Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

This Gorgeous Yearbook Contains Your Favorite TV-Radio Stars Here's the yearbook that TV and radio set owners await with giee! It covers all the events and all the history-making moments of all the great shows and programs of 1953. This exciting new edition is better than ever! The editors of Radio-TV Mirror have outdone even themselves! This is the big TV-radio book-of-the-year. It contains hundreds of illustrations . . . stories about the lives of all your favorites! Just feast your eyes over the contents of this gorgeous yearbook. Remember— this is not just another magazine — it's a book that you will cherish and refer to for years to come. It's a real collector's item. And it costs only 50c. NEWS EVENTS OF THE YEAR— The behind-the-scenes stories of Julius La Rosa • Herb Shriner • Jack Webb • Ray Milland • Phyllis Avery • Jeff Clark • Donald O'Connor • Walter Brooke and Betty Wragge • Milton Berle • Eve Arden and Brooks West • Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer • Dean Martin. NEW SHOWS OF THE YEAR— Danny Thomas • Jean Hagen • Liberace • Paul Hartman • Fay Wray • Dave Garroway • Brandon de Wilde • Ernest Truex • Mike Wallace • Lurene Tuttle • Ray Bolger • Eddie Fisher • Win Elliot • Ann Sothern • Jan Murray • Bob Crosby. WHO'S WHO ON TV— Bishop Fulton J. Sheen • Kate Smith Show • Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz • Martha Raye • Randy Merriman • Bess Myerson • Steve Allen • John Daly • Perry Como • Martin and Lewis • Robert Q. Lewis • Garry Moore • Ken Carson • Denise Lor • Art Linkletter • Peggy Wood • Judson Laire • Warren Hull • Paul Dixon • Wanda Lewis • Sis Camp • Jim Backus • Joan Davis • Tommy Bartlett • Jack Sterling • Edward R. Murrow • Art Baker • Godfrey and His Gang: Frank Parker. Marion Marlowe. .Tanette Davis. Haleloke. Lu Ann Sinims, Tony Marvin, Mariners. McGuire Sisters • Maria Riva • Eddie Albert • James Daly • John Forsythe • Margaret Hayes • John Newland • Sarah Churchill • Joey Walsh • Mark Stevens • Beverly Tyler • Loretta Young • Ralph Bellamy • Robert Montgomery • Elizabeth Montgomery • John Baragrey • Constance Ford. STARS OF THE DAYTIME DRAMAS— Ma Perkins • Guiding Light • Search For Tomorrow • Second Mrs. Burton • Stella Dallas • Hilltop House • Our Gal Sunday • Right To Happiness • Road Of Life • Front Page Farrell • Hawkins Falls • Just Plain Bill • The Bennetts • Young Dr. Malone • Valiant Lady • Follow Your Heart • Perry Mason • The Brighter Day • Pepper Young's Family • Wendy Warren • Three Steps To Heaven • This Is Nora Drake • Life Can Be Beautiful • Aunt Jenny • Love Of Life • When A Girl Marries • The Woman In My House • Romance Of Helen Trent • Backstage Wife • Lorenzo Jones • Young Widder Brown • Rosemary. 19S4 EDITION ON SALE— NOW ONLY 50c RADIO-TV MIRROR. Dept. RM-754 • 205 E. 42nd St., New York 17, N. Y. 5 • Send me postpaid a copy of TV-RADIO • ANNUAL 1954. I enclose 50c. S J NAME J Please Print • R S STREET M • J CITY STATE. 92 *"* Yonkers College, Larry applied for a scholarship to a dramatic school. But, when he got it, he couldn't afford to take it. However, because he knew what he really wanted to do, he never gave up. In 1941, he went to a small radio station in Woodside, Long Island, to get experience — and, for the magnificent sum of $20 a month, he had the fun of acting in two dramatic shows a week. It was wonderful experience and he loved it. Trudy backed him all the way, even though it meant postponing their marriage for years. And, when a thyroid operation kept him out of the Army, it was Trudy who gave him pep talks while he was still convalescing. "Get out and do what you want," she urged him. "It will come out all right." Her faith was justified, for his break came in 1942, when, with a year of radio acting to his credit, he auditioned for CBS. The casting director liked him, and he was set for a tiny role in the award-winning show, The Man Behind The Gun. "I went to rehearsal," says Larry, "and the director was looking for someone to play a G.I. from Brooklyn. I was talking to another actor and the director stopped auditioning and asked who was kidding around. Believe me, my heart was in my shoes. Here I go getting fired before I even begin, I thought. But the director asked me to read the part — and I got it! Then, in a little while, I got a part in Mr. District Attorney and, from then on, things zoomed." It is a bit ironic that, although Larry loves to play comedy, and thinks he is good at it, most of his parts have either been heavies or romantic leads. The performance he is particularly proud of was playing the role of Mio in "Winterset," opposite Margo. He has been in Gangbusters, Counter-Spy, FBI In Peace And War, The Big Story, The Shadow, among others. But someday he hopes to do a comedy on Broadway. And, since everything else has worked out for him, that probably will, too. Right now, Larry can often be heard in as many as three radio shows in a day, and he's seen regularly on CBS-TV's Search For Tomorrow, in which