Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

WOMEN GO PLACES WITH Good Manners Are you shy . . . timid . . . afraid to meet and talk with people? If so. here's good news for you! For Elsa Maxwell, the famous hostess to world celebrities, has written a book packed solid with ways to develop poise and self-confidence. This wonderful book entitled, Elsa Maxwell's Etiquette Book contains the answers to all your everyday social problems. By following the suggestions given in this book you know exactly how to conduct yoursslf on every occasion. Once you are completely familiar with the rules of good manners you immediately lose your shyness — and you become your true, radiant self. Win New Respect Win new esteem and respect from your friends — men and women alike. Read one chapter in this helpful book in your spare time, and in a very short period you will find yourself with more self-confidence than you ever dreamed you would have. You will experience the wonderful feeling of being looked up to and admired. Good manners are one of the greatest personal assets you can possess. Good jobs, new friends, romance, and the chance to influence people can be won with good manners. Ladies and gentlemen are always welcome . . . anywhere. And the most encouraging thing about good manners is that anyone can possess them. Only $1.00 The price of this book that puts you at ease no matter where you are — and opens the door to achievement and success — costs only $1.00. And we pay the postage! Take advantage of this truly remarkable bargain. Mail coupon below for your book— TODAY •BARTHOLOMEW HOUSE. INC., Dept. WG-II54* •205 E. 42nd St.. New York 17, N. Y. • m Send me postpaid a copy of ELSA MAXWELL'S » J ETIQUETTE BOOK. I enclose $1.00 J •name • • please Print • •STREET • • • • CITY STATE • • • Romance in the Air SAVEUP1 TO 50% 1 and more 1 Diamonds ■ from EstaleSjM Bonks, and " Unredeemed T p/edges^- V ^^^rW^ ft ■ On/ Reference Berman's Diamond Loan Bonn Depf. TC — BERMAN BLDG., BALTO. 1, MD. 76 (Continued from page 46) registered amazement and disapproval. Dolores caught the expressions on their faces as she turned toward the curb. "I really wanted to explain," she says now, "but there wasn't time. I am sure they thought Earl had deserted me and at last I was catching up with him. I could see them shaking their heads over these dreadful young couples of today!" The facts are that neither Dolores nor Earl is married . . . but that they do date . . . and that they usually see each other both on the program and off. "The scripts actually have brought us together," Dolores says. "Because we like to work on them together, and that often means a dinner date. And, suddenly, a very interesting thing began to happen. We have established a rapport, so that now we can almost do a scene without sticking to every word of the script!" Joefore she ever dreamed of playing his TV wife — before she dreamed of being in television at all — Earl had been something of a hero to Dolores ... a hero to the whole New York block of apartment buildings in which she lived at that time, before her parents moved to Florida and she got her own apartment. She was just beginning to think about acting then. "Earl lived on the same block, and he had this fantastic motorcycle even then. I used to picture him dressed in a black helmet and jacket. Probably because I had heard he was an actor, and I thought it was pretty big stuff to have a real actor on our street. I got to know him, too, but only casually." It turned out later — when Dolores had reached the point where she joined a class for young professionals who wanted to improve their acting techniques — that Earl was a fellow student. One night he offered to drive her home, and she said that was fine, expecting to be escorted to a taxi or perhaps a convertible. She was rather dressed up that evening, and it seemed like a gala ending to the day . . until they got down to the street, and he walked over to the same motorcycle she remembered so well. "This is it," he said proudly. "Get on." She did, and they rode uptown, but when they neared her house she suggested that her mother might think this was odd transportation for a daughter of hers through New York streets. Perhaps he wouldn't mind sneaking around the corner and letting her off in a darker spot? As she was saying this, a car pulled up next to them and she looked into her mother's startled eyes. "It was quite a shock to her, but now the family is used to it. So am I. Earl and I sometimes explore the city in the early evening, especially the quieter sections where there is little traffic. The first time he took me down to Wall Street and the financial district, it seemed like something out of a dream. The mammoth buildings were almost deserted by night, and the narrow, cavernous streets were almost empty. I had a sense of complete isolation from the New York I had always known. The lights on the motorcycle threw gigantic shadows across the streets and buildings. It was beautiful — and just a little bit eerie, too." Earl likes this eerieness. In fact he feasts on it. He goes for eerie motion pictures, too. "Horror movies," Dolores calls them. "He sees every one of them at least twice. Takes me with him, and when I'm most scared I know he's enjoying himself, because that means it's a really spine-chilling plot." He makes up for her sacrifices by tak ing her to Broadway plays and to the kind of movies she likes best — -romantic , musicals and dramas in which even the villains are handsome, and no clutching hands drag a victim to his doom. Although Valiant Lady is Dolores' first television serial, she was an experienced TV and radio actress by the time she was asked to read for the part of Diane. They liked her reading. They liked her looks (a dainty 5'lVfe", 105 pounds, curly dark hair and huge hazel-gray eyes). But someone had a more blonde type in mind. She was disappointed, but there was a role in a play she hoped would get to Broadway. The play opened in New Haven, closed in Philadelphia, never made New York. Before she got back, however, the Valiant Lady producers were still remembering the little brunette who had read so well, ' and suddenly there was a telegram saying they were holding the part for her. "I wanted to play Diane. I love playing her now," Dolores says simply. "I think I have some understanding of her, some sympathy with her impulsiveness, her intense desire for excitement, her feelings of frustration because she thinks she is chained to what she considers a dull town, never realizing that some day she may come to wish it were as quiet as it seems on the surface! Diane is a girl who loves luxury, who longs for jewels and beautiful things, and she is foolish enough to take terrible chances to get them. She doesn't appreciate either her mother or her husband, because she hasn't grown up to their stature. She isn't mean, but she is thoughtless, impatient with life, eager for experience. She loves Hal, and hopes to help him make something of himself, never realizing that he is the really stable one. She has so much to learn, this girl, and I find it very interesting to see this happening and to be a part of it." Dolores herself switched careers almost on impulse. She was starting to work for her master's degree in philosophy, expecting to settle down to a good, solid teaching job. There was no theatrical tradition in her family. Her sister finished school and got married and had a baby. Dolores planned a career and thought marriage might come along and change the plan, or perhaps teaching and marriage might be combined. She had thought about acting, but not too seriously. "At Julia Richman High School (where Judy Holliday and Geraldine Brooks began their careers in school plays), I was in plays, too. But it wasn't until I entered New York University and was in the college plays that I got to feeling I might like to be an actress. I pushed it 'way back in my mind then, deciding an education came first. Perhaps if J. had started dramatic training earlier it would have been easier for me. I don't know. I am glad, however, that I finished my education, because there are things I care about now which I might not have been interested in had I left school at that time. For instance, if I had not studied the philosophy of government, I would understand far less of what is going on in the world today. One way or another, either through education or our own reading and listening, we have to keep informed, and education made it that much easier for me." It was while she was working toward her master's degree that the urge to branch off into some phase of show business began to overwhelm her. She took a job with a concert bureau, helping with the bookings of the performers and with the programming, and the hundred and one details. "It was arithmetic that proved my undoing. We needed 500 tickets for a concert,