Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

The Last Separation? continued from page 35 single word — finis. For it has been learned that Miss Gilmore, in great secrecy, had her lawyers draw up papers for a legal separation. It is reported that no public announcement has yet been made because details of the financial settlement are being worked out. Only time will tell whether the legal separation will stand or be followed by a divorce. NO one has been surprised by this turn of events for it has long been known that the 16-year-old marriage has been shaky, especially in the last few years while the dynamic, hard-working actor roamed the world making films and his pretty wife devoted herself to volunteer cancer research and fund-raising for Los Angeles' Mt. Sinai cancer clinic. And insiders say that a year ago Virginia was ready to toss in the towel on the tottering marriage when the grapevine shook with rumors concerning Yul's romantic adventures in Vienna. He was then filming "The Journey" with Deborah Kerr and was reported to have discovered a new love at the same time that Deborah's marriage broke up when she met Peter Viertel. Ah, romantic Vienna! Matter-of-factly, Viennese gossip writers admitted that "the sexiest bald-headed man in the world" had become enamored of a 19-year-old Austrian starlet, named Frances Martin; speculated that he hoped to marry her when he was free. They'd met in a Vienna night club, candle-lit and filled with throbbing old-world waltzes. "Mr. Brynner can say such s simple word as 'Hello' in the most incredibly romantic way," reported Miss Martin. "There's an awful lot of animal in this man. He walks like a panther." After their first meeting they were seen together everywhere. Miss Martin's mother, former actress Jane Tilden, denied rumors of a close association between her daughter and Yul. "Just good friends," she told reporters. "How can they be anything else when he is a married man?" When the bombshell broke in a dispatch from Vienna, however, the man who had taken a dim view of invasion of his private life, momentarily forgot his vow of silence to reporters: "These absurd rumors! Fahn-tastic," he rumbled, using his favorite word, and drawing his hand over his brow in a gesture of utter weariness. "After 14 years of marriage Virginia isn't disturbed. She knows there is no truth in these recurring romance rumors. Frances is a lovely girl — a very lovely young lady. I have known her mother (who is the Ina Claire of Vienna) for years and naturally I did see both Frances and her mother while I was making "The Journey.' " Still, it was noted later by the vigilant press, that his young Viennese admirer failed to visit Yul in Spain when he 60 was summoned to replace the late Tyrone Power in "Solomon And Sheba." At least no one on the set glimpsed her. Whether the lovely young starlet dropped out of Yul's life completely isn't known, but during this past summer while he was making "Once More With Feeling" in Paris, he was seen escorting the young American model, Doris Kleiner. Later, when he left Paris for Lausanne, Switzerland (where he rented a palatial new apartment), the young beauty was noted dining with Yul in the town's finest restaurants. And she was glimpsed with other hotel guests watching Yul's expert water-skiing demonstration on the blue, mountain-bordered lake at the elegant Hotel Beau Rivage. -A brash and fearless young American woman reporter dared to confront this symbol of kingly male arrogance and stare into his burning, hypnotic, ripeolive brown eyes. "I know I'm risking an EVERYONE who knows Yul regards him in a different light, so complex is his make-up. nihilation," she told him, "but is it true that for the past months you've been seeing a great deal of Doris Kleiner?" Surprisingly enough, Yul let his nonexistent hair down an inch or two and laughed the whole thing off. "These romance rumors with Miss Kleiner are utterly ridiculous," he began in the deep, resonant voice with its faint Charles Boyerish accent, a gentle play of amusement curling his full sensuous lips. "How do you answer such accusations as 'Is it true about you and that burlesque stripper I saw you with last night?' Fortunately I have a wife who is far too intelligent to believe such fahn-tas-tic stories." Unfortunately, though, reports of Virginia's decision to seek a legal separation came to light at the same time. Yul is always both The Movie Star and The King, Reporters do not contradict this royal personage. Especially if they've seen him uncoil and flick the silver-han black $600 bull whip which Cecil DeMille gave Yul as a souvenir of * Ten Commandments." "In all fairness to Brynner," said ; worker, "I do not believe that the ma troubles of Yul and Virginia are ca by anything so dramatic as 'anc woman' or 'a triangle.' Wives of ac irresistible to hordes of women devel< tolerance to this sort of thing or the riage withers before it's barely begu grow. Virginia, a highly intelligent very feminine woman, understood thoroughly. During the early yean their marriage, no doubt she realized her dynamic husband's ego bloomed der the adulation of women, but tha found his happiness in his wife and at home. «rri HE real difficulty, I think, berv JL them was much more basic, again that ol' debbil career which ( them apart just as it did Glenn and 1 Ford. Like Glenn, Yul has made film ; film abroad — and now he's announced he plans to remain overseas (probabl) tax purposes) for the next three y making all his pictures there. Virginia her home on the Coast, and a soi bring up. Although she did put hin school in Switzerland for a time, found this gypsy-like life no solutio their problems. "Yul is a superhuman being who sues his work and his manifold hor with furious gusto. He is such a pe tionist that he must get to the professi level quickly in each one — photogra stamp collecting, water-skiing, Yoga, j philosophical studies, chef of e: dishes, designing and building mo furniture, languages, collecting bal from around the world and singing t to his own guitar accompaniment — I c know how many more. So, there was and less time for him to share the terests and home life of his wife finally the two grew so far apart became like strangers to each other Yet this wasn't always so. In i when Yul met Virginia Gilmore. a be ful California girl from Del Monte, was the star and he a struggling 28-) old actor. They met at a Hollywood p and the fresh, unaffected, outdoors cr of this cool blonde beauty drove i his thoughts the sultry French sirens known on the cabaret circuit in Paris a romantic bistro entertainer, Bry even then had a well-deserved reput? as a Don Juan, and a number of loveliest ladies in Paris hoped to s him into matrimony. Shortly after they met, Yul and ginia married on September 6, 1 Their son was born three years later she gave up her career to make a h for Rocky and Yul. "My wife," the once explained in an unusually loquac moment, "had appeared in more thai pictures for Fox Films and in 10 play Broadway. In those days I was s< continued on pap