he creates the character of Stu Bergman. "TV is wonderful for getting you known," says Larry. "Trudy and I drove to the Coast and, everywhere we went, cops, miners, grocers recognized me as Stu Bergman. I could hardly believe it. It was terrific." When Larry was a kid, he'd take every penny he could save and go to the movies. Then he'd come home and reenact the movie for the neighborhood kids. That love of motion pictures is still with him. Larry has all sorts of expensive cameras, and one of his hobbies is to make movies, then do a sound track for them and synchronize the two just as if it were a film to be shown at a big theater. In the attractive apartment in which he and Trudy live with their pet parakeet, Baby, there is a closet filled with reels of film he has made. And he spends a lot of his spare time cutting and editing. Trudy, who used to be a career girl (she worked on magazines and in advertising agencies), now acts as Larry's Girl Friday, answering his fan mail and cueing him as he rehearses his scripts. "Trudy," claims Larry, "has an instinct for discovering new talent or deciding when a book or story will make a good movie or play." "If I ever go back to work," Trudy smiles, "it will be as an agent or as a talent scout. But right now I'm too busy working with Larry." The Haineses not only work together, they play together. Both of them love the country and would prefer living where they can see grass and trees. But, of course, right now that's not practical. So they do the next best thing and drive out of town whenever they have a free moment. Every summer they go up to a log cabin at Lake George in the Adirondacks, where they swim and fish and race up and down the lake in a speed boat. They play golf together, too. Baby, the blue parakeet, goes everywhere the Haineses go. Baseball is another of their enthusiasms, and Larry is and always has been a Yankee fan. Greatest thrill of his early radio days was when he did the Philip Morris commercials from the press box at Yankee Stadium. "I was actually getting paid to be there," he says, still wide-eyed about it. And an autographed picture of the great Babe Ruth is one of the things he wouldn't part with for anything. During the winter, when country activities are not possible, the Haineses play games. They squabble over Scrabble and love it. They paint, too. The painting by numbers which has swept the country has fascinated them — they buy enormous pictures, fill in the colors by the numbered chart, and give the finished painting to friends. They always work on a painting together, and Trudy has a fit if Larry starts one without her. For Larry, it is a wonderful hobby. He relaxes, completely absorbed in the painstaking work. It is strange that he should enjoy it so much — for he is color blind. However, his color blindness doesn't prevent him from buying most of Trudy's clothes. "He's always coming home with packages," she says. "And, a great deal of the time, they are more expensive things than I would buy myself. So every once in a while, in the interests of economy, I return some of them." But Larry has an unerring instinct for what looks well on his tiny size10 wife. If there is such a thing as an ideal husband, Larry Haines comes close to it. He is the one man in ten thousand who never forgets a birthday or an anniversary. He makes a big thing of such an occasion, because he enjoys it. He even admits to writing a poem or two for a birthday or a special celebration. He loves surprises himself, and just naturally takes it for granted that everybody else does, too. One of Trudy's prized possessions is a charm bracelet which Larry had made specially for her. Each charm symbolizes some important happening in their life together, starting with a tiny replica of the very telegram she sent breaking their second date, and ending with twin hearts with the date of their marriage engraved on them. Larry takes a great interest in the apartment he and Trudy decorated together. One of the most attractive pieces of furniture is a room-divider which he designed himself. It holds books and an enormous TV set on one side — the other is a refreshment bar — and it's so big that, even if they find that dream house, it probably won't fit in. Right now, it looks just dandy in their enormous New York living room. Trudy doesn't think much of herself as a cook, so they eat out quite a lot. It's easier that way, too, because Larry's hours are so irregular. A typical day for this busy actor starts at eight o'clock in the morning and ends at nine at night. During that time, he will have played two or three radio shows and a TV show. But it's the life he loves and wanted, and Larry will be the first to admit that he's a lucky guy. It isn't everyone who is doing what he wants to do — and making good at it. And, so long as there are fans who write in, as one woman did not so long ago, asking him to call her long-distance collect— just to say "Good night, angel," as Lew Archer does to Marcia Kirkland — Larry knows that he's doing all right.