Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1949)

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And newspaper headlines all over the land, certainly,, proclaimed Bob’s date with Lila Leeds. Still, Dorothy Mitchum forgave Bob and thus gave him, her sons and herself another chance for happiness together. But her attitude, my friends, took a very special brand of courage. And you can say that again for Lilli Palmer. Someone I know was on the plane that flew Lilli back to Hollywood after the Carole Landis suicide splashed the name of Rex Harrison all over the front pages. “Lilli had obviously been crying,” I was told. “But she sat quietly in a back seat of the plane, and when we came down in Chicago, she went quietly to the ladies’ room. She stayed there until we took off again and it was only when she was surrounded by reporters at the Los Angeles airport that we all realized who she was.” And then there was that brave, pathetic photograph of Lilli standing by the side of Rex during the funeral of Miss Landis. 1 CRIED a little when I learned that Susan Peters was flying East for summer stock in “The Glass Menagerie.” She played the Julie Hayden role in a wheel chair. Susan’s character is in the sublime class. It took courage, too — a patient day-byday kind of courage for stars like Robert Ryan and Kirk Douglas to stick to their careers when years went by and nothing happened — except another mediocre role in another B picture. Bob Ryan thought his years as a B boy were over when he landed with Fred Astaire in “The Sky’s the Limit.” The sky dropped for Robert with the war. Afterward he co-starred with Ginger Rogers in “Tender Comrade.” This flopped with a thud. But then came “Crossfire” and the heartbreaks and disappointments dropped into the past tense. The first time I met Kirk Douglas was on the set of his first picture, “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.” He smiled all during our talk. He continued to smile, during the following two years, when his roles diminished with each picture. But, finally, the supposedly B producer Stanley Kramer wanted a man who looked like a fighter for “Champion.” Kirk literally went down on his knees and begged for the part, in what we all thought would be a very unimportant production. You know what happened. A new star was bom. People say Kirk has changed with his good fortune. He has not. He always believed in himself. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had the courage to stick it out when all around were whispering, “He’s a failure.” I admire the courage of Ingrid Bergman’s husband, Doctor Peter Lindstrom. While all the world smiled that awful smile given to husbands whose wives are in the spotlight with another man, the doctor flew to Italy to see Ingrid, then gave out a dignified statement about “indissoluble affection” binding him to Ingrid. I know very few men as brave as the Doctor. You know who I think has a lot of courage? Jess Barker, the husband of Susan Hayward. Jess is now going through the dark period suffered by Ryan, Douglas, et al, in the past. But his case is even more desperate because there is always the dayby-day contact with his successful wife. But Jess won’t give up or in. “I’m going to make good as an actor,” he tells me always, when I see him. Atta boy! The first time I lunched with Jane Greer, she told me that when she was fifteen or sixteen, she woke up one day with one side of her face completely paralyzed. To a sensitive teen-ager, who had already decided to be a singer, this was just about the biggest tragedy that could happen. It would have finished even the thought of a career for most girls. But Jane went to work to re-educate the dead muscles of her face. It took her two years before she could smile. Now, she is laughing because she has everything, a wealthy husband who loves her, a great future in pictures and two beautiful children. (ALMOST did a handspring for joy, when Pat Morison knocked the New York critics for a loop in Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate.” If ever a girl was dead, buried, with the funeral service said, it was Pat Morison. It was not her fault, either. Her glands were the “heavy” in the case, and I’m speaking very literally. After a good picture start at Paramount, Pat put on fat. She didn’t eat, she was too worried to eat. But her figure grew to a rounded two hundred pounds. Several doctors, years, and sanatoriums later, Pat was back to her old slim self. But Hollywood yawned in her agent’s face when he suggested another chance for his client. Pat wept not, neither did she complain. She spent eighteen hours a day improving her singing voice and dramatic possibilities. Now, Hollywood is scrambling for the privilege of employing Pat. Success, it’s wonderful. Gene Tierney has always been a gal with courage. After the kicking around she received at the beginning of her Hollywood career, I wasn’t too surprised -when she also survived the kicking around of her marriage with Oleg Cassini. When Gene was expecting their second baby, Oleg was reported running around New York with a beautiful blonde. Previously, Gene and Oleg had separated for a while, and that time there was supposedly a female maggot in the woodpile, too. Gene courageously took stock of her marital investment, decided it would be worth more in the long rim to stay with it. To date she has been proved right. Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie are two gals I will always admire. They say, m town, that you just can’t win when you take on a fight with a major studio. Both Liwy and Joan took on Warner Brothers. Liwy won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. In the two years of lawsuits with Warners, she lost her money and her health. Joan didn’t have the satisfaction of the final legal verdict. But she fought to a standstill, and it takes great courage to fight a studio whether you win, lose or draw or whether you are right or wrong. No story of Hollywood courage is complete without including Peggy Cummins. Yes, I mean Amber. Never, in all the years that I have covered the Hollywood scene, has anyone been crucified so murderously as little Peggy. If only they had softpedalled the fanfare when she was chosen to star in “Forever Amber.” But the poor kid was ballyhooed to the limit. So, when they took her out of the picture, she should have collapsed like a punctured balloon. There is a small spot in Peggy’s heart that will never be quite healed of the humiliation that tore her apart, very, very privately, at that awful period in her life. But there was no sign of the scar when she emerged to make another movie. Now, Peggy has a nice career, and maybe it was just as well that she didn’t play Amber. 1 seem to have been the only critic who could sit through it! Hollywood, you see, need not blush for its people. The End 98