Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1950)

Lucky Me — Jan's My Friend! (Continued from page 26) "Gee, I can hardly wait to see you." Her bubbling laugh melted miles of distance. "That's good, for we've already made our plane reservations." There was an instant's pause, and she added, "I'd better tell you. I invited Bill Lawrence to come along. He'd like to see Chicago, too. He's heard me talk about it so much." "Fine thing," I said. "Bill and Archie can go play golf or something while we talk, because oh Jan, I've got so much to tell you!" As I went on downtown to keep my daily date with Kukla, Ollie and their boss, Burr Tillstrom, I kept thinking about Jan and how long I'd known her. Counting it in terms of years it seemed forever, but in terms of friendship it was only yesterday. It's good, I thought, to have a friend such as Jan. Our liking for each other is so strong, so sure, that even if we don't see each other for a year the relationship is just the same as though we had parted ten minutes ago. You take such friendship for granted when you're a youngster. It starts about the time you enter your teens. You may have played dolls with the girl down the block from the time you were able to toddle, but it isn't until you enter high school that the close association becomes really important to you. Then all of a sudden, about the time you go out on your first date, you need a confidante — some girl to whom you can tell everything, but everything. You exchange secrets about a telephone call from Jack or a note from Joe. You face into the same mirror and feel ultra-sophisticated as you draw on your first lipstick mouth or experiment with eyebrow pencil. You worry together about getting a new dress for that very important dance. You daydream endlessly about the future as you explore the exciting idea of growing up. There's a period when you and your girl friend are closer than sisters. And then before you know it, you really are grown up, and that teen-age friendship is over, too. Perhaps you go to different schools, or work at different jobs, or get married. Whatever it is, the two of you take different paths. You meet new people, your interests change, and nothing is ever the same again. When you happen to think about it, you wonder if ever again you'll find a friend who so completely shares your thoughts. But as the years pass, you realize you never do. Unless you're lucky. Or, unless you enter a phase of your life which in some way duplicates earlier conditions. It was reverting to a teen-age situation of being neighbors and of having common interests which cemented the friendship between Jan and me. I had known her for a number of years. It was that vitally alive look of hers which first caught my attention when we met at NBC, soon after I came to Chicago. I learned she, too, was a singer. We said hello when we met in the halls, and there the association remained. I was working hard and I was going with Archie. While I had many acquaintances, there was no room just R then, for any close friendships in my life. M Archie and I were married, and then — almost before we had a chance to settle down — he went into the Army. For a time, my whole life seemed to be at loose ends. It wasn't just a matter of missing the man I love. I missed our show business shop talk, too. I was a singer on the CBS staff by that time, and since Archie was — still is — Chicago representative for Leeds Music Company, we had always known the same people and been interested in the same work. I wasn't entirely alone after he left, for Nan, my mother, and I shared an apartment up on Marine Drive. Close as we are, it wasn't the same as talking things over with Archie, for you wouldn't exactly call Nan my sharpest critic. From the time I'd climb up on a kitchen chair to sing nursery rhymes, dear Nan has thought her darling daughter was wonderful. I loved her for it, but to do my best work, I needed the challenge of a more objective attitude. That was my state of mind when I opened the door of the apartment house one afternoon and encountered Janette Davis. After mutual exclamations of "I didn't know you lived here!" we adjourned to my place for a cup of coffee and much conversation. A short time later, a third singer moved in. Marian Mann, then the vocalist on Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, took an apartment on the floor above me. We had a common interest, for Marion's and Jan's young men were in service, like Archie, and they were as lonely as I. After we had done our jobs and played our war benefit shows, there was nothing for us to do. Nothing, that is, until all of us landed under the same roof. What a foursome of females that became — Jan, Nan, Fran and Mann! Because of Nan, we usually ended up in our apartment. Dinner each evening started out to be a division of labor. Jan, Marian and I would dutifully plan and promise to do our share of the work, but soon we'd start to chatter about what had happened at the studios that day and there Nan would be, left to do all the cooking alone. Engrossed as we were in our own talk, she was lucky if we even set the table. Nan, bless her, loved it. She had three girls to fuss over instead of one, and she was thoroughly happy mothering the bunch of us. She'd let us talk away to our heart's content before dinner. (But once it was finished, she'd hand out the towels and inform us we had better do dishes or else!) Then after dinner, we'd play cards. Not one of us could be serious long enough to enjoy bridge, so we resorted to an ultra-simple little opus titled "Idiot's Delight", and believe me, it was. Childhood games of Flinch and Old Maid back in Iowa were complicated in comparison. Elementary as it was, each of us could get tangled up in mistakes, and when one did, the other three would rock with laughter. I've never been certain any of us could count. The last time she was in Chicago, Jan reminded me of a side of those card games that I'd forgotten. Veritable fortunes exchanged hands among us — all on paper, of course. It gave us an illusory feeling of great affluence to say, at the end of an evening's play, "You owe me $946.68." And then to add, with a gracious gesture, "Forget it!" Jan was once in my debt, she remembered, to the tune of $20,000 — at a time when, among us, we would have been hard put to it to scare up that many cents on short notice. Actually, though, we did play for pennies sometimes when we felt extra devilish. Usually they were Jan's pennies. She put what she won into a little money box. By the time the next game came around the rest of us would be temporarily out of funds, so we'd all dip happily into Jan's hoard in order to finance our evening's operations. They sound silly now, those evenings at cards, but actually they weren't, for I know they saved me many hours of worry about what was going to happen to Archie and me, and how soon the war would end and let us be together again. Gradually, a sort of family feeling grew up among us, with Nan watching over our welfare. When Marian, who was mad about clothes, spent too much money on them, Nan shook her head. When Jan caught a heel in a hem. Nan was there with thread and needle to catch it up. When I forgot something, they were all quick to remind me. As we learned to know each other better, I became familiar, too, with Jan's tremendous enthusiasms. About the time the first robin cheeped, Jan would announce, "Now this year, I am going to get a real good suntan." She would thereupon betake herself to the roof and soak up sun. Unfortunately, however, she has a redhead's complexion. Instead of tanning, she'd fry. At least once each Summer she'd come down blistered and feverish and we'd all have to pitch in to play nurse, covering her with oils and baking soda and anything else we had heard was good for sunburn. It was the same way with her golf game. She'd start out each Spring as though she were training for the Women's Open, yet before long the sun would get her and she'd be through. Jan never was meant to be an outdoor girl. But life on Marine Drive wasn't all giggles and Cokes. We'd spend hours listening to each other's records. Whenever Jan, Marian or I did an important show or even one we wondered about, we'd have a transcription disc made and bring it home to play for the other two. We all learned from those sessions. It was then that I gained a great respect for Jan's talent and intelligence. When a record was put on, she'd listen for a few minutes, her head tilted to one side, her eyes focused far away, her face wiped clean of all expression. Completely intent, she wouldn't have noticed if the house tumbled down around her. And then suddenly she'd find the idea she was groping for and she'd come alive. Tersely, she'd state what was wrong and what was right. Never did she remark vaguely that she either liked or disliked something. She knew why, exactly. Eventually I realized she applied the same critical thinking to her career. As I saw her sharply analytical mind attack a problem and arrive at a solution, I could well understand how Jan, the sweet little girl from the South, had developed into a potential star. Jan's story had a touch of the fabulous. The eldest of eight children, she