Screenland (May-Oct 1936)

for October 19 36 boosting him to an agent who needed juveniles. "Only I don't know whether ycu can get him," Ankrum said. "He's gone to Carmel." Wires and letters sent to Carmel remained unanswered. "He's ignoring me," mused the agent. "He must be good." The more elusive he proved, the higher rose his stock. And for two weeks — while Bob cooled his heels at home, wondering whether he'd been a fool to change his plans — the agent was making a frantic effort to locate him. He finally phoned Ankrum. "Find me this ghost of yours before I go nuts." Ankrum phoned the Young home. "Where's Bob?" "Right here," said Bob. Explanations followed. "I'll go right down." "No !" yelled his friend. "Wait a couple of days." "What for?" inquired the simplehearted Bob. "You've got him thinking you're John Barrymore Arliss. Wait two days more and he'll know you're Garbo." "And if you think two days can't feel like three months," says Young, "just try that trick some time." But the two days passed, and Bob was bowed into the agent's office and treated like a pearl of great price and taken to the studios to see the casting directors. "Do us a favor," they said at M-*G-M. "We're testing a girl, and we need a man. Will you make the test with her?" "Do you a favor!" blurted Bob, forgetting to make a noise like John Barrymore Arliss. The agent was well pleased. "There's always the chance," he said, as they left the studio, "that somebody sees it, and says : 'Who the hell's that ?' " Two weeks later he phoned. "Come right over. We're going to Metro." "What for?" "Sign a contract. They saw your test and said: 'Who the hell's that ?' " "It was like being hit with a baseball bat," Young tells you. "I was perfectly calm, because I was only half conscious. When they gave me the contract, I had just enough wit left to look and see how much I was getting. Then they said : 'Sign here,' and I signed. Then I went home and whooped my head off. "I was kind of lopsided with excitement for a while. Here was all this money. What was I going to do with it? So the first thing I thought of was getting married." When he told his mother he was engaged, her face lighted up. "Betty !" she cried. That was funny. Betty was in his heart — like one of the family — but somehow he'd never thought of her that way. Besides, she was interested in another boy. No — it was the girl he'd met in Pasadena. He could see that his mother was disappointed, though she didn't say much. After all, Bob's marriage was his own affair. Whether that cry of hers planted a doubt in his heart or whether it would have happened in any case, he doesn't know. But it wasn't long before he and his fiancee realized that they'd made a mistake and broke their engagement. One evening a few months later the telephone rang. "Can you come right over?" Betty's voice was asking a little tremulous ly. "I've got to talk to someone, Bob," she said when they were alone together, "and my mother's too close to all this. It's got to be someone outside whom I can trust, and you were the only person I could think of." She told him about the boy who wanted her to marry him. She told him how she felt and how she didn't feel. She couldn't be sure whether this was love or not. Bob was three years older, three years wiser. "If you really loved him, Betty," he told her gently. "You wouldn't need my advice." "I've tried to be honest with myself about it since," he said, "and I think I was a dog in the manger. It flashed through my head that I'd be losing her. I wasn't conscious then of wanting to keep her for myself. But I couldn't bear the thought of losing her either." At any rate, Betty finally gave the boy up. The scrupulous Bob kept away till she'd made up her mind. Then he began phoning her again and taking her to dances. "It was almost as if I were realizing for the first time that she was the only one, and had been the only one all along. So I promptly said to myself: 'There's just one thing to do about this, and that's to grab her while the grabbing's good.' " So ten years after a boy sat in the classroom, his eyes stealing toward a dark curly head across the aisle, he proposed to its owner. And this time the girl needed only her heart's counsel to tell her what to say. Bob's mother received the news happily, but with no sign of surprise. "I knew all along it would never be anyone but Betty," she said serenely. The marriage is three years old. Carol Anne is two. Her father hasn't yet recovered from the miracle of her birth. "I sometimes find myself sitting and staring at her in absolute wonderment. I can't realize that she's mine. I know I'm a wideeyed hick about things in general — flowers and babies and — love," he said with a trace of embarrassed shyness. "Sentimental, and a little gushy maybe, though I try to keep it inside where it belongs, instead of spilling over. Just the same," he added, "I don't want to get blase." Then, with a sudden, wide grin : "I like it this way "People talk so much about how impossible it is to stay happily married in Hollywood. I used to laugh at that. I used to think that a marriage clicked or didn't. I still believe that the responsibility lies with the individuals themselves. But there's no use denying that there arc more temptations in Hollywood, and that you've got to watch out for them. "I happen to be the kind of guy who's always loved a home, always wanted a family. I'm not taking any bows for that. I'm lucky to have been born that way. I took our happiness for granted. We were 69 in love, we married — it's in the bag, I thought, and there it stays. But my wife said something to me once that opened my eyes." "Do you think I tag you, Bob?" she asked. Except for one day, they've never been separated. When he goes on trips, she goes along. "That never entered my head," he replied. "Because if you didn't want me to go along," she explained, "wild horses couldn't drag me. But I don't think it hurts to watch your happiness, and we're only human. Looking at it only from the business standpoint, where would we be if women didn't think you were nice? And if no man ever gave me a second glance — well, that wouldn't be so pleasant either. Suppose you went away, and found you liked being single again — figuratively speaking. Or suppose I stayed home and somebody said : 'Bob's away. Come on out with us.' And suppose I met another man and was attracted. And suppose there was another meeting or two, then a kiss, and bang ! there goes our marriage." Bob lifted her chin. "You're smarter than I took you for, young lady," he said. "And you'll* go right on tagging me." "It all comes down," he said, "to what you want most. If it's glamor and excitement and freedom, then that's what you take. If it's a wife and a home and children to love, then you start building for that. I sometimes look at my wife and think how much surer we are of each other than when we married. Because of what we've shared together, because of my respect for the qualities I keep discovering in her, because of the little things we've given up for each other. If there's any formula for a happy marriage, then — I don't know how else to say it, trite though it sounds — it's the golden rule, seeing the other's viewpoint, putting yourself in the other's place, giving up little things in order to keep the one important thing sweet and sound. I don't want to make a noise like a preaching prig," he finished a little helplessly, "but that's the only way I know how to put it." "Sorry Bob Young didn't get the girl," say the ladies. "He's such a sweet guy." Don't waste your sympathy on him. He d id get the only girl who matters. He's getting the only things from life that matter. Because he's a sweet guy. Gertrude Michael, who recently left Paramount, begins her first film under a starring assignment with RKO in this scene with Erik Rhodes. Director Edward Killy stands behind the star, who has Walter Abel as her leading man in the picture.