TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1956)

(Continued from page 39) happiness, in equal parts. . . . When Terry was told that, for the third consecutive year, he'd won TV Radio Mirror's Award as favorite dramatic actor on daytime TV, he only said, 'Isn't that great!' But any wife would have known what his broad smile meant. . . . "It's astonishing to me," Jan continues, "truly astonishing, the loyalty of the fans over the years — the seven years since I first played Julie Paterno on CBS Radio's Hilltop House. It's particularly astonishing this year, because I've always felt that it was the warm, maternal Julie the fans were devoted to. But now, with Hilltop House off the air, I'm playing Terry Burton in The Second Mrs. Burton — a quite different part from that of Julie. A little more sophisticated than Julie was, more | modern. And the fans love her, too. "Come to think of it, I should have , realized this right along — for, ever since I began doing character work on TV, letters from the 'regulars' have come in after every show. Wonderful letters. Thoughtful letters. And perceptive ones . . . not caring how I looked — and as a Boston spinster, a Polish farm woman and a number of other character parts I've done on the Bob Montgomery show and on Studio One, I haven't been an 'eyeful'! . . . but seeming to understand what I was trying to do, to sense a quality I hoped they would find in each of the characters. "I know they still miss Julie, as I do — and why not, after seven years of identification with her? But I love doing The Second Mrs. Burton — and again, why not? Our writer is Hector Chevigny, who has done so many memorable scripts through the years, and the cast is wonderful . . . Ethel Owen, Alice Frost, Dwight Weist, Ted Osborne, Ethel Wilson, Larry Haines! . . . And it's Stan Davis who directs and produces the show," Jan smiles, "but the 'icing on my cake,' in this new and different-from-Julie part, is the proof that the fans are loyal. "Nor am I the only member of the O'Sullivan family to whose standard the fans rallied, when a change was made," Jan observes, with wifely pride. "Terry changed shows this year, too . . . from Search for Tomorrow, on which he played the male lead, to the role of reporter Elliott Norris on Valiant Lady . . . and he still got the fans' award!" Jan and Terry are deserving of such devotion. First, because it is impossible not to feel good when you are with them. They love their jobs, love acting, love to talk about acting and about themselves . . . but they are interested in you and what you are doing, as well. They are "fun" people . . . love parties, first nights at the theater, good talk, good food, good wine, good companions. They are earthy people, too, and hard-working— in the fields at Morrow Farm, as well as on mike in a broadcasting studio. And they are family people . . . folksy, never more richly content than when they're at the farm with Terry's three daughters, Jan's mother and father, three brothers and their wives and young 'uns — all of them together. Now in its fourth year, the O'Sullivans' marriage is a good and mutually rewarding relationship ... a happy state which both Terry and Jan believe stems, in great part, from the fact that they are "alikes." Jan says, "Think how a husband T and wife with different faults must get on V each other's nerves . . . whereas, if you R have the same faults, one can't very well find fault with the other. As Terry and I, who have the same faults, have discovered. 84 Loyal and True Take our crazy, mixed-up desks, for instance. Neither of us is ever able to find pen, pencil, checkbooks, receipts, tomorrow's script, et cetera! Now, if it were only one of us . . . "Not that husband or wife need be an echo, one of the other, to live in harmony. Or that they need never have a difference of opinion, as Terry and I have — about working together, for one thing. We did work together last year — for the first time, by the way — when we were cast as husband and wife in a play called 'Julia' on Studio One, for Paul Nickell. It was a very rewarding experience for both of us . . . thanks again to the fans. But Terry doesn't think it's a good idea for us to work together. He says that our marriage is good, so why put this extra twenty-four-hour-a-day strain upon it? "But we did have fun on Studio One," she recalls. "During the first day of rehearsals for 'Julia,' Terry announced that, to get away from his wife, he was going to McSorley's Saloon, right around the corner from the Central Palace where we were rehearsing. For those who've never heard of it, McSorley's Saloon is a famous old New York landmark — at least a hundred years old — where they don't permit women! Everyone thought this was a great joke. But, in next morning's papers, the story had been slightly re-worded. One columnist reported that Jan and Terry O'Sullivan were living apart during Studio One rehearsals, so they wouldn't get on each other's nerves. We couldn't have read anything more surprising, over our own breakfast table! "In most things," Jan observes, "emotionally and temperamentally, Terry and I are very much alike . . . and this is the alikeness that matters. We react in the same way to practically any given situation. We laugh at the same things, are depressed by the same things, get tired of the same things and hungry for the same things — such as, most often, sunlight and fresh air and doing things. We like activity . . . and activities." Activities, yes indeed! As a sample of the O'Sullivans' activities over a period of approximately one week, Terry gives the following run-down, with obvious relish: "Last January," he recalls, "I had a few days off from Valiant Lady. Five days, to be exact. 