Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

and his popularity vanish. “There were a lot of years when nobody knew I existed,” he says. “I was still in my twenties and already a has-been. There’s one good thing about being on the skids, though. It gives you back your sense of proportions. There’s nothing like it to teach you the proper valuation of yourself.” The years he refers to were the ones when Guy slipped back into oblivion almost as fast as he’d gone to the top — although with a lot less noise. They were Guy’s bad years in Hollywood. He wasn’t quite broke yet and he didn’t starve, but it wasn’t very funny all the same. Guy has a lot of pride, and disappointment with oneself is never very easy to take. Harder, though, a lot harder to bear than professional disillusionment, was the personal tragedy engulfing his young wife. Guy is willing to talk candidly about almost anything else, but he refuses to discuss this phase of his life. He’s the kind of man who fights his battles alone and, during the years of prolonged crisis, even his closest friends had little direct insight into his mind or heart. His intense loyalty restrains him from making any but the most general comments to this day. So much has already been written about the break-up of the marriage between Guy Madison and Gail Russell that the details needn’t be repeated here. Guy didn’t go into the marriage blindfolded. They were married in 1949 after he’d courted Gail for close to four years. He knew well that she was a sick girl then, abnormally shy and suffering from profound depressions. But he loved Gail and thought he could help her by giving her the security she lacked. It didn’t work out. He had to stand by helplessly, watching an exquisitely beautiful and talented human being destroy herself. He feels no rancor toward her. “Gail can have anything she needs and wants from me,” he was quoted only recently. He’s grateful for the honest emotion she let him experience and resents it when outsiders shift all the blame on Gail. “There are always two sides to every problem,” he insists. “I’m certainly not entirely free from guilt for the break-up myself.” These — briefly — were the events that took the baby flesh off Guy’s face, and it was during these sad, unhappy years that he acquired the reputation of being something of a hermit who lived in seclusion, rarely went out into company and never was seen in a bar, at a night club, a gala premiere or a party. Guy was too strong to let heartache and disappointment break his spirit, but neither did it all simply run off his back. Suffering left its stamp on his face, refashioned him from the handsome young boy he once was into something rarer and infinitely more valuable — a man. There is a stubborn streak in Guy that wouldn’t let him give up even during his darkest moments. While Gail, who’d been in many more pictures than Guy and had by far the bigger reputation, ceased struggling and eventually collapsed, Guy had a powerful drive to make good. “In a left-handed way, being cut down to size somehow gave me more real confidence in myself than I had before,” he comments on that. “I remember how everybody used to tell me what to do and what not to do. I had to comb publicity people out of my hair. They told me to wear a tux, and I wore a tux. In my whole life I don’t think I’d ever even worn a tie before then. I was as uncomfortable as the dickens. The collar itched and kept sticking me in the back of the neck. But p I was told to smile and I smiled. They told me to go to some party or another, and I went to the party. Always had a to do with all those knives and forks. Every move I made was dictated in advance. I felt as though I was smothering. “I’m sure they meant well and did their best, but they tried to make me over completely and I just wasn’t the right material for them. Not that I wasn’t anxious to please. Too anxious perhaps. I figured I could put up with the acting business all right till I made myself enough money to buy a ranch and retire from pictures. Only it didn’t work that way.” The turning point came when Guy began to realize that all those people who kept telling him what to do weren’t necessarily right. It gave him the confidence, at the very moment when he was hitting the skids at a rapidly accelerating pace, to rely on his own judgment. Though his contract with Selznick assured him of pretty good eating money for some years to come, he secured his release from it, feeling that it was stifling him. He took drama lessons and joined a road company touring the country in “Light Up the Sky” and “John Loves Mary.” “It’s the old story that any job worth doing at all is worth doing well,” he says. “I’d never dreamed of becoming an actor before Helen Ainsworth tapped me on the shoulder, so to speak, but being in it I found that there was more to it than I’d thought. So I decided I might as well start learning my craft.” Guy frankly concedes that he’ll probably never be a first-rate dramatic actor capable of portraying a wide range of different characters. Rather, he hopes to be considered a competent performer. “By that I mean that the part has to fit my own specifications instead of the other way around. ‘Be yourself!’ Eda Edson, my drama coach, told me that some years ago, and it turned out to be the best piece of advice anybody ever gave me. I’ve made that my yardstick by which I judge a new part. Can I, or can I not act naturally in it?” When Guy was signed for his part in “The Command,” he read the script, sat down and wrote the producer a long letter. “I want to make it clear for the writer’s sake,” it started off, “that this script probably would be perfect for the type of actor he had in mind when he wrote it. But you’re stuck with me. It’s been my experience that to come across believably I have to be able to believe that I, personally, could act and react the same way as the character I’m playing.” This was followed by fifteen tightly written pages of specific suggestions. The kid from Pumpkin Center had indeed come a long way. Few actors in Hollywood ever get a second chance, fewer still make the most of it. Paradoxically, Guy’s second entry into moviedom came about through his success on television where he’d portrayed the part of Wild Bill Hickok for some time. He’d been advised against taking it, but he liked the part and stuck by hi§ guns. “For the first time since I came to Hollywood, I felt completely at ease from the minute we started shooting,” he sevs. As a cowboy star he quickly became the idol of millions of youngsters. Kids can spot a phony any time, and they knew that Guy was the McCoy. It was one of them, Susan Trilling, eleven-year-old daughter of Warner executive Steve Trilling, who was directly responsible for bringing Guy back to the movie screen. She happened to overhear her father complain at the dinner table that he had a hard time finding a star for a picture his company was about to produce. “Why don’t you get Wild Bill?” she suggested. Trilling listened to his daughter, borrowed a reel of the series and had it run off for Jack Warner and himself. “Get him,” was all Warner said when the lights went on. The picture for which he was signed without a screen test after years of oblivion in Hollywood was “The Charge at Feather River,” one of the big hits of 1953. It re l^1 established Guy as a star. Ironically, the sharp up-beat in Guy’s career coincided with what was perhaps i the lowest point in his private life. He and l'1 Gail had finally separated for good; he’d left their Brentwood home and moved fl" into a small Westwood apartment, furnish ; ■ ing it with the barest necessities. The austerity of his quarters — he had to sit on the living-room floor to watch television — i seemed to underscore his personal unhappiness and withdrawal from the world. He looked drawn and his friends seriously | worried about his health. Guy threw himself into his work. When the first rushes came in, the director ex ] citedly ordered the script to be rewritten i to give Guy a more important part. Helen Ainsworth, sobbing at the premiere, wasn’t fooling herself. She’d been in this business too long and had seen too many disappointments for that. She knew that this was the pay-off. Guy was in — and this time for keeps. He has since scored in “The Command” and recently signed a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox, for whom he’ll do “The Tall Men” with Clark Gable later this year. First, though, he must finish “Five Against the House” for another studio. He gets excited as he talks about that picture. “It’s about five ex-GI’s at college who hold up a gambling house. I’m one of the five, getting involved in it through no fault of my own. It’s a story with an unusual twist, a good story, I think. And I like my part.” In addition to these two pictures, Guy will tape some eighty radio shows and do a score of television films in the Wild Bill Hickok series during the year. Guy still wants to buy himself that ranch some day, but he’s no longer in too big a hurry for it. “It will have to wait,” he says. “I’ve got a job to do and I’ve come to like it. I don’t mind sticking around for a while.” Proof that he’s serious about that is the fact that he’s building himself a house on Mulholland Drive. “I picked a beautiful site with a terrific view over Beverly Hills on the one side and the Valley on the other. It’s not going to be a big affair, but a comfortable house with a swimming pool and a big workroom.” There’s a good deal of pride in his voice as he talks about the house. Certainly he doesn’t sound like a man who has soured on life. Since buying a home usually means that a man intends to settle down in more ways than one, the question prompted itself as to whether or not he plans to get married again soon. Guy may have seen the light of day on a farm, but he has the instincts of a gentleman to the manor born. “You shouldn’t have asked me that,” he scowled. “After all, I’m not even divorced yet. I’d be kind of a heel if I were to talk about any of that at this point. Sure I’ll want to get married again — some time.” There’s been a normal amount of gossip linking Guy to a number of pretty girls, but he’s denied romantic involvement with any of them. It seems unlikely, however, that he’ll stay single for long after his divorce becomes final. He’s been separated from Gail for quite a while, is young, successful and, as noted, exceedingly attractive. And there are other indications as well that he’s no longer a recluse. For instance, he’s recently bought himself a new tuxedo. Yes, Bob Moseley from Pumpkin Center, who used to squirm when he had to wear a tie, voluntarily went out and ordered a new tux. “The one I had was all out of style,” he explained. “It’s the one I got back in ’forty-six. It didn’t look right when I wore it at the premiere