Screenland (Nov 1949-Oct 1950)

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Gary Cooper and Lauren Bacall with the longest cigarette Gary ever smoked. It was given to him during the making of "Bright Leaf," saga of tobacco land. Hungarian, so Hedy gave me lessons. During these sessions it occurred to me that if Hedy hadn't been an actress, she would have been a successful school teacher because she has infinite patience, and has a knack of putting across a fact so that it isn't easy to forget. Also, if she hadn't been an actress, Hedy would surely have been a writer. She has a strong story sense, and several ■ times she questioned sequences in the film's script which were changed in accordance witli her suggestions. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that one of the most beautiful women in the world was a hardworking craftsman, a person of wide interests, and a devoted mother, but I was. Hedy surprised me — -delightfully. Anne and I are happy to claim her as a friend. If You Like 'Em Rugged Continued from page 25 wood for years — once he was a parking lot attendant at Paramount, and once he made a test at Warner Brothers — he had to go to England to get a Hollywood contract. In fact most everyone at the studio thought he was an Englishman. When George Sidney, the director of "Annie Get Your Gun," heard that he had been signed, he blew his top and shouted, "I won't have an Englishman play Frank Butler " George Sidney later became one of Howard's biggest boosters. "He's no phoney-baloney, that guy," he says. "I'll slake everything that Howard's success will never enlarge hi.s hat band." When Howard broke his ankle the first day of shooting on "Annie" fa horse .ilipped and jell on him) he thought his movie career was over before it started. But Director George Sidney and Producer Arthur Freed were willing to wait for him. "I called him Hoi)along Keel," says Sidney, "and suggested that he take up .skeet shooting while he was waiting so he could get in character for Frank Butler" Howard dismally told him that he was sure to be a washout with a gun. "The only shooting I ever did was when I was a kid in Illinois. I was out in the field one day and saw about five thousand 60 birds fly over my head. I shot at them. Didn't hit a one, not a one." But to please his director Howard tried his luck with the clay birds. In a short time he was so efficient at skeet shooting that the boys made him president of the MGM Skeet Club. But Howard insists that golf is still his favorite sport. And poker with the boys is a good way to spend a Saturday night. Like Gable, he's a man's man. In the old days, Howard used to be quite a boy for visiting the Los Angeles dives and beer joints. Especially in the neighborhood of Melrose and Western, where at one time he worked at a hamburger stand called the Whitehall. He loved talking to the "characters" who frequented these places. But marriage and career have put an end to all this. In January, 1949, at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California, he married the girl of his dreams, beautiful Helen Anderson, a former dancer in the London company of "Oklahoma." The Keels are now living in a small house in Hollywood, completely without movie star glamour. They have a few-monthsold baby girl whom they have named Kaija Lian {Helen is Swedish). "She'll hate us for it the rest of her life," says Howard. According to Louis Calhern, whom he met for the first time on the "Annie" set, and who has become his best Hollywood friend, Howard is a very devoted papa. "As far as his little daughter is concerned," says Calhern, "Howard is the biggest liar I have ever met. Otherwise, he seems to be an intelligent, solid actor." Howard was born in Gillespie, lUinois. His father was a coal miner, and the family were quite poor. His real name is Harry Keel. He changed it later to Harold, and still later to Howard. "I'll stay with that," he says. He tried to make the glee club at Gillespie but they wouldn't let him in. His father died when he was fifteen, and he and his mother and brother moved to Fallbrook, California. Here he completed his high school course, and went in for baseball, basketball and football. He was so skinny and shy that he avoided the girls. When he was seventeen the family moved to Los Angeles, and Howard worked at various jobs, including a short stint at the Paris Inn as a bus boy. Eventually he landed a pretty good job with Douglas, and spent the next few years of his life as an aircraft worker, either at Douglas or North American. To be near Douglas he moved to Ocean Park, where he got in with a gang of fun Teresa Wright and her author-producer their honor at the Stork Club. She's the husband, Niven Busch, at a party in star of hubby's film, "The Capture."