Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

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S1 409 New York 8, N. Y. to Pag — Ever ! young.’ I was always ‘too short’ or ‘too young.’ How I hated looking too young. I always wound up backstage as prop girl or prompter or doing sound effects. I knew all the parts in the plays, but I never got on. I was the footsteps, the ring of the doorbell, the lightning, or feet sloshing through mud. By high school, I gave up trying out. . . .” It’s February, 1947, now, Mary Frances, graduation day for midterm students at John Burroughs Junior High — and some day you will be lighting up marquees throughout the world — and the feet of thousands of GI’s will be sloshing through the mud to see you on the screen. . . . You’re chosen to give a speech at the graduation exercises, and you choose as your subject, “Happiness.” Although you toy with the thought of being a gym teacher, you can’t give up the old dream of making people laugh. You’re a fan of Betty Hutton, and you kill the kids in your circle doing pantomimes to her records and to Beatrice Kaye’s. For you there’s no greater reward than watching a face light up when you clown. But words escape even you when at the close of the graduation exercises you’re announced the winner of the coveted annual American Legion Award. You hear the words: “For courage, character, service, companionship, scholarship” — and then your own name! This, you know, will be the crowning hour in your life. Yours is also a less-heralded victory. Yoli can now play the French horn. The French horn ? What inspired you to master this instrument? “Actually, my teacher in instrumentaltraining class at John Burroughs decided it for me. I meant to learn to play the clarinet, but by the time I signed up, they were all out of clarinets. There were only three instruments left, all of them masculine to me. The drums, the trombone and the French horn. Right away I knew I didn’t want the drums. Then the teacher explained that while I might learn to play the trumpet, the French horn was impossible. With a challenge like that, I had to prove I could. . . .” Yes, the impossible, you must always try. And after a very wobbly start, you soar to unexpected heights with this instrument. How well your teacher in instrumental-training class, Mrs. Phyllis Thompson, remembers the day you reached — finally — your first true note. “The French horn is a treacherous instrument and difficult for anyone to play. And, well — Mary Frances wasn’t a very hard worker at first. But one day we were doing a piece in class that had a little French-horn solo. Usually when we came to that part, she flubbed, but this time a perfect tone came floating out. I stopped the rehearsal. ‘Why, Mary Frances,’ I said, ‘you played it right! I’ll bet you couldn’t do it again.’ And she played it again. I don’t know what happened that day, whether it was in response to winning approval, her own determination or whether she just discovered what she’d been doing wrong, but from that time she was a different student. I put her in the orchestra the following semester, and she became my mainstay. I was surprised when she turned out to be a glamour girl. I always thought of her as a tomboy. She was a friendly girl and very sweet. I’m glad she found a field to make her illustrious— even if it’s not through the French horn.” Whatever happened, flushed with first victory, you try out for the Burbank Youth Symphony, and according to famed maestro, Leo Damiani, director of the Burbank Symphony and Youth Symphony Orchestras, this proves to be an unforgettable experience. . . . “She came in with her horn and full of the Old Nick. I never expected her to be able to blow it. I asked her what she coul : play. 'Oh, I can play anything,’ she sail ‘What would you like to hear, Old Boy I saw right away I had a talent on nv hands. I wasn’t sure exactly what — but talent. I’d been auditioning kids all da and I said, ‘Did you come here to play c make wisecracks?’ She repeated she coul play anything, Old Boy. ‘Just play me scale,’ I said. It came out ‘Moooo’ and n< so good. ‘Can’t you do better than that?’ 1 1 asked her. ‘Oh, yes, I just started to pla this thing,’ she said. ‘I’ll be terrific in while.’ Since she was only one of tw French horns th"t showed up, I took he into the Youth Symphony. But once sh knew the job on her hands, she reall started to play that thing. In two month she was blowing the dickens out of th French horn.” For a kid born in the thick of the de pression with seemingly small hope for future, nothing has stopped you. Nc yet. . . . You’re in Burbank High School now am this is your life— slumber parties, line par ties and scavenger hunts, your feet twin kling and your baton twirling ahead o every parade, being bat girl for the boys baseball team — and wearing a uniform fiv sizes too big. The coach of the team get you excused from the last school period sijl you can yell at the ball games. And caiM you yell. Remember this one? “Fire water, fire water, Steam, steam, steam Have we gotta? Yes we gotta Team, team, team — ” But this year — 1948 — is to be engravei j in your memory forever, not only for it : 1 triumphs but for the tears. You’re treasure I of the Girls’ Athletic Association, and dur I ing an annual membership drive, you’ri summoned before some of the faculty am accused of stealing forty dollars of th< Association’s funds. Your friend, Jeanetti] Johnson, is called in, too — and she, too, wil never forget. . . . “I was assured that if I told them Fran1 nie took the money they wouldn’t hold i ) against me and Frannie would never fine ! out I told. ‘You just tell us she did it,’ they! said. I was so mad I stomped out. Honesty] was Fran’s long suit. This had happenec during a lunch hour and we didn’t know, why the money was missing. It just wasn’ there. There were several of us connectec ! with the G.A.A. and I remember we al had to sign something saying we didn’'| know what happened to the money. Latei we got this back and tore it up.” You, Mary Frances, are profoundly ] shocked. But nobody knows better thar | you how you felt this dark day. “When they called me in and accusec I me, I couldn’t believe it. ‘You can tell us | if you took it,’ they said. I just stood there I’d always been so honest — that was the I thing. If I’d come from people who’d evei ’ done things like that even, but my people i are religious people. Nobody in my family 1 would take a dead ant if they thought it I belonged to somebody else. And I’m no kid ] now — I’m sixteen years old. ‘I don’t under I stand how you can question me,’ I said, j ‘I’ve been in your classes. You know me. It kills me to think you would even believe j this.’ They insinuated I took the money to buy a new dress for the prom. My mother always made all my clothes, I couldn’t I even buy anything that would fit. “I was hysterical about the whole thing, i I cried like a baby. And I couldn’t prove , anything. I felt like a little kid lost in the I desert. And I was lost. I’d go out by the I gym field and I’d sit like a little kid on the bike rack. The other kids would try to talk to me. Finally we decided we’d find out for ourselves who took the money and we did. It turned out money had been missing from another class, too. We found