Radio mirror (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

RADIO MIRROR Noze> — read her secret FRANCO-AMERICAN Spaghetti is one of my best helps," she'll tell you. It means tasty, appetizing meals without long hours in the kitchen. It means being able to serve cheaper meat cuts and left-overs and get compliments on them! It means a nourishing hot lunch for the children in next to no time. Its zestful, savory cheese-and-tomato sauce makes FrancoAmerican far superior to ordinary ready-cooked spaghetti. Try it. Franco-American SPAGHETTI Made by the Makers of Campbell's Soups Seadfart, FREE %ec(pe> 7&t>£ Campbell Soup Company, Dept. 4312 Camden, New Jersey. Please send me your free recipe book: "30 Tempting Spaghetti Meals." Name (print) Address City -State The Hidden Chapter in the Lives of Hedy Lamarr and Rudy Vallee (Continued from page 9) and pose with Rudy because pictures of Vallee and movie celebrities are easy to "plant." He came over to their table late in the evening — almost just before the last number. Suave, immaculate Rudy with his college accent and his electric temper just below the surface of a white shirt front. Their eyes met — and something happened to Hedy's heart. It did a little flip-flop. Perhaps flattery was mixed up in it. He was the hero of the evening. And when he sat down — and remained there the rest of the evening— every eye in the place was on them. If you think the drama of it escaped the excitement seekers you don't know your Hollywood. In fact, it developed into something of a situation. Miss Youngblood, occupying her table in solitary glamour, sent a waiter several times to remind Mr. Vallee she was alone. But possibly the waiter forgot — because things reached a fine old pitch when Gloria drowned herself in Silver Fox and swept out of the place! Hollywood giggled. It was a funny start for a secret and unhappy little love story. THERE'S a peculiar child-like quality about Hedy. Reggie Gardiner, who knows her better than anyone, says she has mistaken experience for maturity. Her reactions are like a child's — and when she met Vallee she was a lonely one. After the Grove — they went to a private little cocktail bar off the lobby where the door opens only to those who know the right way to knock for admittance. And while the publicity girl and her beau yawned in a corner, Rudy talked to Hedy until dawn. He told her a great deal about his life. Women had not been particularly kind. He had been hurt, he had known loneliness, just as Hedy was knowing it now. He talked, and she listened. Her great brown eyes watched every move he made, drank in every word he said. When dawn began to show through the drapes of the cocktail room — she was in love with him. Her heart sang all the next day with that purely feminine excitement of a new romance just beginning. It is that time in a love story when the telephone is the most exciting thing in the world. She sent out for all his records and played them again and again in the sanctity of her small living room. When it grew late and he didn't call, she phoned his hotel. Miss Lamarr calling Mr. Vallee? Just a moment, please. Sorry, Mr. Vallee doesn't answer. He is still resting. Still later: Miss Lamarr calling? Sorry, Mr. Vallee has gone into the Grove for a rehearsal. Yes, the message was delivered — but Mr. Vallee can't be disturbed now. It is a telephone chant that is probably pretty well known to a lot of women who have been in love at one time or another. From there on the whole thing was a slow, dullish, inexplicable ache. Sometimes on offnights she went alone to the Grove and listened and watched from a far corner. When she was alone he would come and talk to her between songs. When she wasn't with him she thought about him constantly. She would play the records again and again. How could she be so juvenile as to tear herself to pieces over a midnight to dawn conversation — like a schoolgirl infatuated with a matinee idol's profile? What was this strange enchantment he had thrown over her? She couldn't work. She couldn't study. Even the diet went hang. It didn't even have the dignity of a grande passion. She was hypnotizing herself with an illusion that was no more real than a schoolgirl's first crush. But it hurt — as wounded pride always hurts a beautiful woman. It wasn't anything in particular that ended it. Perhaps a forgotten telephone call. Perhaps a little note in the paper that Rudy was visiting Gloria Youngblood on the set. Roses that didn't come. Or perhaps it was Hedy's own will to go upward and onward in Hollywood — with nothing, not even little heart tugs, in her way. She stopped waiting for a telephone to ring. Every night she went to a picture show alone. She sat in the back row of a neighborhood theater listening to the American actors speak English, and repeating the words and phrases after them. She was making a few friends — Edmund Goulding, the director. Reginald Gardiner. The English colony. Occasionally she went out with them. But mostly she studied and exercised and read and listened. Once a great executive from the studio sent for her. But she sent back word, "I am not ready yet — I must work a little harder — learn more before I even make a test." So people began to say she was the most "career conscious" woman who ever came to Hollywood. She was thinking of nothing but herself, her chance, her opportunity! The plaintive, crooning Vallee records weren't played any more. The telephone lost its excitement. Mr. Vallee calling Miss Lamarr? Sorry, but Miss Lamarr was having her English lesson and could not be disturbed. And then — at the very last — Mr. Vallee calling Miss Lamarr? She wasn't in. Yes, they would tell her he had called to say goodbye. She would be sorry to have missed him. If this were a fiction story it might be titled, "Return Engagement" and have two possible endings. The famous band leader might return and fall in love with the girl who almost forgot Hollywood thinking about him. Or to make it even more story bookish, he might return to find she still cared for him — and it would blossom into a great love in full swing time. But it isn't a fiction story and it won't end that way. Rudy is coming back for a return engagement at the Cocoanut Grove. And no doubt among the first nighters will be the new sensation, Hedy Lamarr, who wears provocative red veils the color of her lipstick. But it will be Hedy, the glamour girl, who goes to watch Mr. Vallee — not a lonely super-romantic "import." And what happens won't matter very much because "every man in the room will be in love with her a little" — and she will know it! 54