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

Headed For The Altar? continued from page 13 cause his friendship means a great deal to me. He helped me more than I can say when I first started in pictures. 1 was so frightened then, with no acting experience. I'll always be grateful to him because don't think anybody would have noticed me if he hadn't done such a fine job on my first picture. When he directed me later in 'Bell, Book And Candle', I was happier about that performance than anything up to that time. All along he's given me advice and encouragement, a real friend, one I can trust." And her eyes clouded over as she pleaded, "Why won't people believe this?"' Close friends do believe it and they also predict that the so-many-times-in-love screen goddess and the tall, serious exactor will tie the nuptial knot sometime in 1960. In fact, they expected a marriage immediately after his divorce was final last July 26, a year after it was filed. It was obvious that they were in love as they dined or danced together or when Kim, a guest at Quine's house at Malibu, spent hours walking on the beach with him engrossed in conversation. Kim was oblivious of the curious neighbors who passed the house hoping for a glimpse of the blonde sex-pot who didn't look very sexy in a rumpled wind-breaker, blue jeans and scuffed moccasins, her pale face without make-up. "Kim's eyes fascinate me," said an actress who was a guest at a Sunday barbecue at the Quine cottage. "Normally they're hazel, but when she's angry they flare into a blazing yellow. When she's happy they are a soft, catlike green. It was easy to see that she was in love with Dick because her beautiful eyes were as emerald green as the sea." EVEN SO, capricious Kim was soon off to France for the Cannes Film Festival, frolicking around Europe garnering her usual headlines, receiving the candlelight and champagne treatment once again from Mario Bandini in Rome and Aly Khan at his fabulous French chateau. In Cannes, she was photographed nuzzling up to heart-breaker Cary Grant as they danced the nights away. And while they danced, Cary kept nibbling her ear. Apparently there was no romance because Cary remarked later, a bit ungraciously: "I love to dance. Kim was a convenient dancing partner." For Kim all this was apparently just good clean fun ("I like the way men kiss hands in Europe ... in fact, I love it") and marvelous publicity, besides. For on her return she went right back to the waiting arms of Dick Quine. "I believe," said a friend of Kim's, "that she's wise not to have rushed into marriage with Dick last summer after his divorce. It's a good omen for the success of any marriage, this one in particular. Kim and Dick need time to work out the problems relative to their work which, by 60 its nature, separates them for months at a time and because Kim, as a devout Catholic, must make a lasting marriage. Those of us who saw a more confident, radiant Kim Novak, gorgeous in white chiffon, as Dick's starry-eyed dancing partner New Year's Eve at the Lee Strasbergs" party, know this is the 'real thing' for both." But what does Kim herself have to say about an approaching marriage? She smiles with her best Mona Lisa-like slow smile and says merely, "Dick and I have the greatest respect for each other. As to marriage, that is something I can't commit myself on one way or the other. But I will say that he has helped me tremendously. He's been a guiding friend all through my career. He gave me a good luck charm on that first picture we made and I've never done one since without wearing it." Nor will the tall, boyish Dick Quine go any further than, "We're just good friends. We like working together as actress and director and we like being together occasionally after work." Quine is the reserved type who wouldn't be in character if he wore his heart on his sleeve. But not long ago Kim came up with a highly surprising answer when she was asked why, as a good Catholic, she dated men who had been married. "Never to my knowledge have I dated a man who's been divorced," she answered blandly! Conveniently she must have forgotten that Dick Quine, Frank Sinatra, John Ireland, Trujillo, Jeff Chandler, Pignatari, Cary Grant and Aly Khan have all been divorced, most of them more than once. There is indeed speculation that the question of~ divorce has been a reason behind the delayed marriage of Kim and Dick, who has been himself twice divorced. Just how Kim will gain the blessing of her church isn't known but she may be trying to resolve this problem. At 27, the ethereally lovely screen goddess is definitely ready for marriage and with candid forthrightness she admitted as much. "'My parents," she said some time ago, "think I'm getting to be an old maid. They'd like to see me settled down with a husband and children. Before I came to Hollywood all I thought about was marriage. And then all this happened" — she waved at the cluttered studio set — "to change my goal. I wanted most of all to learn to be a really good actress. It was hard to sit back and let well enough alone. If you don't close the door and give full attention too one thing, you can really louse up everything." That was a few years ago, and today Kim has matured both as an actress and as a woman. She's developed a serious interest in reading, art and music. Her years of immature, girlish crushes, of being in love with love, are at an end. She has a new confidence — in her acting, in her place in the star firmament, above all, in herself. To prove it she said recently in her soft, excited, breathy way, "There was a time — a couple of years ago, maybe more — when I was really pushing. Now I enjoy life more because I know that a career can't be the only thing in life. I'd like to be fulfilled as a woman; to marry and have children. The gossip writers have had me tied up with every man I ever heard of. That's what I get for being single so long. Maybe I should have married when I first came into pictures. They let married women alone," she smiled, then grew serious again. "I look for much more in a man than I did formerly when all I wanted was a good companion and a father-type counselor. I need a fine, sensitive man who challenges my mind, and one whom I can respect. I want someone who respects me and listens to me — to what I have to say. Somewhere there must be such a man." There is. And Kim has found him in Dick Quine. Quine's first marriage was a tragic one. In 1942 he married the pretty starlet Susan Peters and two years later she was paralyzed from the waist down following a hunting accident. Dick cared for her tenderly and they adopted a son, Timothy. When Susan sued for divorce after six years of marriage, friends were mystified. It was indeed a strange divorce for the decree wasn't made final until 1951. The following year when Susan died, Dick took Timothy, now 14, to live with him. Seven years ago Dick married Barbara, a granddaughter of Francis X. Bushman, silent screen star. They have two children, Katherine Corey, 4, and Victoria Elizabeth, 2. "Barbara and I have been on each other's nerves," Dick told the press in May, 1958. I guess I've been working too hard. We've agreed on a six-weeks legal separation." When that didn't work out Mrs. Quine sued for divorce, and has the youngsters with her. "In a certain sense," says an astute observor, "Quine is Kim's 'Pygmalion' though he had assistance, of course, with his 'Galatea'. Like Professor Henry Higgins in 'My Fair Lady' who molds the