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She's the unpredictable, inconventional and completely delightful Martha kott, who proves you can be a great star without glamour, even in Hollywood
By HOWARD SHARPE
You simply can't believe it about Martha Scott. The whole thing's too improbable.
When you find out what there is to know about this girl, you learn not only the upside down story of Hollywood's Helen Hayes — as they call her out there — but also of radio's Alice Blair. Alice comes to you through Martha's voice in the afternoon, just as you finish your dusting; and you listen, millions of you.
For Martha Scott went back to radio, where she got her start, after she'd been signed right into wealth and glory by the movie fellows. She went back because she's a girl with ideals. She understands that those day-by-day radio serials bring a lot of pleasure to women everywhere. Listeners know Alice Blair as Martha's voice; if Martha stopped talking, Alice — who is a very alive and meaningful person to so many of you — would die.
Besides, young Miss Scott (she's twenty-four, to be exact) isn't going to be flattered and baLlyhooed by enthusiastic critics into believing she's Hollywood's White Hope until she sees it happen. "Not on one picture, or even three," she said. "I'm going to keep an out, in case I'm like a meringue on its fourth day."
OCTOBER, 1940
Shrewd, that one, along with her ideals.
The first time I saw her (on the "Howards of Virginia" location) Martha was a stunning Southern belle dressed in chic riding clothes of the Revolutionary period and galloping horse-back down a trail toward a bevy of rolling cameras. Side-saddle, which is the "hardest way.
Three hours later I came upon an unspectacular young lady dressed in slacks and without glamour. She looked a little like one of the script girls, except that her face was more distinctive than any scriptgirl's face ever was (square-jawed, highbrowed, with disturbingly intelligent eyes) — and she was looking speculatively up into a tree.
"Hi," I said. Then, of course: "What's up there?"
"Nothing. Somebody said if I
climbed a tree this afternoon I wouldn't be stiff tomorrow from riding."
"Haven't been on a horse for a while, hmm?"
"I have never been on a horse. Until today." She limped into the sun and sat down. "I hiirt," she added reflectively.
The sun up in Santa Cruz, California, is nice and warm, and there are pine trees all around and if you're on a hill you can look down at the bay, too. Martha and I sat, looked, and talked about her for the rest of the afternoon.
But maybe I'd better tell you her story from the beginning, in a straight line, so you don't get confused. It's a nice sort of tale, with its dominant overtone of love and its undertones of sacrifice, of great friendship, of struggle and of near despair. {Continued on page 55)
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