Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1961)

p continued objective attitude toward death . . . but with it a shrug and an “everybody’s got to go some time feeling that gives her relaxed nerves while older heads are being lost. ... In a plane she falls asleep soon as her safety belt is fastened. Winging to a date in Texas she slept all through the early stages of engine trouble and the growing tension aboard. When the sickening lurching finally woke her, she embarrassed poor Dub no end. Over the praying and even weeping of fellow passengers you could hear the voice of this pint-sized pixie. "Hey Dub,” she asked calmly, but loud, “we gonna crash?” The kid had spunk Fortunately, they didn’t. . . . The half-inch scar on Brenda’s face dates much further back — to age three. It slants at an intriguing angle from her right eyebrow to her nose, a souvenir of early childhood impetuousness. Romping in the kitchen with her sister made both of them thirsty, whereupon Brenda challenged Linda, "Race you to the sink.” She was little and fat but she got there first, made a flying leap for the faucet and missed . . . cracked her head on the spigot of a gas can next to the sink and was rushed to the doctor for seven stitches. Her mother, Grace Tarpley, remembers that they didn t put the toddler to sleep, but she didn’t cry. Just held tight to her hand and kept asking, “Is he fru yet? Is he fru yet?” The next year Linda, who was all of six, took her little sister to school and entered her in a talent contest. Brenda sang “Slow Poke” and won a box of peppermint sticks. She liked peppermint so much that she decided to become a singer. She grew up with perfect pitch, able to hear a tune once and pick it up, and she never learned to read music. Her father lived to see her on TV in small shows — he stayed home every Saturday to mind the baby brother Randall while Mom took Brenda to the TV studio . . . and he died convinced she was going to be somebody. When Dub took over the reins of her career she was a veteran performer of eleven who’d held more mikes than dolls in her hands, and who never got stage fright. And he was a mild-mannered, soft-spoken guy with old-fashioned ideas about little girls. A crazy character That first summer of their togetherness he was sitting outside their cabana in Daytona Beach, Florida, when he saw some crazy character buzzing around the sand on a motorcycle. He called inside to Grace Tarpley, “Come on out and look at that durn fool down there. Is he mad? He’s gonna skid off that thing and scrape the hide off hisself.” The sand was flying out from under the wheels and a dozen times the cycle was about to tip over. Dub muttered. “I swear that idiot’s gonna kill himself.” The idiot zigzagged crazily up the beach, screeched up to them, spattering sand right and left, and somehow got off on two feet. But they were such tiny feet. Brenda’s, of course. She was grimy and sweaty and grinning like there was no tomorrow. Dub was so scared he bawled her out but good. Try anything once Brenda stood giving them her innocent look. When he was all through raging, she said, “But Dub, what’s all the shouting? I only wanted to try it once.” Trying anything once — that’s big with Brenda. There was the time in Porto Allegro, Brazil, when the fans got out of hand for a change. They were jammed sardine-tight at front and rear doors. The police couldn’t clear a path. As a last resort they made a flying wedge and carried Brenda hand-to-hand over their heads to the waiting car. No sooner were they in than hysterically screaming fans swarmed over the car. fists pummelled the closed windows. The ear rocked dangerously. White-faced. Dub leaned over to the front seat where the interpreter and the driver scrunched under the dashboard, fumbling with wires. “What are you doing?” he shouted. The interpreter gestured towards the driver. “He says must fix siren ( Continued on page 91 I 72