'Let's go to Florida,' I suggested to Jan. 'We're the only New Yorkers who've never been there!' "The reservations were barely confirmed, when I had a call from Mr. Jim Rick, Chairman of the Jackson County, Missouri Chapter of Infantile Paralysis, saying that they were to have a telethon in Kansas City — my home town — to promote the March of Dimes, and they would very much like to have Jan and me participate ... do a sketch, answer calls, and so on. As luck would have it, the date set for our arrival in Kansas City made it just possible for us to have our five days in Florida, too. And away we went! "Our primary motive in going to Florida was to relax, devote our time — all five days of it — to 'recharging our batteries' . . . which is something we both believe strongly in doing. Going down on the plane, however, we roughed out a sketch for the telethon. The idea was based on the thought of what would happen if Edward R. Murrow came — Person To Person — into the home of a couple who didn't have any hobbies . . . who didn't collect recordings, like Bing Crosby ... or totem poles, like Robert Q. Lewis ... or rare books, like Mary Margaret McBride. "Once registered at the Hotel Sorrento in Miami, however," says Terry, "we be gan 'recharging.' Other than an early dinner at a different place each night, with each different place famous for some gourmet specialty, we didn't go for any night-life at all. To bed at eight. Nine to ten hours of sleep, the five nights running, just as we'd planned. Mornings, we'd drift into one or another of the big hotels for breakfast, then get out on that beach and do a little sun-worshipping. Plenty of swimming in the ocean, too. "Oh, by the way," he recalls, "I got roped into taking mambo lessons — and made great progress. Must remember to get a mambo record and do some homework. . . . We went fishing, too. And, when I tell you I caught an eighteen-anda-half -pound kingfish — and Jan hauled in a nine-an-a-half-pounder — it's a true fish story. Though, after John Callan, the captain of our fishing boat, had it smoked, the net weight was a scant twelve pounds. . . . "And so, idyllically, went our five days — at the end of which, on a Wednesday, we were airborne to New York. On Thursday, I did my show, Valiant Lady. On Friday, we were off again, arriving in Kansas City on Saturday at four-thirtv A.M. . . ." For the O'Sullivans, then, there followed two crowded days, the first event taking place at the WDAF-TV studios, where Mayor H. Roe Bartle presented "television personalities Jan Miner, Terry O'Sullivan, Jackie Cooper and Patricia Breslin" with the Keys of the City. . . . "Golden keys," Jan describes them, "lovely things, and so delicately wrought that I'm having them made into earrings." Seriously speaking, the O'Sullivans both agree that it was a very rewarding trip. A fleet of Jaguar cars, lent by the local citizens, took the stars who appeared on the telethon from hotel to studio and back again. Best of all, from their point of view, was the support given for the greatly needed March of Dimes telethon "During the telethon," says Terry, "I asked whether any of my old school buddies were listening — and from guys I hadn't seen or heard from, since Southwest High School or Rockhurst College days, came more calls than I had time to take! . . . We also had a brief but nice visit with my folks — my mother and father, and sister Kathleen and her husband. Joe Kelly, and little Joe Kelly, Jr. Then, on Sunday afternoon, after breakfast with my mother and dad in the old home — which always looks so wonderful each time I return to it — Jan and I were on the plane for our New York home." "And the next day," Jan laughs, "Terry Burton and Elliott Norris were working again." Then, some time later, came the day when TV Radio Mirror called to tell Jan and Terry O'Sullivan that they had won the awards — again. So now Jan's fast-growing collection of gold medals dangle from her charm bracelet. And three other gold medals are stashed away in the cabinet which holds Terry's special treasures. But the thought behind those medals is more precious still. Their gratitude, pride and happiness have not passed, and never will. Nor their sense of astonishment. But Mr. and Mrs. Average American, who voted for them, are not astonished. They know that Jan and Terry — for all their good looks and the conspicuous talent which focuses the spotlight upon them — are Mr. and Mrs. Average American, too. Knowing this, knowing the kind of people the O'Sullivans are . . . real and warm and winning . . . the fans remain loyal and true, like the O bullivans.