Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

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However, that is obviously not because Glenn sweeps me into his arms each night, battering in the front of the house before he does it. He’s more likely to sneak in the kitchen door because he’s hiding a garter snake for Pete inside a cracker box. He’s more likely to limp through the hall, grin sheepishly, and say that a horse stepped on his foot. Since he won’t let a stunt man do his movie stunts, he’s more likely to crawl into bed with an ice pack and an aspirin because somebody made a mistake and banged him across the skull in a fight scene. The funny thing is that I can remember when he did batter down a wall for me — a wall of rocks. He worked two hours in the moonlight so that we could walk the beach on the other side. But the Glenn Ford who tore apart a barricade of rocks was not the same man that I love and am married to today. And the Ellie Ford who sat on the sand and watched was not the same wife and mother he shares his life with now. We had been married two weeks that moonlit night, but we were not yet a marriage. And I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that if right then we could have foreseen all the agonies of growing up and learning what we would have to go through before we actually did become a marriage and a family, we would probably have kissed each other politely and said goodbye forever right then. Luckily we couldn’t see anything but the moon and the stars that night. Luckily, because today we actually are the grownup married people we thought we were then, a thousand problems behind us and our marriage stronger for each one we solved — stronger, but still not yet perfect. Some day, someone’s going to give birth to a perfect husband. And if, at the same time, someone else gives birth to a perfect wife and the two grow up, meet and get married, there will be a perfect marriage. Until that time, even the best marriages won’t be perfect. Until that day, young couples will have to love along from problem to problem — like Glenn and I did — and hammer together a stronger marriage with every problem they solve — like Glenn and I did. I think that building a marriage is something like building a house. Like a house, it can be built in any of a hundred different styles, each style right for different people. And like a house, the foundations must be firm and steady or all the walls will tumble down around your ears in the first thunderstorm. Once the foundation is secure, the rest may be changed — to add new rooms for each child, to enclose a patio or dig a swimming pool — until you have built just what you have always wanted. In every marriage the first year is the time for laying foundations. It is a difficult time for every young husband who must discover that his wife demands his help with the dishes and for every young wife who has to learn that her husband demands a three-course meal for breakfast while she can’t stand to look at food before noon. If you are a movie star, that first year can be even more difficult because you are not allowed to fumble through your problems privately by yourself. Every slight quarrel seems to become public property. Our problems came early, carried up to us on the tips of other people’s tongues. “Are you really going to marry Glenn Ford?” my friends asked. “You’re one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and he’s still an up-and-coming actor. He may never be a star. If he isn’t — what will happen to your marriage?” I smiled at them and listened to my own heart, which told me more about Glenn’s sincerity and honesty and determination than they would ever guess. I was quite sure that Glenn would become a star. I was sure of this because of a story that Glenn told about himself. There was a riding stable near his house, and when he was twelve years old he wanted desperately to learn how to ride. So he pestered the stable owner into a bargain. Young Mr. Ford would clean the stables every day if the owner would promise him free lessons and free rides. “Fine,” the man said. “Just be here at five tomorrow morning.” The owner had taken care of many a horse-smitten boy the same way. He expected Glenn to last — like the others had — three or four days. At the end of three months, Glenn was still cleaning out the stables before breakfast. At the end of four months, he had learned to ride well enough that he was promoted to guide. I was sure that nobody with Glenn’s determination could fail in anything. “You’re crazy to marry Eleanor Powell,” his friends said. “She’s got a portable dance floor and a fat M-G-M contract She probably won’t even take time off from her dancing to have kids. Your marriage won’t last six months.” So — ten years ago — we got married. 1 was still dancing my way through picture after picture, and Glenn was still on the edge of success. Unfortunately, the edge of success like the edge of a cliff is a slippery place, and Glenn met his share of avalanches and rock slides. He bore them as well as possible, cheerfully letting the rocks bounce off his head. But we were two human beings with two sets of fraying emotions. I doubt if anyone would believe me if I said that we had never had a quarrel. Even the best of builders, planning a house, are likely to argue about the shape of the garage or be pointedly polite to each other after they have disagreed about the sub-flooring. But mostly Glenn and I laughed and ceremoniously drowned our difficulties in a bucket of understanding. Pride and other bugaboos are pretty hard things to drown, but we succeeded more often than we failed and our marriage was the stronger for each success. At the end of a year Glenn was firmly on his way, and I was able to do what 1 had always wanted— retire and have s baby. Now, if this had happened in the movies, that would have been the end oi our story and we would have lived happily ever after. Instead, that was only the beginning Almost immediately I found I had lost my husband — lost him, that is, to South America, Australia, Montana and Scotland Being a new star seemed to mean making pictures in jungles, canyons, deserts anc abandoned caves. Peter and I waved Glenn off at the airport and picked him up at the airport It was hard on me, but it was worse foi Pete. Glenn had no time to learn how tc change diapers. He wasn’t home long enough to take Pete swimming or to give him the roughhousing and piggyback ride: every boy needs from his father. Finally, one summer afternoon wher