TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

Wanted: Mr. and Mrs. North (Continued from page 60) example, Barbara and Dick did a late show. Barbara's husband, Dr. Czukor, had to be at work early the following morning. Since the Dennings and the Czukors live but a few blocks apart, Gene asked Dick if he would mind bringing Barbara home. "Sure, I'll bring Barbara home, Gene," said Dick. It was midnight when Barbara and Dick finished taping their show. When they emerged into the dark of the CBS parking lot, it appeared to them like a scene from their script. The street light poked uneasy fingers through the fog as if searching for something solid. They could barely make out the shadowy bulk of Dick's car huddled in the far corner of the lot. A small mist of light seeped through the closed CBS doors. Beyond this brief island of illumination, it was dark as a pit. Barbara and Dick, in real life, are just as brave as Pam and Jerry. They struck up' a chatter of valiant conversation as they gingerly picked their way to the car. The door of Dick's car was cold and fogdamp to his touch. He turned the handle. "It's locked," he said, "and the attendant had the keys!" "Don't worry," said Barbara brightly, "Pam and Jerry could find a set of car keys. And so can we. The first thing we have to do is reconstruct the crime! Now, if you were the parking lot attendant, where would you have left them?" "Inside," said Dick, brightening, "at the reception desk!" "Sure," said Barbara, "that's where they are!" And they ran back to the lighted doorway. But the lone watchman at the night desk said, "No, there are no keys here. But," he said, "sometimes they leave them across the street at the Naples Restaurant." Barbara and Dick left the warmth of the reception room, picking their way across the street toward the Naples. "Keys?" said the cashier. "No keys here. You might try the Knickerbocker Hotel." Thinking of the dark blocks beyond the safety and warmth of the Naples, Barbara and Dick said in their quaveriest Pam-and-Jerry voice, "Knickerbocker?" Then they were out in the dark again. As they started to walk up to the "Knick," their footsteps unconsciously quickened, the better to speed them through the murky night. By the time they arrived, they were almost too out of breath to ask for the keys. Looking at the panting pair in front of him, with ..raised eyebrows, the night clerk said, "No, there are no keys here." Barbara and Dick stared at one another in desperation. "Look," said Dick quietly, "this isn't too big for us. But what would Pam and Jerry do now?" "Well," said Barbara, "they'd go back to the scene of the crime." .Back in the fog-blanketed parking lot, Barbara and Dick peered off into the darkness looking for a clue. Their eyes, now accustomed to the dark, immediately picked out the empty attendant's shack. "The shack!" exclaimed Barbara. "Of course!" said Dick. They looked at one another sheepishly as if to say, "Why didn't we think of this before!" But the shack was locked. "Oh, no!" groaned Dick. "Now what will we do?" asked Barbara. Very Jerry-like, Dick said, "Just keep calm; we're too close to the solution to get excited. I'll think of something." "We could burn it," suggested Barbara, "and rake the ashes." "Don't be funny," replied Dick. "This door has a simple latch. I could force it." "All right," said Barbara, "well do it together . . ." and they leaned against the splintery door. With a brief sigh of protest, it gave way. Dick turned on the light. Together their eyes quickly searched the shack's interior-^-but no keys. "It beats me. Now what?" said Dick. Barbara thought for a moment. She said: "We could call the owner of the lot." Dick brightened. "That's an idea... we should have thought of that in the first place." And back they went to the Naples. "The phone book," said Dick, "is the most remarkable invention since the wheel — you can find the solution to almost any problem in it." Two minutes later, after arousing the sleepy owner of Walt's System Auto Parks, Dick wasn't so positive. The owner didn't have the address or phone number of the lot's attendant. There was nothing he could do until morning. But it already was morning. At 1:30 A.M., Dick and Barbara gave up playing Pam and Jerry North. They called Barbara's husband and told him their story. Twenty minutes later, he arrived in overcoat and pajamas. Barbara and Dick didn't say anything as they sheepishly slid into the front seat beside him. The doctor didn't say anything, either, only looked at them through sleepy eyes. But, as he pulled away from the curb, they heard him mutter: "Some detectives! 