Radio television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

LUCKY MARION MARLOWE (Continued from page 35) appearing in the London musical; above her performance before the King and Queen of England; above meeting such greats as Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden; and above the attentive escorts of nobility who flocked around her. From the meeting with Arthur has come her present success on his television program, many movie offers, and a future more luminous than most twenty-one-year-olds dare to dream about. The best thing about it, Marion feels, is that it all seemed to come about so casually. She was back in this country last winter, a bride of about five months, living with her husband temporarily in Miami. Anyhow, at this particular point she was having dinner one night at the Kenilworth Hotel in Miami, and in the course of the evening she met the hotel's owner, Mr. Raffington. He asked if she would like to sing there the following Sunday evening, and she said she would be delighted. It happened that Godfrey had expected to be in Miami the previous week but was delayed until the night of Marion's appearance on the show. Fate scheduled her number with his belated arrival. It was an unusually responsive audience and Marion left the stage elated. She was called into the office, and expected only to be handed her check for the evening's work. "Someone wants to meet you," Mr. Raffington said. It was Godfrey, who took her hand and told her, "Little lady, I think you're wonderful. Can you leave for New York with me in the morning?" That first day on the Godfrey show is almost a blank in her memory. From early afternoon she went through the motions of rehearsing and then doing the show, hardly aware of reality. Just what sparks a career like Marion's and justifies this faith? Let's go back to the real beginning of her story and try to find out: She was born in St. Louis on March 7, 1930, the only child of the Townsends. Marion became famous in the Townsend neighborhood for being the only baby who had bounced right out of her diapers in perfect rhythm with the music. At the age of four that feeling for rhythm had led to singing on the radio with juvenile talent shows, and at five she presided over a daily fifteen-minute program of her own. Two years later she was doing "dramatics" on the air. When Marion got to Beaumont High School she was so taken up with her own special interests that she had no time for the usual teen-age sports. This is the sort of high school heresy that sets a girl apart and leaves her a little lonely at times. In her early teens, Marion got experience in dramatic roles with some of the little theater groups, like St. Louis' Rooftop Theater. There was some professional modeling to help pay for lessons. Then, at seventeen, one of her biggest breaks Same, although it didn't turn out at all as lie expected. She had made a recording of a song for a friend, and a motion picture executive heard it and encouraged her to go to Hollywood. After many months she was right where m she'd started, career-wise. Fate was still on the job, however. One evening she decided that only a movie would lift her spirits. Although fifty cents seemed a sizable sum, she paid thirty-nine cents admission to the theater around the corner and ten cents went into the popcorn machine in the lobby. Her dime stayed in, but no popcorn came out, and she was banging on the machine and shaking it j when a voice asked, "Can I help?" She looked up — way up, beyond her own five feet seven and one-half inches, to the man who towered a full eleven inches above her. The first thing she noticed, of course, was his big heavenly height, men tall enough for her to look up to being reasonably scarce. She had liked his voice, and she liked his looks — but most of all she liked the fact that he shook the precious popcorn loose. He was on his way in to see the movie, too, and there happened to be only two seats left, and they were together. She shared the popcorn with him and after the show he asked which way she lived and offered to walk along with her if she didn't mind. On the way home he told her he had recently got out of the Navy. They compared ages and she learned he was eight years older than she. Marion's aunt invited Hal in for coffee that first night, liked him so well that she asked him to dinner later in the week. Two and a half years later Hal and Marion were married at her home in St. Louis. The movies didn't seem to want Marion during that first Hollywood period, but one night when she was singing at Ciro's, a London producer offered her a singingdancing lead in a show he was casting. A few months later she was in London, rehearsing for the musical, called "Sauce Tartar." It had a highly successful run and she stayed with it for eighteen months, doubling on Sundays on television for the BBC. "T loved England, partly perhaps beJ_ cause I am English on my father's side. Even the first time I set foot on London's cobblestones I had the strangest feeling I had been there before. But I was terribly happy to get back. Two days after I got home, Hal and I were married." Frank Parker, who sings with her on the Godfrey show, can't say enough about her natural showmanship, her voice and her wonderful enthusiasm. Archie Bleyer, the orchestra leader, will tell you that every note she sings is expressive, every word full of meaning. This is rare praise from the artists who work with her every week. But perhaps the finest tribute of all occurred the night of her twenty-first birthday. Hal, now in government service, was down in Florida and couldn't get to New York. She was feeling a little sorry for herself. Before the show began she told one of the crew that it was a big day in her life, then forgot she had even mentioned it. When she came off the stage and went back to her dressing room, someone had marked up her mirror with lipstick. "Happy Birthday from the stagehands," it said. A cake used in the commercial on the show had been decorated with a candle. Happily, she realized then that she had really been taken into the magic circle of Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. hair too dry? BE PROUD OF YOUR HAIR WITH y&fc^2^ SHAMPOO EMuisiFlE| LANOL|N dollar quality giant siye .. .69t Finest creme shampoo you have ever used... or money back. Why pay a dollar? Guaranteed by Helene Curtis-foremost name in hair beauty. large size tube 49<f AMAZING CREAM REMOVES UNSIGHTLY HAIR QUICKLY, SAFELY Acts Below "Razor Line" Without Cutting or Scraping Legs The modern way to remove ugly hair from your legs is with Neet® Cream Hair Remover. It works deeper than a razor, below the surface of the skin. Safer too from razor cuts and scratches. Neet leaves tender skin soft and smooth, free from razor stubble. 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