Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

p BY FLORABEL MUIR The Kirk Douglas-Anne Buydens merging that has Hollywood still spinning. Kirk met Anne, a film publicist, when he went to France to make “Act of Love.” He and Anne became fast friends, although his heart still belonged to Pier Angeli. Then Kirk returned to America — and Anne came following after . . . just to see what Hollywood looked like. Although Kirk’s romance with Pier was over by this time, there was no hint that he had transferred his affections to Miss Buydens— until suddenly they appeared at the County Clerk’s office in Las Vegas with intentions to marry. Then it came out that the party given the night before by close friend Warren Cowens had been a pre-marriage party! All the guests, including Doris Day, had arrived bearing gifts for the bride and groom-to-be, who spent their honeymoon at Lake Mead — far from the maddened crowd of Hollywoodites who had failed to catch even a whisper of Kirk’s intentions! • The two-way zooming of Bob Stack’s career — hot as an actor via “The High and the Mighty” and even hotter as a lover since he and Terry Moore found each other. Terry has forsaken night life for the great outdoors just because that’s what Bob goes for and his longstanding romance with Claudette Thornton has chilled . . . How Ava Gardner avoided Las Vegas for Lake Tahoe in sitting out her divorce time because three of her exes were marking that spot at the time — Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra and Artie Shaw. • About Frankie Laine’s stepped-up film career, which really gets going in high when he co-stars with Yvonne DeCarlo in that glittering musical revue in Germany . . . And whether the developing international situation may not compel a drastic change in Cecil B. De Mille’s project to film “The Ten Commandments” against Egyptian backgrounds, the actual Old Testament scenery, the year’s most ambitious and costly foreign location . . . And the possibility that Gloria De Haven, who said she would launch a beauty parlor of her own in New York, may chuck it all to marry again following her divorce from Marty Kimmel. • About the Marie McDonald-Harry Karl rift which, their pals insist, is only a slight case of greasepaint showing on Marie, another way of saying that she got careeritis again. Harry, very much in love, thinks she’ll change her mind and be content as a housewife . . . About the rags-to-riches career to-date of Tab Hunter, who in four years has climbed from Hollywood boulevard soda jerk to $1500 a week as a featured player in “Track of the Cat.” . . . The fast-blooming amour of Ted Briskin, Betty Hutton’s ex, and Colleen Miller, beauteous Universal-International starlet. • About Humphrey Bogart’s performance in “The Caine Mutiny,” and if talk can win an Oscar for a star Bogie’s in . . . The persistent denials and counter-denials that all isn’t well with the Betty Grable-Harry James menage, and this is the real lowdown : There were some spats and for a time things didn’t look favorable but Betty and Harry are really trying for a patch-up and admitting nothing to columnist inquirers in the hope that they can work it out. The whole thing would have been kept dark except for whispers by insiders who realized they were getting shaky. • About Charlton Heston’s insistence that wife Lydia Clarke go with him to Egypt where he’ll play Moses in “The Ten Commandments” because he refuses to take a chance on the consequences of one more separation. Incidentally his stand-in, Fritz Apking, may replace Lex Barker as the new Tarzan . . . And about the story seeping back to Hollywood on the grapevine that Deborah Kerr and Tony Bartie, her war-hero mate, are off key. Only select-few like Doris Day knew party for Kirk Douglas , Anne Buydens was a celebration! l\ext day, the wedding that surprised Hollywood. Kirk. Anne in County Clerk's office. Las Vegas On honeymoon flight, Kirk and Anne had a hilarious time opening gag gifts from their friends End of a surprise story: Kirk and his bride at Lake Mead, where couple spent their honeymoon HOLLYWOOD WHISPERS 8