Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1946)

Two Girls and a Friendship ( Continued from page 50) whenever I’d hear Junie wailing all over somebody's living room about “Oh, how I wish I were pretty. Oh, what I’d do for a classic profile or a longer neck or curlier hair!” For Pete’s sake, what does she want, diamonds in her teeth? Because if anybody ever had cause to complain, what about me, the original half-man, half -beast? And she complains yet! Like the first rehearsal we had for “Best Foot.” Even though we were scared, golly, we were excited. Junie and I had our big moment in a trio we did with Vicki Schools, a magnolia-blossoms-in-the-moonlight, honey-chile, gal. Some competition — and frankly, I was out to give it all I could. So we get onstage, the lights go up, I grab a quick look at Junie — and nearly fall through the floor! “This kid’ll never make it,” I moan. “She washes out under these lights, she looks like a blob of something.” She just stood there, arms linked in mine, and made funny little noises like the um-aah-ooh routine she’d pulled over our water cooler that day. So I pinched her plunk on her pert little fanny to startle her into life. But did she scream? She did not! She stopped right in the middle of a note, gave me a cold glance, snorted “Ha!” and picked up the next line neat as you please. And to cap the climax, what happens? Opening night, everybody who troupes backstage to our dressing room gives me the old back-slapping routine, “Gee, you were swell, Nancy. And, say, by the way, who was the peach in the blue dress? She stands out like a chewing-gum sign.” Well, what the heck, nobody’s right all the time. SfOW that I think of it, I suppose I was 1* really the glad-hander, the “hya Joe, whaddya know” gal of the team. Junie, on the other hand, was always with us but never of us. She loves people, sometimes even hero-worships them, but she can never quite get into the act and become one of them. It’s just the way she’s built, I guess, and on her it looks good. Fact is, one of the few times I ever saw her relax and get into the swing of things was at the Dick Whitings.” Dick wrote hits like “My Ideal,” “Japanese Sandman,” and “Till We Meet Again.” Well, the Whitings, Dad (God rest his soul), and Maggie, the “It Might As Well Be Spring” gal, ' always kept open house and it was sort of an unwritten rule that no one could just come in or go out. All their visitors had to make a big splash and catch everyone’s eye every time they came through the front door, sing a song, dance a dance or pull something a la “the calla lilies are in bloom again” on the exit. Corny, sure, but find me the actor who isn’t. And we loved it. Yaa, hams! Well, this evening, it must have been midnight and June was starting to get sleepy when she heard me bellow, “S’help me, Allyson’s the only singer I know who can go flat with a thirty-two piece orchestra behind her!” Heck, she knew I wasn’t being catty because here I was kidding about it right under her nose. But it hurt her pride. And when that baby’s pride is hurt, what’s block busters, what’s atomic bombs? The blue eyes snapped wide awake, went flippity-flop, then oozed down into a Bacall bedroom stare. And the wallpaper started curling. Because you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Junie doing “St. Louis Woman,” snake hips, wail and slide note complete. But kidding aside, if all this makes Junie sound like a stagestruck little kid in love with the glamour of the theater, I apologize. Because that’s all wrong. June is one of the most sincere, most intense and most honest enter ii Like a caress, the E-Z Glove gently, quickly erases mannish leg hair ( '7e^ ecMten&"} — makes your legs smooth, feminine, nylon-lovely. Discard smelly chemicals and dangerous razors — use this dainty hair eraser for legs and arms. It’s called E-Z — because it’s so easy to use! Millions sold yearly at all chain store cosmetic counters in lOtf and 39tf packets. S‘Z ate# a?/ For underarms, face, and back of neck use E-Z Finger-Tip Glove Largest Selling Depilatory Copyright 1946, A/Sartorius & Co., Inc., Fifth Ave., N.Y. 11, N.Y. A HELEN NEUSHAEFER PRODUCT ’ver why SO ;"use Bathos s hardest ,nCeS: Garden Bouqe, >p ■ sh?the\Bathasweet "-(lV«StUi Wll-0 terse J asm ener,'ne^ ierfullype^exfra-ch eef beauty b^hdNow luet . fo •SKr***' Sbtobl(r°™e; ACCESSORIES p 129