TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1956)

To the Ladies! (Continued from page 39) have come about in his life. Unexpectedly. In some cases, almost casually. . . . Like the way he began to date his wife, Judith, although they had known each other for four years before he really noticed her. . . . The way he broke into radio because a lovely young actress, Jan Miner, happened to hail his uncle's taxicab one morning, and they struck up a conversation. . . . The way he began a writing career, along with his acting. . . . All of them big, important things in his life, growing out of small incidents. Seeing Steve in his own living room — a pleasant harmony of greens and beige and tans and modern pieces — with Judy and their two boys, Eric and Peter, you sum him up as a handsome man, in his early thirties, tall (almost six feet), broad, athletic looking. A fellow who loves all active sports yet would be equally at home on a dance floor. His hair is black, his eyes hazel, with always a spark of humor. Judy Gethers has a twinkling look, too, though she's a non-professional — "and expects to stay that way," Steve comments, as if delighted that there is only one career to be coped with in the family. Judy is a graceful, compactly built brunette. The boys have her merry smile and their dad's charm — and their own personalities. Peter, who can hardly wait to be three this summer, is the family clown, with marvelous imagination. At the moment his great ambition is to be a monkey, rather than a policeman or fireman like some of his more prosaic young friends. The reason for this departure from conformity? "He wants a tail," Judy explains. "He's fascinated by the way monkeys can climb and hang by their tails." Peter admires cowboys, too, and bucking broncos, and things you can pound with and on, as an outlet for some of his bubbling energy. Eric has the humor that is a family trait, and a more serious side, as befits a fellow going on ten years old. He's the reader, the writer of poetry (free verse and the rhyming kind, and both unusually expressive for his age). He goes to the public school near the huge apartment development in which they live, right in the heart of New York, built around lawns and playgrounds and curving walks. Eric is crazy about baseball and isn't sure at this point whether to become a ball player, a writer, or maybe something he hasn't even thought about yet. oteve himself always knew what he wanted to do, even at an early age, although the idea probably took definite shape when he played roles in school dramatic shows at New Utrecht High School (in Brooklyn, where he was born on June 8, 1922). He wanted to be an actor, and he knew it then, and because of that he matriculated at the University of Iowa, majoring in drama. After about two years, he came back to New York to enroll at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which he graduated and went oh into summer stock. There was another reason for coming back to New York, which may have outweighed the first. Judy had finally emerged as the girl, not merely a girl, and Judy lived in New York, a long way from Iowa. They had met at the same summer camps since he was fourteen. "It was this way," Steve says. "We said hello at T the beginning of the season and goodby v at the end. That was about it. „ "Until one night, four years after our first meeting, there was a concert at the camp and all the fellows had dates afterwards. They were going to the local ice cream parlor. Someone told me to grab a date, too, and Judy happened to be the girl sitting next to me. She said she would come. That was the beginning." They became engaged while Steve was in the Army. "He took me into a neighborhood bar one night and pulled a ring out of his pocket, without preparing me at all," Judy tells you. "The reason we had to go to a bar was that there was just too much family around at home, and he couldn't wait to find a more appropriate place. I was too surprised and excited to make much fuss over the ring. We never did really plan our marriage. He spoke to his father about it, not to me." "Because Judy wasn't home when I telephoned," Steve explains. "No one was home at her house. I was on maneuvers with the Field Artillery, in Louisiana, and I had asked my captain for a furlough to get married. When I couldn't reach Judy I called my father and asked him to tell her I was coming home for our wedding. He suggested that maybe a girl would like to be consulted about such an important event, but I knew she was ready. We were twenty-one and twenty then, and had been going together a long time. We had only six weeks together before I went overseas for more than two years." W ith separation from the service, finally, there came a period of readjustment for Steve. Things seemed rough for a while, but his training and his background of summer stock led to his getting a job as stage manager and understudy in a Broadway musical, "Toplitzsky of Notre Dame." He toured after that with another play that "died" in Boston before ever reaching New York, and he went on tour with "Joan of Lorraine," starring