Screenland ((Jan–Jun 1947))

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Civ coats, boots and shoes tied in pairs, dresses, underwear, suits, shawls, work shirts, sweaters, blankets, quilts, shirts, mufflers, caps, mittens. Get your bundle to your Clothing Collection depot NOW. 88 little frightened too. Although few had to conquer the real, unreasoning agony of shyness that was hers, most people had a little of it to fight. Back in Hollywood, she was bolstered by this realization. She met Diana Lynn, her co-star in "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" and "Our Hearts Were Growing Up." To her amazement, she learned that Diana admired her. It was amazing, because Gail felt the same way about Diana, who now is Gail's best friend. "Tops in everything, that's Di " says Gail. Diana and her friends, Henry Willson (who is Guy's closest friend) and Loren Tindall, began "working on" Gail, getting her to go out with them, to go places. And then Gail met Guy. Love at first sight may happen to other people. Nothing about her meeting with Guy makes Gail believe in it for herself. She was leaving the Paramount lot at dusk one day with Billy DeWolfe when Lester Luther, the voice coach, introduced her to the tall, tawny chap just out of the Navy. n "We said hello, and that was that, Gail recalls. "Of course it was rather dark, and I didn't really see him." Their second meeting was at Henry Willson's, one afternoon when she dropped by with friends. Diana and Loren were there, and a few other people, and — Guy. "I thought he was conceited and a little fresh, the way he made remarks that were either sarcastic or blunt, I couldn't tell which. Then I learned that he was just 'covering up' a little of the shyness I knew so well," says Gail. She saw Guy at little parties after that, always with the Willson-Lynn-Tindall crowd. Then Guy went to work at RKO, Paramount's neighbor, and began calling Gail and Diana to join him for lunch. From there it was an easy step to single-dating— the beach on Sunday, or horseback riding, or dancing, or just driving. Gail knows that Guy is considered the beau ideal and that bobby-sockers squeal over his handsomeness and he-mannish looks. "But with me," she says, "its not his looks so much — not that I'd change them. It's that he is so sincere. When he says something, you can believe it. And he has a sense of humor — corny, just like mine. And poise, which I don't have. He's never dull, of course, and he's so understanding, and competent, and reliable, and—" She's obviously fond of the man. They see each other every day. Guy has a house of his own in Beverly Hills now, but he is over at the Bussells a great deal of the time. The Russells like him—Gail's mother and father, and her older brother George. On some of their dates they drive around, with Gail rehearsing Guy in his lines for the picture he happens to be doing. It is one of her ambitions to do a picture with him, but meanwhile she pitches in to help his career by reading other women's parts for him. Both of them, remember, were thrust into the picture world with no previous inclination toward acting. Guy was as untried in "Since You Went Away" as Gail was in her first Henry Aldrich film. Screen land Gail has blossomed since that firsts ture, and there are times when she is as gay and vivacious as any young star in town. She admits, however, that occasionally she reverts to her old shyness, and Guy and Diana and "the gang" must work on her. There was a day when Henry Willson called, urging her to attend a certain party. Gail declined. "But you must go," said Henry. "There'll be important people there. It's important for you to go." "I won't," said Gail, who can be very stubborn. Then she thought of the old reliable excuse: "I've nothing to wear." "Pick up something," Henry coaxed. "Sounds simple," laughed Gail. But she knew that she had no idea of going. It was not her day for a party. Then she saw Diana. "Come along with me, said Di. "I want to go and say hello to Edie." So they dropped by the studio wardrobe department where smart designer Edith Head reigns. "And before I knew it," Gail recalls, "Di and Edie had me decked out in party things— and I was on my way. I'm sure it was all a conspiracy, and Guy was in on it.' A while back Guy made his stage debut in the little theater at Laguna Beach. He was a hit in "Dear Ruth. Gail helped him rehearse for that, too. But on the opening night it was Gail, not Guy, who had a fit of the terrors. Henry Willson joined them._ Henry, who sponsored Guy in pictures, is a very conscientious, responsible friend. "He was a nervous wreck," smiles Gail. The three of us drove over to the theater, Henry and I trying to keep Guy calm— until we realized that it was we, not he, who needed calming." What happened during the performance indicates how closely atune are Gail and her Guy. "During the first act I chewed my nails down to the elbow, waiting for his entrance. After the first curtain I couldn't sit still any longer. Came the final curtain, and wave upon wave of applause for Guy. And Gail, alone in the rear of the house, broke down into hysterical tears. She had cried like that once before— at the end of the first preview of "The Uninvited. That time it was she who had been on the screen. This time it was Guy on a stage. It was the same. Some evenings Guy cooks dinner for Gail at his house. Gail boasts that he is a better cook than she. "I dont like to eat," she says, "and I believe a good appetite is essential in a good cook. iJut Guy — !" So Guy cooks, and they eat— sometimes with "the gang," sometimes alone. And after dinner they sit and listen to recordings, and talk about the future as young love has talked from earliest times. "We're going to have two children — preferably with one head apiece," says Gail with the gay humor she calls "corny." Once young love may have talked of trips to the county fair or to Niagara Falls. What if these two talk of Pictures or the very modern home they 11 build some day, or of trips to the moon.-' They're still the living proof of trail s own words: "Atomic age or horse-andbuggy days, young love goes on!