Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

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I watched his face mirror every thought and word — this, together with his looks and bright clean personality. Bob has a sincerity and a relaxed quality that comes right across that screen. He has, too, the unusual star-making ability of making every characterization believable while projecting his own personality in every part he plays. Given the opportunity, I was sure he couldn’t miss.” The autumn days roll on in 1949, and you get that opportunity. You test for the lead in “Teresa” at M-G-M, and out of one hundred fifty tests, yours gets studio raves. Fortunately for you, New York executives decide not to risk using a boy who’s had neither stage nor screen experience, for Darryl Zanuck signs you at 20th Century-Fox on the strength of that same test and puts you successively in top budget pictures — so great is his own personal faith in you. So in 1949 those studio gates you’ve envisioned swing wide open for you and you step inside the magic never-never land. You’re given the small part of a Marine in “The Halls of Montezuma,” and wisely enough, you know, Robert Wagner, that you too have only just begun to fight. You earn your studio stripes that first year, working overtime convincing some of the frankly skeptical that this really is your life. That for you acting is no summer inspiration, no game you’re trying for kicks and size. You haunt sound stages from early in the morning when the first crew arrives until the last arc light dies. The stages darken and the night shift strikes the sets, but the studio lot is still an enchanted world to you. You spend hours in the cutting rooms, talking to cameramen, rehearsing with the studio drama coach, Helena Sorrell. Soon stars, producers, directors, gaffers and grips, all of them are with you. Cameramen “reload” to cover you when you fluff a line, giving you time to regain confidence. Gaffers “blow a light” to give you a chance to make another and better take. In “The Halls of Montezuma,” Richard Widmark observes you’re getting lost in a scene as one of many Marines going over a hill and tells you, “Look, kid, take your time. Next take, slow down and stay close behind me.” You do, and the camera is full on you all the way. Dick Widmark puts that close one right in your lap. But he takes no credit for ever helping you. “If I did, well, it’s easy to help someone you like. You can tell when a kid’s out for a fast buck. Bob was never that way. He was always eager to learn. He had a basic instinct for acting and the talent to get some place. He has a lot of years in this business. I’d have given my eyeteeth to play the part he’s playing in ‘Broken Lance’ — and playing well. I remember telling him that first picture I’d be supporting him before I was through. Sure enough, in my last picture at 20th, I’m supporting him.” In 1951, director Walter Lang and the late Lamar Trotti pick you for the wonderful bit — a shell-shocked soldier in “With a Song in My Heart.” They say it will do a lot for you. And it does. A Bob Wagner fan club forms. You have your own fan publication, “The Wagner World.” Director John Ford casts you as the love interest in “What Price Glory.” But before his picture rolls, tragedy overtakes you for the first time in your twenty -one years. You go water-skiing at Lake Arrowhead. Robert Jacks, later to produce “Prince Valiant,” is driving the boat. You and another friend are skiing tandem behind. You fall and his knee hits you in the side of the head, knocking you out cold. Later a doctor assures you there’s no serious injury. But two weeks later, you go to the hospital with a punctured eardrum and a serious brain concussion. You spend weeks flat on your back before you entertain the dark thought that this may well be the end of your dream. For one who’s been so athletic, yours is the tragic thought, too, that there will be no more physical activity. But Lady Luck doesn’t desert you now, and you are to portray just about the most strenuous role ever enacted on the screen. It’s 1952, and with 1953 comes “Titanic.” Darryl Zanuck is steadily shooting you to stardom. Motion pictures have still lost none of their glamour for you. You live, breathe and love your work. During a love scene with Terry Moore in “Beneath the 12-Mile Reef” — but let Terry tell this. “R. J. surely does take his work seriously, Ralph. I can vouch for that. During an underwater love sequence, a shark came between us. R. J. just held me with one arm and pushed the shark away with the other and went right on with the scene.” Nobody could blame him for taking that one seriously. In 1953, you reach full stardom in “Beneath the 12-Mile Reef.” You and Terry Moore make a personal appearance at the New York opening. You’re thrilled by the dazzling marquee and thrilled as a fan of Jackie Gleason’s to meet him and guest in his television show. December 1953 sees you portraying your own childhood hero. Producer Robert Jacks picks you for Prince Valiant — a triumph and the toughest of challenges for you. You’re Tarzan and D’Artagnan rolled into one. You scale walls and joust with lances and fight one hundred sixty broadsword encounters. Concerned, both as friend, and producer, that one of them will be too broad. Bob Jacks insists you’re taking too many chances. With the second week’s rushes, Darryl Zanuck gives you a new four-figu'ed contract that guarantees star billing from now on. It will seem true to you when “Prince Valiant” is cut and reviewed. February 1954, and you are co-starring with Spencer Tracy in “Broken Lance.” King Trace, no less, pays you the supreme compliment you will read here for the first time. “The kid has the quality of a young Barrymore. His future? Unlimited.” And now, finally, it’s April 2, 1954, Robert Wagner, the night you’ve been waiting for all your life. The night of the premiere of “Prince Valiant” when a movie fan’s dream is to become a magic reality. You take your parents to The Beachcombers for dinner, celebrating that other night four and a half years ago when you dined them on your first $37.50 bit pay check. Tonight they proudly celebrate with you the success of a dream that was not their own — your success in the world of celluloid. At eight-thirty your car pulls up in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Crowds jam the bleachers and the boulevards roar. Arc lights split the Hollywood heavens. As your party steps out on that red carpet, photographers’ flash bulbs are blinding. Your own throat is too full to speak. You’re the same kid who stood there not long ago trying on those footprints. Tonight the world acknowledged they fit. This is your night, and this is your life from now on. Prince Valiant Wagner. Long may you reign. The End I