Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

WRONG'; .Must she p.y tor divorce with. Htetime of loneliness? One of rodi.'s best-loved oc tresses brings you her own dromo-filled story By VIRGINIA CLARK AND this decree will become final A 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. 1 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 n« to come to her home for a party tna very night. I didn't want to go, had reached the peint where dreaded meeting people, l« them see the lines of anxiety I * sure were beginning to show in face. But Ellen begged me toco. , and my mother seconded ne^ shudder inwardly today, J"" oSt how near I came to missing tn MM, AUK TENSION m*0' important thing in my whole life. How different this party seemed ,,0^er,than the ones I remembered with Ray. Jack RichardS) Ellen-S ami tu* Was an advertising man, * , L thlnk he must have sensed, or Perhaps read in my strange reraint, my concern for the future. loward the end of the evening, 'e t0ok me aside. "How are you setting along?" he wanted to know. »«HJARY. 1940 A tall, not handsome man called Bud drove me home. How nice, how warm his voice was . . . "May I call you up when I'm in town?" I was too tired to pretend. "Not very well," I admitted. "I've tried everything, but there just doesn't seem to be any opening. And the only training I've had has been in dramatic work." Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Say, you can sing. I'll tell you what — I'll get you an audition at NBC. I'll do it tomorrow!" He was so happy over the idea that his en She s lived the life of Helen Trent— Virginia Clark, star of the daily CBS serial, sponsored by Edna Wallace Hopper. thusiasm infected me. I'd never thought of radio; I hadn't even thought of myself, really, as a singer. But the moment after Jack made his suggestion I was again up in the clouds, dreaming of the success that awaited me. He made it all seem so easy, so simple! A business man they called Bud drove me home. He had been so retiring, and I had been so preoccupied with my own problems, that we had hardly noticed each other during the evening. When Bud stopped the car in front of my apartment house, and helped me out, he said— and I remember how nice, how warm, his voice was — "I'm out of town quite a bit, on business, but may I call you up when I am here once in a while?" "Of course," I said. I didn't even think about him until the next day — when suddenly I remembered how indifferent he had been, except for that last-minute request. With what I suppose was typically feminine lack of logic, I forgot that I certainly hadn't paid much attention to him, and felt irritated because he hadn't seemed more bowled over by me. And then, after that momentary flash of pique, I forgot him again. I had enough to think about, that day and the next. I still shiver a little when I think of the mental torture of those two days — and 39