Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1953)

Arthur Godfrey's Songstress — Marion Marlowe (Continued from page 29) At the age of eight, Marion made her radio debut and sang "The One Rose" and "You'll Never Know." From nine to thirteen, she had her own weekly fifteenminute song session and appeared on a Saturday morning dramatic show, where she played character roles from foreigntongued spies to aged grandmothers. But Marion was not being pushed. Her mother, whom she calls "Mike," told her time and time again that she was to do in life only that which made her happy. Marion, however, from her earliest years wanted to be in show business. She would go out by the rosebushes and talk about it vdth her grandfather. He would tell her, "You want to aim for the moon, Marion, and you'll at least land on a star. People who aim only for a star usually hit a tree." Far greater than the lessons was the love her folks gave so freely. Marion will tell you it was this understanding and Etffection she needed most throughout the years. In spite of the fact that she was endowed with talent, Marion had problems that extended beyond adolescence. "I was too serious and too shy," she recalls. "I had very few friends and only one who understood me." When Marion was five, she underwent twenty-five operations for a mastoid. When she recovered, she gathered weight the way a magnet draws nails. She was fivefoot-tw^o and weighed one-hundred-andsixty in her early school days. "I looked like Porky the Pig," she says. "And by the time I went into high school, I was at the other extreme — a beanstalk with big feet." She was then five feet and seven inches tall. She took a lot of teasing from school mates about her big feet. She was no good at sports and couldn't enter into games. Much of her time after school was taken up with dance and music lessons. Other children mistook her timidity for snobbery. Marion's mother was in many ways a companion as well as a parent. She would pack sandwiches for a picnic in the park. She taught Marion to roller skate, swim, and dive. She made clothes for Marion and prepared the family's dinners in the late afternoon, for it was Marion's grandmother who took her to dance and music studios. The folks were devoted to Marion. "And they never once complained about the skimping all done for my sake," Marion says. "Oh, how we had to budget! I remember that, as my graduation gift from grade school, I asked to have dinner out. And it was the first time I ate out, for we couldn't afford it." That evening also was the occasion of her first date. There was a fine-looking boy in the neighborhood named Billy, who was just as scrawny, tall and shy as Marion. Whenever Billy and Marion passed on the sidewalk they both nodded and blushed furiously. "Mother coerced him into the date," Marion says. "He couldn't possibly back out." The folks took Marion and Billy to a department store cafeteria for dinner and then to a movie. Both had a good time but were so bashful they spoke only two words during the whole evening, "Hello" and "Goodbye." Marion had her first real date when she was sixteen, and that was a humdinger, as eventful and climactic as anything a girl could expect. First, the "date" was twenty years old and therefore a "man." Second, they were going to a real night club for dinner and dancing. Marion really fixed herself up. She borrowed her aunt's fur coat, her mother's hat and shoes. "I was a sight," she says. "I could have stopped a clock." They went to the dinner-dance restaurant, then on to a movie. Afterwards, she and her "man" went for a walk in the park. It was a warm night and their spirits soared high. When they found a park fountain, they did what comes naturally. Marion and her date took off their shoes and went wading. "We were having the time of our lives," she remembers, "until a policeman came along." They had broken a city ordinance by wading in the p>ool, and the policeman unceremoniously hauled them off to the station. Her "man," now a boy, was frightened to tears and Marion was bawling out loud. "I'll never forget the desk sergeant calling up my folks," she says. "I heard him say, 'Your daughter has just been arrested.' Then the sergeant began clicking the phone, turned to me and announced, 'Your mother must have passed out.' " Fines were paid for the two young "criminals" and, as Marion says good-humoredly, "I learned my lesson and I've 'gone straight' ever since." The date occurred on the occasion of her high school graduation and marked the beginning of a new period in Marion's life. AU her performing since the age of five had been for experience. She was now ready for professional work. She contin NEW SmearResistant TANGEE lipstick STAYS PUT ...Stays Beautiful! Only new Tangee contains the miracle ingredient—Permachrome! 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