TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1962)

course, without our including some of the names by which this agent for Democracy is known throughout the world. He's been called Michel Souris, Miki Kuchi, Miguel Ratonocito, Michele Japolino, Miki Kuchi, Mikki Maus and Mikkel Mus. To us, he's Mickey Mouse. Just for the record, let's include the news report that recently appeared in the American newspapers, telling how, on your orders, your henchman, Comrade Heyde, went about trying to get rid of "this dirty rat." The dateline is Berlin; the headline reads — Reds Call Mickey A Capitalistic Rat; and the story goes: Mickey Mouse was denounced by the East German Communist paper Freiheit yesterday as an American agent helping East Germans flee to the West. SHIRLEY BOOTH (Continued from page 43) "And your work is fulfilling?" The veil lifts almost imperceptibly. "Perhaps," says Shirley softly, "it would be better to say — it fills." The thoughtful, honest correction confirms what has always been obvious to everyone really close to Shirley at the time she was married. As one friend said: "She's copped about every award an actress can, but do you know? She was a great wife — and I think the most happy in that role." When Shirley's husband, W. H. Baker Jr., died in 1951, the word was that she'd never work again. Theirs had been one of those ideal marriages not based on publicity releases. With his death, Shirley lost something far more dear than her Broadway fame or rave reviews from the critics. Close friends and those who worked with her stood by and watched helplessly, as she wandered through the days as though she were walking in her sleep . . . and there were some who thought she had become deaf because she appeared to hear nothing and see even less. Her private world of love, for almost ten years, had quickly crumbled and she didn't seem to have the slightest interest in attempting to pick up the remaining pieces to start over again. "If you're trying to ask me if my feelings for my late husband affect my work," Shirley now told me quietly, "the answer is yes. I think I am more sympathetic to the characterization of Hazel than I would be, if he were alive. Hers is a more ribald and hearty sense of humor than mine, but I understand her not wanting people to feel sorry for her. She says and does things the rest of us wouldn't have the nerve to say or do — although we'd like to — but underneath is a kind woman who identifies with the Baxter family because it is the only one she has. With_ out them, she'd be alone." v "And without the Baxter family, K would you be alone?" "I'm alone, but I can also be alone without being lonely," she said staunch92 The newspaper reported a talk by a Communist functionary named Heyde to children in the city of Halle. He warned them not to read Mickey Mouse comic books or to join the Mickey Mouse clubs formed by publishers in West Germany. "How can a child be so dumb as to be taken in by Mickey Mouse?" Heyde asked. "These books have the purpose of getting the addresses of your parents. You cut a coupon out of the book, send it along with your address, and you become a member of the Mickey Mouse club. "Then they have an important address to give the head hunters." "Head hunters" is the Communist term for the Western agents they say are causing the exodus of refugees. ly. "There is always something in your past that sets your attitude towards people and situations in your present. My husband would have been pleased with Hazel. I think he, above all others, would have understood my need to play her. Every day, when I walk on the set, I have a family ... I belong to a family, and it has become a very real world to me." Shirley's reputation for warmth and compassion is not just a network press agent's dream. Without being professionally saccharine or "sticky," she reveals a down-to-earth interest in and concern for her fellow beings, and invariably tempers deeply-felt emotion with a gentle and wise wit. She has never been known to lose her temper — a claim some other stars might do well to aspire to — and if she has ever felt the urge to play the prima donna, it must be assumed she has done it pretty sneakily. There are no witnesses. The explanation from this lonely but gallant woman is a simple one: "When someone blows his top or is rude for no apparent reason, I try to remember he probably has a good reason and something is eating at him inside. There isn't a person walking around who doesn't have troubles." A fellow actor says of Shirley, "I wouldn't say she's obsessed with making others happy — but I think she was so deeply hurt, when she tragically lost the one person she loved, that she gained a sixth sense when it comes to feeling others' troubles. I think she works hard and laughs hard because it helps her to forget." This day, as Shirley got up from her chair to return to the set, her parting remark was perhaps the key to the true character of both the great actress and the gaily indomitable maid she plays : "Everyone blows off steam one way or another — and I find that, when I'm the most upset, I clown. The more disturbed I am, the sillier or funnier I become. That way, no one gets hurt, no feelings are bruised, no unkind words bantered about. Really, it's the best way, don't you think?" She walked back on the sound stage and, within seconds, the cast and crew of "Hazel" were convulsed. Everyone All we can do, Nikita, is to echo your stooge's words, changing them a little, of course. How can a dictator be so dumb as to be afraid of Mickey Mouse? Then again, maybe you and your henchmen aren't so stupid after all. If, as one writer says, Walt Disney's creation, Mickey Mouse (Walt is Mickey's "father," of course) symbolizes the "desire of the human spirit to transcend the mechanical forces of brute nature" and you resist him, then maybe you're on the side of "brute nature," a supporter of the arch-villain, Pegleg Pete, and nothing can help you. — Jim Hoffman See "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color," NBC-TV, Sun., 7:30 p.m. edt. His "Mickey Mouse Club" is also seen on local stations; check newspapers. I entered into the spirit of having a ball while turning out a television show. As the cameraman adjusted angles and the director explained a detail to little Bobby Buntrock — who plays Harold Baxter — Shirley adjusted her cap rakishly and did a little two-step in accompaniment to a prop-man's whistle. Two elderly fans came in to watch from the sidelines. Shirley waved gaily to the strangers and called out something about their being able to see the show free — if they carried water for the elephants first! "What a gal," said a man standing next to me. "It's a pleasure to come to work every day. Do you know that, since I've been working on this show, my own home life is happier? I'm not tired and in a lousy mood when I walk into the house at night. She keeps us laughing for eight hours straight." I looked down at my notes to see if there was anything else I wanted to ask, but I knew I had my story. A clipping, attached to my note pad, caught my eye. It was Shirley's description of Hazel when she first started doing the show: "She has warmth and a spirit that is touching. She is sad, too, and the shell of humor and hardness she wears is only to protect her." I went out the exit, leaving behind the well-ordered chaos of a successful television series at work. In another hour, the crew director, Baxter family and Hazel would knock off for the day and go their separate ways to their separate lives. Five days a week, Shirley Booth keeps some twenty-odd technicians and actors laughing and feeling good about life, and on Thursday evenings she brings that same sense of well-being into the homes of millions of viewers. Perhaps not "fulfilled," but she has "filled" her days . . . everyone knows that a television star, working in a weekly series, is exhausted and worn out when she leaves the studio — and this one really knocks herself out to make others happy, throughout the busy day. It helps the nights go quickly. — Tricia Hurst "Hazel" brings color to your lives on NBC-TV, Thurs., at 9:30 p.m. edt.