Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

ME QUICK/" Beautiful Brat wYOU WIN! I can't stay mad when you bring me Beeman's! It's got such flavor — a dash and tang and irresistible lusciousness that lifts me right out of the dumps! They say it's the triple guard airtight package that keeps Beeman's so fresh and full of flavor— all I know is, it's good!" Beeman's AIDS DIGESTION... lighted her. Maggie Sullavan tripped out on the stage and that evening played the silly, stupid Girl-Scoutish Bab with a vitriolic brutality that not only condemned the Rhinehart character but also satirized every one of her classmates, painting them as she saw them through eyes that held no sympathy and no pity. Not even the audience, composed of teachers and fond parents, could have missed it. She saw them squirm, and thus left Chatham Episcopal Institute forever, revenged. I HERE were outdoor summer camps for her, then. Something had to be done about her frail health and — Cornelius and Garland both hoped — about her inexplicable attitudes. The camps advertised that besides teaching discipline and healthy wood lore that would enable any young miss to survive being lost in the deepest African jungle, they also built character and showed girls how "to live in harmony with sister Americans." Maggie's sneer for this selling point was decided and audible. "My sister Americans," she said, "my hat!" But she went. She had no choice. She donned middy and bloomers; arose at six to swim in icy lake waters; rode hurtling and dangerously down mountain bridle paths; paddled breathless in birchbark canoes with coy Indian names painted on them; lifted her harsh young voice in "Aloha Camp Forever" around the campfire; wove baskets which always had suspiciously sophisticated designs hidden in the pattern; did batiks; burned designs on leather; hiked and read and slept. She got a sunburn, gained eight pounds, learned an incredible number of stories that are whispered among girls in their teens, and came rattling home leaving the camp guardians in a kind of weary stew of relief. After that there were many camps, for many summers, until she had finished college, which was soon. All of the Sullavan family had gone to Hollins College, wherefore Mag gie held out for any other institution; and they compromised on Sweet Briar. Then she went to Sullins, where she enrolled in the first courses that came to her notice. She didn't really care, because she knew there would be only a few more months before Liberty, before Freedom. . . . At camp, the summer before, she had met a family from Boston — a family who did different things with r's when they spoke, a family who talked vaguely of the stage and of schools for dancing and of a brilliant, wholly new kind of life. "Y ou love to dance," they told her simply. "Why don't you come to Boston and learn?" It was that uninvolved to them. (Continued jroin page 21) One year of college, then. Maggie conceded that. But when it was done — OHE sat stiffly on the Adam sofa in her mother's drawing room, rubbed her finger along the delicate patina of old rosewood, tapped a Sevres vase with one fingernail, looked anywhere but directly at the troubled eyes of Cornelius and Garland. "It's the one thing I want to do," she was saying. "The one thing. I've always done as you asked, I've always obeyed the essentials. But you must try to understand: I can't be a polite sub-deb who paints wishy sunsets in water color and keeps her eye peeled for a husband. And I'm sorry, but I'm going to Boston." "Fantastic," said Cornelius. "I forbid it." Garland sighed, looked unhappily from determined daughter to stern husband. "My dear," she said to him at last, "we must let her go. I — perhaps I understand what the child means. Let her try, anyway. She can always remember it afterwards, then." Her expression, at that moment, told the shrewd observant Maggie something about her mother she had never even guessed before. The girl went over and touched Garland's flushed cheek lightly with her fingers. "Thanks, Mother," she said. So she went to Boston. Cornelius, still unimpressed, granted her a small allowance which annoyed her so much that she decided not to use any more of it than she could help. To this end she took her first job, selling books in a cooperative store at Harvard. It was on a commission basis and she broke all records, earning eighteen dollars a week for one month; whereupon she quit. After the first enthusiasm, it had become a bore. She was nineteen, then, and it was 1928, a strange year. It excited her — its madness, its extravagance, its drunken headlong flight to nowhere. If Photoplay takes a bow — it plays a part in "The Affairs of Annabel"! In the role of movie actress, Lucille Ball impresses her importance on John Sutton by rating a cover portrait. Real or make-believe, it's a signal honor she had been capable of fear, it woul have frightened her, as well: she w< two people, this nineteen-year-old gii representative of no era and no plac and no custom. Deep-rooted within her subconsciou although she fought it, was an attituc! impressed indelibly despite herself \, the repeated admonition of family, \\ the long years of teaching— an attituc that wore a lace scarf and curtsied convention. She didn't like it, but being intell gent she had to admit it was ther prodding her on occasion, pointing accusing finger at her activities, snee: ing haughtily at the vulgar Jazz A| that surrounded her. The other Maggie, the real one, ol served detachedly what went on, mac clear-cut choice when necessary. She studied dancing, then, for a fe months. But one evening an acquain ance took her to see a performance "The Connecticut Yankee" at the Coj ley Theater, and she viewed the ind vidual characterizations with critic eye, and concluded with a certa amount of scorn that she could do be ter than that herself. Going to a dancing class as a conce sion to her overflowing vitality, as stopgap until she was ready to sett into the accepted young-lady-of-goot family class, was one thing. Going C the Stage was another. She lay awal all one night, a battleground for cor flicting viewpoints. By morning she h£ decided. IT is not important to Margaret Su lavan's story that she joined E. E. Clive Copley Dramatic Theater then, wit! out letting Cornelius and Garland kno^ except that it kept her away from hon until, after a few months, she could me Charles Leatherbee of Harvard. The] was irony here: it was friends of h parents who introduced him to her. Bi he was interested in the stage, and he assembled a number of students wr also were intereste and he had an ide "We're going up 1 Cape Cod in th summer," he ex plained, "and start group called the Un: versity Players. We: build a theater an learn everythin about the stage froi firsthand experienc D'you want to corr. in with us?" "Who else is join ing?" she asked hin "Bretaigne Win dust, of Princeton he said, "and a ki named Jimmie Stew art, and Han Fonda. . . ." "Okay," she t o 1 him, "okay. I'd lov it." You know , 0 course, that Margan Sullavan eventuall married one oj thos boys she met at th Cape that summe Next month, Howar Sharpe gives you vivid picture of thi brilliant young star i the throes of her fin love. Don't miss No v ember Photoplay. 80 PHOTOPLA