Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1951)

NEW TYPE DEODORANT! • HO MUSS • NO FUSS • NO DRIP • NO WASTE p 82 Because it's in STICK FORM rsrtgs sce^ed yfjQXS L0cveX \*Pr. ca^' taetJ v&ZL ^f^tatv'- c6cJ.^S Skouie^ CHERAMY Or,” he laughed again, “if you’ll take yours vanilla — you get that, too. “You may wear sports clothes, or dress clothes — it’s up to you. Nothing is ever made to seem unusual! “From the beginning they made it plain that I was to do the things I enjoyed doing. I like tennis, basketball and horseback riding. But most of all, I like to play the drums — did you know that? I used to feel guilty about that, sort of silly. But at Menninger’s they made me feel this was not out of the ordinary at all. Someday, when I’m bored, I’m going to join an orchestra and play the drums!” He smiled, but he wasn’t kidding. “That wouldn’t have been dignified in the old days — but in my new scheme of doing things I’m going to have the fun and the release of doing things I want to do just because I want to do them.” I suspected that a psychiatrist at Menninger’s had given Dan that bit of advice. As to the medical and psychiatric treatment he underwent at the Clinic — I knew he could not and would not talk about a subject that can only be discussed by experts, not amateurs, and is subject to change with the individual involved. But Dan wants the world to know that people who need help should not be afraid to seek it. “I am telling you this because I know other people who are troubled as I was can find solace and comfort and get back on their feet again,” he said, quietly. Dan is one of the lucky ones who responded very fast. He came along so beautifully that, at the end of three months, he asked for and received permission to return to Los Angeles and work out a divorce property settlement with Liz. A great many people thought Dan looked and acted so well he should not go back. But he had received so much help, he wanted to go back and stay until he and his doctors were perfectly satisfied about his condition. “They don’t police you at Menninger’s,” he went on, “When I went back the second time I asked if I might enroll in the Washburn University and study writing and political philosophy. “I went to school three days a week — loving every minute of it. Finally, they said to me, ‘There’s nothing more we can do for you here. You’d better move on and make room for someone else.’ I tell you truthfully I was loath to leave.” He chuckled, “After I left, I even missed the old movies they used to show. You should have seen those pictures. I saw an old one of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s — made before he spoke with a British accent!” He was so glowingly healthy and his sense of humor was so completely restored that I ventured to ask what he thought had brought about his breakdown in the first place. The crack-up of his marriage, perhaps? “No,” he replied positively, “Oh, no. You know, I really hadn’t been myself since I came out of the Army. And yet, I tried to keep going, tied up in knots — never stopping to take stock of myself until I was face to face with the breaking point. “Even making a picture was drudgery — and I love my work. I’m a born song-anddance man. I’m happiest when working. “But it isn’t fair to blame the condition I was in either on my work or on the end of my marriage to Liz. We were not happy together and we could not work out our marriage. But other people have weathered divorces without going to pieces. That’s all in the past, anyway. “Let’s just say — and it’s pretty close to the truth — that I nearly cracked up because I was straining my nerves to the breaking point. I pushed myself beyond the point that I could go. But, luckily, I stopped in time — I stopped when I had the courage to admit to myself that I was ill.” Dan talked so sincerely that I can only hope I have put it down on paper as graphically as he said it. “People who are not of the theatre,” he said, “fail to grasp the problem of an actor, an artist — whatever you wish to call us. They have little conception of the demands on our nerves and the tension under which we live and work. Actors — to be actors — are sensitive creatures. That’s the way we are made.” “They are very nice creatures,” I said, “who give great happiness to other people and to the world.” “And I, for one, intend to find and keep some happiness for myself now that I am well again,” Dan told me. “My greatest happiness, of course, comes through my little boy. I won’t have my son with me all the time. That is my real regret over the break-up of my marriage,” he said, “but I will see him often. “You ought to see that kid. He can do a split, a turn and any dance routine. He’s only three-and-a-half and is a dead ringer for me — not saying that with conceit, either. “Yes, I think he will probably grow up wanting to go on the stage and I won’t block him. I’ll give him all the help I can. There’s lots of happiness in show business. It’s just that some of us show people get off the trolley now and then.” Thank heavens — Dan Dailey is back on the trolley again. He is a fine man — and someday, somewhere, with someone, he is going to find that happiness and understanding he has sought for so long. He is well and wise and strong again. And when love comes along again for him, he will value it all the more for the dark days of loneliness he has gone through. The End Listen to HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY A complete romantic drama presented on each program. Cal York, famed PHOTOPLAY Magazine reporter, digs into Hollywood’s love life for these heart-palpitating stories. Also latest Hollywood news. ★ ★ ★ ★ Every Saturday morning, 11 A.M. EDT, NBC ■