Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1957 - May 1959)

STILL as exuberant and cheerful as ever, Loretta makes a business of being a star. 'prudence,' " she once said. "I wanted to rush into things and do them right away, without thinking." She was only 17 when she eloped to Yuma. Arizona, with actor Grant Withers, then left him in less than a year. When Miss Young took the stand to testify in her. separation complaint against her husband, the judge asked, "Did he buy you any food?" "I should say not," Loretta answered. "I paid all the grocery bills." The marriage, according to the records, was officially annulled. Yet she didn't lack for men. Loretta became known as "the beauty who cannot stay in 'love," and people began asking, once the Withers mistake was out of the way, why she didn't marry again. But apparently Loretta was having too much fun to want to settle down. One day, after she had been under contract at Fox for a long time, she stalked into Producer Darryl Zanuck's office and told him she would never make another picture for him — ever. "And you know why?" she cried. "Because you've never given me a raise or sent me flowers, like you've done with other stars." "Why, Loretta," said Zanuck, with a puzzled expression, "you just never asked." "Right then and there," said Loretta, "I learned that you really have to fight for yourself every moment in the motion picture business." And fight she did. She began to freelance, and when Dore Schary, who was about to produce "The Farmer's Daughter," suggested the role of the Swedish Katie to Loretta, she listened. "You mean you want me to play with a Swedish accent and a blonde wig and all?" she asked. "Don't you think that is dangerous for me?" "Yes, it is," said Schary. ""iou could be awful. But if you're right, you'll win an Academy Award." Loretta did win, of course, graciously accepting the golden Oscar with a charming little speech that began, "At long last." She made other pictures, but they were not spectacular successes, and soon she found herself worrying about the slump in her career. But, characteristically, Miss Young did more than worry. She got herself a winning TV show, and she's been winning laurels with it ever since. In many ways, Loretta's judgment has been unfailing. Among the leading men she picked for "The Loretta Young Show" were three buckos who have since become TV topliners. But when they first came on the screen opposite Miss Young, home screen viewers were completely unacquainted with the names of Hugh O'Brian (Wyatt Earp); Jock Mahoney (Yancy Derringer), and George Nader. But most of all, Loretta makes a business of being a movie star, and this dedication has brought her both friends and enemies. A young woman who has been close to Loretta's show for a long time said, "Certainly she's no 'Hi, Toots' kind of girl, nor can you give her a friendly pat or kid her as you can many stars. Everything's very formal with Loretta. Maybe it's not altogether her fault, but she's just not easy to know." Others, more perceptive perhaps,' see Loretta as a star who in her long career has done as much work as two men. and is still as fresh as a breath of air. Said one writer, "You look at her and feel you are seeing something you don't often see — a human being completely and joyfully in command of herself." DESPITE a back-breaking work schedule that would buckle the knees of a Hercules, Loretta is still as exuberant and joyful as ever. Even a serious illness in 1955, when she had to miss 18 full shows (friends like Ann Sothern, Rosalind Russell and Barbara Stanwyck took over for her), didn't dim her enthusiasm. When she's working, her theoretical "free" time is listed in her schedule as "alternating Mondays. Tuesdays and Fridays," but her actual "free" time is nil. In order to make her 7 a.m. call, she sleeps in her dressing room apartment at the Goldwyn Studios, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. "It's no life for a playgirl or a social butterfly," said the director. She is driven to the studio by her maid, and she rides to the set because she never walks. "I wouldn't even walk across my living room," she once laughed, "if I could get a ride." The only real trouble people have with Loretta is a curious notion that her left profile is her better, or "chocolate," side. Everyone else, of course, thinks she is mistaken, but Loretta can always manage to bring up excellent reasons why she should be photographed from the right. Miss Young truly has a mind of her own and always has had. and it may be this quality, coupled with her 24-hour-aday devotion to her career, that caused the rift in her marriage. Both Loretta and her husband have repeatedly denied all the breakup rumors, but the two are definitely apart. In March, 1958, Lewis filed suit against his wife's production company, claiming "dishonesty, mismanagement and unfairness." He also stated in the complaint that "he had resigned as an officer and director at Miss Young's request, and that he had signed an agreement dividing the community assets two years earlier." LORETTA insists that "there is no formal separation as far as she is concerned." while Lewis himself has compounded the confusion by declaring: "My home has always been in New York and my business interests are there. It's ridiculous to say that Loretta and I are separated in any way other than by career. Besides, the suit was filed as much for Loretta's protection as for mine." A curious statement indeed after some 17 years of presumably happy marriage, when Lewis' home and work were definitely in Hollywood. But more poignant too, so far as Loretta is concerned, is that her two boys, Christopher and Peter, are staying with their father, while her adopted daughter, Judy, is now the wife of Joseph L. Tinney, Jr., a young TV executive, and she, too, is living away from home. There are. in the living room of Loretta's magnificent West Hollywood apartment (she built the building), an Oscar, two Emmys and a big assortment of other awards lettered with her name. She has wealth and incredible loveliness, and she always looks as though "she has just turned her head in the moonlight" She has marfaged, most of all, to make time stand still, even at 46. Perhaps, for Loretta, all this is enough, and for it she is willing to pay the hardest price of all to pay — the price of success. "Loretta was raised before the camera," a sister star remarked. "She's talked of getting away from it all to Hawaii, say, but she knows she's just clicking her teeth. Hollywood's deep in her blood and vice versa, and she truly loves everything about it." Everything, perhaps, except the loneliness. Even Loretta may wonder, at times, if loneliness isn't too much to pay for the sweet smell of success — or the ever-present need to make time stand still. But as long as she can walk in beauty like a star, she'll stay forever Young, fresh as a breath of air, and a human being completely and joyfully in command of herself. END 61