Sylvia Sidney. His one big chance to act on Broadway was with Mary Boland, in a play called "Open House" — but it closed in a week. Kids he knew in show business were doing all right for themselves in radio, and Steve yearned to join them but didn't quite know how to begin. "My cab-driving uncle, Harry Silverman, took care of that for me, although I kept pleading with him not to. Whenever he picked up anyone in his cab who seemed to have any connection with show business, especially radio, he would turn around and start by saying, 'I have a nephew — ' "Usually he got the brush, of course. There seem to be plenty of New York cab drivers with talented members of the family — according to them at least! My uncle's fares had heard variations on this story before. But, one day, he telephoned in great excitement and said I must see him at once. It seems he had picked up a wonderful young actress in his cab. As usual, he had turned around and said, T have a nephew — ' Only, this time it had worked. She said that any day, after her broadcast, I could see her at the studio and, if I really had talent, she would introduce me to people who might help me. "I didn't want to go. My uncle insisted. When I got to the door of the studio I stood outside, feeling foolish. I finally did go in and introduced myself to her. She was Jan Miner, who today plays Terry Burton, on The Second Mrs. Burton, and stars in many of the big night-time TV dramatic shows. Even ten years ago, when we first met, she was already established in radio. "Jan asked me about my training and experience and told me how to go about getting auditions. She introduced me to people who could help. Through her introductions, a program called Radio City Playhouse began to give me bit parts and — finally — a big, fat part on one of their programs. After a while I was getting good parts on many shows and playing running roles in a number of daytime serials. All during this time, Jan was just wonderful about giving me advice and teaching me. She does more nice things for people than anyone could count up, and I owe her a great deal. She is married to a great guy who is an actor, too — Terry O'Sullivan." The way Steve got into Love Of Life was almost as unusual. His agent told Love Of Life's producers that he had just the right actor for the role, one who perfectly fitted the physical description and had all the other qualities to play Hal Craig. They had asked for two other actors to test, however, and felt time was too short to bother with seeing Steve. Neither actor got the job, nor did any of the others they tried out. Finally, they had about decided on one, although not completely satisfied with their choice. At this point, Steve's agent suggested again they see Steve. "Just let me send this guy over and you can take a look at him," he asked. Reluctantly they agreed. Steve read for the part on a Thursday, went into the show on the following Monday, and signed for the usual thirteen weeks — which have now lengthened into three years. On the show he plays opposite a stunning actress named Jean McBride, who is Meg Harper in the script. The mail about the good-looking, suave Hal Craig and the beautiful, restless Meg has been rather overwhelming. Apparently the sight of these two handsome, strong-willed people being pitted against each other and sending off sparks in their acting has caught the imagination of viewers. Oteve admires Jean, praises her ability. "I can truthfully say that, although I have done some 300 shows on television and worked with many, many people, there has been no one like Jean. She never comes to a broadcast unprepared, she never does the wrong thing. "There's no tension anywhere on this show. Everyone concerned with it is just great. Dick Dunn, who produces the show for the agency. Larry Auerbach, our director. The whole cast, the staff, and the crew. All just great people." Steve's knowledge of television is no longer limited to the actor's side, either. Not since a couple of years ago, when he turned TV script writer. And this, too, happened in an odd and unplanned way. He came home one day, complaining about the awful sameness of his roles on crime shows. He had played every gangster role in the world, he felt, and was dizzy from getting hit over the head — or hitting someone else over the head — as he expressed it to Judy. She had a constructive answer: "You always wanted to write, so why don't you sit down and write the kind of script you'd like to play?" Steve thought she might have something there. He worked out an idea for his script, wrote and re-wrote, and eventually sold it to The Clock. They gave him the lead role. After a while, he added magazine detective stories to his writing schedule— until he realized that, in order to earn some fast dollars, he was turning out the same monotonous plots he had resented playing. So he quit, and determined to write more serious stuff. When he had been on Love Of Life about a year, he tried his hand at a onehour dramatic TV script and, through his effort to market it, he met the woman who has helped him tremendously with his