Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

“I am completely cold-blooded. Some years ago I started to keep a diary so that in my old age I might look at it, recall what I’d done, when and with whom. I took a quick look at Dear Diary one day some months ago — and burned it. “Actually, I was wary of marriage. Doubted that you can mix marriage and a movie career. I’ve been on dates and, because I was a movie actress, ruined the whole party because everyone kept asking, ‘Does Lana Turner really . . .?’ ‘Is Marilyn Monroe going to . . .?’ and so on. As the result I turned out to be Miss Question and Answer and no one else was able to get a word in edgewise. I like to talk and rave on and on, which is all very well in a movie group. But for a husband who is not in the business to be part of that — uh -uh! “Or when I’m asked, as I often am, about the men I work with in pictures — for instance, ‘When you were making “Viva Zapata!” with Marlon Brando, how did it feel,’ a date once asked me, ‘when he dssed you?’ “ ‘Delightful,’ said I. “Very funny, but pretty rugged, I renember thinking at the time, if you had ;o come home every night and tell your lusband about being kissed by Marlon Brando and other romantic young actors! “Not that I am so wedded to motion picures as a career that I wouldn’t give them ap for marriage. I’m not an ambitious jerson — not for any one thing, other than o spend each day as happily as I can, and without frustration. I could be happy loing anything worthwhile. I think you tre always happy doing anything which rou are doing well, and in pictures I am, know, improving. Because of this, I feel nore at ease in pictures than I ever did ind within the past couple of years have developed a more lively interest in them than I ever had before. “Even so, I’m not screaming ‘I want to be another Duse!’ Very few of those! I think if I had been a great actress, I would have known it long ago. Maybe you can become one by devoting every day and every thought to your career but this I am not prepared to do. “I always wanted to marry happily. I never wanted to just marry, period,” Jean shrugged. “And I haven’t. “I married a pretty wonderful man who has all the qualities I’ve always wanted my husband to have. He’s kind and gentle and thoughtful and — if need be — forceful and most important, I feel we have a solid foundation for marriage. “I still think that mixing marriage and a movie career is a tough thing to do, but not as tough as I’d imagined it would be. Because whereas I’d always supposed that what you have to do is decide which is the more important — you don’t have to. The decision, in a happy marriage, is made for you. In short, there isn’t any. I’ve found this out,” the bride said, eyes alight, “in just a few short weeks. “You don’t have to decide where you want to live. You can’t say, for instance, that you want to live in Hollywood (we do not intend to set up a home there) if your husband’s work is elsewhere. You simply go where he goes, live where he works. It’s as simple as that. “I intend to continue work (not right at the moment, happily, since the studio hasn’t a picture for me) because it is an important part of my life and because my husband has no objection to my doing so; is interested, in fact, in my career. The career will depend, however, on his wishes and reactions. If, for instance, a picture should come up for me that my husband, for some very good reason, objected to my doing, I would not do it. What a man’s wife does is very important to a man, and should be. “As for a husband’s reaction to his wife playing love scenes with attractive actors, this is something every married actress has to face, I suspect, and, if she is clever, can handle simply by making sure her husband understands the whole thing is within the framework of her work and that she is not swayed by the scene, or by the actor after the scene is done. I have never been. “And I’m certainly glad of that,” Jean added softly. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen that might eventually come between us. And I’m quietly determined nothing will. Right as we were being married I made that promise to myself. “It was such a beautiful ceremony. We went to Bermuda on the first lap of our honeymoon and basked in the sun for a few days. Then, part two, we toured by car through the Smoky Mountains and stopped off for two days at ‘Cloudcroft,’ which is the Cramers’ summer home in Linville, North Carolina. “Then we continued our tour of the Smokies until we got to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Stuart’s family has large textile interests, as well as part ownership of a newspaper. There, in their beautiful town house, Stuart’s mother gave a tea dance for us before we came home. Home for the present, at any rate, here in Washington! “A formal house, as you can see,” Jean said, gesturing. “Red brick with white trim, two porches hanging over the lovely little garden. And Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Cramer III very much and very, very happily ‘At Home.’ ” The End _ is Born ! YouYe his star with WESTMORE matched make-up ALL YOURS— the same Westmore Cosmetics made to give stars “close-up perfect" complexion beauty even in giant-screen close-ups— all color-matched by Westmore brothers, most famous make-up artists. 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