Screenland (Jul-Dec 1948)

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Name Address City State edly washed up he triumphantly smacked out his unequalled sixty home runs in his top season. He went on to pile up an ultimate seven hundred twenty-nine home runs as his total record, a mark still towering in baseball. He only needed to get his second wind. And there's a moral to that for all of us, I think. I'm sure you will be as pleased as the Babe is with Bill Bendix's superb portrayal of him. When Bill steps into a pitch to swing out home runs he does it just as the Babe did. Bill worked for months in advance of shooting on copying all the Babe's mannerisms, and he did all his own batting — no double! — in the picture. Bill's own ruggedness and his evident love for children, added to his acting ability, made him the only logical choice to play the Babe. What it meant to him personally is another inside tale. There is his own memory of growing up only three blocks from the Polo Grounds, where the Babe and the Yankees were holding forth then. Bill, as a kid himself, was an ardent bat boy for the Yankees and the Babe was his hero. He recalls running after hot dogs "with plenty of mustard" for the Babe when he managed a promotion to a sweeping-up and errand boy status in the Yankees' clubhouse. The only makeup Bill uses involves his nose. He needed a broader tip to more nearly resemble the Babe, and so each day of shooting a sponge rubber nosepiece was added to him. This film has given me many thrills, not the least being my chance to portray a "good woman" for a change. I have been stuck in such a series of grim, hardboiled parts, as you may have noticed, that I was tickled silly when the Babe's life let me be a successful, normal human being at last! It's the first time I've ever enacted a live person, also. What's more, by a strange coincidence my name in the picture is Claire, for that happens to be Mrs. Ruth's name. When I could get Mrs. Ruth away for a little from the Babe I plied her with questions, naturally, to satisfy my own curiosity. Calling each other Claire seemed to put us both at ease. I made no attempt to imitate her, as Bill did the Babe. The director felt that recreating the sort of woman she was and is was my aim. The first thing I had to do when we met was apologize for the gray hair that streaks mine in the closing scene of the film. Mrs. Ruth, who was the daughter of a Georgia judge and was reared on a plantation, went to New York to become a Ziegfeld Follies beauty. She still has stunning black hair. I darkened mine until that last shot — then they insisted no one would believe she still looks so young. I wanted to know about their home life now. The Ruths have lived on Riverside Drive ever since they married nineteen years ago. The nine-room apartment they have now is, above all else, designed for comfort. Instead of calling in a decorator, Mrs. Ruth has primarily suited her husband. What impressed me most about her was this whole devotion to him. I discovered two traits we had in common. We both admire women who are athletic and can cook, but we've no flair along those lines and we agreed a woman doesn't have to pretend to hold a man's interest. In spite of all the counsel about sharing a man's sports with him, Mrs. Ruth has never attempted to play baseball. Nor to golf with the Babe. (He was the Yankees' champion golfer, could drive 375 yards and putt 4-5 feet.) Nor to accompany him on his hunting and fishing jaunts. He's frankly sentimental, and that she loves in him. Some of his many trophies decorate the foyer of their home He keeps the Japanese trophies he won in '34 on their living-room mantel. (He took the Ail-American baseball team he picked that year to Japan and so captured affection there that they officially celebrate Babu Rusu Day as an annual holiday.) You can guess how agog Hollywood itsejf was with the Babe's presence. His cottage at the Beverly Hills Hotel was besieged with phone calls. Our amateur baseball players, such as Bing Crosby, who worked out with the Pittsburgh Pirates this past Spring since he's now one of their owners, Gene Kelly, Tyrone Power, Dane Clark and Joe E. Brown, were as goggle-eyed as the Babe's youngest fan. Louella Parsons captured him as guest star for her radio show, and when the Babe went out to 20th CenturyFox to discuss that appearance with Dan Dailey, who teamed with him for it, that entire studio quit work for the rest of that day! Betty Grable began begging for autographs for Harry James, her daughter Vicky, and herself, and then the other stars, directors, grips and electricians swarmed over him. Ever since his serious sickness of a year and a half ago, when he bravely gambled on a new serum that had never been used before, the Babe has constantly worn the religious medals that kids who love him had blessed and sent him. Although he still isn't in good health, he's as far from quitting as he ever was. He's got a job, one that's big enough for a man of the Babe's capacity. As athletic consultant for the Ford Motor Company, he flew 46,000 miles last Summer in the DC-6 placed at his disposal to coach as many kids in playing ball as he possibly could. The Ford people, as a public service in conjunction with the American Legion, have organized 10.000 junior baseball teams throughout the country. It's an all-out attempt to help underprivileged kids who might otherwise stray onto the wrong path, with the Babe himself at the helm. More than one million boys are swinging their bats now in these amateur games he's sponsoring. All of them wonder when he'll drop in on them. He's been honored with a national Babe Ruth Day in all the professional ball parks in the United States. But, much as that warmed his heart, doinq will always be paramount with him. He's got to encourage the kids who need a helping hand now to go and win a zillion games. He wants to give them his personal advice. And so he's touring the land again. With Mrs. Ruth, of course, right at his side. Take it from me — there's only one beloved Babe. And I'm proud to have touched his life, as his screen wife! SCBEENLAND