Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1951)

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Railroad Hour on Monday evenings and making movies so he can give his family all the things he wants for them, his current project being to install a heating system in the swimming pool of the new house up in the Hollywood hills — so Sheila and the kids can swim all year ’round. He likes to get up early, put on an old shirt and slacks and have a catch with the kids before breakfast. Another of his projects is music lessons for his children. “I want all three of them to play some instrument,” he says. “Not so they can play professionally, just for their pleasure. I’d like to have a family orchestra— have the family get together evenings and make music, the way families used to do when they gathered around the piano. Even if the playing and the singing weren’t good — it was good for the family. There’s something about people making music together. . . .” And he puffs on his pipe, content in another of the simple basic theories by which he lives. I AST summer while I was in Europe the i MacRaes occupied my apartment at the Park Sheraton, which was a surprise to me until Gordon told me about it at luncheon one day. “I loved the place,” he said. “The dark green walls — with the big rooms. That was what sold me, Elsa, the size of those rooms. “Sheila looked at it first, then took me around. The minute I walked in I said, ‘This is it!’ I go for rooms a man can really stretch in. . . .” Sheila, you’ll notice, looked at the apartment first. But it was Gordon who made the decision. That’s their pattern, a pattern I suspect they resolved in their first tempestuous year of married life — for them definitely the hardest — when they quarreled often and more than once nearly separated. Gordon decides things. Sheila agrees. And Sheila is a happy woman if I ever saw one, the only actress I know who has turned her back upon an acting career in favor of a family without ever lapsing into bitter remarks about it. The most difficult adjustments Gordon and Sheila had to make was fusing two distinctly opposite personalities. He tried to temper her shyness. She tried to curb his excessive (to her) forwardness. She was hurt when, on their honeymoon, traveling with the band, Gordon appeared to enjoy the company of his fellow bandsmen as much as, if not more than, hers. Always he wanted to stay in the hotel where the band stayed. She, on the other hand, wanted them to get away, to be by themselves. It was the same when they went out to dinner. He always chose a big, noisy place and a table large enough to accommodate any of the band who might join them. She wanted a romantic hideaway. Finally, miserable if she was separated from Gordon even briefly, Sheila began going to the theatre, hovering in the wings during rehearsals. And inevitably, Gordon began to resent her possessiveness. It was Gordon’s mother who saved the day, really. “Now that you two are traveling all over the country,” she told Sheila wisely, “why don’t you map out tours for Gordon’s spare time, take in all the points of historical and scenic interest.” It worked. For it gave Sheila a chance to be alone with Gordon. And he, in turn, was even more stimulated by their sightseeing than he previously had been by the camaraderie of the band. There were money problems too, of course. On more than one occasion after they had checked blithely into a hotel Gordon would be surprised to find he didn’t have enough money to get out, whereupon they would wire his mother for funds. Gordon’s greatest extravagances were his gifts to Sheila. They were glamorous. But they were real headaches, too, when their purchase meant going without necessities. His presents to Sheila continue. He’s always giving her charms for a bracelet he bought her years ago. The first charm marking the first movie he made for Warners, is a small camera with a heart superimposed on it that bears the legend, “You are the heart of the work.” When he signed his Railroad Hour radio contract Sheila got a tiny gold locomotive. And to celebrate her first role in “Caged” he gave her a gold horseshoe. They faced their greatest financial difficulties when Gordon went into the Army Sheila refused to be separated from him She tried doing a show on Broadway, bul when she found she was pregnant she took off for Texas and Gordon and got a job or a local radio station. Meredith was practically born at the mike. Here their quarrels continued, although Gordon now insists this attitude of Sheila’s was largely responsible for keeping their marriage together. One day in Texas, packing for one of their hectic moves from one Army post to another, Sheila lost her wedding ring. When Gordon scolded her for hei carelessness she wept and packed. This time, she insisted, she was leaving him foi good. She only got a few blocks, how-/ ever, before she returned for a mutually contrite reconciliation. All of which, childish as it all was a the time, served to strengthen their characters and build the groundwork for th( mature, understanding attitude they have for each other today. It would take time for a woman, an young as Sheila was when she and Gordor married, to weigh his happy-go-easy wayij against the breadth and set of his chin— and to accept the fact that he would b< easy up to a certain point, and then hr would not be fooling. Also, by the sami token, that he was a man into whose hand; she could put her life and it would bi good. For, above all, Gordon believes in mar i riage, a man’s need of a wife, and his grea misfortune when the woman he marrie is not the right woman for him. I NEVER could describe,” he says, “th< help Sheila has been in my struggle fo recognition as a singer and an actor. I wa twenty when we married. I would notI know it and Sheila must know it toohave made the same progress had I re mained a bachelor. For me a young mar riage was right. “After all, the earlier a man has to settl down and become a responsible citizenthe better — for the earlier he will get se in a mature pattern, start making progres: “I only began to get ahead in my caree when I married and settled down — becaus I had to, not for any loftier reason.” The MacRaes’ recent New York sojour was, on the surface, so Gordon could mak personal appearances. Actually it was be cause Gordon has his canny eyes on T\ His contract, like most Hollywood con tracts, does not permit him to do moi than look at a TV screen. But he knov this state of affairs cannot last — any moi than the old taboo against movie stars o radio lasted. And watching the TV scree) he’s noticed that singers are likely t appear at a disadvantage. “They just stand there and sing,” he say “are not too interesting. So I figured if made a lot of personal appearances I have a chance to work out some casu: business. ... get my bearings. ... so maj be I won’t appear too stiff when I get th; inevitable message that the studio h; i