Screenland (Jul–Dec 1946)

Everyone Calls Her "Maggie" Continued from page 46 dramatic emotions, from the tender romance of the shy young girl to the avid selfishness of the masterful old woman determined to rule until she dies. She's being supported by some real Irish folk from the famous Abbey Theater in Dublin. Among them are S. J. MacCormack, who will be Old Tim, the Brodericks' family butler, and his actress wife Eileen Crewe, and clever brunette Siobhan McKenna in the important part of Kate Donovan. These three character players were all offered Hollywood contracts when they toured America with the Abbey Theater Company some time ago but this is the first time they have ever appeared before a film camera. And it's characteristic of Maggie's natural friendhness that before they had been on the lot a single day, they were teaching her to speak Gaelic ready for when the outfit goes on location in Eire proper. The girl is enormously thrilled and pleased with her current role, and the nicest possible tribute to her personality is that everybody else in the studio is pqually delighted about it. As soon as the news arrived, they all got together and gave her a congratulations party. It's quite an effort to hold a regular party in Britain these days because it means everybody has to contribute something from their own rations, but the guests willingly gave up precious sugar and dried fruit to make the iced cake with Margaret's initials on the top. They bought candy with their sweet coupons and got spring flowers from their own gardens and sang a little song of welcome as Margaret came in. She was wearing one of the plain light blue shirtwaist dresses she favors and her dark eyes were wide with surprise that swiftly turned to joy, mingled with a happy tear or two, as the folks all crowded round to clasp her hand and kiss her. When it was over, Margaret carried off some tulips and a wedge of cake for her family, with whom she shares everything as a matter of course. Margaret has been married eight years now, to a tall fair-haired Englishman named Rupert Leon, a bond-broker whom she first met in America when she was making pictures in Hollywood. She was only a pretty and promising young feature player then but Paramount thought so highly of her work that they made her an attractive long-term offer to stay. But Margaret turned it down to come home to London and marry her Rupert and they've been together ever since, joined just about four years ago by their baby daughter Margaret Julia. In town they live in a pleasant little apartment overlooking the River Thames, with cream-painted walls and light wood furniture and cheerful red and green printed drapes and covers. Maggie has a peach-pink room for herself and on her dressing-stand are just a hairbrush and comb, a powder-bowl, a small perfume bottle and three jars of cosmetics. For she's one of those rare and fortunate women who's naturally blessed with an exquisitely fine and clear complexion and she hardly needs any makeup to accentuate her beauty. Even her hazelflecked brown eyes have long silky lashes and all her women friends loudly envy her hair which curls without help and falls becomingly into any style that Maggie wants to try. But when she isn't working in the studio and when Rupert can take a vacation from his city office, they like to drive down to Cornwall and their old greystone cottage near the sea, appropriately enough very close to that part of the coast where Daphne du Maurier herself lives in an ancient mansion and which inspired her to write her story "Frenchman's Creek." Then Maggie puts on flannel slacks and one of the sweaters her mother knits for her and becomes a happy housewife. There are only oillamps in the cottage and she has to do her cooking on an extremely temperamental stove, and instead of an ice-box she uses the cold slate slabs in what was formerly the well in the garden. But she likes every minute of it because she believes in a simple, well-balanced life, with love and her career each taking their proper places and blending harmoniously. When I visited Maggie not so long ago, I found her sitting among the roses and the sweet-smelling herbs with curlyhaired Margaret Julia on her knee, listening intently while her mother read aloud her favorite tale about Daniel in the lion's den from a book of Bible stories. And when that was finished, Maggie carried out a tray of tea for us, with a plate of raisin scones she had baked that morning and some of her raspberry jam which she had put up in the spring. Three dogs, a playful kitten and Margaret Julia's pet rabbit ran around the garden, for Maggie couldn't consider home without some four-footed friends. She became so fond of the smoky Siamese cat called Sheba which appeared with her in "Bedelia" that she adopted it too. and now it lives in London with her. Talking to Maggie is just like chatting with somebody you've known all your life, a cheerful easy business in which you can exchange jokes and cookery receipts, compare your frocks and hats, discuss the books you've read and the movies you've seen and generally take your hair down. You would almost forget she's a star until she suddenly laughs and tells you something she plainly thinks extremely funny — a publisher wants her to write her autobiography. "As if there was anything interesting or exotic about me! I just work and I look after my home and I have my family and my friends. How on earth could you make a book out of that?" 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