Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

f ■ Must she pay for divorce with a lifetime of loneliness? One of radio's best-loved actresses brings you her own drama-filled story By VIRGINIA CLARK AND this decree will become final £\ six months from this day. . . ." ' » It seemed strange, now, to walk out of the courtroom free. Strange, and — terrifying. For I was free to live my own life and to guide my son in the directions in which I thought he should travel — but also I was free to walk the streets in the endless search for a job, for bread and for shelter not alone for myself but for the tiny boy I had brought into the world. It seemed to me that my life had come to a full stop, and that when it began again I should be a different person. Not the girl who had gaily taken parts in college plays and dreamed of being a "real" actress. Not the girl, either, who had studied at Mrs. Barnum's dramatic school, working to pay her tuition. I looked back upon these two selves as upon strangers. But most of all, I felt the difference between the Virginia Clark of this moment and the Virginia Clark who had married Ray, who had seen her marriage fail, had gone through the experience of having a child, had taken the agonizing decision of divorce. I still loved Ray. It was as if I had cut a part of me away, coldly, deliberately — as if I had rejected a part of the essential me. Something new would have to grow, slowly, quietly, to take the place of what I had cut away. It would have been good for me if I could have gone directly from that courtroom to begin broadcasting the story that was later to bring me so much — The Romance of Helen Trent. How much unhappiness it would have saved me! Not because of the money, although that of course would have helped — but for the lessons it would have taught me. 38 The Romance of Helen Trent, you see, is very much my own story, from the moment my divorce was granted. By some trick of fate, I was to find myself, months later, reading lines as Helen Trent which might have been my own innermost thoughts; enacting the fictional role of a woman who believed that divorce had put an end to her life, just as I had enacted that role in real life. As Helen Trent, I saw mistakes that I myself had made; as Helen Trent I found a happiness that I almost missed in real life. . . . But all that came later. We moved into a small kitchenette apartment, my child and I, across the hall from my mother. I made the kitchen into a bedroom for the boy, because until we could make other arrangements we were to take our meals with Mother. I spent my days traveling from one office and employment agency to another, seeking work. Again I knew the discouragement of coming home in the dark evenings after long hours of job-hunting — but now I could always take fresh courage from the smile of a little boy who knew that his mother wouldn't let him down. Days passed into weeks, weeks into months, and it was always the same. I could do nothing, and I could think of nothing but the problem of money. I had had no training for any particular job. There was little or nothing in the theatrical world, and for the few openings that did occur, fifty trained girls stood ready to step in. As time passed my doubts increased and I began to know a deep despair, a worry and a concern for the future that drove me almost frantic. One night, at dinner, the telephone rang. It was Ellen Richards, ■ ' Illustration by Walter Clark Dower one of my old friends, asking me to come to her home for a party that very night. I didn't want to go; I had reached the point where I dreaded meeting people, letting them see the lines of anxiety I was sure were beginning to show in my face. But Ellen begged me to come, and my mother seconded her. I shudder inwardly today, thinking how near I came to missing the most RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR