in love with him? “As it turned out I had to ask her to marry me several times,” he says. “She became quite coy.” “I liked to hear you ask,” she says. The wedding was at the home of their friends Bunny and Johnny Green. They’d set the time for 7 p.m., but around noon June began to worry. Her maid of honor wasn’t ready. Her housekeeper would surely never be dressed in time. To save their sanity, they shoved a book at her and commanded rather heartlessly, “Read. Don’t talk.” When it was time to leave for the Greens’, June insisted on taking the wheel. And talking. “Out of the way,” she crowed to the evening traffic. “I’m on the way to my wedding!” There were tears in her eyes and she walked down the stairs to stand beside Richard. “And those eyes were four times bigger than her face,” he remembers. When the ceremony began she hardly heard it. Then the judge’s voice got through to her. “Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded wife?” “Do I . . . what?” said June coming out of the trance. The statement was corrected when the laughter stopped. “I do,” said June. “Yes, I do.” After the honeymoon on Richard’s boat, the Powells moved into an apartment to await the completion of their new home. Mrs. Powell was on her own in housekeeping. She tried cooking. The first time, they sat down to what the cookbook said was a well-balanced meal. Technically, it was true. However, the meat shriveled, the potatoes would have required identification by an expert, and the salad turned out terribly tired. “Who cares?” said Richard. Richard was a man of many interests. She’d never had time for hobbies or sports. He loved planes. She didn’t like them even when they were standing still, on the ground. So she’d grit her teeth, climb into his plane and they’d be in Palm Springs before she’d breathe again. Richard was nuts about golf. She’d get up early and head for the golf course. About sundown she’d stagger home, having had such encouragement from the caddy as, “You’re doing fine. In a couple of years you’ll really have the game down.” The idea was to go around the course with Richard occasionally. “But you’d go out of your mind waiting around for me, wouldn’t you?” she’d ask him. “Uh huh,” he’d say. She’d never lived in a house before. There had always been apartments. “I set out to be a real, solid housewife,” she recalls. One day she went shopping for furniture for the den. The next day it was delivered and put into place. June took a good look at the results. “It’s awful,” wailed the solid housewife. The room was Tudor and the furniture was Early American. And somehow the combination failed to turn out as she’d expected. “Say it, Richard,” she requested. “It does look awful.” “Well, yes,” he said. “It does.” And the furniture went back the next day. With each mistake, she felt more foolish, became more afraid to accept the responsibility that she already feared. She began to shy away from it again. How could she make a mistake if he did everything? “She was scared in the beginning,” says Richard. “Her fear of responsibility magnified the mistakes. But after a while I began sort of shoving it off on her, by just leaving things undone. She’d call me and say something was wrong. I’d say, ‘You take care of it.’ “When we redid the house for the first time, I had to do it. She wanted the same next time. I said, ‘No.’ “It took her a month, but she did it,” he grins. “And she did a good job of it.” His friends terrified her. “They were all well-established people who had achieved their goals,” says June. “I had just come out and was starting a whole new life. Mentally I was a good deal younger. They all seemed so well-organized and puttogether and I never thought I could be. “But mostly I worried about the fact that they might not think I was right for Richard. I was surprised when they accepted me from the first. And I was grateful. I learned a lot from them.” -There were the Justin Darts and the Leonard Firestones, among others. “I didn’t know where to put a chair or what color it should be when I got it put,” says June. “Polly Firestone never told me anything. She’d just say, ‘Let’s go sit in the house and see what would be pretty where.’ “She steered me into doing things she knew Richard would like. I always thought I’d done them. Now I know I never really did!” Her career had been the most important thing in her life, until her marriage. Yet she’d wake up and moan, “I don’t feel like going to work today.” “Then you won’t feel well enough to get your check,” her husband would say. “Richard taught me that the picture ANSWERS TO CROSSWORD PUZZLE ON PAGE 76 Across 1. Lei "h (Janet) 6. Scope 11. J A (June Allyson) 13. also 14. Richard Egan 16. De 17. boys 18. N D (Nancy Davis) 19. yacht 22. Trailer 26. nearest 27. Seven 28. M O (Maureen O'Hara) 29. Me 30. R W (Richard Widmark) 31. art 33. Agnes (Moorehead) 35. To 36. Nader (George) 38. owe 40. D M (Dorothy McGuire) 41. Re 42. G N (Gene Nelson) 43. F S (Frank Sinatra) 45. ex 46. Reed (Donna) 48. It 49. Hours 53. Foy (Eddie) 54. Cansino 57. Night 59. E G (Edmund Gwenn) 60. overact 61. Elg (Taina) 62. Nerneys 64. Lamas (Fernando) 67. Is 68. Eve (Arden) 69. extra Down 1. Lady 2. Eleanor (Parker) 3. Is 4. Gotham (New York) 5. Rib 6. shy 7. casts 8. or 9. P D (Paul Douglas) 10. eerie 11. Jane ( Wyman) 12. Andrews (Dana) 15. cost 20. C E (Cliff Edwards) 21 . Trevor ( Claire) 23. R E ( Ralph Edwards) 24. aviator 25. L N ( Lori Nelson) 28. Magnificent 30. Red 32. Todd (Richard) 34. Gower (Champion) 37. Emerson 39. Andy (Devine) 42. Georgia 44. stage 47. E F (Eddie Fisher) 49. horse 50. Uncle 51. Rita (Moreno) 52. S G (Stewart Granger) 55. I've 56. Ney (Richard) 58. test 63. R V (Rudy Vallee) 65. Me 66. ax