Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1949)

! p after she’s just finished vacuuming the rugs. And Kate can’t take itl but her handy Bissell Sweeper gets those crumbs in a few easy swoops. It’s the only carpet sweeper with “Bisco-matic”* Brush Action. Adjusts itself automatically to thick rugs, or thin, with no pressing down on the handle. Faster, Easier Clean-ups with mi ll stums A “Bisco-matic” Bissell even sweeps clean under beds and chairs, with handle held low! Get a Bissell® for daily cleanups. Save vacuum for periodic cleaning. GIFT HINT: Bisseli's beautiful new "Flight” at $9.45. Other Bissell Sweepers with "Bisco-matic" Brush Action as low as $6.45. Prices a little more in far West. Bissell Carpet Sweeper Co. Grand Rapids 2, Mich. ♦Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Bisseli's full spring controlled brush. 70 If I Were Santa Claus ( Continued, jrom page 43) Santa now and I remember everything, the sighs, the polishing of Glenn’s little gold football around your pretty neck. Then the same, only more of it, for Bill Pawley. The brooding over the beautiful diamond he put on your finger, the sighs, because it would be months before you’d see Bill again. And now that, too, is over. How many times, I’m asking you, can a love affair be “the real thing.” James Mason gets a magic heating pad, to warm up his frigid personality. When James talks to you, he puts ten miles between his voice and your ear. And that’s a pity, because the few chums he has in Hollywood swear that James can be quite friendly. When he lets down the bars and acts normal. ND now we come to the elegant chimney of the Frank Sinatras. The best present I could give Frank is a magic adding machine, so that no matter how expansively he spends his money, there will always be more where it came from. Frank, I’m told, has earned eleven million dollars in the past six years. But he’s having a tight time paying for back income taxes. And that I can understand. The $30,000 dream cottage Frankie built in Palm Springs snowballed into a $150,000 nightmare. To pay cash for such a project, a man has to make a million and a half dollars first. His house in town cost as much. I hope Frankie will keep on forever, crooning those golden dollars. If I were Santa Claus, I’d give Lana Turner a guarantee that this, her third or is it fourth marriage, will be her last. But I’d want a guarantee from Lana in return, that she and Bob Topping will stop quarreling. Maybe I’m too late, maybe they’ve already had their last quarrel. You can make up only so many times, and enjoy it. Comes the last humdinger and another marriage is in the ashcan. For Lana, that would be a real tragedy. Because I never knew a girl who wanted to be happily married so badly. To Clark Gable, I’ll give a special home recipe to cure his current restlessness. I always do a double-take when I see Clark in a night club. He just doesn’t belong there. He belongs to the open spaces. But, whether he’s lonely or has a sudden love for publicity, or he doesn’t know what to do with his evenings, I’ve never seen him in so many night haunts with so many different charmers. Oddly enough, he doesn’t look happy. To Robert Mitchum I’m giving a bank account he can’t crack until he retires from pictures. Or he won’t be able to. Robert is up to his quizzical eyebrows in debt. Recently, he borrowed something like $50,000 from boss Howard Hughes to buy a house for his family, in the exclusive Mandeville Canyon section. “I told Howard I couldn’t start paying back for quite a few years,” Bob told me. Well, it’s a wonderful thing to have your own house. It gives a guy like Bob, especially, a good feeling of security. But, right away, he starts giving parties. This town is full of men and women who gave parties when they had it. Now they haven’t a dime. One big reason why I’d like to be Santa Claus, this season, is Judy Garland. She looks so well, I’d sure like to keep her that way. My present would be to bury all the red, white, blue and yellow capsules. And give her, forever, the peace of mind that makes you sleep like a baby. Last Christmas, Kirk Douglas was hap pily married. He was also in the B ranks of leading men. Comes his whopping success in “Champion” and he’s voted a grade A star. So his marriage promptly goes kaput. This Christmas, I’d like to set the clock back to 1948. The finest career is a poor substitute for happy marriage. To Kathryn Grayson’s husband, Johnny Johnston, a steady job. Every week, someone reports to me that Katie and Johnny are battling and that their marriage is teetering. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong that a good job for Johnny wouldn’t cure, for both Kathryn and Johnny show signs of really growing up these days. I have just the Christmas gift for Yvonne De Carlo. A man who says, “Will you marry me,” and to whom Yvonne will say, “I do,” before publicity doth them part. Yvonne has been desperately in love with at least ten men since I’ve known her. Like every normal gal she’d like to marry one of her dream beaus. “And I could have,” Yvonne has stated, “only it was all spoiled by publicity.” She was referring to her fling with stunt man Jacques O’Mahoney. But like all men, Jacques objected to the printed insinuations that he loved Yvonne for her career help. “Why,” he spluttered in an interview, “Yvonne’s in love with me because of my publicity!” That’s all brother. If I were Santa Claus, Betty Hutton would have a special soundproof home to live in without her husband, when she’s working. Betty herself admits, “I’m too tense for any man to live with when I’m making a movie.” To gay buccaneer Errol Flynn, perpetual youth. Errol, let’s face it, is facing forty, on the non-sunny side. How will he spend his spare time, when young girls look at him and say, “But you’re getting old, Father Flynn.” Can you see Errol with gray hair and a large waistline? I can’t. My present for Doris Day will have to keep until next summer. I’m giving her a new skin! Doris loves the sun. Her studio hates the freckles crowding her face after a session with King Sol. When Doris finishes a picture, she usually dashes to the desert or beach, exposes her epidermis to the sun for as long as eight hours at a stretch. Then she reports for “still” photographs and advertising art looking like a fried lobster! IF I were Santa Claus, I’d retire Betty Grable to pasture with her horses. Because that’s what she really wants. Betty was bom to be a wife and a mother. The racehorses she acquired. The career is something she wanted, to prove first to her mother, then to herself. Well, she’s proved it. But that salary! Could you surrender $300,000 a year, dear? For Farley Granger, a gift his girl fans will like, the ability to stay single for a few more years, anyway. As Hollywood’s most handsome, eligible bachelor, Farley can develop into one of the top actors on the screen. I think he can be the Valentino of today. And lastly, if I were Santa Claus, I’d ask Paulette Goddard to give me a present. I want the secret of her business acumen and the secret of her charm for men. Both are apparently indefinitely prolonged. She’s not so beautiful. She’s not so young. But Paulette always has a dozen males buzzing around. And her bank account is always a hive of activity, on the receiving end. Paulette, this is your old pal Santa asking, how do you do it? The End cm ones -Mne &nleriainment at cJ^ou) (Sost