Screenland (May-Oct 1942)

size 37, when it should have been size 39, and his hair was cut so short he looked like a convict. Then the conductor called 'All Aboard,' and Bill gave me a hasty peck on the cheek, just as if I were his great aunt Caroline. When I saw him get on that train my heart dropped right down to the bottom of my stomach. I won't cry, I won't cry, I kept saying to myself. It's only another location. He'll be back soon. As the train started moving off, Bill who had been awfully silent up till then, started shouting something to me. I couldn't hear above the noise so, frantically, I ran along side of the train to the end of the platform. Finally I heard him. Bill was shouting, 'Don't forget to go to the dentist!' The lug! He might have said he loved me." So Brenda went to the dentist. Guys like Bill can pack more emotion and love into a "Don't forget to go to the dentist" than glib young men can into a Shakespearean sonnet. And smart wives like Brenda know it. The day that Bill Holden was inducted into Uncle Sam's Army as a private, Brenda got up at the crack of dawn to drive him down to Los Angeles. It was pouring down rain, and things just couldn't have been gloomier. But she'd see Bill over the weekend, she had that consolation. She wanted to drive him all the way to Fort MacArthur at San Pedro, but Bill thought it would be better to go down with the boys on the street car. Brenda drove home through the rain, feeling very sorry for herself, and admits that after she had tried reading every magazine in the house without success she just gave in to a nice big cry. In the midst of that Bill walked in. Seems that he had a very bad sinus condition, and that the Army preferred a well Bill Holden in preference to a sick one. For three days and nights Brenda played nurse. By Thursday his cold was gone, and Bill returned to Fort MacArthur. "I'll get a leave and come in town over the week-end," he told her cheerfully. "And you can see me in my uniform. That will be a treat!" But on Saturday morning, when Brenda was in the process, of making herself awfully attractive for a certain soldier, the phone rang and it was Bill. "Can you get down to_ Fort MacArthur by twelve?" he asked wistfully. "It will be my only chance to see you. They're sending me to an Eastern camp this afternoon." "What a ride," said Brenda with a sigh. "I think I broke every traffic law. I made it by twelve, though I really must have flown part of the way. Bill was gone. Where could I find him? No one would They all Icissed Joan Crawford instead of the bride (and vice versa) — including Gordon Jones, the taxi driver in the film. The kissing bug hit everybody on the set of Joan Crawford's new comedy, "They All Kissed the Bride." Allen Jenkins feels silly. give me the slightest information about anything. I guess I was giving a good performance of an hysterical wife, because finally a soldier who knew Bill muttered in my ear that the troop train that left Fort MacArthur would take the boys to Union Station in Los Angeles, before making connection with the Eastern trains. I jumped back in my car and did some more fancy driving. While I was waiting for a red light to change two soldiers came over and asked for a lift into town. When they discovered that I was Bill Holden's wife, they were all for helping me find my husband, though they cheerfully assured me that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And it was. The station was jammed with boys in uniform. My two obliging soldiers ran interference for me through the crowd— and after a frantic fifteen minutes I found Bill, giving autographs to some fans. His commanding officer said that he could spend the rest of the afternoon with me, provided he was Joan tries it again with Gordon Jones. That's much better! The first one went flat. Now Gordon knows he's been kissed. back in time for the eight o'clock train, afraid we didn't do anything very roma like young wives and husbands are alv doing in fiction stories. We went shopp of all unexciting things, for bath to^ for Bill. Then we went over to the I more Hotel for cocktails and dinne cried a little and laughed a little, and stuffed himself with steak and French f potatoes. For my sake he tried to make in the Army sound very easy and gay amusing. "But he's happy now," Brenda haste to add. "I get one or two letters from every day — he says the only time he to write is in his bunk at night by fl; light— and I can tell by his letters thai is thrilled at being a soldier, and inten interested in his job .of winning the a When he left here he took only a si picture of me. But now he has written a great big glamorous portrait of me, a ture of his dog Rhodes, a picture of house, a picture of his gun cabinet, anc wants me to go over to the stables in Fernando and take a picture of Ban: (Banner's the horse Bill rents when goes riding on Sundays.) Looks like ] setting up light-housekeeping, though v six other boys in his tent I don't think 1 going to have much room for his pict gallery. I've written him to send me a sn shot of himself at Camp Monmouth, bi: haven't heard from him about it yet. I gt he's waiting for his hair to grow. "When I came back to our home night Bill left I felt that I simply coulc go on without him. I don't think I've e been so far down in the dumps. And t is only the beginning, I thought. There \ be nights and nights of this dreadful lo liness. The days will be all right. I ( work in the garden. I can put clean pa on the pantry shelves. I can polish silver. There're dozens of things around house I can do. And when my next picti starts soon I will be at the studio all d But the nights ! There's no getting aroi those nights. "Other women whose husbands hi gone to the Army have their friends to ti to when they are lonely. But Bill anc haven't many friends. We were always completely happy, just the two of us, ti it never occurred to us to invite ma people to our home. "I could have dates, of course. Althou Bill's favorite postscript on his letters 'Tell those Hollywood wolves I am lear ing to shoot better than ever,' I'm sure tl he wouldn't mind too much if I went c occasionally to a restaurant or night cl Roland Young's a willing victim, too. See how the old boy goes ga-ga and gets that look in his eyes when Joan gives him a buss?