76 (Continued from page 70) As usual, they entertained in as many hospitals and orphanages as possible. It was at Dunforth that Roy and Dale first met Marion. Here, for a change, after the stars had entertained, the children sang for Roy and Dale. Marion appeared last. "She came out," says Dale, "in a little plaid kilt that tried desperately to hide her bony knees. Standing in the middle of the floor, a tiny pillar of bravery, she said, 'I'd like to sing a song — "Won't You Buy My Pretty Flowers . . ." ' Her words hit us right between the eyes: 'Underneath the gaslight glitter Stands a little fragile girl, Hiding from the night winds bitter As they round about her whirl. While the hundreds pass unheeding In the evening's waning hours, Still she cries with tearful pleading, Won't you buy my pretty flowers? There are many sad and weary In this pleasant world of ours, Crying every night so dreary, Won't you buy my pretty flowers.' " While Marion sang, Roy and Dale saw the words reflected in her eyes. She wasn't so much singing the song as living it. And Marion seemed to sense their feeling. During the rest of the afternoon, as Roy and Dale sat and talked with the children, Marion followed them with her blue eyes. When Roy and Dale left the orphanage, Marion's face was forlorn — she looked as though her last dream had turned its back and walked away. Driving back to their hotel, Dale couldn't erase the mental picture of the little girl singing her sad song. When they were in their room, she said to Roy: "Of all those children, Roy, that girl needs a home more than the rest . . . Answer to Prayer how about it?" She turned to her husband. Roy said, "I was just thinkin' the same thing." The next day, they asked the prioress for lunch and talked to her about Marion. Marion's yearning for a home was plain, they told her, and they had fallen in love with the child. Would it be possible for them to take her home to California for a visit in their home? They were surprised to learn, during this conversation, that Marion was thirteen years old. To them, her tiny frame belied her age, especially when they mentally compared her with their own children at home. They also learned that Marion was a religious girl. Besides desperately wanting a home, she wanted to become a missionary. The information the prioress gave them convinced them that Marion was the neediest child in the orphanage. This new information only intensified Dale's and Roy's desire to have Marion with them. Word travels fast in an orphanage: It wasn't long before Marion heard she was to go with Roy and Dale to that wonderful dreamland, America! Then the bad news came, again — as it always had: English law prohibits adoption of a British subject by an alien living in a foreign country. Marion could not go with Roy and Dale. But Roy and Dale didn't give up — they went to Chief Constable Merriles in Edinburgh. They discussed the situation back and forth for hours. Finally, Mr. Merriles suggested that, though Marion could not be adopted, there was no law against her coming to America for a visit. "That's good enough for us," said Dale. "At least we can fill her with sunshine and good food." The question now was: Would the special dispensation for the "visit" be granted? It was highly unorthodox. Roy, Dale and Marion waited patiently for word from Chief Constable Merriles. Waiting had always been part of Marion's life; she wasn't as fretful during this time as were Roy and Dale. To Marion, this was just another time for patience and prayer. Then in July, 1954, permission was granted for Marion's "visit" to the United States! She would be allowed to stay until January, 1955. It is now the spring of 1955: Marion is still at home with Roy, Dale and their five other children. After she started school in the fall of '54, Roy and Dale asked that her "visit" be extended so she could finish. Permission was granted. In Scotland, youngsters come of age when they are fifteen — if Marion were in an orphanage at that age, she would have been sent out into the world to work. Marion will turn fifteen while still in school here in America. Legally, she can then make her own decisions: She can either go back to Scotland, or stay on with Roy and Dale. . . . Yes, it is now springtime, 1955. The wildflowers are pushing up on the hills around Roy's and Dale's San Fernando Valley home. It hasn't even been a year since Marion came to America. But, in that time, the sunshine and food Dale promised her, the love and the home Marion longed for, have added five inches and twenty pounds to her slim frame — the kilt no longer reaches her no-longer-bony knees! The spring blossoms remind Marion of her own sweet song, "Won't You Buy My Pretty Flowers?" Who knows better than this little Scottish lass, standing up to her waist in the wild American heather, that there will always come a day in the patient future? A day when every prayer is answered!