Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

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Tampax Incorporated, Palmer, Mass. l%m T V R 94 Accepted for Advertising by the Journal of the American Medical Association Presenting Portia (Continued from page 53) Gardening is new to Frances, and that's a little odd, considering that she grew up in Berkeley, California, where flowers and gardens are certainly no novelty. Her family moved to California from Texas when Frances and her three sisters were little girls. And it was at the Pasadena Playhouse that the youngster with stars in her eyes got her first chance. "But, even as a little girl," Frances explains, "I knew I was going to be an actress. I used to learn long pieces of poetry, and I would insist on reciting them whenever anyone came to the house. I loved an audience. I don't know how Mother put up with me, but I guess she was amused. I know she is delighted that I have a career. I'm the only one who has worked. My sisters are all married and are housewives. But there was always something in me that insisted that I wanted to act." After a couple of seasons at Pasadena, Frances did the impossible. She got a job with a summer stock company at Martha's Vineyard — by mail. The manager had never seen her act. But she enlisted the aid of everyone she knew in the theater or movies in California. They all wrote letters. So did she. "I guess they were so startled they just hired me," she explains. After the season ended, Frances came to New York, where for a little while it looked as though her luck had run out. But she was determined to stay and take her chances. Because eating is important, even to a girl who thinks she can live on applause, Frances took a job as stock girl in a Madison Avenue dress shop. But every once in a while, she would emerge from behind the racks and cast her eyes toward Broadway. She didn't make Broadway right away, but she did get a chance at Brooklyn. Offered the part of Lucy in a stock company performance of "Draculaj" she jumped at the chance. "I wasn't going to be any good as a salesgirl, anyway," she laughs. After "Dracula" came a season in Maplewood, New Jersey, with the chance to play with such theater greats as Philip Merivale, Alison Skipworth, Grace George and Eva LeGallienne. Frances has a very special reason for being grateful to stock companies, because it was while acting in such a company — at Ridgefield, Connecticut — that she met her husband-to-be. Frances and Philip Bourneuf acted together in stock and in early TV plays. "It was ghastly at first," Frances admits, "because we treated each other like husband and wife instead of as actors. But, once we learned not to do that, everything was fine. I like playing with Philip. But it's harder on him, because he's a better actor than I am an actress." The Bourneufs would like to do a Broadway play together and add themselves to the growing list of husband-and-wife teams such as Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. The majority of Frances Reid's successful stage appearances have been in classical plays. She played Ophelia opposite Maurice Evans in "Hamlet." She was the Roxanne, loved and lost by Jose Ferrer, in "Cyrano de Bergerac." Her slim figure showed to advantage in the boy's tights worn by Viola in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." In fact, the only contemporary hit she ever had was a war play, "The Wind Was Ninety," in which she acted with Kirk Douglas and Wendell Corey — when they, too, were just making a name for themselves. Frances' success in costume plays is actually just one more reason why this gifted woman loves the part of Portia. "The drama poses real human problems, faced and solved by real people every day," she says seriously. "It gives me a chance to portray a warm-hearted woman who is intelligent enough to be good at more than one thing. I like that, because I have found it possible to be a pretty good housewife and cook and still be an actress. At least, Philip likes my cooking, and that's all that counts." Frances' schedule is going to use these talents to the utmost. She is hoping to be able to commute to New York from their Bucks County house. This means catching a 7:45 train every morning (and the station is fifteen miles away), remaining at the studio every day from 9:15 A.M. until 3 P.M. — and, of course, giving a show each day. "I manage by taking my lunch with me," she says. "I have a huge handbag and stow away a thermos of coffee and a sandwich. This way, I don't have to take time to go out in the half -hour lunch period. I try to get my studying all done by six o'clock, so that I can spend the evening with Philip or go over scenes with him if he is working. This summer, he is going to be at the Bucks County Playhouse and the Theater in the Park in Philadelphia, so that it all should work out fine. Besides, we love it here." Looking around the spacious living room with its pine-panelled walls, high ceiling, and the view of the rolling Jericho Valley, it's not hard to see why. The house was built to the Bourneufs' own specifications. Between them, they planned and decided what they wanted and then — and only then — did they engage a contractor. "We couldn't bear to build in an old form," says Frances, "but neither did we want anything too aggressively modern." The result is somewhere in between. The spaciousness of the living room gives a modern impression, as does the freeform coffee table, a gift of the famous Hungarian actress Lili Darvas. There are sling chairs of canvas and wrought-iron, too. But, at one end of the room, is an old Welsh dresser — a period piece which is perfect in the room. There is only one bathroom, but a modern and practical note is the two wash basins side by side. "Our apartment in New York is much more colorful than this house," Frances explains. "Here we think there is so much color out of doors that we limited ourselves inside to browns and greens. In town, where everything outside is gray, we went mad with color indoors." Everything about Frances and her husband shows this same reasonableness of approach. They have made their own adjustments to their parallel careers. And the fact that they are parallel — and not conflicting — is testimony to the ability of each of them to face life. * PAUL WHITEMAN Dean of American Music • LU ANN SIMMS of the Arthur Godfrey Shows • GALEN DRAKE Everyone's Favorite Philosopher All these — and more! — in the starstudded September issue of TV RADIO MIRROR on sale first week in August